Hold up (wait a minute)

Take 15 minutes out from whatever you're doing right now to watch the below video. I realise it is video over-kill today, but you need (<-- Note the use of "need", not "should", need) to watch it. I promise you there is nothing more important in the next 15 minutes than watching it.

Nothing. It will even make you smile. Promise (you can trust me, I work in advertising).

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• "There is no reason, in 2008, to do shit you hate."

Let's see how far we've come

I've spent far too much time recently talking to people about what tools they should use to achieve ill-defined business objectives. We as human beings have this desire to cut corners, and that is fine - the issue is we wind up slicing straight through the solid parts as opposed to shaving the edges off.



For more on this, check out this post on a methodology from Forrester which I found tremendously useful, I'm sure you'll find the same.

Cheap wine and a three-day growth

If I was a bottle of wine, how would I stand out on a bottle-shop shelf? What could I do? Varietal isn't going to cut it, people like what they like (and generally aren't adventurous). Regional? Not really.

What if I thought about the effect I have on people? What if drinking me could take you somewhere, if it was a ticket to another place, be that a great, uninhibited conversation, a new idea not previously formed...an unwanted pregnancy?

Regardless, I saw the below the other night and loved it.

[caption id="attachment_345" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Do you have your boarding pass?"][/caption]

When was the last time you saw a wine label that was unforgettable?

What's the story (morning glory)?

This is a laundrette around the corner from where I work. I've walked past it a hundred times and only just noticed the other day "The BIG Store" writing inside the wreath. Above it says "Sehold Use"; I've no idea what either is about.

It got me thinking though what the story behind it might be. The writing is in concrete, it isn't plastic, it wouldn't have been whipped up over night, whenever it was created. Sure it's just a laundrette, but there's a bigger story to be told.

What are the stories we want to tell our consumers? What are the ones they actually want to hear, that they'd actually be interested in? That they'd be engaged by?

How did "The BIG Store" come to be this laundrette on a backstreet in Melbourne? Give me the truth or give me fiction, it doesn't really matter, but if there's really nothing remarkable about you, why are we here? Even a laundrette can be remarkable.

Just tell me a story. Be more than the simple sum of your parts. For both our sakes.

Mo' money, mo' problems

So I got on a bit of a soap box earlier today regarding what I think I'll come to call Currency 2.0 (where was that when I needed it). Currency 2.0 concerns itself with appreciating what is precious in marketing that isn't a physical world dollar. Email addresses, phone numbers, these things matter, it is a form of currency that you can build ROI around, and you should.



Julian Cole has been tagged at the end of this, it's an idea we've been kicking around for a while where we'll post a video and tag someone ese at the end to respond. It's open to anyone who wants to play, just be sure to create a video response on YouTube and we'll pick it up.

You and me, and the games people play

Content. Engaging content. Stories being told. Experiences facilitated by brands but not ABOUT brands. The logical extension of "This program was brought to you by..." in life after the 30-second spot is entertainment created solely for or by a brand. Entertainment that doesn't ram a message home, but simply offers it up on a plate and says "Hey, yeah we did this. Hope you dig it." The goal is of course still re-enforcement of whatever your brand's values are, but there are better ways to do it than to just spit out a tagline.

The below quote from Henry Jenkins sums it up for me. I'm trying to figure out where it came from, it's been sitting in my drafts folder for quite sometime...ahh here it is. I <3 Google.

The key is to produce something that both pulls people together and gives them something to do…I don’t have to control the conversation to benefit from their interest

That ties in nicely to something I read over on Slideshare the other day (found by way of my friend Tim's Insight + Ideas blog) that I liked so much I wrote on a Post-It and stuck it to my screen at work:

Autonomy (the ability to make a choice) plus Competence (a feeling like you have the necessary resources to make that choice) plus Relatedness (a sense you are working together towards a common goal) equals Happiness.

Maybe even a good deal of love for your brand.

--

First image courtesy of via, with thanks to compfight.

Second image courtesy of my own bad self.

We have to take our clothes off to have a good time

Direct from the "We're-out-of-ideas-let's-see-if-this-sticks" Department, SanDisk along with the four major music labels have announced a new format for music - micro SD cards, commonly found in mobile phones and digital cameras.

I don't know where to begin on this one. One person I spoke to who was a fan of the move remarked "It is compact, DRM-free, and the files are digital."

Yes, that's true.

Just like CDs.

The labels, despite all evidence suggesting radical moves are in order, remain firmly entrenched in the sales of physical media, and not just existing media but they're coming up with new ones!! NEW ONES!! New forms of physical media while the free world irreversibly slides towards an entirely digital future. You know what? I like album art as much as the next person (I spent a small fortune on my own cover), I'm tactile, I like to touch. But that is not where we're headed.

The labels are trying to keep the economic model for the music industry revolving around a physical item instead of watching behaviour exhibited by the market and responding accordingly. Yes, we all have devices that can support this format, but the labels are confusing the platform and the medium.

The platform is digital. You cannot have a medium existing on a platform that does not serve the same ends. The medium needs to be digital as well. My iPod can hold 80 gigs of music. Why am I going to mess around with this tiny card that holds a single album? This is ludicrous behaviour. Proper stop-the-world-I-want-to-get-off nonsense.

Somebody should get fired for this. Entire departments and a swathe of VPs just for good measure. A new physical format for music. Give me strength!

Manufactured physical products need to get a hell of a lot more expensive. And digital files need to reflect the economics of the market they exist in, not attempt to replicate the old one.

Brand tags

Note: not Brand Tags.



So the above isnt really all that clever, but I quite like it none the less, spotted it yesterday in Carlton as I walked to the park (yay for Spring).

Most people would know French Connection for shirts with lines like "Too busy to fcuk" or "Cool as fcuk", this kinda takes that campaign and gives it a bit of a twist.

If it was actually part of something French Connection were doing on sustainability as opposed to just vandalism that would be even more interesting.

In fact there's an idea - that one is free guys, special Monday gift from me to you.

Celebrity 2.0 - the greatest story never told

This is the third post in my series on the A - Z of 2.0.

[caption id="attachment_315" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Celebrity two-point-oh?"][/caption]

The idea of being a celebrity is an odd one. Becoming so appreciated for something by so many people that your reality is cocked permanently at an angle is not something I can imagine too many people signing up for. But of course that's not what most people sign up for; they generally sign up for the only thing that comes naturally to them.

Celebrities are invariably generated out of the mediums that are hardest to work in, but they're also generated based on the potential audience for that medium. I imagine there are glass-blowers who go to industry events and are fawned over by the glass-blowing community and press; outside of that in their day to day lives they wait in line at the coffee house like everybody else.

The size of your celebrity is directly proportionate to the potential market. Which is why actors and musicians are the biggest celebrities; everybody loves music, and everyone likes a story.

Indeed story-telling is the most interesting part. We humans are nothing without our stories, without the narratives we impose upon our day to day lives under the guise of seeking greater meaning or understanding. The people we elect (via our retail dollar) to tell us their stories and to re-interpret our own are given tremendous power over the popular psyche, but it is within the story-telling that the downfall of celebrity comes.

Imagine two books; one taught and calculated at each point, a page turner if you will. The other is a combination of two things; the most incredible and fantastic first half of a novel ever written, followed up by a second half where the main character is unrecognisable from the one you fell in love with in the opening pages. The first book you savour the whole way through, somehow never quite managing to get closer to the end, the other you continue to read only out of habit.

The first book is Madonna.

The second is Michael Jackson.

Madonna's celebrity has remained where it is because she never let you finish the book. You didn't get to the end, and you never know quite what she is going to do next. She understands the power of the story and she knows for it to continue there have to be plot-twists that nobody saw coming. She crafts her story to never quite be complete, and the telling of it has been one of the great celebrity stories of our time.

Contrasted with Michael Jackson, whose story we ceased to care about as the main character became someone we could neither identify nor empathise with. In the greatest stories, or what Joseph Campbell wrote about in The Hero's Journey, the notion of the everyman who rises above impossible odds to win the day is ageless and endlessly appealing because it taps into aspiration, one of the few things that doesn't fade with age or money; everyone aspires to something.

Going back to our books, you have to make the reader care enough to want to see the next page. Always leave 'em wanting more the old saying goes. The issue with that in the 2.0 era is celebrity is a decidedly 1.0 idea. Clive James even argues in Fame in the 20th Century that fame as we know it wasn't possible until the invention of mass media.

If indeed it is a product of the 1900's and the broadcast industries, how does the idea of celebrity change when I can consume as much media as I can get my hands on, featuring the person I want to know about? Previously I would wait for their face to show up on the cover of a magazine or a TV show, now I google their name and gobble up anything I can find. This is where the line gets drawn between famous and celebrity; one is sought after, one is simply recognisable.

If we were to approach Celebrity 2.0 with the same notion of open beating closed, then we would have to accept shorter life spans for our celebrities. By opening up, the whole book is revealed to get through as quickly as you want. You can't unread the words of pages already past, and once you know all there is to know, what's left?

In 2.0, as in 1.0, necessity is the mother of re-invention. In 2.0 we don't have interactions, we have micro-interactions, and each needs to offer a different part of the story. As in 1.0, you can never give complete access, although complete access can be given to a singe thing at a single time; multiple touch-points, music, books, TV, film, web, it is transmedia planning applied to a human being, all extending the celebrity touch without ever revealing the whole. A video blog that references a day in the studio for an album you won't hear for some time to come, in a break from a movie you haven't seen yet, housed on a personal site away from the official Hollywood presence. You don't finish a book, just a small volume in a series numbered one to infinity.

The only question for Celebrity 2.0 is, with all that other stuff going on, who'll have the time to tell stories anymore?

21 Questions - part two

The first part of this interview was posted yesterday. It is with Samantha Bottling & Aileen Thompson who heads up the Group Consumer, Enterprise and Brand Media Relations for Vodafone UK.

The experience I had recently was one where I was ready to leave Vodafone due to how dissatisfied I was with the service. Why has it been OK in the past to let customers reach this level of frustration before conceding what they wanted in the first place? How do the initiatives you're working on combat this sort of scenario?

The way in which customers use the web to share experiences is very different. We have recognized this and we are responding in the UK for example by monitoring external forums and setting up our own forum. The forum is a very visible way of showing how customer care has improved and how we can as an industry address the notion of frustration by giving our customers choice about how and when they talk to us – or in the case of the forum - other customers. As above, offering simple to use and easy to buy services is also key – more of which we are doing. Take for example the inclusion of internet in the price plan in the UK.

Obviously you guys are ahead of what your antipodean counterparts are doing; how long have you been working towards the place you're at now and what advice would you give to the other Vodafone operations in different parts of the world??

We share our experiences across the Group so that they can take recommendations and make it work for their country and their audience. Starting a customer forum is not something that can be done quickly or lightly. It requires expertise in the shape of technologists who can support and set up a forum and experts who will run the forum day to day – 24/7. You also need the buy in of some key function in the organisation in particular the Board who have to be prepared for a very public way of providing customer service, technical support and customer relations teams so that it is integrated. It is also important to involve the PR team who can work with the forum team when a new product or service is launched as they can provide links to the product managers, as well as help with any reputational issues. We regard the forum as a full customer service channel and it is fully integrated with our other customer service channels – it would not be successful if we did not do this.

Above all the key element to our success has been the different experts working together. We've designed a simple experience that enables customers to do what they need to. The moderators on the forum are technical help specialists so they can personally provide real help rather than act as a post-box into the organisation. We have created processes within the organisation to handle issues raised that go beyond the moderators but also to ensure the moderators have up-to-date information.

We've also achieved all of this without actively 'promoting' the forum, allowing our customers to gradually find and use it so that we can grow our response in relative speed to the growth of the forum's popularity.

--

Thanks to Aileen and Samantha for their time. As I said yesterday, parts are heavy on the marketing speak, but the key take-away for me is the part about taking the time and investing in the appropriate resources to make online an appropriate channel for your business.

This goes back to everything I've been saying regarding intent. It is revealed by action, and under-resourcing any effort will play in the market as a disregard for your audience, regardless of how passionate the people at the coal face are.

21 Questions - part one

Earlier this year I had some trouble with Vodafone. In fairness it started when the great southern ocean danced with my BlackBerry and came off best. Then the troubles came whcih manifested itself in my Open Letter to Vodafone. I posted it one evening and woke up the next morning to find Vodafone had spotted it and responded, wanting to help. The only catch was Vodafone UK were the ones coming to the rescue, Vodafone Australia were none the wiser.

Eventually the issues were sorted and in the aftermath I got the chance to pose some questions to the Vodafone UK team. The were great about it, if perhaps a little heavy on the marketing speak at times (I've removed the offending questions). Have a read below and let me know what you think, I'll also be speaking to Vodafone Australia in the near future, if you have something you'd like to ask them, leave a note in the comments and I'll follow up with them.

---

This is the first part of an interview I did with Samantha Bottling & Aileen Thompson who heads up the Group Consumer, Enterprise and Brand Media Relations for Vodafone UK.

A lot of consumers have fairly lukewarm feelings towards phone carriers, it seems to be something that transcends borders fairly easily. The forum you have seems a positive first step, how far do you think companies in this space are truly willing to go in terms of transparency?

Customer service over the last 10 years at Vodafone UK has focussed on giving the customer a choice about how they deal with us as no two customers are the same. Customers also expect that choice, which traditionally has been in the shape of help and advice over the phone, in a retail store, through help centres on a web site or by contacting us by email.

However, web 2.0 has moved the expectations of customers on. More and more customers are using forums to get help from other customers or mobile phone users be it about a particular service or a handset or advice on what decision they should make when choosing a price plan. This has generated a very interesting customer service phenomenon for Vodafone UK.

The early adopters of web 2.0 were in fact those looking for more technical specialist help. Two years ago the dedicated technical services team who take the calls of people who need technical help began to notice a trend online for using forums and decided to monitor the activity. Gradually they began to intervene on the forums helping out customers who were having difficulty getting a mobile to perform a specific function for example - making it clear that they were from Vodafone and a credible source of help. The activity has grown over the last two years as more and more customers grow familiar with the web for help and as more and more forums spring up.

The response to the help the team was providing on forums was extremely positive and has helped to forge a very strong reputation for concise clear help from Vodafone. But not only is there an appetite for this kind of help so the breadth of topics on the forums has also grown - no longer is it just technical handset help that is required. The natural step for the team was to set up a Vodafone hosted forum, which would allow the team to help with very specific technical queries right through to queries about Vodafone services, as well as more general mobile questions.

Another reason for having our own forum is that we can use the content more effectively by linking to and from it – using the forum content cleverly to maximise value to customers. So in the Help Centre if customers need more specific help we can direct them to the forum, and in the forum we can link to existing help content, inter-linking the content and making it more valuable overall than two stand-alone areas.

ROI on social media and blogs is pretty hard to justify in traditional terms. How was that tackled at Vodafone? Is it something that requires a constant effort to justify the existence to the bean counters or have you managed to find a way around it?

We can measure it in relation to how the service is used, frequency and the strength of the 'customer delight' it brings. Since launching the forum last autumn, Vodafone has seen a steady growth in registrations and page views. Around 3,000 people visit the site each day and use the forum as a database for help.

The forum runs like any other forum in that customers are helping each other out, sharing experiences, solutions and tips and also recommending services and products. The forum has some guidelines and Terms & Conditions for use and is monitored and moderated 24/7. The forum team is always on hand and very quick to respond because it is managed around the clock. The team intervenes to help when a customer's query can't be answered by another customer and if necessary make factual corrections to posts. If the query is sensitive and shouldn't be discussed in front of other customers - like a billing query - then the forum team arranges to contact the customer another way.

What we have also found is that this is not necessarily replacing calls to the contact centres – though it does replace the calls that are complex. In fact we believe we are helping customers who might not have otherwise contacted us and would have struggled on or just not used a service properly or at all. We are filling a customer service gap.

It is also giving customers more confidence to try new things because it is a safe anonymous place where they can share their experiences. The forum is also a place where people can either quickly find an answer using the forum as a database or can post a question and come back to it later in the day if it's not urgent and they don't have the time to make a call to us - the forum is simply a new way for customers to get help but with minimum effort, which is just as customer service should be.

It is also very cost efficient for us. We can answer a question that perhaps 1000 people will view and find useful because it saves them the time having to post a question and wait for an answer.

I was talking to the MD of a digital agency recently, and he said quite candidly that we're still figuring out what "digital strategy" really means. How much of your approach is to throw it at the wall and see what sticks?

We do have a strategy in place for CRM and for online. It is executed according to what suits the local market. For example in Spain forums and blogs are set up in relation to particular campaigns on music for example and run the length of the campaign. In the Netherlands Vodafone has a combination of forums for campaigns,  as well as monitoring external forums to help out customers and blogging on new editions to the handset range, adding handsets to Flickr, blogging on news service. The Dutch online audience is so great in Holland that this blend of activity it is expected of them.

--

I'll post the second part tomorrow, thanks to Aileen and Samantha for their time.

It's as simple as that

[caption id="attachment_301" align="aligncenter" width="486" caption="Simple or Accessible?"][/caption]

1+1=2 is the whole shebang. nothing more to see, eebida eebida eebida that's all folks.

e=mc2 isn't nearly the whole shebang. But it is the door you enter through.

Sometimes things are simple, sometimes they're simply accessible. Often we're too close to be able to tell the difference, it's an important one though.

Of course Einstein himself said "If your idea can't be explained on the back of a napkin, you haven't thought it through."

Here's a very simple idea though:

Step by step

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Step by step"][/caption]

This is something I touched on in a much earlier post, but never really dug out and gave it the attention it deserved. I shared it with others over a beer, Julian gave it a good "shit-test", and Scott Drummond even stole my thunder and quoted me on it. So, here it is, David Gillespie's Marketing Mantra. Five points, 2 of which are mine, the other three are linked to their authors who you should absolutely take the time to read.

Try it on for size and let me know what you think.

1. Markets are conversations.

2. Conversations happen around social objects.

3. Social objects are products or services that are remarkable.

4. Remarkable is not just something special, but something worth being remarked about.

5. A great product, and even better customer service are the most remarkable things you can offer.

--

Image courtesy of Pensiero, with thanks to compfight.

Borders 2.0 - The lines don't run where we say they do

This is the second post in my series on the A to Z of 2.0.

In the couple weeks since I wrote America 2.0 a lot has changed. Not necessarily in terms of what I wrote, but the landscape in which those events now play out. I’m not interested in getting into debates around party lines, particularly lines that exist in a country I am not a resident or national of. What I will say though is for Borders 2.0 to be a reality, America 2.0 needs to occur.

The piece I wrote got me thinking a lot about why I wrote it, what my motivations were. Why does a 20-something Australian feel compelled to wax lyrical about the American dream, and do so without the irony that has mired it for fourty years and made it a mockery, an idea that stokes visions of a million Americans waving flags in a stadium, all shouting “USA!” as if the people supporting the other guy were somehow running with another country’s agenda. In fairness, those scenes played out at both the Republican and Democratic conventions, the simple memory of it makes me feel ill.

I talked a lot about America 2.0 with friends who read it, and it lead naturally into a discussion about what it was to be Australian. Our last Prime Minister had created a citizenship test, an utterly ludicrous idea, as if you could distill the makings of a nation into a series of multiple choice questions and then decide who was fit to call it home. I'm embarrassed to even acknowledge it exists.

On a long drive with a friend one day, he said himself he didn’t know what it was to be Australian, despite having lived here all his life. There weren’t tangible things he could grasp that would seem to make sense, so he couldn’t identify with that ideal, even though on paper there was no barrier to it.

In a 2.0 environment, what does it mean to be of any nationality? When every day I communicate with more people in other countries than I do in my own, we’re moving to a place where a national identity is increasingly fragmented, without a country of origin. By the very nature of the medium, issues and ideas are shared and not curtailed by geography or demography. Anyone who wants in on an issue can take part in the debate, and shape it. Where are you from is a matter of curiosity, not an attempt to validate a point of view.

Communication by devices with no notion of national divides is an interesting one. I grew up in Hong Kong and never really saw the distinction between me and the kids from other countries, my younger brother took it further: he couldn’t see the colour of another’s skin, instead telling Mum his best friend had curly hair, not that he was a young black boy from America.

And that is how it should be.

What does that make the reality of our world into? Away from nationalism and a geo-local focus, when the connections I have with the other side of the world are as strong as the ones I have with my physical neighbour? A philosopher has more in common with a philosopher on the other side of the world than he does with a street sweeper outside his house; what does that mean?

For me, it comes back to a simple mantra readers of this site have heard me say a hundred times: open beats closed. By choosing to define a sense of identity not from a place of birth but by a set of ideals, we opt in to what matters personally.

Open beats closed doesn’t mean open borders beat closed borders. It means borders as lines on a map cease to exist; the lines are the ones between the haves and have-nots.

In this century we will do more to advance the notion of humanity than anything before us if we can finally grasp a notion treated with as much cynicism as the American dream: the human race. In this race the direct correlation with nationalism would be to promote a rich-get-richer agenda which is wildly off the mark. In this race we recognise the problems facing a farmer in a field in Bangladesh contending with rising flood waters is our problem. Is my problem. Is your problem. And something must be done about it.

Borders 2.0 is about recognising where the lines actually fall, because they don’t run where we say they do. I am affected by Barack Obama becoming the US president just as I am affected by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. I am affected by when and where we recognise the lines falling and what we collectively choose to do about it.

We can’t draw the lines that comprise Borders 2.0, but they do exist. We have an opportunity though to ensure they don’t remain, and it is one of the few things in this world it is worth all of us working on, all the time.

--

Image courtesy of Libertinus, with thanks to compfight.

Isn't she lovely

(I hate that song)

Forget the marketing crap. Today something much more important is going on - it's my Mum's birthday.

My mum had the unenviable task of raising three boys - four if you count my Dad (which you should). She is a big part of the inspiration behind the title of this blog, given that for years she has professed herself as not a creative woman, yet made sure none of us ever went hungry, broke or unloved - acts of miraculous creativity, particularly that last one given how much of a pain in the ass I was as a teenager. I don't think there's ever been an angrier young man with more immaculate hair.

She continues to be an incredible presence in all of her boy's lives, as well as my biggest support and greatest fan. Were it not for her encouragement, I would never have had the strength to shed the work that goes on 9-5 and do something worthwhile with my spare time.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Here she is partying with me and my friends on a beach in Byron Bay this year.
It's about 2am. She rocks."][/caption]

So, Mum, happy birthday. Thanks for everything, I'll try not to let you down.

Love me xxx

I'm a rocker, baby I'm a rocker

"Marketing must be one of those professions where salaries give you the best bang for buck as an employer."

He was saying most marketers aren't all that bright.

I can't say I disagreed with him at the time.

The above quote was delivered to me yesterday at breakfast from a friend who heads up international business development at a company any Australian who reads this blog would be familiar with. I'd just finished telling him how a client had recently said to me "We don't know about that technology stuff, we're just marketers."

When she said "that technology stuff", she meant the Internet.

Give me strength.

I said last week marketing isn't rocket science, and it isn't. Unfortunately it's also almost completely devoid of the courage required to alter the markets these people exist in (As an aside, they say no one is so sanctimonious as a reformed smoker, I wonder if the same can be said for anyone who walks away from jobs in marketing and advertising to something a little less transient?).

Of course the flip side of that is agencies who have those ideas clearly need to get better at articulating the more strategic paths forward, and in order to get there we need to prove we're good for more than just the last campaign. I spoke to someone last night from the company responsible Coke's new bottle debacle and reiterated my point: someone should have been fired for that nonsense.

Regardless, let's forget all that marketing stuff today, go read this fantastic post by Umair Haque, What Apple Knows That Facebook Doesn't. Be warned, it is loaded with "that technology stuff".

*sigh*

Ok, almost 9am, time to give her a call. Serenity now...serenity now...

--

Image courtesy of Stephen Poff, with thanks to compfight.

When you say nothing at all

Given my Blackberry has died another horrible death, I don't have the photo I took specifically for this post. Actually it isn't quite true to say my BlackBerry has died, it still works, the screen just doesn't show anything other than white. Is this the device equivalent of being blind or in some way physically incapacitated? Yes, it can still do all of the things the manufacturer says it can do, I unfortunately don't know the entire menu system backwards and thus am not sure where to press. My fault clearly.

Anyway...

Coke. My friends at Coke. You currently have an outdoor campaign plastered all over the bus stops and tram shelters of Melbourne - probably the country. The ad shows a young man gripping the sides of a Coke bottle with either hand while the copy says "Hold on and enjoy the ride."

Seriously.

You are Coke. You have one of the best known brands the world over, a brand that, unlike the McDonalds or Nike's of the world, has managed to escape much of the multinational & eco hoo-haa that has plagued many other symbols of popular culture. The Happiness Factory was genius, and positioned the brand at the edge of advertising, where original content is employed to tell stories beyond the scope of a soft drink.

And the only story you have to tell right now is a new bottle shape?

You should be ashamed of yourselves. And somebody should definitely get fired.

A new bottle.

Sweet mother of all that is good and pure, what a waste of time.

--

Image courtesy of hangdog, with thanks to compfight.

Your kiss is on my list

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, this one requires just two.

[caption id="attachment_268" align="alignnone" width="540" caption="Qantas booking process error"][/caption]

Epic. Fail.

Some things to think about:

• They probably mean they couldn't find flights, but they don't say that


• They have the means to flag that while I am planning my trip (saving me time)


• The error effectively ends my experience. No links elsewhere, it just dies.


• If this was the last experience someone had with your brand, product or service, how would you feel?


• If Qantas had some basic Google alerts setup, they'd know about this post just a couple seconds after I post it...we'll find out if they do.

On the mic with Mike

As regularly as out jet-setting schedules will allow, I and a good friend, Dr. Michael Hewitt-Gleeson get together for an exchange of ideas and a bottle of wine. At our last meeting I decided we should begin to document some of the things we talk about, so while this one runs a little longer than I expected, consider it the pilot for what is to come.

We touch on why people over-complicate situations they're in, as well as the culture we've built up in a desperate attempt to avoid the inevitable (that is, find ourselves in the wrong). I wrote quite a bit earlier this year on embracing the times when we're wrong and encouraging the right kinds of mistakes in others, please check that out too.

Hope you enjoy!



We also reference the following talk by Sir Ken Robinson.



Lastly, please check out Michael's School of Thinking and sign up for free daily thought exercises and programs designed to make you a more perceptive person and a better overall thinker.

Harsh words are spoken, promises are broken

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="195" caption="Acta non verba"][/caption]

Are we really marketing something 24/7? Ourselves? Our world view? The part of town we live in? The kind of computer we use?

Well...yes.

My mate Jules refers to it as social capital, and while in this series he talks about it with regards to a necklace, there's really an element of it in everything we do.

Our workplaces have it as well, and often companies market to themselves and to their employees just as much as they market to potential customers. The transaction is the same, and goes like this:

1. A statement is made.


2. An action takes place.


3. An observer (the employee, the potential customer, my friend at the pub) hears the words and observes the behaviour and then checks if it matches up.


4. An opinion based on the correlation between words and deeds is formed.


5. We rinse and repeat.

That's marketing people, it isn't rocket science. If your actions do not routinely match what comes out of your mouth, nobody will take you seriously. Marketing is a part of business strategy, a process of aligning a business so that its actions (which is the core function of the business) match up to the words (which is the core function of marketing).

Can someone please remind me why marketing and business development are still arranged at odds with each other?

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Image courtesy of Rico Morán (note: not Rick Moranis), with thanks to compfight.