Monthly Archives: May 2012

QR codes come to those who wait…?

By May 28 2012, 5:46 pm Comments Off

Did you see this? It is a QR code that only appears when the pint of Guinness is full – a concept created by BBDO NY.

I saw this and thought it was very cool.

The effectiveness and reach of QR codes came up as a question at a recent Brand Republic conference I attended.  The general consensus amongst advertisers seemed to be that they didn’t yet elicit significant usage or uptake.  Many find them useful as a PR tool, when they are linked to something different – like the example above. Read more »

Data v Emotion: A Media360 Thriller

By May 23 2012, 8:45 am Comments Off

Ogilvy's rory sutherlandThe lowdown from your ringside civilian reporter…

It was like watching two heavyweights slug it out over an epic 15-round bout at this year’s Media360.

In the red corner, the champion fighter, Sugar Ray Emotion.

This is the established warrior of the marketing world, weaving stories into advertising campaigns that are wonderful enough to make grown men cry (see John Lewis) or make airlines pimp up their wings (hello, British Airways).  Suger Ray was old school, preaching stories for brands that float from the gut of Creativity and sting with real Emotion.

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Facebook dominates online global conversation about marketing and advertising

By May 17 2012, 2:08 pm Comments Off

As the great and the good gather for the ninth annual Media360 Conference today, joint research by PR consultancy Braben and business intelligence company Polecat using its virtual analyst software MeaningMine shows over 35,000 articles on marketing and advertising around the world have been published online so far in 2012.

That averages out to over 8,300 articles every month and nearly 300 every day. Such a large amount of discussion just goes to show how the media business is never far from the headlines on a minute by minute basis. The MeaningMine platform crunches through 1.5m online and social media postings every day to track this in real-time. Read more »

The future of C4 and Facebook was on ITV this week

By May 16 2012, 6:35 pm Comments Off

Neil Hughes from 56 Up

This week saw the latest instalment of The Up Series.  Originally commissioned by Granada television in 1965, Up is a documentary series that has followed the lives of 14 people from the age of 7, returning to each of them every seven years to see how they and their lives have changed (or not).

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Bring X-Factor style voting to AGMs

By May 14 2012, 5:13 pm 1 Comment

The AGM, sometimes referred to as the “annual geriatrics’ moan” or more commonly “annual general meeting”, is suddenly becoming something of a place to be -an event where scalped big earning chief executives are paraded in front of angry shareholders as penance for years of over-indulgent remuneration amidst falling profits.

It never used to be the case; AGMs used to be a boreathon, where dividend, auditors and executive pay would be silently approved by corporate shareholders who could never be bothered to show up. Read more »

Chicken Soup for the Soul in a magazine

By May 14 2012, 9:01 am Comments Off

In the last few years you may have noticed how the global recession has impacted upon our collective psyche.  Whilst the nineties and noughties witnessed a throw-away society and mass consumerism recently a new consciousness has emerged – a ‘make-do-and-mend’ mentality and a return to frugality, dubbed ‘austerity chic’.  These phenomena have heralded a new popularity of old skills like sewing on buttons, darning socks and growing your own vegetables.

Media and celebrities have caught onto the trend through programmes like Kirstie Allsopp’s ‘Handmade Britain’ and ‘Homemade Home’ which extol the virtues of domesticity and show viewers how to make items such as decoupage tea lights and clay-baked gift tags.  The Duchess of Cambridge is a key exponent of this trend, recycling her hats and outfits and even swapping them with her mum. Read more »

A Song for Media – by Liam Mullins

By May 11 2012, 11:57 am 1 Comment

Listening to the radio this morning, I heard U2’s “It’s a beautiful day” and it kind of summed up my week.  Unlike last week’s earworm the Rolling Stones “I can’t get no satisfaction” which was far more relevant (and for once I don’t mean Mrs M).  It got me thinking in a far too Wogan-esque vein, that we should have soundtracks for our days, and more specifically we should have soundtracks for our job roles.  Read more »

Smart phone: dumb nation?

By May 10 2012, 6:39 pm Comments Off
Mobile Smart Phone PDA Blackberry Keyboard 01

Yesterday evening I was walking down a lane near my house and a man was coming towards me staring down into his mobile phone. I thought, “He will see me, he will see me.” Then I thought, “He won’t see me, he won’t see me.” I stopped and he didn’t. A quick “sorry” and he walked off resuming his downward gazing. Smart phones don’t make smart people it seems.

This got me thinking, which is always a worry. Around two in five adults in this country have a smartphone (Ipsos Technology Tracker) and the figure continues to grow; last year the devices started to outsell PCs (IDC). Three in five teenagers admit they are “highly addicted” to using smartphones, compared with 37% for adults (Ofcom). We cannot ignore the mobile generation, even if they do ignore other people on the pavement.

Internet access through mobile phones will eventually be the default setting for everyone. Mobile will be the one-stop shop for social interactions, finding, buying, selling, playing, watching and reading, and who knows even the odd phone call. Smart devices are not just about communication, they are our identity. They will even select music for you based on your pulse rate or location (not sure I want ‘I’m forever blowing bubbles’ when I’m in the bath).

We, as human beings and consumers, are changing with this technology. We don’t store information, we access it. We used to know a lot about a little, but now we know a little about a lot. That doesn’t necessarily make us smart though.

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My 5 Favourite Quotations

By May 9 2012, 7:10 am 1 Comment

Arnold Schwarzenegger: “I think gay marriage should be between a man and a woman” I’m a sucker for a good quotation. The best can make a point far more eloquently and concisely than I ever could, which is why I use them in my presentations all the time. Sometimes it may be historical figures – for example Henry Ford’s “a man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time” or Samuel Johnson’s famous quote about advertising overload (written in 1759).

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Falling in love with ads….Measuring that hair standing up tingle

By May 8 2012, 9:49 pm Comments Off

Anyone else catch “Ad Men” on Sky Atlantic?  Great to see our own legends of the small, and large screen, talking about how Ad Land developed, being influenced by the US industry, the creativity of the 70s through to the excesses of the 80s.  Favourite moment was Ridley Scott telling the story of when someone suggested as he was so great at making ads, he might consider making films.

And it was a great excuse to include many of our favourite ads pack into an hour.  From the BA “Face” ad to the Guinness Surfer, so many of the ads, did that very special thing of giving me a #Tingle.  You know that special feeling you get when something moves you and literally makes your hair stand up on end? Read more »

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