Mitch Joel is one my favourite bloggers out there. Here’s a recent post from his blog that I read on the bus back from work last night. Usually I have a perpetual frown on my face but when reading this, I found myself smiling a bit more instead.
Truth doesn’t get clearer than this.
“Passion” is one of those words that is thrown around in every motivational business book. It’s a big word, and most simply don’t have it.
If you have ever read a book on what the best and brightest have done to become as successful as they are, one of the core underlying themes is that they were either pursuing their passion or were simply so perfect at what they were shooting for that it comes off to the rest of us as passion. The counter to that thought is that if you are driven by the almighty dollar, you can’t be passionate as well.
Why?
In a past life, I was a music journalist. My job was to interview many of the more popular rock bands, write reviews, concert critiques, etc… On a few instances I was able to interview Gene Simmons from the rock band KISS (full disclosure: I was a huge fan of the band growing up… and I’m still a proud member of the KISS Army). With the thousands of interviews I conducted over the decade-plus of my life in the music industry, it was one thing that Simmons said that always stuck with me. When asking him about how he feels about the business side of KISS, he stated simply: “I’m pissed at a nickel because it isn’t a dime.”
Clearly, you can be passionate about money and love what you do as well.
The sad reality is that well over 90% of our society doesn’t have that passion for the work they do (I made that percentage up, it is probably higher). Forget passion, the majority of people probably don’t even like what they do for a living. It’s important to remember this. You and I have passion. If people are reading industry Blogs on their own time, listening to Podcasts and trying to engage in these channels – even when the company that employs them questions on the online world, there has to be some kind of passion. It’s much easier to just go home, plop yourself on the couch, turn on the tube (not the YouTube), crack open a beer and forget the day that just passed while not focusing on the days that will follow.
Those people – and they may even be your superior at work – will always try to bring you down.
That’s a lie. They’re not trying to bring you down. They’re trying to get you to feel as miserable as they feel, so that they can commiserate with you. The ones that break free are the ones who don’t utter sentences like, “I’m just doing my job,” “I’m new here,” “because that’s the way it has always been,” and “let’s leave everything as is and let my successor rock the boat.” Without sounding like a motivation Blog post, it’s your job to keep at it. It’s your job to push forward. It’s your job to “do the right thing,” and it’s your job to make sure that you go to bed every night filled with energy and chomping to get at the days ahead.
You’re going to spend more than half of your life working if you add up all of those hours.
Your job isn’t to get paid to do work. Your job is to constantly work at loving what you do more and more. Those who embrace that type of mindset (regardless of position, stature, industry and compensation) are the ones who not only get ahead, but the ones who are happy – at work, home and in their community.
Do you really love what you do? Are you working at loving it more and more everyday?
Love it or hate it, the ‘Flash Mob’ is surely something we’ll be remembering as one of the most talked about ad strategies in 2009. Although flash mobbing’s roots lie in more humanistic theatres; performance art, social expression and -- how ironically -- corporate antagonism, as with all interesting ideas, advertisers invariably will borrow or steal them for their own means. Some with more success than others.
From my memory, Lastminute.com in 2008 with their ‘Flash-Opera‘ mob viral was the first ‘large’ brand in the UK that used the mob as branding tool. I thought it was good. Certainly at the time felt pretty fresh -- and had a lot of relevance to the message. Unlike the much more obese T-Mobile flash mob in Liverpool Street Station -- whose tagline still escapes me even after having blogged about this before….bringing people together? life is precious? life is people..? Trident chewing gum also had one, with their Beyonce flash mob in Piccadilly Circus to promote their new ‘unwrapped’ gum. Tenuous at best.
So, where do we go next with this? Creatively speaking, a lot of people dancing/singing in one place does have the possibility of becoming a bit stale after a while..
Moviegoers got more than they bargained for on Friday night, when dancers streamed onto the stage at New York City’s Ziegfeld Theatre just prior to a showing of “Amelia.” For three and a half minutes, ten dancers performed what Screenvision says is a first-of-its-kind live in-cinema ad. The “Fitting Dance” was accompanied by images on the movie screen behind the dancers. Only near the end was it revealed that patrons had been watching a lengthy ad for Daffy’s.
Capture the inherent unexpectedness of a flash mob, stick it in a public place where you really wouldn’t expect it.. and whilst you’re at it mash the event up with an actual ad playing on a large screen. This is what Daffy’s did. ‘Flad’ mob?
I had no idea what Daffy’s was. After some sniffing about (nice website btw), I get the feeling they’re like a funner version of GAP with the economic sensibilities of H&M -- in which case something like this for them works well. It’s well thought out, well executed and the idea that they have lots of choice at an affordable price comes through fairly well. I’d like to see them continue this whole dancing thing as branding tool -- it feels right. Dancing and clothes… dancing and everyday clothes….. Ah. S**t. Been done before.
It’s as if an old GAP ad reworked itself in 3D, learnt now to mix electro and had a friday night out in Hoxton.
This week has seen a couple of campaigns making use of people’s phones in order to engage an audience..
A few months ago Toyota released an iPhone app as part of a digital push to draw attention and educate people about the Prius. It allowed you to do a whole bunch of quirky things; a 360″ tour of the interior, the ability to play games, watch ads, draw pictures….. cute little things -- all in-sync with the green natured Hybrid category.
But now Toyota have increased the scale a bit. If you have the app, you can now send pictures that you’ve drawn and get them uploaded onto a giant screen in Times Square for all to see. Watch the vid below for a better idea.
A lot of buzz will come out of this, however I can see it wearing out quickly. After all, how many scrappy drawings can you admire before it all becomes a bit samey? It’s also not going to be live in any sense -- I imagine there will be a HUGE cue of people wanting to get their images broadcasted. It would definitely be more interesting if they could do it so it was more instantaneous and perhaps involved people working together in some way..
Next up is something from Axe Uruguay . Though less green…more blue.
In support of two new fragrances of deodorant spray (one for the day time, one for the night time) a cheeky little print campaign (Lowe Ginko) provides the creative synonym to the sell. The idea, is that after a certain time of the day, sending an SMS text to a designated number will result in you being sent the missing pieces of the picture on you mobile phone. See scantily clad woman below.
Although it feels a little confused to me (day time/night time fragrances = quite premium, mobile phone & voyeurism = not quite premium), it fits perfectly with Axe’s brand promise and the Nuts reading/Dixons employed demographic that tend to buy into this kind of brand (if they have such a thing in Uruguay). I think Axe has pulled this off.. Just. From a measurement perspective there’s also an implication for getting hold of some hard engagement measures using this kind of SMS mechanism -- I’m sure the media bods at Axe will be keeping abreast of all things in that area.
This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.
This is the core idea underlying ‘The Fun Theory‘ -- a green awareness/behaviour changing/feel good/virally driven move from VW. Of course its intentions are good and I wish them all the success -- but a branding move it is nonetheless. But fair enough. Car manufacturers have all fallen to the way side to some degree - it’s hard to truly pull your brand away from the focus of topics such as climate change when your brand lies in a category that is essentially a large part of ‘the problem’.
Despite my slight cynicism and distrust towards brands that preach but don’t practice -- I genuinely like this move from VW.
Firstly -- I love the overall transparency of it. The core idea is defined, robust and very appealing -- not to mention horribly in vogue -- and despite the VW branding saying its ‘their intiative‘ (surely people have probably been doing this for a while?) it still feels personable and relatively ‘brand free’.
Secondly, the several viral videos (courtesy of DDB Stockholm) that are driving the campaign really are quite neat. The Fly-on-the-Wall approach makes things much more human and everyday, which sits perfectly with the idea of the whole campaign. And these vids seem to have been tremendously contagious. The Piano staircase has been doing the rounds all over blogland and has notched up a staggering amount of views considering how long the vid has been around for -- apx. 5 million in less than a month.
Definitely more Passat than Polo.
A more recent video that has been uploaded by the team @ The Fun Theory -- whilst not quite as good an execution imo, is still a lot of FUN either way and has a great sense of continuity with the other videos :
So hats off to VW and DDB -- think you’ve pulled this one off.
..you had to after having releasing this though. *shakes head*
I stumbled across this fun presentation from Olivier Blanchard – a brand/business strategist with a sharp eye for interesting visuals. In the slide show below he tackles the sticky ground of social media impact on hard business measures, yet seemingly illuminating the relationship as actually quite simple and workable…
My openess to Social Media as a relevant and powerful force in driving business somewhat leaves me reticent to disagree with this, but the quantitative side of my brain is screaming to see some proven case studies which cover this framework. What do you think?
Channel 4 recently fixed a deal with YouTube meaning that as of 2010, all of Channel 4′s programming will be available to stream in full and for free from a branded Channel 4 channel on YouTube. It’s a powerful and savvy move from Channel 4. Not only will it ensure a stronger online presence – vital when consumers are spending more and more of their time online, but it also means they should be able to increase and diversify their advertising revenues. Even better is that those revenues (in theory and if the deal allows it) will be able to come from more targeted and therefore more relevant advertising. Everyone is a winner. With Web TV (see below) rolling out from most TV manufacturers nowadays and an increasing amount of offline hardware now able to offer a level of YouTube integration, Channel 4 aren’t being slack in helping to turn the pages of convergence.
Here’s something pretty fresh out of the TV oven -- Channel 4′s Misfits, soon to start on E4 in a couple of weeks. With NBC’s Heroes kicking off its fourth season a couple of days ago and Marvel’s seemingly endless franchise of superhero films dominating the big screen, the Superhero genre is prime entertainment territory. And now us Brits are getting some homegrown uber power, albeit in a far more British tone. Less sex, more social deliquency. From Channel 4′s homepage :
“Misfits follows five outsiders on community service who get struck by a flash storm and lumbered with special powers.
Hard as nails Kelly (Lauren Socha) can suddenly hear people’s thoughts, shamed sporting hero Curtis (Nathan Stewart Jarrett) discovers he has the ability to turn back time when he regrets something, and party girl Alisha (Antonia Thomas) can send people into a sexual frenzy when they touch her skin. Even painfully shy Simon (Iwan Rheon) can make himself invisible when he feels he’s being ignored, which makes it all the more hard to swallow for smart aleck Nathan (Robert Sheehan), who seems to have been unaffected, much to his dismay.
Unlike their more conventional counterparts, our misfits don’t swap their ankle tags and mobile phones for capes and tights. Instead, they discover what a pain in the arse life can be when you’re stuck with a super power you didn’t want”
A cool TV spot has just been finished and polished off by the talented bods at the Mill House - see below.
As with all things Channel 4, it’s slick, sassy and a lot cooler than any branded TV content found on 1, 2 or 3. Or 5. The branding team at Channel 4 have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to deliver top draw branded content, setting them apart from other broadcasters with award winning ads for Disarming Britain and recently a very clever ident for More 4′s Stanley Kubrick season.
Excitement. Lots. (I’m resisting the urge to get up and make machine gun noises).
This pic is already all over the web – and quite rightly. Looks badass. The casting of Bradley Cooper as Templeton Peck is inspired and whilst I was a touch dubious about Liam Neeson as Hannibal, this sneak preview poster kind of reassures my doubts.
Although I can’t seem to find any sneak preview marketing gimmicks going on anywhere, I’m hoping that in the run up to Christmas and very early in the new year (this is due out Summer 2010) we’re going to start seeing a whole host of tantalising morsels viral their way around the net. The amount of nostalgia the A-Team carries, is massive and a great audience to tap into – as long as the ideas are right. I’d like to see something along the lines of http://www.friendsofharveydent.org/ - a great example of innovative film marketing in an online age..
I like my ads like my films -- sometimes artistry and subtlety work a treat… but then there are times when I can’t help but gorge on the latest blockbuster. This latest ad from Vodafone New Zeland is no exception to the latter. I could watch this over and over again. Simply divine. The fact that sometimes it sounds a little off -- kind of adds to the authenticity of it all. Awesomeness.
