Russell Davies

a situation

billy wilder on movies; "An actor walks through a door, you've got nothing. An actor enters through a window, you've got a situation."

i'm not sure

you know this thing where magazines (especially fashion/style mags) do a bunch of different covers each month. i'm not sure it's a good idea. I can see why they're doing it - more potential ways in, maybe get people to think it's a new issue and buy it twice (well, that's what happens to me). But I think it diminishes the authority of the magazine's brand. No, that's not it. That's too pretentious. And I believe in multi-dimensional brands, so I should like this. But somehow it feels wrong. I need to think about this more. Note to self; think about this more.

good google

I used to work on Altavista. We met them just as they were transforming from a bunch of dedicated and talented search engineers into a bunch of starry-eyed dotcom marketeers. Mostly because of Compaq and the infamous Rod. We did some nice ads, and arguably spent more money than we should have, but they went absolutely crazy with branding madness, doing one of the grossest launch events I've ever seen.

Anyway...while this was going on we used to go and visit them in Palo Alto (was it Palo Alto? I think so, I can't actually remember) and we'd drive by this office that had a banner saying google hanging out the window. Just a amateurish, fun, engineery kind of thing. And even at the time I thought, hello, that's what we should be doing, that's where altavista's going wrong. All this bombast is killing us. And if only I'd bothered to mention it to anyone I could be seen as a seer now.

Of course most of google's success is down to their superior technology. But it's help consderably by the warmth, humour and focus of their brand. The fact that they're willing to take the piss out of themselves and play with their brand takes the edge of their techiness without getting all slick and marketingy. This is a great example.

clever man

I exchanged email with my old boss yesterday. He's a clever and lovely man. And I checked out his new website. I can heartily recommend a visit, and would suggest you work with him at some point if you can. He'll teach you a lot.

you want insight...

this is insight. a fantastic site of snatches of conversation overheard on the tube.

east end underworld

just started reading nobrow by john seabrook. seems very good so far. but it reminded me how slightly odd it seems when american's describe british music and musicians. he describes underworld as an 'essex-based' band which, I guess, is kinda true, but seems completely off any point. I suppose we do the same when we talk about american music, though maybe not, we're more familiar with their culture than they are with ours. still, looks like it's going to be an interesting read.

inevitably dissappointing

just finished reading Inevitable Surprises by Peter Schwartz. Disappointing because I really wanted to dislike it, and it wasn't that bad. Wasn't that good either. I guess it's a useful round-up of things to think about in the future. But like all GBN things there seems to be this huge gap between the scenarios they describe and the practical world we live in. Not that I'm questioning their scenarios; they're always very informed, thoughful and imaginative. But one can never quite see what you're supposed to do about it. Perhaps it's because I'm a person and not a large organisation. They'd probably say it's a failing in me. That I'm not being imaginative enough.

I have a weird relationship with GBN, I went to a number of events through my boss and my company. And I found them really interesting in the abstract, and the website was full of provocative debate. But the events were always very off-putting. Maybe because I'm chronically unsociable, I didn't get much out of the social side and the 'learning journeys' always put me off. The worst moment was a learning journey in San Francisco at the height of the dotcom boom. The little group I was in; venture capitalists, corporate executives, senior NGO people, were supposed to go and visit various non-profits including a women's shelter. I just found the idea depressing, all these tossy business people peering at people like they were anthropolgical exhibits. I just ducked out. Didn't go back. Stupid really, but I hated their whole vibe.

Maybe it's changed now, I should revist the website and see.

massive or cool

something occured to me today, while I was chatting with Dylan. It's simple but, I think, interesting.

UK marketing people (possibly European marketing people) assume that something can be either massive or cool. US marketing people assume that brands can be massive and cool. Or maybe that's just the difference between Nike and everyone else.

what a waste

just read a terrible book - Mao in the Boardroom: Marketing Genius from the Mind of the Master Guerrilla
by Gabriel Stricker. Disappointing really, because I was looking forward to it. And it's not a bad idea. Obviously it's in a fairly predictable vein but it could have been good - a playful, lateral take on marketing/guerilla marketing, but instead it's just dire. It obviously took about two days to write. The Mao quotes could have been gleaned from an average quotation dictionary in about an hour. The stories/examples are all the most usual, most predictable companies and campaigns. Swatch. And1. Target. Virgin. blah blah blah. I've heard every story before somewhere. And the attempts at cartoony Mao-based human are completely feeble and unfunny. And every now and then he just gets stuff plain wrong. Not a good book. Avoid.

planner dre

feels like there's an insight in the chronic about the division between researchers, planners and the kind of planners we want to be:

"There's three types of people in the world
Those who don't know what happened
Those who wonder what happened
And people like us from the streets that MAKE things happen"

Stranded on Death Rown (outro)