Regret the things you did rather than the things you didn't...

The night before last I went to an IPA talk consisting of a Q&A with Sir Martin Sorrell, Lord Tim Bell and Sir Frank Lowe. It was an inspirational talk and you could really see how different the three men are but at the same time how they would all be able to work together. (They represented the three key elements of media media agency, PR and creative).

I was really impressed by Tim Bell who was calculated in what he said but also hugely inspirational. He actually ended the talk by answering the question 'What advice would you give an inspiring ad bod?' with what sounded like a rehearsed speech due to its smoothness with the main thrust of it being,

'Don't regret anything, get yourself out there having a f*cking good time and then come back, give him a ring and he'd go for a beer with you to talk about it!'

I think it's about time I did that.

Social media buys itself a suit...

Found this post at Gavin's blog and it brought home how social media is changing. It's not a ground breaking evolution that businesses are using social media to promote their products and services, but it gives us an understanding of how you don't have to be promoting the next Apple creation, tickets to Bon Jovi or a degree from Phoenix University to use social media. Find me at LinkedIn here.

Has the time come?

Dedication

At what point do you go from trying in vain to draw your name, with the end result looking like something you would have produced aged 3, to this...">

The Game

I’ve just finished reading Neill Strauss’s ‘The Game’ which is a book in essence about the techniques employed by a secret group of guys to pick up girls who they would have originally considered out of their league.

I won’t ruin the story for you if you’re ever planning on reading it, but during the book, the author goes from becoming a geeky nobody with very little self esteem to a mPUA (Master Pick Up Artist) and then finally turns into somebody who realises the fakeness of what his life has become. As you can imagine, the core aspect of the book is how a man can boost his confidence and develop his communication and attention seeking skills in such a way that he can not only approach some of the most beautiful women, but also go on to take them home.

The protagonist however, after learning the skills and becoming a leader within the PUA community, suddenly realises that the people he is surrounding himself with and the activity he is doing are in essence wholly fake and shallow and he has an epiphany when, after chatting to a girl for an extended period of time (using all the tricks and methods he’s learnt) suddenly finds himself running out of material and starts to panic as he might have to talk to this girl as himself and all that self doubt that surrounded him before he learnt the techniques returns.

When I was reading this I couldn’t help but draw comparisons with advertising especially digital advertising with the way it is becoming increasingly social in it’s approach. Obviously there are basics to advertising which are apparent in everything that we do in order to raise the profile of our products and services or those of our clients.

However without theorising too much over this, I think the biggest thing to come out of reading about these techniques and methods and how effective they were, was that there is a need to get back to basics. There is far too much time being spent on trying to analyse consumer behaviour and interest focus which normally results in over complicating plans of execution and creative. That's not to say there is not a lot of excellent simplistic and highly effective creative out there but there is also a lot of overly wordy creative that either turns the consumer off or leaves them wondering what the hell they are on about. (ok this example isn't from the UK but it illustrates what could happen and it make me laugh)

So yeah, even if you are a mPUA of the advertising world with all the tricks up your sleeve, (good chat, expensive clothes, good aftershave), if your brand integrity (personality) is somewhat lacking, and you can't allow yourself to be judged on your core merits than no amount of attention grabbing techniques are going to save you. There is far too much information out there for the online community to access for a brand to be anything else but true to themselves and the people they are offering a product to.

Ok, I appreciate I might be a being a little bit utopian here and I'm not advocating a world of free love and mutual respect but if brands still think they can be anything but honest with their consumers, they're wrong.

AWOL

Not that I needed ‘leave’ in order to go absent but I felt like I've neglected my posts for the last couple of months with no real excuse other than losing sight of what is actually important. I’m under no illusion that my little streams of consciousness are of that much importance, however as Erin says in her blog, it's not just about educating or informing others, it's also a type of therapy for introverts.

I agree with her, in that those of us who blog have a lot of internal thoughts and need to vent these ideas and opinions to allow for both their development (it's amazing how when you try to describe an idea to somebody you suddenly start to visualise the other possibilities the idea could lead to) and also allowing you to move on from said idea and start to think about other thoughts that have been bouncing around your noggin.

As a result of this I have decided that I will make a far more concerted effort to publish more posts, 1 a week in fact. Previously I have always tried to make what I say as polished as possible as I try to cover everything off on the topic. And whilst talking of topics, mine have always been slightly narrow minded and industry specific, this needs to change as I am of the firm opinion that planning requires influences from every sector, of course it does, else we have no chance in trying to convey a message to people.

Next post within 7 days (I promise!)...

'Re-volvo-lutionary' brand interaction

Although this has a bit of a way to go in terms of development I think this is a really neat idea and could lead to all sorts of interactive projects. One day we might even be able to manipulate the film we're watching...