Image courtesy of Old Telephones
Let’s agree this now everyone. There are some things marketing and communications should steer well clear of and the telephone is one of them. So lets have no more telemarketing spam, lets have no more political parties ringing people up with an automated message and lets have no more telephone research.
Mad Men, a simpler time of real men, real problems and lots of sex on mid century design classics. Image courtesy of Slate.
Unfortunately much advertising is self indulgent nonsense that simply serves to waste the client’s money and the consumer’s time.
The definition of irony. A British Red Cross ambulance paid for by the workers of the Bristol cigarette manufacturers WD & HO Wills 1914-18. Image courtesy of brizzle born and bred.
As a life long non-smoker and rabid anti-smoker, no one has appreciated and enjoyed the progressive decline in smokers’ freedoms than me.
It is time to get unreasonable in support of truly great work. Image courtesy of Antar.Ellis
Returning to the world of advertising after a short break, I am reminded of the fundamental truth of our business. To paraphrase the advice given to Bill Clinton during the 1992 Presidential Campaign, it’s the work, stupid.
Image courtesy of Fiat Luxe
The start up plays an almost mythical role in the world of advertising. Start ups are not simply an outlet for the professional and material ambitions of the best in the business, they are absolutely essential to the health and vitality of the industry. If advertising has managed to adapt to the changing business, consumer and communications landscape over the past century it has been largely because of its start-ups.
Image courtesy of Simon Lord
Every morning as I meander to work in Charlotte Street I fortify myself for the day ahead at the Caffe Nero on Tottenham Court Road.
And every morning as I hand over the cash they parrot the same old question ‘do you have a loyalty card’. And every morning I mumble a ‘no’ and move onto the next question which is about muffins or other items from the pastry selection.
Serendipity is not only a beautiful word it is a very beautiful thing.
One of the great delights of life, serendipity ploughs a furrow between co-incidence on the one hand and fate on the other while being part of neither.
But I’m rather afraid that it is progressively disappearing from our lives, collateral damage in the quest to deliver and receive ever more relevant entertainment and communications.
When I say I don’t want you to be my friend I don’t mean you, dear readers.
I mean brands.
Even lovely Innocent thinks I might want to chum up to them on the social network de jour and I don’t, I’m sorry I don’t.
Image courtesy of Ali K I recently had the pleasure of judging two sets of industry accolades. The first was the Account Planning Group’s Creative…
Here is a naïve hope for the future.
That our personal and intimate involvement in the social media revolution will stop us making the mistakes of the past when it comes to applying the many and varied techniques, tools and applications of web 2.0 and beyond to our clients’ brands.
The word monologue has acquired a rather pejorative meaning in the world of marketing.
Monologue, where the brand addresses an audience and puts forward its point of view (as happens in traditional one to many advertising), is seen to be out of step with the idea that markets are conversations and depend on a dialogue of equals between brands and customers.
More than that, brand monologues are assumed to narcissistic, self referential, and disrespectful of empowered consumers that don’t have to or want to take that kind of shit from anyone least of all businesses.
Well I want to make a stand for brand monologues – right here and right now. Indeed I am going to insist that great dialogues start with a passionate monologue.
