Undiscovered plagiarism

Packed to the Rafters...with ads.

2011-01-21T09:08:00.014+11:00

As viewers fast-forward, time-shift and download to avoid commercial breaks, product placement has been promoted as the solution for brands and marketers. Now, new technology allows brands to insert products and messages digitally, long after the TV show or movie has been shot. So is this virtual embedding the answer, or just another technical gimmick is search of a sucker?

A week or so back, Channel Seven announced a deal with MirriAd, a London-headquartered company with a proprietary tool that allows products or advertisements to be placed digitally into movies or TV shows after filming. Months, years or even decades after a scene has been shot, the MirriAd technology can drop in any product or message into any scene for any length of time.

Seven intends to use it on two of its top-rating shows, Home and Away and Packed to the Rafters.

The showreel on the MirriAd website shows Forrest Gump now sitting on a park bench painted with a Coke logo, The Cosby Show Huxtables trading banter around a breakfast table with a box of Special K in the centre, and Derek Zoolander unleashing Blue Steel to the backdrop of a poster for jeans.

The company claims this as the cure to time-shifting (and fast forwarding) television audience. And no doubt for many frustrated marketers and brands, it's an attractive sales pitch.

But will it work? Is it the future that its promoters claim it to be?

No. Not in and of itself.

Digital or otherwise, product placement isn't new. Jules Verne mentioned several companies as he serialised his novel Around The World In Eighty Days. Soap Operas got their tag because they were initially underwritten by companies like Unilever and Procter & Gamble. Mr Ed's Wilbur drove a Studebaker. The Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies famously turned $100 million before selling a ticket. Sometimes it worked.

But sometimes it didn't. Sylvester Stallone's 2001 feature Driven featured 103 brands in 117 minutes, but shifted few units of anything. Mostly due to the fact it was so awful, nobody sat through it.

Context is everything. MirriAd's technology is interesting, but technology won't shift a unit of product without an insight or idea that connects the brand back to the content they choose to watch.

In his book Buyology, Martin Lindstrom analysed the performance of three brands featured in the 2007 season of American Idol. Each of Ford, Cingulat (a wireless telephone network) and Coca-Cola had invested the same US$26 million, but each took a different approach to leveraging that investment.

Ford did little more than hire the contestants to appear in commercials that ran during the breaks. Cingular sponsored the ring-ins by which people voted performers on and off. While Coke took a far more integrated approach, putting cups of soft drink in front of the judges and having the cnotestants wait in a fire-engine red room, and siting on a sofa shaped in the style of the brand's signature bottle.

Lindstrom's findings were interesting. Amongst the focus groups, brand salience went backwards for Ford, improved a little for Cingular and went gangbusters for Coke. WIth a carefully crated and relevant strategy, the Atlanta kings were able to dominate the show and get great ROI (and, to Lindstrom's thinking, at the expense of their co-sponsors).

It seems obvious. Product placement where it is a relevant and believeable part of the story, can work. Because it ceases to become product placement and starts to become a part of the story. And it is here that creativity plays the crucial role.

When ET followed the Reece's Pieces into the boy's home, nobody in the audience saw the colour of Hershey's money. Because Spielberg understood that we all deal with brands every day, and created a believeable and charming moment.

If similar judgement is exercised with Packed To The Rafters, the positive results may ensue. But blind reliance on technology is a guarantee of nothing at all.

Nestle want to sell food to my dead dog.

2010-12-09T08:46:00.008+11:00

Three years ago Bandit, our much loved blue heeler cross, died. My wife had found her as an neglected puppy on the streets of Cairns. For sixteen years Bandit was her constant companion. When we moved in together, Bandit came with her. When our children were born, Bandit was the embodiment of canine tolerance.

When Bandit passed in 2007, we felt like we'd lost a member of the family. Because we had.

Then yesterday, my wife received a spam email from pet food manufacturer Purina, a division of Nestle. It was charmingly addressed to Bandit.

Amongst other things, the nice people at Purina gave helpful advice on what Christmas foods Bandit should avoid this Christmas and how to manage her fear of fireworks (a great tip in a country where fireworks have been banned for decades).

The spam then goes on to gush about a local lost dog's home, and the brand's proud and sincere support of it.

At the top is the Purina tagline 'Your Pet, Our Passion' and the spam is signed off 'Your Friends at Purina'.

The world groans at the seams with astoundingly stupid and thoughtless marketing. But most stupid and thoughtless marketing is, by it's very stupidity and thoughtlessness, invisible and ignoreable. The only damage done is to a marketing budget and an investor's dividend.

This makes me want to burn something to the ground. Something Purina-shaped.

Sending spam emails to dead dogs is just about as insensitive as a pet food can get. Slapping Australian references on an American eDM is just about as lazy as a marketer can get. And faking empathy is far nastier than being properly and corporately selfish.

Maybe I'm over-reacting. Maybe this is just a sign of the times, and we should just put up with it.

Or maybe it is a virulent and dangerous strain of marketing-degree moronism that should be bundled in a hessian bag filled with bricks and thrown in the nearest river.

The floor is open...

Using Celebrities

2010-11-24T22:46:00.010+11:00

The latest Lipton Ice Tea commercial, starring Hugh Jackman. It's a classic use of a celebrity, simply taking what we know of him (uncomplicated, talented, friendly, famous) and trying to attach those values to the brand.

The commercial tells us nothing at all about the product. It could just as easily be for a rival brand of iced tea or a mineral water, chewing gum, energy drink or instant coffee.

In fact, the commercial is pretty much his opening to the Oscars a few years back, without the witty dialogue, star cameos and insightful interperetations of the zeitgeist.

Instead of informing or persuading, it tries to dazzle us (probably successfully) with the stratospheric calibre of it's star.

There's nothing especially wrong with this approach. Nor is it particularly new. Aligning your brand with a current celebrity is a fast and proven way of shifting attitudes toward your product or service.

However, the effect only lasts as long as your celebrity retains currency (and your budgetary pockets remain deep enough to run your commercials). In the case of Jackman, his personal brand is probably stronger that the product he's pitching. Should he move on to the next beverage endorsement, he'll take all the the things that make this commercial watchable and effective with him and leave Lipton to pick up the pieces and start again.

Additionally, consumers are so used to this approach (no Bono, no!)that they don't attribute any lasting value to it unless,
(a) the endorsement seems believable
(b) the endorsement is 'left-field'

Let's take the latter first. While there's nothing especially surprising about a movie star endorsing a soft drink, there is something astounding about a Russian communist leader endorsing luxury luggage.

Which gives the Louis Vuitton celebrity endorsement its power. It's unexpected. It extends our knowledge of both the man and the brand. And the headline not only reflects the journey of Mikhail Gorbechev, but also taps into the truth of travel.

The message far outlives the successes or failures of the celebrity because it doesn't attach itself to them. The brand and the celebrity combine to form something new and salient.

We can imagine Gorbechev thinking about the consequences of his decisions each and every day, as we might also reflect on our lives in those quiet moments in cabs, planes and solitary hotel rooms.

Sainsbury's association with celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is also successful for slighty different reasons.

Oliver doesn't simply and blandly endorse the produce of the UK's third largest supermarket chain. Watch it carefully. He mouths none of the usual platitudes about 'market fresh' or 'everyday low prices'. That would be a misuse of his own powerful brand.

Rather, Sainbury's resist the temptation to use him as a dumb mouthpiece, or pack their brand as a passenger on the Jamie Oliver juggernaut, and instead take what we know of him (the discerning, infectiously enthusiastic chef and purveyor of quality ingredients) and mix it indelibly with their brand offering.

The creators of the Oliver campaign understood what people liked about Jamie and extended that (who wouldn't like Jamie to come home and make them dinner) rather than simply feeding off it.

And in the process they create something new and believable and powerfully branded.

You don't have to be perfect, just human.

2010-10-26T17:41:00.005+11:00

If you follow American sports, you'll know the furore caused by NBL star LeBron James' move from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Miami Heat a few months back.

Twice the league's MVP,'King James'was considered the lynchpin to his team's hopes of winning a first-ever championship.

His announcement to leave was televised live to a breathless nation, the response in his hometown was singlet-burningly vitriolic.

Cleveland Cavaliers majority owner Dan Gilbert immediately published an open letter to fans, denouncing the decision as a "selfish", "heartless", "callous", and "cowardly betrayal", while guaranteeing that the Cavs would win an NBA title before the "self-declared former King".

If you were LeBron, the sensible thing would be to keep your head down, right? And if you were his major sponsor, you'd try and gloss over the fact that half of America despised the behaviour of your star asset, right?

Wrong.

This is a great spot. It's great because it treats the viewer with intelligence, asks us to challenge our pre-concieved views, and invites debate.

It's great because it doesn't set out to be a monopoly of information, or try to provide you with an opinion.

It's great because it doesn't mind if you walk away unconvinced. It puts its faith in the argument and in the smartness of its viewer.

To be a great brand, you don't have to be perfect. Because you can't be. It doesn't hurt to admit your imperfections if they are there for all to see.

In fact, they might be the key to the way ahead.

Being useful

2010-10-25T19:04:00.009+11:00

Precocious bike brand Rapha have this last weekend launched their new iPhone app.

For us it serves as a pretty handy marker as to where brands might be headed.

It doesn't tell you where to buy their expensive bike attire, or show you styles and prices. Perhaps it already assumes you own a piece or two, or have at least heard the talk.

It simply allows you to organise groups of people who like riding to and from the same places at the same time as you do. Which if you are a rider (Campbell isn't but Chris is) is incredibly useful.

From the Rapha site:

We all know the problem. Organising a ride with friends. Or maybe not friends, more likely adversarial training partners, or perhaps someone you have never ridden with before. Arranging meeting for a ride can be a thankless task spread over a multitude of devices and communication methods.

And then, further to this complication of arrangement is the uncertainty involved in the act of meeting. An unforeseen puncture, a headwind from hell, getting lost, another unforeseen puncture (after two they become foreseen) – the epic could begin before the planned epic (or perhaps just a light training spin) has even begun.

It strikes right in the heart of a human being that likes nothing more than getting up in the dark at 5am to ride in the rain with a bunch of people he or she never sees at any other time of his life.

It appeals to the human quarter that he or she believes sets them apart from everyone else. And could anything be more useful than that?

Able and Baker's travel budget didn't extend to sending delegates to last weekend's Caxtons. But we're reliably informed that keynote speaker, R/GA's Nick Law spoke on this very subject.

"If advertising tries to compete on storytelling, you're up against (Pay-TV channel) HBO and Hollywood," he said.

"We think the new formula is innovation plus demonstration. When you create a social (application) you're designing a system of engagement. It's less about telling stories.

"In the systematic space, make it useful, for God's sake," he said.

R/GA has proved this point with their much lauded Nike Plus campaign. Rapha have managed to get to the heart of their people with this app.

But perhaps what's most striking about the Rapha app, and what's most counter-intuitive for marketers, is that you don't have to be a customer to use it.

It's free. No cash, no credit card, no proof of purchase required.

It recognises that while you may not yet be a customer today, if we spend a little time together, you just might be tomorrow.

Is Australia the 'dumb blonde' of the world?

2010-10-14T08:42:00.003+11:00

In a Sydney conference yesterday, branding expert and author Simon Arnholt labelled Australia as the world's 'dumb blonde', attractive but shallow and unintelligent.

He pointed to the current tourism advertising campaign, Tourism Australia's move to bring Oprah to Australia and the lack of a cultural exchange programme like Germany's Goethe Institute or France's Alliance Francais.

''What you have is an image of a country that is considered to be very decorative, but not very useful,'' he said.

Mr Anholt said Australia relied too much on ''logos and slogans'' in its efforts to change people's minds about the country.

In a similar vein, Paul Hogan who starred in the 'Shrimp On The Barbie' ads of the early 80s, commented;

"If I go to your house to visit and I want to come back, it's because I enjoyed your company not the furniture," he said.

Campaigns like this address the furniture. If you took them at face value, and I'm not sure how much other value there is, the world would get the impression that we all spend our days beach-frolicking in the shallows, communing with kangaroos and watching fireworks in sequinned dresses.

And you've got to wonder what kind of hook that is.

Brand uber-guru Wally Olins, who's been working in this space for decades and amongst other things, helped Spain transition from the Franco-era poor man of Europe to the country that hosted the Olympics less than twenty years later, points out, sun, sand and sea are commodities. As soon as someone else can provide it closer and cheaper, your brand is diminished.

'You have to sell your culture, your history, your food your background,' says Olins. 'Otherwise, you are in the commodity business.'

Compare and contrast the 'Nothing Like Australia' campaign with Tourism Victoria's current campaign featuring Daylesford.

Simon Arnholt probably has a good point.

(If you are a Wally Olins fan, here's an excellent presentation on branding and nations in four parts. It's long but excellent)

2010-09-30T17:25:00.001+10:00

Under the influence

2010-09-28T22:34:00.005+10:00

Mazda have been a client of Melbourne agency CHE for several decades or so. Which is a lifetime in the cut and thrust of Australian advertising. And in the last couple of years or so, they've been nice enough, from time to time, to ask Able & Baker along for the ride.

As reported in influential industry journal GoAuto, Mazda's advertising has been found to be the 'most likely to influence a buyer to own one of its cars'.

The report said:

'A startling 42 per cent of buyers told market researchers Colmar Brunton that Mazda advertising was most likely to make them consider one of its models – a stunning result for a company on nine per cent total market share.'

In the same month, Mazda failed by just two vehicles to outsell traditional Aussie heavyweight Ford.

Which is nice.

Here's an on-air TVC for Mazda 3.

You can read the full GoAuto article, here.

We live in your world

2010-09-21T08:07:00.006+10:00

I don't mind the 'Barbara from Bankworld' campaign for ANZ. The scripts are well-written, the performances are spot-on and the end result is pretty funny. And full marks to the client for having the self-awareness to approve ideas like these.

However, I worry a little that it's the right campaign for the wrong client. Or a cute advertising idea with a hollow centre.

The sector is extremely competitive, with any product or service advantage quickly matched and neutralised. The end result is, with a few odd exceptions like the excellent ANZ iPhone app, it's pretty much a level playing field.

ANZ has pretty much the same products, the same service levels and branches in the same sorts of places as the other Big Three. So while Barbara captures the zeitgeist of anti-bank frustration, I wonder what long-term value there is for the brand. We might well laugh at Genevieve Morris' excellent character, but it may not be quite so funny when encountering a real-life Barbara at an ANZ call centre or in a branch.

And as anyone who's ever tried to cancel a credit card or arrange a small business loan will tell, there are plenty of them.

However while in the Collins Street last week, I flipped open my laptop in a cafe to find the following notfication on my screen.

With little fanfare or self-aggrandaisement, ANZ provided free wi-fi in this small CBD cafe. So that people could check their emails, read the news or even do their banking without any hassle.

The tagline to the Barbara campaign is 'We live in your world'. I reckon this is a far more persuasive expression of that brand idea.

Human Pacman

2010-09-14T13:06:00.001+10:00

This is like totally two weeks old already...

2010-09-10T23:11:00.002+10:00

Technology is really cool. If you don't believe me, listen to Louis CK.

But sometimes there is a tendency to get overexcited about the technology itself, rather than what the technology enables you to do.

A brand isn't cool just because it has a facebook page or tweets. A twelve year old can do both those things. Probably better than you.

What's cool about technology is not what it is, but what it does. What it enables you to do.

And when the convergence of an idea and technology is at it's very best, you don't even notice the technology at all. It just becomes a part of the storytelling process.

The new film by Chris Milk for Canadian band Arcade Fire is a co-production with Google, using the the bits of wizardry at the pointiest bit of the pointy end of their arsenal. Which is pointy to the power of ten.

But funnily enough, once you're in, you forget all about the wizardry and just get lost in the moment.

Try it for yourself here.

Phlegm

2010-09-08T09:46:00.003+10:00

A hundred hours of painting compressed into a ten minute video. Artist Phlegm (good name) describes himself as someone who 'makes comic books and sprays paint on walls.' You can find more Phlegm at http://phlegmcomics.com/

Sliding

2010-07-29T18:48:00.003+10:00

This has actualy been sitting in my 'Drafts' tray for a few weeks...apologies

It doesn't look subversive.

It's a slide from Sam Davy, former Global Creative Director for Apple, at last week's State Of Design. It represents Apple's attitude towards marketing and advertsing.

'Help your customers get the most our of their product.'

It cedes control of the brand entirely to the people who use it.

It passes ownership, to them.

It says 'You know what to do. You decide what to do with our products, and we'll help you do that. Whatever that is.'

It's about ownership, not sales.

It assumes that people are to be around for longer than the ringing of the till.

Actually, it is pretty subversive.

Seen in Dan Murphy's, Frankston

2010-07-29T10:15:00.002+10:00

Seen in The Age

2010-07-29T10:11:00.000+10:00

I just love this, I do.

2010-07-29T10:01:00.001+10:00

And I don't even like duck.

Cooking Dinner Vol. I from William Hereford on Vimeo.

The 100% Project launches

2010-07-14T23:00:00.006+10:00

The 100% Project was offically launched last week by Federal Minister for the Status Of Women, Tanya Plibersek.

The Project, headed by Frances Feenstra (pictured below), seeks maximise 100% of Australia's leadership talent, female and male, equally contributing to Australia's social and economic future.

Able & Baker have been very proud to help out with brand strategy and identity.

You can find out more, here.

Fishing for birds.

2010-07-13T19:22:00.004+10:00

I saw this poster at the train station near the Able & Baker office.
We're in a rather fashionable part of town. Lots of pubs, clubs and music venues.
The walls around the station are plastered with fantastic posters for festivals, DJs and semi-obscure touring bands. In some places, posters are placed over posters over posters. A dozen deep.
In amongst all this uber-hippery, in the last place you'd expect, there's this quaint, traditional and rather daggy poster for a wedding photographer.
In a wedding magazine, it'd be lost.
But amongst all the cutting edge graphics around it, it absolutely stands out.
In the 1800s, the American writer Washington Irving stayed at the splendid Alhambra Palace in Spain. Perched high on a hill, overlooking the town of Grenada, the Alhambra was circled by birds that had learned to drift above the range of hunters' guns on the plains below.
Irving observed boys from the town standing on the walls of the palace, throwing fishing nets and capturing the birds below from the unexpected angle.
In advertising, there is usually a 'right' way to do things.
A right way to photograph a car, make a burger look enticing, show a family moment.
Because it's the right way, everyone does it that way. And it instantly becomes invisible.
The wedding photographer is fishing for birds. It's not a bad theory, is it?

New Blu

2010-07-06T23:25:00.002+10:00

Proof once again that imagination and sweat beat money and FX. Every time.

BIG BAG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Small is the New Big?

2010-06-23T08:38:00.006+10:00

A few years ago, the big agency Able & Baker were then working for pitched for a government advertising project.
The aim was to persuade Australians about to travel overseas to check the safety or otherwise of the countries they were about to visit on a government website.
The prospective client was asking for, and expecting, a big television campaign.
What our agency came up with was a very simple, very inexpensive idea.
Since nearly all overseas travel was now booked or confirmed by email and e-ticket, the idea was to develop a bit of software that slipped inside your booking process.
This bit of software would recognise your destination and provide a direct link on your e-ticket or booking confirmation, just next to the departure time, to the latest safety information about that destination.
For example if we was flying to Mogadishu, the little bit of copy that would read; 'We hope you enjoy your time in Mogadishu, Able & Baker. But just to be on the safe side, check the safety and security conditions in Mogadishu before you fly. Just click here.'
And that was it. The whole pitch. No ads, no big budgets, just a simple little idea that would have cost a few thousand dollars and delivered new traffic to the website by the planeload.
Of course, it never happened. The agency lost the pitch, a television campaign was duly commissioned and nobody I know has ever gone to the government website.
In business, as in life probably, there is a tendency to assume that a big problem requires a big solution. The corollory of this is a desire for proportionality: that big inputs should incite a proportionally big response.
Of course, in reality this is rarely the case. Little ideas can have an influence way beyond their ambition (such as Justin Bieber's mum posting a video of him on YouTube), while big ideas can disappear without a trace.
In Victoria, the government has spent over a billion dollars and five years on the myki ticketing system whose end purpose is, without a trace of irony, to 'save money'. When for a fraction of that cost, you could put conductors on every train which would have the added bonus of making travellers feel more secure.
Here's a terrific TED talk by British adman Rory Sutherland on the subject.

Is originality necessary?

2010-06-01T18:48:00.009+10:00

In April of this year, Melbourne artist Sam Leach won the prestigious Wynn prize for Australian landscapes. His work, Proposal for Landscaped Cosmos (above), borrowed heavily on the 1660 work Boatmen Moored on the Shore of a Lake (below) by Dutch master Adam Pynacker.

The artist himself was quite unapologetic.

"For quite a while now I've been obsessed with 17th-century Dutch painting," he told The Australian.

"I haven't made any secret of where that painting came from."

In film, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocolypse Now won the Palm d'Or at Cannes despite the plot being an acknoweldged reworking of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

In music, Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher quite openly borrowed from the Beatles. As the man himself says; 'Here's what you do: you pick up your guitar, you rip a few people's tunes off, you swap them round a bit, get your brother in the band, punch his head in every now and again, and it sells.'

Even the great Steve Jobs claimed that 'good artists copy, great artists steal'.

In pretty much every creative endeavour, it's recognised that pure originality doesn't exist. The best we can do is take what is good and make it a little better.

In every creative endeavour except for advertising.

In advertising, we're obsessed with being originality. When you're a junior, you dread your creative director saying of your beautiful idea: 'it's been done before.'

Bloggers on the amusing, pedantic and often vitriolic creative blog Campaign Brief inevitably greet every new campaign with claims and proof of other campaigns with similar if not identical ideas.

The current villain d'jour is Sydney agency DDB whose new 'There's nothing like Australia' TVC bears a remarkable executional resemblance to the award-winning 'Boom-di-Yadah' spot for Discovery channel.

No doubt both agency and client have been on a long, extensive and expensive journey to get to the destination they have. Yet the two spots are near identical in structure and concept.

But does it matter?

If DDB did borrow from Discovery channel why not proudly admit it, like Jobs and Gallagher?

After all it was a successful, popular campaign. Probably not too many of the people being targetted by Tourism Australia would have seen the Discovery channel spot. And if they had, why would it truly matter?

Why, when open plaigiarism is good enough for the major creative minds of our generation, but not good enough for those who use creativity for commercial purposes?

Fresh Space Monkey: meet Amber Philips.

2010-05-25T23:51:00.006+10:00

Meet Amber Phillips, Able & Baker's newest arrival. Before arriving at the aesthetically pleasing yet uneven parquetry at Chapel St, Amber was General Manager at Big Red.

Her job title here is 'Control Freak', which might come as a pleasant surprise to those who've been hitherto engaged with our inverted management structure and frankly unenthusiastic administrative arm.

As well as actually knowing what to do after clicking the PowerPoint and Excel buttons on the computer, Amber has earned her chops on the suity and plannery side of things.

In her own words;

'I've now worked in agency world for seventeen years, at five agencies (Clemenger Sydney, George Patterson & Partners Melbourne, Young & Rubicam Melbourne, cummins&partners nationally; and Big Red for clients like Virgin Blue, Jetstar, Ansett, Nestle, Cadbury Schweppes, Victoria Bitter and Kraft, to name just a few.

I have extensive experience when it comes to creating fully integrated solutions that not only get results, but inspire loyalty amongst consumers. Some of the memorable campaigns I have led include Virgin Blue ‘If only you got Virgin Blue service everywhere’, launching Virgin Blue’s loyalty program – Velocity; Tourism Whitsurdays- '74 Islands out of the blue' repositioning; Picnic ‘Deliciously Ugly’ and managing a unique and award winning loyalty program for Victoria Bitter.'

We like Amber because she loves brands and she loves ideas. If she dressed more badly and kept more erratic working hours, she'd make a fine creative.

We love her. You will too.

Sport; the killer app

2010-05-25T23:13:00.004+10:00

There's a fantastic feature in the online Economist about the future of television. The article documents the passage from the 60s, where the conventional wisdom to ratings success was to air 'the least objectionable shows possible', to today, where it seems the media behemoth is under attack from all sides.
Or is it?
The Economist argues that the proliferation of choice has simply cut out the mediocrity in television. And what we are left with is The Niche ('Bass Masters' anyone?), The Great (The Sopranos, The Wire) and The Live. The Live includes such things as the various nationalities of Idol, simultaneous broadcasts of the final episode of Lost and, of course, sport.
Sport is, the the words of the Economist, television's killer app.
It's live, so people can't record and skip the ads.
It's currency; men apparently talk more about sport than women or sex.
And it's mass. Which is why Nike would have spent the equivalent of the Mining Super Profits Tax on this wonderful spot.

Seen on St Kilda Junction....

2010-05-25T22:24:00.003+10:00

Moments pass, so catch them while you can.

2010-05-18T08:15:00.006+10:00

I don't know too much about Sean Stiegemeier, but when the Icelandic volcano (or Eyjafjallajökull if you are feeling adventurous) erupted he tried to get there to film it. In his own words;

"So I saw all of these mediocre pictures of that volcano in Iceland nobody can pronounce the name of, so I figured I should go and do better. But the flights to get over took forever as expected (somewhat). 4 days after leaving I finally made it, but the weather was terrible for another 4. Just before leaving it got pretty good for about a day and a half and this is what I managed to get.

Wish I had more time. I missed all the cool Lightning and the Lava of the first eruption. But I figure this will just be a trial run for another day."

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull - May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

It's pretty amazing. What resonates for me is that he just went out and did it. Didn't wait for a sponsor, or for a better time. He went and captured a moment.

In our line of work we spend too much time deliberating and not enough time doing. And as a result, sometimes the moment passes.

Sean is apparently trying to raise sponsorship to go back, if you've got a few spare pennies.

(Found this originally through brainpicker, probably the most awesomest thing on the internet.)

Creativity isn't something you have. It's something that just visits.

2010-05-17T13:45:00.001+10:00

Much more cleverer

2010-05-11T05:55:00.011+10:00

Advertising has always been an industry with big egos. When all you have to sell is your opinion, you have to hold your ideas in some value. But wandering through the halls and corridors of St Vincent's Institute, longtime Able & Baker client and serious medical research heavy hitter, you can meet some incredible people who'll make you feel quite small indeed.

While we're worrying about the size of a typeface or the nuances of an edit, these guys are quite literally solving cancer. And diabetes. And heart disease. And childhood obesity. And a dozen other things besides. SVI has long been a pioneer in the field of protein crystallography, a process by which biological processes are broken down into their most essential elements so that they might be examined in 3D. It's essential in the development of 'smart drugs'.

Researchers travel from across the world for the opportunity to work with SVI's director, Professor Tom Kay. People don't travel quite so far to work with foundation CEO Robin Berry, but he's a convivial fellow, sharp mind and excellent luncheon companion.

If you have any interest in the field, Robin or Tom regularly take tours through the institiute. They also run a series of high-profile and excellent dinners throughout the year (David Parkin, Daryl Jackson and Kevin Rudd being notable speakers). And of course, the researchers on the ground are always looking for funding, so donations are always, always welcome.
Oh, and they're nice enough to let us do their annual report for them each year. Photography by Andrew Wuttke. Special mention to the immensely patient Dr Anne Johnston.

WIRED magazine and a possible publishing future.

2010-05-06T13:43:00.002+10:00

As advertising creatives, we're caught.
We know that what we do is changing, and that the iPad, TIVO and such are changing the fundamentals of our interruption-based trade. Yet the cheese still plops out from the same hole in the Skinner Box, and the briefs for TVCs, outdoor and magazine ads still vastly outnumber (and out-budget) those for the digital stuff.
Our clients aren't leading us, so should we be leading them?
And if we should, where to?
Even Rupert can't work out a paid-online model for us to advertise on/in/within/however.
But maybe WIRED is heading in the right direction. Watch this. What do you think?

Writing better briefs

2010-05-05T23:20:00.010+10:00

As a creative, I've read literally hundreds of briefs. Nearly all of them were rubbish. If you are a planner or a suit, here's the best explanation of how to do it, by some chap called Nick Emmel.

Creative Brief Workshop

View more presentations from Nick Emmel.

Vegemite

2010-05-05T17:30:00.005+10:00

We did this for the Sydney Olympics. It never ran (as far as I know) but I still like it. Directed by Steve Rogers of Revolver.

New TVC for Mazda 2

2010-05-05T17:11:00.009+10:00

Mazda has been killing it this year. Hopefully with this ad, guided by the lovely Mike O'Hare and Georgine Toole's parting gift to CHE before moving on to DDB, that will continue. There's some print too, which we'll post later.

What happens if you don't allow for a real model in your photography budget.

2010-05-05T17:03:00.007+10:00

You get the Creative Director in there instead. For an upcoming annual report cover for St Vincent's Institute.

Real photographer (not the monkey with the iphone) Andrew Wuttke.

Chapel Street Junky

2010-03-17T17:41:00.002+11:00

Shock! Ads work!

2010-03-17T10:03:00.005+11:00

Here's some nice statistics from client Mazda, for whom we do some work through the good offices of agency CHE.

* Mazda CX-7 January 2010 sales up 99.4% year-on-year
* CX-9 sales for January up nearly 40% year-on-year
* Mazda 3 finishes 2009 as the best selling small car, shading the once mighty Corolla.

You can read the full press release here.

Finally, our name on the door.

2010-03-12T12:52:00.003+11:00

Well, the name of two space monkeys at least.

Be my Bastard

2010-03-12T11:14:00.007+11:00

Consumer insights are a good thing. Knowing how people think about your issue or brand gives ideas a handy reality check.
But insight alone is not a strategy.
Take this poster pasted up at Windsor station.
The insight is clear; people think banks are opportunistic, fee-hungry undesirables.
Hence the headline: Sign up to fight unfair banking. And what I presume to be the new NAB tagline: More give, less take.
Which would all be fine if you were something other than one of the big four banks who created the unfair banking in the first place.
Bendigo Bank could run this poster. The teacher's credit union could run it.
But NAB can't.
Every time any of the big banks report those multi-billion dollar profits, people think of all the petty little ways their hard-earned savings have been siphoned off.
Two bucks to use another bank's ATM. Six bucks for making 'too many' transactions. Thirty-five bucks for bouncing a cheque.
The irritating nature and random lack of generosity of these charges (ATM fees are a particularly naked brand of opportunism) stick in the craw most.
While it may well be true that the ninja account has no 'unfair' fees, it's certain they're gonna get you somewhere else.
So why persist with this strategy? There must be something in it since each of the big four are all doing variations of the same theme.
ANZ has 'Barbara' the bank manager.
CommBank has their good marketing folk protecting us from the shallow American ad guys.
Westpac's have their 'Dog WIth A Bone' managers.
And now NAB.
No doubt that all these spots will 'track well'. They play to our preconceptions.
But they don't change them.
Nobody likes being sold to. And we're pretty good at spotting phoneys.
Because banks won't and can't stop charging the infuriating fees they do, the strategy of 'we're your friend, we're just like you' will, in the end, fail.
They're banks. Big, huge, behemothic banks.
And THAT surely is where the gold lies.
In fact, the big four banks are all amongst the twenty biggest banks in the world. And through acquisition both here and overseas, they're only getting bigger.
They're also rated amongst the world's safest. And most profitable.
If my bank is big, safe and knows how to make money, I'll forgive them the paltry fees. Because they are doing the job I hired them to do: keep my money safe.
So that's the rolled-gold, Able & Baker-approved Big Bank Strategy. We might be bastards, but we're good at being bastards. So let us be your bastard.
I'd rather have a hard-nosed bastard in charge of my super than a nice chap with a pleasant smile and a flair for tea-cakes, wouldn't you?
Of course, as a strategy it isn't especially new.
Over to you, Hannibal....

Why Advertising Creatives Shouldn't Have Jobs.

2010-02-24T10:27:00.002+11:00

Miles Davis never caught a train at 8am, rode into the city and up an elevator to the 7th floor.
Miles Davis then never walked under strip lighting, past rows of manned, partitioned workstations to a white laminated desk and a phone list.
Miles Davis then didn't answer emails for twenty minutes, attend a work-in-progress meeting, attend a second meeting about a blowout in the stationary budget before tidying his section of the office in preparation for important visitors later in the day.
Miles Davis didn't do this, because he was in the business of creating sublime, original and wonderful music. And commuting routines, nondescript office spaces and work-in-progress meetings are precisely the wrong environment for creating anything.
Yet this is the daily routine for most advertising creatives in the world. Particularly those in the larger multinationals that churn out the majority of messages on our screens, magazines and newspapers.
Agencies spend fortunes on brilliant creative directors, who in turn spend slightly smaller fortunes on talented art directors, writers and producers. Having harnessed this prodigious talent, they then crush the living daylights out of it by imposing regular office hours, hollow working environments and the filling-in of timesheets.
In my last multinational job, as a creative director, my whole day was filled with administration and meetings. The only time we got any creative thinking done was after 5.30, when the rest of the office (and my clients) had gone home.
In the two or three years since then, this seems to have become more prevalent, not less. Tighter margins mean fewer people are doing more work. Client-side procurement folk want more evidence of labour. And agency management, keen to meet new business targets, seek new ways to provide it.
The upshot of all this is that creative people in agencies are spending less time being creative.
Not only are the hours spent in WIP meetings hours not spent creating, they turn the creative process into a grind. We find ourselves having to create on command, during small 20-minute windows between internal reviews.
This is an horribly inefficient use of resources.
The worst place to have a good idea is in an office. The worst time to have one is when someone else is telling you to have one.
The best time and place to have ideas are the moments and spaces when you're not looking for them. The time between turning off the light and going to sleep. Soaping your armpits in the shower. Driving the kids to school. Jogging. Between the third and fourth beer at the pub. Talking to your mum.
These are things that every creative person knows. So why do we go to an office every day, as if we were doing data entry, kidding ourselves that hours spent equals more genuine progress?
Because of head-hours. This is, traditionally, how agencies charge their clients, and thus how they reward their employees. The more chargeable head hours per employee, the more profitable each one becomes.
The trouble is, this doesn't necessarily lead to better ideas, and often results in worse ones.
The solution? Maybe creative people shouldn't have jobs.
Rather than expecting copywriters and art directors to be at their desks at nine every morning, simply give them the brief, the right information and a time when you need the answer back.
Rather than being paid a salary, pay them to produce ideas. Those that produced the most and best ideas would be paid more, those that produced fewer and weaker, less.
Where and how these ideas are produced becomes immaterial. If sitting in an art gallery works for you, go for your life. If watching polar bears mate at the zoo gets your juices going, ditto.
The only thing that matters is the quantity of quality ideas you come back with.
Good creatives could consult to multiple agencies. There would be more scope to develop high specialties, such as car, beer, pensioner insurance or itty-bitty computer chips.
Agencies could offfer clients a broader range of creative thinking than simply that of the folks they can afford to have on staff.
With less time lost on non-creative activities, creatives have more time to develop their skills. Producing better ideas, building better value into their own careers and delivering better value for clients' money.
What do you think?

Crash course in social media.

2009-11-04T16:22:00.004+11:00

On October 22, A 62 year-old woman drove her BMW SUV into a gym car park. Something happened, and said BMW ended up mounted on two other cars, one of which was a Hyundai Elantra.

You can see the security camera footage above.

The video had more than 1.6 million views. In a nice touch, Hyundai Canada offered to replace the Elantra driver's car. Just eight days after the initial incident.

Courtesy Mashable.

129 million views.

2009-10-29T10:12:00.003+11:00

'Charlie Bit My Finger...Again.' has just become the most watched YouTube video of all time. I don't know what to make of that. You can watch it here and draw your own conclusions. If you figure it out, please let me know.

Cover of the New Yorker, Halloween edition

2009-10-29T09:59:00.002+11:00

Brand new old ideas.

2009-10-26T19:01:00.003+11:00

We actually did this creative work in a previous life, for a previous agency. Two or three years ago now.
But as far as I can tell, this is the first time it's seen the light of day.
The Stoneleigh vineyard occupies a delightfully sunny space on the western edge of Marlborough's Sauv-blanc fields, and actually has a good old-fashioned USP; magical sunstones.

You can see the full website here.

And the cute litte TVC here.

We were CDs. Writer Lea Egan, AD Nicoleen Agnello

Can't get enough of that new work...

2009-10-26T18:50:00.003+11:00

New Mazda CX-7 Spot through CHE Melbourne. Props to producer Georgina Toole, supersuit Chris Ivanov and CDs Mike O'Hare and Stephen Fisher.

New commercial for Totally Workwear.

2009-10-26T18:35:00.004+11:00

Totally Workwear is a national chain of stores specialising in, well, tradies' workwear. Boots, reflective vests, drill shorts and the like. The retail experience in TWW is somewhat different to that of other stores; because they're on the clock, customers don't want to stuff around chatting to staff, and the simple layouts of TWW stores reflect this. From there, the positioning line 'Get What You Want then Get Back To Work'is only a short hop.

Pacific Brands paid the bills, Fenton Stephens created the opportunity and we wrote and directed the spot.

There's also some nice radio spots, which we'll post later...

Ikea furnishes New York's narrowest house.

2009-09-24T14:30:00.002+10:00

From the clever people who brought you Abba and Eric the Red.

"IKEA has offered US$10,000 worth of furniture and free design advice to the buyer of the narrowest house in New York City.

The red brick house, located at 75 1/2 Bedford Street in Greenwich Village, is 9 1/2 feet wide and 42 feet long, and was built in 1873 in the alleyway between 75 and 77 Bedford Street.

The house was put up for sale last month for US$2.7 million, and a plaque on the building notes that poet Edna St. Vincent Millay once lived there, as did anthropologist Margaret Mead. When the house went on the market, real estate broker Alex Nicholas was quoted as saying the future owners would “have to be very clever in how [they] decorate,” prompting the proposal from IKEA.

IKEA spokesperson Janice Simonsen explained the furniture giant’s offer, saying, “We know that space is a premium in most homes and especially in this home… We’re so in love with small spaces that we’re putting an offer on the table, albeit a skinny table – free furniture and design expertise to the eventual buyers.”

Blurring the lines.

2009-09-22T22:10:00.001+10:00

New music video/ad/content/whatever by Fallon London for Cadbury.

Quite briliant

2009-09-17T14:06:00.003+10:00

Where does product end and marketing begin? This iPhone app for Mini roadside assistance manages to make the brand look even smarter and their drivers even more fervent advocates. How would such an app make you feel about your car?

If you print this email, I'll chop off your arm.

2009-07-21T23:13:00.002+10:00

I love this. It's a USB-powered chainsaw that sits on your desk. Why?

You know those little messages that exhort you to consider the environment before printing an email? And how you ignore that message?

Well, every time you hit CTRL - P, the chainsaw goes off. Can't ignore that!

You can order one here.

Someone you love would love this new work.

2009-07-16T22:57:00.005+10:00

QV is one of Australia's largest range of in-pharmacy skincare products.

Its (hitherto) unspoken brand truth is the way we first encountered it; more often than not QV was recommended to us by a nurse, by a parent, by a relative, by a friend.
Then, once we tried QV, we recommended it to others we cared about.

QV has that most precious and uncommon of things; a community of brand advocates.

With our friends at Admark Communications, we came up with a positioning line; Someone You Love Would Love QV.

To bring this thought to life, there's this commercial, a print campaign, some radio, a new website (coming soon), Twitter and Facebook pages.

Other credits go to Stephanie at QV, Clare and Stu at Admark, Chris Sferazza (director), Simone Adamson (producer) and the digitally strategic ladies at codenamemax.

Macchu Piccu

2009-07-06T12:23:00.002+10:00

Machu Picchu Post from Machu Picchu Post Team on Vimeo.

A lovely little story.

Making the intangible physical

2009-07-03T17:35:00.004+10:00

Just Landed - 61 Hours from blprnt on Vimeo.

From the creator, Jer Thorp

I was discussing H1N1 (swine flu) with a bioinformatics friend of mine last weekend, and we ended up talking about ways that epidemiologists model transmission of disease. I wondered how some of the information that is shared voluntarily on social networks might be used to build useful models of various kinds.

I'm also interested in visualizing information that isn't implicitly shared - but instead is inferred or suggested.

This piece looks for tweets containing the phrases 'just landed in...' or 'just arrived in...'. Locations from these tweets are located using MetaCarta's Location Finder API. The home location for the traveling users are scraped from their Twitter pages. The system then plots these voyages over time.

Faster, faster, faster...

2009-07-02T18:15:00.004+10:00

Swine flu goes from nothing to everything to almost nothing again in two weeks.

Millions of people who didn't even know there was an election in Iraq, turn their Twitter avatars green to protest the result a few days later.

Jeff Goldblum is reported dead in the morning, confirmed dead at morning tea then goes on national TV in the evening to prove the contrary.

And Michael Jackson goes from object of ridicule to the King of Pop again in 24 hours. Flashmobs erupt, Presidents eulogise, people weep.

Culture is moving at light speed. This is the reality in which the brands we advertise now live. To simply keep up, and avoid becoming your category's Susan Boyle, we need more messages more often.

Classic 'Economist' ad featuring Henry Kissinger.

2009-07-02T09:53:00.003+10:00

I remember a while back presenting an idea for Maggi to a suit, featuring featuring Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise (when they were together)living as a normal couple in suburban Kogarah. The suit loved the campaign, loved the scripts than asked 'Hey, can we do this with normal people instead of Tom and Nicole?"

I wonder if the suit said, when presented this script, 'Hey, can we do this with a normal business guy instead of Kissinger?'

It would be much easier.

George Lois is a Genius.

2009-06-24T10:46:00.005+10:00

Advertising doesn't do a very good job of learning from its elders. This doco on George Lois is thirty years old and every bit as relevant today as it was then.

Extremely accurate pie chart.

2009-06-24T09:22:00.000+10:00

iPhone apps as art?

2009-06-16T00:03:00.004+10:00

Does the People's Love for their iPhones have no end?

From Creative Review

At Apple's recent WWDC developer conference, 20,000 of the most popular iPhone apps were showcased on a pulsating wall of 30 Cinema Displays. Whenever someone downloaded a particular app, its icon pulsed light outwards creating a mesmerising display.

I don't want a friend, I want a bank.

2009-06-15T23:15:00.007+10:00

On the weekend, I had to take some money out of an ATM. It was a Westpac one.
I don't bank with Westpac, so I knew I was in for a fee. But that's okay.
I key in my desired amount. Insufficient funds. $2.
I key in a lesser amount. Still insufficient funds. Another $2.
I ask to see my balance. Another $2. No longer ok.
And so I leave the ATM with six dollars less than I started with and a burning desire to start a riot. But I calm down. Until I see this.
Now it's game on.
'We're care factor 50'? 'We're take a jumper just in case'? Now you're taking the piss. You're laughing at my inability to find a non-robbing ATM or real competition in the mortgage market. You're pointing out and underlining the inequity of our relationship, while pretending that we're all equals. And fooling, who?
How did that even get off the creative's pad, let alone get on TV? In a couple of hours, my attitude toward Wetspac turned from ambivilance to irritation to a well-founded suspicion of pure evil.
I've worked on banks in the past. I don't know what it is, but they are obsessed with being liked. With having their charitable deeds and community activism acknowledged. With having their essential place in society acknowledged.
While at the same time charging people $6 to withdraw no money from an outsourced ATM and thinking they won't notice.
Here it is, Banks. I don't want you to be my friend. I don't want you to send me a card at Christmas. I just want you to be a bank, without violating me too vigorously.
Something Barclay's seems to understand.

What's on the Wall?

2009-06-09T18:18:00.002+10:00

Hmmm...a man with a jackhammer, a pipe, eye patch and heroic Chinese workers. What kind of ad will it be?

Is it ok to steal ideas from YouTube?

2009-06-05T05:53:00.015+10:00

The most withering judgement one creative can pass on another's work is; 'it's been done'. In our peculiar segment of our peculiar industry, originality is valued above all else, even intelligibility and efficacy. The current head on the chopping block (or chopping blog in the case of Campaign Brief) is JWT's new spot for Allen's lollies. In it, a giant doll walks down a city street, blowing bubbles that turn into sweets.

Now regardless of any other considerations, it does bear remarkable similarity to this piece of film posted by a company called The Electric Pig.

Or even this viral campaign for Levi's Jeans by BBH in London.

Predictably, the creative community cries 'plagiarism'. And it's hard to believe that at least some of the people involved in the Allen's job weren't aware of the Electric Pig project.
But does it matter that creatives find inspriration on YouTube? In Oasis' pomp, Noel Gallagher proudly noted that he stole most of his ideas from the Beatles. The Rolling Stones started out overtly and publicly trying to mimic Southern Blues artists like Muddy Waters. Visual artists and novelists are also proud to identify the origins of their ideas.
Perhaps these other creative types understand that there is little that's absolutely original in the world, and instead try to move the good ideas that exist just one step further. Or mix two existing ideas together to produce something new.
However, unlike pure artists whose work needs to stand in it's own right, we are commercial artists who use ideas to promote and sell our client's products.
Is it right to hold ourselves to a higher level of creative accountability? Is the 'it's been done' argument a reach for higher standards or nothing more than self-indulgent creative naval-gazing? Should we be less concerned about where an idea comes from, and put more thought into making sure it achieves what marketing objectives it is meant to?
There are 20 hours of content uploaded to YouTube every minute, let alone other video sharing sites like Vimeo. If we discount all of this, what are we left with?

There might be something in this social media after all.

2009-06-01T23:26:00.002+10:00

Last week, Russia's Digital Sky Technologies paid US $200 million for a tad less than 2% of Facebook, valuing the social network site at $10 billion. Which sounds like a lot while argument still rages about Facebook's lack of ability to carry advertising or deliver sustained, mass-market advertising results. But what the Ruskis might have worked out, that most of us have not, is that Facebook represents not just another medium to flog a sales message, but rather a tell-tale of how technology is changing the way companies communicte with their customers. A smarter man than me explains it all here.

Don't do it Jana!

2009-05-25T18:46:00.003+10:00

Station promos in Australia are generally extremely persuasive commercials for the immediate abolition of the entities they're supposed to promote. My personal low-point was seeing hitherto-respected Jana Wendt sing cabaret with Ray Martin to flog another year of 9. WHY JANA WHY? At least ITV here are trying.

Brand Kings Cross Clare

2009-05-22T17:23:00.003+10:00

Last Saturday night, there was a shooting in Kings Cross, Sydney.

This in itself is not unusual. People are, and often ought to be, shot in the Cross all the time.

What did catch the eye was the magnificent TV interview with an eyewitness, Clare.

In a few, beautifully short sentences, Clare etched herself into the memories of millions.

Less than a week later, she has 10000 facebook fans, 100,000 Youtube hits and a PR Agent.

Some have even questioned whether or not Clare is real, or just an elaborate PR stunt. Which is either a barometer of the underemployment of industry commentators, or a low-water mark in the histroy of marketing.

She has come to mean something.

Clare from Kings Cross is now a brand. As one YouTube commentator said 'hot,but bogan'.

The Hole Card.

2009-05-12T16:21:00.006+10:00

A mob of ex-TBWA-ers have started up a online social group for bright people who've been laid off due to the GFC. By posting their old business cards online (altered to refelect their newly liberated state of mind), they put themselves out there for collaboration and/or employment. Some of the sentiments are really inspiring. I hope for many, this'll be the start of much better things. Was for me.

More new work

2009-05-06T20:21:00.005+10:00

New campaign for new generation Mazda 3, through CHE Melbourne. Other credits to Stephen Fisher, Ian Bear, Georgina Toole and director Michael Spiccia. Special effects by FIN.

How Twitter can help move mass markets

2009-05-06T10:08:00.006+10:00

What's the quickest way to get a new product to a mass market? Put it on Oprah!
On today's show she's decided to feed America, with a free coupon for a new kind of KFC grilled chicken downloadable from her website.
Right now the Twitterverse is abuzz with people talking about the offer, the chicken, whether grilled is less fattening than fried, how to download the coupon, how long the queues are outside the stores.
People are actually talking about KFC and shifting their perceptions of the brand.
Which fits in with the line for the new grilled chicken: Unthink KFC. Brilliant.

The making of Radiohead's 'House Of Cards'

2009-05-05T22:35:00.008+10:00

I personally found the video for Radiohead's House of Cards, directed by James Frost, a bit like their music; undoubtedly original, not easy to enjoy and lives with you for a long while afterwards.
Frost's idea was that everything around us in the world is data, so instead of filming with cameras, the promo was shot entirely by lasers and scanners.
Admittedly, when I saw first saw it on TV, it didn't do much for me.
But the song and the film resonated more when I watched the 'making of'.
Which begs the question; should the music video be able to stand on it's own (it does have 6 million hits on YouTube) or is the depth of the experience provided by the 'making of' a legitimate part of the whole communication?
Thom Yorke's band were one of the first to understand the emergence of the digital music business model. Fans were invited to download their 2007 album In Rainbows and pay as they saw fit for it, using free or discounted music as advertising for upcoming music tours.
They probably know what they're doing.

Radio Pink

2009-05-01T17:54:00.004+10:00

Austereo have announced the launch of a digital radio station completely dedicated to Pink. Songs, interviews, songs from her favourite artists.
The launch of the station will coincide with her Funhouse tour to Australia in May, and continue fof 3 months.
What's really neat about this is that fans choose to listen to the station (online or with digital radios) to deepen their relationship with their favourite artist.
But Pink is a brand, with the same marketing imperatives and challenges as many others. With the sharp decline in CD sales as a way of making money, artists now make the bulk of their income through touring and merchandising sales.
What better way to promote your tour, and your branded products, than through a dedicated media channel?
Cleverly handled, this could also provide opportunities for other brands.
Imagine Kia having a dedicated channel during the Australian Open. Billabong over the long summer holidays. Moet or Yellowglen over the Mlebourne Spring Carnival. Holden over the duration of the V8 Supercar season.
Thousands of people choosing to immerse themselves in your brand for hours at a time.
Much better than shouting at them over 30 seconds when they're trying to watch the news.

The power of music.

2009-04-16T23:09:00.005+10:00

The late Paul Arden once said that music is 50% of your script. Monty Propps' treatment of the Diff'rent Strokes titles proves it.

“Man’s greatest fear is not being inadequate, but powerful beyond measure”

2009-04-16T22:39:00.004+10:00

There is a place for every brand in the universe, if only it has the courage to be something. Even if that brand's name is Joel Bauer.

New Work (sort of)

2009-04-14T22:13:00.007+10:00

Our good friends at Fenton Stephens scored an invite on the Gruen Transfer. The brief? To sell synchronised swimming as a participant sport to teenage boys. Last count on the Gruen website had the Fenton boys as clear winners.

0.25% Compassion.

2009-04-08T23:13:00.009+10:00

Every now and then we get asked to prepare an advertising campaign for a bank and generally the marketing problem is the same; 'people think we're money-grubbing pricks'.

Now partly this is a perception issue; banks do perform an essential function in society and do a lot of good. But the rest of the time, they have a tendency to behave like, well, money-grubbing pricks.

It's something they don't like to hear.

Take yesterday's interest rate cut by the Reserve Bank. To manage the ravages of the global financial crisis, in a climate of crumbling industry and lost jobs, the governers of the nation's monetary policy decide to reduce interest rates by 0.25%.

The aim of this policy was to reduce the financial pressure on households and get them spending again, to speed the economic recovery.

This event was widely reported, and the nation's families were eagerly anticipating the cut.

And the reponse of the banks? To keep most if not all of the cut as profit. Westpac, ANZ and CBA passed on just 0.1% of the cut while NAB passed on nothing at all.

The RBA fired it's best shot in the locker, only to see it almost entirely absorbed into the bottom lines of the Big Four banks, who've taken advantage of the GFC by buying up smaller lending institutions and consolidating their oligopoly on home mortgages.

The recession, and the near-perfect exchange of information enabled by the internet, has made this high-handed behaviour unacceptable to the modern consumer. As the article in the Economist says, it's compassion that people are looking for in brands now, not vaucous statements.

If you're going to behave this way, why bother running ads like the one below? You're treating your customers as less than stupid. And in the end, your bank's brand will be the one to pay.

It's more important to be interesting than right*.

2009-04-07T13:04:00.004+10:00

Wouldn't it be great if your advertising idea was so interesting, that people would want to watch it, not just in the ad breaks but in the program too? (See the original Cadbury 'Eyebrows' ad here).

(*Thanks to Richard Huntington for this assembly of words.)

Change your tone, or change what you do?

2009-04-07T12:13:00.006+10:00

Just as the Federal Treasury was printing Kevvie's $900 cheques, there was an article in yesterday's Financial Review about adopting the right tone of voice in your marketing (I'd offer up a link, but the AFR make you pay to view. Sorry).

Industry luminaries talked about whether you acknowledge the recession, or pretend it wasn't happening. The AJF Partnerships 'Times are tough. But Australians and Holden are tougher.' got a mention, as did the simple pleasure of Cadbury's 'Gorilla'.

It makes sense to take the GFC into account when plotting our strategies, but I'm thinking that maybe people are after a bit more substance from their marketing messages. Wanting to see something that's actually different, rather than the same thing painted a different colour.

Holden didn't actually change the build of their car to suit the times, nor did Cadbury alter the formula of Dairy Milk. But when Hyundai found new car sales plummetting in the US, they actually altered the substance of what they did.

Uncertainty about job security was leading many Americans to put off getting a new car, so Hyundai created Hyundai Assurance.

Essentially, if you lose your job within 12 months of leasing a new Hyundai, they'll let you out of it and take the car back. Covering up to $7,500 in negative value.

Sure there's a bunch of fine print, and no doubt there will be folk who miss out, but as a brand statement-wow!

Even if you weren't in the market right now, or even if Hyundai isn't your brand, you can't help but admire the audacity of the move and the understanding of where their customers are at.

Not too hard to write a compelling ad to that proposition.

How to not write copy.

2009-04-02T15:34:00.006+11:00

Flicking through the Good Weekend last Saturday, I came across this ad for the HTC Touch smart phone. It caught my eye because it is so painfully wrong in so many excruciating ways.

The layout is dreadful (seven shots of the same phone and a target market Gen Y-er in his Dad's jacket), two or three pointless headlines and two logos specifically placed to confuse and disorientate the reader.

But as a copywriter, it was the words that really hurt me.

I'm no expert, but I understand that the HTC is actually a pretty good phone.

But being a touch-screen 3G gadget it's playing in a sandpit dominated by iPhone. So this ad should be weaving a pretty convincing argument as to why I should shun that beloved device and choose something that looks liken every other phone in the Telstra shop.

So how did they go?

Let's start with the headline;

'HTC TOUCH 3G. THE POWER & THE PASSION!'

Hmmm...the 'power' here helpfully explains that the Touch runs on electricity, not steam or uranium like other, less modern telephones. A quick scan of the ad doesn't reveal where the 'passion' comes from unless it refers to the Gen-Y'er, by whose glazed smile we can presume is watching downloaded Japanese porn on his 2.8-inch screen.

Look if you're going to have one, the headline is where you set out the stall of your argument.

HTC's biggest brand issues are that;

(a) nobody knows anything about them

(b) it runs on Windows, which everyone loathes, and

(c) it's not an iPhone

This headline adressed none of this and was a waste of 1.23 seconds of my Saturday morning.

To the first line of copy;

'HTC, one of the world's leading designers and manufacturers of smart phones, brings you the Touch 3G, a phone that combines their innovative TouchFLO interface technology with the awesome power of 3G.'

Crap. Until six months ago nobody outside the industry had ever heard of HTC, and most still haven't.

A quick Google reveals it to be a Korean company that made its name making components for other phone companies.

HTC stands for 'High Tech Computers', a name that conjures up a dusty PC shop off the Oakleigh high street before a global colossus striding the smartphone stage.

And bin the self-adulation; 'world's leading', 'innovative', awesome'. That is your puffed-up opinion of yourself, not a fact that will persuade the equivocating buyer.

Next;

'The category-HTC Touch 3G (no, the iPhone defines it) powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional (I hate Windows on my computer, why would I want it on my phone?) takes your touch experience to the next level (there's that puffed-uppiness again).'

'With next-generation TouchFLO (if it's next generation, how can this generation have it? Waste of words), voice and text communications (you know, talking to people), web browsing and media playing are now more intuitive than ever before (how? How? Are you going to tell me? No.).

The touch-reponsive interface of Touch 3G is designed to respond perfectly to finger gestures (yes, it's a touch screen, you've already said that) helping you navigate seamlessly through contacts, media and web pages with speed and precision (so it doesn't take you to the wrong places, slowly? Wow!).

Look, there's a whole other paragraph of this rubbish and I can't be bothered going though it all. But it doesn't get any better.

If you're going to interrupt somebody's Saturday morning with a wad of words, try to make it something useful or funny or informative.

Tell me why Windows is better for a phone that OS/X. Give me the ammunition that will persuade my friends at the pub that this is cooler than an iPhone.

Tell my why HTC are better at making smart phones than Apple.

George Orwell once raged agains words that were mindlessly erected into sentences, 'like pre-fabricated henhouses'. Lord help any battery chook that has to live in this.

People like stories.

2009-03-31T17:19:00.006+11:00

Adidas recently launched House Party, a new campaign celebrating 60 years of decking the world out out in triple stripe.

Directed by Nima Nourizadeh, the centrepiece is a 160 second long spot shot at a (you guessed it) house party where everyone’s dressed in adidas. In amongst the beautiful plebs are celebs like David Beckahm, Missy Elliot, Katy Perry, and behind the bar shaking Martinis a very unlikely Ilie Nastase.

For a campaign that ends with the line 'Celebrate Originality', it's not a terrifically original idea. (Check out this Coke ad from the 70s; instead of Becks, they've got Brocky!) But it is a nice vehicle that uses online and offline spaces to build the idea nicely.

As well as the Big Telly execution, there's a YouTube channel packed with extra content like the invitations going out, Becks and Kevin Garnett killing time before the party and a paint fight at a Ting-Tings gig. Even a Simpsons parody. Naturally, there's a website where you can buy all the gear.

It's all hopelessly self-conscious and tries a bit too hard. But the track's infectious and there's a lazy, veging-on-the-couch kind of charm about it. Best of all, it all fits and there's a story that adds up to more than the sum of its parts. It piques the curiousity, egging you onto further exploration, unlike Smart Energy's 'Zoetrope' spot which starts with a nice positioning before undoing all its good work.

Genius or accident? Cadbury Gorilla meet Johnny Farnham.

2009-03-25T21:41:00.007+11:00

Last night, while watching the gyrating mammary parade that is 'Underbelly' my wife and I saw the Cadbury 'Gorilla' ad, local version. Instead of Phil Collins' 'In The Air Tonight', the popular primate twirls the sticks to Johnny Farhham's 'You're the Voice'. From it's launch in the UK in 2007, this ad has caused controversy, and the result was no different in our household. "What's that got to do with chocolate?" chocolate-loving Mrs Baker said from the sofa, "What rubbish!" The truth is, it has everything everything and nothing to do with the stuff. Chocolate is of course, all about chocolate. But it is also about joy and sharing, and this ad is nothing if not all about these two qualities. YouTube proliferates with home-made remixes (check out the Deep Purple cover), the Gorilla facebook page has more than 100,00 friends, while the old-school broadcast version is still provocative enough to generate discussion on the Baker family couch. But did it work? In the UK, sales were up after a bleak year for the company, while the campaign scooped the pool at all the creative award shows. Working in advertising agencies, we sell our clients on process and rigour, as if funding enough focus groups and territory boards was a guarantee for market success. Sometimes it does, often it doesn't. But this campaign works, just because it does. Rather than telling you what to feel about the product, it simply makes you feel it. And that's rather nice, isn't it?

Joy. What else do you want?

2009-03-18T18:34:00.004+11:00

There's not enough joy in the world. Here's a little more. If I was with this phone company, I'd feel a lot better about it.

The power of posters?

2009-03-17T18:52:00.004+11:00

There's an outdoor site where they hang 24-sheet posters just around from where we work in Melbourne. It's on a busy corner, and there's room for about 5 diferent posters.
Now, due to the GFC, the outdoor advertising market is having a bit of a tough time, and the same posters, presumably on a 2-3 month buy have been up for 6 months or more.
Last week they were torn down, presumably because the bean counters frothed at the mouth about clients getting something for free.
So now, instead of a corner of five well-produced posters, there's a wall of scrappy half-torn, half-glued paper.
Now, presumably when the sales team are out there trying to sell outdoor to their cash-strapped clients, they talk of visibility and passing traffic and brand impressions.
Let's then presume that the half-convinced client then drives past this highly visible site...hmmmmm.
If you spend your life trying to convince others of the persuasive powers of outdoor, use the medium to sell itself.
If you have no paying clients, show work of good photographers or artists. Tell a joke. Start a competition to best use the vacant space. Get people talking about your product.
Anything but this.
Because when the recovery starts, you're already behind the curve.

RailCorp: dill of the week.

2009-03-06T18:06:00.006+11:00

In case nobody noticed, the game has changed. Companies and corporations are no longer the custodians of their brands, their customers are. Marketing managers and advertising professionals don't get to decide what a brand is, and what it is not. What we get to do is divine what people will or will not permit us to be, and then be that to the best of our ability. Which makes NSW's RailCorp the dill of the week. When a bright young spark created an application to allow commuters to check on Sydney's (notoriously unreliable) timetable on their iPhones, the Bureaucrats got all medieval on his ass. Legal letters were issued, threats to sue were made. After mumbling some crap about timetables being 'copyright', the government institution then issued other threats against makers of similar applications. No doubt a shiny new TVC will be out soon extolling the virtues of the Sydney rail system, and how grateful Emerald Citysiders ought to be that 90-something percent of their services run on time. Which will only rub salt into the would of the poor viewer who's just got home an hour late. Despite what lawyers might say, marketers and corporations don't own the 'copyright' to their brand attributes. The public can withdraw it just as fast as they give it.

You do not own your brand, your customers do.

2009-03-05T22:09:00.006+11:00

For decades, brands like Bonds, Stubbies and King Gee have had a special place in the Australian heart.
From Chesty Bond to Steve Irwin, the iconic blue singlet, the front-pocketed short, the faded khaki work shirt became something close to revered.
They had managed to become part of the national identity.
Then they were bought, sold, amalgamated and floated. Local factories were closed and the manufacturing was shifted to places where labour costs were inevitably less. It all made perfect business sense, yet today people marched the streets against the 'owners' of these brands. The same people have been condemned by the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader.
The CEO of the company has been pilloried in the popular press and the stockmarket has punished the company by valuing the entire Pacific Brands entity at less than one of it's mid-sized brands.
All successful brands are a mix of personal passion, happy accident and commodity. when you forget about the first two, all you're left with is the last. The consumer's gift to Pacific Brands was the ability to run campaigns like the one shown. Now, it seems, they've asked for it back.

A Promise Kept.

2009-01-21T22:02:00.005+11:00

'A promise kept'. It's the best definition of a brand that I've heard. And the man that has taken brand to a new level was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America this morning (Melbourne time). President Barack H. Obama's campaigns for both the Democratic nomination and the Presidency rewrote the rules of political marketing, and provides the definitive case study of communicating a seamless brand across both broadcast and digital media. The Obama brand, if there was an accurate way of measuring it, would surely be amongst the most valuable on the planet at this moment. How much it is worth in four years' time will depend on his ability to keep the difficult promises he has made. I hope, for all of us, that he does.

TV isn't dead, it just has a nasty cough

2009-01-16T21:37:00.013+11:00

It's 9.50 on a Friday night and I'm captivated by a one-day cricket match between Australia and South Africa. SA need 14 runs with 13 balls to go. It's broadcast in Channel 9, with a single, good old-fashioned 30-second ad between overs. With the entertainment on offer, I'd imagine the audience will be sitting happily through them.
But what happens when the entertainment isn't quite so good? As is often, if not usually, the case?
If you're an ad-blog junkie like me, you'll read a lot about the death of broadcast media. How the TV stations are toast and newspapers a quaint throwback. It's all RSS, YouTube and podcasts these days, don't you know.
But there are moments, like this game tonight, where the broadcast medium can prove it still has its moments. And doubts remain over digital's ability to move mass markets on its own.
So while TV isn't quite as dead as some would like it to be, it appears that digital isn't quite grown up enough to step into the breach just yet.
For creative people like us it presents a particular challenge; it's not enough to invent ideas that work for either broadcast or digital. You must invent ideas that work for both.
An idea that works well on television but is unitelligible online ignores the new consumer reality. But a solo digital idea can simply get lost in an ocean of limited time and unlimited choice.
Do such ideas exist? Of course they do. And if you're not getting them you should be asking your agency why not.

Our Cate.

2008-12-11T22:58:00.003+11:00

Able & Baker have been working with our good friends at Al Gore's Climate Project and the Australian Conservation Fourndation to create the Connectors. It's a national social network of over 800 Climate Project Connectors, each of whom will instigate a locally based project to help reduce the impact of Climate change. We're working to have more than a thousand of these projects up and running by the beginning of the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December next year. This'll not only do it's bit for carbon emissions, but also build a bank of good behaviour-chaning ideas that can be accessed by the rest of the country and the world. The Connectors program was kicked off with a national series of screenings of the documentary Telling The Truth, hosted by Able & Baker's favourite Bob Dylan, Cate Balnchett.

Two monkeys and an old jam jar.

2008-12-10T13:16:00.006+11:00

Able and Baker fancied a latte yesterday, and swung down from their plush Flinders Lane digs to Federation square to check out The Greenhouse. Built in just a couple of weeks by Melbourne flower artist Joost, the idea was to help us understand the unsustainability of many of the things we consume by providing sustainable alternatives.

The building itself is made of old strawbales and recyclable steel, coffee is served in old jam jars and the seats that become stools that become coffee tables are to build from discarded shipping crates.

The rooftop is covered in vegies grown in old milk crates which go straight to the kitchen. The outdoor furniture appears to be made of old billboard skins and road signs.

The Greenhouse won't single-handedly save the planet. But at the table next to Able & Baker's, a gaggle of ladies in their 60s teased their friend for refusing to drink out of a jam jar. They were talking about sustainability, recyclability and the life-cycle of objects. Which they would not have done had they been sitting in Gloria Jean's.

A special space-monkey clap for Joost and his chums at bttb (Bigger Than Ten Bears).

At the end of January, The Greenhouse will be dissembled, apparently leaving not a single trace of waste. Rumour has it that it will resurface somewhere else, possibly next year’s Milan Furniture Fair

Tata to Commodore and Falcon?

2008-12-08T15:33:00.004+11:00

Earlier this year, an Indian manufacturer launched the Tata Nano at the New Delhi Auto Expo.

The Nano is the cheapest production car in the world, selling for about US$2300.

It makes car ownership available to people who could never before dream of such a thing.

The Nano will grow the Indian car market by an estimated 65%. Cars can be shipped in parts and assembled by local entrepreneurs, creating a whole new class of business-owners and bypassing the traditional dealer network.

And the same time, Able and Baker's colleagues in multinational ad agencies up and down St Kilda Road are scratching their heads on how to sell Holden Commodores and Ford Falcons that fewer and fewer Australians want.

Sales in this segment fell 21% in November alone.

Australian car dealers are now dependent on government handouts to stay open.

One car creates a market for itself. The other two fight over one that is dying.

Perhaps our creative friends will pull something out of their hats and create a compelling case for Ford and Holden. But you can be certain the Nano will sell itself.

Serendipity and the effect of girls.

2008-12-04T22:35:00.002+11:00

Able was out on the front lawn this evening, enjoying a glass of Mt Difficulty pinot noir, and happened upon his neighbour.

His neighbour is about to be married, and her sister was over from Oregon for the occassion. Able got chatting, only to find that said neighbour's sister worked for the Nike Foundation and worked on The Girl Effect.

Able clapped his little rhesus monkey hands, as it one of he and Baker's all-time favourite ideas.

What's nice about it is the appropriate invisibility of Nike. Their sweaty pawprints aren't all over the spot or the program. The Nikeness is only there if you look for it.
Or if someone tells you. Which Able thinks is really nice.

Unlike Starbucks, who ripped of the idea shamelessly but got all heavy-handedly focus groupy ROI on it.