one part truth, two parts mixer

Judge and jury

Next Friday I'm judging a little open pitch as part of London Digital Week. It's a bit like the Push the Brief event that Ash and Ant organised last year, with a live charity brief open to agency teams. You will be briefed by the client YouthNet, before having 2 hours to answer the brief and then presenting it to a team of  judges including the client, David Bausola, Beeker Northam and err, me.

All you need to do is put together a team of 4-6 of your finest (a bit of research around YouthNet probably wouldn't go amiss either). There is also the possibility that some real work could come out of this - and if that isn't motivating I don't know what is.

If you would like to get involved but can't get a team together contact Sol who is trying to put together a team of renegades: solwei85 (at) gmail dot com.

Details here and registration here. Look forward to seeing you there.

Think geek

It's quite sad, but I genuinely enjoy reading call log reports from call centres. In fact, I love reading any customer feedback/complaints about my clients. It struck me today that there's so much information that you just don't ask for from your clients, but is really helpful to have. That is one of my new planning resolutions, to ask for these things so I can know as much as I can.

Switch

Think Eaon sums it up quite nicely: 'So marketing wasn't about helping a company sell. It was about helping people buy.'

I do like a clear, succinct, statement. You can read the full post here.

The unstoppable PR machine

In my past life PRs were the enemy (apart from the few good ones, you know who you are), basically lying and making your life difficult. But then that was fashion PRs, and they are the luvviest of the lot. These days PR is an increasing part of the marketing mix, and in times of economic uncertainty gives a more attractive ROI. At work, we're increasingly trying to create campaigns that are eminently PR-able. My planning director pointed out the amount of coverage that the Pasta Hut campaign got probably did a better awareness job than a telly ad screaming 'we now do pasta'. Interesting times.

Was wondering if The Best Job in The World is a PR stunt for Tourism Queensland. Probably is.

Continuous campaigns

I went to Stratstock on Monday which threw up some interesting bits and pieces. Interestingly the night was supposed to be about 'how the other half plan', but for me just reinforced how similar planners in different disciplines are and how everyone is moving in different directions towards similar goals. Also, IPA, if you're going to do something like that again, a more suitable venue please - poor Paul Gage was drowned out by the booming voice of our very own Max - which was a shame because he was talking about some pretty interesting stuff. Also, post on your blog!

Anyway, to the first of my Stratstock-inspired posts. The last person I heard speak was Martin Bailie, planning director at glue, who spoke about lots of interesting things, but the thing that struck me most was the idea that brands should look to 'think continuous' instead of thinking about campaigns. Martin gave the example of the Cactus Kid campaign, which has built up a massive fanbase who will just stop receiving communications because the campaign is over and has no more budget. If you're lucky enough to create marketing that people develop an emotional attachment to, surely it's worth keeping up the investment until they leave of their own accord? Plus maintenance costs should be less than creation and production costs?

We're currently working on a project, the digital element of which we hope will last forever (well definitely longer than a campaign), which is really exciting. Someone (sorry can't remember who, if you're reading pls let me know) recently blogged about the 'internet graveyard' of sites that were made and have served their purpose. Hopefully more of the sites we make in the future will live in the active part of the net.

The end of the big idea

There was an interesting article in last week's Campaign about the restructuring of Mother's strategy department. The restructuring part apparently involves creating junior/senior pairs of strategists and cutting out the midweights, but what I found most intriguing was strategy director Dylan Williams' comment that 'you don't need a big idea'. Quote: 'You need an ongoing, enriching and fulfilling dialogue with consumers, you can't get that through a big idea. It's about rich ideas. It's about expansive, not reductive thought'.
Personally, I'm a big fan of the cohesive idea, which may not be huge but works across all channels.