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Jon Stewart Roasts the MPA
0September 30, 2005 by Colin
Jon Stewart, speaking to a Magazine Publishers’Association panel:
The way news is driven today is not through print, Stewart said. I dont consider print media as relevant. When Carter argued that television news consistently siphons what first appears in print, as evidenced by its coverage of the 2004 presidential campaign, Stewart said: I didnt say you werent important; I said youre at the childrens table.
In Folio.
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Unilver, tea houses and old bags
0September 29, 2005 by Colin
You wouldn’t know it from the varieties of flavoured, steeped and blended tea being hawked by beverage companies on this side of the Atlantic, but the market for instant coffee is starting to percolate in the UK – at the expense of the traditional tea bag. (/rimshot)
There’s still hope in the market, though. A new innovation – PG-2-Go – a packaged tea cup with a retractable tea bag (so you can select your own strength) is apparently building market share. The other, more traditional, tea companies are being squeezed between a growing preference for instant coffee and suicidal price wars with grocery companies’ house brands.
The Guardian covered this seismic movement in the British cultural landscape earlier this week. Deep in the piece, an admission from Unilever that their previous attempt to shore up their tea business in the UK had failed:
“Five years ago Unilever boldly tried to resurrect the Lyons spirit and challenge the espresso bar culture by piloting four teahouses under the Cha brand. They have since closed but a Unilever spokesman said: “The experiment taught us a few lessons – one of them was that we are definitely not a retailer.”(Guardian)
What? Does this mean Unilever – with their horde of consumer good products and marques – doesn’t know how to build from hundreds of millions of pounds’ investment in promoting benefits and attributes into a sustainable consumer experience?
Advertising minty-fresh goodness, new cleaning power and ultra lemony sparkle will move individual boxes off the shelf – but now that grocery stores have figured out the tricks behind house branding and discount pricing, are brand-building marketing campaigns strong enough to stop market share erosion?
It seems like the tea companies already know the answer – and they could draw upon a hundred years of emotional and cultural history tying them to their customers.
More details on Unilever’s attempts to diversify into personal services and retail. There’s also a Cambridge case study in the failure of their myhome services.
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Could swear this was a Rod McKuen poem
1September 28, 2005 by Colin
Thanks to Incite by Design, I found Dean Allen’s mark-up of Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth.
Takes a little wind out of the sails, but replaces it with a fresh breath of honesty.
Mau Quote: 16. Collaborate. The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.
Textism Quote: Pure pandering to the One Minute Manager. Your annual report came to look like this, and cost this much, because of some performance art I did in Gstaad with Znaimer.
Mau Quote: 19. Work the metaphor. Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.
Textism Quote: Except the one about design being frosting to tart up crap to make it saleable. Dont work that one.
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And you want to be a freelance writer?
0September 28, 2005 by Colin
Today, I’m just ripping off a 2001 post from Dean Allen’s Textism:
From the freelance reviewer guidelines of the National Post:
…15. Years after writing an insincere review, reviewers will sometimes be walking down the street when memory of their phony words comes howling back into their mind, followed by a crippling sense of guilt and shame. Then dogs come and gnaw on their bones. Why go through all that?
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Tony Blair, speechifying and the first wave of punk
0September 27, 2005 by Colin
Tony Blair’s speech to the Labour Party conference in Brighton earlier today is prompting comment -as it should, considering an ongoing leadership insurgency lurks in the background.
For us public relations types with a serious politics jones, it’s the little details that get us all excited: like what song was used to introduce the Prime Minister?
The Guardian’s Conference Blog discusses Tony’s unusual choice of a first generation punk band:
“It was If the Kids are United by punk band Sham 69. The band were known as the real punks of the movement. The band was the “voice of the people in the first wave of British punk” and introduced football chant-style lyrics into their songs.
Mr Blair is in good company. Columnist and critic Garry Bushell is a huge fan of the band – he coined the phrase the “Oi!” movement for the street punk sound of bands like Sham 69 in the early 80s.
Sham 69 gigs were notorious for fights and punch-ups, with the violence eventually leading to their demise.”
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Culturejamming the old board games
0September 27, 2005 by Colin
Here’s a brand manager’s worst nightmare: a Fark photoshop contest based upon your favourite old board games.
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Permission marketing by Seth Godin
0September 27, 2005 by Colin
Great little mp3 of the talk and Q&A with Seth Godin at the London Marketing Soiree organized by Hugh in July.
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The solution to declining newspaper readership?
0September 26, 2005 by Colin
Free CDs (and flexi-discs, if you’re old enough). They’re a well-established marketing gimmick in the U.K. As North American papers and magazines struggle with declining subscription rates, I have to wonder why they aren’t throwing more freebies our way?
I mean, even the magazine distributed by the homeless is moving product!
“I thought it was a joke pitch from the Big Issue vendor: “Free CD with every copy!” But no, the paper set up to help the homeless has joined the game. Twenty-six tracks, poly-bagged with the mag, pounds 1.40. And yes, it made me buy it.” (Guardian)
Here’s a pipe dream: an enterprising indie music promoter finds an MSM conglomerate that’s willing to pony up the money to produce 100k compilation CDs in return for free distribution in papers and online – as a marketing tactic.
Chances are, P&G will do it first, and the CD will have music aimed squarely at the female 25 to 49 segment.
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Slot cars and public opinion polling
0September 26, 2005 by Colin
Interesting presentation of data in a chart by 5W Infographic, prepared for a NYT article on the failure of government to serve the citizens of New Orleans. Kind of looks like an old slot car set – where you set the track up to launch the car over the buffet table, or the cat.
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RSS and Online News Readership: a perfect tautology
0September 20, 2005 by Colin
From Steve, a perfect example of a tautology: “RSS users are significantly more engaged in online news than non-users, visiting an average of 10.6 news sites compared with 3.4 news sites for non-users.” (from Nielsen//NetRatings)
The hyping of technology aside, what does this mean for the public discourse? I’m a little startled that the average online citizen visits 3.4 news sites. In a world where, before Tim Berners-Lee, people used to be wed for life to one newspaper, 3.4 should indicate a broadening interest in the affairs of business, the state and the community. Or are all those sites of similar political and philosophical bent – only reinforcing existing preconceptions and perceptions?
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The hipster creative with tattoos and piercing rarely does the coolest ads
0September 20, 2005 by Colin
Advice for advertising types from Sally Hogshead. It all translates well for public relations staff (who are usually known for lifting, rewriting and “repurposing” other people’s work) as well.
1. There are no right answers, including these.
2. The hipster creative with tattoos and piercing rarely does the coolest ads.
3. Dominos delivers to Starbucks.
4. Smart beats clever.
5. Youll create a better book by breaking the rules than by following them.
6. Spend more time thinking, less time executing.
7. Dont write like a copywriter.
8. Start art directing with a pad of paper, not a computer.
9. The difference between an A- book and an A+ book is all the difference in the world.
10. Your work can have outrageous attitude. You cant.
11. Dont use your mother as a reference.
12. The more concepts you come up with, the better they get. Me, I write a hundred ads for every one I end up with.
13. Its better to fail by going down in flames than by settling for mediocrity.
14. Idea is king. Emperor. World nuclear superpower.
15. When working on an assignment, try to expose the deepest, most surprising human truths associated with the product.
16. Dont base your self-image on positive feedback, because you cant count on that.
17. You cant outthink everyone, but you can outwork them.
18. By the time an ad appears in an awards book, its already a couple of years old.
19. Competitive is okay. Cutthroat is not.
20. Dont waste time or money on ideas youre not thrilled about.
21. No matter how good it is, somebody wont like it.
22. Be as respectful to the receptionist as to the president.
23. If youre happy in your job, its easier to be happy in your life.
24. You dont have to be an asshole, or work for one, to do great work.
25. If you hear the same feedback over and over, make the changes to the work.
26. Its better to have 8 killer pieces than 30 pretty good ones.
27. You could be unemployed for six months, then get three phenomenal offers in one day.
28. Being creative is only a small part of being a good creative.
29. When youre a creative director, meet with 10 juniors for every person who meets with you now.
30. Pick out a last name that people can make fun of.Entry completely lifted from the American Copywriter blog.
Another Hogshead article: Slaughter the Sacred Cows, originally published in Communications Arts July 2005 Illustration Annual.
Read her original “Radical Careering” piece in Creativity magazine.
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Television ads: “What I hate about you …”
0September 19, 2005 by Colin
John Camm writes for the BBC Magazine about the “regurgitated cliches” that dominate contemporary television advertising in the U.K. (and elsewhere):
“6. Married men will flirt with other, younger women but NEVER act upon it.
7. Anyone with a scientific career will have a bad haircut and dreadful clothes.
And a comment from a reader:
“Public transport is a beautifully clean and relaxing way to travel and you’ll always be able to flirt with an attractive member of the opposite sex.
Gareth Davies, Reading“In Canada, there can be no television watching experience as excruciating as watching a McCain’s Pizza ad – for the fourth time in an hour.
Of course, Canadians seem to be haters for their television pitchpeople. We loved Tom Cavanagh when he was hawking beer: we hated him on Ed.
And Canadians certainly have a thing or two to say about the OCD couple in the Canadian Tire ads. (Something I did not know: the guy with the beard in the ads appeared in an episode of The Littlest Hobo) They must be moving a lot of solar cell battery rechargers, adjustable pocket wrenches and brake pads, because their ads are on during every break in every sporting broadcast, across the country. What I would do for a picture of them shopping at Reno Depot!
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Don’t be a format cheerleader
0September 15, 2005 by Colin
How much thought have you put into your music collection? Do you have mp3s of obscure early 80s Mod bands like the Lambrettas and the Merton Parkas – electronic files whose parents are passed-around mixtapes, and grandparents are “import LPs with the limited edition target label”? Or have you pulled all your music off P2P with no thought to genre or auteur?
Stereogum‘s linked to a New Republic article decrying the thoughtless stripping of music – to the detriment of rock snobs who have spent years collecting and hoarding limited edition Wayne Newton covers of Blind Melon Chitlin originals, first pressed in Eastern Europe.
One of the comments, however, had some sage advice that applies to public relations staff, especially those counselling their clients that blogs are the shiny new longboard, the Prius, the Segway of communications: “don’t be a format cheerleader.” Make sure your new technology pitch takes the planned obsolescence of most “next new things” into account.
“”rock snob” is a term invented by some blogger whose girlfriend left him for someone with a little grey in his hair, who owns vinyl, but still wears converse.
I am that guy and I know how to treat her like a lady.
I’m not sorry I saw the original CLASH while you’ll have to settle for the Tim Armstrong-fronted version. But even we thought people who obsessively collected were kind of bogus, dude. Music is how you remember events in your life. The Buzzcocks guided me through breakups in 1997 and 1980, and that is why a little of me dies when I hear them in a car commercial.
Here is my advice to the kids. Don’t be a format cheerleader. You’re going to look like an asshole in a few years when IPODs are as relevant as 8 track tapes or cassettes, and you’ll have to go out and buy, beg, or borrow all those songs all over again. This is how capitalism works. Mini disc anyone?
Posted by: snobby mcsnob-snob at September 15, 2005 03:24 PM”
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The perfect expert witness: humble, restrained, self-deprecating
0September 15, 2005 by Colin
Dahlia Lithwick, currently dissecting the Roberts nomination hearings for Slate, is providing some valuable commentary on how expert witnesses can handle themselves when faced with hostile questioning.
“John Roberts is putting on a clinic.
He completely understands that he needs only to sit very quietly, head cocked to signal listening-ness, while senator after senator offers long discursive rambling speeches. Only when he’s perfectly certain that a question has been asked does he offer a reply; usually cogent and spare. Here’s a man long accustomed to answering really hard questions from extremely smart people, suddenly faced with the almost-harder task of answering obvious questions from less-smart people. He finds himself standing in a batting cage with the pitching machine set way too slow.
… It’s increasingly clear that Senate Democrats are giving up. They are taking a cue from the petulant Joe Biden, who telegraphs exactly who these hearings are really for when he refuses to let the nominee answer any of his questions. … Knowing there will be no Perry Mason momentthere won’t even be a Lionel Hutz momentthey dully read their questions from a script and avoid the follow-up altogether. ” (Slate, Tuesday)
Come on, people. Let’s give popular culture lawyers their due. Lionel Hutz isn’t the only foil you can use in examining Roberts’ nomination. What about Judge Smails? Angie Harmon? Even Benny, the file clerk from L.A. Law?
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That word’ll get you 78 in Scrabble
0September 14, 2005 by Colin
An HBR excerpt from Thomas Davenport’s new book tells us “Why Office Design Matters” to companies employing knowlege workers.
“… organizations need to provide [knowlege workers] with the ability to work and be productive outside of their offices. The most obvious instantiation of mobile work environments is the laptop computer, but there are othersfor example, access to physical work artifacts such as books and files, the ability to use telephones, computers, and messaging technologies while traveling.”
Two things concern me with this paragraph – the use of the intelligent-sounding but wholly unnecessary word “insantiation” – and the phrase “…access to physical work artifacts such as books and files…”
Artifacts. Great. What’s wrong with “items”?
Still, I guess books and files are on the way out, if all the proponents of the paperless office are to be believed.
Then again, we all have colleagues that print out all their emails.
Canuckflack
… Colin McKay has some thoughts about design, data, management, government and oddities … written in Canada!
Tumblr Goodness
Blood Stains from the slaine Monks of Lindisfarne in the Viking attack of 793AD. Folios 191v and 192r of the Lindisfarne Gospels - written and illuminated by the Anglo-Saxon Bishop Eadfrith in 698AD.
Liber generationis Jesu Christi
“Lo, it is nearly 350 years that we and our fathers have inhabited this most lovely land, and never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race, nor was it thought that such an inroad from the sea could be made. Behold, the church of St. Cuthbert spattered with the blood of the priests of God, despoiled of all its ornaments; a place more venerable than all in Britain is given as a prey to pagan peoples.”
Alcuin, Letter to Ethelred, King of Northumbria
Images: British Library
I had a Brooks Brothers 15 1/2 - 35 shirt and we used its front pocket to determine when the Pilot design was “pocket sized” - Joel Jewitt, discussing the invention of the Palm Pilot
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130408043926-7298-early-employees-joel-jewitt-palm
Before I discovered the Internet
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