Nice bit of digital advertising

I generally stay clear from writing about O2 here (nobody likes when folk that talk about themselves all the time). But I really like this little piece of digital advertising and felt it was worth sharing.

We have an ad on the recently-launched RTE News iPhone app.

The ad is part of our 'Be the difference' rugby campaign. The campaign is a lovely little idea with a nice fit for the O2 brand. Based on the insight that supporters can actually influence the action and result on the pitch - O2 are making it possible for rugby supporters to get their signatures literally on the back of the players' jerseys.

Well done to Kevin Dunne and our digital agency Brando for their integration of this for the iPhone - so we can sign up directly from our iPhones. As you'd expect I know - but still nice to see it working smoothly.

As there are only so many jerseys, I'm assuming it is a first-come-first-served set up. So if you'd like to show your support - pop over to the bethedifference site sooner rather than later. There is another nice feature there too - you can upload a team talk. The best ones are played to the team. (I'm thinking Any Given Sunday as featured on Piaras' blog this week.)

The RTE app itself is pretty good. I dip into it most days for a moment or two. It's free too.

Website for finding vintage ads

Anybody pursuing a career in marketing should know their advertising history, so you know what worked in the past, why it worked and if it could work now. If this is your thing, you'll like this - a search engine dedicated to vintage ads. Lot of VW ads from Bill Bernbach's time. And beer ads, coke ads etc.

Found via Drayton Bird's site.

Is this dark and twisted humour?

Is this dark and twisted humour? Ad is for a funeral home apparently. Found via here. Am I missing something?

Internet on phone better than other (original?) internet

There was a time (not too long ago) when the internet on our phones wasn't really the internet. It was the "watered down version" as an Apple ad once alluded to. When bebo first became available on our mobiles, it was a big deal. It wasn't as good as the bebo you'd get sitting in front of a laptop - but it did the trick. And beboers used it.

The iPhone changed all this. And put everything on par. It really was the same internet - just on a smaller screen. Grand.

Recently I've found that I'm actually choosing to use the internet on my phone over the internet on my laptop - even when I'm at home and the laptop is within arm's reach.

Not for everything. But certainly for apps like facebook or LinkedIn.

I rarely visit facebook on my computer. It is easier and quicker to dip into the app, have a quick look at what friends are up to and close out of it again. It is a different kind of internet usage. "Snacking" I believe they call it. But it is not just a passive mobile viewing. Even adding comments is possibly easier than doing so on my laptop.

I mentioned the amazon app the other week. Same story there. I'm buying at least as many books through this app I do through their original website.

Again, nothing new here but (I find it) interesting that mobile has gone from poor cousin to preferred option in just a few years. Given how hooked teenagers are on social networks even when they have to use computers, you can only imagine how this is going to change mobile behaviour when all teenagers have iPhones or similar touchscreen phones.

(Disclaimer: Given my job, it is in my interest for everybody and their mother to start using internet on their phones.)

Only 3 reasons why advertising is not working.

Often when sales are not coming as planned, the first impulse is to advertise more. While this may be the correct action, it may not always be.

As a rule of thumb - there are generally only three reasons (in my mind anyway) why advertising is not driving demand. The action required is different for each.

1. Your consumers don't know about your product / offer / solution. This is an awareness play. The action here is actually to advertise more.
2. They may be aware but don't understand your advertising. This is not about doing more advertising. In fact more of the same will do little for you. You need to tweak or change your advertising, as they don't get it. The benefit (rational or emotional) may be hidden or badly explained.
3. They don't care. In this situation, they are aware and they understand, but couldn't care less. There can be lots of reasons here - wrong audience, wrong insight, wrong product, wrong timing, no clear reason to buy, no differentiation. Your job here is to find out what will make them care. Whatever the problem is, one thing you know is that doing more advertising here won't help you much.
   

If you don't know the problem, you can't really fix it.

Digital Breakfast session this Tuesday @ Burlington hotel.

Just a quick note to say there is a breakfast seminar on, this Tuesday, in the Burlington hotel, Dublin 4.

"Using the internet for profit and political gain" is the name of the session. The organisers tell me they are going for an 'x-factor' type gig - so won't be stuffy or formal.

There will be a panel and some discussion on Search as well as a review of how Obama used digital in his campaign. I won't be there myself but do let me know how it goes if you are there.

The event is free but you must register beforehand. More info on how to register and on the presentations and speakers here.

P.S. They are serving up a free breakfast too. How generous. Kick off is 8am.

Job - media account director

Dublin based digital agency - Cybercom - are looking to fill a new role. To manage a team of four in their media department. More info and a job spec at their site.

Seth Godin's free ebook - what matters now

Just downloaded this (for free) the other day. From here. Lots of contributors. Found via Brendan Hughes. Also listened to The Big Moo over the xmas holidays. Also worth a read/listen.

Digital Festival this Feb. Line-up is good.

I don't make it to many conferences to be honest. I'm lazy and happy to read the book/blog instead. But I'm going to this one. The line-up is good. Very good....Russell Davies, Peter Kim and Shel Israel (co author of Naked Conversations) among others.

The Digital Festival - Wed 24th Feb. In Berkeley Court Hotel, Dublin 4.

More info here.

Creativity in the banner

I think we all agree that an online strategy is more than a suite of banners, some adwords, a facebook page and a preview session with some bloggers. But banners still have a role.

Banners get a hard time. Perhaps rightly so. But they have a value beyond the click-through-rate. I've written before that nobody clicks on outdoor ads - but their value is not disputed. The problem is a lot of the banners are not particularly creative. Then again, most advertising, regardless of medium used, is only average.

But banners can be creative. Click here or on the image to see this Bernardo's ad.

Amazon Remembers

I've been buying books from amazon on my phone for a decent length of time now. But only just downloaded the amazon iPhone app. As my previous amazon experiences on my phone have been seamless, I expected as much from the app. I was not disappointed.

But they have a nice extra. Called Amazon Remembers. You take a photo (of anything) with your iPhone and click submit on your phone screen. Then the nice folk in Amazon scurry off and see if they can find it for you in their store. When they do, they'll send you an email - so you can buy it from them. They'll also post your photo with a link to the product on your amazon.co.uk homepage. Nice eh.

I tried it with a book cover. And it worked fine. As you'd expect with a book I guess. I also took a snap of the front of a Samsung netbook. And they found this too. I'm impressed.

It's a wonderful example of making an app that thinks intelligently about the customer circumstances - and not just a replication of the internet for your phone. No doubt they'll get a higher share of my wallet.

Wired's 20 favourite iPhone Apps

Wired's 20 favourite iPhone Apps here (staff picks). Dropbox sounds good if you haven't heard of it.

Aim for the heart, not head...like Mr Tayto

I was asked to present on some brand and marketing stuff earlier this month. I spoke about brands needing to be interesting if they want us to be interested in them.

Nothing new here. But still not a whole lot of interesting stuff going on. It might be a bit of the 'rational' versus 'emotional' appeal debate. Most ads lead with the rational reasons to buy stuff - the benefits, features and unique selling proposition.

While my marketing origins are in direct marketing, influenced by likes of Claude Hopkins, I side with the folk that believe emotional advertising is more effective than ads that lead solely with rational, logical benefits. I'd encourage you to pop over here to read what the highly respected Paul Feldwick has to say about this.

The recent Mr Tayto autobiography is a lovely example of this. Very charming. Made me smile. I'm sure it has ignited a few conversations.

I'm still the mayor.

Image courtesy of foursquare

It's true. I've been the mayor of the coffee dock in O2's offices for the past week or two.

Uncontested.

Well, Kevin has tried to steal my spot on occasion, but he gets distracted by the authentic Il Valentino coffees every morning - of which he claims he is mayor of. And you can only have so many coffees in one day.

Geo-tagging itself is interesting. But foursquare is more - it is also playful. It will be interesting when shops, pubs, restaurants and other venues here start using it. Yes to reward customers and their buying behaviour - as both Damien Mulley and Kevin Dunne talked about recently.

But also for a bit of fun.

One of the funniest things I saw in the US was employees of a fast food outlet playing paper-rock-scissors with customers. They played double or quits for an extra burger or chips. Funny stuff - that gets talked about. I stole the idea and did something similar for call credit in our stores a couple of years ago.

This playfulness works beautifully with foursquare. And will help companies show their personal side. And bringing together the real humans working for the brand with the real humans buying the brand is one of the things I think digital is perfect for.

Dave Trott's book - Creative Mischief

Kevin gave me the heads up that Dave Trott had a book out. Really don't know how I missed that. Don't even think Mr Trott mentioned it on his blog. Such modesty.

It is a collection of some of his blog posts. A small book - about 190 pages. I bought a couple of copies for the office. And suspect I'll buy a few more, once they go missing. Anyway, if you're a fan, do buy this.

Any grads out there trying to get their first job in marketing?

Any grads out there trying to get their first job in marketing? I don't have any jobs going. But if you are ambitious, ready to work extremely hard to get a job and willing to take a long-term view of a marketing career - I'm offering to help you find one. For free of course.

If you're interested, drop me an email.

(If on the off chance I get swamped with emails, I'll work a first-come-first-served system or work out something fair.)

The last refuge of the unimaginative

Saw this and thought about the many brand guardianship conversations you have. Don't get me wrong. I'm actually all up for brand guardianship. But I like Absolut's approach to it.

Innovative outdoor ad

Saw this while in Madrid last month. The message is about women trapped in domestic violence. Very innovative use of the back-lit format. Simple but striking

Any brands doing good radio ads?

Can anybody think of any brands that consistently do good advertising on the radio?

Just wondering.

Can you see this?

A friend suggested I change this blog's name to "Random thoughts on Outdoor ads". Point taken.

But there still seems to be a huge number of outdoor ads that get it wrong (that don't follow the basic principles). The 6-sheet poster in this photo is facing out onto the road, so is targeting folks in cars and buses. But is it not very difficult to see?

Dave Trott inspires creativity on a shoestring.

Fine video of advertising legend, Dave Trott, talking (teaching) about creativity on a shoestring. He demonstrates with some low-budget, yet effective, TV ads.

The video is ten minutes long. A must see. Here.

Flashmob in Cork

Saw this on Piaras Kelly's blog. Flashmob in Cork. While flashmobs might be a bit overkill these days, it is a nice bit of film. And worth watching. Some wonderful moments captured.

The social Media Guru

I'm sure there are some truths here. A bit long but funny at times. Found via Marc Sirkin

Aer Lingus know how to do outdoor ads

Garret Byrne, an ex-colleague of mine, works for Aer Lingus.

When chatting about advertising the other week, he sent me a few pics of the outdoor they do in the UK market. Looking at these, it's clear they (good man Garret) know how to do effective outdoor. Sounds easy, but it's not. [See earlier article on this.]

That aside, I must ask him out how cost-effective he finds outdoor compared to other media. Outdoor is good for impact, but love to know if it outperforms press, radio or online for them. Or does a combination of these bring in best results? If so, which ones?

Up your Viva

Saw this the other week and loved it.

I know some will hate it and think it is stupid. But I'm guessing the brief was to embed the name of the new station in our heads. And also suggest they are a bit of fun. This is not easy. If this was the brief, then job done. No messing about there. Not stupid at all.

P.S. Great casting.

The manager and employee "dance of lies"

Image courtesy of formfaktor

Once or twice a year, managers and their direct reports get together to tango - in their "employee performance dance of lies". Each dance is different, but we try to follow the basic moves.

The manager knows he can't give rave reviews to all his team. He would look weak in the eyes of his own manager. And everybody can't be 'above average'. That is not physically possible. Pity, he thinks, as he has been driving them pretty hard all year and they've been doing decent work.

While plotting how to dispatch a 'good' but not 'above average' score, he does some soul searching.

If he's honest, he'd wish they make decisions themselves more often without asking him all the time. They should know this, right? And maybe they could be more creative in problem solving too. Yep, he's pretty sure he asked them to be more creative earlier in the year.

With no time left to practice his moves, he takes the lead with an energetic "you're doing a good job". In the absence of written objectives, he manages to recall some last minute good stuff the employee has done in the past month. The employee joins in, chuffed and they tango for a bit. He reckoned he had done a pretty good job. He's glad his manager appreciates his hard work.

But as the 3-minute dance is coming to an end, the manager pulls out his winning move. "Although I think you could have been more creative".

This is looking more like a dance-off than a tango. Every man for himself. The employee is a bit confused. They are still dancing but not in sync. Unsure of what to say next, the manager decides to follow up with the decision-making bit..."and you could be more decisive".

This, the employees understands. Yes, in hindsight he probably could have been more decisive. But, he wonders, why is it just coming up now? But he finds out quickly enough..."you're doing a good job. Yes, good, but not - above average. Keep it up. And work on your decision making. Chat in six months."

And the music stops.

Modern Branding v Classic branding

Modern Brands V1

View more documents from Zeus Jones.

Adrian Ho writes a lot of sense. Not just sense. Insights. I've linked to (and stolen from) him before. In the slides above, he nods to John Grant, planner and author of some of the finest marketing books I know of. These slides by Adrian and Rob are definitely worth a read.

TV ad with star studded cast

I think using celebrities in advertising can increase odds of ad recall. But sometimes the celeb is remembered, not the product or brand message. Lots of big names here but message is clear and central throughout. Kept me watching.

The Art of Performance Management

I'm interested in work-enjoyment. Always have been I think. It might be due to seeing how much intrinsic satisfaction my dad got from his work. If we are going to spend so much of our waking hours working, it would be nice to enjoy it. Most people don't. Lots of reasons why.

One (unnecessary) reason why we don't like work is when we are mismanaged. Happens all the time. Managers are busy. Very busy. They are too busy to spend time with the individuals on their teams.

Ironic when you consider the role of a manager is to 'get work done through others'.

Managing is also difficult. Most of us stumble through it, honing our skills over time. As part of a project recently, I wrote some principles and practices that I try to stick to. Most of this is commonsense but I've borrowed ideas, techniques and insights from Larry Bossidy, Steve Kerr, Jack Welch, and James Kilts among others. And of course from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

I've tried to keep it practical, with an example at the end showing how objectives might be written. I've discovered (after too long) that getting a process is key to good performance management. It is time consuming in the beginning, but only in the beginning.

I've called it The Art of Performance Management, acknowledging that management is more art than science.

You can download the 6-page pdf here. Feedback (good, bad, random insults etc) is welcome.

Does this still work?

Recently I'm seeing lots of ads using this technique (lots of stuff forming the shape of the product). Now I know it was mentioned as a common ad cliche here, but does it still work?

Does it cut through into our consciousness and get the intended message across?

Grab your bag

Anybody that has studied 'operation management' is probably very familiar with Southwest Airlines - the airline that Ryanair is modelled on. Their founder and ex-ceo Herb Kelleher is considered a bit of a legend. I might write a proper post on him later.

I like the ad. Found it here.

Outdoor ad for homelessness

Nice outdoor. I'm assuming the 2nd ad went up after the first week or so. Found via AdsoftheWorld

I'm really impressed with the latest TV ad from Barnardos.

I'm really impressed with the latest TV ad from Barnardos.

They have managed to steer away from cliche and create something that connects with the viewer. It is always a courageous decision to go for the heart instead of the head. The urge is to lead with a rational message that appeals to our minds. But when done well, heart always wins. The production values are high, the visuals feel very real and the music is haunting.

I initially felt that the 'call to action' could be stronger but I know there is a 30" and and 10 second one to follow the initial burst. It is always a balancing act to engage the viewer in your story and still hit them over the head with a request for cash.

I hope the campaign works. They need the money to keep their children services going. I was invited to one of their centres a few months ago and was humbled by the work they do. Visit barnardos.ie to donate a few quid if you can.

Free books

I have not been online much these past couple of months. Clearly I'm writing less. But I've been reading fewer blogs too. The upside is I'm getting a chance to do some old-school-book-reading. Two of these are Free by Chris Anderson and Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig.

Both books get into some of the debates about content, copywrite, creative and the affect of the internet on all of this. They are very different books, coming at this from different angles, but both are well written with clearly articulated arguments. I remember a bit of banter during the summer about Malcolm Gladwell's review of Free but I definitely learned something new from both books. I'd recommend them to marketers.

Apologies. The headline is a bit sneaky. The "free" refers to the subject matter, not the price. I bought them both.

However, I mentioned both these books before - as both were available at one time for free (or a version of free) in digital format. And may still be. I actually read Lessig's one on my iPhone (via Stanza) but then decided to buy the paper version too (a behaviour Anderson says is common enough).

Online video ad

Online video ad from Apple. Nicely done.

Found via Darren at digital agency Brando.

Are clients to blame?

I admire the writing from Richard in adliterate. I have hundreds of blogs in my Google Reader but generally see what he, Dave Trott and a few other smart folk have to say first.

He posted a short article (also for Campaign magazine) suggesting that creative coming from UK is not as good as international work - because of the client.

Perhaps he is right, but I was a bit surprised. My view (from the bubble I work in) is that clients were more progressive than before. Sure, we rely on metrics and like our occasional focus group, but we're not looking for 'safe' work. In fact, we hate safe.

Am I wrong?

Levi's outdoor ad

I like it.

Found via Billboard and Outdoor advertising

Attention to detail

When in Hong Kong last week, we stayed in a nice luxury hotel (being our honeymoon at all that).

Often it is the attention to detail that stands out. In particular, I was impressed that they changed the floor carpets in their elevators every day.

Coca Cola - within arm's reach of desire.

Orlaith from McCann Erickson wrote last week about Coca-Cola. About how it continues to dominate as a top brand.

I confess I really don't know enough about it as a brand, but have to admire one marketing element - its distribution. I read before that their vision was to be within an 'arm's reach of desire' wherever you are.

I found this to be the case while on holidays these past few weeks. Regardless of where I was, Coca-Cola was everywhere. In the hotel bars, the supermarkets, every restaurant, the vending machines and in every fridge in every little shop along hot dusty roads.

Distribution may not get as much air time as other marketing elements - such as advertising - but must be a major success factor for Coca-Cola.

I've a good excuse this time

I've written nothing in the past couple of weeks - but have a decent excuse this time. Got married yesterday. I'm away for another week or two (on honeymoon). So September will be a slow month for blogging for me.