Recommended reading – 24th July 2010

I’ve been a bit neglectful of this blog over the past month or two. Come September, this should change.

I haven’t written a “recommended reading” post for over a month, so I will rectify that by posting two this weekend, featuring the very best of the various articles and blogs I’ve read over the past five weeks.

Without further ado, the first seven links I would strongly suggest that you click on are:

• Maureen Johnson at BlogHer has written a manifesto against personal branding. She thinks the internet should be a place where people can come together and chat, without the constant pressure of having to sell yourself or your product

• Martin Moore at PBS provides some thoughts on the future of news. He predicts that news-gathering as a whole will continue to provide a viable business model, but that there will be black spots where public interest isn’t matched by commercial appeal.

• Mel Exon at BBH Labs questions whether clients still need agencies. The post is directed at advertising agencies, but the general issues can be applied to other sectors.

• Matt Simpson at Face gives a great overview of a co-creation session the company ran with an MBA Customer Insights Class at the Saïd Business School.

• John Griffiths provides an excellent account of the Innovation Fest that Ogilvy & Mather and Brainjuicer ran.

• A long but fascinating article by Farhad Manjoo in Fast Company, on ten lessons that can be learned from Apple

• Henry Jenkins revisits the 7 principles of transmedia planning – it also acts as a great primer for those not familiar with the theory.

sk

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Links – 31st January 2009

As Des’ree once bemoaned, “Life, oh life, oh life, oh life”. A hectic few weeks are *fingers crossed* finally over. Rather than just watching the evening news and eating toast in that time, I also managed to read and bookmark some interesting things posted on the internet. Here is part 1 of a two-part collection of said stuff.

Insights

I’ve enjoyed the back and forth discussion regarding the nature and usefulness of insights. Richard Huntingdon used Simon Law’s presentation as a basis to provocatively state that insights do not come from the research department but from a combination of within (presumably not from those within the research department though), real life, academia and “weird shit”. This inspired several other posts.

Rory Sutherland sought to distinguish between an idea – creative – and insight – deduction.

Kevin McLean, a Qual researcher, felt that a little humility could have been used in the argument.

Will Humphrey offered a balanced summary, arguing that research findings should promote creativity and lateral thinking, but that planners should be more “ballsy” when pushing for decent research.

In terms of being ballsy and challenging, Dave Trott offers an inspiring story of changing a slender brief to a truly impactful one after going away to research the product

My own thoughts? Bad research, and bad researchers, exist. As do bad planners, creatives, account managers, product directors and so on. A project is more likely to succeed if each stakeholder is capable of implementing the necessary vision. This requires dialogue on each side – utilising specific skills and expertise to challenge, mould, amend and hone a brief. It is a researcher’s duty to provide a bespoke solution that will provide real, accurate, tangible outputs. If they don’t then they have failed. But other people in the chain have just as big an opportunity to succeed or fail.

Marketing and advertising

Rory Sutherland wonder if we can outsource media planning to the public through recommendation mechanisms within social media.

John Willshire followed up on that post with the notion that this removes control on how the message is propagated. He gives a great example of how such a scheme can easily be commoditised.

Ad Week looks at the rising relevance of shopper marketing in times of media fragmentation.

Faris Yakob uses a brilliant (fan-made) Thundercats trailer to illustrate the power and benefits of recombinant marketing

Iain Tait has a minor rant about the trend of using the themes of connection and collaboration within TV advertising

Graeme Wood remarks on ways in which the internet and social media can be used to deepen involvement in a television show

A NY Times article on ways in which the internet is being used to promote new novels

“Trust Me” – a new shot set at an advertising agency has launched in the US (NY Times). Within the show, real life brands and campaigns are placed. Personally, I think this is a great way to involve brands into entertainment in an organic way. However, in the UK product placement is currently illegal and so I wonder whether the show could ever be shown over here. Precedents are mixed e.g. we may get James Bond films with the “kerching” moments uncut but the Coca Cola drinks within American Idol are pixellated.

Rohit Bhargava on how advertisers can use consumers to help promote them

Ad Rants takes a look at Bob Garfield’s overview of the widget economy. I’m now locked out of the original article, so if anyone has access I would appreciate it if a copy could be sent my way 🙂

Claire Beale on Walker’s campaign to crowdsource a new flavour of crisp

Online video

Jim Louderback makes an excellent point in that, online, the third dimension of depth – or engagement – is far more important than reach and frequency

Mark Cuban believes online video is overhyped because the technology isn’t stable enough for mass simultaneous viewing. I would argue that this is what TV is for; online video is not TV and its benefits are different, but complementary.

And to highlight that difference, because the web is much more about discovery and experimentation, we see a huge drop off in viewing between episode 1 and episode 2 of a web series. Newteevee has a great overview of a recent report

Music

A Freakytrigger post shows that the number of new entries in the UK charts has dropped off a cliff in recent years. A negative effect of the long tail?

A very interesting Music Think Tank post on a pull music paradigm shift. There is some dissension in the comments but I found it fascinating

Tomorrow’s update will feature articles on social media, technology and the internet, and business and ideas

sk

Classic Blog Posts #3

Faris Yakob on Transmedia Planning.

The crux of this notion is that brands can capitalise on our converging culture and media consumption by introducing non-linear brand narratives. In other words, different media can host different elements of a campaign. Each element works on an individual level, but by combining them can give a synergistic  (SIDENOTE: I had initially favoured synergetic but spellcheck and Google overruled) result that is greater than the sum of its parts.

It is an absolutely brilliant thought. Faris expanded on it in his essay for the IPA Diploma, which deservedly won the President’s Prize.

That is by no means a slight on the other essays submitted. Reading through the other two essays published (by Graeme Douglas and Isabel Butcher), as well as the synopses of the remaining papers, shows a depth of interesting propositions.

For additional reading, Transmedia planning was cleverly expanded upon by Jason Oke, who suggested incorporating social relationships for that extra level of interest. Incidentally, Jason has since left Leo Burnett and can now be found blogging here.

Each of these links is incredibly thought-provoking, and they come with my highest recommendation

sk