Get Shouty

Way waaaaaaaaay back in December I was tagged with a meme, which was to reveal 5 personal things that most people don’t know about me.

My fellow Age of Conversation author,  C.B. from Flooring the Consumer tagged me here and has asked me to share a further 8 random things, so I’m playing in the personal philosophy card, 8 things I know for sure:

1. Learning new languages not only teaches you more about your native tongue but can open up your mind
2. Travelling provides an excellent opportunity to take out the personal trash, throw it out the window and leave it on the highway
3. Collecting aphorism inspires brevity and wit
4. It’s rare occasion when a smile is a bad way to start a conversation
5. Saturday mornings must involve bacon and newspapers
6. I need to see a big horizon- the beach or an uninterrupted sky on a regular basis
7. I love my job- it’s creative and rigorous, it challenges and constantly pushes me to learn new things and to take the time to teach and inspire others
8. Single malt whiskey is my favorite poison

So who to tag? C.B has asked for Aussies and some team building:

• Adam because not only does he bake a wicked cupcake he is not at all afraid to disagree with me (rock on!)
• James over and above his utter fabulousness, he’s a great partner in crime and world domination
• The lovely Laura because she’s interested and interesting
• Todd will intrigue and inspire
• and
• Matt because he frightened Joseph Jaffe when he was in Sydney by trying to explain complex systems. He’s brilliant.

Reported in the fabulous Bannerblog:

Virgin Mobiles latest campaign Are you with us or What which covered press, outdoor and online has been using photos from Flickr that were under an attribution creative common license.

So what? you say. As long as you credit the photographer you can use the photo for free for any use. Sweet deal for the agency as photographers can be expensive. Damn if only Herb Ritts used Flickr. So nothing wrong so far, an email to the photographer or a free phone would have been nice, but nice doesn’t make the world go round.

What is causing all the problems is that the photographers didn’t get model release forms for the people in the photographs. Most budding photographers wouldn’t even know what that is or need to. Not only did Virgin Mobile fail to get photos with models releases they insulted some of them with the actual ad. They did a double whammy with the image above the girl is 15 years old. Ouch.

While bloggers and the Flickr community are up in arms, none of them are lawyers and this could all fizzle to nothing. Virgin seem to have changed all the photos on the website Are you with us or what.com.au to remove any faces.

The general agency spot poll  consensus is “Yeah Flickr is a great place to get free photos”. You even break copyright law by basing vector artwork on a photo you don’t own copyright for see here. Although this is a lot easier to hide and harder to prove.

Virgin Mobile could have avoided any negative press by just paying a partly fee to those who agree and opting to not use photos for those who don’t.

If you want to read more about this then check the article in the Australian, the offending Pen pal photo, a Flickr group discussion where even Flickr’s GM weighs in, or here where a representative of Virgin Mobile’s advertising team apologizes (slightly) or just Google it and read for hours.

Bannerblog have the official response from Virgin Mobile’s media people: 

“Flickr is about providing a platform for photographers to reach new audiences. As such the decision to feature Flickr photography was based on the desire to champion a vibrant, current, online community. It was part of an approach designed to reject cliched ‘advertising’ imagery in favour of more genuine and spontaneous shots. It is typically Virgin to embrace fresh initiatives and the democratic spirit of Flickr matches the inclusive nature of our ‘Are you with us or what?’ campaign. The images have been featured within the positive spirit of the Creative Commons Agreement, a legal framework voluntarily chosen by the photographers. It allows for their photographs to be used for a variety of purposes, including commercial activities. All of the photographers have been accredited in the adverts.”

ABC Radio / Triple J had a discussion on this – listen.

I can’t help thinking that, as a big brand with deep pockets, being half-arsed is no way to act when you get questioned by the community that you profess to be ‘supporting’.  Celebrating a spirit doesn’t give you license to not have rigour around legalities and not to compensate all the parties involved in the creation of your message. 

A hot topic in ad land is about how to protect and charge for agency IP. Unless the players in commercial content creation game stand up for the little guys, how can we set the agenda with our clients. Become the change you seek.

I’m working on the most delicious challenge. Engage and excite the students who have the right stuff to rule the world.

Hot!

It’s a tremendous relief- the solution doesn’t have be be cool or catchy, but the hook must be very, very smart. Compelling. It must challenge and excite engagement and understanding. It’s an invitation to those that get it and barrier to those that don’t.

The reference image is the wording of an ad  Ernest Shackleton placed to solicit men for his 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Not a very enticing offer, but 27 men did sign on, and although they were unsuccessful in the technical sense—before they even set foot on land, their ship was crushed in a vise of ice, marooning them for more than a year—they did manage, miraculously and heroically, a safe return.

While the men who took the challenge earned their place in history, the ad itself seems to be a fable. I’m hoping to create a real call to action that inspires heroes too.

Research can just open your mind. I’m loving our Millenials. What an amazing generation we see growing up before our eyes. They are formally educated, technologically literate, adept at multitasking, intuitive detectors of bullshit, an ambitious bunch of young people who have a pretty good handle on the kind of world they live in.

I take my hat off in awe and thoroughly believe that the world will be in very good hands.

This week I’ve been variously inspired and terrified by:

• Matt from EngineersWithout Fears, who has written possibly the best headline on a blog ever:
  • Post comments or I will hunt you down like the dogs you are
• Robert over at Middle Zone Musings:
  

  “most of us have blind spots of some sort or another. (Don’t think it’s true? Really? If you dare, find a true friend. Ask them.) The problem, you see, is it’s been there all along; you’ve just gotten so used to it that you don’t even notice it anymore. You’re too close to it.”

  I’m loving where this is taking me- the importance of friends as true mirrors (they need to be both put in place and referred to) in combination with the discipline and self awareness required of keeping tabs on yourself.

•  Jeff Flemings over at Digital Hive talking about a return to rigor:
  • “It’s important to think of a target audience in more granular terms that are actionable as well as inspiring, as well to apply some old fashioned rigor to thinking about what the communication goal is, along with how we use channels to accomplish the goal.”
• The link between our ever increasing commuting times and social isolation:  
  • every ten minutes more of additional commuting time cuts all forms of social connection by 10%. So ten minutes more commuting time means 10% for your dinner parties, 10% for your dinners with the family, 10% for your club meetings and so on, and 20 minutes more commuting time means 20% less of all of those things
• Sean being very brave, talking about fear
• Drew and Gavin putting together the The Age of Conversation,  which Ad Age has a full length article up on. Buy it here.
  

P .J. O’Rourke on an earlier attempt to create a parallel universe:

“With Epcot Centre, the Disney corporation has accomplished something I didn’t think possible in today’s world. They have created a land of make-believe that’s worse than regular life.”

With Australia’s extremely suck worthy broadband there are not more than a couple of thousand people having a v….e……r….y s…..l…..o…….w experience in Second Life.

So no, I will not be building an island anytime soon, but it is awesome to work with brands who, at least, ask the question.

A tippy top fun journo friend of mine recently asked me:

Katie old fruit,

You might be able to help me with a story I’m writing for the Good Living section of the Herald. The story is basically trying to define what it is that makes a good local restaurant that you keep going back to…and I remember you mentioning that you were a regular at strangers with candy. can you supply a few words as to WHY? I’d hope to include it in the story as an explanation of the various aspects that make a place a regular.

The article,  Local Heroes, has some ingredients that might be shared with Brand Managers who need to gather return visits.

If you can think of a restaurant as a website, then these might be your menu staples:

• friendly experience, rather than just a basic service
• consistency: innovation keeps you fresh but still serve up old favourites
• it’s the personal touch that matters; it’s knowing people; provide that extra bit of ‘welcome back’

Are you in?

Action! There’s an Art to the Emerging,  Engaging Conversations.

It’s Common Sense.  Build Bridges to your Customer’s Attention with Authenticity.

Change.

Cuthrough the Clutter. It’s all about Collaboration, (be Consistent) the Collective Consciousness Connects.

Breakthrough Barriers and the Bottlenecks of Brand Experience– don’t be a Bore.

Creating Customers is Capital: Facilitate the Face To Face, Follow Up in Full Circle fashion. It’s Ageless.

Give. Grow. Be Human. Be Happy. That’s the Idea.

Governments, Grandmothers and News Hounds agree. Non-Conversation is Not Enough.  Internationalization and Invitational Intimacies make Local Media a Monkey.

Listen: there’s no Limit to the Lifeblood Conversation can pump, no Love Lost– only Opportunity.

It’s a People Paradigm, a Renaissance of Real World, Real Relationships and Revelation. The Restorative Rules are: Start, Share, Speak Up, Shout Out, Start Songs, be Strong, Share again.

It’s not just Television any more Toto!

Think. Talk. Hug a blogger.

Visualize the Ultimate Two Step Thead that dances between Value and Viral– it’s User Centered. Don’t be Unnconnected.

Give Voice to the Voiceless. Give Warmness to Wallflowers

It’s the Age of Conversation.

Ford’s new branded entertainment series has hit the web: Where are the Joneses.

The synopsis is that Dawn (left) has found out that she is the child of sperm donor and she now has the list of the other 27 siblings who are scattered across Europe. After contacting her new found brother Ian (Right) they begin the search with Jonti, the director filming their journey.

Besides being a funny (and interactive) show it is also a large marketing experiment sponsored by Ford that utilizes various web services and projects to deliver and process content. As the actors travel through Europe they write a blog that is a central “hub” for all the content. When new videos are available you can watch them on YouTube, photos are hosted on Flickr. They also use Twitter, MyBlogLog and many other web tools.

The whole project is interactive. Not only you can comment on the content but also you could influence the storyline and work on screenplay.  This part of the project is hosted at wherearethejoneses.wikidot.com 

(found on wiki dot by michal frackowiak )

A post I wrote a while ago explored that over used term “relationship” in relation to brands:

Take Aristotle’s concept of friendship. He proposed three models: friendship based on utility (a friend who provides something useful to us); friendship based on pleasure (we enjoy a friend’s company); and friendship based on virtue or mutual admiration (we find a friend who shares our values).

At the time I was constructing my thoughts on brand utility, and so much of what I could see was about a ‘five minute fling’ philosophy- sometimes with out even a ‘thank you ma’am’.

I’ve never been a fan of romantic love being used as a metaphor to describe the attraction between people and brand stories. I’m not a believer that ‘brand engagement’ should be a passive thing, a spectacle, and I agree with Gavin that at it’s best engagement is a mile stone, a stepping stone to something deeper.

 I’m loving Matt Moore’s thoughts (and this is my response to Sean’s question Is anyone giving birth anymore?  ) about brands being attractors in chaotic systems  :

an attractor is where a system tends to end up. The attractor does not exist independently but as an aspect and an actor within the system.

I believe that what’s being said here is that an organisation can input energy and behaviour into a system (‘the brand’) – but that input is only one element. For the system/ brand to be alive (chaotic) control must be given up. 

Like Sean I’m pretty captivated by Matt’s thinking :
1. I don’t want brands to transform by experiences, I want them to allow me to transform my own.
2. I want brands in the background not the foreground of the conversation I have with or about an organisation.
3. I don’t want their spectacle, I want my own

If this whole notion of chaotic systems holds then the brand is not in the foreground, rather it is a map of the center of gravity of the attraction. Matt might say this is the character of the brand.

Be a champion of consumer journeys and aware that a brand is only a reflection of the behaviour of all of the actors within it’s system. Celebrate both the chaotic and the development of great character. Build brands with insights, bravery and smarts. People will build experiences themselves.