LONDON – Tesco has been criticised by animal welfare groups and celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall for cutting the price of its standard chicken by 60% to as little as £1.99, in a special one-week offer.
I thought for far too long about how to be witty and deeply thought-provoking at the same time for my first blog post here. But to be honest, I’ve never really been considered either of those, so there’s not a lot of value in trying to change now. What’s that saying about old dogs and new tricks?
The whole ‘about me’ thing can wait for the ‘about me’ section so let’s get straight to the good stuff.
As a blogger one of the more interesting things I’ve come across this year is Wired’s Life Cycle of a Blog Post piece, that details how a post gets hot, and how it’s really pretty simple to get your blog posts picked up by the web machine and taken to places unknown – ultimately getting your Technorati rating up (which I’m sad to disclose is something far too many ad-bloggers worry about).
Apparently “You just need to know how to type” – Imagine that.
From Wired via Only Dead Fish
If you watched any of last night’s election coverage, you’ve probably figured out that voters are completely unpredictable. And beyond that, this year the conventional wisdom regarding race, gender, age, and religion just can’t be applied to this election cycle.
Since voters are consumers, and ad agencies are in the business of trying to figure out what our target audiences want, I decided to take a closer look at whether ad agencies are ready for the changes we’re seeing. It’s my new column on Talent Zoo.
Here’s a preview:
I once worked on an ad for a baby product. As my art director was putting together some comps for internal review, she decided to put a stock photo of a black baby in one ad. There were no ulterior motives, no creative brief mandates—just that the black baby was cute and we rarely saw them in the publications the ad was going to appear in. We thought the ad would “cut through the clutter†as the cliché goes.
This Ford Focus spot from Ogilvy London makes the arguable point that your car could be stolen and stripped for parts in pursuit of something classy. Either that or they’re ripping instruments from the hands of professional musicians and building cars out of them. That would be more in line with Henry Ford’s original vision, methinks. Either way, the results are classy enough to keep YouTube trolls under their bridges, which is no mean feat. AdFreak wonders what the response would be to a bluegrass band playing instruments made from an F-Series.
—Posted by David Kiefaber
LONDON – The BBC has cancelled ‘Grange Hill’ after 30 years, meaning the fictional comprehensive’s gates will close for the last time at the end of the forthcoming series.
Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of Netscape, has started a “deathwatch” for the New York Times Co. on his blog. Could this be revenge for the Times at some point misspelling his name? Three e’s, two s’s and that tricky “re†where one expects an “er†… very stressful for overworked journalists in the age of media cutbacks and closings. Actually, he’s pissed off that the paper hired William Kristol as an op-ed columnist. Look on the bright side: At least they didn’t give Billy Crystal a column. I hereby inaugurate a deathwatch for Netscape! Oh, March 1 is its last day. Adding insult to injury, I Googled via Firefox to find the date. Sorry, Marc. Oh, and before I forget: Happy deathwatch!
—Posted by David Gianatasio
Though largely forgotten in recent years, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was a major media star in the 1960s and ’70s whose lasting impact on Western popular culture is both subtle and profound. He captured the covers of national magazines for playing guru to the Beatles, putting the moves on a then-groovy Mia Farrow at a meditation retreat and inspiring songs by the Fab Four, Donovan and the Beach Boys. More significantly, he helped introduce several generations to key aspects of Eastern spirituality and set the stage for the proliferation of everything from meditation and mind-body health to veganism. He once said, “The important thing is this: to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.†Maharishi Mahesh Yogi did just that on Tuesday at age 91.
—Posted by David Gianatasio
Steve Rubel calls content a commodity and says the “Attention Crash” is real and that it’s only going to get worse. Of course, he wouldn’t say those things without offering a remedy.
Enter the Digital Curator.
Information overload makes it difficult to separate junk from art. It requires a certain finesse and expertise – a fine tuned, perhaps trained eye. Google, memetrackers such as Techmeme and social news sites like digg are not curators. They’re aggregators – and there’s a big difference.
The call of the curator requires people who are selfless and willing to act as sherpas and guides. They’re identifiable subject matter experts who dive through mountains of digital information and distill it down to its most relevant, essential parts. Digital Curators are the future of online content. Brands, media companies and dedicated individuals can all become curators. Further, they don’t even need to create their own content, just as a museum curator rarely hangs his/her own work next to a Da Vinci. They do, however, need to be subject matter experts.
Rubel goes on to say curators are not editors. I veer off at that point. The act of sifting through vast collections and offering the juiciest parts is, in fact, a form of editing. I’ll also challenge his claim that brands need to be “subject matter experts.” Not exactly. But they do need to know who the “subject matter experts” are, and then hire them to curate and/or create content. Redken’s OutofTown.tv, where they turn to Flavorpill for expertise, is a good example.
Thanks to an infusion of cash from an Australian holding company, Faris Yakob and his associates at Naked can now buy Bespoke suits, should the fancy strike them.
Ad Age has the story…
U.K. planning agency Naked Communications has been acquired by Australian holding company Photon Group in a deal that includes an upfront payment of $38 million in cash.
The agency, which opened in the U.K. in 2000, has about 200 employees working in eight countries. Its total revenue in 2007 was about $31 million, with the majority coming from the U.K.
In case you’re wondering about Photon, Ad Age dedicates another story to the firm they deem “Australia’s ‘Less Sophisticated’ Version of Omnicom.”
LONDON – Digital and direct agency eCircle has made three senior appointments to the agency from IPT, including Barney Willis who will head up the media team at the agency.
LONDON – AOL’s sale of its ISP businesses in Europe has significantly dented its financial performance, with owner Time Warner’s 2007 financial report revealing the unit’s revenues fell by a third from 2006.
If you categorize everything in the world as either Mac or PC (and why not?), you’ll feel in sync with a New York Times article this week that declared Hillary Clinton a PC and Barack Obama a Mac. In part, these classifications derived from analysis of the candidates’ Web sites. We’re told barackobama.com is stylistically reminiscent of Apple’s iTunes site and of the Mac aesthetic more generally. The article is less specific in the connection it draws between hillaryclinton.com and PC style, though it does quote one Web-design expert as saying Clinton’s site is “more regal†while Obama’s is “more youthful.†While “regal†is not a quality one associates with a republic (as opposed to a monarchy), the article questions whether “aligning with the trendy Mac aesthetic is good politics.†After all, it notes, the Mac “is still a niche computer†in a PC-dominated world.
—Posted by Mark Dolliver
Directories business Yell has appointed Phillip Snalune as new media development director in the UK.
LONDON – Alastair Ross Goobey, one of GCap Media’s independent non-executive directors, has passed away.
I found these internal Atarti memo’s from Atarigames.com. Very interesting, both from a gamers point of view and from an advertising perspective.
I love the highlighted findings that “Centipede” is in the top 10% of characters in terms of appeal. It was slim pickings back in 1984 as who could really love 8 pixels or this friendly cabinet decal.
There’s strategy documents about game tournaments being held in 1991 and design documents for classic games like Marble Madness dating back to to the early 80’s and earlier.
LONDON – Continental Airlines has chosen Neolane’s customer communications software to help it create a more targeted digital communications strategy in the UK market.
LONDON – WWAV Rapp Collins Media has promoted managing director Peter Mitchell to the role of CEO.
LONDON – Richard Beaven, the incoming worldwide chief executive of Initiative, has moved to put a new senior executive team in place by promoting Tim Spengler to president of the agency’s US operation.
LONDON – Blinkx, the video search engine, has announced two new partnerships aimed at enhancing its content offering.
LONDON – Gas and telecoms companies have been singled out as having the worst performing call centres, with British Gas and BT experiencing high levels of dissatisfied customers, according to a study by the Citizens Advice Bureau.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
