media outside in

The trend of media "super-shops" seems to be reaching reaching some kind of a halt, and may even come crashing down. Unfortunately, I have a feeling I know why.

I've worked in shops where the media is "in-house" and (currently) where media is in effectoutsourced to a media giant. What I've seen is very simple: if media has to become more precise, more attuned to the brand's strategy and even become the message itself, then how does it make sense from to seperate from the people who help create the message (and who are some of the best thinkers in the agency)???

When planners, creatives and media strategists work together, great ideas can come together (and are more likely), media can be on brand, and we can become more insightful about the way people behave. When you're media folks are downtown or across town, it doesn't seem to matter how many meetings you have - the work gets done elsewhere and you can't just pop 'round their desk for a chat like you do with everyone else (which is when the best thinking seems to get done).

Mayeb this is why media strategy shops like Michaelides and Bednash are successful, and why connection planning happened at agencies not at media shops. It's because there is a need for a more creative approach to media that (culturally) media super giants are not set up to deliver. And to change them to that way of thinking, to build something new, you first have to tear them down.

viral list

There's a new e-mail list for people to share the viral projects they are working on. Its great to able to see all of the work on this going on around the world. Go to
this site to sign up.

It seems thought, that a lot of the stuff people list is just ads they've put up on the web. That's not viral, that's just adveritsing. If you want to see some good dieas go read "Brand Hijack" by Alex Wipperfurth. He talks about the need to let go of your brand and have consumers take ownership for somethign viral to really happe. That's a great lesson to remember for us planners - we don't own the brand people do, and all we can do with marketnig is try and make a suggest or light a spark somewhere.

Vegas baby!

Everyone knows what Las Vegas is - a playground/fantasy land. But a slightly different question is why this playground continues to hold such appeal across different demographic and attitudinal groups, when America is travelling more and further than ever. What does Vegas have that the Bahamas doesn't?.

I ask this question because I'm sitting at Las Vegas airport reflecting on a bachelor party weekend spent with 12 guys. All 12 are from different parts of the country, some married, some not etc.

Sitting in the cabana Saturday (tough life I know), we decided that all boiled down to one thing: total irresponsibility. Not that this reflected the previous night activities or anything (honest guv')

Our collective lives are highly regimented and scheduled. We have more to do and/or worry about and fewer people to trust than our parents generation did. Its probably one of the reasons we have a consumer centric culture funded by consumer debt. Gratuitous shopping acts as a temporary relief or fantasy four our lives. As our bachelor Brad would say: "Its a buzzkil man."

Vegas is the perfect antidote to all this stress and restriction. It's an almost-free (as in 99 %) pass to do things you wouldn't necessarily do and not feel guilty about it at all. Its a feeling the current Vegas ad campaign captures perfectly. And at the heart of that irresponsibility is a sense of possibility: anything might happen and you wll be free to follow it.

This feeling is missing from our everyday livesM Vegas is an antidote, but its temporary Eventually a group or generation is going to revolt against this lifestyle successfully - in the same way the unions or young peoplein the 60's did . The anti-globalisation movement is the first trend in this direction - watch for more (or watch Europe where it is already happening). Vegas is great, but the veil lifts at the airport. And that is a buzzkill.

planning from the outside

Since this is my first post, I thought I'd just say why I'm writing this blog, hopes, fears etc.

After moving from NYC to the mid-west, I've had the strange feeling of being out of it. Not going mad (though Detroit can have that effect sometimes), but the feeling that I am not part of what's happening and going on. This despite the fact that D-Town houses the NBA champions, Eminem, The White Stripes, the home of techno, a huge number of art galleries etc. And then a few things hit me.

Despite the fact that Detroit has a lot to offer, there isn't as much "new" happening here especially in the worlds of design and fashion (trust me...there are some scarily dressed people here). We don't have as many trend setters, influencing the next big thing to move out to the suburbs and the provinces (though given that Detroit proper is about 85% African American, there out to be some trend we can start :) ) .

But then again, Detroit is just like 90% of the US that aren't aware of the latest trends. And it's advertising's self conceit that all brands need to be constantly looking for the trends to hop on. If anything, the brands that seem to be the most enduring have enduring product or internal (corporate) cultural trends that are so fundemental to life (regardless of trends), that they are always relevant. They need trends to maintain salience and momentum. Only when there are fundemental shifts in the culture, lifestages, technology etc. do brands risk losing their relevance.

So I thought it would be interesting to blog from two perspectives that I just covered:

1) Planning from within the masses, not the execeptions - the flyover states that buy the products. Advertising people can often be biased towards the urban trend centers - sometimes rightly, sometimes not. When I worked in NY my clients in St Louis were always worried that we were being "to NY" - and now I know why.

2) A planners view on dads and other Gen X men. As I said above changing lifestage or the roles within a lifestage seems to alter the relevance of brands. And men are going through a massive sea change in terms of their self image and their roles in their families. I've seen this as a Dad in a cohort (Gen X) that is starting to turn 40. This is a first hand view of it.

So add suggestions, thoughts etc. and don;t be shy

Google Gulp

I found the following on LeXeul's blog ( he's a French planner) - props to him for spotting it.

It's Google Gulp - a great example of brand extending itself in an unusual yet strategically correct way.






As TV advertising becomes easier for people to ignore, it always surprises me how few brands do a good job of using unusual media tactics the way Song, Axe, Hennessy etc. have done in the past. The PR value is great and the "brand shock" value in jolting people out of their expectations of what a brand is can also be very effective.

Clients typical objections are about measurement: how do we know this will be effective, what metrics do we use? This is a valid concern, and I am not sure we will truly have great integrated thinking from the biggest companies, media agencies until there are services to help measure traffic, effectiveness etc. Now there's a business idea waiting to happen.