Here Be Monsters|blog

Finally, after all the talk comes action

Apparently, Vodafone and Yahoo are developing a mobile ad initiative here in the United Kingdom that'll enable advertisers to direct their message at people depending on gender, demographic group, location and user behaviour.

According to the WSJ.

If successful, the effort could help shape the nascent mobile-advertising industry.

The two companies will jointly develop the look and feel of the ads that will likely include a variety of formats--from banner ads to short video clips. Vodafone also will use Yahoo's sizable sales force to sell to advertisers.

For customers that opt in to the service, Vodafone will collect details, such as age and gender, at sign-up. Then, over time, it will build a profile of customers' interests based on their activities over their phone. For instance, Vodafone could track their favorite types of music or which sports they like to watch.

You can find out more here but you need to subscribe, which, I know is a bummer.

Google Checkout

Google Checkout is like Paypal, In some ways it's better.  

• It's a conduit, not a bank, so your money will never get stuck (something Paypal seems to do alot)
• It really is one-click shopping.
• It doesn't share your full credit card info with anyone, not even merchants
• If you use it now and you get money off at participating stores

In someways it's worse.

• Bay currently don't accept it
  
• It hasn't reached UK yet

You can see the promo film here. Thanks to The Consumerist site

why could this only be American? | 2

Roger was kind enough to let me know that there are Japanese versions of the Apple ads I've been taking about and so I clicked over to YouTube to see them. (Isn't that brilliant. I can now, in a matter of seconds, find material that was referenced in a post to me. Every now and then I get an overwhelming sense of the enormity of the change that the Internet brings. And when it does, I find myself loving life that little bit more. My son on the other hand will only know a world connected to wide web, in the same way I've only ever known a world with flying, I wonder what huge changes he'll experience?) Anyway I digress.

Putting to one side the cultural and language differences. Doesn't it seem altogether less authentic to you?  The wardrobe, the casting, their performances - all seem to lack the comfortable, lived-in feel of the original. And so lose charm, the very essence of what makes them appealing. The PC character in particular seems completely fake, lacking any of the appeal/authenticity of the original character.

I thought the Japanese version helped make my point - that the skill sets and sensitivities required to make these particular ads work in such a familiar/intimate way could only come from Americans. Not unlike the writing of Sopranos, WestWing and The Simpsons, now I come to thing of it.

the secret to virals

One of the projects we're working on right now is a web based video campaign. I suppose I could call it a viral, but as we all know you don't make virals, you make pieces of communication which become viral. So it was mighty handy to come across the Viral Learning Centre.

An altogether more insightful piece on what makes something viral can be found here though.

yipee

Apparently Leicester Square gets free wifi tomorrow. I can now work al fresco amongst the pigeons, cartoonists, American tourists, drunkards and first-daters. I'm actually very happy about this, seriously. Hurrah for London moving into the future

I so want to be able to do this

Why could this only be American?

I'm a big fan of this campaign. Partly I'm sure because I'm a big fan of all things Apple - seldom do they get things wrong, everything from the packaging to the stores to the products to the customer service is an articulation of the brand. But mainly I'm a big fan of these ads because they're so, well, charming.

Imagine the script; Open on an empty set. Two men stand side by side talking directly to camera. Hmm, doesn't sound that interesting. But when you watch them they ooze charm. The music, casting, wardrobe and performance, the rhythm of the language, the direction - all make the whole thing very watchable. But also very American.

No other country could have made this, like this. Could it be that as inventors of the modern language of film it just feels right by association and familiarity? Is it that culturally they have more respect for film and a better ear for dialogue because they haven't been brought up in the shadow of a theatre culture?  Or is it simply that because of its size, they have a larger pool of talent to draw on than other countries? I've heard arguments supporting each of these, all of which were compelling, none of which were wholly convincing though.

Defining HBM

We're constantly thinking about how to be different, not different for difference's sake, you understand, but different for better's sake.  If nothing else it forces us to challenge our presumptions and highlight when we're being complacent. Okay, it keeps us from arguing over who's going to win, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. It was while reading The Wisdom of Crowds that it occurred to me that this, was as good a description of how we're trying to work  as any we've seen or heard.

There are four key qualities that make a crowd smart. It needs to be diverse, so that people are bringing different pieces of information to the table. It needs to be decentralised, so that no one at the top is dictating the crowd's answer. It needs a way of summarising people's opinions into one collective verdict. And the people in the crowd need to be independent, so that they pay attention mostly to their own information, and not worrying about what everyone around them thinks.

And then I was reminded of Collective Intelligence by Pierre Levy, which refers to a situation where nobody knows everything, everyone knows something, and what any given member knows is accessible to any other member upon request on an ad hoc basis.  And through that collaboration you grow and develop And that rang true too.

Obviously they can both co-exist, but what is the best working structure, briefing process etc  that would maximise the potential from both?  I've no idea where I'm going with this, I just wanted to get it out there in the hope that I might get some clarity. No doubt I'll come back to it and expand upon it. In the meantime feel free to chip in with any suggestions.

GREAT CRM and the T-shirts aren't bad either

Got my new Howie's brochure this weekend. And when I saw it I felt excitement. I'm not saying I was singing from the roof tops, but I did genuinely smile. It dawned on me that I was looking forward to opening the brochure, not to see the clothes really but to read the other stuff. I wanted to know how things are with them, I wanted to see what random lists they've put together, I wanted to know if they've still keep their book lending going. I realised I actually cared about how they were doing. And that is some achievement.

Also, in an age when everyone is looking digital-based and away from paper-based, it dawned on me that there is real added value in being surprised by something in the post, to the extent that it can feel like a genuine gift.

THE BIKE LIBERATION FRONT

the blog as soap or sitcom

Spent a fascinating time yesterday working with a client on different ways in which to use blogs. We had this thought that a blog could be treated in much a similar way as you would a soap opera or sitcom - a drama that's played out in regular episodes (posts). The more we looked at this and the more we looked at the structure of storytelling within the confines of a soaps and sitcoms, the more we thought we were onto something, so we're going to experiment around this and see what develops. If blogs can be streams of consciousness, diaries or gossip columns, then why can't they also be given a strong narrative structure? The big challenge as we see it will be to adapt the everyday events into story lines that will be both engaging and entertaining while still remaining true to the spirit and honesty of blogging.

So this weekend I'm going to be re-reading  Jospeh Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces

why?

Saw this on the tube last night and it really bothered me. What is it doing?  Who is it communiticating with? What does it mean, Yum/Young, Free and Single? I read the copy and it's about free puddings being given away, somewhere, sometime, but I can't remember where, but that's not what the line says. How did someone present this?

At least half a dozen people with the power to stop it must have seen this and not one of them did.  Why?  Was it really the best thing on the table?  I have no desire to belittle or insult people, I know how hard it is to create work, but while this ad obviously recieved a little tlc along the way, the idea didn't.  And I really want to understand why?  I got off the tube confused and depressed.

COMEDY AND COPYWRITING

The ads I hate the most are the ones that try and be funny. And the worst of them are radio ads. A shit ad you can ignore, but one where the team involved believe they've crafted something good, something worth listening to is the worst.

In fact I've long harboured a secret ambition to make a sketch show out of the sketches played out in radio ads. I hope that if creatives could see them out of context they would actually notice that what they've written is shite.

It's as if there is a comedy level in advertising that is way below the acceptable comedy level for comedians. As if ads don't have to exist in the real world. (Maybe there's some clue here as to why people have been falling out of love with them.)

As a result we get ads that are no more than weak sketches loaded with punchlines and puns. it's as if these creatives aspire to be of this world

It's as if they haven't notice that comedy, like everything else has changed and moved on. It's long become one of observational humour, of anger and social statement.  Today's face of popular comedy is

So why aren't creatives writing like them?  Could it be a lack of talent perhaps? 

Shok 1

Shok 1 has just uploaded a load of his images from his recent show. Well worth checking out.

Brilliance

I wish I could think like this and then be this articulate about it.

What is the current wave of technology enabled social change like? I think it is like a return to folk culture. Folk culture was the status quo for the several million years for the 90%+ of people who lived as peasant farmers and hunters, at least up until the birth of publishing (and its descendent the factory, which was organised like a text).

It's from John Grant's blog and you can read it all here.

In the market for a camera?

Originally this was called, A snapshot on Camera Usage, but I found myself starting with an apology for the pun, as I really should know better. There is no place in modern society for puns - good, bad or  otherwise.

Anyway I found this on flickr. The screen grab doesn't do it justice, as it's just the tip of an iceberg loaded with information on what cameras are being used in their community. I'd be mighty happy if I were Canon.

Personally, I find the whole thing massively impressive for lots of reasons, not least because it's authentic. Consumer-generated (albeit not consumer-authored, but then curating is going to be massively important for brands in the future). And pretty comprehensive - I can visit manufacture's sites and see shots taken with the cameras by flickrites. It also works for Flickr, I love that they've put this together, it makes me feel warmer to them, makes me feel they're passionate about cameras and photography etc.

Next time I'm in the market for a camera, this is going to be part of my purchasing decision. I wonder how long it is before they add a purchase facility?

wanna waste some time?

Click here then.

God knows why this kind of thing is so addictive, but addictive it is. I'll say no more.

more power to the consumer

The first rule of PriceFight is you tell everyone about PriceFight.

Okay, it's in Austin Texas and it's still in beta, but PriceFight is still worth a mention if only for the fact it recognises that price is only part of the purchase process.

It’s a shopping search engine that offers a metric it calls “Peoples’ Choice” in addition to displaying which merchants sell an item at the lowest price. Merchants are rated on the fly based on the number and rating of anonymous shopper purchases plus other details in a proprietary algorithm.

The company says that “not all prices are equal” and that merchants also need to be evaluated in regards to customer service, hidden offers and other less tangible factors. Price Fight CEO Michael Griffin says the goal is to “pick up on trends like limited time offers or special rebates that are otherwise hidden on many price comparison engines.”

After performing a search, shoppers are shown a comparison between retailers by the two major metrics (lowest price and Peoples’ Choice) and a report card for the store. Report cards show ratings overall, for delivery speed, customer service and a summary of return, security, shipping, and tax policies.

The site currently searches over only twelve large merchants and is focused on consumer electronics, but the company says it aims to expand its reach quickly. The Peoples’ Choice feature and merchant ratings have been compiled over the past seven months.

I like the idea here, though it doesn’t seem like it would be very hard to duplicate. Perhaps the biggest challenge would be to populate a system meaningfully before you open the doors to the public so it provides immediate value. Perhaps too the mystery algorithm for Peoples’ Choice will prove particularly valuable over time. Price Fight has been well designed and has a good URL. It’s nice to be able to compare things like shipping and customer service.

GET IT NOW, MUM?

Another fine article  in The Observer this weekend and for me one of the more persuaive for the simple reason that my mum can now understand what the hell I'm talking about when I say the cultural significance of TV is on the slide. The article itself deals with the fact that The Daily Mail have not bothered to replace their retiring TV critic.

Everything can be a brand

What happens if you see everything in terms of a brand.  One or two interesting thoughts in there, a brand is an emotional aftertaste, anyone?

BOND DOMINATION

Passed through Leicester Square just now and for the premier of the new Bond film tonight they've taken over not one but all four cinemas in the Square. I'm sure that's a first.

FROM YESTERDAY'S OBSERVER

This is a great article from John Naughton in yesterday's Observer which is well worth reading. I'm shamelessly repeating a chunk of it here, thanks to the communities dominate brands blog, for the simple reason it so needs to be read;

Today's 21-year-olds were born in 1985. The internet was two years old in January that year, and Nintendo launched 'Super Mario Brothers', the first blockbuster game. When they were going to primary school in 1990, Tim Berners-Lee was busy inventing the world wide web. The first SMS message was sent in 1992, when these kids were seven. Amazon and eBay launched in 1995. Hotmail was launched in 1996, when they were heading towards secondary school.

Around that time, pay-as-you-go mobile phone tariffs arrived, enabling teenagers to have phones, and the first instant messaging services appeared. Google launched in 1998, just as they were becoming teenagers. Napster and Blogger.com launched in 1999 when they were doing GCSEs. Wikipedia and the iPod appeared in 2001. Early social networking services appeared in 2002 when they were doing A-levels. Skype launched in 2003, as they were heading for university, and YouTube launched in 2005, as they were heading toward graduation.

A Parallel Universe 

These kids have been socially conditioned in a universe that runs parallel to the one inhabited by most folks in the media business. They've been playing computer games of mind-blowing complexity forever. They're resourceful, knowledgeable and natural users of computer and communications technology. They're Digital Natives - accustomed to creating content of their own - and publishing it. (Remember the motto of YouTube: 'Broadcast yourself!')

Digital curated consumption

They buy music from the iTunes store - but continue to download tracks illicitly as well. They use BitTorrent to get US editions of Lost. They think 'Google' is a synonym for 'research' and regard it as quite normal to maintain and read blogs (55 million as of last night), use Skype to talk to their mates and upload photos to Flickr. Some even write entries on Wikipedia. And they know how to use iMovie or Adobe Premiere to edit videos and upload them to YouTube.

PRODUCT DEMONSTRATION IS BACK

I  love this nike site for their new juice golf ball, love that you can vote for which will be the next clip to be uploaded too.

Reminds me of these demonstrations for Blendtec.

I like Blendtecs microsite too.

All of which started me thinking, with the fragmentation of mass media is it now possible/desirable that a brand could be percieved completely differently in different markets?  Could brand schizophrenia be the next think, I might rift a bit more about this once I've given it some thought.

Either way these sites do go to show, product demonstration can be mighty entertaining in the right hands.

THE VIEW FROM OUR WINDOW TODAY

Down in the basement you don't get much of a view, just a brick wall and dumped rubbish, but this morning we found these. I find the whole thing so intriguing; Who are these people?  Who threw the photos away? Why? We've just spent the last half hour making up our own stories of who they are and how they came to be there.

Things are so much more engaging when you don't have the complete picture but just enough to fire the imagination.

QUOTES | A WRITER'S CRAFT

Saw this quote over at Ben's blog this morning and have decided we should stick it on our powerpoint presentations from now on.  Apparently, it came from those smart guys at base camp

Maybe it's because I'm a copywriter, but I love quotes. If for no other reason than, they are a fantastic reminder that even in today's 'visual world' well-crafted words still have the power to resonate in a profound way.

So it used to concern me that when I met today's student teams and asked them what they were you got the same reply from both, we're creatives.  Ask them how that works and who's going to write any words that are needed and you usually get something along the lines of; both of us, whoever's less busy, or the all encompassing, dunno haven't thought about it.

Digging a little deeper I discovered that all the major ad courses; St.Martins, Bucks etc. don't teach writing or art direction as a skill. They teach the creation of ideas.

All of which used to deeply trouble me. A lot.

But it doesn't anymore, because I was wrong and they are right (well, up to a point, it's the industry that's creative, not a person nor a department, but that's for another time.)

I was being lazy in my thinking.  Why are we asking people to articulate an idea in a particular medium and then once they have, expect those very same people to craft it all the way through?  The answer is, for no other reason than because that's how it's always been done. And that's no answer at all.

At Here Be Monsters, we're experimenting with a whole new structure, one that plays to individuals strengths and is loosely based on my experience of writing for Hollywood, where someone has an idea, another person writes it, another rewrites the funny bits, yet another rewrites the female voice etc. and it's all done under the watchful eye of someone (usually a producer) who has a very clear vision of what they want to achieve at the end of it.

And so if the solution to our client's problem requires written words we employ dedicated writers, people who feel the need to write; TV writers, comedy writers, script writers, copywriters, novelist and journalists to write them for us.

As I'm forever saying, now is the time for us to experiment.

BALTIC TOUR 06 | ENGLISH LANGUAGE

This puzzled me. Was it the work of a visiting Brit with a spray can? Or just a local hoodie with a desire to  show off his foreign language skills?

Then I came across this

I know English is the universal language but I still find it strange/amazing whenever I come across it in situations like this.

BALTIC TOUR 06 | LITHUANIA

Another day another country. Lithuania went much the same way as Estonia, but this time I'd already been warned what to expect, so the silence wasn't as disconcerting.

I then had 3 hours before flying home, which I spent walking the streets of the Old Town, I did find this place, which I want to believe was the Eastern Bloc's answer to NYC's Studio 54. Notice too the impressive hours of business (9pm-5am).  Alas I was never to go inside, which may well have been a good thing as it will forever be the urber 70s kitch heaven of my imagination.

Great type.

BALTIC TOUR 06 | HIC

Following on from the previous entry about use of English, I saw this sign in Lithuanian. Don't know about you but I think that just looks a better way of spelling alcohol.

BALTIC TOUR 06 | McPLAYGROUND

It's always nice to give something back to the community, even if you do feel the need to paint it in corporate colours and cover it in your logo. But I'm not against that, after all there's no such thing as a free playground as anyone in the lunch business knows only too well.

It's just that if you're going to go that route you had better make sure you keep it nice and clean and graffitti-free if you want it to be a positive representation of your brand in the community. And not a junkies hang out. Made me realise that a higher level of commitment is going to be demanded from companies in the future, as a lot of what they do is going to hang around the web for a long time.

BALTIC TOUR 06 | HOTEL CLOCKS

New York Paris London, I could understand, after all that's the classic jetset trinity beloved of fashion houses and perfumeries the world over, but these three cities? Does anyone know why?

BALTIC TOUR 06 | VILNIUS AIRPORT

Is this the best looking airport in the world? It's now my personal favourite. It's like arriving at some palatial manor house. And yet, everyone I spoke to about it in Lithuania was embarrassed by it, which is such a pity.

   

BALTIC TOUR 06 | RIGA AIRPORT

I don't know if it was because I was missing my son or not, but I really love this idea of having a pinboard in the childrens' play area for childern's pictures. A missed opportunity for a child-friendly company to get involved.

HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN, THEN?

I would have thought that Britain's biggest anything would be fairly easy to spot, especially when it's a hole. Does make you wonder what it was hiding as.

BALTIC TOUR 06 | LATVIAN TRAVEL AGENCY

During the years of occupation, anyone leaving flowers here would be bundled off to Siberia. As a result the Latvians refer to this war memorial as the travel agency. Kind of sums up the spirit of the place, that attitude.

BALTIC TOUR 06 | LATVIAN ART

Not too sure what this building was, but the army were goose stepping around it, so I was suitably impressed. Loved the artwork too.

BALTIC TOUR 06 | LATVIA

Flew off to Latvia that night.  Same deal the next day, 9.30am start and then the rest of the day to myself.

This time, I killed them. Same jokes. Same provocative thoughts. But what difference. A wonderfully lively debate afterwards that lasted 40minutes. What can I say, different country, different culture same material. Latvia, I love you.

They also had something of sheer brilliance at the event - instead of having to put your hand up and ask questions you could SMS it to a screen.

After, I went walking around the Old Town. Whenever I go abroad I never really do what I should, museums, sites etc. For me I like to just sit and watch and absorb the place I'm in and that's exactly what I did.

Found a great coffee shop

BALTIC TOUR 06 | ESTONIAN BOOK SHOP

Discovered a bookshop. Trouble was it was closed, but they had these books in the window. Loved them.

BALTIC TOUR 06 | ESTONIA

I was invited to tour the Baltics and give a talk about the 'new world' and how agencies need to adjust to it. My first stop was Estonia and I died; my tried and tested jokes - nothing. My most provocative opinions - not a murmur. And at the end, two questions.

Afterwards talking to the organiser he told me that this was typical Estonian - they're very quiet and respectful when it comes to people talking especially foreigners. Small comfort, but comfort none the less. That night I was flying off to Latvia, which gave me the rest of the day to explore the old town.

There really is something about this place. A real sense of energy, a belief that anything is possible, but there's still a respect for the past, but one that goes only so far. 

Let me give you example.

I don't know if I was being ultra adventurous or ultra cautious by opting for a curry, but I did.  Anyway, this is what it looked like from the outside

And this is what it looked like inside. (Sorry about the crap photo but it was an awkward shape.)

And it was the same all over city.  Take a look at this place.

Ideal if, like me, you use a MacBook.

And yet this is what it looked like outside.

A great place, Estonia, they live in the now