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.

--

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.

--

• 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.

--

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.

--

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.