Get 'em young.

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You'd have to be fairly cold-hearted for this correspondence between eager toddler and supermarket supremo not to raise a smile. But what I find most interesting aren't the letters themselves, but the general reaction to them.

So far, the two letters have been shared on Facebook over 1600 times, 'liked' 7500 times and have received 75 comments on my personal feed (90% of which are positive). It has done the rounds on Flikr, trended on Twitter and made it's way round our office.

If you read Marketing this week however, you'll have seen the words "Frankly Marketeer, I don't give a damn. The great brand engagement myth: why you're sick of the 'e' word."

As an industry, we love our jargon.  And 'engagement' is perhaps the most overused term in our daily vocabulary. It seems virtually impossible to sit through a meeting without the term being thrown into the mix.

But the way in which people have reacted to these letters just goes to prove that engagement is a term that should remain at the forefront of what we do.  It should be something we strive for and continue to celebrate.  There's a reason it remains so prevalent. It most certainly is not a myth.

The most important thing is to be clear about what it means to you, as an individual or as a business.

Check out our engagement survey below to see what we think this 'buzzword' means.

http://www.tbch.co.uk/customerengagement/

Don't think.

I was slumped on the train home the other day, probably reading another depressing copy of the Evening Standard, possibly for the second time, trying to wile away the many minutes of my evening commute, when I overheard something.

Teenage Girl:  "Mum...mum...mu...MUM!"

Mum:  "Oh sorry darling, I was deep in thought."

Teenage Girl:  "Well, don't think!"

It's probably one of the most innocuous, throwaway comments I've heard in a while but it got my head ticking. Why had the girl told her Mum 'not to think'? Was it just a hormonal statement intended to be antagonistic, or was there more to it? I decided to observe this girl, albeit surreptitiously, in order to get to the bottom of this Monday night mystery. Just call me Poirot.

The more I watched her, the more I realised she appeared to do very little 'thinking' at all. It's only an hour's train journey, but in that time she chattered, texted, tweeted, typed, talked and tittered pretty much non-stop. While this in itself is not particularly uncommon, the glittery BlackBerry rarely left her hand throughout it ALL. I wondered if it ever did.

Then it hit me. Was there a connection between the girl's 'don't think' statement and the phone glued to her? Maybe it's possible the more we kill our 'dead time' with distractions and disruptions (provided courtesy of our pocket pals), the less time we'll have for the luxury of getting lost in our own thoughts.

Some of the greatest thinkers of their times often removed themselves from any interruption for weeks on end; meditation to bolster genius is nothing new. Take, for example, the Prophet Mohammed (or Jesus, for balance), who both disappeared into the desert to 'think'; the revelations derived from their solitude today inspire and lead 1.6 billion and 1.2 billion people respectively.

Would they have been as productive if they had been interrupted every 2 minutes with a new friend request, a photo comment or a notification of a re-tweet?

A respected Diplomat once said "Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events: Small minds discuss people." And yet, while we now have a forum to discuss the ideas that could make us great minds, we perhaps do not afford the time to actively create them. In reality, our growing obsession with social media (coupled with our inability to switch off) has potentially driven us all, via a quick stop in category two (talking about events), firmly into this third category - discussing other people all day long. A somewhat depressing realisation...

So, the next time you reach for your smartphone to distract yourself, maybe instead you should spare a thought for your thoughts.

Too many balls.

How many presentations have you sat through?  The amount may vary depending on your choice of career, but chances are...it's a lot.

How many have you actually learnt something from?  How many were you engaged with? Did you enjoy any of them?

The same could be asked of advertising. How many ads have you seen? Probably millions. How many have you engaged with...enjoyed? You get the idea.

Like good ads, good presentations are the result of many contributing factors. The presenter, the topic, the slides, the content, the setting, the audience...the list goes on. A lot of these factors concern execution, but what if the most important part is the brief?

Presentations should be written to entertain, educate, sell or persuade. To do any of these things, simplicity is key. A single-minded message (supported by a couple of reasons to believe) will ensure clarity, and allow for a creative delivery. This then gives the presentation much needed purpose.

People often try and cram far too much into their presentations.  That's what the accompanying documents are for...use them.

And while we're on this analogy, here's another one - you've probably heard it before (but the oldies are the goodies): throw someone a tennis ball and watch them catch it. Throw them ten and well, they're not going to catch them all are they?

Pick your message, select your supporting arguments and focus on making them as clear as possible.

We all know this guy was good at it:

And here's someone with a single point, a couple of examples and a truckload of enthusiasm:

So next time you need to present something, perhaps you should spend less time faffing about on PowerPoint, and more time developing your single-minded message...

Just a thought.

Snap!

Senior Art Director Tim and Copywriter Becky were both feeling 'flashy' this morning...

Say Cheese!

Interesting bits and bobs.

Here are a few of the most interesting things our Planner Dom has found this week.  Got a spare minute? Avoid Facebook for once, and have a look at these:

The Google Zeitgeist

A round-up of what people around the globe have been searching for. As well as giving an insight into how powerful phones and tablets are becoming, it has some great UK based stats and Top Tens.

http://www.googlezeitgeist.com/en

The Most Contagious

A business and marketing-led 2011 round-up, this has loads of  info on social, design, retail, tech and data trends...worth a look really.

http://mostcontagious.com

Social Commerce Infographic

A smart infographic about people using social media to purchase stuff online.

http://wallblog.co.uk/2011/11/16/facebook-twitter-and-groupon-the-history-of-social-commerce-infographic/

A nice Nike digital engagement campaign

Nice bit of work, highlighting the product's benefit whilst driving engagement at the same time.

http://www.psfk.com/2011/12/nike-hosts-high-tech-treasure-hunt-in-vienna-video.html

The Status Show Off.

As Planners, we're used to thinking of people in terms of their social grade. That's how media was bought.

'Social grade' means just that. You're defined by your place in society, not by how much you earn, but by your job (junior managerial, skilled manual, semi-skilled manual worker and so on).

Technically speaking, 'status' means the same thing. It's your place in the pecking order of society; its how you stand in relation to others, in your professional or social standing.

On Facebook, I'd always assumed your status was simply what you were doing or thinking at a particular moment in time.

But status is the new social grade. It is used to indicate where you are in the pecking order - if you post that you've been to an amazing bijou hotel in the Cotswolds, what you're really saying is 'I have the job that means I can afford this.' I think its deeper than bragging or boasting. I think its part of signalling to others where we sit - or want to sit - in the social hierarchy. In the real world, we signal our class by our clothes, our car, our home. In the digital world, those visual clues are often absent, so we use our status to signal our social standing, to find others of the same standing with whom we fit.

Cast your eye over your friend's status, and most of them reveal an innate need to prove their social status. Unconsciously, we're all revealing our need to mark out our place in the strata of society, giving out signals to others about what we earn, what jobs we do, how much disposable income we have, all to affirm our desired place in the order.

Have a look at your friend's postings.  Have a look at your own.

You'll see what I mean...