No man can serve two masters

I'm a Mac and I'm a bully

Macintosh, the brand of the outsider, the creative mind, the free thinker. Think different was a spectacular campaign which wonderfully encapsulated this philosophy and flipped the thinking of the historical big enemy IBM on it's head. (IBM had been running their very successful 'think' campaign for many years).

But how much longer can this go on for? Is Mac really still the elite brand for the in-group? Perhaps it is, there are still a relatively small number of cravat wearers who flourish their Mac in Starbucks, but the worm may be about to turn. Since iPod is now such a massive global brand with untold millions of units shipped around the world and I think around 80% market penetration in the MP3 player market and iphone trouncing all over the mobile handset market I think they need to be very careful with how they are perceived.

This year their I'm a Mac / I'm a PC campaign got a response from Microsoft. In a change from the standard approach of the market leader which is to ignore the competition in communications, the big blue monster came out with their own 'I'm a PC' campaign that tries to show PC users as the full range of creative, scientific, working and playing people that make up their users. Given even now,  at their lowest point they still control over 92% of the home computer operating system market it shows they are taking the threat seriously.

People's perceptions of a brand health a lead indicator of future sales and onwards to customer satisfaction. Apple had been cutting into Microsoft's market share in tiny, but reliable bites and they need to deal with it if they want to stay at no. 1.

The I'm a PC campaign that broke over the past year is a really fantastic piece of work making the corporate Ogre that Microsoft had become come across as human, self effacing and even funny. Perhaps even a little bit what Mac was like back in the day.

Compare this to where Apple are now with their perceived weak points - that they are expensive, value style over substance, a somewhat dodgy hardware reliability reputation and now to top it all off picking on the geeky, bespectacled, socially awkward kid, they are coming across a little bit like a bully. I just found that Charlie Brooker has said this a lot better than I can when the campaign first broke in the UK, drawng the analogy of the UK actors roles in Peep Show

"in which Mitchell plays a repressed, neurotic underdog, and Webb plays a selfish, self-regarding poseur. So when you see the ads, you think, "PCs are a bit rubbish yet ultimately lovable, whereas Macs are just smug, preening tossers." In other words, it is a devastatingly accurate campaign."

Why am I bringing all this up now? Well Windows 7 has just been released. Amazingly, to some acclaim. It will be interesting to see how people react to Windows 7 now that Microsoft is acting with a bit more humanity. Their strength ironically is in their fallibility, if they can successfully show that they care about the people who use their products and are doing their best then that would likely be a powerful antidote to Mac's supercilious elitism. Aspirational is probably a losing tack in tough times anyway and as a typically British lover of the underdog, I hope Microsoft sticks it to them. Never thought I'd say that.

Originality is an effectiveness issue

Every now and again you hear about how some famous piece of advertising or marketing work has actually been directly 'inspired' (or copied) from something else that previously existed. Notable recent examples include Honda's 'cog', Sony 'bunnies', the road safety basketball one and that Aero one with skateboarders in the swimming pool. In fact it is now the fun game du j0ur to see if people can spot the artistic or cultural references that spawned the commercial.

It is particularly important to creatives, the people paid, and are often under pressure to develop ideas, who prize the creation of something totally new so highly. Somehow, to be directly influenced by something that has gone before is cheating. However we are here to make money, not art and the end point of the journey is not the glittering diamond we release onto a virgin and untrammelled world, it is a change in the business fortunes of our clients, ultimately (dare I say it) sales.That is not to say by any means that originality isn't  important in the development of creative ideas. To create a difference between you and the competition, as David Ogilvy put it - “the burr of singularity” is vital. We humans delight in the novel, think on the truism that you and I are basically living inside the bodies of cavemen, we are always looking for the colour of a tasty new fruit, or the red flash of danger in the forest. The sea of green blends into the background. To create something new and different screams to our psyche, and that is why we as marketing people need to do it.

Bill Bernbach agreed,  “In communications, familiarity breeds apathy”

So while I agree that distinctiveness is vital (the Trifecta of Ogilvy, Bernbach and Law cannot be disputed), it is not necessarily that case that total originality is required, simply rather that the majority of the people you are exposing the work to consider it to be different enough to warrant attention.

Now we live in a recombinant age, but as pedants the world over write, was it ever thus. John Webster was well know for taking inspiration from situations in the street, other art work or references in culture. Who cares? William Shakespeare nicked all sorts of things including the whole idea of a number of his stories, as well as passages, characters from the classics and contemporaries. They used to have a name for it, it was called the renaissance. It is worthwile noting that there has never been a successful court case for plagiarism in advertising in the UK, and that is because, contrary to popular belief, copyright does NOT extend to ideas. Copyright applies to a tangible work, not to the idea behind it, so if you use a similar idea, but execute it in a different way (ie. Not a direct remake), no copyright infringement exists.

The point is not that there is nothing original any more, it is that whether it is completely original or not is not important.. The important question is whether the majority of the target audience will consider it to be a novel stimulus, if they do, it is original enough, and we should then content ourselves with evaluating is the work itself effective at its stated aim. Stat.

Carboard furniture

 

Ad agency Nothing in Amsterdam has had this cardboard kit inserted into their office. I am sure that I had something like this when I was a kid made of MDF.

Via PSFK

Skittles replaces website with links to twitter, flickr, facebook, yada

This is a brave and interesting idea, Skittles have replaced their entire corporate website with a series of links to various social media sites. The homepage is the twitter search page of everything that people are saying about the brand right at that very moment.

  The flash panel at the top left of the screen links to the other sites, and ties the whole thing together.

'Products' links to wikipedia, 'media' links to youtube and flickr. 'Friends' is the facebook page and 'contact' links to a contact form on their own site.

Interestingly, 'chatter' is the same as 'home' currently, suggesting that the twitter feed homepage is temporary. Perhaps this is a stunt to get twitter attention? Lord knows it's so hot right now.

A lot is currently being made of how people are hijacking the skittles twitter page to include profanities etc, but this is temporary, and if anyone from the skittles marketing team is reading this, you should tough it out as this approach will probably pay off for you in the long run.

Friends page

The idea is quite extreme at the moment, but what is good about the idea is that it is flexible. There are not massive production implications of changing the flash panel and shifting a few links around. Probably in a week or so you will find a 'proper' homepage going over the top of the site, if only to link to the other environments.

Media page


Product page

Bravo to whoever sold this in, as it is going to be big.

Ryanair is a great brand, discuss

I had a fantastic chat the other week with an ex-client of mine and the boys from we are social about whether or not Ryanair was a brilliant brand. Everyone said they are arseholes, and to be honest I do not disagree one bit. Instead, and perhaps controversially, I feel that being an arsehole is a fundamental part of their incredibly successful brand personality.

Everything they do or say is set up to give across the impression that they will do anything they can to save money. From the fact that they have the cheapest aircraft interiors, tackiest colours, the seats don't recline and they charge for luggage. Famously, if there is any problem with the flight, all the airline staff have been reported to disappear, leaving the abandoned passengers to work out what to do next.

In Dublin airport, they actually have a poster from a legal firm near the Ryanair desk explaining what your rights are, and giving you a number to call for more information and legal advice, presumably because there are so many customers who would have cause to use such a service.

All of these things make you think "these are some people who really care about how they can save a few quid".

Their brand attributes I guess could be summarised as canny, smart, cheap, money grubbing

This is an incredibly successful business model. Ryanair is one of the only airlines that actually turns a profit. I think the key to it is that people by and large are not introspective. They don't think that they will avail themselves of a five pound sandwich, or need to bring more than one piece of hand luggage. They laugh at the other chumps who fall foul of these rules, but they are smart, they won't be sucked in.

Yesterday they pulled a blinder. On the day they posted their first quarterly loss in recent memory, they made an announcement that they intended to charge £30 for any duty free that is not put inside the single item of hand baggage. This sent the Guardian readers in apoplexy. It was a good idea as it deflected attention from the business performance, and played again the familiar cheapness script.

Remember we ought to be, mentally at least, giving ourselves piles if we're trying to sell preparation H, and the readers of the Guardian are unlikely to be the heartland demographic that Michael O'Leary is trying to attract

Corporate identity
This logo looks like it cost about £750 to put together. I am sure that is exactly the effect they are after. Also, if you look on Google images, you can see that the logo itself changes about once a fortnight. They are too cheap to even have any guidelines made up. If ever they get a new temp in to put the next ad campaign, they just do what they feel.

Customer experience: This is like the inside of a big dirty bus. I would not be surprised if there was chewing gum on the underside of every one of these seats. There is no way anyone is going to nick or crease one of their safety cards either:

For Chrissakes they even have calendar girls

Website: this screams at me that this is the airline equivalent of PoundStretcher. Every fibre of its being says cheapness, and this is very clever.

Michael O'Leary himself even plays his part. He is not a stupid man by any means and his japesterish tactics and unapologetic style ties in with the whole brand framework.

I would be curious to know if they had any help with any of this work or if they really did do it all themselves. I doubt any agency would includes something like this on its portfolio, but in my opinion you cannot deny it is successful. I wonder who worked on it because looking this cheap probably costs a lot of money.

Search Flickr photographs by colour

Now this isn't the first flickr search tool that I have ever seen, but it is the first one that is absolutely amazing. You start with a blank screen and you select the colours that you want for the picture to include. I tried it out as often there is a real paucity of results in these things, but even with seven search colours it brought back relevant and interesting results. The website is here: Multicolr Search Lab

Similarities between Disney animation sequences

Ressemblances dans les films Disney - Buzz

Many thanks to Lean Mean Fighting Machine blog

How to dress like a creative

Check shirt apocalypse this morning at Dare. Courtesy of Jamie Green.

Very cool car park signage - Axel Peemoeller

Axel Peemoeller - website / car park page
http://de-war.de/eurekacarpark.html

Norman Mailer's lego city of the future

With thanks to greg.org