When the bees die, we all die. Well, about five years afterwards according to people who know… which is slightly worrying as it turns out the bees are dying and the decline started in 2006.
This is not a honey bee, it's an ice-cream ad
Still, setting aside the impending global disaster, I like what Haagen-Dazs are doing about it. I have fond memories of their classic ‘ice-cream = sex’ ads from the 90s but this is more of a foray into Ben & Jerry’s territory. Makes perfect sense as an issue for them and the activity from trying to come up with serious, meaningful solutions to on-pack promotion and activating consumer support is nicely done. The way forward for social marketing.
That's a honey bee
Personally I’m more of a Ben & Jerry’s girl, originally converted by Chunky Monkey. Top three flavours: Phish Food, the alltime classic of Chubby Hubby and frozen yogurt, Cherry Garcia … although Fairly Nuts is now a contender.
Never in living memory has there been so much conversation about communication. Marketing and Technology both had plenty of industry conferences in the past. Since they’ve mashed up, it feels like we are all now in the event business. Speaking, attending, following. *Exhausting*. You can even track the trends just by watching the new titles roll out from professional event companies like Haymarket and DMG.
Always on hashtags
But there is a lovely twist to this all you can eat symposium smorgasbord. Several of the more grassrootsy events are true communities rather than trade shows. More Burning Man, than ad:tech. For most events, the hashtag comes and goes. Twitter search won’t pull up tweets more than a few days old. With serial events like #media140, #140conf, and the aptly named #LikeMinds, the hashtag is always fresh. Not only are they based on a series of conferences, they have meetups, tweetups, and lots of @ing in-between. It’s lovely.
Active attendees
Private, participatory events, like WPP’s Stream, share this belief that the community makes the unconference. Mega events, like the ever more popular SXSW, take it to the people via their Panel Picker. While SXSW is not until March, the blogosphere is alive with buzz right now as we all canvas for votes from our peers. Me too. More on that next post.
With luck I will see y’all in Texas, but it could be equally inspiring to meetup right here.
Finding the emotional connection… that link between the issue and the individual that inspires change and commitment to change… is key in communications. It’s always been the challenge when we talk about the environment. It seems so much easier to get that personal connection when you’re talking about children or disease.
Climate change started out with the polar bears. Over time, the focus has shifted as communicators decided that the issue was too big for us to get motivated by and we needed to focus on practical bite-sized chunks – bring in energy efficiency. Recently the trend has been to focus on the practical motivation – the ’saving money’ message associated with saving energy. No problem with that (and for some it’s the most effective motivator) and I absolutely agree that we need to save energy but it’s not exactly hearts and minds is it?
Polar bear
Oxfam’s campaign clearly connects climate change with its human cost, calling it ‘first and foremost a human story.’ But why isn’t the cost to nature itself enough for us to do something about it?
I’m about to wildly paraphrase Alberto Villoldo, an inspirational man (I hope my paraphrasing is not too wild and stays true to the original). In Western culture, we see Nature and the Earth as being here to serve us. Add the forced exodus from the Garden of Eden and we have a pretty messed up relationship with Nature and the Earth. In contrast, other cultures see our role as humans to be stewards and help take care of the Earth, rather than use and abuse it for our own purposes. All of which makes me wonder… is that why we struggle in finding the emotional connection that we need to when making the environment a hearts and minds issue? Does the way that we think about Nature need to change before we can really change our behaviour?
This is just to share a really interesting edition of Radio 4’s In Business which looks at how some simple ideas about cleanliness and hygiene could fundamentally change lives around the world – and how the techniques of business, marketing and communications in particular, are making them happen. Inspiring stuff. And shows just what communications can do – turning simple ideas into practical actions that make the world a better place.
Yes, I realise that sounds a little counter-intuitive given what I do for a living.
Comms budgets were always going to take a bit of a hit in the public sector spending cuts and now we’re beginning to understand what that actually means – with only ‘essential campaigns’ being allowed to continue.
Well, to be honest, it’s about time. Public sector campaigns have tended to follow a formulaic approach – big advertising spend with some other channels thrown in. (Soapbox moment: on quite a few occasions I’ve seen PR brought in literally three weeks before the ad campaign launches… trust me, you get better results if you bring us all in at the same time… you really do.)
And this isn’t an unsubtle bid to grab the ad budget either. I think good advertising is one of the most powerful communications tools (yes, I’m one of the people who cried at the John Lewis ad and the resurrection of the John Barnes rap makes me want to eat a Mars Bar – yep, I really am that susceptible).
But now is not the time for the tried and tested approach. Sometimes advertising will be the right thing to do, sometimes a local community campaign will get better results – and yes, sometimes social media will deliver.
A positive outcome from the spending cuts is that communications will innovate out of necessity. Through its own innovation, it will lead the evolution of the public sector into its new role in society… whatever that might end up being.
Afternoon, world (note the hubris – ‘afternoon, handful of bored webmongs’ would almost certainly be more accurate). Once again, Web Curios (no movement on the title situation as yet) comes to you on a Thursday, due to my once more taking solace in the comfort of the 4-day week. I used to have a permanent 4-day week in my old job. It was amazing (the 4-day week, not the job; the job was a bit pony), and I miss it very much. I think that going back to a 4-day week would make me much happier and more productive.
ARE YOU READING THIS, BOSSMAN RICHARD MILLER? Eh? Oh. *sulks*
Ahem. Anyway, without further ado, to business!
A Smart Perspective On BBC Cuts – The big story of the week, at least amongst generic media types in the UK (yes, yes, like me), has been over the BBC Strategy Review, published on Tuesday, which recommended a whole raft of cuts to the Corporation’s output to cut costs – most notably the axing of BBC 6Music and the BBC Asian Network, as well as a scaling back of non-programme related content on the BBC website as a whole. Lots has been written on this already, but the above blog post by Adrian Hon is a thought-provoking summary of why the ’savings’ in terms of BBC Online are a nonsense.
Foursquare Partners with Vodafone UK – not massive news, but interesting as an example of how savvy Foursquare are being in linking up with media partners. This is exactly the sort of deal that (they hope) will take them from being the current darling of the early-adopter set to something that normal people know, like and use on a regular basis.
A minor celebrity wearing humiliating underwear, yesterday.
The US Air Force’s ‘Rules of Engagement’ for Blogging – You know that people are taking digital seriously when the US Air Force starts publishing guidelines for its employees as to when they should / shouldn’t respond to blogs or forum comments on the organisation. What’s even more surprising is how measured and sensible the recommendations are – all organisations should have something similar if they are engaging with audiences online. FACT.
Probably the Coolest iPhone App To Date – watch for yourself. Turn your iPhone into an audio looping system. Almost inevitably this will end up with you turning into an annoying git who believes themselves to be the saviour of UK beatmaking – but that’s not the technology’s fault, it’s YOU. Or you could turn out to be the next Beardyman, which would be good.
World Bank Launches Alternate Reality Game – I’ve been saying for years that Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) – basically a fancy way of saying big, interactive stories – are going to be huge. I’ve continually been proved wrong, with a few notableexceptions. Nontheless, Evoke – just launched, commissioned by the World Bank Institute and built by legendary game designer Jane McGonigal, the game is designed to “help empower young people all over the world, and especially young people in Africa, to come up with creative solutions to our most urgent social problems”. This is part of a trend that I think we will see more of in the coming years – people, including Governments, increasingly trying to use fun as an agent of educational and behavioural change. Although hopefully not like this
A few videos to finish…
1) Tokyo Glow – just a gorgous film / animation of Tokyo by night
2) Song of the Week – in honour of the gig I am not going to tomorrow, here’s Madvillain (MF Doom & Madlib) with Strange Ways
3) This has been all over the place this week – a gorgeous Olivo Barbieri-inspired video of a day in New York which looks like it’s been recreated in miniature. Just watch it:
4) Finally a plug for the new spoken word show by the amazingly talented Polar Bear – he’s doing a whole film in spoken word. Hard to explain, but check out the below and, if you like it, take a punt on the tickets. You won’t be disappointed.
Have you ever observed a dinner table where everyone is talking over each other? It works for the individuals sat around the table but as each person tries to be heard the volume increases, and increases, and increases. If you’re not already involved in conversation, the table become nothing but a wall of noise.
It’s the same for brands on social platforms like Twitter and Facebook – if they shout too loudly, too frequently it becomes difficult for consumers not currently at the table to join in. Worse still, if you continue to dominate the chatter your guests will be silenced completely.
Brands should act like the perfect host – bring people together, spark lively conversation, stand back and smile.
