Tuesday 25 November 2008

Wunderman Network - 20 Principles of digital markerting

I was down at the Wunderman offices on Monday, to have a chat with one of my industry mentors. Word of advice if you meet someone along your life journey that you really respect, first tell them and then try and arrange regular meetings. Who better to talk to than a person that is in a position you would like to aspire to.

Anyway whilst waiting in reception I noticed an interesting book entitled 'How to think digital', within the book it states the 21 principles of digital marketing, I left out the last one because it was a shameless plug. These lists always interest me, they wont always be revolutionary, but they attempt to give clarity to a lot of information, which cant be a bad thing. see below.

1. Talk to people at the right time: the moment of truth.
2. The most powerful medium is word of mouth.
3. Marketing is about getting people to do things.
4. Watch what happens after the click.
5. Keeping people waiting is a sin.
6. You're a dataphobe. Get over it
7. Don't wait for the dust to settle.
8. A relationship can last a lifetime.
9. Find the perfect partner.
10. Use the channel of we.
11. Experience is what matters.
12. Handle privacy issues with care.
13. Digital media will keep evolving.
14. Work on predicting the future.
15. Develop a closer relationship with truth.
16. The consumer is i control relationship.
17. Leverage the power of now.
18. Boring isn't boring at the moment of truth.
19. Localization isn't just translation.
20. Just because its digital doesn't mean its better.
21. All warfare is based on deception

Monday 17 November 2008

Young adults engagement with brands online

A new global survey conducted by Synovate in conjunction with Microsoft reveals the extent to which young adults are willing to interact and engage with brands as part of their daily online activities. When asked about their online brand engagement in the last month, almost a third (28%) had talked about a brand on a discussion forum; almost a quarter (23%) had added brand-related content to their instant messenger service; and almost one in five (19%) had added branded content to their homepage or social networking site.

If you dont know get to know here

Optimism in Fashion

Dazed and Confused, is coming out with a December issue all about the unlikeliest of topics: optimism. Not just any kind of optimism, but fashion optimism

Dazed presents 18 of the freshest young fashion talents of the year here on Dazed Digital. For the December issue of Dazed & Confused, the fashion team gave reason to be cheerful with a shoot by Daniel Sannwald styled by Katie Shillingford and Robbie Spencer. Pierre Debuscherre also made a film to accompany this energetic shoot, which showcased the new designers, the new faces as chosen by the Dazed fashion team and and above all it asks people to “Smile!”

Friday 14 November 2008

Design , Marketing, Service ?


Russell Davies the planning messiah recently brought a interesting point to my attention that i have given some thought to. The business model that supports creative industries is fundamentally wrong, most large organisations operate in 3 silo's doing design or content, marketing and aftersales or service, dealing-with-the-consequences-of-what-the-other-two-silos-have done.

What makes this model wrong is no silo ever talks to any other, because the process almost always proceeds steadily from left to right. Design make stuff and pass it to marketing who then work out what to say about it. There will probably be some broader corporate direction that will attempt to make this stuff more seamless, integrated and coherent and to connect the end to the beginning, but it always gets swamped by the organisation. By the time a product gets to someone like the advertising agency no-one wants any more thoughts about how the product might be improved.

This isn't a revelation is has been the way organisations operate for years. However, it should be noted that people actually experience the product in a different order. People's experiences of most consumer products starts with the communications or marketing. The experience starts with the product or service second. It's not because integrating marketing and design thinking isn't a good idea, it's because it's organisationally / politically impossible.

Thursday 13 November 2008

Mental Detox, 10 Things to do

Iain Tate, recently wrote on his blog crackunit about his experience at Adbusters Mental Detox Week. Basically it meant he stopped doing screen and computer based things for a week, think about that again and it is actually a lot harder than it sounds.

I think any digital native, can relate to what Iain learnt, I have listed the 10 points below.

1. Phones are good
2. Email can wait
3. Ipod breed Ipods
4. Pens vs Pixels
5. Screens and sleep
6. The fractulisation of stuff
7. Computers create width not focus
8. I felt cut of from stuff not people
9. Without computers I felt less creative
10. Computers are easy to hide behind

This is a great post read about each point in detail here

Tuesday 11 November 2008

Beyond The Valley

Hopefully you have made it through to this page.

Its funny how things happen, some call it fate, some call it destiny I call it divine design. Beyond the Valley is perfectly aligned with a concept I have been working on, and would love to tell you more about.

Asides from this, my background seems to align perfectly with the company culture. I work with the Daydream network, London's first user generated arts magazine. As well as being a Youth advisor to the Tate and INIVA. GT the current digital advertising agency of year is where I had been most recently applying my trade with the industry.

Ultimately I am passionate about Art, Social Media and Culture. I dont just talk about, but I live it which is why I am perfect for Beyond the Valley.

Monday 10 November 2008

Iain Tate: On Becoming a Creative

Iain Tate founder of Poke, talks about what it takes to become a creative. Landing a job at a creative company itself requires some out-of-box thinking, but there’s no need to make things too complicated for yourself either. Once you’ve identified your skills and the type of direction you’d like to head in, coming up with a thoughtful marketing plan for yourself says a lot to potential employers about the type of imagination that you’d bring to their firm.

Iain Tait offers 7 things to consider when seeking the next step in your career:

  • Get yourself a portfolio
  • Spend a bit of time making your portfolio nice / neat / test it / proof it
  • Be clear and upfront about your role in projects you’ve worked on
  • Have an opinion on aesthetics / design / interaction / type / sound design / whatever…
  • Brand yourself
  • Do some light detective work
  • Put your plan into action
Full article here

Sunday 9 November 2008

Trendwatching


Trendwatching.com recently published there top 15 trend questions. Its worth a read check it out:

If we look one more time at our aforementioned definition of a consumer trend:

“A manifestation of something that has unlocked or newly serviced an existing (and hardly ever changing) consumer need, desire, want, or value”

and we agree on ‘unlockers' being anything from a change in societal norms and values, to a breakthrough in technology, to a rise in prosperity, then it’s easy to see how trends can and will emerge all over the place. In the end, it's all about ideas, ideas that translate—to technologies, to revolutions, to products—and ideas that spread.

Which brings us to the following: larger entities like countries or cultures or brands that are setting trends are of course all dependent on individuals who set things in motion. So rejoice: anyone can be a trend setter.

Full article here

Thursday 6 November 2008

Are Brands Compromising Their Morals to Increase Sales?


Mediaweek recently published an interesting article entitle 'Ads for Respected Brands Hit Racy Sites'.

As pop-culture and celebrity gossip blogs continue to see increased traffic, particularly with the youth demographic, advertisers’ views on what counts as acceptable have started to change. Given the uneasy economic climate and tightening budgets, it’s become increasingly important for mainstream brands to be mindful of where their ad dollars are going. As a result, following the crowds, even if that means entering non-traditional venues on the web with less respectable material, makes a good deal of sense. Despite the inherent logic of this move, some in the media still question whether this issue has more to do with negligent ad networks than with any real shift in attitude. In either case, it’s always been a challenge for manufacturers to reach a new audience without alienating their loyal base. The takeaway from this seems to be that a quality product or service will go a long towards keeping your customers regardless of the occasional media misstep.

Read the full article here

Sunday 2 November 2008

Matt Mason: Abundance

Mr Pirate himself Matt Mason talks on abundance

Next Generation Marketing

The way we influence and interact through the internet is constantly changing. We’ve all witnessed how user generated content has brought new creative potential to consumers and opened up the doors of online collaboration. While user generated contents impact on marketing and the way youth consume and create web content is significant, some believe it still has a long way to go. Screenplay’s Strategic Director Helge TennΓΈ offers a compelling argument on the limitations of the current means for online collaboration, deeming them too rigid and presenting “artificial barriers” for participation:

The essence is that we need to start looking at collaboration as something richer than getting participants to contribute their preset format content in a serial, one dimensional, string, within a rigid structure of publishing.

Collaboration is all about creatively collecting and combining a collection of data, making it accessible anywhere, through anything, with incentives for collaboration.