Words are powerful things. The mere act of learning a new one can send you down some fascinating lines of enquiry, about the very nature of our different media experiences. Read more on The power of touch for media touchpoints…
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Tag Archives: media
From Lincoln to Abbey Road – an outdoor media trip
Last night, Daniel Day-Lewis deservedly won the Best Actor BAFTA for his portrayal of President Lincoln. Indeed, 150 years ago this year, Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg (“four score and seven years ago”) address during the American Civil War. Closer to home, 1863 was also quite a year as two iconic English brands were born. The Football Association laid out a set of rules, which were first followed in a match between Barnes and Richmond (0-0 draw) and the very first journey on the London Underground took place between Paddington and Farringdon.
For what is a truly remarkable feat of Victorian engineering, we moan about the Tube a lot. We moan when they are late, on strike or when someone jumps in front of one. We moan when people force their way on before you have a chance to get off. We moan when people don’t move down the carriage to let people on or when the closing doors are squeezed open. But we smile when we read one of those Poems on the Underground or when the driver has a sense of humour. We feel good when the elderly or pregnant are offered a seat or an 80s pop star breaks into song. We also marvel at the Harry Beck designed map that is so pleasing on the eye (personally, I’m more fascinated by the equivalent geographically accurate Tube map).
Read more on From Lincoln to Abbey Road – an outdoor media trip…
Which came first, the chainsaw or the egg?
I’ve just finished chairing the media category for this years WPP awards celebrating creating excellence, the WPPed Creams (can you see what we did there?).
In the five years since their inception the number of entries into the media category has grown four fold and the number of different types of agencies has doubled. Every type of agency wants to be seen as media leaders, it is after all where the action is. Read more on Which came first, the chainsaw or the egg?…
Big (Data) is Beautiful
According to Google, there were 350 million YouTube videos shared on Twitter last year. Furthermore, 16% of Internet searches on a daily basis are new – i.e. words being typed into Google not seen before. These are just two examples of what we call “big data” that is, data collected via web or mobile analytics and not from traditional survey research. Read more on Big (Data) is Beautiful…
Data v Emotion: A Media360 Thriller
The 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.
Facebook dominates online global conversation about marketing and advertising
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 on Facebook dominates online global conversation about marketing and advertising…
A Song for Media – by Liam Mullins
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 on A Song for Media – by Liam Mullins…
Smart phone: dumb nation?
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.
My 5 Favourite Quotations
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).
Why do the Germans beat the Brits at media conferences?
I’ve just returned from Dusseldorf, where I presented the keynote speech at the German broadcasters’ ‘TV Effectiveness Day’ at the hugely impressive Tonhalle. It was my third time presenting at this event, and this was the best of the lot. Everything passed by with a ‘Vorsprung Durch Technik’ efficiency, the entertainment was first class and the catering alone cost more than most conferences cost to stage in total.
What impressed me most was the attendance. Well over 1,300 attendees, of which almost 1,000 were from media agencies or advertisers. In fact, the number of advertisers alone – around three hundred in total – is more than I’ve seen at a year’s worth of media events in the UK. Read more on Why do the Germans beat the Brits at media conferences?…
