TBCH Staff (as Google Goggles sees us).

Tim L

Sam

Rich

Peter

Merran

Hannah

Emily

Tim J

As you can see, there are hours of fun to be had by using the Google Goggles app to "recognise" your mates.  I find it to be very telling.  I actually think we might have unearthed some hard home truths here...

The strange case of the disappearing planner.

There simply aren't as many good planners in our business as there should be.  There are some great ones, for sure.  But most are senior.  Planning seems to have skipped a generation.

Talking to a colleague, I suspect this is because 5-6 years ago, the bright young sparks who should have applied for planning roles were lured by the shiny new lights of digital.  Coming straight from university, who wouldn't be attracted by agencies that promoted digital as the Holy Grail, and firmly decreed that ad agencies were dead?  And digital felt very comfortable to this generation.  After all, they had been brought up with it.  They didn't have to "learn" about digital: concepts such as gamification were wired into their DNA.  And so they became digital strategists, rather than account planners.

Now, I'm not pointing a finger at digital agencies here.  We all fell prey to the lure of digital - advertising and direct agencies alike.  We felt we needed to catch up so many of us looked to hire these digital strategists to help us.

One of the things I've noticed about this cohort of strategists is that they know about digital (one would hope so!) but their skill set often stops there.  I'm often met with a blank look when I ask digital strategists who want to be planners about creative briefing, propositions and brands.  You wouldn't hire an account planner who had only ever planned on woman's press...so why would you hire a planner who's only ever planned on Facebook?

I think this is a shame.

If you are a bright, curious graduate who's interested in what really makes people tick, who wants to understand how all forms of communications work and who relishes the opportunity to use both sides of your brain, why wouldn't you want to be an account planner?  I can't imagine doing any other job.  I love it.

But if we can't attract the best and brightest graduates to my side, we'll lose yet another generation, and then account planning will be well and truly dead.  

Virgin prospect? Not likely.

Dear Virgin Media,

Thank you for your kind letter telling me that superfast cable and broadband were now available on my street.  I particularly liked the whizzy digital printing job you did so that you were able to tell me what street I lived on.

However, I liked it less this time than I did the last time you sent me exactly the same letter, a couple of months ago.  And I liked that letter even less that the one you sent a couple of months before that.  And as for the time before that...well, you get the picture.

It's particularly galling as I used to be a customer of yours (or rather ntl's) a while back.  But then I moved to Rupert Murdoch's Evil Empire and haven't looked back.

Not that any of this seems to bother you.  No, you insist on treating me as a cold prospect, sending me the same mailing time and time again, as if repetition alone will convince me to come back to cable.

Please, for the sake of my sanity, use the data that you've got to hand and send me something different.  You must surely know I'm an ex-customer - so treat me like one.  Make me reappraise your brand.

It probably won't change my mind, but it will introduce some much-needed variety into my morning mail delivery.

Ta.

Teenage kicks.

My 14 year old daughter is now the proud, and perpetually preoccupied, owner of a BlackBerry (NB big mistake).

It offers six amazing ways for her to keep in touch with her friends simultaneously and continuously.  Seven if you include an actual phone call.  (The others are: BlackBerry Messenger, Twitter, Text, Facebook, some kind of IM app and email.)

With so many vitally important teenage social happenings to keep abreast of around the clock, she fixes her gaze intently into the screen for most of her waking life, her thumbs doing the talking.

Lawd only knows what could be so pressing.  But she has to have the thing prised from her grasp to eat, sleep, or bathe.  She already, rather worryingly, calls it her "CrackBerry."

"Why don't you put the phone down and watch some TV instead?" I suggested the other day.  Oh, the irony.

"I'm good!" she chirped, hastily updating her status.

Now, we have a very flat, fairly large TV in the corner of the room.  It offers a selection of around 100 perfectly decent television channels, many apparently targeted at her age group.  But can I get her to watch it?  Not a chance.  Her social dashboard is her connection to the outside world and all consuming media passion.  It is her LIFE.

Point being?  Well, we've all sat in planning meetings debating the right media mix to reach younger target audiences.  But if my young'un is typical we're all doomed.

TV?  She "tapes' the shows she likes and skips the ads.  Radio?  Spotify Premium.  Press?  A cursory 5 minute flick through the occasional style or gossip mag.  Outdoor?  Not possible to focus on a 48 sheet when your face is three inches from a smartphone.

So, surely the best way to reach them must be through their beloved social media?  Not according to my representative sample of one:

"What do you think of the ads on Facebook darling?"
 

"There are ads on Facebook?"
 

Now contrast all this with the barely contained delight with which she received and consumed the personalised welcome pack for her new bank account last week.

Maybe there's life in the old DM dog yet......

Farmed This Way.

Remember Farmville?  Of course you do.  It was that game you thought was quite fun a year or so ago.  You played it and played it and played it until your farm was the size of a small planet and your friends stopped talking to you because you were clogging up your Facebook feed with "I've just harvested some peonies!  Look at my carrots!  Will you buy me a new cow?".

Anyway.  While we may have stopped playing, the game is still popular with quite a few people worldwide - a massive 80 million by February last year.  Which makes it (ahem) fertile territory if you've got something to sell.

So who's been tapping the market?  Give up?  Well, Lady Gaga obviously.  Dur.

To promote the launch of her new album, Born This Way, Farmville turned into Gagaville for two weeks.  Players got to listen to exclusive album tracks while buying Gaga-themed pigs and sheep (the Gaga baa-baas), building Gaga barns and planting Gaga-themed crops.  Like blond hairpieces and bondage tape, probably.

Now I can't decide if this is bonkers, brilliant or brilliantly bonkers.  You wouldn't think that arch-mentalist, gender-transcending, glam-kitsch Gaga is the right match for the folksy charm of Farmville.  But it's this tension that helped produce the following bizarrely amusing promotional video.

 

Did it work?  Well, as with most online marketing, there's no real way of knowing.  But the fact is that Born This Way has achieved the fastest first week sales for 2011.  And it seems people are still going crazy for Farmville.

No, not crazy.  Oh, what is the word I'm looking for?  Nope, it's gone.

Its The Thought That Counts

This week saw the launch of the new Cadbury ad from Fallon, marking yet another attempt to reach the premature marsupial climax of the campaign.

Except this time, instead of viewers wanting to find out the true identity of a gorilla, they were intrigued by rhythmic charity shop cast-offs.

Were they puppets?  Was it all computer jiggery-pokery?  What’s it got to do with chocolate?

No CGI here folks.  Nineteen dancers spent weeks training in Prague, before getting sewn up in life-size costumes.  Boogieing blindly in a set scaled up to be two times bigger than them, the effect is interesting and fun.  You can fully appreciate the hard work that went into it.

It’s a nice move.  We are so used to CGI effects nowadays that even the most jaw-dropping action sequence or dazzling techy venture feels done.  Low-tech special effects that used to look cheap and old-fashioned have regained their charm.

Partly through fashionable nostalgia, “homemade” effects now seem keenly crafted and lovingly created, in opposition to the impressive but strictly digital fakery. 

I thought I’d include some other great examples of homemade special effects (in ads and other things….let’s broaden our horizons.) 

Disclaimer: I am well aware that if I tried to recreate any of these at home in my bedroom, I’d probably start a fire/spill glue on the carpet/lose an eye.

I still don’t know what it’s got to do with chocolate.

Dating Tips for Clients

Chemistry meetings can be so difficult.  And yet, they should be so good!

A bad chemistry meeting can feel like a blind date gone hideously wrong.  The agency feels rejected, the client feels let down and then everyone goes home to eat ice cream and cry.

The other week we received a phone call from a well-known charity.  The Donor Manager explained that they were in a hurry to get a new agency and that we had come highly recommended.  After asking for an informal chemistry session with us, we weren’t told if any other agencies were also invited.  We were not given a brief.  She didn’t want a PowerPoint presentation or for us to spend too much time on what was supposedly going to be a casual meeting of client/agency minds.

So far, so good.

We assembled a crack team personally interested in the cause – a planner, senior creative and suit.  They gathered relevant samples, did desk research, ran a Digital Presence Index on the online marketing, had some first thoughts, boarded it all up and prepared for an interactive, two-way session.

Turns out our meeting was at 3:30pm on a Friday.  They’d already seen five other agencies that day.  The formal room was set up for a PowerPoint presentation.  The client team were tired, uninterested and disappointed.  They didn’t want to discuss our point of view and the whole thing was a draining waste of time.  We cut it short and went to the pub.

Why am I telling you this?  Partially as an exercise in relief, but also to talk about how clients can get the best out of chemistry meetings.  Here are my top tips:

1.    Select agencies you might really want to work with, not just based on hearsay or corridor chat.

2.    Brief the session in writing and be honest in what you want out of it, what you expect to see and how you intend to judge the work.

3.    Be straight about the number of agencies involved.

4.    Be upfront about those attending from the client side.

5.    Get creds out of the way separately; have them presented or sent at another time.

6.    Don’t be overly ambitious with how many sessions you can fit in one day – 3 - 4 max should ensure bright and interactive meetings.

7.    Probably best to avoid Friday afternoons.

8.    Use a room that encourages informality.  We’re not taking bean bags here, but screens and judging panels aren’t hugely casual.

9.    Please give proper feedback – not just, “You’re not through.”

10. Do some prep yourself – on the agency, the people, prepare questions, be challenging – we like debate!

Intend to interact and enjoy the session – you’ll get a lot more out of it, find out exactly what you need to know and will be more likely to shortlist agencies which are right for you.