NORTHERN PLANNER

Sorry for the lack of entries recently. It’s time consuming being a one man planning department.

Anyway, the newspaper society ran an interesting ad in Campaign last week. It told us that ad avoiding consumers actually look for ads in local press, nay, that’s why they buy them.
They want you to go onto www.thewantedads.co.uk to find out more and see the research.So far so good.
When you log on, the research isn’t there and you can’t have it without filling out a form and agreeing to an unspecified price. To find out how much it is, you have to phone someone in London.
Now hold on. They want our business, they’ve got our attention, and then they want us to pay for the follow through?
They may understand press, but they sure don’t get how it fits in with the other stuff.

Just been uploading pictures of last month’s trip to the Eden Project.

Perfect example of a brand with a consistent message. It’s inspiring, interesting and all about plants and the environment.

You end up being so motivated to support the cause, you end up spending a fortune in the gift shop.

These cotton seeds on my organic cotton shirt were a nice touch.

‘The Independent’ reports that this year’s World Cup could see a match winning goal broadcast in an ad just minutes after the final whistle. New technology will allow you to edit right up until the last minute. Maybe this will give more cut – through in the post PVR world. Imagine Subway airing a commercial on the same day it was made to convey freshness, or Barclaycard covering today’s priceless moments. On the other hand, let’s hope that people don’t change their minds more now there’s more time to do so. Here’s the article.

Here’s an article from Ad Age Daily about the importance of search marketing for brands. I was in a meeting last week when the media planners tried to convince the client that they needed to go on TV to be credible. We thought that perhaps there were other things to work on first. Looks like getting on search results is one of them.

It’s hard being in big meetings like that, many clients tend to listen to media people because they invoice them the most, or account people because they know they’ll agree with them. As a planner you quickly learn to say less, but to make it count when you do. Russell Davies has a triangle trick for meetings, it works and you can find it here if you scroll down to ‘Draw a triangle’.

Interesting article on Malcolm Gladwell and cheating in sport. He suggests using statistical analysis to understand if record breakers are likely to have used drugs. Another example of how research must be innovative to find new stuff, but do we really want to find out? People enjoy sport for those moments that defy explanation. Maybe Flo Jo was cheating, I for one would rather not know. Read the full article here.

American Dream turns into a nightmare of numbers

Marina Hyde
Thursday April 20, 2006
The Guardian

Walking for the paper I discovered that I live in a Sherlock Home.

Not everyone in our village relies on mobiles and emails.

A genuine Channel 4 moment.

Here’s a fascinating website that shows visual representations of music. From Bach to Madonna. The images are beautiful.

I’ve worked on quite a few briefs with account handlers recently. I think we both found it useful since they got to do something different, and I got some input from the client perspective. I think I get on well with suits since I was one, but what’s it like for other people?

When you’re learning to be a planner, there’s plenty of guidance for stimulating creatives but not for working with suits. It’s a shame because they have a big say in the decisions that count and they can also help you get your thinking through the client. Being a former account handler, I really appreciate them doing contact reports and organising things too.

In the end, dealing with suits isn’t any different to dealing with creatives. Russell Davies says that in both cases, planners are always an optional extra, you have to make yourself the guy they want it the room. I’ll have a think about what those things actually are (might be useful for creatives too).

Just had Quba in to chat about the future of digital marketing. The most interesting bit was how the next wave of mobile phones could transform advertising, perhaps save it.

Flashpoint 2 phones are beginning to come out and they’ll transform how we get content. Mobile websites will be more sophisticated and we ‘ll be able downlaod more stuff, even streaming video. Orange predicts that 80% of all content will be accessed through mobiles by 2010, they may have a point – Wimax is coming, which is like a mobile version of broadband.

Now here’s the good bit. Whenever you photograph or video something, if it’s got the right barcode, you’ll immediately be able to view some content direct on your phone. Imagine if you see a 48 sheet ad, you can quickly photograph it and watch a free film, or you can video a short TV and go straight to longer form content, or a game. You don’t have to go on the Internet, it’s done for you straight away. 

Can this be an answer to ad zapping? If people see a barcode on an ad, they’ll  know there’s some free content out there. As long as they can tell it’s worth their while, and they’ll need to see that in FF, they’ll have to watch the ad at normal speed to get the free stuff.

It’s coming in the next 12 months. What do you think? Brand and experiential marketing all in one?