I can’t get into specific on the category or the entry but the room was divided. I feel we could learn a lot from the ad man exceptional; David Ogilvy.  Ogilvy was passionate, to the point of dangerous, when he encountered agency folk who felt that the divide between us (marketers) and them (consumers) was huge. Terms like ‘punter’ were banned and a deep level of respect was insisted upon. In his mind our target audience were people to respect and cherish not dumb down and patronise.  “The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife.” -David Ogilvy, Elements of Advertising. Published in 1983 sums it up for me.

Horst Faas, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning war photographer who later was editor of The Associated Press staff in Saigon, died on Thursday in Munich. He was 79. If you are a fan of photography, communication and visual talent this should give cause to pause and reflect on a human being who nailed  audience respect better than anyone. Whether that be New York Times readers havig breakfast or Communist insurgents featured in the haunting photographs of the Vietnam War he never presumed to protect or provide anything but the naked reality of the situations he saw.

If you are unfamiliar with his work, he is responsible so many of the images we have of  the horrors of war. He managed the transition from field to office as Editor if AP without compromising his desire  to educate and inform.  “I don’t think we influenced the war at any time,” he said in 1997. “I don’t think we helped to win it or helped to lose it. We didn’t work on the outcome of the war.” Making photographs about the suffering and horror of war, he said, is simply better than not making them. Such talent balanced with such pragmatism.

It’s looking like we should be able to seat 94 maximum which should be fantastic in terms of getting us settled for the next few years. We will kick off with 20 or so less desks than this. Freeing us up to consider new spaces and fun stuff for the teams across Hive, Ebee and Pollen, and give us some space to consider new offers the group can provide to existing and new clients.

In the early days when we had space at Linen Hall (2008 – 2009) and here at National House (2009 – 2012) we threw the door open to anyone who wanted space, it was a great ways of meeting new people who wanted a  place to play whilst setting up businesses or  doing something cool. I hope that we can return to this as it certainly led to better work from me, and a richer set of suggestions and approaches  for my clients. It was immensely fresh to sit and discuss challenges with cartoonists,  illustrators, novelists  all of whom healthcare was a personal rather than professional thing.

I have been immersed with floor boxes, desk layouts and meeting anatomy, and planning the  all illusive but achievable in-house pub for us. This was sent to me by some interested parties, pretty cool eh?  More to follow. The Social guys here are planning a launch party. Shout if you want to come.

With this in mind, I looked up a woman’s review for standard Veet (for those of you that have never heard of it, it’s a feminine hair removal cream which has seemingly now decided to tackle the “metrosexual” market). The review went pretty much as one would expect:

“It’s good, worked well, the first time I tried it I worried about leaving it on too long as it says 3-6 mins. It took slightly more than 3 mins for it to work and I was worried that I was too slow when taking it off but it was ok. Sometimes it didn’t take off all the hair but that may have been because i didnt leave it on long enough…”

So this lady had read the instructions, cautiously adhered to the guidelines and been worried that even by straying slightly from the recommendations,  she may suffer the potential ill-effects highlighted.

The men’s reviews demonstrated an entirely different approach to following the instructions; I have sampled three reviews below:

“Being a loose cannon who does not play by the rules the first thing I did was ignore the warning and smear this all over my knob and bollocks. The bollocks I knew and loved are gone now. In their place is a maroon coloured bag of agony which sends stabs of pain up my body every time it grazes against my thigh or an article of clothing. I am suffering so that you don’t have to. Heed my lesson. DO NOT PUT ON KNOB AND BOLLOCKS.
(I am giving this product a 5 because despite the fact that I think my bollocks might fall off, they are now completely hairless.)”

“I like the clean shaven look down in my gentleman’s log cabin, so for the past few years I’ve used a shaver. However the hair keeps growing back which means every 6 months I have to spend 20 minutes trimming again. As I’m sure you’ve realise this is valuable time I cannot waste. So I decided to get to the root of the problem and purchased this product.
Probably the first thing you will notice after using this product is the pain. Although as a man I lack the required experience, I’m going to estimate that using this product is at least eleven times more painful than childbirth.
Imagine sticking a rusty razor blade into your favourite eye, before tying your hands behind your back. Then imagine that you use the entrenched razor blade to slice open a raw onion. All the while being butt naked. This product is slightly more painful than that.
However if we ignore the blinding, crippling and debilitating pain I should point out that this product is remarkably effective. Before, all manner of organisms great and small lived down there, now nothing can grow; not even on a cellular level. Sadly this includes my genitalia; I’ve spent the last four hours staring fixedly at Carol Vorderman’s arse, all to no avail. My tinkywinkleton hasn’t even so much as perked up, so if my review seems a bit harsh, it’s only because I wanted children.”

“Although I understood the part about ‘intimate use’ I could not find anything about this not being for nose or ear hair. I get fed up with constantly cutting myself whilst trying to cut my ear and nose hair with a pair of Kitchen Scissors, so I decided that this product would work for me. I rubbed it up into my nostrils and around the outside of my ears. Very soon the burn started and trust me it really makes your eyes water. Probably more that if it was on your knob or bollocks like the other reviewer did. If your eyes do water, make sure the product is not on your hands when you go to wipe your eyes as this product also removes eyelashes and eyebrows and makes your eyes water even more. I look like I have been put on a sunbed for too long and people keep asking me why I am crying. Still, a good product which does what it says”

The first two exhibited a flagrant disregard for the recommendations whilst the third’s interpretation of these was questionable to say the least.

What needed to be done in the instruction leaflet to avoid their gung-ho attitude towards “intimate use”? Should there be an Orwellian voice triggered on opening the pack that repeats “not for use on your knob and bollocks” (just to avoid any misinterpretation about “intimate use”) until the tube is safely replaced? Neon sign? Or would making the tone of the instructions different suffice?

We do currently consider typical patient types within each therapy area, ensuring that tactical plans take into account age, ethnic backgrounds, socio-economic status, concomitant conditions etc. but should we start adjusting language to compensate for a difference in gender-related interpretation. Could we improve compliance and correct self-administration of medicines by tailoring communications by gender (in non-gender specific therapy areas)?  Judging from those reviews, tailored instructions may avoid any unpleasant surprises.

What was apparent was that all of them had an inert fear of losing, so winning really was the only option available and although it wasn’t really a ‘winner take all’ extravaganza, I thought that on balance the General came out on top, if for no other reason that he taught all their present the excellent expression ‘rot you up’! (As in those dirty rotters trying to trip you up, or at least that was my outtake.)

Evident from all those on the panel was that there really isn’t any magic solution to devising strategy and in fact those long, sometimes lonely hours we spend churning stuff around is all par for the course. It requires passion, energy and the endless questions of why and what if, but there’s no escaping the fact that it can take time – as the General put it, it’s about ‘thinking long and thinking big’.

In my mind it was refreshing to have a few pre-conceived thoughts I had, smashed. Who would have thought that a soldier would have been talking about doing things differently (and embracing Russians!) and a creative director talking about everything we do having to have a purpose (as opposed to just looking good). But I guess this is what has separated them out and allowed them to get to the top of their respective trees – the fact that they don’t just follow the norm and try and find alternative ways to engage – whether that be physically or from an emotional connection point of view.

More from APF Worlds collide here and here.

Specifically The Listening Project. A gem of a collaboration between BBC Radio 4, BBC local and national radio stations and the British Library. Tasked with capturing the nation in conversation to build a unique picture of our lives today and preserve it for future generations it’s a brilliantly gentle and real picture of who we are as a nation. If you are ever sat at your desk trying to find a voice for the rich collective of humanity we write for then I could recommend no better time spent than here. For me its  a healthy reminding kick to remember the real people that go through life not distant demographic classifications.

Please excuse my poor editing of the podcast attached I didn’t want the whole podcast only the health related conversation. It was this submission by BBC Radio Ulster that left me attempting to wake my catatonic girlfriend up on the back seat to no avail. After years of dialysis and declining health, Brendan was the recipient of a kidney donated to him by his older brother Kyron. They talk candidly about what this has meant for both their lives. Emotional heartwarming treasure.

One to the kidneys

Webicina.com is a free service that provides curated medical social media resources in over 80 medical topics in 17 languages. Their mission is to let empowered patients and medical professionals access the most relevant social media content in their own languages on a customizable platform. So how does it work? Well you simply select your condition and the form of social media you’re interested in – news, blogs, podcasts, videos, twitter feeds, etc. – and Webicina gives you a nice little list of everything available on those platforms. Currently the site covers a range of medical conditions from acne to arthritis and cancer to epilepsy. Amazing. They obviously have this whole social media and healthcare thing wrapped up.

This brings us back to course they’re running: The Social MEDia course, the idea being that “digital literacy must be in the medical curriculum globally”. The course was launched two weeks ago; it’s online and Prezi-based, with tests and gamification. The best part? It’s free!

On the site there is also a list of interesting presentations on topics such as health search engines, e-patients, medical blogging and virtual worlds. You could spend the whole day on there and still come back for more.

Have a look for yourself at www.webicina.com and www.thecourse.webicina.com/

Way back when we were on Regent Street we dedicated a wall to the 2,000 sq. Ft we were moving into here in Soho. Asking the 12 of us to input. Well its that time again, except now there 53 or us around and about. We need a bigger wall!.

We are midst the legal stuff, on 7,200 sq. Ft about 200m or 4mins (cheers google)  from where we are now. 7.200sq ft is a big area. (Rural folk; 0.16 acre = enough to feed a vegetarian for a year, Greek; half an Olympic swimming pool, Devon; detention centre sized), so we are midst two hackathons to get everyone’s input in the features, fun and stuff our new home needs.

We kick off with a list of problems for the office to solve, and a list of assessment criteria for the ideas we are going to solve these problems with. Last night amidst Princi Pizza and tarts the ideas kicked off at great pace. Dozens of them. From the simple to the extravagant, to the coolish to the foolish, all up there for everyone to vote on.

With one exception all ideas are up for grabs. All of us early bees when looking around offices in the early days noticed one consistent feature. Every office we had visited which had housed an agency that had gone bust had a table foosball. Usually with one leg kicked off as a last rebellion prior to handing the keys in. This icon of misplaced budget and Toy-town business snuck up on us in every dusty, paper strewn depressing office. They are the early warning tremors for clear financial downfall and as such categorically they are banned – never never never.

Once we have got to a list following Mondays final session I will ping it up here to hopefully encourage you to input in the usual way.

Culminating in a biggie transition event where the baton was handed over to the markets to start to build local plans.

Usually this would take the form of a M4/Heathrow/PowerPoint orgy/branded pads/pens/salad bar. This week has seen us kick this tradition into touch and activate using 27,000 sq. ft of The Old Truman Brewery, (that’s 4 times the size of an Olympic Swimming pool), 19 countries, 150 people, 9 sets built, 1 stage, cool caterers and a rather fun sized graffiti wall. An uber-rollout.

The opportunity proved to be a step towards us using some of the principles of experience design that Central St Martins set me up with – focus on the narrative, not just the story, examine the geography, figure out the level of covert/overt communication you want and don’t do a sticker campaign. With these in mind we have been working hand in glove with our guys on the inside to develop a journey, support and train facilitators, developed some cool stimulus and set the brand above and beneath all activities. It culminated in a pretty mind blowing 5 days, with action stations/audiences in the room for 2 of these.

As with anything new risk was present. If you want predictable then head to the Radission – they do meetings really well, just the same one. If you want Wow, then grow a pair and strive for the new. It’s been a mixture of bloody scary, buzzing like mad and organisational focus.

I was lucky enough to be host/master of ceremonies for the two days. A far easier job than the rest of the team, who I could see the other side of the footlights orchestrating the most creative meeting in my career. As we set up sessions, hired heaters, built the energy, the team made it come together like no other. Matt, Nat, James and I certainly had the odd moment  where the scale and distance from the traditional certainly caused us to need to get our shit together. But for me that has been part of the joy.

Once our ace client team left to head off on well deserved holidays, we all experienced a Ocean’s Eleven moment of reflection and classical realisation. We did it. Simply smashed it.

The pressure was most evident about an hour into our post event wash up/quiet drink that turned into a Lock Stock style session that resulted in me being banned from a restaurant for life, us highjacking a 21st birthday, a trapeze artist’s manly chest being touched up and a wine waiter pretending to be a pirate. It was surreal, only now are the receipts starting to help it all make sense.

I wish you were here to see some of the set up, ideas and scale of the event. It’s truly awesome. Truly. We are showing and telling next week to the group and beginning to plan the next wave which sees us take on 35 local markets. James (midway through 21st birthday shots with a stranger) kicked us off with an interesting idea regarding approaching our next task as an sequential experience theatre. Now there is an idea.

I haven’t always been a writer. After many years of study (probably a few too many), I started my career as an embryologist working in a fertility clinic. Although I loved making babies for people, the routine of the job got to me and I decided that embryology wasn’t for me. I didn’t really know what else to do with myself and I started looking into all sorts of options including starting my own business, getting into the travel industry and even a career in finance. I only considered writing after a chance conversation with a friend who was a copywriter. She loved her job, so I thought that I might as well give this writing thing a try while deciding what I was really going to do with myself. Four years later, I still love writing, I still enjoy the challenges that my job brings and I think I’ll be sticking with this writing thing for some time!

My first month as a copywriter at Hive has been absolutely great. My colleagues have made me feel very welcome and helped me feel at home. Starting at 9:30 every day means that the morning commute is a tad quieter than it could be and being based in Soho is fantastic!

Workwise, it’s been nicely busy which has made the days fly by. Each day has been different and I’ve had the chance to do all sorts…e-mailers, banner ads, content for websites, brainstorms…the list goes on. I feel like I’m learning something new every day, and I’m being kept on my toes…just as it should be!

For me, the highlight of my time here has been taking part in two pitches. It was a real opportunity to get creative, think as part of a team, and show the world what we can do. I can’t wait to do more!

Although I’ve only been here for a month, I don’t feel like the ‘new girl’ anymore and I’m really excited about the future. I hope that I have as much to offer Hive as Hive has to offer me and that I earn my place as part of this great team!

So, to sum it all up, since starting here at Hive, I’ve met some really great people, learned loads, experienced the excitement of preparing for a pitch, and thoroughly enjoyed my new improved commute! What more could I want? Apart from a lottery win or a marriage proposal from George Clooney, nothing at all!

Below I’ve included a few lines from various people that contributed to the article, which may be of interest. I’ve also included a few thoughts of my own, which may be less interesting:

-          ‘Perhaps in chasing the best prices, the character of the brand became uninteresting and generic. Maybe the line in the brief that stated ‘brand personality’ was left blank because they weren’t sure what to write.’

You would have thought in today’s economically depressed climate that price would still have been a major motivator. Actually it seems from other stuff I have read that people are getting sick of always searching for bargains. Whatever – it’s well documented that you can’t build a brand on price alone – because people like Lidl will come along and very quickly take-over. Clearly price allows no emotional connection with a target audience – it’s purely a rational relationship – once that goes there’s little else to connect you to the brand. Also – it’s interesting that people are referring to price and not the close relation – value – just a subtle difference that would have made (perhaps) a massive difference.

-          ‘Tesco has not looked after its core UK proposition’.

Years of neglect have now caught up with it. I think I’ve discussed this with a few of you – but as soon as you start getting tactical with a brand it’s really easy to lose sight of the bigger picture – perfect example this – all about price, nothing on a deeper connection.

-          ‘The answer ‘ easy – keep it simple’.

Mmm – me thinks that if the Red Brick Road suggested that to Tesco they may be slung out on their arses – but I do like the sentiment behind this. It’s all gone Pete Tong and some bright spark suggests simplicity – but I do think it’s probably bang on. Don’t over complicate the problem – it’s more about re-establishing an emotional connection (in my mind) – but if I were the planning punter or creative jonnie I would love the comfort that these words would no doubt bring – after all it’s not rocket science….