Posts tagged "advertising"

Take a look at this, it’s a parody of a brand with iconic status and iconic ads, from a brand that couldn’t be more different. Its new media meets old in a style all so familiar (that in itself is extraordinary). Brave to do, beautiful in its craft and a minute of your time. I don’t know whether it was commissioned by them or not, but suspect the fact I received this virally suggests it will help both brands. Hope you like it.

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?

Walking past a pub on the way home yesterday evening I spied my old creative director supping a pint. 10 minutes later the old days were back; him, me, lager and discussion. He is talented as hell – scarily so, sharp to the point and fiercely no-nonsense talking. He makes me wish I was more instinctive.

We got talking about briefing and about how we need to reframe expectations of briefs to be more understandable; to drive to what is special, where the stand out come from, and what’s its going to do for you.

4 (or is could have been 5) in we stumbled upon the conclusion that a good metaphor is the job market. In many cases, a brand like a candidate competes to become occupied, it competes against other candidates, it needs to be relevant to the role specified, to have experience and stand out amongst a crowd.

We thought this was amazing. Writing this on this very bright morning  having woken up in my clothes it seems to make sense but it’s not as brilliant as it was at 1 am – but it’s tidy.

If you are in-and-around 30, at some point in the next couple of weeks you have to pay your respects to John Hughes by watching his back catalogue on Sky.

Having watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Breakfast Club this week  I was transported back to sunny days, teen angst and North Devon College. Brilliant.

I have just been told by Michael that JH started out as a copywriter working on KFC. Now I know this – I think you can kind of see it. Really sparse scripts that drip with authenticity. Defined characters, superbly handled tone and reality. It smacks of TV commercial talent. That stoned-library-dance-scene still makes me laugh out loud.

I am confident that Ferris Bueller was our James Dean. With this in mind we are giving away a DVD copy of Ferris Bueller’s day off to the best JH film quote submitted via comments.

It’s been interesting watching the unfolding pandemic and the approach taken by the DoH.

We have just won a HIV portfolio pitch and I am getting up to speed with patient comms, and its hard not to contrast this with how HIV/AIDs were dealt with in the early days.  Although a different kettle of fish the approach to communications has evolved thank God and much has been written on the development of the campaign and its subsequent panic and confusion.  

As our pandemic appears not to be living up to our initial fears its been a fascinating time to review the communications issued and the civilized approach that has been taken. Even our press, not known for their calm nature with a health story, seems to have calmed down and now tow the line when it comes to panic reduction.  With the exception of Sky News who still go live to every suspected cold in Guatemala.

I like the TV ad , I think its cooked well and does information provision in a simple way to-the-point way. Although I do find the ‘your all going down’  line a little unhelpful. The mailer that popped through the door a few days ago, alongside the leaflet given out at Angel Tube this morning and much of what I have seen on TV spokesman is integrated. The channels are pretty aligned around one strategy – we need to keep the population focused on their role. It’s given me something to do rather than worry. Although the rep in me does cry out for campaign branded tissue giveaways.

Is this is the equivalent of a nice cup of tea post bombshell? A task for us to concentrate on instead of getting all chicken liken. When I view the early iceberg/don’t die of ignorance/AIDS campaign they just confuse and scare me. They smack of a group of people who didn’t  know what to do, so they packed away their leadership and shared their panic with the nation.

Of course sneezing into tissues is a big part of reducing down the transmission of flu but given the loads of other methods  of transference could this be a finger in an ever gushing dyke. Does this mean that panic control has been prioritized over disease control? Regardless –  its been successful and bloody interesting.

Something seems to come over us when we write an ad brief, my planner friend reminded me this morning. It’s the way we do our best to cram everything about the product/condition/patient into one ad. We forget completely how we as consumers interact with ads; forget that below-the-line materials are on this earth only to communicate the underlying support for the product story.

I had a quick browse of OK! yesterday afternoon (dermatology research). The ads in there are graphic and simple. Their feel and message happened to me automatically, without conscious decision. Clarins just stepped right on in there. Bang, I was Gucci’d. But that’s a good thing. I didn’t have to waste time and delve into reams of body copy to know what it is these brands were trying to say to me. The same thing they were saying in their first, second, 500^th print ad. One-dimensional, loud and clear. Intent – a quick reminder of high-end status. (Plus a little eye candy for the logo lover.)

We’d hardly dream of addressing healthcare professionals this way, because we seem to feel we need a myriad of reasons to excuse ourselves. The disease area needs innovating, here’s why, here’s how we help, here’s the whole deal in microscopic detail. Certainly, HCPs need this information – but a brand ad just can’t and shouldn’t carry all of it. Instead, we must communicate quickly the offer/ position in the one elegant wrapper of a creative idea or perhaps like Gucci, a proud identity. To keep our messages simple we can use a separate, successive approach – that’s why we often roll things out in campaigns.

However, healthcare is a major area of research and advancement and that’s why drugs and services are constantly turning over. Research shows that a small amount of inner detail is appreciated by HCPs, so we have room for a couple of clear sentences in our work. OK, our clients are not Gucci, but we can still learn from such brands. Manufacturing processes kept to the label, leather ageing techniques communicated in store, deals kept to a business-to-business environment, and endorsement happens via PR. The ad is left to communicate the feel of the brand as simply and elegantly as possible. Isn’t what really sticks in our heads the stuff we don’t have to think about too much?

To build upon this and make it relevant to our proposition here at Hive. Using the ad to communicate an element of the story, and the whole mix to contribute to a bigger idea which exists outside and above that of the ad concept seems to us to be a better way, and should provide not just a brand feel but a story and richness that contributes to a truer more in depth relationship.

A Cambridge University academic is leading a call to dispense with medical jargon in favour of everyday language. Dr Melinda Lyons claims in the Lancet that patients can get dangerously confused by unfamiliar and similar-sounding terms (intra vs inter; hypo vs hyper), particularly in stressful and noisy situations.

This is something to be grateful for, because it’s more proof that healthcare is becoming more patient-focused. While not without its challenges, communication built on the needs and expectations of the end user is clearly the way forward. Dr Lyons’ work, and the fact her research featured in the morning Metro, reminds us that everyone has a stake and a growing interest in what happens in the healthcare world.

But it also reminds us that people aren’t the same. Words that are necessary to one person may patronise another. At Hive we play our part by first understanding who the end user is. Only then can we get the dialogue right between that person and the person looking after them. We do this by letting the HCP know more about who’s in front of them.

It’s a subtle thing, joining the dots between different mentalities and creating proper engagement, but it’s not new in marketing. Without the correct delicacy however, you get a fumbling disaster which tries too hard and fails.

So, between the patronising and the ancient Greek, lies a tone of voice that resonates. Finding it is a beautiful thing.

Bizarreness reared it six eared head last week, when hordes of photographers and art fans descended on Savemain pharmacy in Essex Road, Islington, after Banksy painted a large mural on the wall depicting three children pledging allegiance to a flagpole with a Tesco plastic bag flying from it. As a fan of the artist, a person fascinated with HCPs, and this being my local pharmacy I felt I had to go and have a look. Speaking to Anand the pharmacist at the family-run business, he said: “We are a little bit surprised at all the fuss – it’s certainly not something we see every day. We had no idea, we just came into work on Monday morning and there it was. Hopefully no-one will do anything to damage it. It would be nice if it helped business.” His uncle Raj hilariously added that “they were considering whether to sell it”

The Islington Gazette has subsequently carried a comment from a spokesman for Tesco, who have a store in Essex Road, who said: “If this proves to be genuine and all indications are it is, then we’re flattered to have been thought of by one of the UK’s foremost contemporary artists. However, we’re not art critics and will leave it to individuals to decide on its poignancy.

Have they missed that this is clearly Banksy’s comment on the demise of the independent pharmacy?