Tech post: head in the cloud?
Here’s a good example of Gartner’s Hype Cycle (1995).
The Hype Cycle (Gartner, 1995)
Cloud computing is here. In a booklet released this week, “The Big Little Box of Nexts: Trendspotting for 2012″, ad agency EuroRSCG writes,
We assume you already know the cloud is the big news, with all of us storing our vitals on a fluffy cloud in the (virtual) sky, but what else is trending? (p134)
And then they go on to quote Geekettes, Personal Connectivity, “Got Tablet”, Pittsburgh being the next Silicon Valley and Robotics as the 5 trends to watch. It’s lightweight and an interesting quick read… but it dismisses Cloud Computing as so trendy it’s not cool to discuss. And that’s interesting!
You see, many businesses haven’t come around to embracing it yet. Many consumers, on the other hand, (more…)
11/11/11 so we remember our hubris and our humility
It’s Remembrance Day. 11/11/11.
News Limited (soon to be News Australia) has published ads in its print newspapers – blank pages apart from the words “Lest We Forget” at the bottom, with a picture of a poppy, on the suggestion of ad agency Clemenger BBDO in Adelaide. Nice idea. I posted a comment on the mumbrella article that brought this blank-page-ad to my attention and included a piece saying I don’t like the expression “Lest We Forget” which is widely accepted in Australia as the expression to remember “the Diggers” lost in the wars. I prefer a positive expression, like, So We Remember. I feel strongly that we should remember the lives lost. And TRY not to repeat the attrocities of the past. (But we will, won’t we?)
I’ve since found out that I’m arguing poetic expression with Rudyard Kipling and his poem “Recessional” written at the end of the 19th century:
God of our fathers, known of old—
Lord of our far-flung battle line—
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget! (more…)
Computing made cool
Cool then
Thank you, Steve Jobs. You made computers cool. You made computing cool.
Frankly, the experience is now user friendly, largely thanks to you.
I hope that your successors at Apple have vision, tenacity and excitement.
And you have a whole book of quotes which you leave behind. Here’s one worth re reading right now:
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. (more…)
Recurring story – the search for greener living
“Embrace Our Planet.” That’s the punchline to the recurring story. Here let me show you three brilliant ways it’s being told:
Erle Ellis tells us: Human impact has been around for some time. We humans are changing the face of the earth. We have to put ourselves into the picture and work out what impact we want to have on the planet. The problem is we don’t know how to manage the future of this planet. Erle Ellis is an ecologist at the University of Maryland, quoted in this week’s Economist magazine. An erudite (more…)
tag clouds to tell your story
Okay okay, I know this is old news. But this old news tells an evolving story - yep. Make your own tag clouds to tell the story in one pretty picture. It almost works with a tag of this blog – see below.
I say ‘almost’ because of course it includes my name and the comment section. I should really spend more time cleaning up my word cloud. But I’ve got better things to do!
If you want to make your own cloud download the app (works on mac and pc) from TAGXEDO.
Supermarket brands are not trying hard enough
Bloody hell, have you seen how Coles and Woolworths are out to woo shoppers into shopping with them. However, they are doing nothing of interest. I’m sure they have stats to show how their ads are boosting sales. Of course their agencies will find those and/or other stats. And I’m sure the research shows that this is the best advertising since etc etc.
Here’s the basic flow of a short presentation I’m about to share with (more…)
Wake up Retail Australia! It’s about timing not location.
My quest when midnight shopping is to see what I can buy for five bucks or less, including postage. Thank you Ebay for the crap I’m getting sent home much to my wife’s amusement. Then I was introduced to
www.fiverr.com - a great place to waste time and only spend a fiver a pop. Go on, have a look! (Hat tip to Yvette @ellaslist)
So, I have bought a few random things recently. I have a quest when up settling my little baby boy in the middle of the night. Or rather, when not settling him.
And this is all thanks to the smart phone in my pocket.
My point? Well, the point is that point of purchase is now temporal not geographical.
The world has rushed from nought-to-f in sixty seconds. From real world (more…)
Agencies Should Be Measured On SUCCESS not just VALUE
I walked away from the AANA (Australian Association of National Advertisers) ‘Hothouse’ on client-agency relationships full of enthusiasm. It was a great gig with 100 or so known faces in the industry.
The topic of the day was VALUE:
Q1 – Is the agency model obsolete?
Q2 – How should clients assess agency value?
Q3 – What are the factors for a successful/ productive client-agency relationship?
The names on the panel were senior agency and, more numerous, senior marketers. The gig was introduced by
the formidable (and universally respected) Joe Talcott. The minor sponsor was Aprais – they paid for our lunch. Thank you Richard and Malcolm. And Darren Woolley was the major sponsor, which allowed him to chair the panel. (Darren, sometimes from TrinityP3, is now, apparently, from Evalu8ing. Evalu8ing makes Darren the rival tool to Aprais. Only Aprais is 
more than a tool, but we’ll come to that. (Oops, I just called Darren a tool. Sorry, Daz!)
Therein lies the problem. The gig was sponsored by agency relationship tools (the well-known and well-loved Aprais and the unknown, cheaper and apparently more accessible, Evalu8ing). These tools are all about VALUE. But…
VALUE is only a subset of SUCCESS.
Phew, got that off my chest.
Determined to be different? Commbank creatives have all the fun
Just saw this on mumbrella “Commonwealth Bank has released the next in its new series of stylised black and white ads.”
Pretty ad. But such a pity that the advertising has nothing to do with the actual product. Well, maybe they have a mandate to call you. But when they do are they really helpful? For example, I’m in the process of leaving CommBank because they may be determined to be different. But they lack the ability to hire as charming and helpful people as I have found, consistently, at Westpac. Funny thing is that CommBank haven’t even noticed that my salary doesn’t come in, that the credit card doesn’t get used, that as soon as I’m settled into Westpac I’m shuttling out of Commbank for good (or if they have they don’t care! Hmm is that disconcerting?)
My comment at the bottom of the mumbrella article was about the (lack of) irony…
Jean-Pierre Jeunet gets to film the ads for an Australian bank in a location that looks like a gated community outside LA. That’s pretty determined to be different.
That sounds like the kind of after dinner game to play with the kids:
#datadriveseverything – but not at Qantas
In an earlier post I outlined the three steps to success in communications: Content, Targeting, Distribution. One conclusion was that in the world of targeting and beyond, #datadriveseverything. It seems that targeting is something that Qantas needs to spend more time analysing:
Over at the mumbrella news & opinion website, Tim Burrowes flags that Qantas is spamming it’s database with scary stories (my words not his. For his words click here.)
Qantas PR team lacks data management skills
My comment:
This looks like a good example of a company that is only just starting to understand the opportunity provided data-driven communications.
Open communications, great. Poor use of database though.
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