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Alex

Jun 19

TED topics for Industry 4.0

By B2B, Communications craft, content, Strategy, Thought leadership, What's out there now

Thought leadership has been a buzzword for a little while now.
To do it well you famously have to be able to have thoughts and also to lead. Neither of those two things are particularly easy things to do. For many content producers, it may feel like a big mountain to climb. They way to succeed is to break it down and get a little help.
Imagine you have to create a TED talk for your product or brand. What would it talk about? What are the big themes that operate around your product or brand that you personally find fascinating? Still stuck? Ok, try something simpler, treat it as an exercise in curation.
Just make a list of existing TED talks that seem to discuss topics near to the issues close to the brand. Then, write a few comments or remarks that bridge any relevant issues that need connecting. Here are some of mine for a company that’s designing software for a modern business. They deal with what’s generally called user centred experience. The connecting comments simply need to answer the question, “What’s the relevance of this inspiring video to what these guys actually sell?” Even if it’s obvious, it’s good to make it explicit so you don’t leave your audience in the fuzzy further reaches of philosophy.

Jun 07

Doing it without words

By Creativity, Funny, Uncategorized

Sex is can be done without lots of dialogue, why shouldn’t an ad work that way too?
One of the smart things about this spot is that it communicates the joy of sex with a condom rather than the dangers without one. By being positive it’s more memorable. And because most of us would rather see bunnies than genitalia in an ad, it’s hugely enjoyable to watch.

Apr 14

Has marketing changed?

By B2B, Communications craft, content, Uncategorized

It’s hard to do marketing without thinking everything is so different from when we all came into the industry. Even if you’ve only been in the industry for a year or so, you’ve probably noticed some big shifts already. But as ever there’s a counter view, and one provide by the father of advertising, the late, very great Bill Bernbach.

“It took millions of years for man’s instincts to develop. It will take millions more for them to even vary. It is fashionable to talk about changing man. A communicator must be concerned with unchanging man, with his obsessive drive to survive, to be admired, to succeed, to love, to take care of his own.” Bill Bernbach

*With thanks to Rory Sutherland for reminding us of this quote.

One of the classic B2B ads of Bernbachs era, printed in 1958 is by McGraw Hill publishing. It runs as follows.
So how might it read today? Here’s a guess.
The man sitting in the chair would also nowadays probably be sporting a beard and a mobile device, but as Bernbach would have said, his unchanging need to guard against an unknown visitors and their untested products is just as it strong as it always has been.

Mar 30

Conception or execution?

By Case Study, Communications craft

When writing a case history for your organisation, you’ll find a narrative is a great way to reveal the moment of brilliance. All you have to do is ask: what were the circumstances that helped you think up the idea? The exact time, place, motivation, and question that provoked it. Very often just unpacking that exact moment of conception will create the excitement in the minds of your audience. And consequently an appreciation for the brilliance that went into it.
A good example of this is Michelle Mone’s moment in the toilet during a dinner dance, when she’s taking off an extremely uncomfortable bra. In that moment she decides to invent her Ultimo bra. But how do you do this in a video? You can’t recreate that without actors, sets and a high budget. So very often the best way to show a case history is to show the idea being executed.
So with video as a story telling medium, it’s the execution rather than the conception which makes for a good case history. In the following ideas, the film documents the idea being installed. Usually they preserve enough mystery to keep the viewer guessing. And whether it’s a footprint a keyboard or a phallus, doesn’t really matter. What counts is that there’s a twist to whatever you might have expected.


Mar 30

Symmetry with an opposite

By Creativity, Uncategorized

This neat little idea comes from building a symmetry between the transient text of a text message and the really permanent text of a blue plaque. The net result is a neat comment on just how annoying the wrong predictions are.

Mar 17

We’ve all been there. And the other place

By Uncategorized


I’m always telling participants on the Copycourse that change is the key making a piece of writing interesting. Yet this cute little film keeps doing the opposite; It’s a story about keeping the bear in the same place.
So how come it’s so entertaining?
Well, for one the expectation for anyone who stands in a queue is to move forward. So the film turns our expectation of moving forward in a queue upside down. It plays with how we see the world.
And it keeps doing it in different ways.
All the while it’s saying something deeper about trying to get ahead: that it comes at the price of frustration.
As William Goldman said about screenwriting, give the audience what they expect, not in a way but not in the way that they expect it.
No wonder it got four thousand likes and counting.

Mar 12

I jiggle therefore I am

By What's out there now

Beneath all the flab on show there’s something quite subtle about this idea. The premise of being a Bollywood belly dancer is that you’ve got to enough fat to jiggle. So by celebrating belly dancing, you’re providing a neat piece of subliminal logic; namely other cultures are okay with a bit of extra flesh. It’s just the west where we’ve all gone anorexic.

I jiggle therefore I am

I jiggle therefore I am campaign to get women to exercise

https://time.com/3669876/this-girl-can-ad-sport-england/

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