Mr.
Matt
Spangler

Flying people

Sure its an ad for a ‘meh’ car…but that is some really really good copywriting.

via taylordavidson:

Two favorite lines: 

“People don’t make a list of websites they want to see before they die.”

“It’s ok, the internet will be just fine without you.”

Dry the River Horses hand-made 3D poster

Geniusly obvious.

Uniqlo has consistently smart marketing executions. via Jon Crowley

One of the best videos I’ve seen in months. This hits incredibly close to home and mirrors my own experience of both managing people in the work place and the analysis of my own motivations navigating the world as an independent consultant. 

A must watch for anyone who is a manager of people, the owner of a business or a marketer or communications specialist who spends their lives thinking about what motivates the audience for a product or service.

via tmblg:

Dan Pink on What Motivates Us

Funny spot.

A great prank experience from Heineken.

Have heard about the Spur video series that talks with planners in the industry but haven’t had a chance to watch the videos until the break. I enjoyed the first three episodes and would encourage anyone interested in the fields of strategy, planning, management consulting or the agency environment in general to check them out.

This particular one about the planning “identity crisis” seems to offer the the most diverse sound bites that I connected with from my experiences of 2009 so I thought I’d pass it along with a few personal thoughts about the coming year.

1. Hank Leber (McKinney), Heidi Hackemer (BBH) and Robin Hafitz (KBSP) talk about the antiquated idea that most advertising/marketing agencies still hold onto regarding who owns the creativity, the titles that come along with it and thus the credit and accolades tied to it.  This is an issue that I think is still pervasive at agencies of all size and especially among creative directors (something Russell Davies and David Armano spoke about a bit last year). The most intelligent and forward thinking agencies I have been talking to the past 6 months are starting to tear this down and I think 2010 will mark a significant shift in this thinking. Good ideas come from many different places, but the structure of the top down pyramid creative direction can often stifle the best collaborative thinking.


2. John Gerzama stresses the importance of hybrid talent and compares it with hollywood writer/director/actor.  I think this year marks the continued consolidation between this entertainment driven hybrid thinker and the kind of talent that agencies have to recruit.  As everything becomes a form of “entertainment”, experience and storytelling has increased value, and the ability to reach the right audience becomes more confusing (not necessarily harder), the blending of the talent between these two worlds will become more necessary and for those in the strategist and planner position, this wider perspective will make them more critical to the success of the organization and its ideas.


3. One thing that I didn’t hear touched on in any of the videos that I think is critical is the idea of problem identification before starting to work on the solution. Robin briefly whispers about being a good listener which I think is a true art for the best planners and strategists. In a world where everyone is looking to provide the next great “idea”, there is less and less time spent on identifying the real problems. Often times, there are bigger communications issues that go beyond the next marketing campaign. This analysis and the ability and process of identifying the problems will become more critical then ever for the success of clients in the coming year.


4. Paul Woolmington from Naked talks about the fact that good planners worth their salt want to get upstream to solve more critical business issues.  From my experience and discussions this is incredibly challenging from inside many agencies but will be more important then ever in the coming year. For the past 3 months I’ve been consulting with Naked Communications on the extension of this thought. As a consultancy they have already had many successful engagements using communications to solve problems that go well beyond the traditional marketing challenges. We are working to develop updated processes that emphasize identification of the problems and communication plans that may not fit within the traditional “marketing” buckets but help solve core business issues. While keeping an eye on the changing way that organizations are using digital communications channels daily (with consumers, partners, employees…whatever label you want to give them) this becomes more important then ever and thus more critical for marketers to extend their thinking beyond the next campaign.
   
   Would love to hear your thoughts…

On Sunday, with a nod to the ever-increasing power of branded content, I saw a VIZIO ad on tv with a song that I had heard and liked but couldn’t remember the artist name. I googled “who sings the song in Vizio television commercial” and bought Empire of the Sun’s latest album off Amazon 5 minutes later.

The team from Tangerine posted videos of the panel on digital culture at Saatchi I sat on a couple weeks ago. It was a thoughtful conversation with some good points made throughout all the videos. This particular video is a discussion around “staying ahead of the curve” and you can see the others on YouTube.