A little bit of politics
“The results of the experiment are now in and they are consistent: austerity doesn’t work” Mark Blyth, Austerity: The history of a Dangerous Idea On the day that the Queen’s Speech offered few answers to the real political question of our time, here are a few personal thoughts about the way that Labour should be...
When it comes to technology, is the internet the best we can do?
I recently took part in a tech-start up event in which a handful of eager entrepreneurs were mixed with seasoned ad people in a suitably miserable Shoreditch basement that exhibited extensive and unresolved problems with damp. To be frank it wasn’t up there as an experience to relish even setting the damp aside. For one...
Made in Britain
Heatherwick studio’s cauldron for London 2012. Provenance has traditionally been the last resort of the strategic scoundrel. If you fancy an early lunch at the Delaunay and you simply cannot think of anything else to say about a brand you fall back on where it is from. Australian lagers, German cars, Scandinavian furniture, French sexual...
The real revolution in social won’t be online
One of the 24 illustrations by Eric Ravilious for Highstreet published in 1938. We are undertaking a major project in Saatchi & Saatchi at the moment on the future of the high street. While this is a subject that has been repeatedly dug over in the past couple of years as the high street has...
The price of everything the value of nothing
Chateau Petrus, sadly the ’78 is missing. Image courtesy of cDubya. One of the key tenets of behavioural theory is that we value more the things for which we pay more. The more expensive the wine, the greater quality we believe it to be and the more that we value it. So how come this...
How unspecial are you?
Image courtesy of Lufitoom I was taking afternoon tea with the man-legend Russell Davies this week and amongst many random things we chatted about was the idea of Unspecial. I suppose at its heart Unspecial is about how similar we all are. While we all have our idiosyncrasies, we aren’t that special or unique as...
Do I not like crowd sourcing
Talk about jumping on the band wagon some considerable time after it has packed up and left town, Peperami is the latest brand to indulge itself in a little spot of crowd sourcing to support their nibblers sub-brand under the thought that they are 'a little bit of an animal'. And harmless fun this work...
More sex please, were British
Image courtesy of Dave Gorman I have long believed that advertising is not a profession. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not embarrassed about what we do and I certainly have little sympathy with the sentiment of that terrible old joke. You know the in which someone asks that his mother is not told that he...
Who is to blame?
Image courtesy of Planoscorpio Say what you like about Cannes but at its best it still serves as a barometer for where our industry and our product is heading. Most notably the Titanium shortlist, packed as it is with the coolest work from the coolest agencies and representing the new creative dividend that is on...
Is it the end of the line for the digital agency?
Image courtesy of Ackers-Schoolboy Hero!!!! Some time in the early summer the Met Office rather confidently predicted that this would be the summer of the BBQ, so hot, dry and altogether splendid was our weather going to be. Alas it turned out to be a rather different meteorological kettle of fish and once again this...
Brand respsonse – a case of having your cake and eating it
Image courtesy of Blake E. Marquis. Eddie Izzard has a standup routine about how useless the Church of England would have been at the Spanish Inquisition, because everyone appearing before it would have been given the option of cake or death. Naturally most people end up choosing the cake option.
How come Sainsbury’s is doing so well and Tesco isn’t?
Image courtesy of avlxyz. I love Facebook. But its not often I stumble across a real revelation there. Not so a couple of weeks ago when a feed from Paul Mcenany’s excellent blog heehawmarketing popped up between the updates on the previous evenings inebriations and indiscretions.