Powerful structures for product-driven organisations
An interesting comment on the last post came back to a topic which I seem to be asked, or ask myself, more and more often. If social media increasingly leads to closed groups, and tomorrow's media consumers are increasingly avoiding the mass media, what will happen to mass-participation media events, and don't we as a culture lose… Continue reading No one to hear you scream
I wrote a piece a few weeks ago called 'the structure of advertising revolutions'. That was all about the way in which we should expect the advertising world to deal with changing paradigms, based on how the scientific community does. It was inspired by Clay Shirky's video, blog and book, pointing out that the new… Continue reading The implication of advertising revolutions
Remember the first website you built. I remember doing them at university a bit but they were really awful. And then I did one for the company I worked in. And then, rather suddenly I was running a company that made them. And in the start people would argue about everything. Should there be persistent… Continue reading Ins and outs – a redefinition of digital marketing
Thomas Kuhn wrote and incredible book called 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'. It's probably the one book I studied at university which I ever think of now. In the book, Kuhn investigates what really happens in science; how the step changes in understanding really get incorporated into the overall body of knowledge. The view you… Continue reading The structure of advertising revolutions
Apart from being an absolute copywriting car crash, doesn't this Facebook ad for Cadbury's Trucks campaign raise a question about what exactly the original ad was for. I'm guessing the agency is getting a few of those 'why didn't it go viral?' questions from the client and is trying to give it a little helping… Continue reading Advertising advertising
The new Red Brick Road site contains a neat little spoof site about overblown promises and 'strategies' from agencies ("The Yellow Brick Road"). Particularly good is this fictitious company's philosophy statement: 'In today's networked world, we understand that the customer is no longer just your wife, she's the boss. That's why we believe customers shouldn't… Continue reading No longer just your wife
I actually saw this a few weeks back and felt I should document it, and then it got forgotten about. Have a look at these beauties. Presumably they were 'targeted' at me on the basis that I'm a male human being, or something. The ad: (incidentally, how many people do you think click on the… Continue reading Corny chips
As Gareth remarks on brand new, the follow up to the Cadbury's Gorilla advert is underwhelming. We all spent ages trying to work out if and why the Gorilla worked. The sales figures would seem to suggest it did work (outside of adland) although not in a big way. No one really seems to really… Continue reading One truck pony
What's wrong with this picture? Well apart from the fact that their advertising is clearly so laser-guided that they're shoving the 'your ad here' ad up to their entire market, there's only one item on the page you can't 'prioritize' (dig or bury) yet it's likely to be the only item on the page that… Continue reading Spot the obvious mistake
Perhaps we have a problem with teenage violence but there's nothing quite so unseemly as old people scrapping it out. It only makes it worse when those pensioners are millionaire bosses of major traditional media and marketing firms. As Brand Republic reports (requires free registration), Martin Sorrell and Maurice Levy have been taking time out… Continue reading Yeah but, no but… digital
Leading product 