We, the clients, promise: not to call any agency contact before 9am or after 5.30pm unless it really is actually properly urgent to ask no more than five agencies to take part in any creative pitch and to make clear at the outset the number of pitch stages involved to provide hot/cold drinks and (preferably chocolate) … Continue reading promises, promises – a few suggestions for a better relationship
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pitching should be a two-way process
At the Northern Planning Summit last Thursday night in Sheffield we ended up discussing what would you chose not to pitch for as an agency?, which encompassed wider issues like are they flogging booze/sub-prime finance/fags/politics (delete according to where you draw the line) and are they likely to turn into the client from hell? Which made me think alot … Continue reading pitching should be a two-way process
matrix revisited
Has anyone else noticed just how much Matrix rip-off creative there is around at the moment? Specsavers, moneysupermarket.com and young person's railcard are all recent culprits. moneysupermarket.com Specsavers Young Person's Railcard - taken from their website as I couldn't get a shot of the poster as the train whizzed by Yes, I know Matrix is … Continue reading matrix revisited
Boxy but Good
I rented Crazy People last week on DVD, which features possibly the best press ad that never got made:
Invasion of the Bravia Bunnies
Thanks to coverage on the blogosphere, its been almost impossible to ignore the invasion of Sony's giant bunnies. Event TV might have died with the advent of digital & satellite, but we appear to have entered the age of Event Advertising. Never mind simply spending a fortune on TVRs, it seems that with enough hype … Continue reading Invasion of the Bravia Bunnies
Marketing to women? Don’t just think pink.
Trendwatching.com has a female fever report on its August trend briefing – but the thing that most struck me was that the majority of the female-friendly products were pink. Personally, I don’t feel the need for a pink taxi, pair of trainers or pink gardening gloves as I’d much rather the key selling point was that … Continue reading Marketing to women? Don’t just think pink.
The perils of publishing
I’m working on a gardening project at the moment, so I popped down to the newsagents to get stocked up on the latest issues of the garden mags. It seems that Country Living (as a monthly title) is struggling to keep up with recent meteorological events: Whereas the weekly Amateur Gardening is dealing with up-to-the-minute … Continue reading The perils of publishing
hypertime and the physics of comics
If you weren’t at interesting2007, one of the most (surprisingly for me, given the topic) interesting talks was Jack Schulze’s entertaining presentation on hypertime and the general physics of comics. You can check out the slides and transcript here. Hypertime is explained as “a manifestation in the story of the comic which allows the writers … Continue reading hypertime and the physics of comics
respect your account handler
Due to various illness/holiday type-absences, as last-client-contact-standing I've been a lot more involved in the day-to-day running of one of my clients than I would normally. Its been a real eye-opener. Its easy to forget just how many hurdles a piece of work has to go through between concept and execution. And how many opportunities … Continue reading respect your account handler
slipstreaming into the plannersphere
Russell Davies has posted about social slipstreaming – essentially 'stalking' someone who is more into something than you (like music or gigs or politics) and using them as a guide to the subject. It struck me that this Planning web/blog/twitter/wiki/coffee morning/interesting conference malarkey is a kind of work slipstreaming. We Planners tend to plough a … Continue reading slipstreaming into the plannersphere