Graphic goodness on the iPhone

In the last couple of weeks I’ve downloaded a couple of iPhone apps that have seriously blown me away. And I thought it might be a good idea to share them.

The first is TiltShiftGen. It automatically creates beautiful TiltShift miniaturisations that look incredible. It doesn’t feel like your usual iPhone app – it feels a lot more professional. The interface is lovely and really easy to use.  And as a poor example of what it can do, here’s a shot of my twitter alterego @ImLondonBridge:

If this is the kind of thing you’d like to play with, you can get it here for a measly 59 pence. And you can see better shots on Nathan’s blog here.

The second app that I’m loving big time is Sketchbook Mobile. It’s an iPhone version of Autodesk’s Sketchbook Pro application and it’s just incredible. It’s got layers, can integrate photography and seems to have the uncanny ability to make you draw better than you can with actual pen and paper. Here’s a 3 minute self portrait I did when I was testing it out:

There’s a free version of this to try out first. But for a paltry £1.79 I recommend upgrading to the full version. You can get it here.

This stuff has excited me because it feels as if the iPhone is moving from just games and simple widgety things to running full-on applications. I’m looking forward to seeing what other wonderful things pop up in the next few months.

Get ready for a brand explosion

Oh dear.

Our British TVs have been kept clear of product placement for years. But that’s all about to change. Broadcasters (except the BBC) are being given the go-ahead to make money out of putting products in shot.

The good news is that it means our broadcasters will be able to raise more money for their programming. The bad news is that some of them are so desperate they’ll probably go overboard in an attempt to bring in the cash. Fortunately I don’t really watch the goggle box very much.

Read more about it here.

The experiment is out of control

I don’t know if any of you have been following my Twitter experiment @ImLondonBridge. Probably not, because I’ve not really announced it on the blog. In fact, I’ve not really said anything on the blog for the last couple of months.

Sorry about that. I’ve been a bit busy!

So, anyway, I started up a Twitter account for London Bridge to compete with Tower Bridge’s automated tweets. In the last couple of months it’s kind of taken on a life of its own and it’s taught me a good few lessons about social media. I think I’ll share some of those lessons in a later post but I felt I should tell you about it now that it’s hit the mainstream media.

Read about what’s been happening in the Telegraph.

A revolution in sound

Last night I watched a whole bunch of TED films to make a dull train journey go faster. And this film astounded me. Woody Norris demonstrates a whole new way of dealing with sound. Instead of using a speaker cone to push air molecules around in an unfocused way, he uses predictable disturbances in the air to deal with sound in a very focused way. He’s a bit mad and unfocused himself – but what he demonstrates is quite astounding. Especially for a former sound engineer like myself. Have a look:

What’s hot in the digisphere

I know. ‘Digisphere’. I just made that up. Crap, isn’t it?

But if you want good stuff, have a look at the Cannes Cyberlions finalists. There’s a lot of stuff in there that I wish I’d done. And not enough that I did do. Very inspiring. And unfortunately I’m not there to share champagne with the winners.

Go look! Click on the image below:

(Good luck with Balloonacy Poke!)

I got a new iPhone! And I’m going to do stuff with it.

Wow! This video was sooooo simple to do. I just took the film, trimmed a crappy bit off the end, and clicked a button to upload it directly to YouTube. That was it. I’m kind of stunned at how well it worked (and a bit embarrassed that I’m putting up a video of me!)

Who needs a website when you’ve got YouTube?

I love this un-website by BooneOakley. They’ve simply used the interactivity of YouTube to make a very sweet online home for their agency. I bet it’s going to attract lots of copyists. They must be chuffed to bits with all the comments of praise beneath the videos. Well done folks!

Didn’t ads used to be great

My fellow Ogilvanian, Colin Nimick, pointed me towards this ad a couple of days ago. (It was apparently on the front page of Campaign and I’d missed it because I’m so vain and self-interested that I skipped straight to the article about me!) This is a peculiar ad because it’s an ad about ads. It’s there to tell people how great TV advertising is. However, it seems to say how great TV advertising was. I don’t think there’s anything in there from this side of the millenium. And I can’t think of many recent ads that will have the same kind of cultural impact. However, still a nice piece of film to watch. Enjoy!

Controller-free gaming from Xbox

Wii started it all by making the movement of a controller within an environment a way of controlling the action. Now Xbox are taking it one step further by doing away with the need for a controller completely. The stuff in here seems pretty fictional but the principal looks good. Keep your eye on this one.

Thanks to Leighton

An advertising lesson from TED

Another fantastic film from TED on how people make decisions. A must watch for all copywriters, I reckon.

Greetings to my new Ogilvy family

This morning I’m starting in my new role as Creative Head at OgilvyOne.

So I’d like to take this opportunity to say hello to all my new Ogilvy brethren (and sistern). I’m looking forward to getting to know all of you. Please pop by and say hello.

I just hope no one steals my lunch money or gives me a wedgie in the boys’ toilets.

“suspended due to strange activity”

I went along to Twitter this afternoon to broadcast more inane drivvel and was given this message. The ’strange activity’ they were referring to was some Russian twat hacking into my account to promote his own pathetic video of car crashes. Grrrr.

That’s the second time in a week I’ve had an account hacked into. Some nefarious ne’erdowell in the Niger hacked into my Skype account last week and spent all my credit. Skype then blamed me and refused to give me my money back. Double grrrr.

I hope I have more luck with Twitter.

What’s Russian for ‘wanker’?

Are ad agencies producing the right ideas?

Over the last few years, as I’ve been doing more and more digital work, I’ve been regularly asked to create digital extensions of above-the-line campaigns. But very often the concept you’re given just doesn’t work online, so you end up having to move it in a different direction or have to rely on borrowed interest. Admittedly some nice ideas can come out of that but it isn’t true integration. And the problem doesn’t just apply to digital – it applies to all campaigns that extend across more than one media channel.

So if we’re to make our campaigns integrate better and work harder, I believe we need a different approach to creative ideas.

For the purpose of this rant, I’m going to make a sweeping generalisation and split advertising into the two categories of Broadcast Ideas and Participation Ideas.

The ‘listen to me’ route

Broadcast Ideas are ones that only travel in a single direction: from the ad to the audience. There is no invitation for the audience to get involved (other than potentially going out to buy the product). This sums up the majority of advertising concepts. Admittedly some of these can go viral or become part of popular culture – but that’s usually by accident rather than on purpose. (For example the Ferrero Rocher ‘Ambassador ad and the Citroen dancing car ad.) However, even on the lucky occasions that this happens, it still doesn’t help with creating an integrated campaign.

The ‘it’s all about you’ route

Participation Ideas are the ones that encourage people to get involved. And I’m not just talking about digital here – it’s nothing new. Jingles might be out of fashion now but they were a way of getting the ad into people’s heads. I remember running around the playground singing the words to the ‘Um bungo‘ ad and the ‘Shake and Vac‘ ad. Moving beyond the embarrassment of turning your ad into a crappy song, there was the Orange Tango Man that resulted in perforated eardrums up and down the country. And regardless of what I think of them, Fallon’s Cadbury ads come from this camp. A modern cliché has been coined to describe this stuff: it’s ‘earned media rather than paid media’.

A bit of a disclaimer

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that all advertising campaigns need to be participatory. Some campaigns are just about getting a message out there. DFS will still need to simply tell people about their summer sale. Tesco will still need to get rid of their surplus stock by telling punters about their 3 for 2 offers. But if the marketing plan includes an element of digital engagement, this needs to be considered from the very start and be addressed in the initial concepts. Otherwise the campaign becomes disparate, punters get an unfocused message and the client doesn’t get value for money.

What has your experience been? Have you seen any good examples of proper integration? Or do you have any good suggestions on how to improve the situation? All opinions gratefully received.

What’s not to like?

I love films that are done in one long take.

I love French pop music.

And I love beautiful girls without clothes.

So this French music video made me very happy indeed.

The news is out

It’s official – I’ve just read it on Brand Republic – I’m joining OgilvyOne as the Digital Creative Head.

I’m pretty damn excited about it, to tell you the truth. It’s a massive role with a lot of responsibility and a remit to get the agency ready for the future. And the strange thing is that OgilvyOne was my first job in London nearly 15 years ago.

You can read more about what the very lovely Colin Nimick has to say about me right here.

Roll on Monday! (Is that a line for a deodorant ad?)

Big news on the way

I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog recently because there’s been so much happening in my life. In the strange way that life has of bringing you good stuff and bad stuff in clumps, I’ll be announcing a couple of things in the next week or two. And this is a good clump.

Exciting!

For me.

Maybe just a bit of self-congratulatory piffle to you.

You know I’ve got a thing about faces

I discovered this awesome site a couple of days ago where some dude has collected faces hidden in Google Maps. He’s clearly had a bit much time on his hands but it’s wonderful nonetheless. If you’ve got a similar hidden faces fixation, go and have a look at his stuff.

12 Faces of Google Earth

Advertising and Digital go together like Lego and Sticklebricks

Partly because of the current economic situation and partly because it’s looooong overdue, I’ve noticed a number of traditional agencies trying to incorporate more digital into what they do. Some of these agencies have bought or merged with a digital agency in the effort to broaden their skills. And others are trying to hire digital people for inhouse digital facilities. As yet, I haven’t seen anyone doing it quite the way I think it should be done and I foresee issues with their efforts.

These issues lie in quite fundemental differences between the advertising and digital industries. And I thought it might be worth pointing out some of the main areas of conflict.

What does it say on your business card?

Strange one this. In advertising a Planner is a Planner, a Copywriter is a Copywriter and a Typographer is a Typographer. Job titles are standardised and the way work moves between departments is similar wherever you go. Not so with digital. The same person could be called an Art Director, Flash Designer, Interaction Director, Web Designer and a variety of other titles depending where they work. And the way work moves through the agencies is just as variable.

You need to understand it to sell it

Marketing works in siloes and it’s no surprise that companies sell-in the stuff they’re familiar with. If you give the same brief to different disciplines, it won’t be a shock when PR people recommend PR campaigns and Ad agencies recommend TV spots. So, the agency people with the client relationships need to be taught when to recommend digital, what to expect from the activity and all the other issues that go with it. Otherwise they will just recommend the stuff they understand and the digital resource that’s been hired will end up doing unrewarding (and probably ineffective) adaptations of work done elsewhere in the agency.

You earn what?!

The industries have different pay scales. There’s a world of issues that go with that. And I’m not wanting to turn this blog into an HR rant. So I’ll cough politely and move on.

Just sit over there in the ‘digital corner’

If you take on digital people and don’t properly integrate them into the rest of the agency – or if you put the word ‘digital’ in front of their title – you create an us-and-them situation. Traditional people think they understand more about strategic communication. Digital people think they know more about personal engagement and the future of communication. And they’re both right. But creating a differentiation with job titles won’t help you integrate properly. These skills can and should be complimentary and by working together, you’ll get something better.

Know your audience

The main people to please in traditional media has always been the client. That’s because you’re dealing with media that you have total control over and an audience that is forced to consume it. With digital, the main people you have to please is the target audience. If you let the client put their logo up big and talk about their product in copy that’s been through a dozen rounds of approval, you create a perfectly branded digital space that nobody will every intentionally visit. You need to do what’s right for the media.

The finish line isn’t where you think it is

For traditional agencies, launching the work is the end of the process. That’s it. You’ve finished and you can move on to the next thing. Not so with digital. It’s usually the middle of the process for online stuff. You still need to iron out glitches, update it, manage it, adjust it and moderate it. And that can be a hell of a lot of work.

—

So if these are some of the issues, how do traditional agencies properly incorporate digital into what they do?

I think the current approach of ‘buying-in’ the skills is short-term in the extreme. It’s just another way of resisting the fundemental changes traditional agencies need to make. They actually need to train their staff. And they need to rethink the way they work internally. It’s not easy – but I think it’s the only sustainable way forward.

What do you think? Have you seen it done successfully already? Have you seen some disasters? Fill me in.

Introducing a new video ad format

I’ve just discovered a new video ad format called Twig. I can’t really comment on it until I see it in action properly – but the low down is:

- It takes the form of a narrow strip that’s locked to the top of the webpage.

- If you hover over the bar for a couple of seconds it takes over the page  to play you a video.

- You can close the bar at any time to regain those 10 pixels or so at the top of the page.

On first impression, it seems to be a bit more considerate for the user. But my concern is that agencies who just don’t ‘get it’ will simply use it as another place to put their high-budget TV ad. And that’s just not what the web’s about. If this format (or any other video format) is to work properly, agencies need to give viewers something a lot more rewarding than a bog-standard TV spot.

You can see a little demo of Twig right here.

A Bible lesson for Creatives

*** Disclaimer ***
Don’t worry, I’m not going to preach at you – I’m happily agnostic and this bible verse is only here to illustrate a point. Hallelujah!

Over the years I’ve found myself chasing an unattainable creative goal. And I don’t think I’m the only one to fall  into this  fruitless trap. You see I was cursed with noble ideal of originality. And it’s only in recent times that I’ve come to accept that this is a truly impossible goal (and, if you believe the scriptures, King Solomon worked this out a few thousand years before me). But please don’t get me wrong – I’m not turning to creative theft (there’s enough of that in the industry already). I’ve just adjusted my goals to aim for something far more realistic and attainable.

My goals are now:

• Be innovative
• Be authentic

Being innovative is very different to being original. Originality is about doing something that no one’s ever done before – pissing on fresh intellectual snow, as it were. Innovation is about recombining things in a fresh way – taking various bits of yellow snow to construct something new. OK, that was a bad metaphor. Sorry. Most importantly, innovation is also focused on solving problems, which is our job after all.

Authenticity is a different matter altogether – and seems to be the thing that pisses me off most about a lot of advertising. If you’ve been influenced by something, you need to make sure that you’ve not betrayed its roots (this is what seemed to irritate people most about the T-mobile ‘flashmob’). You need to make sure that you’ve done something new with it. And  you should also make sure that your brand has the relevance and social permission to use it.

Sadly, it’s taken me a long time to discover this. And, again, it seems that Jean-Luc Godard reached this conclusion a long time before I did when he said:

“It’s not where you take things from
- it’s where you take them to”

Sermon over. Amen.