Nonfat, no foam, no hassle

I hate to admit this but there are so many things that New York does better than London. Just above "winter" and below "Bacon" is this beautiful app from Starbucks




The ubiquitous west coast chain had ran a trial of 16 spaces in Seattle and San Francisco and has now rolled out to the city. It's cool, and really simple. You download a barcode that is linked to your credit card and hold up your phone to pay

Again, this is something that fits Starbucks perfectly, stress free convenience



My boy Doron always takes care of me when we do our status at the local on 7th Ave and 36th. He bought me a gingerbread latte (I don't know why...I wouldn't dream of having one over here!) paid and simultaneously showed me his recent transactions and his impressive array of Starbucks stars.

Good.

Nike for LeBron: Rise

This has undertones of that Earl Woods Nike commercial...they really do a fantastic job of taking hype and giving us a counterpoint as something to think about

In this new LeBron James ad “Rise”. Nike nods to Miami Vice; playing up his actions vs the expectations people may have of him.



Given the media circus of an ESPN special I personally find it remarkable that King James can play the victim in this skit but this is sure to keep Nike real and sell more hi tops in the process. 5 stars.

I love it when you find music in your library that had lapsed off your playlist but find again and realise your runs, your travels and your nightcaps are a lot better for these tunes.

I hit the bargrooves compilations (@bargroovesuk) really great for running but then I recently resynched my iPod and ended up downloading 11 podcasts that are essentially 30 minute mixes of each release by DJ Miss Divine who is just phenomenally seamless through the set




Part Miami winter, part london lounge and a heavy slice of ibiza through august - if you are either a runner in need of a 30 min torch session, looking for that perfect post club set that is laid back enough to help you come down at the end of the night but simultaneously glamourous enough to help your after party slide until the sun comes up these downloads should not be missed

Get them all after the jump

http://www.last.fm/music/Bargrooves/_/bargrooves+Podcast+Episode+1

You can thank me later...


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Location:Bargrooves Podcasts

Conference Room Hell

Maybe I am jaded by sitting in dull windowless conference and meeting rooms but I am really starting to get to the point where I think we should be reimagining how we think about conferences and off sites

We were thinking of rebooting our relationship with one of our clients and we wanted to go to a venue that inspired us to think differently particularly with regard to communications and how social media is impacting their business.....then we started to talk to our finance people - I guess our meeting will occur here



We have got to change this. Seriously.

I personally work with two fantastic PAs who consistently do a fantastic job at conferences, everything is incredible but we certainly let them down consistently too.

The typical approach for an off-site meeting is to pick a city then ask the PA to ring up a few hotels and ask about their space and then book some rooms for the team. Most hotels have conference rooms, so we can get a good deal if we do it in a single call. It also means that when people wake up with a hangover they can drag themselves to the elevator and roll into the room.

I have a problem with hotel conference spaces...believe me, I have seen enough. Typically they are designed to be generic, and beige. Four beige walls, a beige carpet a strip light and a projector. They can easily fit our meeting in between a sales conference for water purifiers and a wedding reception

I am going to ask H to find the best location in Lisbon for a conference and then find us somewhere to sleep. I think with that brief we won't end up here



Secondly, I found that conference rooms are quite cheap for the day but why is equipment so expensive? A projector is $250, a flip chart is $50, pens are $20.... and then there's lunch at $80 per head.

Feels like the model is upside down, if we really need to create ideas for our clients or our own business that will inspire and delight we should start thinking of the 'space' to be an important tool in that process



See you at the christening

Listen Up

I spend a lot of time with clients talking about how their brand can best engage in a dialogue with their customers on a day to day basis. Of course the way we 'do' marketing has changed; data changed it.

The availability of information and how that information spreads creates speed on one hand; bad customer service can be shared quickly with the use of twitter and the like. But also that data also demands that we listen to what our customers are saying and react to it. If I am sitting in an airport and I get pissed off with the flight delay, the lack of information or that they dont even give us a glass of water I expect an apology and some miles within an hour of my tweet. When they do I get excited and it somehow feels ok that i am inconvienienced....at least they care
All the clients I work with understand that marketing is less archery and more ping-pong and so they are embarking on getting a 'listening tool'. You have to get a listening tool, right? And social is big...and confusing! So it just feels neglegent these days if you haven't signed up for one



Working with a number of clients and seeing all the major playors up close this is what i've learnt: maybe if you think i missed something or completely misunderstood the point maybe i'll learn something too! Feel free @arvindzz....

- What's the point? Do any of our consumers really care about our brand enough to say anything? Maybe you should get a free trial for a month, choose some keywords and get them to provide some insights. Yes, insights - not a canned report

- Secondly I love infographics. if you read this regularly you know that i a sucker for a cool chart. However I personally think we can't be seduced on charts alone. A pig is still a pig no matter if it shops at Sephora. Any thing that doesn't make it easier to understand than the information being in a table is more problematic than helpful. Always ask yourself 'how am I going to act on this information?'

- Thirdly (yeah yeah ok, perhaps it should have been first) - what are you trying to achieve? I think that competitive analysis is different from monitoring ongoing to help develop conversations with your customers. Also if you want insights, make sure you get them...see above

- What do you need? The world of the internet is flat...so even two people in their garage are global. But filtering and languages are always a minefield.... Then their are demographics and sentiment. Is that sentiment done automatically or by human intervention. This drives the cost

- Oh and talking about cost how do you compare apples with apples? A license? A cost per keyword? A cost per campaign or by the volume of mentions? How much is charged for insights?

My big caveat here is that the whole area of social listening is young and undeveloped...but important. So this is merely my opinion - I am sure that this post doesn't go deep enough any of these considerations...how real time is it etc? All of these things are crucial when selecting a partner, however these are my headlines to get started

Tiens-toi prêt !

Cool Axe ad from France - Jukebox Collective provide the soundtrack for this piece of content that is instantly recognizable



Guaranteed to make you watch at least 3 times

The analytic culture oxymoron

Maybe it's because it's a Monday...but I am in a philosophical mood this morning

Analytics and Culture.....let's go

Culture is about people, its warm and fuzzy and gives visions of country pubs with open fires. Analytics is about data, its clinical and dull with visions of spreadsheets and thick rimmed spectacles...(like mine)

When we talk about putting data at the heart of the organization it must strike fear into most managers; "do we really need another dashboard?" "Actually, forget it, its a cultural thing, there is nothing we can do about it"

Culture is about what the people in a group think, say and do. These are informed by inherent beliefs, expectations and communications. In fact, isn't group culture more determined about how we work together in groups and how those groups interact with other groups? If that's the case, could it be made tangible and even predictable?

When I consider this I quickly get to a point that culture in a business isn't universal - subcultures exist 'sales and marketing', 'IT and finance' and the like.

What does it take for an analytical approach to business to be successful in organisations like this?

Well for one, I certainly feel it has to be HOLISTIC. It has to break down silos and not re-inforce them. So a web analytics dashboard or keyword optimization won't be successful in the long term because it doesn't create widespread adoption. In fact, when all these subcultures come to the table with their own view of the world - that world becomes a more confusing place to be

Secondly, despite the inherent DNA of the analytics community (I feel a fatwa against me coming on)it has to be SIMPLE. As analysts we spend a look time standing back and admiring the sophistication of our work and not how our clients will actually use it.

Finally (using the rule of threes), it has to be about PEOPLE. Analytics brings with it easily dropped terms such as 'optimization'...I dont want to be optimized! I want to continue to show how I add value as a marketer. In that respect as people we bring our own knowledge and experience, these may percolate and stay with us as perceptions, instincts or even biases. As an analyst we need to help people create clarity so they can apply their intelligence and understanding of their culture to create a better business

Now I know a lot of my own clients read this from time to time (or at least visit) so I would say we do a pretty good job of addressing the stuff above. Sure we arent perfect but we'll be even better next week than we are this one...I promise

The true size of Africa

Not much to say about this other than the way we draw maps in a 2D space masks the 3D nature of the world....love this



Happy friday

The future, no, the end, no, the future of magazines

I love my ipad, yawn. But lets face it, i am on a train journey and i have responded to mails, posted on this blog, read two articles of Interview magazine and completed three levels on Angry Birds Halloween.

I really liked the Interview app for the iPad, it was heavily sponsored (Calvin Klein) but had some incredible fashion photography. Also the way the pages turn is a beautiful thing. But then i started to wonder if i had explored everything in this digital magazine. had i missed an article? How would i know if i had? It all became quite frustrating.

I have downloaded a large number of newspapers and magazine apps and basically all these publishers are doing is slapping their print versions of their publications online... Surely this can be improved upon?

The iPad has been widely touted as the opportunity for publishers and particularly glossy magazines. However is it really the case that readers are ditching magazines because they don't like the print version? Are we all going to start flooding back for a glorified pdf?

Like advertising on the Internet we, as consumers demand interactivity in return for attention, that means video, gaming and social features. My feeling is that the magazine app needs to open up content, not restrict it....almost intelligent search for my life.

Wired does a good job, not only because it's geek quotient is high (although that's appealing), they have truly enhanced their print version and they will continue to innovate...I hope Interview, GQ and Monocle take note.

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Location:Narbonne Ave,Lambeth,United Kingdom

Iconic or Cheesey? You decide

If anyone has seen the Banksy film 'Exit through the gift shop' you will have heard of Mr Brainwash. He is a crazy French guy who basically filmed everything. His cousin was a graffiti artist in Paris. In fact, I love Invader's work so much I may post purely about Invader's mosaics sometime soon.

Anyway, Mr Brainwash filmed all the graf royalty over the course of 10 years and ended up doing his own stencils and then spent a bucketload of cash to put on his own exhibition in LA. It is a wonderful story of how he piggybacked the whole scene and hoodwinked the A-list community to buy his work. however, he paid his dues and now he's getting paid




This is kind of obvious but if you are down in New York's Nolita village be sure to swing by Mott St and catch this, it's nicely done even down to the deliberate off kilter effects. So surely Mr Brainwash's work is pure satire....isn't it?



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Derezzed (Tron Legacy Soundtrack - NTEIBINT Remix)

This is what you get when you get so close to a project. Daft Punk to write the sountrack to Tron Legacy seems like a genius idea and this video amps the whole event up combining the light cycles with some heavy duty Punk Electro



But with this heavily delayed movie slated for general release in December is anyone (particularly the US audiences) ready for 90 minutes of the French muso gods in this angry mood?

Less Mad Men...more Star Trek?

Recently we have been using this line...to cause a reaction when we do conferences but it's not really the case is it? Despite what the digirati say

It is absolutely true that we live in a marketing era which will be defined by dialogue; the dialogue between marketers and consumers, but surely its always been this way....even the Big Bad Ads from Mad Ave were all about creating conversation?

I think we have to sum up this era by 3 key phenomena:

1. Social media has made social circles much wider

These days that throw-away line, that rant from being let down or those bragging rights claimed over those limited edition sneakers can hit many more people than ever before. So its easy to spread information, particularly low-involvement information far and wide

2. Everything is captured and transparent (especially if you are Facebook)

You really can tell if someone loves Skittles or hates Verizon. You can look at that information and understand its influence. Co-incidently, that influence is usually bigger than you think

3. As a brand you can participate

As a brand you can reward people for their commitment or work to make things better if they trash you, directly. That creates a lot of power. If you use it wisely.

Also its not just reactionary. As a brand you can start the conversation, and provide the platform or venue for these conversations to take place. You just have to learn to do that with a degree of authenticity.

So if you really are a modern day Don Draper you can do two things. Firstly you can tell me who your tailor is but more importantly you can test your big ideas and you can continue to generate conversation around those ideas. Talkability is still the more powerful media, its just now we can size it and we link it to something we can put in the bank.

Mind the Gap

It feels too easy to trash Gap, ok so they may have dropped a serious amount of dough to revamp their logo to something that apparently (as one of their 700,000 facebook fans said) would make their shoppers looked like they are carrying a bag that just stepped out of K-Mart. But we really should give Gap the credit for doing the right thing.

They previewed their new logo last week to their most loyal advocates and set off a customer backlash. Since the logo’s debut on Monday, Gap customers have been jamming Facebook and Twitter to tell the company just how they feel about the new logo.




What i really like about this case is that they were brave enough to tap into their customer relationship in social media. They concept tested on a focus group and then, and this is really great, they listened to them and gave their customers what they wanted. In this case that was the old logo. sure, they had to climb down and maybe they didn't expect this kick from their fans but they did the right thing and kept it authentic

And no one died either, they didn't change their signage on thousands of stores globally, they didn't cut out all their labels and get them stitched back in in China and they apologised for not listening earlier

Surely we have to commend The Gap for that, they were brave enough to give up control and I am sure that this week will be better for their business in the long run

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Zero degrees of separation

I don't know if you noticed yet, but there is a film about how Zuckerberg set up Facebook on release in the US and Europe this Friday. The tagline goes 'you don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies' - nice

Isn't everyone just so much more 'connected' these days? I have so many more contacts now than i did when i was 21. In those days i had a small group of friends from where i was born and a continuously morphing group of fellow drunken students. I didnt have email and i probably knew all the phone numbers i needed off by heart.

Now contrast that with today, and how connections can be made, fostered and in many cases revived through Facebook, LinkedIn etc. There is no denying that we are becoming more connected, you add people to your circle indiscriminately (and also feel guilty for de-friending them!)

This trend got me thinking about the 6 degrees of separation concept. This idea was that everyone is connected to everyone through a chain of, at most, 5 people. Given that these social networks are growing at such a rate, what is the degree of separation today? And how long before there are zero degrees of separation between the world's population. hey, I have LinkedIn connections I have never spoken to, let alone met!

Also at that point does Facebook become meaningless? I mean, will we just abandon it as we just don't have the time or the energy to pander to an endless stream of self satisfying status updates?

My guess is that as facebook hits a billion users we will only be 3 degrees of separation from everyone on earth. we will have 700 friends on average and we won't meet in bars, coffee shops or discuss last nights ball game. and the world will be a much poorer place because of it.

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Do these 5 things and turn your company social

All the clients are talking about social...but not many of them know how to go about it. Oh yeas, one caveat before we begin...'doing social' isn't about buying a button on Facebook.



I was at WPP Stream a couple of weeks ago, I attended a CPG client session talking specifically about this. The guys from Hershey's did a fantastic job of facilitating the debate; Unilever, KC, Reckitt Benckiser and P&G, the heavy hitters were a in attendance

Here are the 5 things I learned when taking your organisation social:

1. Its organisational

Listening to these guys talk the first thing I picked up was how difficult it is to get your organisation to change. Some of they guys create a fund that they ringfence and distribute to brands where they feel they can make a difference. That is a good thing; but how does that budget get protected when the inevitable round of budget cuts come through?

2. Champion and "Live the Space"

The next thing we picked up was the role of champions. These champions live and breathe social, these guys tweet continously and 'don't just read about getting fit'...they go to the gym - ring any bells with your clients?

One thing that I have observed Unilever do really well is how the champion (i'll spare his blushes) really started to teach and lead the organisation and not just trash the prehistoric nature of his business. Needless to say he built his campaign and won over the skeptics

3. Make it competitive

I have also found that you need to give these champions some evidence from peer or 'leader' companies. It's easy to say 'well Apple did this...' but when you say 'Look at this Old Spice campaign' it gets noticed and the competitors stealing a march will be vowed never to happen again

4. Measure measure measure

Just because it's free you still have to prove it. Many senior marketers still think its a risk. they have seen the Domino's pizza YouTube effect so getting the right metrics, tracking positive sentiment and responding is vital. Get your self a good listening tool. Some are cheap and some are good. Few are both.

5. Finally you really have to be in it for the long haul. Hershey certainly are....it typically takes years to change a culture

Listening AND learning

In a shameless plug for my closest and smartest friends in the business @arvindzz and his business @JamiQ I love the way these guys are taking the twitter interactions for the big 3 telcos in Singapore and really telling us a story from it

Exploring the social media with three telcos on Twitter from JamiQ on Vimeo.

Yes, it has bubbles, different sizes, colours and the linkages between them...my sort of visualisation that takes consumer data and makes real sense of it (ie not just stopping at making a pretty picture)

Check out the guys http://jamiq.com they are doing the hottest thing in the hottest media at the moment...does that make them officially HOT? I don't know, you decide

Behind the game?

Remember when Nintendo was the daddy of gaming? It wasn't so long ago after all, it launched the DS Lite and phenomenal Wii and changed gaming forever. It wasn't just technology that Nintendo had the edge on; it was that they opened up gaming to a whole new audience...one that wasn't in a dark boys bedroom surrounded by pizza boxes and coke cans. Didn't Nintendo create social gaming?

So how come they halved their full year income forecast last year? Sure, the Yen is strong and they won't launch the 3DS until after Christmas...but halved?!

It does seem that Nintendo has missed out on the two emerging trends of convergence (iphone and iPad) and online social gaming (FarmVille)

Facebook has half a billion friends and the iPhone looks unstoppable, I saw Microsoft's Kinect Last week that looks like the home entertainment system that the PS3 wanted to be.....where does Mario go from here?

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Location:Strand,London,United Kingdom

Paul Smith Globe

I am just back from a week on the road in Budapest and Athens. The Athens gig was WPP's 'unconference' Stream. This was a fantastic program of informal, open discussions around our industry from a binary perspective with agency colleagues and senior clients. I will blog some ideas that were stoked at Stream shortly

I really get excited to go to London Heathrow T5 as I get to pass through my favourite store at any airport in the world.



Paul Smith Globe has all of my usual staples; tailored jackets with a twist, bold swim shorts and quality shoes with thin hardwearing soles I adore.

Making this a truly special place are the rare artefacts that influence Nottingham's greatest export (yes, even better than Torvill and Dean). There are travel journals, old school cameras and contemporary art to buy off the wall. I truly love the experience! Leave time and room on the credit card if you are passing through

It's just a shame I only ever travel with carry on luggage

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Narbonne Ave,Lambeth,United Kingdom

Good Friday: Web Seer

I came across this tool today that allows you to make comparisons of google searches between comparable things. It takes the volume of searches and displays the searches by volume. So this way you can easily compare things



It's a wonderfully elegant thing however my comparison of men and women makes extremely depressing reading...

Get it after the jump at: http://hint.fm/seer/

A good analogy...

'Imagine you’re in a huge building with several storeys, each with an incredible large amount of rooms. Each room has tons of things in it. It’s utterly dark in that building, all you can do is walk down a hallway till you bang into a door or a wall.

All the rooms in the buildings are somehow connected but you don’t know how. Now, I tell you that in some rooms there is a treasure hidden and you’ve got one hour to find it. Here comes the good news: you’re not left to your own resources. You have a jinn, let’s call him Goog, who will help you. Goog is able to take you instantaneously to any room once you tell him a magic word. Let’s imagine the treasure you’re after is a chocolate bar, and you tell Goog: “I want Twox”. Goog tells you now that there are 3579 rooms where there is something with “Twox” in there.

So you start with the first room Goog suggests to you, and as a good jinn he of course takes you there immediately; you don’t need to walk there. Now you’re in the room you put everything you can grab into your rucksack and get back outside (remember, you can’t see anything, in there). Once you are outside the building again and can finally see what you’ve gathered you find out that what is in your rucksack is not really what you wanted. So, you have to get back into the building again and try the second room. Again, and again till you eventually find the Twox you want (and you are really hungry now, right?).


Now, imagine the same building but all the rooms and stairs are marked with fluorescent stripes in different colours, for example a hallway that leads you to some food is marked with a green stripe. Furthermore, the things in the rooms have also fluorescent markers in different shapes. For example, Twox chocolate bars are marked with green circles. And there is another jinn now as well- say hello to LinD.

You ask LinD the same thing as Goog before: “I want Twox” and LinD asks you: do you mean Twox the chocolate bar or Twox the car? Well, the chocolate bar of course, you say and LinD tells you: I know about 23 rooms that contain Twox chocolate bars, I will get one for you in a moment. How can LinD do this? Is LinD so much more clever than Goog? Well, not really. LinD does not understand what a chocolate bar is, pretty much the same as Goog does not know. However, LinD knows how to use the fluorescent stripes and markers in the building, and can thus get you directly what you want.

You see. It’s the same building and the same things in there, but with a bit of a help in forms of markers we can find and gather things much quicker and with less disappointments involved.

In the Linked Data Web we mark the things and hallways in the building, enabling jinns such as LinD to help you to find and use your treasures. As quick and comfortable as possible and no matter where they are.'

The best twitter visualisation of all time!

Yeah, yeah...now i'ma let you finish but did you see the MTV VMAs over the weekend? Actually more impressive was this beautiful visualization of VMA-related Tweets created by Stamen Design



Despite winning 8 gongs at the awards, the gaga phenomenon didn't win this event. It was dominated by the anniversary of Taylor vs Kanye. No matter Kanye being such a prolific tweeter sorry, ranter through twitter he couldn't overhaul the Taylor sympathisers

Instant Ads

Google is out there, filling the MOMA in San Francisco (looks like they have learned a thing or two from Jobs), the new service, Google Instant, delivers faster search results.

The headline screams 'Google Instant could save the world a total of 3.5 billion seconds a day!'
Try it; if you start typing a search query, Google begins guessing what you’re looking for even before you finish. Its like predictive text but predictive search, it doesn't only recommend your search terms; it lists the links in real time!

The technology is cool. It's fast, I mean super-fast...so fast you could get motion sickness. At the launch, Marissa Mayer termed it 'search before you type' - love it. And the company estimated that using Google Instant would save users anywhere from 2 to 5 seconds per search.

Here is the price; those guys at google aren't stupid - thats why they are so rich. Instant delivers links, many more of them and yes, that means more sponsored links (Ads)

I am going to Budapest in a couple of weeks, I wanted to check the weather there so as I type 'B' I get an ad for 'Budget Insurance', quickly google guesses I am looking for Budapest but gives me 'Budapest Stag-Do's' (batchelor parties) before it correctly gets me to where I want to be as soon as I hit 'W'

So yes, the technology is very cool, but if I do 20 searches a day I will see 1.5 million more ads over the next 5 years than under the traditional search approach

IPad was going to win wasn't it?

I really like the way infographic displays enough confusion to show how the IPad is taking on all comers and established old hands but also allows you to dig in a get real insight.

The iPad is fossilizing these other products, its beauty is in the integration of the services (oh and the services themselves)



Each one of these speciality devices has somehow been left playing catch-up...how did that happen. Are we all really being hoodwinked by great design and marketing?

What is your country known for

This is a brilliant map of 'claim to fames'. It's sure to cause some controversy - the USA being #1 in Serial Killers. Living in London I do find CCTV very apt.



One change I would make is for Colombia...surely Cocaine is too obvious - how about coffee?

Tipping point for data in marketing

IBM are good at business intelligence and on Friday they decided that showing us reports on the performance of our marketing campaigns wasn't enough when the acquired Unica for $480m

If you are into the whole marketing automation thing you will know that Unica’s software predicts customer preferences and likelihood to purchase. Then it designs marketing campaigns based on that data. The software also monitors the effectiveness of ad campaigns.

The great thing about this for me is that marketing is becoming much more adaptive these days, we collect feedback on the behaviour of our customers in real time and feed them into a database of intentions so we can act on them. Deals like IBM-Unica really highlight that data is future of marketing and will more and more prevalent.

If you are still reading.... the CEO of Unica, Yuchun Lee, was one of the MIT students involved in the blackjack card-counting teams depicted in the book “Bringing Down the House” and the movie “21.” with Kevin Spacey

Unilever fight back @ Old Spice

My clients at Unilever know what's what in digital marketing, but even my man @babs26 had to nod approvingly when Old Spice delivered their viral campaign that to date has over 130m YouTube views for the varying spots and racked up over 100,000 Twitter followers

However the other thing that Unilever understand is how to harness consumer feedback through data and respond quickly...so while the Old Spice guy was ridiculing the boys at Axe - they didn't expect OhDoctah from Dove for Men to slap them with this



The ladies love pink and I love the ladies!

New CRM

I have been getting in foursquare in the last week. The whole badge thing has sent me checkin into places and I am sure its only a matter of time before mayorships become an obsession for me.

From a marketing perspective, if you are a brand or a business, a person's competitive spirit is being rewarded before you do a thing. Starbuck barista badge?

That means you can do a couple of things to boost your traffic. Firstly you can offer incentives to get them to checkin with you more often (Domino's is already onto this)and also you can collect data on them to tailor make their experience. For me, Foursquare is all about personalisation and my community of friends and trusted contacts who can give me advice and recommendation

Your mayors can be extremely valuable. People want to be the mayor, so if your business has a mayor, friend them. Give them discounts, free stuff or even the seat next to the window. Finally these days the linkage between the social networks is strong so the mayorships of your business gets posted to twitter and their Facebook wall as well. So effectively you can run a twitter and facebook campaign for your brand or business without paying a penny

Empire state of EcoMind

Is New York fast becoming the world's greenest city?



The Empire State Building, has been donated $20 million from the Clinton Climate Initiative, The makeover will include upgrading the building’s 6,500 windows and adding eco-friendly heating and air conditioning systems, insulation and energy-efficient lighting. The whole project is expected to cost about $100 million and is intended to cut energy consumption in the 102-story skyscraper by 38 percent.

What ever you think about conspicuous consumption by the world's greatest city you have to admire the port authority for setting this standard

Pedal Power

I love my bike. The ride to work scheme is just the best think the government ever introduced in the UK. Ok, i admit I don't actually 'ride' to work, but for early even park visits, and weekend commuting a bike cannot be beat.

This chart from the guys at GOOD just shows us how things are taking off in the US.



Now, on a simple level this shows us the clear correlation behind how much the DOT spends on people commuting and the uptake in it. However, I wonder if this hasn't been a trend that has been picked up on by the government to show a friendlier side?

Either way, cool chart, I think you will agree. If we get more people walking and on bikes, planners might wake up and put cars on the loop....just imagine what our cities really will look like and how much nicer they will be to hang out in?

Glasses change everything

Ready for the weekend? Try on a pair of glasses...I love glasses by the way










These are actually an ad campaign for Oogmerk opticians in Belgium - love the thinking, the concept and the execution

Taking on social analytics

No one will be using email in 3 years - it will all be social...that day will be when Facebook hits its billionth 'friend'....One billion is the tipping point. What happens when the activity on our social channel becomes so ubiquitous it becomes difficult to classify? How do you even start making decisions on the basis of your customers feedback? What needs to happen for brands to really embrace social...actually not embrace social - they will have to, its unavoidable. What needs to happen for brands to make the most of their social presence?

1. Automate the collection of share of conversation and sentiment. It's going to be impossible to hand check the amount of quantitative data coming out of these spaces

2. Right now there are only really two platforms we need to monitor for brand conversation (outside China, but you can bet there is a younger, geekier student than Zuckerberg working in a dorm room to launch an even nicer platform for social exchange. So we can expect even more of them. And we are going to need to get all that data together - maybe they will all talk to each other?

3. I was reading the article in e-marketer telling us that a fan on Facebook is worth $136...its a nice article. Jump to it here:

http://www.emarketer.com/mobile/article_m.aspx?R=1007761

I would say that the value of the fan is inherent in what you do with the fan. We do, however, need consistent frameworks to evaluate these advocates and the conversations they generate around your brand

All of this sounds like 'we need this, we need that' I don't want to come off as negative in any way - when we crack this particular code there are a lot of benefits to be gained, benefits as a brand you can put in the bank

Adi outscoring Nike at the World Cup

Get this - CEO of Adidas Herbert Hainer: "After the first 10 days it is already clear that this World Cup will be a great success for Adidas. We will not only achieve our ambitious goals in football, we will over-achieve them." The war heats up when he quantifies that sales from football (soccer) will be $2bn in 2010!

Nike on the other hand has generated much more buzz through its 'Write the Future' campaign...err have you seen it? Nielsen Buzzmetrics suggests Nike has 30.2% buzz to Adidas 14.4% - don't ask me what the numbers mean...but more than double is a trouncing right?

When I start to think about the sales aspect of this its interesting to see that Adidas manufacture 12 of the national football teams kits including favourites Spain, Argentina and Germany but Nike have Holland, Portugal and everyone's second favourite team Brazil. Who has the advantage? Digging deeper that means if you want to have Messi or Torres you need Adidas but if you really want Ronaldo (who knows why?) you buy Nike

I would say that Adidas sponsors the teams that have the biggest stars at the World Cup - and that drives sales over a $1.85bn investment in offical sponsor status. Do they also have manufacturing rights over Vuvuzelas?

Gearing up for Wimbledon

I have to be honest, I have never been a fan of Andy Murray and the last time I saw the 'Head' sports brand logo was back in the '80s when we all used to have the cylinder bags as we were channeling the casual thing.

So why, oh why am I compelled to post this?



It's got that Nike Tiger Woods viral aspect to it and the way he hits the bottles is AWE - SOME

Twitter kills RSS

I don't use my google reader anymore. It's just a pain to open up and I end up with this sea of vomitlinks . I also got one of those wave accounts from google too but it didn't significantly impact my collaboration efforts.

What I have noticed about twitter is that the majority of the people I follow solely retweet the links to all the interesting stuff they find on the web. Sure there's the odd one who says 'Out with my crew on the rooftop bar of...' (you know who you are) and that's cool but the phenomenon of retweeting and tweeting using url shorteners means that my trusted contacts do all the editing for me

For our clients, following this argument through tells us that twitter is a useful way of driving engaged traffic to your site, bounce rates low and average time spent high. By tracking that twitter data you can also see who are your real fans, they keep coming back. Better yet you can see who clicks on the link within a few seconds of it being tweeted. They want your content. It's also interesting to see the information is spread within existing Twitter networks, as in who is influencing who. And all of this happens in real time.

Sorry, don't have any ideas yet on how to make your content relevant, engaging and timely!

Got more data?

At what point does the rate at which data is created by the web outstrip the ability to store it all? What sort of cloud size would that be? And how could marketers make sense of all that?

Soon enough everything will have an RFID chip and data will explode, you hear it all the time. Everything will produce data through sensors (Natal..seen the video), they will all be linked and it will happen at tremendous speed. What I also see a trend towards on the back of this is fatter and fatter reports full of "key information you just shouldn't miss". I don't know about you, but I don't need an aggregator - I just want the insight to tell me how to improve what I am currently doing

So what we are trying to do is tell our clients the 3 things they need to know when undertaking a digital marketing campaign...how they maximise earned media but also shape it. It's our job to multi-source imperfect data and piece together different weights of evidence.

So on one hand we shouldn't produce a doorstop when a one page summary is required (was it ever any other way?) but on the other hand we shouldn't create a cool infographic just because its cool

Better get on with it then - its not easy!

Nike + 26

This is amazing - designer Michael Robinson created a pair of Nikes that have 26 lights one for each mile you cover in a marathon. Not only that this video captures the essence of the run while the spikes capture the data

NIKE78 - Michael Robinson | ‘NIKE+ 26′ from NIKE78 on Vimeo.

Apparently this is one of those UGC for the product events that Nike periodically kick out there and turn into a must see exhibition...are there any brands out there better than Nike for this sort of thing? Name one!

Very cool

Converse - still taking risks, rocking it and relevant

Thanks Ben and the folks at threebillion.com for this - pure branding using google adwords?! Not for everyone but if you are converse, everyone is your target audience and you want to drive people through interesting content AND tie them back to your home page....why not?

Converse Domaination from Ross Martin on Vimeo.

Growing Pains

What sort of team do you need to really drive the marketing agenda with clients these days? It's easy to make advertising with an art director and copywriter but these ads aren't going to achieve much if they don't inspire the user to do something with it

I firmly believe that technology is taking over the world. However I don't care a hoot if the Kindle app for the iPhone will be the Kindle killer or if there another 100 new reasons to love the iPad. What genuinely interests me is that people want stuff they can re-purpose and make their own and then tell other people about it and let them make it their own. Isn't that what made You-Tube such a sensation? How do we tap into that?

If that is what we are striving for; and I am not sure there is a business in that but we can figure it out later; then I think we need to change our mentalities and change our team structures in agencies to meet that challenge. I think the cool thing about having a blog is the fact that I don't have to worry whether our clients agree or not (hey they are their brands we are playing with after all, again we can trial it and see what they say

When I think about changing mentality I mean we have to getting out of asking ourselves 'What do we need to say to the consumer' to 'What can we create for the consumer so they say say something about us'. Over here at Mindshare we call it 'ideas you love to share'.

What is interesting about this for me is that we quickly get into some sort of iterative marketing approaches, you pick a small community of people, give them something you think they will find as valuable, see what they do with it, get their feedback and then send them something else based on that feedback. Oh yes and also get the feedback from the people they shared a version of it with. Or just steal one of those versions and recycle it

The other thing that I am wrestling with right now is cultural change in the agency and how the teams operate. If you buy into the above you need the planner (voice of the consumer), the technology futurist (the art of the possible),the social media guru (how to hit send) and the analyst (feedback collector - iterator) all working together. It's quite important that the planner doesn't think that they take the inputs and build the strategy. The strategy is co-created by this team. I would say today there are no generalists....just dinosaurs, the world is moving too quickly

No Trash New York

My friends over at IDEO have produced this incredible vid s part of Living Climate Change.

The guys imagine Manhattan in 2030 as a city without trash. What I like about this is that its easily reachable...maybe more like 2012 than 2030. When most people consider the environmental impact of trash, steamy landfills and smoky incinerators come to mind. But this is real, its very now and cool

NO TRASH NYC 2030 from IDEO on Vimeo.

Simple Uniqlo Chic

http://www.uniqlo.com/utweet/

Twitter Predictions

Got sent this beauty from one of the 'Mindshare Royalty' in NY.

Over at HP they were studying 3 million tweets for 25 movies and identified that the rate at which tweets were produced predicted the box office takings before the film opened.

Apparently, on the basis of tweets alone the research guys predicted that The Crazies would take $16.8m in its first weekend in the US. It actually took $16.06m.

The team forecast that romantic drama Dear John would take $30.71m in its first US weekend. It took $30.46m.

It doesn't come as a surprise that the quicker the word of mouth, the better the performance of the movie and now we can calibrate that word of mouth the impact on the movie business could be game changing.

It may be nit-picking but I think that Twitter would be pretty good at predicting the opening weekend of movie releases, first week sales of a cell phone etc but two things spring to mind:

1. Twitter is about opinions, so this approach works if there are breakouts or stinkers

2. Twitter is fickle - its not going to be so good at predicting the 'legs' of a movie as very quickly there will be another shiny object for the twitterati to focus on

Obama hires Tufte

What happens when the most famous man in the world hires the world's biggest geek?



We have all got excited by Tufte's work and similarly we all know that charts are amazing in the hands of a skilful communicator. I am sure that they could have done this as a table but consider the impact of the the Job Loss 'V' chart - go to barackobama.com where you can either watch the video or download the chart and set it as your twitter icon...yep it really says that!


Lets look at it this way, if we work in data we have to get into visual content as we need to shield our clients for the complexity of the data. I cannot hire Tufte to make my charts but I do accept that I need to integrate the visual aspect of storytelling with the maths.....are you with me?

Act like your age

Who said that social networks are only for the kidz? This is some cool data from the US google Ad Planner system. If you are a marketer it's good to know that two thirds of Facebook and Twitter users are over 35 as it opens up a lot of great options if you are, say a household brand



What's worrying me is that I am clearly becoming a stereotype for my age. I never did Bebo, I recently conducted some excessive trimming on facebook and I'm heavy on Delicious and LinkedIn...

Totally incredible neuromarketing

Can it really be true that you feel more emotionally engaged with your soup when it looks warm and that you don't care about spoons?



WSJ says so so it must be true...they were working on this for 5 years - the PR alone was worth the fieldwork!

Looking Good

Sometimes you come across something so simple and yet so clever, when that happens you have to share it...and here it is



Guaranteed to get the most out of the tube, because regular ones are so frustrating

Augmented Kitchen

We recently did a 'Future of the world 2020' for one of our clients, it was a great event. Mindshare's role in that was 'the house of the future' - Hannah ran the kitchen, Norm the lounge and Ciaran the boys bedroom....It would have been great to have this!

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.

I'm not sure if this version of reality would be cool or annoying

Google...again!

No guys sitting round a TV, no beer, no jokes and no obligatory high waisted tackle at the end. This is Parisian Love, the debut ad from Google that was premiered at the Superbowl half time show.



What's the point of advertising? Google has monopoly status? well a couple of things spring to mind:

1. Google is great, but can come off as little functional - type here and get info there

2. Big brands are in the Superbowl. Google is the biggest, this is Google saying 'yep, we aren't just an internet brand...we are a brand. So when we decide to kill Twitter we will do it and yeah, that goes for Facebook too.'

All in all, in my opinion, very nice. Subtle and absolutely everything that Google stands for. Just so powerful at creating a strong emotional connection with the brand

Search getting smart

2010 is all about mobile, isn't that right? In fact someone said that it was actually the decade of mobile. But let's face it, it's not necessarily the technology that leads things; its the behaviour changes that that are created by the technology.

We have all seen those statistics that 78% of all people rate 'a friend or relative' for advice whereas its only 6% for TV (or something like that) - once that starts happening the idea of search and social media inevitably come together. I really like BingTweets which is Microsoft trying to leapfrog Google by giving us the ability to combine real time twitter broadcasting with Bing's search engine....Enjoy that.

One of our clients is LG, they have recently launched a mobile handset called the Crystal. My Bing search returned a number of specification reviews by websites, my BingTweets search returned the spec and the best deal and a video that was retweeted...all in one place.

That experience made me think that traditional search is old news; people are looking to find relevant and up to date information from conversations that are happening now.

I would say it's the decade of trust and recommendation; the internet has made us a flat world and now, as people, we need to simplify that. If you are a client and you really want to marketing your program to have some level of consistency wouldn't you funnel some of those ad dollars to BingTweet?

Running the City and the (IPhone)

I never really saw the appeal of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, but when I got GTA Chinatown wars for the DSi I became hooked, it has that overhead view which keeps it suitably retro and a killer playlist for your ride from GZA

The guys at Rockstar games took their time with the iphone app of the game (ie didnt rush it out for christmas) and for that alone they should be applauded.



You play Huang; you've landed in Liberty City to deliver an ancient sword to your Uncle Kenny to ensure his family retains control of the Triad gangs of Liberty City. Huang is a spoiled rich kid who expects everything to run smoothly, but his trip does not go exactly as planned. After being robbed and left to die, he will search for honour, riches and revenge in the most dangerous and morally bankrupt city in the world. You buy and sell drugs for a profit, hotwire cars, meet women for hookups and race from the cops - truly addictive

The iphone app is a little pricey (£5.99 / $9.99) but remember this is a fully blown game with incredible depth of storyline. The interaction between you and the kingpins and druglords are funny as hell and you will burn more hours and battery life than you will originally care for....the only thing I don't like is that the iphone may become the default platform for the GTA franchise in the future

On the flipside it may be the impetus i need to get that ipad!

The return of the Gorillaz!

Mark your calendars...Gorillaz are back with a new album on Mar 9th...Plastic Beach. Apparently Plastic Beach is the furthest point from any landmass on Earth; the most deserted spot on the planet.



The 'leaked' first single 'Stylo' has an electro feel and Damon/Murdoch take up too much airtime but Bobby Womack's vocals make the whole thing a truly sonic experience

Looks the animated band will be killing festivals again this summer and pushing us towards their own popular sound once again

Cool!

I never thought I would do this...but I love these too much not to post:

This is my 3 year old Lola...





Of course Ella is far to old for those sort of shenanigans!



Enjoy your weekends all!

14 years continuous innovation

Yes, ok it's a little cheesy but you have to admire what these guys have achieved...no mention of Knol though!

Biggest Hit at CES

So all the chatter is dying down from CES...So many tweets, too little time. Apparently and unsurprisingly it was all about big, thin, web enabled TVs, netbook and smartphone slates and Ballmer's technology troubles

However, just when you thought it was dull and duller (Job's didn't even show up), we get this!



That is Lady Gaga's business card. She is the new 'Creative Director' at Polaroid! I am glad she took the time scrub out her office and email address (ladygaga@polaroid.com) before uploading the pic to twitter. However there's something in this that feels cool.

Of course we won't see her sitting down and designing the camera, but we do know that she is a bigger brand than Polaroid right now. Polaroid is all about the spontaneity of capturing the moment. Gaga is a 'now' brand; totally individual and attention grabbing in that 'blink and you miss it' sort of way. What on the outside seems like an ill thought through stunt could be a genius move....well, at least I hope so!

Love this!

If you read this blog occasionally you will know of my love of "Pop Charts" - tunes as graphs....


Funny as hell!

For 2010 I want a......

First day back in the office, what to work on this year?

Working in a media agency you hear all that talk of '360', 'holistic' and 'integrated media'. As an industry we have been banging on about it forever. We are doing a really great job of building brand plans these days (some of our packaged goods campaigns have 40% TV and 25% digital) One thing that concerns me is that against this backdrop of a changing way people live their lives and every dollar counting clients are looking for more and more 'proof'

I suppose on one hand the consumers now find more things to do with the same amount of time as technology as enabled getting stuff done faster but the proof that it works from a measurement perspective still looks prehistoric despite all the accountable, 'digital' activity going on.

We did a really good thing about 18 months ago; we scrapped our digital department but it still seems like marketing generally is bogged down in individual channel silos....there's a digital client, with his social expert who hires a 'social' agency (kill me) and they come in with 'here's a Facebook strategy and I can give you a bucketload of data to prove while this Facebook strategy is a good thing'. Don't get me wrong, the clients and the specialists are excited about the future; it just seems so damn complicated

So what I wish for in 2010 is that big network agencies like ours take all that data we have been integrating on consumer response and build a story of it, a story that explains how people are living their life and what they really do, because even in a world of infinite choice, people still work in patterns and patterns are predictable. That's my job for 2010...what's yours?

Happy new year everyone