NORTHERN PLANNER

At Personal DNA you can create your own profile. Apparently I’m a benevolent inventor. Thanks to Planning from the Outside for the reference.

If you’ve got a lot of experience, perhaps you think you’ve got a lot to teach young people joining your industry. Be prepared for the fact that they may have things to teach you. That’s the good thing about youth, it has such an unblinkered, fresh approach to stuff, without the baggage the rest of us have picked up.

Beccy joined us full time last year after an internship. She was precocious then, now she’s scary. I was happy with a public sector strategy today, until she gave me a totally different point of view.

It’s always worth talking through your thinking with someone else, just be gracious when you show you how wrong you’ve been (and think fast about how you can take the credit).

This idea seemed quite nice at first. In Australia, you can put your logo on nightclub pass out stamps. On reflection I thought it was more Urban Spam, but since there’s a public smoking ban coming to the UK, maybe it could be useful way for cigarette brands to connect with young smokers. Anyway, what do I know? I’m 32 and I live in a village. The only club I’ve been to recently is a tennis one (and my hip went) perhaps I should stick to what I know…….

Here’s and interesting thought. Grant McCracken believes that since virtual reality is beginning to  allow interaction with more people, they’ll feel more ‘real’. Makes sense since it’s the unpredictability of other people’s behavior that make the ‘real world’ so vital, and continuously gives us new things. It’s happening in games, but what about films? What could this mean for brands?

A weakness of most  communications in general is that they are linear and predictable. Reality TV tends to work because it works the other way, you don’t know what will happen next,although you are helping to create the story (if you vote).

Perhaps we’ll be creating ‘living’ brand stories that evolve thanks to decisions made by real people rather than boardrooms. Just like people decide who stays in Big Brother, perhaps they’ll decide the the development in next week’s ad, or on online film. The trick will be to set an agenda, rather than offer a limited choice. It will mean leaving space for them to surprise us and each other.

Nike’s ‘Joga Bonita’ stuff works like this. The ads are one thing, but the online stuff is really interesting. Instead of star players, real people can compete against each other, filming their best moves and tricks to post on the web for all to see, inspiring each other to do better. We’ll see more of this.

Someone who spends all day thinking about brands shouldn’t fall for marketing should he?

Yet I couldn’t stop myself buying these vintage Nike Cross Trainers from Ebay. They remind me what it felt like be a rebellious junior tennis player refusing to wear white at the my local club. I totally bought into the rebellious Andre Agassi thing and nothing that Nike has done since has made me feel anything differently.

This thing about having fans instead of customers will become ever more important as more people become able to filter out more marketing with things like PVR’s, not to mention using search engines and blogs to find stuff for themselves. More brands are resorting to Urban Spam, a phrase coined by Russell Davies. But instead of more int eruption,shouldn’t they be creating communication people want to find and, dare I say it, pass on instead? Honda’s ‘Choir’ ad had been downloaded over 3 million times for example.

Halzephron Farm is a fabulous concept. They sell an amazing choice of natural herbal remedies, sauces, chutneys and dips. The wonderful packaging and sheer naturalness of it go a long way to persuading you to buy something. But what makes it so special is the sheer passion of the place. They love their stuff and want to share it with as many people as possible. There are always bowls filled with a treasure trove of different tastes and some stuff to dip with. And you can stay as long as you like.
Some would call this this experiential marketing, they see it as sharing. What a great point of view for a brand. You can also buy their stuff online.

If you’re looking for your first role in planning, read this first. A bit different to what happened to me, I was just an average suit who realised I was better at thinking than doing.

This group from Finland won the Eurovision Song Contest.

If you’re not from Europe, don’t worry, we can’t work it out either.

 

It’s nearly the football World Cup, which means that English people get a bigger chance to be cynical than usual. England fans are already looking for excuses for us not winning; from the manager to Wayne Rooney’s foot. After seeing their base in Baden Baden, I predict lack of motivation this time. From the views to the natural spa’s it’s simply too relaxing for anything too hectic.

Even the ‘Bad Hotel’ was good and NEARLY everyone we met embarrassed us with their perfect English and good humour.