April 2012
35 posts
“I write to discover what I think.
That’s a paraphrase of a quote from esteemed...”
– How I blog (7 stories to read this weekend)
“Why do people like the ottoman better if it appears to the left of the throw rug...”
– piece on A/B testing (Why ad agencies should embrace A/B testing, too)
“They seem to need many times the budget (why is that?) that a good social...”
– Why media agencies suck at Facebook advertising - mUmBRELLA
1 tag
“What do you remember most - the IDEA or the ‘channel’ you saw it on? Grey has proven again and again that it all starts with BIG IDEAS. There’s not a communications channel in the world that can fix a bad idea.”
That is a quote attributed on the Grey website to Luke Waldren, who earlier this month got promoted to CEO of Grey Group Australia. (I can’t deep...
There may be nothing scarier in business than facing an existential threat. So scary that many in the organization will do anything to avoid it. They will look for any alternative, any way out, any excuse not to live or die in a single battle. I see this often in start up pitches. The conversations go something like this: Entrepreneur: “We have the best product in the market by far. All the customers love it and prefer it to competitor X.”
Me: “Why does competitor X have five times your revenue?”
Entrepreneur: “We are using partners and OEMs, because we can’t build a direct channel like competitor X.”
Me: “Why not? If you have the better product, why not knuckle up and go to war?”
Entrepreneur: “Ummm.”
Me: “Stop looking for the silver bullet.”
There comes a time in every company’s life where it must fight for its life. If you find yourself running when you should be fighting, you need to ask yourself: “If our company isn’t good enough to win, then do we need to exist at all?”
1 tag
An unvoiced contradiction
So much of a creative agency’s time, effort & focus is spent on the detail and the execution, the “craft”. They go back and forth over weights of lines, or font faces used, or size of images. None of this is bad.
But all of this is done in the hope that response will be increased (be it literal response, or impact, or takeway). Increased because it’s more impactful, or more noticeable, or...
“We should organise ourselves to deliver unexpected outputs in response to...”
– Playing to our strengths – thoughts on “agency” prompted by Google Firestarters #3 « Sawdust
“However, if the client CEO or CFO rather than the marketing manager were to...”
– Playing to our strengths – thoughts on “agency” prompted by Google Firestarters #3 « Sawdust
“[in agencies] outcomes have become divorced from outputs”
– Google #Firestarters 3: The New Operating System For Agencies - The Event - Only Dead Fish
“Rather, the content they create solves customers problems or vividly...”
– How to be sure content marketing produces sales | Econsultancy
“Our belief is that great digital is a team sport, and that means getting all the...”
– Lean Communications | Think Quarterly by Google
“When the Nordstrom Innovation Lab wanted to make an iPad app to help customers...”
– Lean Communications | Think Quarterly by Google
“They’ll need to analyze information and think about how to develop an...”
– Ad Exchanges: Disrupting the Digital Agency | ClickZ
1 tag
Facebook
There was an article in the biz section of The Age this weekend, that suggested Channel 10 is about to do a deal with Facebook. Details are very (very) light on, but it draws parallels to the co-habitation arrangements that Seven has with Yahoo, and PBL has with MSN, including hinting at a resales arrangement where Ten would handle FB ad inventory.
It’s not going to happen - at least not...
“One of the Dataminr’s key strengths is the way it can absorb and merge...”
– Dataminr builds a Twitter-powered early warning system
“Trying to retro-fit a TV advert on a cell phone probably won’t succeed, but if...”
– Executive Insight: Ajaz Ahmed | Think Quarterly by Google
“Here’s the problem, and nobody wants to admit it: The CEO or CFO can look at a...”
– Big Data: Can’t Get There From Here | Snarketing 2.0
“And, of course, you’re 100% correct. But my self-delusion is no different than...”
– Big Data: Can’t Get There From Here | Snarketing 2.0
“The people who make the big changes, the big leaps, are the ones who actually...”
– The Creativity Club | Think Quarterly by Google
“Hammerbacher looked around Silicon Valley at companies like his own, Google...”
– This Tech Bubble Is Different - BusinessWeek
“This contradiction, and this identity crisis, however, doesn’t just exist within...”
– Madison Avenue’s Identity Crisis (And Why Silicon Valley Still Needs To Learn From The Ad Industry) | Co.Create: Creativity \ Culture \ Commerce
“In the past 12 months, a number of advertising professionals have left the...”
– Madison Avenue’s Identity Crisis (And Why Silicon Valley Still Needs To Learn From The Ad Industry) | Co.Create: Creativity \ Culture \ Commerce
“Some would point to this as a sign of a bubble, but I think it’s more likely it...”
– Instagram’s Buyout: No Bubble to See Here | Epicenter | Wired.com
“For what it’s worth I define curation as people choosing things and aggregation...”
– The Curation Debate | Noah Brier dot Com
“It defines this generation to me. They grew up with Internet Freedom, it is a...”
– A VC: Life Liberty and Blazing Broadband
“More importantly, it cracked the code where Facebook itself failed: viral growth...”
– Here is why Facebook bought Instagram — Tech News and Analysis
“Their main point of agreement is that the Internet has changed the world...”
– In the Battles of SOPA and PIPA, Who Should Control the Internet? | Culture | Vanity Fair
“Big staff numbers and multi-disciplined agency departments do not necessarily...”
– Campaign Asia blog » Blog Archive » Small Agency vs Big Agency
“The challenge with having a lot of experience is recognising when you need to...”
– Talking Digital Q&A #4: Dave King, Co-Founder The Royals | talking digital – Ben Shepherd
“A David Jones spokeswoman said eBay had approached the retailer some months ago...”
– David Jones shuns eBay offer
March 2012
14 posts
“But the taste-from-space-and-freedom system doesn’t work for everyone. It...”
– Undercurrent – People Magic, Part 1: Capability
“Handing out the odd gold statuette is a whole lot cheaper than dishing out stock...”
– A Short Lesson in Perspective - The San Francisco Egotist 