6:15 am. This morning. I was wrenched from a particularly pleasant dream where my house was an aeroplane which I controlled from my stairs, only to find that, this was, in fact, not true and I had to now wake up. I silenced my alarm, checked my Facebook, felt the superficial excitement of having 4 new notifications in 7 hours, and checked the news.

One particular news article has haunted me all morning. According to a recent study by Relationships Australia, I am part of the loneliest generation. Well excuse me, but my 600 Facebook friends beg to differ. Not to mention my Twitter community, my Google+ circles and my 10 or so friends that I text message to pass long periods of time on public transport. So yes. Not lonely.

But then I thought about it. I probably spend around 90% of my waking hours communicating. Working in the communications industry means keeping my head in the digital space, and then I arrive home only to ‘manage’ my own self-brand online through social media. Only upon reflection did I realise how exhausting this level of social maintenance really is. Furthermore, on the rare occasion that I have no notifications, no internet access, or leave my phone at home; it’s true, I do feel lonely.

So maybe that’s the crux of it. Gen Y feel comparatively lonely in their few ‘offline’ moments because the majority of their time is spent plugged in to the social media paradigm. I believe it’s this issue that houses the wedge that forces Gen Y apart from the Baby Boomers, who from what I can gather from my parents, revel in their few moments of peace and quiet.

The Baby Boomers, according to the same study, experience loneliness far less frequently. In light of this, I conjecture that social interactions ‘the old fashioned way’ may be of a higher quality. You may only interact with one friend on a Saturday, but the level of interaction may be a lot higher, as you’d focus solely on one relationship, rather than performing the juggling act of managing many.

If I dare to look at the calibre of messages I’ve sent to my friends over the past week, I’m sure I would be the perfect example of the social devolution occurring with the social media evolution. That is, if I could even remember who I’ve interacted with.

When it comes to the realm of social media, we’re for the most part stabbing blindly, so some words of wisdom from other generations may be worth a listen. And whilst Generation Y feel so content in our rightness on so many things, we should stop to remember, that good old fashioned face-to-face has been working just fine for, well, since the beginning of time… But you know, whatevz.

They say babies experience phenomenal growth and learning in their first year of life. I suppose the same concept applies to juniors in the advertising industry. It has been just 2 months since Tim and I joined the creative Team at CUBED.

Each baby step we have taken in the advertising industry has felt like a leap. It’s true they say there’s only so much they can teach you from books. The rest comes down to experience. In our first week, we treated every brief like a final semester assessment piece. Every line written worth a mark out of 10.

The hectic reality of it soon set in, learning process, working on multiple jobs at once, and of course learning that my love of puns needs to be stamped out of me immediately. (However I may have the sneaky support of the creative director on the puns)

From where we stand now it’s incredible to see how far we’ve come. Tim now owns his first ever v-neck and cardigan and wears them like a true art director. We also have seen nothing but each other for the past two months. I must say advertising gives a pretty good insight into marriage. We’re possibly the most unlikely couple imaginable, but we make it work.

We’ve learned that while great ads start with big ideas, great creatives know their craft. Being juniors in a small agency has been incredible because we’ve had the opportunity to be giant sponges and soak up the knowledge from the experienced team at CUBED.

When we started here we didn’t really know what to expect, which is lucky because this industry brings something new everyday. Apart from learning how to art direct and write copy, Tim and I have become experts on everything from real estate, to mortgages and in my case even football (an unlikely case for someone who until this year had never seen a game).

This job is anything but monotonous. After two months the only thing we can predict is that next month will bring something entirely different.

Ask most successful businesses to let you in on their secrets and they’ll tell you it’s about having a clear objective, a simple plan and sticking to it.

Such is its importance, management spend a lot of time behind closed doors getting their “mission” or “vision” statements just right, knowing they help define the direction of a business and provide the foundation for success.

There’s also a less formal but altogether more important statement to be set – after factors such as history, past performance, personnel and position in the marketplace have been flagged and analysed – known as the BHAG. The Big Hairy Audacious Goal.

The very point of the BHAG is to push past “reality” and seek a goal that in the “perfect” world would be the ideal achievement. By its nature, the BHAG should be difficult to actually attain, but could actually become possible because it’s been thought possible.

Towards the end of 2009, Collingwood FC sat down and etched a plan that led Eddie McGuire to boldly state the club’s sole purpose was to win a premiership within the next five years.

Many believed it was more a post-rationalisation for the Malthouse/Buckley deal he’d just orchestrated; perhaps the supreme confidence and sheer audacity of the statement was exactly what the club needed to kick-start its meteoric rise to the top.

The fact the Magpies achieved their BHAG within a year might have left the president wondering why they didn’t go Bigger and Hairier. On latest form, the Pies are kicking Big Hairy Audacious Goals with both feet, from impossible angles, on any ground, against most opponents. But the point is that once the club had declared a clear and concise direction, everyone involved adjusted culturally to achieve that goal.

Once everyone had bought into the idea, it was as though nothing could stop them. The dice had been rolled and it was their destiny, the classic case of a self-fulfilling prophecy, born from a common goal they dared not only to dream, but publicly decree.

Of course it wasn’t as easy as that. There was the little matter of playing a full season, winning finals and surviving a draw before that final triumph.

David Smorgon wishes it were as easy as simply saying so. The Bulldogs president came out at the start of this year declaring nothing short of premiership success was acceptable. Strong words from an individual sick of finding his club “thereabouts” season after season.

Unfortunately his team has so far let him down. So while his wish is indeed Big, Hairy and Audacious, it’s also a Bloody Huge Ask.

On the other hand, teams like Geelong, Essendon and even West Coast are clearly “over-performing”, well above where experts had envisaged them. The question is, are they playing towards a greater goal, or long-term belief or simply “taking it one week at a time”?

They haven’t been public about any “grand plans” they may have for achieving the ultimate success, unlike Carlton.

The Blues’ form has impressed even the staunchest critics, with the team now holding its nerve to win the close games it would have been expected to lose a year earlier.

But there’s more to the team than just good form. There feels a determined purpose and a true belief in their abilities. The Blues have actually gone a step beyond the Bulldogs, and even Collingwood, in that it’s more than just words from the president that are helping hone the team culture into one of success.

They have put their mission into print a Blue Print to be precise.

Available on their website, the Blue Print clearly outlines their five-year plan, and their BHAG is there on Page 11 for all to see, under the heading Strategic Objective 1: Premierships. Sustained success, “winning our 17th premiership” and “leading to winning two premierships by 2015″.

Time will tell if the Blues’ BHAG becomes reality. But whether they achieve the ultimate success isn’t really the point. What matters is that it’s given the club a common goal, from board, to playing group, to fans.

Everyone now has a role in achieving a long-term goal.

Kylie Minogue was on to something I think. Did she do spin for a cure by any chance?

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation puts on an annual spin for a cure event to help raise funds for, well, the obvious. Always up for a challenge in the name of a good cause, there were a number of people at CUBED who were keen to be involved.

Thanks to many fundraising efforts, including a very successful sausage sizzle at CUBED, we raised over $1000 for the fund. That was the easy part; the not so easy part was the actual ride.

What we did know was, we had a team of five people each who had to cycle as hard as possible for eight minutes, and that our combined distance cycled would be judged against other competitors.

What we didn’t know was;

1.    We would be on stage in City Square, Melbourne’s CBD
2.    We would be competing against the Richmond Tigers (seriously)
3.    Sprinting on a stationary bike is much harder than one would think it would be
4.    Bruce, our lovable CD, would forget his sporting kit and attend the event in a bathrobe

Decked out in CUBED lyrca (thank you to our sponsors who include the University of Ballarat, Myer and AXA with international Olympic logos!), we took to the stage and spun our hearts out.

Unfortunately, but not entirely surprisingly, we were not placed. Our 28.1km in 40 minutes didn’t compare to the winning team, Credit Suisse, who clocked an unreal 35.8km, ahead of the Richmond Tigers! So I decided to create our very own Spin for a Cure awards.

Best ride: Marty Kane (who clocked the highest km in the team at 6.3km)
The dark horse award: Leslie Evans (who clocked 6km without breaking a sweat)
Best dressed: Bruce Williams, naturally
Sportsmanship award: Mike Chuter (who rode for the JDRF board team, twice)
Most prepared: Tim Clement (who had an array of electrolyte drinks, bars and tablets to keep the team energized)
Best fundraiser: Gen Hole (after cooking dinner for my boyfriend’s social Aussie Rules team, all 45 of them!)
Support crew extraordinaire: Hannah (multi-tasking photographer and cheerleader)

With the breakfast looming, it got me thinking about the wonderful world of fashion marketing. Admittedly it can be a little formulaic; take one beautiful woman add to her a selection of beautiful but over priced clothes, add a feminine looking male model OR an exotic animal OR a high quality sofa (or all three), position model with prop of choice and add an icy, distant facial expression, bang on the logo and bingo – fashion ad created.

I decided to go digging to see what was out there in the world of fashion advertising that didn’t use the tried and true formula. Was there anything? And if so what was getting consumers excited about clothes in a whole new way?

Then I stumbled across this little beauty from Target or as I affectionately call them “Tarche” (has a but of a luxury feel to it don’t you think?). Despite what you may think about this low cost clothing retailer, Target is no stranger to a little innovation. Who can forget the collaboration between Target and Stella McCartney which was wildly successful (don’t get me started on my love of diffusion lines – Dion Lee for Cue anyone?). But this is something else. Watch the clip and you’ll get it. And I know it’s long, but it’s worth seeing it through to the end.

It popped up on the TED 10 Ads worth spreading – all of which are worth a watch if you have time – truly inspiring stuff.

The commentary around the ad is interesting – one person said “advertisements have the purpose of informing the viewer and motivating to some kind of action (which would be to visit the store and buy products, if the advertiser is a retailer), I have difficulty seeing how this achieved either of those purposes.”

While traditionally perhaps this is correct, I tend to agree with the judging panel at TED. This ad is brand building. It’s showing more about the brand’s personality than the products the store sells. It’s creates genuine hype that no product pushing ad could ever achieve. It may not translate to sales of a particular product, but it’s likely to change the way people think about Target (Tarche) and encourage more people through the shops front doors, which is then likely to translate into sales.

What do you think? We’d love to hear from you…

Hope everyone’s had a happy Fashion week!

Gen

CUBED red clearly in fashion for Autumn/Winter ‘11

Good design? Or design good? That is the question.

At University my lecturers taught me how design influences the way people feel about brands and how design persuades purchase making decisions. Good design was not just about looking good, but it also helped companies perceived in a certain way and even sell more stuff. Cool – I thought. Design is quite powerful.

10 years later I still think design is very cool but there’s one thing that’s not so cool at the moment and that’s the climate. In fact it’s heating up rapidly and now as designers we are faced with the charge of whether ‘Graphic Design can save the planet?’

It’s a BIG ask don’t you think?

And the short answer is no.

But design does have the power to change behaviour patterns. And this will in turn help to improve the climate situation.

Take coffee for example. Most of us drink it. But what motivates our choice over one brand for another?

It is possibly one of those items that as consumers, can be a topic of controversy. Most of us drink it but do we care where the coffee came from or what quality we drink? As Melbournians most of us take this very seriously but what if we tell the drinkers something more about the coffee they choose to drink?

Most big coffee companies source their coffee beans from countries with poor growing practices that lead to poor quality product and also where labour is cheap and often taken advantage of. And where we see fair-trade coffee becoming a sought after choice when purchasing coffee.

For your benefit, and mine, I have found two very fine examples of where the packaging does a really good job of communicating the coffee’s origin as well as even highlighting the actual people behind the scenes that are responsible for bringing the coffee to us. Both examples go that extra mile and go to great detail (for those of us who really really want it) so that we know everything there is to know about how good this coffee is, all the way from the origin of the bean until the moment it gets in to your cup.

But what if we’re not talking about coffee. I mean coffee is a product that is meant to me consumed. It has a shelf life. It’s not a big ticket consumer item, it’s not a fridge and it’s not a TV that has a big impact when we no longer wish to own it. Do we look at how we package TVs or is it the governments responsibility to launch social responsibility campaigns about consumption?

And now I’m like a kid again, asking way too many intricate questions. But…

Could reducing the amount of TVs being bought be good for the economy?

At an AGDA event, Andy Polaine asked ‘How Can Graphic Design Help Save the World’ and shed some light on the ways graphic designers can design a better world.

“Most wicked problems stem from many small acts of thoughtlessness ” says Andy. “At home in Germany, I did the right thing and took my old TV to the recycle depot and it was terrible and powerful to be confronted by the multiplier effect of my and others decisions – there were mountains of TVs”.

Is this an ethical question to ask when we have climate issues to deal with as well? Does recycling work? Does recycling amount to something better or more beneficial? Can highlighting that an item is recyclable make us feel better about recycling? Does it make us feel like we are doing our bit? Is this enough? What if new TVs were manufactured using recycled materials? Or if Samsung launched a carbon footprint campaign? Could they offer to let consumers trade in your old TV when you buy your new model & they will not only recycle it but also offset then extra carbon created by buying the new TV..??

All this whilst designing a good looking packaged product.

I’m just saying, It’s not just about good design. It’s about taking responsibility and making sure that design that does good.

Els

“Terrific business, the advertising business”.

And so starts the last paragraph of the last page of Jerry Della Femina’s 1970 book “From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor”, recently republished to hoover up any spare money floating about on the back of the success of “Mad Men”. It claims to be an insider’s account of working on Madison Avenue during the golden age of advertising. What it certainly is, and was, is the inspiration for Matthew Weiner to create the series in the first place. Though capable of reading, I’m not the world’s biggest reader and I have to admit, if not for Mad Men I doubt I’d even know about the book – it’s not exactly a literary classic.

That said, it’s a damn sight better than anything Dan Brown ever wrote.

Now as any self respecting Art Director will tell you, the only people that ever read anything written by a Copywriter are the client and the writer’s Mum. However my recent overseas trip caused even me to question that claim. I do most of my reading when travelling and so it seemed apt that while I was in the UK I read Dave Trott’s “Creative Mischief” and in the States I read “From Those Wonderful Folks…”.

(When I was in Holland I read a book about pirates, since you ask)

Both Trott (Creative Director of CST in London) and Della Femina (Chairman and CEO of DFJP & Partners in New York) have achieved advertising legend status. Both have written copy for some of the biggest agencies in the world and both have their own agencies today. Dave Trott has worked both sides of the Atlantic, but his style is still very much that of an Englishman. Whereas Della Femina couldn’t be more American if he went to town on horseback, stuck a feather in his cap, and called it macaroni.

Both books are a form of mind dumps. Dave Trott’s is a collection of his blog posts. Jerry Della Femina’s is a collection of “front-line dispatches from the advertising war”.

That’d be 1970’s blog posts then.

Thankfully this makes for two books that an Art Director can read without the need for pictures.

I imagine most anyone with even vague interest in advertising has seen Mad Men, and whether you love it for Don Draper’s pitch presentations, or for Joan’s chewing-gum walk, if you bought into this stylised version of Adland, both books will appeal.

Trott’s posts (seriously, doesn’t “dispatches” sound so much nicer?) tend to have a moral to the story, even a beginning middle and an end. For example when he tells a story about being frightened of powerful people with intimidating reputations, he uses the analogy of the Wizard of Oz, tells us how he questioned the rules that had been seemed unquestionable, and wraps up encouraging us to learn things for ourselves.

Not so much With Della Femina. He kind of just rambles. If his story takes a twist or turn, he doesn’t really try to get back on topic, he just follows the new direction to the horizon. In one chapter, he starts a story about the famous Avis campaign “We try harder”, name drops a half a dozen agencies, tells us how Leo Burnett figured how to sell vegetables with a green eunuch, gives us his opinion on why people think feet are ugly and ends by telling us New York agency PLK used to answer the phones “Papert, Koenig, Lois. Fuck you!”.

I like his style.

There are things to learn in both books. Turns out Trott wrote my favourite Pepsi ad as a kid – an ad I loved so much I talked my folks into buying me a Pepsi belt buckle. And Della Femina taught me that the general public kill bad advertising, so we don’t need nervous suits and clients trying to do it for us. Obviously it’s going to be different for each reader, but both books can be picked up,  read in parts and are guaranteed to leave the reader with something useful to think about*

Christmas is around the corner and the books are on Amazon. So, in the words of Ferris Bueller, if you have the means I highly recommend picking one up.

Enjoy.

d

* Not a real guarantee

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On the internet there’s often a very short distance between a huge marketing win and a complete marketing fail.

Many companies ask for ‘viral’ campaigns, but often don’t realise just how much control they have to hand over to the general public in order for something to go viral. It’s gutsy.

So I was fascinated to see what Amazon have done in a situation that would make many marketers blanch.

It all started with their Wheelmate Steering Wheel Desk Tray. Yup, you guessed it – a tray that attaches to the steering wheel of your car to hold your laptop or your lunch.

Now the good folk at Amazon encourage customers to post their own reviews and photos of products. Which makes good business sense. After all, most of us put far more trust in a review from a fellow consumer than a review from the retailer. And allowing people to post their own photos of a product gives you a better idea of what it looks like and how it can be used.

In the case of the Wheelmate though, this function took on a life of its own.

See, 85 of the 89 customer photos are of cars crashes, train wrecks, pile ups, the Hindenburg – hell, there’s even an illustration of the Titanic in there complete with notes. And there are the ‘reviews’:

“I loved my Laptop Steering Wheel Desk so much I got one for my 90yr old mother. She is an avid crossword puzzle fan and now she can work on them while she is driving back and forth from bingo at the senior center.”

So here’s where the company has to make a tough decision.

Do they let this continue or do they put a stop to it?

A more nervous company would be tempted to delete all those photos. They’re bad-mouthing the product aren’t they? Suggesting that a product designed to be used in a stationary car can cause accidents.

But I’m thrilled to see that Amazon are sitting back and letting the drama continue (at least I suspect that’s what they’re doing – it’s possible they haven’t yet noticed what’s happening with one of the 15 million products they sell).

I reckon it’s smart business.

Sure, most traffic may end up on the Wheelmate page for a laugh, but if I were a sales rep, or anyone else spending most of the day working from my car, I may also be convinced to order one. And ultimately, it’s a numbers game. The more people you can get taking a peek at your product, the more likely you’ll eventually be seen by someone who needs to eat their lunch or type up some notes in the car.

The Wheelmate would never have attracted this much attention on its own, but with the added amusement of customer images the link has been doing the rounds, appearing on all kinds of blogs and forums. Ultimately, this sort of attention could potentially raise it to cult status.

But here’s the million dollar question.

If this was your product, and your bottom line at risk, would you let this continue, or try to stop to it?

While it’s easy to give a theoretical answer, it’s not always as clear-cut when it’s your job on the line.

xk

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The power of public expression

They say you find inspiration in the weirdest places, and mine happened to be in a public toilet.

Let me explain.

I was out enjoying my new grungy suburb Collingwood – the kind of suburb where hobo chic rules (ie. the more homeless you look, the better) and everyone is in a band or a tortured artist.

In the ladies room of a gritty little pub I found myself gazing at the intricately tangled tree of door scrawls. You know those bold statements that people make in writing on the back of the loo door when they’ve had one too many? Some are witty, some are rude and some are from people on an entirely different planet.

I was drawn to one in particular because it was written in the most elaborate of calligraphy. You can imagine my disappointment when I realised it proclaimed “Beyonce rocks”. I’m all for girl power but it was the wrong venue to proclaim your love of an R&B diva. Anyway, seeing these scrawls got me thinking about public expression.

One of my all-time fave forms of public expression would have to be grafitti.

Apart from often brightening my day or giving me some food for thought, I admire that it’s a wonderful hybrid of political messages and eye candy. Unlike some dull politician rambling on about why we should give them power, graffiti is a bold statement or image that takes only seconds to digest.

On the flipside, the messages communicated via the Internet travel like roadrunner on speed.

And the fact that anyone (no matter how half-witted) can get published on the Internet makes it the ultimate vehicle – and a zippy little one at that – for democracy. Blogs, tweets and statuses are posted with little to no regulation from the government.

Interestingly, the Rann government of SA did try to bring in new laws making anyone posting political content to supply their real name and postcode. Now, I think that’s just being a party pooper as it destroys all the fun and anonymity of the Internet. I’m going to put it out there that the thrill of public expression is about the thrill of liberation.

Thanks to our friend the Internet – the friend who says, “fuck it, let’s throw a big party. Everyone is invited” – we’re exposed to new ideas and angles of thinking that probably would have been trampled on in a world of traditional media.

Using the Internet for public expression has also influenced the way brands talk to people.

Let me introduce the chalkbot – by far one of the most powerful acts of public expression I have ever seen. Brought to you by Nike, it’s a campaign bubbling over with hope and inspiration. Not only is the idea engaging, relevant and street smart (all big ticks in Adland) but it has heart. This, to me, is public expression dressed to the nines and ready to make everyone’s jaws drop with admiration.

From the back of the toilet door to the paths of the Tour de France, graffiti and public expression are two crafty forms of democracy and liberation in action. It’s fantastic to see a mega company like Nike use its street smarts to engage with their people, and take a message from their mobile phone or home computer to the streets of the Tour de France and effectively to the world.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on public expression.

What’s the most daring activity of public expression you have been involved in?

What other great campaigns have you seen that used a related concept?

Clare

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..but there seems to be an influx of advertising experts nowadays.

I blame Mad Men. I really do. Walk into any bookshop, you see ‘The origin of Mad Men’. Flip through any magazine, it’s ‘The fashion of Mad Men’. Heck, even the Daily Juice Co. couldn’t help but inject a bit of Mad juice in their latest TVC.

It’s an engaging, well-crafted TV show no doubt, but it also escalates the stereotypes of the industry.

By watching a couple of episodes, we think we have the game pinned. Suit up, get an attitude (better yet, a mistress), and once in a while throw in a philosophical speech about how consumers should think and behave. By the way, don’t forget to pitch a 30 second TV spot.

The Age published an article today with the title ‘Never been more maddening for the modern ad man‘.

It starts off well by saying the game has changed, the rules abolished, budgets slashed, and ends with a case study of Nike and the impact of Facebook.

But there isn’t any constructive solution. It simply ends with ‘The world does not need more of your bad ads’.

The article also mentioned that how ‘easy’ it used to be. All we had to do was ‘make a 30 second TV spot and interrupt people’s lives.’

First of all, criticising ‘bad ads’ and low budgets brings nothing to the table. I’m sure bad ads have existed since cavemen were painting on the walls (Gee would you look at that ugly buffalo, I could do a better job if I had his wall).

Secondly, since when was advertising ever easy? Before TV, radio was the theatre of the mind. Before radio we had coupons. Before that, billboards. I was in Victoria Market last weekend and people are still primitively shouting out offers.

All of the media above are still valid and still important, especially in an integrated campaign.

I’m pretty sure when TV appeared, radio announcers and jingle writers thought their time was up.

Just like the painters thought they were doomed when radio was introduced. Just like the door-to-door salesmen thought it was all over when they started printing books.

Why don’t we reverse that mentality: advertising used to be two-dimensional. The invention of radio made the industry realise we could engage customers with sound. When television was introduced, we started making 30 second ‘TV shows’ to sell products. Now that we have smart phones and web browsers as media, we’ve started making apps.

It’s part of the process. With new technology comes new way to engage the audience. It’s up to us to see it as cannibalism or an opportunity to grow.

The game is still the same. It’s all about playing it smart. It’s all about adapting. It’s all about engaging people that matter with messages that matter.

It is difficult for big agencies (or journalists) who can’t see past the 30 second spot. It’s difficult for people who think the industry is dominated by one specific medium. But it’s definitely not maddening.

And that’s the Asian man’s opinion.

H.

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