D&AD week this week. BBH lecture tonight, awards on Wednesday.
BBH talk should be brilliant. But D&AD talks are often disappointing, still I’ll enjoy the free Kirin. John and Nige have writen about some of their favourite ads in the Indy today. Worth a look, but sadly I can't find the article online.
Awards should be a laugh – whatever happens. More news later in the week.
I was looking through some old photos and I came across these from about one and a half / two years ago. When we were a smaller company we used to go to lots of Business Link events. Not sure why. "Networking" I suppose. Business Link are a UK Government agency that try and help small businesses. But like a lot of Government agencies they don't really do very much. A lot of talking and good intentions, a lot of meetings. Not much "doing".
Anyway, I was invited to an evening of Speed Networking (I know, I know) and I thought it might be a good laugh. So myself and another Partner went along. Here's a picture of Speed Networking.
See what I mean by that title? That is what it looks like when you get to Hell.
The Devil sits there laughing while everyone else Speed Networks.
It gets worse.
Before the Speed Networking started three lucky people got to stand at the front and "sell" their business in 60 seconds. "HiI'mJohnandIrunJohnBrown'sPCRemovalsLtdweremoveoldPC'sfrombusinessesjustlikeyours.." and so on and so on. For the really keen you could pin your business card to a board, so that if you missed anyone during the Speed Networking, they would see your amazing business card and invite you over for a cup of tea. Or something.
Here's what that looked like.
I'm wincing as I write this.
It was a truly, truly horrendous experience. We tried one round of Speed Networking just so we could say we'd tried it, but we left after about 15 minutes. We never went to another Business Link event again.
Which begs the question why did we go in the first place?
The perfect illustration of Britishness, I feel.
This is stunning. A video of a journey through a city. In graphics.
"Studio Smack is a collective of young artists searching for new esthetics and concepts. Commissioned by the De Beyerd Museum three young graphic designers, former students of AKV/St. Joost, Ton Meijdam, Thom Snels & Béla Zsigmond,made a film about legible signs in town. The typo-animation Kapitaal (Capital)is an impression of the enormous amount of visual stimuli that plague us every day. The amount is so big that its commercial effectiveness has become utterly dubious."
Change. I don't profess to be an expert, but I'm going to write about change.
I read lots about change, and we get asked to do change all the time. Recently we've been asked to help effect change in consumers, in employees and in politics. And one thing stands out for me.
You can't make people change.
Don't believe what you read. Don't believe what the flashy presentations tell you. Don't believe what the consultants tell you (Ooh is that the time? Here's an invoice...). You can not make people change.
Some of you will be thinking that I've gone mad.
I haven't. People like him, and her, and them, talk a lot about change. It's all they talk about. Not making enough profit? Change, change, change. Employees not happy? Change, change, change. People not voting for you? Change, change, change.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
People don't like change. People hate it. People resent it.
Don't get me wrong people will change - it's just that you can't make them. They have to do it for themselves.
Remember this quote from Larry Page, "Knowing what’s really happening is more important than trying to control people"? Or finding out what people are doing is more important than forcing them to do something.
Recently, the board of a big organisation we worked for complained that they weren't getting enough press. So they told the marketing department to get more press. The marketing department asked us to help. We asked the board how much press they wanted. They said X column inches. We said that was a crazy way to quantify it and pointed to coverage on the Today programme, on Newsnight, in the FT and in the Economist. Oh yes, said the board, very well done. Knowing what’s really happening is more important than trying to control people. Nothing had changed.
Tesco could have sold life insurance, mortgages, cars, houses - years ago. They could have chucked loads of money at it and tried to make it work. But they didn't. Why not? Because the consumer wasn't ready. They couldn't change the way the consumer behaved, they had to wait until they had changed and then launch the new ideas. Sure, they can help push that change along, but that's all they can do.
Google could have launched AdWords on day one. But they didn't. Why not? Becasue users weren't ready for search yet, let alone adverts. Same with Google Earth. It's not monetised yet. Why not? Because people have to get used it first. Google Earth will carry ads. Believe me.
You want an example of where change has gone wrong? Abbey. They launched a new name, new logo, new ad campaign and a new strategy. And it flopped on it's arse. Why? They tried to change everything too soon.
Their core proposition was that they'd "turned banking on its head." They had cut the crap and they were going to talk in plain English not banking jargon.
At the time I had an account with Abbey. When you called them up they changed the recorded message so that it said, "We're really sorry that you have to listen to this recorded message. But it's the only way we can handle the amount of calls we get. Please listen to the following options and I'll try and put you through to someone that can help."
I thought that was pretty good. But people weren't ready for it. People weren't ready for the change.
If they'd spent a year changing and then launched the new name, the new ads, and then said "We have turned banking on it's head". Then people would have bought it.
Another example? The Conservative Party. All the time they say, "We've changed!". But people don't believe them. Blair's skill in the mid nineties was to change the Labour party and then tell people they've changed.
So you see, I don't think you can change people. You can edge them in that direction and you can make sure you're there when they have changed. But you can't make them change.
What do you think?
(or How Many Super Brands Can There Be?)
When Lovemarks first came out, I thought it was a reasonable concept. There are some brands that people love so much they'd have them as tattoos; Apple, Nike, Coca Cola, Harley Davidson are all good example of this.
When Superbrands first came I thought that was a good thing too.
But the problem with all these things is that they just include too many brands. Far, far too many.
Here's a few Superbrands. Just a few you understand.
And here's 20 Lovemarks from the Top 200.
The Top 200! There are a lot more than 200, but these are the Top 200! Ridiculous!
How many super brands are there really? If we want to take Lovemarks and Superbrands seriously, and thus give the rankings some value, surely there are only around 20 or so in the world. I'm talking about big, big iconic brands. Disney. Coca Cola. Ferrari.
Not bloody Ace of Base.
This is a lovely idea and (I suppose) a great use of web 2.0.
In America the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children are using Flickr to publish posters of missing kids.
Spotted on the excellent MIT Advertising Lab.
This is nice too. Simple, witty, graphic. Decent headline. The content is interesting as well. It seems that Ken is launching 10 new walks around London. A reasonable thing for a Mayor to do.
It's all been a bit serious lately, so here's some good stuff that I've been meaning to stick up for a while.
I like this poster. Clear, simple, good, old fashioned graphic design. Great use of the back lit poster site too. Good work.
I know.
I know what clients really want. They want pictures in circles.
Really.
You see, you think clients want your brilliant ideas. Wrong. You think they want your exquisite craft. Wrong. With the advent of the computer, DTP, Word and Powerpoint things have changed. Clients can do all the stuff you can do. Fonts, points, leading, kerning. They can't do it as well as you. They can't do it anywhere near as well. But they can do it. An A4 newsletter? No problem. An A5 press ad? Does the printer accept jpegs? A logo? Done! Clients can do all that.
So you have to give them stuff they can't do. Which means you have to work harder. You have to deliver the unexpected. You have to invent. You have to make sure your typography doesn't look like it was done in Word. Demonstrate to the client why they should hire you instead of doing it themselves.
You could try putting pictures inside a circle. I've never met a client who could do that.
I went to a conference the other week. A nice lady with a horrendous job title, something like 'business consultant', gave a presentation about dealing with clients. (What's a definition of a 'business consultant'? Someone who works with people who work?)
As you can probably guess I didn't think much to her presentation, but one part of it raised an important point. How many ideas should you present to a client? This lady said that you should never present any more than 12 ideas.
Yes, she said 12.
I have to admit that mouth was wide open, jaw on the floor. One particularly smug chap put his hand in the air and said, "Oh we never do that. I make it a rule to never present any more than 6 ideas." Cue lots of nods from the audience. "Ooh 6, that's good", said the business consultant.
If you worked for me and I found out you had presented 6 ideas, you'd be fired on the spot. Then you'd have to write to the client apologising for confusing them.
You see 12 ideas is way, way too many. 6 ideas is too many too. There isn't a magic number, but you should bear in mind that you've been asked to solve a problem - are there really 12 answers to that problem? You're being paid for your judgement, your skill, your experience. You're being paid to make decisions. If you present 12 ideas you haven't made any decisions, you've become a sales rep showing different options.
We have an internal rule to never present more than 3 ideas to a client. Any more than that is confusing. Any more than that and you haven't read the brief properly. You certainly haven't answered the brief properly. So, we say never present more than 3. But I can't remember the last time we showed a client 3 ideas. Usually it's 2 and more often than not it's just 1.
Sure, to present 1 idea you need a good relationship with a client, there needs to be respect and trust. And that comes with time. But please don't ever present 6 ideas. Go back and lose 3. Pick the 3 best ideas. If you think you have 4 good ideas, you're probably wrong. Go back and lose the weakest one.
And if you've got 2 good ideas. Please don't do a third one to make up the numbers.
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