Archive for October 2009

Just finished reading Rob Walkers book Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are that delves into the attitudes of the global consumer in the age of plenty, and, didn’t making us look at all good.

This amphetamine paced tour of senseless consumption spans Viking cookers to custom high-tops.  And along the way  walk I been introduced to a diverse cast of characters like Red bull entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz, and an assortment of white guys without any discernable urban credibility who’ve managed to build clothing empires around hip-hop and street culture, and even viral marketers who pretend to be customers, proselytizing to others about the merits of products (and apparently not always disclosing their affiliations).

By presenting both uber-consumers and the professionals who deal with trying to sell us the stuff to fill our endless appetites, or the holes in our souls, Walker indirectly addresses what he coins the “pretty good” problem: What distinguishes a product when assembly lines or underpaid third-world workers can make even the cheapest products “pretty good?” Since quality really isn’t much of a criterion any more, there must be other signifiers, and that’s where our subconscious steps in.

Walker’s key point echoes many in the intangible brand benefit camp often written about in the planning world. Most of us have been inundated with advertising for our whole lives, so on some level we know that we’re being sold … which is why some hipster crowds gathered around PBR (a cheap red neck beer – cheers Google) precisely because they weren’t being given the hard sell. So if somebody cracks open a can now, knowing that the trend is played out, what does that act of consumer disobedience say about them? Now that PBR is so “yesterday,” shouldn’t that make it cool again? If a hipster cracks open a can in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it, are they still being cool?” It all gets pretty meta.

And that’s Walkers thesis. He coins his own portmanteau for the way that advertisers can take advantage of that and calls it “murketing.” Murketing, then is that nexus between murkiness and marketing where buyers can project their own desires or aspirations on to the products that they buy. In examining the psychological motivations that drive this rampant consumerism, Walker references some of the best psychologists and researchers on the subject, including Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who’s Flow should be required reading for anyone with an interest in being happy and who’s The Meaning of Things happens to be a little more topical.

The conclusion is that objects are only as totemic as we let them be. Walker even begins to hint at what might be a really interesting corollary, but it is left largely unexplored. For us, as product and communications guys, if we’re pondering the future, one must wonder what sort of value we can add to society.

In a potential post-consumer future, where we’ve harnessed algae to transform sunlight into electricity and where every home has a rapid prototype machine that uses organic compounds, how will we define wealth? Suddenly when everyone has access to flawless and pristine stuff, it’s that scuffed up and worn armchair that has real value. Because even though I may love my sleek modernist furniture in ways that might not quite be healthy, if my house was burning down I’d rescue the painting I found in a junk shop.

Ian handed me a fascinating article on ‘Should patients be paid for taking their medication?’. (He also said it was high time I wrote a blog. )The story described a trial where patients with mental illness were paid £15 for each fortnightly visit to their clinic where they were administered their depot.

My immediate answer was to say, of course they bloody shouldn’t be paid! Treatments are prescribed to make people feel better and help them function in the world, surely that is incentive enough?

Hold on, I thought – it’s plainly not enough. Poor compliance is a fact of mental healthcare. It’s easy to speculate on why these patients would avoid their medication. We need to ask about the conversations they are having with their HCPs. Are professionals helping patients reach an informed decision about treatments?

Well, at least one survey says not really. Here, 59% of patients taking an antipsychotic reported that other treatment options had not been discussed. Almost two thirds said that they hadn’t been given written information prior to starting their medication. And 46% said hey hadn’t been warned about its potential side effects.

The NHS and HCPs need to look at the way they are engaging with patients. How many have read the NICE guidance on patient adherence and choice, published in January? And how is the NHS supporting them in implementing change?

Of course, it’s not easy for anyone. The befuddling thing about informed choice is that patients can refuse medication, and the professional’s obligation is to respect this decision. But what if the individual is antisocial, or a danger to self or others? Why are we paying these guys, really – what are the savings down the line? To make a judgment on this pilot, we need to know more about these patients other than that they are poor compliers.

If the scheme sees the light, bitter laughter will accompany jokes about kids being paid to go to school and likewise to adults for behaving on a night out. No-one’s going to like the idea of a pay-for-peace society. Whatever happens, let’s hope these patients get something positive out of it.

Did you ever visit us on Regent Street? Did you catch any of the guides’ commentary from the tour bus below? Then you know that Soho, a former royal hunting ground, is named for a huntsman’s cry – SoHOOOO!

Now the clarion has called us to W1F.  Monday morning, after convening in a café, we were led through the doors of National House, 60-66 Wardour Street.

We walked into our new office on the 4^th floor. It’s great. Come see.

So much thanks again to Jas, Tim and Ian who chose the premises wisely. And spent all weekend shifting, cleaning, sticking. We have a much larger, shinier foorspace now, art on the walls, lots of light. Plenty of storage. Our own boardroom, a perfect little kitchen and two charming loos. I would happily live here.

The bits
My favourite bit is the nap/ reading area. It’s a quiet corner with about 30 foam cubes that you can arrange into a bed, or a fort.

The faithful pink sofa, that lived at Tim’s when our old premises got too crowded, is back in business

Unfortunately we couldn’t get the vending machine up the stairs/ lift. We are looking into crane hire.

Kinsey is still hankering after a piano. Pipe down girl.

We’ve got a microwave and a sweet dishwasher, and a new fridge called Candy. Michael keeps threatening to bring in his Breville (grease) devil.

1950 steel lockers arrive end of October.
The launch
So we spent our Monday all energized and excited by the new space. It was hard to work with a party flirting at a distance like the brush of an intrepid fox. We’d been told to look sharp, but the evening plans were secret. At 6.30 we went to a cocktail bar. On the way, I looked in the Starbucks window to check my face out. Someone sitting at the counter ducked out of my sight. I thought this unusual, but my attention was diverted to the right by Justin Lee Collins.

Anyway, we had a few cockies and shot the breeze. Two hours later, Tim made some calls behind his sleeve. Time to wend through the streets…back to National House. Our office had been transformed into a restaurant. A handsome silver service situation with candles, flowers, wine. Tim’s wonderful sister Nicky stood by in chef ensemble…guess who was evading my sight in the coffee shop!

Wine was poured, starters delivered:  tuna carpaccio on a futon of baby leaves. Nicky’s walnut bread was stunning. She served up beautiful beef fillet with silky fennel and creamy potato roundels. Two tarts turned up for dessert: passionfruit and chocolate amaretto.

The time, the place, the moon – all perfect.

The office turned out to be a great dancefloor. The nap area came in handy as a chillout space. The cubes tend to separate if used for bouncing.

I got home at 3.30am.

We are still working our way through the cheeseboard, the cakes and the whole honeycomb. Jas threw the biscuits away yesterday. Everyone got the hump so she got more. So in a way, we haven’t stopped celebrating.

We arrived in our offices on Regent St. on January 2, 2008.  We were met by the cable guy, and a chap bearing four desks and a Viking direct man.

The afternoon saw us laying Cat5E  under the floor, relaying it properly and me running around Regent Street looking for someone to make us a giant wall sticker to give our space a little something, a place hive could call home.

Two dozen launches later it’s time to move, and my view is obscured by boxes and bubble wrap and Debbie disappearing under a mountain of shredded paper.

The new office is taken shape, oak, foam, glass, plastic, and dozens of wall stickers being applied. The next 72 hours sees us move from a place we once thought of as a massive office, and now consider to be too small, too cramp and not central enough.

Ten minutes ago we took the over dramatic step of taking the wall sticker down to survey the damage done to the deposit. It took me a little by surprise, but I am a little sad, this office is our first, the street has been good to us, hosted loads of friends, and sheltered our current band of people.

Monday morning sees us unveil the new Soho office to the gang. It’s a jump from what we have got used to – light, windows on all sides, rooftop views, 6 times bigger, much more what the team deserve. I hope everyone loves it, it’s a dramatically different vibe, and having been in charge of build and funkying it up – I am a little nervous –  this lot are a tough crowd.

Give us a day to get settled in – pop in and see for yourself. With our new space we able to go back to our old share-the-space ethos and of course you all are welcome, pop in – the biscuits are on us.

As many of you know we move offices at the end of the week to our new London office in Soho. Not content with the organisation chaos that comes with one office move (ask Tim what a dishwasher looks like these modern days) we have also been finalising arrangements for New York. This is it, our other new office. It’s our first formal entrée into the US. Based in Chelsea, with great views and full agency facilities we now have a lovely space in Manhattan. Many thanks to Roxanna, Kate and Lois for helping us. As ever, you are all welcome to beapart there too. For now though we don’t have people permanently based there so London is still your best bet. But watch this space because we aim to change that very soon.

Ian rocked into the office this morning, fresh from a PM magazine all agencies round table shindig with a number of agency leaders, MDs etc.

These mornings are a feast of fun for us in the office, a usually calm, collected and considered Ian, can barely contain his overnight simmer. He positively is busting for a chat, and Jas and I can almost feel him ready to boil over.

Anyone who encounters Ian will know it’s pretty hard to get a rise out of him (I can lay claim to managing to do this almost once – in an incident, involving my 6^th Nokia N95 in 2 weeks and a pint of cider. Although Vodafone’s dismal approach to customer service is co-culprit)

This need for an outburst lasted all through our first-thing-Friday People meeting until he could take it no longer. No AOB? BANG. The topic of this rare eruption?  Innovation, advertising agencies, the nature of conceptual creativity i.e. the ability to do a different more connective ad, versus innovation – the ability to provide solutions our clients are not expecting. Jas shouted INCOMING and we all hit the deck.

What stuck me – is the clear struggle Ian was having with wanting desperately for the industry, or more specifically agencies to grow up and evolve and stop boring each other with tales of clients, late adoption blah, blah (anyone still awake?), With the pleasure he was getting from seeing innovation being falsely encapsulated by an obsession with the ad, what goes into an A4 page, and whether illustrative style, or a bloody banner can be seen as ground breakingly progressive. blah blah blah.

I think what we were viewing can encapsulated by the term Schadenfreude. In fact I know it is because I have just spent ten minutes on Google trying to spell it. I was eventually able to confirm this is the case and that the term definitely isn’t German for pork chop.

I think one could argue that Communications holding companies buy ‘established innovation’ i.e change that’s margin friendly. Be that agencies that show high levels of creativity, an unusual regional speciality, or  integration model. It certainly was the case with the three I have been under (although I can only speak for healthcare). Their model is set up to buy novel agencies at the top of their game, and make sure that they keep doing what they are good at, never deviating too far from a formula that got them purchased. No risks and certainly no investment without return.

I was told that the agency world’s approach to innovation was ‘bloody stupid’ by a clever  guy, Craig, I often sit  next to at the  Company of Cutlers in Sheffield. He put it a bit like this; his world; the stainless steel industry is split into revenue from commoditized and specialist products. And all the players in the market know this. (To me it’s a bit like artwork, design, traffic and the sexier agency products services). They know that the commodity business is always under margin pressure and threat (when was the last time a page of artwork cost £400?). And they know that the specialist products migrate to becoming the commodised ones (conceptual writers at medical writer rates).

Sheffield steels answer to this reality is to set up R&D, cap the maximum margin and devote the remaining resource to innovation, partner with academia and the great and the good to push constantly what drives ultimate value – providing services and products that are first to market. Find ‘unused to’ products that meet existing needs but do so either more efficiently or in better way.

Given this I couldn’t figure out why agencies don’t have R&D. Why don’t they someone tasked with research, with finding new ways of solving established problems.

Is it because 20% margin and 4 out of 5 on the annual review is fine, and innovation requires investment and less short term returns?

I’ve been sitting here waiting to type this blog for about twenty minutes, trying to decide what to write about the launch of eBee.

I could mention the guerrilla marketing at the digital marketing awards.

I could mention that it was a night of firsts for me – first company I’ve launched, first time I’ve ever used spray paint, first time I’ve been asked to remove it.

I could tell you about all the people who have  made this possible: clients, patients, a team of inspirational, passionate individuals and the 5 months spent pre launch collecting amazing technologies to play with and developing the technical development capacity to make them work for brands.

I could tell you how lucky I feel to have been asked by the founders of Hive (the mothership) to turn a business concept founded on ‘borrowing’ innovation from other industries, making it healthcare relevant and turning them into reality.

But instead I’ll just invite you to visit and you can decide what you’d like to know for yourself

Post the PM digital awards last night what I really needed was a dark warm room, a duvet and to be entertained. Fortunately part of this was possible, unfortunately only after having to go to Brighton to hunt down insights into Nurses/virology/technology for 9am. The skedaddle back to Town for 3pm proved all a bit of a blur.

This entertainment came in the form of an afternoon with Paul Smith, sharing his views on inspiration, business, customer satisfaction and being polite. Equipped with wild gesticulations, vivid facial expressions, and a bit of dancing he provided a total inspiration for us. It was hard not to be enthralled by him and totally hit the mark – a perfect replacement for what could have been an afternoon of Murder she wrote.

Paul built his archetypal British label on a foundation of playfulness, an impeccable eye and a steely business sense. Since setting up his first shop with wife Pauline Denyer in 1970 – he’s been knighted, had his own exhibition and owns 230 ‘individual’ stores worldwide. But more than any of this, he proved to be a total gentleman, true to himself, and elegant in his honesty. Classically quirky to the core.

His views on globalization, homogenization, and characterless multinational organisations were bluntly put. He willed us to strive for character and difference, to not just repeat what is successful, and role it out country to country but to strive to build on that success, to challenge it, or risk becoming yesterday.

His views on success and happiness were nicely encapsulated in him recommending we all ask ourselves “what’s the point of you”, defining what we love doing, and doing it. No more complicated than that.  Awesome.