The emerging nature of "Dip" content...

(This is a train of thought that started last week, not sure where we're headed yet...)

I used to make video games, and one of the bug-bears of that industry is the rampant software piracy on PC. Thousands of development hours get spent creating more and more complex forms of software encryption, only to have them broken days if not hours after the games become available. It is a losing strategy as you are always pitting a handful of developers in a single room against a worldwide army whose only interest is breaking your encryption as fast as possible.

In the case of PC-gaming, many developers are moving to fixed hardware like the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and the Wii. They don't solve the piracy problem, but they do significantly raise the barrier to entry. The issue of piracy though is a vexing one for software development, I have generally found (and I think most industry folk would agree, whether or not they admit it) there is as much piracy going on within the industry as there is outside it. When developers are as guilty of the crime as the guy on the street, you have to start wondering whose behaviour you're trying to curb: someone else's or your own?

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Image courtesy of Tod Rydquist, with thanks to compfight.

Wanna be startin' somethin'...

I started writing this yesterday and I wasn't quite feeling it, think this will be one of those ones where I have to put it out there before I realise what I meant...anyway....it got quite long, so I'm breaking it up over a series of shorter posts around the same idea, we'll see where it goes from there. I'd love your thoughts along the way to help shape it, so leave a comment or drop me a line. For reference, I'm thinking about about processes that are inherently flawed and the businesses attached to them.

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I've spent the last hour (plus at least one more last night) getting music off my iPod. I've had it for a bit over a year, and I've noticed it is starting to act a little funny (as opposed to acting a little funny). There are plenty of stories around about Apple building product break-down into their life-cycles, but I'm not really interested in that; I've derived plenty of value from it and will in all likelihood buy another when it finally joins the big circuit graveyard in the sky.

The thing about getting the music off it though is I don't want to have to add it all back to the next device. That isn't a good brand experience. But Apple couldn't get the music industry on board without making it at least somewhat difficult to do, so we wind up in this middle ground where an industry who doesn't know enough about the medium thinks they've got a good deal, and in the interim everyone who bought one has a hoop or two to jump through before getting what they want.

My thoughts here: If this was anyone other than Apple, they would be out of business.

RSS feeds added to Marketing Magazine site

This is a bit of an admin post (1, 2, 3 - "Boooooooring!!!"). Marketing Magazine have added RSS feeds to their site for particular bloggers (including me). So, if you'd like to subscribe to my posts on Marketing Magazine you can now do so.

Additionally if you don't subscribe to this site currently but would like to, please go right ahead! It is free, easy and guaranteed to do many ill-defined and vague things.

Knee deep in the hoopla

My esteemed and learned friend Julian Cole just put me on to a fantastic blog, Talent Imitates, Genius Steals. Written by Faris Yakob who heads up planning for Naked Communications' New York office. I've just read a post from Faris talking about a new t-shirt service a friend of his has started, in the same post he references a campaign going on for Orange in the UK called Balloonacy, which I seriously heart (and would be playing if my platform of choice was more customisable - look for a move to be made shortly in this space).

This is a great idea for one of the same reasons I love the Orange Balloon Race that's running at the moment...it understands that the web is the platform and that from here on in, identity is distributed.

The web is the platform! I've been thinking this for a while, but for some reason it only just made sense. In the ye olde days people created work based on the limitations of the hardware, we're now creating work based on the limitations of the software. In addition, while Moore's Law may be running out of steam in the sense he was talking about traditional computing, it did not allow for the rise of mobile computing, and I'm more interested about the evolution of the handset than I am about a slightly faster laptop.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, but I'm excited!

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Image courtesy of macwagen, with thanks to compfight.

Net-X Melbourne to close

Marketing Magazine has just broken a story on Net-X's Melbourne office being closed. The company, whose headquarters are in Sydney, was bought last year by CHE (part of BBDO) was acquired as part of a move by Clemenger in Sydney to quickly add a digital offering to their services. Unfortunately for the Melbourne office, Clemenger here already had a digital arm, Blue, and thus Net-X Melbourne was left to languish with no clear directive.

It looks to be another example of a worrying condition now known globally as IGW, or Integration Gone Wrong. The formula's pretty simple:

1. Large agency realises it needs digital on its rate card.


2. Large agency is confounded by the amazing culture at independent digital agency - all these people appear to care about what they do, and even enjoy their work. Strange.


3. Large agency buys independent digital agency and promises not to change the culture.


4. Large agency then imposes elephantine corporate structure and converts full service digital agency into soul-crushing banner ad sweat shop.


5. The culture that made the independent digital agency so attractive is smothered like a cashed-up pensioner with a pillow, talent at the agency leave, and the agency eventually dies.

This process seems to be the model for integration adopted by many large agencies, but clearly it's poisonous.

In other words...


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Image courtesy of We The People, with thanks to compfight.

And she's climbing the stairway...

Long-time listeners-first time callers would be aware I was included in a top 50 list of marketing blogs in Australia recently, put together by Adspace-Pioneers and Marketing Magazine (#17, thanks very much). Eschewing "It's an honour just to be nominated" dribble, it was a great chance to check out some of the other writers and marketers that exist in this space. There's a tremendous amount of value out there and it's well worth everyone's time to take a look at the other sites comprising the list.

One key aspect which had been over-looked on a lot of these sites though was the choice of technology employed. There are three main blog platforms - Wordpress (which is what this site is), TypePad and Blogger, all of which have their own pros and cons, but perform the same base functions.

Contrast this with Vox, a site I hadn't heard of before until I visited Lexy Klain's blog (#29 on the list). Lexy does a good job of providing thought-provoking content, I actually went quite far back into her archives to get a sense of her thought process. Satisfied, I went to comment on a post, and to congratulate her on making the list, and that is when the fun stopped.

Vox requires you to register if you wish to comment, something I abhor. Having spent yesterday afternoon at the Melbourne PubCamp event being bored to tears by folk who do not yet understand for some God-forsaken reason that open beats closed, I was surprised to see a blog site pursuing this tack.

By choosing this platform, Lexy opts out of a raft of conversation provided by comments. Fred Wilson often says the comments on his site far outweigh the value created in his blog posts. This is a participatory medium, and we need to make the barriers to entry for everyone as low as possible.

Lex, five stars for the wealth of thought you're providing, but I can get it elsewhere. And if I can't interact or am put off by the barriers placed in front of me, I won't return. Those who haven't read it should brush up on Forrester's POST methodology for more on this.

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Image courtesy of moniker, with thanks to compfight.

The more something changes...

A couple weeks ago Bluefreeway stock resumed trading. Actually that's a bit misleading, as "trade" implies both selling and buying in fairly equal measure, and with 6 million shares hitting the market at once thanks to Macquarie bailing out, nobody was going to scoop up that much stock.

Last week Simon Chen caught up with Rick Webb, one of the founders of Bluefreeway. The chat was completely off the record, though Simon is of the opinion now that the other side of the story needs to be told.

As of Friday the share price sat just above 7 cents, which makes it worth less than a third of its former value when the stock was initially suspended from trading so auditors could figure out how deep the rabbit hole went. There are new management initiatives being put in place to try and save the company, but when they include companies buying back their own equity at the original sell price, you have to wonder how long this flight of fancy will continue to run.

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Image courtesy of kathycsus, with thanks to compfight.

You can't recline with a laptop (yet)

This is a brief sojourn from an otherwise blog-free weekend. I have both The Age and The Australian here, plenty of coffee, but all the stuff I want to read is online. Umair Haque's proposal for new forms of media, Mark Earl's look at EMI and how the record business is just gambling, even the five months of Penny Arcade I have sitting in my reader. But I'm sick of staring at a screen, hunched over and negotiating with a format that doesn't allow me to lie horizontal on a Saturday when I've sat upright and alert for 60 hours during the week.

Yes I know there are bigger problems in the world, but I'm talking about the wealth of information that is available and making it easier to consume, something that benefits everyone. That can be a better written article, but it can just as easily be a more manageable medium.

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Image courtesy of aloshbennet, with thanks to compfight.

The Democratic race in 8 minutes

This hilarious short comes courtesy of Slate. The race for the Democratic nomination in less time than it takes to drink a cup of coffee.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=o9q4KwCAZmk]

With thanks to the recently discovered and completely brilliant Now In Colour.

Happy weekend everyone

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P.S. Yes we can.

Sisters are doin' it for themselves

Driving to work this morning I snapped this pic. I realise its not a great one, blame Blackberry not me (as a complete aside, how do you manage to put a measly 1.3 megapixel camera in your phone guys? Honestly! But when you're capable of stuff like this, a lousy camera should be of no surprise...). Anyway...the car in front was advertising a female house-painting service called Women @ Work Painting. "98.5% testosterone free" apparently - whether they're being cute or that is level of testosterone in the average woman I don't know.

The service was apparently born out of bad experiences with trades people, they promise four things:

• turn up on time


• work on consecutive days


• complete job by the due date


• clean up after ourselves

This may be a generational thing, but I don't give myself over to gender stereotypes. If they can actually guarantee that level of service, if any business could guarantee that level of service, then they would have me as a customer. I should add I don't quite get the "work on consecutive days" part, I can only assume other tradies out there will spread jobs out and work on multiple houses at once, frustrating the clients they have in some cases.

The only thing I'm thinking on top of this though is if a business went around branding itself as "98.5% estrogen free", I don't know how well that would play...reminds me of a billboard I saw a couple years back, a massive rare steak on a plate and a tagline: Brisbane's worst vegetarian restaurant.

Brand rape - or - Assault with an unsightly sticker

Dear Mr. Mechanic,

You did a great job on my car, fixed the glove box brilliantly. You sent a follow up letter which was brief and to the point, you did everything right. Except you put a sticker on my back window without asking me and in a spot I was unlikely to see until the next time I put my guitars in my car.

Which happened a couple days ago.

Permission marketing is just that, it requires permission. Otherwise you're just forcing yourself on people, and that doesn't work anymore. Earn people's trust, respect their time AND their dollar. Don't try to put words in their mouths, because that only works as long as you're in the room, and you don't have time to be there in the room with everyone of your customers (even if you did, you'd just breed resentment, not loyalty).

The rest of this post is available at Marketing Magazine.

More thoughts on intent...

When people talk about campaigns being exposed, what they're seeing is the revelation of the intent behind the activity. Julian Cole talked about a Ford ad last week which summarised this perfectly. Ford had made it reasonably clear their ad was fake and they were just having some fun, prompting Julian to write.

people enjoy...content for what it is...This is a great example of why full disclosure works in the social media space.

The intent here was to entertain, not to fool. The result is engaging and hats off to Ford for having the stones to do this, and not have an intent to deceive at the core of what they were doing. The added bonus here is they get blogged about for All The Right Reasons(TM), and what could be better than that?

So, we'll refer to it as intent, but what is at the core of the campaigns you're building for the brands you work with?

Strangers in the night

Yesterday I got a call from a number I didn't recognise. A few of my friends make a habit of ignoring those calls, but I'm always up for a new conversation (hence my details being freely available). I picked up and said hello in my usual fashion, and then heard some scuffling. I thought perhaps a friend had left her phone unlocked and accidentally dialed it form her hand bag, and then a song started playing.

Quite bemused I sat listening. It was a country-ish sort of tune, pleasant to the ear but I couldn't make out the words. A couple times I heard the phone move, no doubt the caller checking to see if I was still listening. After a few minutes the song finished, and the person hung up.

Maybe I should find the whole thing a little strange, and to a certain extent I do. Whether it was a wrong number or a person trying to convey a message that didn't quite reach me, who knows? They obviously had a fairly definite intent with what they were doing. We all at times make moves that seem so obvious to us, while others stare on completely bewildered.

Intent is a funny thing, and a world away from execution. Some days further than others.

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Image courtesy of estherase, with thanks to compfight.

Creative Is Not A Department (formerly Wide Open Spaces) is named in the Top 50 Australian marketing sites

Compiled by Julian Cole of Adspace Pioneers fame, he has posted the list on his blog as well as having it featured in the August edition of Marketing Magazine (which I also contribute to). Thanks to Julian for the hat tip - this site came in at #17 - I'll do my best to live up to it.

								Total
1	Banner Blog	6	6	8	6	8	9	43
2	Servant of Chaos	9	5	8	6	6	5	39
3	Duncans Tv Adland	6	5	7	6	8	5	37
4	Corporate Engagement	8	5	5	4	5	8	35
5	Better Communication Results	8	3	6	5	6	6	34
6	Young PR	7	5	6	5	5	6	34
7	Small Business Branding	7	3	0	8	7	8	33
8	Get Shouty	8	5	7	5	4	4	33
9	Personlize Media	8	5	4	4	4	5	30
10	Brand DNA	6	4	6	5	5	4	30
11	PR Disasters	7	5	4	4	4	5	29
12	Ettf.net	6	5	5	4	4	3	27
13	1+1=3	5	3	5	4	5	5	27
14	Business of Marketing & Branding	6	5	6	4	4	1	26
15	Media Hunter	7	2	6	4	3	3	25
16	Australian SEO Blog	4	4	5	4	6	1	24
17	Wide Open Spaces	8	5	4	3	3	1	24
18	The Marketer	7	3	6	4	3	0	23
19	Three Billion	6	4	0	4	4	5	23
20	Innovation Feeder	6	5	3	3	3	2	22
21	Campaign Brief Blog	6	4	0	3	5	3	21
22	Eicolab	7	5	2	3	3	0	20
23	Adspace-Pioneers	7	3	3	3	2	2	20
24	Publicity Queen	8	4	1	1	2	3	19
25	Filtered	6	4	0	2	3	3	18
26	Marketing Easy	6	3	0	3	5	1	18
27	Hothouse	6	4	1	2	4	1	18
28	Mark Neely's Blog - 3rd Horizon	7	3	2	2	3	0	17
29	Lexy Klain	7	3	1	3	2	1	17
30	Peter Sheahan Live	6	4	0	1	4	2	17
31	In my atmosphere	6	4	0	3	2	1	16
32	Elbow Grease	4	4	0	3	2	3	16
33	Falkayn	5	4	2	0	2	1	14
34	Pigs Don't Fly	6	4	1	1	2	0	14
35	Diffusion	7	4	0	1	1	1	14
36	Australian Small Business	6	3	0	0	4	0	13
37	The Jason Recliner	4	4	1	2	1	1	13
38	The Wayfarer	7	3	0	1	1	1	13
39	Adnotes	6	3	1	1	2	0	13
40	Ryan's View	6	4	0	2	1	0	13
41	B&T	7	4	0	1	1	0	13
42	Zero Budget Marketing Ideas	6	3	1	1	1	0	12
43	Blackwatch	5	3	0	0	0	3	11
44	Fresh Chat	5	2	1	1	1	1	11
45	Latin Ocean	5	2	1	1	1	1	11
46	Arrow Internet SEO	7	2	0	0	1	1	11
47	The Sticky Report	7	0	1	2	0	0	10
48	Naked Communications-The Flasher	8	0	0	1	0	1	10
49	Pixel Paddock	5	1	0	1	0	1	8
50	Send up a larger room	7	0	0	1	0	0	8

No matter where you go you are what you are (player)

("player" is for the Jay-Z trainspotters, you know who you are...)

I was thinking this morning about the things that are intrinsically us. Not you and I, us as in you. The things that, try as we might, we cannot escape.

I say this because I wanted a new suit. I saw a great one, tried it on, fit like a glove, I looked (and felt!) great. The problem is I don't want a new suit, or at least don't have enough call for it in my day to day to warrant it, so there was a quandry.

I was wandering around thinking about this a couple weeks back when I stumbled into a second hand music store and suddenly lost an hour to a beautiful near-mint left-handed Stratocaster. I saw in the back room of this music store playing away, lost to the world. I was even joined at one point by a guy on bass, who just wandered through and thought this looks like an ideal spot for an impromptu jam; it was great.

Reconciling wants and needs is, most of the time, like dragging together magnets with the same charge; you can hold them in place for a bit but they don't naturally fall that way. Our businesses and brands are like that too, wants and needs can be so distant at times. The brand wants to be Coke, but it needs to be springwater. It wants to be Nike, but it needs to be a solidly-made shoe your podiatrist can recommend.

That of course is fine, if it is true. Nailing down the things that are fundamentally true is what is important, finding the things that cannot be easily ignored or argued with gives you a platform you can build on. Me in a suit is a pretty good imitation of a guy in a suit.

Me with a guitar in my hands I don't have to fake for a second.

Random things I was thinking

I was back at my parent's house on the Gold Coast, Queensland on the weekend, in town for a friend's wedding. On these trips I tend to spend the entire time away from a screen (yes it is a good thing). It's nice just being able to walk and think and not say much, at least nothing with any sort of agenda. I suppose that in itself is what a holiday is supposed to be about, activities without agenda, unless of course you can call relaxing an agenda.

Anyway, below are a collection of things that popped into my head while I was wandering around, having conversation with old friends, doing my best to do as little as possible. There were countless other thoughts, but they're lost to the wind now...which is, actually quite alright.

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• Loyalty programs aren't that at all, they're blackmail. Not only that, they make the person who has only just started shopping feel left out. The first thing you do is alientate your new customer? Way to go. Hat tip to Zag for fueling that thought.


• Sitting having dinner with my parents, there is an ease I don't find anywhere else; the weight strung up in client-deadlines and record deals dissipates, and I'm just their son again.


• When you care about something or someone to the point that it becomes the focus of your world, it alters both the way you see everything else, and the way everything else sees you


• When I don't have a guitar in my hands, or at least access to one, I feel like I may not be able to articulate my thoughts as well as I'd like (I have no idea yet as to how I might convey my thoughts around social media using a guitar, though opening with Smells Like Teen Spirit is definitely out of the question).


• I like nice clothes. It's also more important for me right now to spend money on getting my band out there and more recognised (I was also thinking this will never be reconciled or come to an easy conclusion, to quote Kanye, "I got a problem with spending before I get it, we're all self-conscious I'm just the first to admit it")


• Doing beats talking. Every. Time.


• That last point is something I still struggle with.

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Image courtesy of El Fotopakismo, with thanks to CompFight.

It doesn't have to be anything

Brainstorming ideas for a clients impending product launch, a gun account manager (as in she's great, she doesn't manage a client who manufactures guns) and I came up with something that was largely experiential, nailed the target market, and delivered on the promise of the brand all in one. Good idea we said. Great idea we said.

It's not digital we said - but does it have to be?

When I was thinking about the first column to write for Marketing Magazine, I kept coming back to this notion of what digital wasn't as opposed to what it was. I canvassed a few opinions and was bemused by Iain Tait's cryptic reply; "Digital is not a thing anymore."

Some time after that, indeed quite recently, I suddenly realised what he meant. It reminded me of something Dr. Michael Hewitt-Gleeson had said to me a few months earlier: "The second you try to think outside the box, you're disregarding a lot of really good, valid stuff."

A good idea is a good idea, and as long as it delivers for your audience, and it doesn't have to be anything else.

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Image courtesy of NMCIL, with thanks to compfight.

Permission to land

I was in a meeting this afternoon with a client, talking about driving customers from a website in store. We had some interesting metrics around that sort of conversion, one thing that stood out for me though was what people saw and experienced when they first walked in. Making sure people are catered for and have the experience they expect when they walk into the store is exactly the same as them landing on your web site; when they click a link or punch in a URL they have an expectation which must be met if you want them to remain.

I suppose I found it ironic how much time we spend talking about new media when we're able to draw so much on history. I don't think you can underestimate the value of being digitally-savvy, but inspiration and insight comes from the strangest places.

Substance abuse

I've been feeling a little more vacuous of late than I otherwise normally would. The plethora of marketing books sitting next to be my bed, waiting to be read last thing at night have given way to GQ, Esquire, et al (and we all know how I feel about that), and low and behold I stumble across a blog called The Sartorialist (via the usual source of all that is good, if not pure, Andrew Cafourek).

Written by fashion sales manager-cum-photographer Scott Schuman, he basically wanders about the streets of New York City, taking pictures of people he thinks are wearing their clothes in an interesting way. Part picto-blog, part photo-essay, but desperately unique and very well put together, he also takes time out to give the spotlight to young designers from around the world

Looking at his bio, he has this to say:

I thought I could shoot people on the street the way designers looked at people, and get and give inspiration to lots of people in the process. My only strategy when I began The Sartorialist was to try and shoot style in a way that I knew most designers hunted for inspiration. Rarely do they look at the whole outfit as a yes or no but they try and look for the abstract concepts of color, proportion, pattern mixing or mixed genres. I’m always really happy when I meet a designer and hear that they use some of my photos for their inspiration boards. At the same time I’m also really touched when I get emails from everyday people who say they have been inspired to see themselves and others in a new and usually more accepting way.

Very interesting, and maybe not so vacuous after all. He also has a brief piece up on Yves Saint Laurent who died in Paris on Sunday.