the art of conversation

People's Peperami

In August Unilever announced it was crowdsourcing its new Peperami advertising, ending its 16-year relationship with its agency, Lowe. Hearing recently that Unilever is looking to extend crowdsourcing to other brands is an even bigger surprise.

Is the reason for this 'creative abuse' purely budgetary? Or is it the case that, as far as Peperami is concerned, the brand is strong enough to appeal to the popular vote? The judges have been fired, now the public have to decide. 

But how Unilever will sort through 1,185 entries? It will be interesting to see whether Joe Bloggs is the winner ,or an advertising freelancer pitching for the $10,000 prize. Like Doritos' user-generated 'Tribe' campaign,  it's a cheap and engaging way of putting power to the people. 

Although Unilever envisages crowdsourcing as the way forward for Peperami, when the brand's equity starts to run dry and Peperami could yet be knocking on agency doors asking for help once again. 

Simon

Hand from Above

Hand from Above from Chris O'Shea on Vimeo, as seen by us on Adverblog.

Commissioned by FACT, Liverpool City council for BBC Big Screen Liverpool and the Live Sites Network,  artist/designer Chris O'Shea created this impressive outdoor digital display called 'Hand from Above'. Its implications for outdoor digital advertising must be whetting Kevin Roberts's SISOMO-coated lips.   

The idea is to have us question our daily routine by having a giant, intervening hand stop us in our tracks by being 'tickled, stretched, flicked or removed entirely in real time by a giant deity'. 

Creative Review posted a brief excerpt from an interview with O'Shea plus accompanying diagram on the technicalities of how the display works.

Just as flash mobs stretched from social networking into T-Mobile adverts, perhaps it won't be too long till we see some branded hands from above. 

The next display is in Cardiff at the BBC Big Screen, 22nd-24th October. If anyone is attending, we'd be interested to know how it goes.

Simon

Flakey Branding

We read the news this morning that Kellogg's has put their logo on to its individual Corn Flakes in an attempt to fight against the threat of own-brand Cornflake labels. 

"There has been an increase in the number of own brands trying to capitalise on the popularity of Kellogg's Cornflakes," claims Helen Lyons, Kellogg's lead food technologist. "'We want shoppers to be under absolutely no illusion that Kellogg's does not make cereal for anyone else.

However Warc reports today that consumers are still trading down, going for own-brand or promotions, as they still hit by tight purse strings. So will the high tech authentification startegy work?

Braver Research

 

Adliterate this week blames clients for advertising's creative stultification. Could a similar problem apply also to research? Are clients less open to less conventional research methods than they claim, given their frequent appeals for imaginative and newer research approaches?  

Many people say that nowadays, for brands to find distinctive, differentiated propositions requires distinctive, differentiated processes in terms of research and planning. 

The much-maligned group discussion can be the right tool. (Mr Huntington may not like to admit it but he seems to be a frequent 'groupista'). But so can online. And so can ethnography. 

But there is pressure to fall back on 'tried and tested' methodologies to win projects, even if we feel that other approaches may be worth trying. Not because groups are more profitable, but because they represent a currency and a process that clients understand and are comfortable with.   

Groups work when the the conditions are right and the conversation is honest. But even honest discourse and self-reflection cannot provide universal access into our motivations. Sometimes it helps to see for yourself what is going on, rather than to go by someone's account of this.

So one approach we have been developing through our ties with EverydayLives is the 'co-discovery'. First we watch and film someone doing what they do, then we go back and ask them to provide a commentary on what was happening. We 'co-discover' it with them.

Seeing their own behaviour encourages honest self-reflection and can add a new layer of insight and more texture. I doubt whether we would have understood this person's sense of their 'work/life balance' in anything like as much depth had we only interviewed him:

Clients have to be bolder, take a leap faith, if they want to make headway in an over-saturated, ever more competitive market. It is our duty to support and encourage them in this.

Simon

Setting the Standard

 

"Freeeee-evnin' staaanad" may be a new sound for London's workforce as they herd their ways back home after 12th October this year.

But will the news that the Evening Standard is to become 'London's first quality newspaper in the world to go free' mean good quality journalism and a claimed increase from 250,000 copies to 600,000?

In other news it seems that a second evening freesheet, London Lite, may disappear, following the demise of the London Paper. Shame. Reading them on the way home was about as productive and pleasurable an experience as poking yourself in the eye with a fork.

So the Standard's only real competition as a London paper will soon be the morning freebie, Metro. Will the Standard come across as an examplar of 'quality journalism', comopared to the Metro, when both are free?

The Standard is as much part of London life as the Congestion Charge, Tube strikes and over-priced restaurants. It used to be like the Daily Mail with more restaurant reviews and before its takeover by Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev for the price of two issues, did some good campaigning and had some good journalists. And Michael Winner.