New series… yay!

Flight of the Conchords meet animals. Only dressing them as c19th gents, pipes and monocles included, would improve this…

So, where are we going then?

I remember, at the tender age 0f 13, getting ready to go on a date with a girl at my local bowling alley. Not that local, I should add, my parents had to drive me there on a 40 minute round trip. God bless their souls, they waited outside as I tip toed in, more than a little nervous with hair freshly coated in far too much wet-look gel. The girl wasn’t there. Nor was she after 1o minutes. I had been stood up.

Of course I had no mobile phone. Not many people did in those days. If someone wasn’t there, what did you do? Wait? Leave? It’s scary to think how we all survived, imagine having to be always on time….

Anyway, so imagine printing off a map of a place you want before leaving the house, researching online for the best pubs in a certain area, arguing with your friends, and then trying to find which restaraunt to vist when wandering through an unfamiliar neighbourhood. A scenario we all recognise and a scenario that will be as alien to us by the end of 2009 as those memories of anxiously waiting outside McDonalds at 4pm on a Saturday afternoon for your friends to arrive without any possibility of getting in touch with them.

‘How did we survive?’ Those of you with an I-Phone, or G1 or one of the many other smart phones  impregnating the market may already be thinking this. But we have only scraped the surface. Personalised directions in your palm is one thing, but a compelte directory of every commercial outlet, reviews of each, special offers, level of busyness, cost, booking capability, whether your friends are there, and many many more I can not even begin to contemplate is quite another.

Exciting, isn’t it.

Ad of the year..

Scamp has some other contenders….

Consumer Experience Report 2008

I love Gerd Leonhard. The Future of Music was a book which changed my life, quite literally. I got quite evangelical about it all and was the driving factor behind www.rfugrey.co.uk. I like to think I was proved correct. No medals though, shame. Anyway, lovely Gerd recommends the following from Razorfish. It’s a bit heavy – but good all the same. If you have about 3 days spare.

What Obama could teach us all..

Taken from Blackrimglasses.com

Worth a read. Great blog, also.

Beautiful Losers

I heard about this through Nike’s and Protein OS’s involvement with film’s release. Nike have put together a number of DIY workshops together with many of the artists featured in the films for kids to get involved in. Very nice. But enough of that, enjoy the trailer. It’s a fascinating little insight – and let’s be honest, uber cool.

The health revolution..

The World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers 2009 brochure is totally ace. Have a look if you have a spare few minutes. We’ve all been enjoying the comms revolution for some years now so it’s interesting to see where the next explosion will occur. Graeme Douglas highlights a couple that impress him, and for what it’s worth, my prediction is personal medicine. Also, possibly, energy. But everyone has been saying that for years. Some really interesting health related technologies in here, Graeme Doulgas’ favourite includes biodegradable micro chips in medicines which then send a raft of data to patches on the skin. This is then transported, through the user’s phone, to their doctor or whoever.

The possibilities would be endless and provide almost real time data about how a body reacts to a treatment. Exciting, no?

Controlling online research

I was helping out with a research project over the weekend about how people interact with advertising on different screens. This involved me interviewing respondents about their online habits. There was nothing particularly revolutionary stated, but a point that was hammered home continually was how the internet is the first port of call for researching any potential purchase. And if this is this case, which I’m certain it is, you ask the question as to how easy it is to control, influence and direct this research process. Or maybe, how easy is it to incentivise those with good experiences to say them very loudly. Or at least louder than those with bad. Then, of course, another option is to do what UNIQLO have done, and create their own consumer research portal. And it’s brilliant.

N.B. I’m not sure, of course, how effective it would be if it was a Starbucks or McDonalds. It takes a pretty universally loved brand to have their own reviews trusted.

Why I love Howies

Not too many mornings ago I found upon my door mat a copy of the Howies winter catalogue. It’s something I always look forward to. Yet, I own only a small number of Howies items, have no interest in biking down muddied hills in the freezing rain, and do not see myself as a vigilante eco warrior. But when it comes to that warm fuzzy feeling of affinity you feel towards certain things, that feeling all advertisers crave, few brands come close to Howies.

Why? Well, I like the catalogues because it’s beautifully made and filled with a wonderful selection of great, interesting content – most of which is provided by friends and employees. And it’s not just clothing, I should add. I like their ethics (although not all). I like their clothing (but not enough to spend £50 on a shirt). Most of all, I like that I was recently sent an email invite to brews and Welsh cakes at their Carnaby street store so they could ‘get to know me’. And I loved that, especially when I think that they genuinely do want to get to know me. I love that when I bought a t-shirt from a Howies sample sale, I actually believed that I was buying it from the man who had single handedly been responsible for that t-shirt’s adoring creation.

I think it’s truly brilliant that they invite you to a piece of cleared woodland to listen to inspirational lectures on all manner of things. Oh, and I have always loved their visual identity.

Yet could I put this together into a coherent comms plan? Could I write a strategy, with dedicated media channels and achievable goals? No, I couldn’t. And I really like to think that those at Howies couldn’t either. But then again, maybe that is their beauty – that they fool naïve people like myself into believing all of the above.

And of that is the case, my God, I would like to know how they have managed it.

A little late..

But genuinely, there are few greater things than this..

I love him. I do