3 of 5 before 2

Here's an ad I wrote, well the mathematical headline atleast.

 

yet another new social media theory

I've got a new theory on social media. I came up with it while sat in the audience at the media140 conference I spoke at the other day.

It goes like this... The metaphor is television, traditional advertising is pre-produced broadcasts and social media is live broadcasts. Simple enough really, kind of makes sense as social media is being touted as a live/ real time media.

Take the old Saturday morning kids programme Going Live for example. Before this all Saturday morning kids telly was pre-recorded. The fact that Going Live was 'live' however brought a new dynamic to Saturday morning telly, a new excitement (social media comparisons here).

It also brought new opportunities but also risks, anything could happen basically. As five star and Eliot show us below. Thanks very much Eliot.

So we've got another new metaphor, now what? Well my point is that I'm not buying into all these 'there's been a paradigm shift' / 'it's all about the conversation now' / 'consumers are demanding transparent and live dialogue with brands' sound bites. There are some instances of this of course, but it's not the absolute, we're back to making massive sweeping statements.

What I do believe however is that (back to the television metaphor) there'll always be a mix of live and pre-produced content out there. A mix of social media and traditional media. And, in my opinion, the majority of it will stay as traditional pre-produced content. Purely because the quality is better with pre-produced. Think about it, not everything on telly is live, you'll never see a live period drama on ITV on Sunday night (Kiera Knightley can't pout for that long without taking a break for one thing). Other than the Honda sky diving advert all commercials are also pre-recorder for the same quality reasons. In actual fact looking at a typical days telly programming only a fraction of the total broadcast is live (highlighted in pink below).

So there we have it. Social Media equals the new live television. Full of holes as a theory I accept but beats the hell out of this 'consumers are demanding transparent and live dailogues with brands' bollox. I'm a consumer and I haven't demanded anything from any of the brands I've spent real life money on in the last two months. Have you?

another nudge

'Tipping is sexy' as seen at Climpson & Sons.

Apparently their tips have doubled since the sign went up. Seems people want to be sexy.

 

traction

What gives one instance of something traction and another not? I'd love to know, or know that you can't know. I'm sure there are theory's and best practice on how to make stuff light the touch paper but it can't be that easy can it. What was it about that London Underground rant video/ story that made it take off? You can literally see the traction it got in the original blog's stats below (from low thousands to tens of thousands in 48 hours).

I can't work out if it's a case of throwing as much interesting stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks, or whether it's possible to identify a slicker & defined route to success. Creativity is probably the pursuit of the former and marketing the pursuit of the later. I'm still tending towards the former. 

Vaguely related post: attention spikes & 48 hour campaigning

transient broadcasting

I went to Frieze Art Fair today and came across this really interesting piece. It was basically a £3 disposable radio that is tuned into a short term on-site broadcast for the duration of the fair.

Reminded me of my previous things on 48 hour campaigning and transient site specific event based marketing. Some times stuff is better in short sharp shocks.

even more nudging

TFL are doing some platform work at Stepney Green station at the minute which makes for an interesting nudging case study in progress. It's all about getting people to stand back from the platform edge without knowing it.

A bit of the platform has no marks next to the platform edge, people go really close as a result.

Another bit has the yellow line, people go less close.

And the newest bit has yellow line plus texture surface stuff. People stay the furthest back of all.

All pretty much without even knowing it. 

google metaphorics

I was talking on a panel at this thing on social commerce the other night when a question on measurement came up, they always do. My thoughts on it were that numbers and charts are great and pretty crucial but you also need humans measuring things through experience. And then turning those learnings into lessons through metaphors. 

The vast majority of the stuff I put on this blog is a metaphor from something I learned in my day job. My fellow panelist, a nice fella from google, quite liked the idea and said he'd suggest it to the Google Analytics team. How good would it be to get your google analytics numbers turned into a metaphor about tides & waves or swimming pools at the click of a button?

nudge, nudge

I'm reading the book Nudge at the minute, I've mentioned that before. It's a fascinating read that makes you re-look at communications in a new way within the eye of nudges. I'm constantly seeing examples of nudges now. Probably because most communications are nudges of some sort. 

Here's a good example of a random nudge. The local primary school next to innocent recently moved it's main entrance and had the task of re-routing a potentially difficult audience; mums on the habitual school run. How did they solve it? A bloody big red nudge you can't argue with.

I just can't make up my mind if this is just the blindingly obvious, or if there is something more in it.

hello london

Thank you Open House.

micro economics

There seems to be a right amount of chat around twitter and the use business's can put it to at the minute. There's even whole conferences dedicated to the holy grail of finding a realistic ROI in twitter for brands. Very few business's seem to be cracking it though.

To me it's a micro media so hence the returns are going to be based in a micro economy. The small stuff that money can't normally buy. A great example of this for me was when I arrived at Do the first people I met were the wash up volunteers (above), it quickly became apparent that they'd all got their jobs via twitter and answering this post. As did the wonderful Ben, Do second assistant extraordinaire (below). Now there's a return on investment; lots of smart and motivated people who are there for the right reasons without a hint of a recruitment agent.

Another great example is Lucky Voice's twitter feed. With under 2,000 followers they're not going to win any awards for reach. But every time they go opportunist, and fill karaoke rooms that would otherwise be empty, they're picking up on micro economics one transaction at a time.

a nudge in the right direction

There's an interesting thread of thought on the RSA design & behaviour blog about nudges and resourcefulness (in the context of us becoming an infantilised society). I'm reading Nudge at the minute, and getting pretty interested in this whole behavioural economics thing. So I got really interested when Mr Vagabond spoke about a sign at Ayers Rock (at the Do Lectures last week) that prompts tourists not to climb the rock in respect for Aboriginal beliefs. 

It got me thinking about well placed nudges that can help us to stop and question our values & beliefs before making decisions (whilst still allowing people to be resourceful and make their own decisions). Another example being the Radiohead pay as much as you like album, which urged the consumer to question their own values to resourcefully decide on the albums worth to them individually. I think we could do with a few more nudges that make us think, especially around real ethical everyday decisions that would otherwise see us just follow the heard.

om

I had a new idea at interesting 2009 on Saturday. If there was one of those word maps for the day then um would be big and in the middle of it. Nothing wrong with that, I um as next as the next man. If we could just re-programme the human mind to say om instead of um though we could meditate at the same time as being nervous. How good would that be.

i need a new boss

I need a new boss. Someone to take over where Shrimp, Bullock and Dan left off. Someone to be our communications and media expert at innocent. I'll work hard, tell you all about what brands can learn from Colin/ attack submarines/ coal mining, and make sure we do loads of really interesting stuff. And you'll help me to make the stuff I do at the minute even bigger and better, teach me loads of new things (that I'll probably put on this blog and pretend were my idea) all while working in one of the most inspiring brands and team of smart people in the country. It'll be great, trust me. 

If you fancy it go here then here. Opportunities like this don't come around that often so be quick, applications close on Sept 25th.

Bandanas optional.

moral support

I'm back from Do with lots of interesting thoughts and conversations still in my head. One of the favourites being the idea of supporting the brands and companies you love, especially in hard times or when they are in trouble. It first came up after a great chat with Mike Carter about the troubles at the Observer at the minute and was then continued in a fine slate pub with Tom and Adam from method. Kind of like carrot mobbing/ joycotting/ voting with your wallet.

So in the spirit of of Obama's first 100 days here's my first do's.

I bought another load of method stuff to clean the bathroom because Tom and Adam (who used to do the charts for Al Gore's thing would you know) are two of the cleverst yet humble business and marketing minds I've had the pleasure of meeting. And because the bathroom needs a bloody good clean.

I've subscribed to some regular fruit and veg from Riverford Farm because a took a real shine to Guy Watson, the fact he could tell when the cook mixed in some supermarket potatoes with his organic ones over dinner (no taste, no texture) and that he's invited us down to the farm for a visit.

And I've written a letter to Mr Justin King of Sainsbury's on behalf of Gerald's anti GM campaign. Because if I had one wish right now it would be to be like Gerald when I grow up.

And I'll probably buy the Observer on Sunday's for the next few weeks to keep up with Mike on his bike,  and appreciate the papers possible last days.

I've yet to jump in a river yet though.

lessons from attack submarines

I picked up a copy of 'Engineers At Work: Attack Submarine' in a charity shop back in Tenby on the weekend. A bargain at £1.50 but also good fodder for my latest tentative metaphor. We'll skip past 'Detecting the Prey' and 'Weaponry' and go straight to the chapter on communications.

We're told that "communicating with a submarine on the surface in peacetime is easy, but talking to a submerged submarine in wartime is much more difficult". So communications engineers solved the problem in several different ways for many different scenarios.

And built in the tools for a wide variety of different communications channels into the submarines mainframe.

 

The metaphor? Something about the choosing the right channel for the right scenario, or at least having a healthy choice of channels, and frequencies, and that. You know.

physical evidence of interest

Do you remember my thought about people being inheritantly nosey by nature? Well I've found another example of it from St James Park allotments. And this ones even got physical evidence of interest (the muddy bits on the grass). I like physical evidence of things.

It's warming to see little people taking as much interest as big people.

social play

I took the long way home from work tonight along the canal, and found this place on the way. A great example of the facilitation of social play.

pendula

I've got a thing about pendulums at the minute (inspired by Iain's comment on this). Trends that swing to a certain extreme and then come straight back on themselves again. Music and media for example; the trend at the minute is for digitisation with the probable extreme ('BOB' see above diagram) being that everything will be in a digital format and floating in the clouds and users will just pay a license or subscription fee to access it via various bits of technology. The backward swing on this though is that we'll soon crave beautifully crafted physical objects once more as we'll effectively 'own' nothing. So back we come again to where we were before making beautifully crafted real album covers and packaging. Possibly.

The same goes for newspapers, digital technology has stolen their ground but I think it won't be long before we'll start to want to read things on paper again. Perhaps just published in a different way such as on demand. So that post digital is physical (made from digital). My head hurts now.

it aint what you do it's the way that you do it

One of the many interesting things I picked up from our chat with Colin was his thoughts on releasing music, namely that there are limitless ways to release stuff now, pay as much as you like being just one of them. You could release an album as a live only tour for example, there's nothing saying a perfect version has to be recorded in a studio and distributed in a recorded format of some sorts. A good example of this is the Arctic Monkeys new single which is being released exclusively through Oxfam at the minute.

Then there's the new opera that the Royal Opera House are putting together via twitter, another new way to create and release something. I suppose the thought is that there are a hundred and one ways to do things now as opposed to the limited tried and tested routes there used to be just a few years ago. It's just going to be a case of individuals attitude to risk as to how far they take things into the unproven. Risk and reward and all that.

mostly

fairy telling (the first tutor of mankind)

I've spotted another trend. Well two similar things and a third backing them up, if that isn't a trend in this day and age I don't know what is. First there's this from the V&A's new telling tales exhibition.

If you could actually read it (the security guard was rugby tackling me at the time) it would say..

'The fairy tale, which to this day is the first tutor of children because it was once the first tutor of mankind, secretly lives on in the story. The first true story teller is, and will continue to be, the teller of fairy tales.'

Walter Benjamin

Then there's the fact that Wes Anderson has just made a film of Fantastic Mr Fox.

And Spike Jonze has taken on Where the Wild Things Are.

Fairy tales then.

no more digital

I was going on about how I thought the term digital would die away to be replaced with something more relevant like engagement a while ago. The thought came back into my head tonight when I walked past those pianos that Sing London have dotted about the city, and realised that that, and the One & Other fourth plinth thing are probably the best bits of 'social media' I've seen this year. Hope they get entered into some awards to confuse the hell out of the jury's.

nice type

The designer who's done the proms banner outside the Albert Hall has done a great job perfectly aligning the type on each side so it does nice things like this when the sun shines through it. I particularly like the R.

meeting people is easy

I had the pleasure of meeting Colin on Friday. Colin plays bass in a band called Radiohead and he lives in the same village as Dan, so we popped around for tea. I've been fascinated by Radiohead for a long time both as a fan and as a marketeer looking for external inspiration. So here's some stuff I learnt from talking to Colin...

Independence and agility

I've always wanted to know who's idea the pay as much as you like album was. Thom's, the manager, a consultant, bloke in the pub? I even left a comment on that film Iain made asking as much. It was in fact a friend of the managers idea from a few years ago, they could only actually implement the idea after the end of their contract with EMI. The agility to be truly innovative came with retuning to being independent.

Controlling the release

Another really interesting thing I learnt was the concept of controlling the release of music. Normally there is a long wait between the completion of an album and its release while the label and various people do their stuff. In this time the album will inevitably get leaked in some shape or form, duplicated and re-distributed via peer to peer sharing meaning the control of the release is ultimately scuppered.  With In Rainbows Radiohead wanted to have more control of this chain of events, so again free from a contract the album was released for the first time as a pay as much as you like download only days after being announced as complete by the band. Almost completely removing the leaked version stage. Clever. Then it was also put out  on limited edition vinly and finally as standard CD release to cover all the bases.

Making people think

The last interesting bit we talked about in relation to the pay as much as you like album was the fact that it made people have to think about it's value and what they were prepared to pay for it. I'm a big fan of things that force people to think for themselves. Just like howies desire has always simply been 'to make people think' and IBM and doing all that thinking stuff at the minute.

digital demolition derby

Here's something Rich (innocent founder/ brand director) said when asked about innocent's social media strategy recently. Have a listen it's quite interesting.



And here's my metaphor of the day: Classic marketing and digital strategies used to be formulated like Formula 1 strategies. Create a great team, buy yourself the best resources, go super efficient and remove a much potential for risk or loss as humanly possible.

The way things are going right now it's turning into much more of a demolition derby in my mind. No one can really define the way things are going or what will happen next, new trends and channels quickly grow through existing boundaries and rules like those trees through fences. The only thing you can do is get out there and learn, take the hits and win the ground that you can. Get in the arena and let people cheer you or boo you.

boundless adaptation

Two things I've come across in the last 24 hours and have mindlessly strung together.

A train running through a Bangkok slum which quickly re-adapts itself (from this TED talk that our Andrew D put me onto).

And trees growing through fences, I overheard one of those curator tours at the Serpentine saying this was the inspiration for Jeff Koon's new show.

The vague conclusion? Human kind is part of nature hence our society and social manifestations are also now part of nature. And society/ nature will keep growing, moving forward and adapting no matter what previous barriers or conditions are put around it or through it. 

Good eh? Well at least you got to watch a video of a train driving through a market.

public/ private commenting

The comments table at the Wellcome Collection provides a nice metaphor for the phycology of commenting. Some people like to comment directly in private, some in public. Public commenting provides a much richer social interaction and documented narrative though, making the process of commenting and reading comments a reward in itself.

It also extends to the nature of their latest exhibition, Bobby Baker's Diary Drawings: Mental illness and me. What was once a series of private thoughts contained in these sketch books.

Has now been made public for visitors to learn from a unique window into the largely undocumented world of mental illness. Which is kind of what art is all about for me, visualising and representing stuff that was otherwise uncaptured.

barriers to entry

When coming up with clever new engagement campaigns I always think it's worth considering what the barriers to entry are and how they can potentially be lowered. Just think if you put this in front of 100 people how many people would you not be able to get to because the barrier to entry is too high or not relevant. If the campaigns just for people with iPhones you rule out everyone without an iPhone, if it's for young families you rule out everyone without children.

Here's an example I came across yesterday.

I thought this A board outside Starbucks looked interesting so I went in, no barrier to entry, successful conversion so far.

The second step in the process involves a £15.95 book purchase barrier to entry however, too high for me.

Then the third step involves having to ask a cashier for a flyer hidden by the till, not too high for me but too high for most I'd imagine.

the old fashioned way

The old fashioned engagement techniques are often the best. Let's take it back to the school fete. As seen in Hummus Bros.

2009 growth strategy update

Growth has really taken off now since the last update.

The pumpkins have even had to be relocated and are making advances on the sweet peas.