Launching the world’s first snore absorption room; creating the world’s biggest shave; reinterpreting art with technology; revealing the best place in the UK to bring up a family… As 2011 draws to a close, we take a look back month by month at some H+K Strategies campaigns and work throughout the year.
January: City & Guilds Million Extra
You're hired: Karren Brady+ City & Guilds' Chris Jones
To start the new year, preparations to launch City & Guilds first ever Apprenticeship Summit went underway early on. The aim of the campaign was to help ensure one million Apprenticeship starts by summer 2013.
In January, we commissioned a report to identify the barriers employers face in hiring apprentices with the findings discussed by key political and business leaders at the Summit, hosted by Apprentice star Karren Brady.
Nearly 100 pieces of coverage resulted from this campaign as well as a request from Professor Alison Wolf to receive a copy of the full report after seeing the articles to include in her Government review of 14-19 education.
February: Intel Remastered
Shortlisted for various industry awards, our Technology team created an exciting art campaign- Intel Remastered to showcase the creative application of Intel technology. The project saw 13 modern artists reinterpret iconic masterpieces using digital technology and techniques.
Pushing the boundaries of art and creating one of the most talked about art events on the year, the stories and inspiration behind classics such as Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ and Da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’ were retold and presented to a digital-savvy audience.
Well, Internet Week 2011 is over and from what I can tell, it was jam packed five days with a diverse array of events. Although hashtagged as #IWE (E for Europe), it seemed fairly London media industry centric, to the extent that the Hospital Club was the official HQ. In unconference style, anyone can hold an event during the week. Simultaneous offerings mean you have to make choices as to what to attend (as you somehow squeeze a few sessions into your work week). It also means we are extremely grateful to all the folks that flocked to the WPP Stream London breakfast, hosted here at H&K. Titled Always on Events: How the Internet can help you build a year round community for your real life event, our theme seemed a natural for both IWE and Stream.
It is not always easy to hold a true Discussion, vs a standard presentation where the speakers do all the talking. But I was delighted that many of our participants jumped right in to debate the different aspects that help a community stay together after an event is over. Because it is the interaction between attendees that is the real secret to any event’s success. My co-leader was Rob Blackie, the MD of Blue State Digital London. His five tips for events that rock made a great wrap-up. Let us know if you have any to add. Lots to think about for Stream itself, IWE and your special event as well.
“Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness; close bosom friend of the maturing sun…” – or that’s what Keats said. Personally speaking, I think Keats can do one, as can September and Autumn in general. Everything smells of wet dog and regret, it’s cold and miserable and it’s now just the long, slow trudge towards another season of crass mass-consumerism and endless, interminable, incomprehensible perfume adverts (NB – anyone who works in advertising who reads this, please feel free to explain to me why perfume advertising is so oblique, as I have literally no idea).
Think, then, of this edition of Web Curios as the lightbox to your SAD, the plaster to your axewound (for future reference, an unpleasant conjunction of words to Google), the United Nations to your genocide. I’m here to help. To that end, herearesomerecommendationsforawesomestuffyoucandoin Londonoverthenextfewmonths (NB – that last link is one of the best things I’ve seen in years, very much recommended. Oh, and for an interesting take on Libya, you could do worse than read this). In the real world! NOT ON THE INTERNET! Crazy but true.
But for now it’s still all about the internet. Well, on this particular blog it is, anyway. If you don’t like it, you know what you can do (though I’d prefer it if you didn’t; I’m needy, and low-to-moderate traffic figures are all that’s standing between me and a P45).
I really shouldn’t be writing this, you know. I should, instead, be continuing to whore my brain out for The Man – but instead I defy him in order to…er…waste a couple of hours knocking this rubbish out JUST FOR YOU! I expect you all to contribute to the ‘feed and clothe Matt’ fund once the near-inevitable P45 finds its way to my desk.
HELLO! This Friday marks what, as far as I’m concerned, is the end of the last working week in April. Next weekend we have death, resurrection and ceremonial chocolate sweats; the weekend afterwards we have a nation descending into drunken, vomitous chaos in the name of a patriotic spirit long-forgotten (oh, and there’s a wedding happening too). As a result of people indulging in this sort of behaviour, it’s unlikely any of us will have got over the jaundice before May at the earliest (NB – Web Curios does not condone excessive drinking unless it’s as an expression of royalist fervour, in which case go for your lives webmongs).
As a result of the imminent HOLIDAY, this week’s Curios is going to be relatively light on work-related stuff. Obviously, though, it’s all still GOLD. ENJOY, DAMN YOU.
Contrary to what you may have feared, I AM NOT DEAD! Put away your wreaths, unveil your faces and break out the bunting, for Web Curios is BACK (I just tried doing a Google Image search for Web Curios – beautifully, several of the initial results are pictures of The Man. Hello, The Man!). Admittedly it’s only back for a week, as I am on HOLIDAY next Friday, but frankly you should be grateful for whatever you’re given at this stage.
In my absence, webmongs, I have seen things of which you can only dream. I have seen Slough and a Tesco’s so large that approaching it is like that opening bit in the first Star Wars film with the massive spaceship that goes on and on and on and (Slough FACT: there’s a pun in Slough town centre called the Wernham Hogg, named after the fictional company in The Office (which was of course set in Slough); I can’t work out whether this is a brilliant piece of self-satirisation or actually one of the saddest things ever, though I know which way I intuitively lean). I have been to Barcelona on a stag party, accompanied (amongst others) by a charming man known as ‘Big Sam’ who was recently cleared of common assault after breaking a man’s jaw on the fotball pitch (needless to say Big Sam and I didn’t really have much in common), where I danced to techno like a teenager and was thrown out of a nightclub (I came back in again 5 minutes later though). Oh, and I’ve done work as well, some of it actually not that bad.
Oh, and one last thing before I wang on about the internet and cats and stuff. I was reminded this week about the way in which Facebook is used as a tribute site when people die, particularly in the case of the young. This is, of course, perfectly fine. As someone who relatively recently had to administer the page of someone young who died, though, can I please point out that WHAT YOU WRITE MATTERS. I don’t mean to come across as stuffy (HEAVEN FORFEND) but I’m not entirely convinced that the term ‘RIP’ benefits from an exclamation mark (hey, kids, punctuation changes emphasis. You idiots) or indeed that a sad smiley is an adequate response to death. Just saying, like.
Ahem. Oh, and one last thing – Web Curios this week contains no Rebecca Black whatsoever. You can thank me in the comments.
One of a series of posters designed to commemorate the Fukushima earthquake. Click for more.
We are a nation in mourning. We have been denied our RIGHT by the cheating foreigners. Or, as the more level-headed amongst us migh be thinking, we’ve been spared seven years of small-island jingoism and casual racism, dredging up the ashes of empire in unseemly and ugly fashion. Whichever side of that particular fence you fall on (clue: if it’s the wrong side, sling your hook; we don’t need your sort ’round here), the fact remains that football’s not coming home; it’s going to hang out with Roman and the oil barons instead. Don’t worry, though; they’re both fantastic countries with unimpeachable records on human rights! Eh?Oh.
Leaving aside frivolous sporting matters for a moment, it has once again been a BIG WEEK. Everyone’s favourite agent provocateur Julian Assange has been disclosing secrets left right and centre – and noone can complain, because it’s ‘in the public interest’! (this is my new favourite statement, largely because ‘the public’ is such a large, amorphous entity that almost anything can be considered to be, to some degree, in its interest. Basically meaning that anything is, to an extent, permissable. Thanks, Julian, for ushering in a new era of libertarianism). Top Tip for 2011, though – get Julian on your Dead Pool, quick smart.
Elsewhere, the festive season is upon us and so are the advertising campaigns – this video, for example, by La Senza (and I challenge any man reading this to watch that and not feel a bit…well…grubby. I promise; it’s impossible). Web Curios would, however, like to suggest that maybe this year, given how utterly banjaxed everything is, you potentially consider a different approach and perhaps useyourmoniesdifferently. Or, you know, go ahead and buy that scented candle set that we both know will stay in its packaging in the guest bedroom for evermore. Your call. Of course, if you want to buy me a present then feel free.
(sometimes I think I’m in the wrong industry, you know).
Anyway, enough of this. OTHER STUFF has been happening – INTERNET STUFF (seamless segue, I think you’ll agree). But before we turn our attention to INTERNET STUFF, a picture!
Coaching my colleagues on their presentation skills recently I’ve been thinking a lot about good and bad narratives.
And two more 80s remakes hitting the box office, Karate Kidand The A Team, brought this into perspective; in particular the relationship between content and delivery. C.C. Colton couldn’t possibly have imagined the negative impact of his aphorism ‘Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’.
To be fair I’ve not seen either of these movies, but in my experience most remakes simply don’t work (and I’m being polite here). They are never as good as the original, in fact they don’t even come close. Usually they’re just a case of form over substance.
Of course that only annoys oldies like me, or younger retro fans. After all, for those who haven’t seen the previous movie isn’t ‘my’ remake ‘their’ original?
And yet I’m not against adapting stories. One of my favourite guilty pleasures is Cruel Intentions, the almost verbatim teen adaption of Dangerous Liaisons. It’s clever, witty, has a great cast and tells the story in its own compelling way. And that’s the clue.
A great story can be retold thousands of times, depending on how you tell it. Take Shakespeare, an inspiration to narrative makers the world over. I’ve seen everything from toe-tapping musicals to a gangster movie (Joe Macbeth) based on Will’s works. The quality may have varied, but I’ve found something in them all.
Where so many ‘take two’ blockbusters fall down is that they try to tell the same story in the same way. No amount of special effects can cover that up.
And that’s where so many pitch narratives fall down, failing to achieve a more individual, compelling, and memorable way to take the audience on a journey. Adaptation, not imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
It’s hard to know where to start this week. THERE HAS SIMPLY BEEN SO MUCH HAPPENING. Frankly, though, it probably doesn’t matter what I write here (yes, I know that it never matters, but indulge me) given the fact that The Rapture is almost certainly nearly upon us. Look at the evidence – volcanoes, strange lights in the sky, Nick ‘Casanova’ Clegg now a shoo-in at No.10 after proving himself the least robotic and inhuman of our three potential leaders on TV last night…the end times are coming. Frankly it’s only a matter of moments before the skies are filled with smug Christians all laughing and pointing as they are raised up to heaven to watch the rest of us boil in fiery eternal torment (obviously there is NOTHING remotely un-Christian about this image). With that in mind we might as well enjoy our last moments, and what better way to do that than to waste the final precious minutes of life remaining to us by staring catatonically at a computer screen and ‘enjoying’ this week’s roundup of ephemeral rubbish that couldn’t be any less consequential? But before we get started, an amazing photo of a volcano (no, not this one) from the most amazing man on Twitter, @Astro_Soichi:
Two lakes inside a volcano, taken from space. Yes, SPACE.
You! Yes, you! Welcome, once again (presuming that you’ve been here before – if you’ve stumbled across this whilst searching for pornography then I apologise in advance for the lack of nudity but offer you a sincere first-timers’ welcome) to Web Curios.
God, that was a desperately poor intro. Sorry. What can I say? It’s Friday afternoon, and I’ve spent the entire week feeling a bit hungover under the weather. Not to mention the impact on my mood that this has had. It’s hard sometimes being a webmong (as you will well know). Nonetheless, I am putting my personal feelings of exhaustion and ennui to one side to bring you another selection of stuff I found online this week that one or two of you could conceivably find moderately interesting.
(It should be apparent by now that I am not a salesman).
We begin, this week, with a video – If you do nothing else here this week, watch this. It’s 5 minutes long, and is by far and away the best description I have yet seen of how virality works. Ignore the scaremongering undertones, and just think about how the meme below spreads. Oh, and for the non-geeks among you, a quick explanation of what 4chan is – you know all the stuff that features on those lists of the ‘biggest viral sensations EVER’? Stuff like RickRolling, the Numa Numa kid, Chocolate Rain and YouTube Porn Day? They all start at 4chan (WARNING – that link is direct to 4chan; the landing page is safe but I take no responsibility for what you might find beyond that (clue: porn and swearing)). It’s…just mental, really. Anyway, the video….
Oh Nestle… – Other ’social media gurus/mavens/experts/(insert meaningless title of your choice)’ will do this at length over the next few hours / days, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out that the tone of Nestle’s reponses to comments on their Facebook page probably didn’t do them any favours… Of course, as my esteemed colleague Dan Leach pointed out, it could all be very clever work by Greenpeace…
Twitter Announces @anywhere – Ok, so what this is (massively simplified) is Twitter’s next step in terms of integrating itself with other, 3rd party websites. The TechCrunch piece linked to in the title is a decent overview (and this is a shorter one)- what it doesn’t seemingly touch on, though, is the potential implications for the development of a ‘universal’ online identity. Could this be a first step into the creation of a one login / username culture, integrated across all platforms? The BBC’s announcement yesterday of greater integration with both Facebook and Twitter would suggest it could be…Oh, and at the same time Twitter also declared that it wanted to be ‘A Force For Good’. Isn’t that nice? And…er…haven’t we heard that before somewhere?
I WANT THIS TABLE IN OUR OFFICES. IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT THAT SOMEONE IMPORTANT IS READING THIS, CAN YOU MAKE IT HAPPEN PLEASE? THANKS.
What a magazine on the iPad might look like- Women’s digital magazine Viv put together this shiny demo, showcasing how their content might work on an iPad. My first thoughts? Content for people who really enjoyed Sin Citybut who don’t actually like reading very much.
Skittles for Valentine’s Day – Part of the ongoing trend in giving people real-life (cool) stuff in exchange for engagement with brands on social media (see also the Marmarati)
And, to finish (I know, I know, tldr), this week’s video selection:
1)Losers – ‘Flush’ feat Riz MC & Envy: Great track, great video and Envy is set to be huge this year (obviously if she isn’t then I never said that)
2) I went to see this lot on Tuesday. Great gig, though I did actually cause someone to leave the venue towards the end. In the unlikely event that you ever read this: sorry, Annoying Pair of Girls, but you were really getting on my tits:
3) The Internet of Things: how the planet is developing a central nervous system. 5 minutes of frankly insane futurology here from IBM:
4) Finally, a music video of near-Gaga levels of insanity. WHY THE SELLOTAPE???
