Nitmesh

Free Content

THE PARAGRAPH
I'm very interested in content and how it's going to pay for itself online and offline in the future. How will the old 'interrupted advertising' model will evolve, blend, mesh into something more accepting and engaging. One of the most constantly imaginative bloggers is Scott Karp of publishing 2.0 blog is constantly questioning the validity of the current models in all kinds of content and media. Here he basically says music should be given away free and we should pay a premium to watch music live and buy the brand merchandise. This makes so much sense. If one person (all it takes is one tech kid) to download a song and what's he going to do with it? He's going to share it with all his friends. Look at Seth Godin and his great story which I mentioned in a blog, how he gave away 10,000 of his first book and it's now sold 250K and counting and here about the ideavirus. Build your audience through WOM by giving away the content and earn revenue from all other ancillary areas of the source. This already happens with movies already. Cinema release is primarily for marketing and usually a loss leader and can only, on average account for 15% of all revenues as the other 85% comes from all other ancillary areas and then I found today from variety.com Universal is giving away $15 million dollars worth of free tickets at the cinemas to new film PEACEFUL WARRIOR. Imagine if you gave away all movies in cinemas and omline and blended advertising around the screen or financed it all through global brand product placement?

Here the news that William Morris, the talent agency is going to directly produce content.

Here the Huffington post explains how content has to be free unless it's porn or financial content.

Does anyone want to comment?

Conversational Architect

Just received a twitter message from Steve Rubel with a tinyurl about the blogger David Armano from Logic + Emotion lecture at a recent marketing conference that Bob Glaza blogs about it here. He has embedded the slide show - from slideshare link here - that David Armano used, into his blog which clearly describes how consumers are people and people crave experiences, pleasurable, useful, sustainable experiences which involves design, good design, which doesn't necessary need marketing. He pinpoints five building blocks, usefulness, usability, desirability, sustainability and sociability and leading on to explain that marketeers have to become conversation architects. On the logic + emotion link David Armano describes talking to groups of people for and hour and half and watching to the audience's body language. I prefer talking to much smaller groups of people, involving much more interaction, explanation and productivity, being much more of a conversation and relationship instead of being just a loudspeaker.

Airbus 380 Web Video

THE LINKS
I love flying, planes, new technologies and I found this web video of the new Airbus 380 double decker passenger plane from popular mechanics blog.

PLANNERS AND BLOGGERS

THE PARAGRAPH
I attended the Timesmedia sponsored IPA lecture last night. I went to the last lecture on ‘insight’ last month out of curiosity  and enjoyed it, listening to a BBH planner and media man discuss their roles in advertising. I realised that there’s a sections of advertising and marketing that never cross paths. That has to change, doesn't it? I’ve become interested in planning simply because most ad bloggers are planners. It’s a rich source of ideas and full of diverse opinion and that is why I was drawn last night. It was fascinating, knowing no one, sitting amongst that select group of the ad industry. I wanted to comment but didn’t in the end and realised I’d save it for here. I wanted to say to all there what was I doing there? There was me, agent, producer, digital strategist for RSA Films sitting amongst the cream of planners debating about blogging and it’s effect on planners industry. But there’s a clearly a bigger picture here. In some eyes, we’re all in a state of flux or we’re all absorbing, embracing the incredible new ideas and the opportunities coming within the ad industry and also all media. Everything is up for intepretation. Everything is melding and intertwining of which new models are rising out of the ashes of the old ways. I felt in a way planners were clinging to something in the past but also negotiating a way to the future. There will always be a need for research and insight but won't much of this valuble data be available to everyone from now on?  Isn’t that just it that we’re all taking an interest in each other’s opinions, each other’s work, each other’s ideas too, causing exponential effect that new radical models are appearing out of the all consuming power of the net because of technology? We have three runners at RSA all trained camerapersons, editors and directors because they can do everything themselves because of technology.

It was ironic that I then went on to the Shots 100th issue party for the production and creative elements of ad industry, a completely different side and environment to IPA talk, chalk and cheese but ironically working along side each other and trying achieve or servivce the same aim, to create great work or content, that is effective for clients. Why don’t directors ever sit down with planners? Have they ever? Shouldn’t they be able to see the bigger picture, understand the whole process? They might, just might have something to add or add to each other's roles. Why is the ad industry so decompartmentalised?

Here’s the great new trailer for GTA4, I might, just might buy PS3 just to play this game as it’s the only game in the past versions that truly engaged me in it’s imagination and integration.

W & K London Blog

On the diablogue blog there's a story about Weiden & Kennedy London's blog and how they openly talked about their trip to Finland for the Nokia pitch. This was blogged by adweek here.

How do you advertise to a robot?

Found this great post from Dave demerjian’s blog on the future of advertising touching on the crazy, nightmare scenerio that all roofs of the world could soon covered with 'roofboard'  or 'barn' advertising. With the obvious growth and technical advancement of mobile there will be growing use of more sophisticated google maps, more mash ups with 'roofboards' with widgets, links and even web video. It goes on to describe the development of direction sound and sex recognition billboards that change to suit the sex of the person walking past it, then on to advertising to robots. All these ideas are discussed on Ilya Vedrashko MIT ad blog, whose a media strategist at Boston ad agency Hill Holliday.

Contextual Sofas

THE LINKS
I found these contextual sofas through Core77 blog. Here's the animi Causa sofa. Here's quick web video.
I personally prefer Edra's 'boa' sofa.

Conversational Marketing

THE LINKS
Dan Copley from Google UK used the recent Jet Blue episode to explain the power of the consumer through the blogosphere and the appearance of conversational marketing as an example of the future of advertising and marketing. Hugh McCloud from gaping void articulates it so much better and takes it so much further here in his posts Edelman talk and advertising 2.0 does not exist and the porous membrane.

Google phone?

THE PARAGRAPH
I have just retuned from an IPA 44 lecture by Google's UK head marketeer. I was invited by Mark Rowbotham and Nicky Roberts, the creatives from McCanns London who I recently both set up with google readers and are now avidly exploring the blogosphere.

Dan Copley, head of marketing of Google, UK, Ireland and Benelux countries was promoting the google way to I think mostly ad students from what I could make out from the packed audience. But where were the creatives? Besides Mark and Nicky, I didn’t see any I knew. It was a pity. It’s them of all people that need to see this articulate explanation of the net. Although Dan revealed that his lecture was his standard pitch to clients and agencies (no doubt mostly account and management and not creatives although I guess some might have all seen it on his travels - none have ever mentioned him in the past). He even personally said to me that the agencies are still slow to pick up what's going on. At their heart they're still clinging to the past and terrified of any real change to their old models. They have to thoroughly restructure themselves and understand the world is now flat and take this wonderful opportunity to try anything, quite literally anything when it comes to marketing and advertising through the explosion of the net and rapid growth of new technologies. Everything is up for grabs creatively and it's not going to slow. We are in for relentless change from now on. We need to become infomanics especially the idea creators who now have to embrace and entwine technology into the core of their ideas.

His talk was good and clearly influenced by permission marketing techniques, word of mouth and the long tail of which Chris Anderson was the only person he acknowledged. I would have thought he’d, like the blogosphere, credited a few people. I spoke to him afterwards and said that in so many words he was preaching from Seth Godin. (This latest and great post from him about promoting his book The Purple Cow)

In the Q & A I got a chance to ask a couple of questions. Why doesn’t google video search throughout the net, throughout all video sites and not just youtube and google video. I honestly can’t remember what his bland answer was but he successfully avoided the flaw in google's philosophy and no one  pursued it any further.  I then asked the current phone question. Is google working on a google phone? I got a sentence basically saying 'No comment' which I take as something is up even though blogosphere says they deny it. It was the first answer that didn’t sound like a pitch answer and I think surprised him from this audience after earlier in his lecture stressing that there were 2 billion mobilephones in the world as opposed to one billion net users. Something is up.

In the beginning

THE PARAGRAPH
In the beginning...what do I say now? I have no idea how to begin this blog. It's taken weeks, a few months to be honest to get to this point of publishing my first post and I still don't know how to begin.

Coming from a film development and production background, I inadvertently fell into film advertising and am now deeply involved in exploring, learning, absorbing, trying to find a conclusion to the implosion,  'the convergence' as I call it. Following over 150 blogs (and counting) has turned me into a sprouting infomanic and it's about time I gave some ideas back to the blogosphere. I will endeavour, to hopefully adher to the main priniciples of blogging. To be honest, informative and bring an entertaining point of view in our fast evolving media world (ad world included). I like to think I spend my life inspiring, passionately promoting ideas through word of mouth, the oldest, cheapest and the most honourable form of advertising. I'm interested in meeting the likeminded and sharing ideas. The twentieth century was where knowledge was power and used to one's selfish advantage, the twenty-first century where sharing is power. Linking with your world. Click here for his relevant post on his blog and watch Jeff Jarvis here (link below too). He explains it so articulately.

I'm going to try to keep my blog clear and basic. To begin with I will try and produce THE PARAGRAPH of opinion and ideas, then there will be THE LINKS paragraph which will take you somewhere to inspire, educate and take you off on a tangent to flood your mind with ideas, whether entertaining, engaging, hopefully always 'remarkable' - watch Seth Godin to explain all.  Very occasionally I will link to my employers (RSA Films/Black Dog) work.  I'm sure it will evolve and change with time.

THE LINKS
Jeff Jarvis and his wonderful take on the future of us and TV. Try and watch this all in one go, without interruptions.

WOM film worth watching for a quick visual education of Word of Mouth marketing.

Got Milk - Get the Glass campaign - a snakes and ladders animation treat of a game from the Californian milk board, beautiful work but flawed in it's slow to load, sometimes, but worth it in the end. Engaging view of the future.

RSA FILMS & BLACK DOG NEW WORK LINKS
HSBC 'Bad Boy' is the great new spot by Joe Carnahan at RSA Films for JWT London

Artic Monkeys - 'Brianstorm' is the new musicvideo for the artic monkeys single directed by Huse at Black Dog