Interesting 2007 films

Videos from Russell Davies' "Interesting" conference have started to be posted on his blog - a mere two months later. It is worth the wait nonetheless.

So far contributions from Sophie Dollar, Andrew Hovells, Grant McCracken, and my favourite so far Adrian from howies on how to split a log with an axe.

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Eight things that terrify account people

If you're an agency exec (AE), face it, everyone hates you. Your client is smarter than you about the industry and thinks you're an idiot. They complain that your agency and your creatives never come to them with any truly breakthrough thinking.

This is the warm-up to quite a well thought out piece on iMediaConnection. It goes on:

Your creatives hate you because you obviously don't get it, and you are interfering with them creating their pièce de résistance, their homage to film noir via streaming video and Flash that is going to make them famous so they don't have to sell out anymore.

Your CFO hates you because you don't bill your client on time. Your management hates you because you are not extracting enough value from the client, and you're using too many agency resources.

In fact, your spouse and kids probably hate you because you're spending too much time at work. So why do you even bother? Why don't you just stick your finger in a light socket and be done with it?

Well there are plenty of reasons - but that's not the point. Despite the demotivational intro, there are apparently 8 things that really freak account people out. I'm not sure there are only eight, but these make a good start.

• Client being acquired
• Agency in review
• Winning business the agency can't handle
• A tight job market
• A new chief contact at the client
• Massive short-term increases in budget
• The traditional agency pitching interactive ideas
• The client makes a pass at the AE

This is re-posted from my own site, but I thought I need something to start the ball rolling...

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BACN: Email you want, but not right now

The latest Web 2.0 term to come to grips with is BACN. When an email is not spam, but not really personal mail either, it's bacn.

According to Wired Magazine:

Invitations to join social networks are the new spam...

However some geeks in Pittsburgh disagree. They have coined the term 'bacn' to cover Facebook friend requests, Google alerts, Twitter updates, bill notifications, newsletters and so on.

Emails that you are expecting, and you do need, but somehow still seem like they are getting in the way of legitimate, important email, all can be classified as bacn, according to the rather self-satisfied inventors of the term.

As brands and other media explore ways of using social media platforms, they need to keep an eye on any unintended side-effects, such as email notifications that might tread the line between spam and bacn.

Still confused? View the public service announcement on YouTube. Somewhat paradoxically there is also a Twitter feed.

Put simply:

Bacn. It’s better than spam.

I'm still waiting for the bacn Flickr page and the Facebook group, but beware the inevitable buzzword backlash.

Do you think we need another email classification?

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A short interlude

I'm now off to Peru and Bolivia for 3 weeks, so you won't be hearing much from me. However, I have handed over the keys to a couple of friends (and ex-colleagues) of mine, who I'm hoping will keep the place ticking over while I'm away. I'll let them introduce themselves, as and when (and if) they post.

See you when I get back.

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Is advertising broken?

Gareth Kay asks 'Is planning broken?'

The sole responsibility of the planner is to ensure that the work works. Yet all the data suggests that this is clearly not the case.

As my title suggests, we may as well be asking 'is advertising broken?'

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One word equity

Greg Verdino has an amusing rant about Maurice Saatchi and One Word Equity:

the premise behind one word equity relies on a faulty notion that your "one word" and my "one word" for a brand will be the same. No matter how much you invest in ad messages trumpeting your brand essence, the consumer (though they may be influenced by what you tell them) will always define your brand in their own terms.

Go read the whole thing.

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Why we buy the what we buy

Time sums up somes up some recent research:

Children given the same French fries and chicken nuggets in different packaging preferred the taste of the food delivered in McDonald's wrappers. "Ideally, a manufacturer increases the quality of a product, and that in turn increases word of mouth and media coverage. But advertising shortcuts this process. There's no longer a connection to quality."

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Behavioural targeting gone mad

Yahoo have taken behavioural targeting (defined here and here) one step further with Smart Ads. As Adweek reported last month, Smart Ads:

automates the creation of banner ads, allowing advertisers to run potentially thousands of permutations tailored to user behavior.

The rich media banners are created on the fly, combining Yahoo's trove of user behavior data with inventory feeds from advertisers. The result is executions based on what users have searched for and one on Yahoo! matched up with product listings from advertisers.

For example, Yahoo! could detect a New York-based user who has recently searched for flights to San Francisco. Working with an airline's listing of fare deals from New York to San Francisco, a banner ad promoting a sale on that route would be generated from assets provided by the airline's agency. For agencies, this means not having to worry about creating thousands of different banner ads.

Yahoo! has begun with the travel industry and plans to move to retail and auto. The SmartAds placements are receiving two-to-three times higher click through rates than regular placements.

David Kenny, chairman of Digitas, said technology platforms like SmartAds hold the promise of bringing the hyper-targeting and effectiveness of search into the 95 percent of Internet pages that are not search results.

"It can be a very important piece especially for retail, financial services and travel," he said. "For those clients, who spend a big chunk of their [online] budgets on search, it's a big deal."

Tom - this makes the NYT piece on Publicis' digital strategy make a bit more sense, no?

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Human conversations

Etsy's Robert Kalin:

corporations try to sanitize all their outgoing messages for the sake of keeping face. It is very easy to identify this kind of behavior. Whenever you read something...

... and it sounds like a series of pre-made phrases strung together, instead of a human being speaking, this is sanitized communication. To me, this stuff sounds inhuman.

I want Etsy to stay human. This means allowing each person’s voice to be heard, even if it’s squeaky or loud or soft. I will not put a glossy layer of PR over what we do. If we trip, let us learn from it instead of trying to hide it; when we leap, let’s show others how to leap.

As Dino Demopoulous points out:

Internet companies like Etsy don't have all of the answers, not by a long-shot, but there is a lot to be said for the 2.0 web way of thinking (if you could put it that way). In a word, "Be More Like the Internet".

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STA Travel's widgets

Finally, a company that gets it. STA Travel have released a comprehensive set of widgets for people to download to their desktop or to embed either on their blog, start page or their Facebook profile.

The fact that this is exceptional rather than ordinary shows how far most companies have to go to come to terms with Advertising 2.0.

[And no, I don't normally take myself this seriously, but I've got a raging hangover and have to do a year's worth of expenses today, so indulge me...]

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Wal-Mart's Facebook group

Wal-Mart have just launched a Facebook group. Over to Charlene Li:

I think that Wal-Mart is doing several things really well here - which is a nice change of pace given their previous forays into social computing (e.g. social networking site "The Hub" and blogging with Wal-Marting Across America).

Most importantly, they've understood the interactive, social nature of Facebook. The Style Match Quiz not only allows me to take the quiz, but to also post it to my profile and send it to friends.

I'm going to be watching the Wall comments very closely -- there will certainly be Wal-Mart fans who come and profess their fandom, as well as detractors. It's also an opportunity to see if students begin posting questions about dorm life - will other students respond, or would Wal-Mart step forward and help address some of those questions?

Also to watch is how Wal-Mart evolves the group after the initial back-to-school rush, especially since the roommate matching quiz is set to run only through October. This is a relationship that Wal-Mart now needs to think about nurturing, not a campaign that can be turned "off" at a specific date.

Although it appears Wal-Mart have ripped off been inspired by what Target have already done on Facebook (see Target's group here). Ilya Vedrashko points out:

While the two pages may share many interactive similarities, the user comments are strikingly different. The mood on Wal-Mart's page: "This is about the soul of our great country we most not let wal mart hollow it out." On Target's: "I love going to Target even when I have nothing in particular to buy."

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See you tonight?

I'm off to the E-consultancy / Lemon Studios Summer Party this evening, and I'm sure some of you are too. If so, come and say hi. I'll be the really drunk slightly tipsy one in the corner wittering on about social media to anyone that will listen...

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The art of conversation

Leo Ryan on the art of conversation:

We’ve been thinking recently about what we do as relating to conversations. Nothing new there really. The ‘interactive’ in interactive media should give us a clue as to the back and forth or dialogue nature of digital. So I was having a shuftie around the Net to see what there was around the idea of conversations and came across this interesting list.

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Situation comedy

No, I'm not talking about Apple's 728x90 (although it is funny). In light of the recent fracas about online display advertising and the content it's appearing next to, it's worth remembering what can happen when placements go really wrong. Enjoy.

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Channel 4 launches Big Brother Facebook app

Channel 4 have launched a clever little Facebook app for Big Brother:

Once you've downloaded it, you will receive constant updates of the latest news from the House, meaning nothing will happen without you knowing about it. You can support any housemate, even evicted and fake ones, and once you know where your allegiance lies, you will get your favourite housemates' latest news, profile, pictures and videos. The housemate you support will show up in your feed so you can spread the love.

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