5 key principles for all marketers

Contagious magazine and creative agency Devilfish last week co-hosted a breakfast for forward-thinking marketers in London entitled 'punching above your weight' which encompassed inspiring talks from heavyweights both client side and agency, and luckily for those of us on the other side of the world they wrote all about it here.

There were several great case studies talked about including the likes of Method and mobile start up GiffGaff , but for me, the most inspiring aspect of the talks stemmed from the simple but altogether crucial 5 principles that creative agency Devilfish hold themselves to:

• Be bold
• Make friends
• Keep talking (and listening)
• Make a difference
• Spend less
• Think harder

Many agencies have a core proposition which can govern work output such as Naked's 'everything communicates', Mediacoms 'people first, better results' or BWM's 'challenge, change, grow' but underneath all of these there should be guiding ideals such as these 5 principles which will add more discipline, positivity and direction to what we do.

It's already clear that some of the award winning work that has been created in recent times has met with at least some, if not all of these principles:

Be bold (aka change the status quo)

• Old Spice - the original ad itself (aka talking straight to viewer, continuous shot) as well as the latest 24 hour video bonanza shows us how the future of advertising may look...
• Pepsi Refresh - leaving behind a 23 year Superbowl advertising tradition to focus money entirely on a social media project
• Twelpforce - Best Buy's customer service goes Twitter crazy and responds to all tech questions not just related to Best Buy and it's products

Make friends (build yourself a community or following)

• Starbucks recently became the first brand to achieve 10 million Facebook Fans reportedly worth $1.8 million in potential revenue 
• Again, Twelpforce via customer service and building a strong community following they positively impacted brand health and sales

Keep talking (and listening)

• Gatorade recently launched their social media command centre which houses some amazing bespoke systems and softwares tracking every mention of Gatorade on the social web, their truly understanding that consumer knowledge is power
• Greenpeace has recently shown the value of their continuous social strategy. They have an impressively comprehensive approach such as using Vimeo as a back up when Youtube removes their videos and singling out companies one at a time to launch the most effective plan of attack and impact

Make a difference

• Forbes recently compiled a list of the most innovative CSR programs by brands in recent times which included amazingly simple campaigns such as Tide's 'Loads of hope' which started after Hurricane Katrina and offered to do victims laundry for free as well as the recent Levi's 'Go Forth' idea around urban regeneration

Spend less

• A recent campaign for breast cancer awareness in Poland focused on broadening their communications towards men to educate them about how to feel breasts correctly to identify lumps. They used the insight that men who appreciate breasts may spend more time on porn sites so they housed their campaign on one! They only spent 1,300 Euros and educated 175,000 men in one week

Think harder

• All of the above campaign examples represent people thinking a bit harder about the objectives and the solutions rather than jumping to the 'tried and tested' or obvious answers and should be celebrated for doing so.

Now lets all put these principles into action!

10 brands that will disappear in 2011

I just came across a great article by 24/7 Wall Street who have compiled a list of 10 brands they think will disappear by the end of 2011.

It's interesting to note that 2 of the 10 are facing closure due to advances in technology and their inability to adapt their business models (Blockbuster Video & Readers Digest), this also affects those brands who have been placed on the 'risk list' but are outside of the top 10 such as Borders book stores.

You can read the full article here

Youtube Gold

It's Friday, and that means that office workers across the land descend into the world of internet memes and comedy, so here's my contribution:

'How to trick people into thinking you're good looking'

Remember Me: RFID Tags attach stories to charity store items

I have a bit of an obsession with RFID tags at the moment, I love the idea of tying together real-world objects and technology in order to open up a whole world of ideas and stories.


Here's a great example of how it can be used by Oxfam:


People donating items at an Oxfam store in Manchester were asked to tell a story about one or more of their specific objects into a microphone, including when and where they acquired it and any personal stories associated with it.
These clips were then linked to an RFID tag and QR code and the items were tagged with the story and added to the shop's stock.
Shoppers then used their smart phone or a bespoke RFID reader to listen to the stories through speakers in the shop, and were invited to purchase the story-tagged objects.

via @springwise

Dean Christie: First impressions of Naked

Dean Christie is a fellow comms strategist who has recently joined the ranks at Naked Sydney.
He's written a great post on the Naked blog about his first impressions of us and how he's fitting in!

Read it here: http://sydnaked.typepad.com/naked_blogging/2010/07/my-first-impressions-of-naked.html

One of the coolest things I've seen for a while...

I saw the headline 'Man decorates basement with $10 worth of sharpie' and had to take a closer look...
This article was originally published in September 2008 but I've only just noticed it so bear with me if I'm behind the times!


Excerpt: When Charlie Kratzer started on the basement art project in his south Lexington home, he was surrounded by walls painted a classic cream. Ten dollars of Magic Marker and Sharpie later, the place was black and cream and drawn all over.

There are fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes, Winston Churchill lounging with George Bernard Shaw — and the TV squirrel Rocky and his less adroit moose pal Bullwinkle.

You can read more here and see the full 360 degree view: http://www.kentucky.com/2008/09/23/532854/man-decorates-basement-with-10.html#ixzz0tdLg2NXD

I'm not sure if Lexmark/Sharpie subsequently used Mr Kratzer within their advertising activity or if they rewarded him with a lifetimes supply of Sharpies but if they didn't, they certainly should have!

Blendtec: Vuvuzela

Another fantastic contextually-relevant blending video from the geniuses at Blendtech, this stuff never gets old for me...