Author Archive

Has Technology Hit a Plateau?

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

Above Image: Image of the Uniqlo Lucky Counter

So the summer and awards are over. I judged the One Show earlier this year and kept a pretty close eye on everything else as well. And although there were some good pieces, there was nothing earth-shatteringly good. The closest was Nike Chalkbot.

There could be a number of reasons for this. First up when the economy is tanking no one wants to take risks. Also maybe when the world is in a recession it’s also just a little depressing and you wonder whether you really care or not, you are reluctant to go the extra mile. Who knows?

But one thing I think is true is that there was nothing really new in terms of technology. With regards to technology and advertising we seem to have hit a plateau.

No Longer About New

It used to be that judging awards was pretty simple because changes in technology allowed you to do things that no one had seen before. So the first banner to house video: Gong! The first banners that talked to each other: Gong! Papervision doing jazzy things: Gong! Having fun with webcams or more recently Augmented Reality: Gong! First branded iPhone app: Gong! Of course to win really big it wasn’t enough to just use those new pieces of tech – you had to pair them with a decent idea or that was well crafted (sometimes even both!). But for a long time there was definitely a sense of, ‘ooh I haven’t seen that before.’ Gong! I’m as guilty as anyone in that regard. But this is changing.

And this is a good thing. For too long the interactive world has obsessed with technology and being first. When I award work I like to think it will last the test of time. So that means not blindly awarding something because it’s not been done before but actually studying whether it’s a decent idea and has some story to it. For example the technology behind Chalkbot is nothing special, it’s Twitter and a computer controlled spray can, but it has real emotion and tells a story. Bob Greenberg is famous for saying that storytelling is dead in the digital age. I can’t believe that he really believes that, I think he’s just fishing for headlines.

Back to Content

The flip side to this is that we have to stop dismissing something because it’s been done before – from a technology point of view. Saying a YouTube page takeover has been done and therefore is not worth awarding isn’t far off from discounting a great TV spot because 30 second TV ads have been done. Of course if the actual creative idea has been done, work should absolutely be marked down. What I think, is that we need to start awarding ideas and craft rather than “media firsts.” New does not necessarily mean good.

Have we really reached a plateau? I think so. People are now comfortable with all forms of Social Media, Geo Location & Augmented Reality. The changes I see ahead are more about convergence (Google TV, etc) than a new piece of technology breaking through. Some recent work that’s hit the headlines seems to prove this point. The Uniqlo Lucky Counter site (Image Above), where the price goes down the more you tweet about a garment, is a fine example of how technology has become mainstream. And the Arcade Fire Google Maps work (which although I think is interesting, is perhaps not as good as most people seem to think) is made possible through people feeling comfortable with Google Maps’ functionality.

The correlation of this is, of course, that if we are no longer obsessing about technology and being the first to use it (technology has become more democratic). The creative power – in theory – swings away from digital agencies and more towards ad agencies. In theory.

Category: Creative, Digital & Interactive, Thought Leadership

Zero Waste Creativity

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Designer Timo Rissanen with zero-waste denim pieces he designed (photo from NYTimes.com)

How often do you say to yourself about a brief, a trip or a meeting – “what a total waste of time”?

Maddeningly often I suspect. And even when a project comes to fruition, I’ll wager it was the result of many meetings, many ideas presented, many ideas ritually sacrificed at research groups and multiple rounds of changes. It’s the world we live in. But why?

A Fashion Forward Idea

Last year I was lucky enough to meet Mark Dwight, founder of Rickshaw Bags in San Francisco. He previously ran Timbuk2, but came to the conclusion that there was a better way to make bags. At Rickshaw, he makes what are called “zero waste” bike messenger bags. He gave me one. It’s great. It’s super strong, lightweight, looks kind of cool. It works. It’s a good size better than the Rag & Bone messenger bag I bought at a sample sale that it replaced.

At the weekend I saw a story in The New York Times about Zero Waste jeans. When you read up on it, there is definitely a movement in the fashion world that’s trying eliminate waste with a unique aesthetic that’s come out of it. For more examples, see this piece by Mark Liu.

We Waste Because we Can

This got me thinking about a new idea - Zero Waste Creativity.

What is it? I’m not sure, it‘s definitely pie in the sky at the moment; but it’s something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit. Today, we’re all programmed to ‘over deliver’. This is seen as a ‘good’ thing. We present five ideas when we know that only one will run. We agree to multiple rounds of changes because we want to collaborate. We agree to let some ideas die in testing so that others may survive the process.

We do these things because we can . . . and because no one has told us to do it differently. It’s a lot like how a huge number of New Yorkers’ utility bill is included in their monthly rent. When summer rolls around, they leave the air conditioning on all day, even when they’re at the office or away on vacation. If someone questioned them on it, they would almost certainly admit it’s a waste . . .  but they do it anyway – because they can. (We’ll get back to this in a bit)

A New Model

What if we came to an agreement with clients that allowed us to  try a zero waste creative policy? The process could be something like this:

The Brief. Many times we take it upon ourselves to work on a brief before it’s even been agreed. We want to appear eager. Frequently the brief will change over time, rendering earlier work redundant. What if we agreed to spend a full day really thrashing out a brief that everyone is in total agreement on? A day seems like a lot of time, but it’s not when you compare it to the weeks of revisions, second-guessing, changes of mind and grumpiness that comes from the lost ideas our current model racks up.   

The Idea. Once a brief is signed-off on, agency and client mutually agree to see only the best ideas. Ideas that will actually be made, not the ones we all know will be tossed aside as ‘nice to haves’. For the sake of clarity, we’ll say we agree on running one idea - but it works for any number. The Agency spends their time developing one truly brilliant idea, rather than five mediocre ones. They know they have to make it brilliant because there is no fall back. In return, they have the time to examine every angle possible and answer the brief properly rather than spewing several ideas out to see what sticks.

Review Process. With the multiple-rounds of revisions typical now, people second guess themselves, start feeling pressure to make changes to an idea because they have the chance (like the air conditioning), and end up straying from the original concept. Nine times out of ten we all go round in a circle, ending right back where we started or (worse), with an inferior product.  

With a Zero Waste Creativity model, the client buys the single idea presented. Not because they have to, but because it’s great, because it’s been well thought out and because it comes from the mutually defined brief. Both parties would agree to one (and only one) round of changes, which would focus all parties’ thoughts on exactly what needs to be changed. The right changes are made and agreement is reached. No endless rounds of debate. No second guessing. Zero waste.

The Result

The result would be a piece of work that everyone is not only invested in, but that they all feel really good about. Good the same way that people feel when they recycle, drive a Prius or buy a zero waste messenger bag.

Longer term, both agency and client will get more work done, make more money (through being more efficient), are more happy (though not wasting time) and – I’m certain – produce much better work.

Clearly this is all based on trust and a strong client/agency relationship (that works both ways) and just a theory – but why not start an experiment on a piece of business?

Zero Waste Creativity. What have you got to lose?

Front Page Image from Thomas Hawk

Category: Creative, Our People, Thought Leadership

What Makes a Creative Company?

Thursday, July 29th, 2010


At a time when all agencies are discussing what creativity means and how to squeeze it out of every person it’s maybe useful to hear from an organization that I think has an incredible attitude towards its people and how ideas are brought to life.

When you have a moment, check out this talk by Ed Catmull (CEO of Pixar). I was lucky enough to get a guided tour of Pixar earlier this year, or maybe it was last year, I truly have no idea. Anyway, the point being that although they have directors and that person is nominally ‘in charge’ of their creative product the whole place is set up for ideas and experimentation.

One quote for example (which I stole from Neil Perkins’ excellent blog post):

There is this illusion that this person is creative and has all this stuff, well the fact is there are literally thousands of ideas involved in putting something like this together. And the notion of ideas as this singular thing is a fundamental flaw. There are so many ideas that what you need is that group behaving creatively. And the person with the vision I think is unique, there are very few people who have that vision.. but if they are not drawing the best out of people then they will fail.

I met the director of Up, Brad Bird, and the writer of Ratatouille and while they were, yes, incredibly creative and they had a vision it was a vision shared by everyone and something that everyone felt they could input into. One of the painters we met at Pixar had worked with George Lucas on the three most recent CGI-laden Star Wars movies (Episodes 1-3). When I asked him why they sucked so bad, his answer was that no one had the guts to tell George Lucas that they sucked while they were being made. Apparently Lucas’s wife edited the original Star Wars trilogy (Episodes 4-6) and she was responsible for giving a counterbalance when he went overboard. She obviously wasn’t around for the new ones.

Have a look at the movie and have a read of Neil’s post about how we often pigeon hole creativity when it should be everybody’s responsibility to bring ideas to the table.

Category: Creative, Our People

Drinking Kool-Aid From the World Cup

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

Someone cleverer than me once said that sport is drama for people who don’t like the theatre. What is it about sport that is so enticing that hundreds of thousands of people would travel from all over the world to South Africa to watch 11 men they have never met kick a ball for 90 minutes? When you think about it, it’s crazy. But here we are, FIFA made $2bn – tax free- from this years World Cup and guess which country had the most traveling fans. Yup, the USA.

For a long time I have said that Soccer (Football) will become the no.1 sport in this country. It’s incredibly hard for people to see this because the stars and teams of the big 3 sports, Basketball, Baseball and American Football are so huge and the culture of these sports so entrenched with US culture. But that culture is changing, more people watch Soccer than Basketball. As the population demographic changes (more Latinos and Europeans) and US kids are more exposed to global sports stars (through the internet) you will have more people wanting to be David Beckham or Cristiano Ronaldo than Michael Jordan. And where you have a want, you will have an industry to fulfill that need. It won’t happen overnight but like the frog in the boiling water there will come a point where it’s irreversible. Only Basketball of the big 3 has any global appeal and is as simple to play as soccer. So in 30 years time I’ll bet my house that Soccer and Basketball will be the two lead sports in the US.

The US team itself will continue to improve. If you guys had a decent striker you would have beaten Ghana and possibly Uruguay. The US team is incredibly well organized, professional and hard working. The next step is to get some flair, some audacity – actually much like basketball. To do that the US Soccer education system needs to think differently, it needs to think more like Ajax where the focus is on the individual rather than the team. This is alien for most youth coaches because it’s supposed to be all about the team. But if you want to create a Rooney or a Messi you need to be more selfish. More on that in this New York Times piece.

The role of stars versus the team was ever present in the World Cup. The big advertising story was of course the curse of the Nike ‘Write the Future’ spot. Allegedly the most expensive ad in history, none of its stars had a great tournament. In fact, quite embarrassingly, some of them didn’t even make it. Watch the curse in action -

Adidas didn’t fare any better, none of the stars in their convoluted campaign delivered either.

The reasons for that are myriad and would take another couple of pages but the nucleus comes down to the team again. Spain, Uruguay, Germany had no ‘stars’ – not really. They had flair, audacity – individual players who are as good as any ‘stars’ but they play as a team. You only have to look at Robben for Holland in the final – he wanted to score so badly, for his own glory that he screwed up their chances of winning. I saw two Holland games in South Africa and while I am a big fan of their team Robben’s refusal to play as a team player cost them dearly. The stars of Holland could only get so far.

But the thing that the World Cup will most be remembered for is not Spain winning or Ghana missing the penalty, but a small plastic product that cost $5 to buy and probably about 50 cents to make. Yes, the vuvuzela. What can we learn about this phenomenon as marketers? We often talk about viral success, why did the vuvuzela go viral?

1. Simplicity. No instructions needed
2. Visual. It’s unmistakable
3.  Participative. When you see one person doing it that gives you permission to do it. Once you’ve blown that thing you feel like you belong
4.  Creative. The horn is a tool for creativity. Everyone had a different way of blowing it. It comes in loads of different colors.
5.  Fun. I don’t think I really need to explain that but it’s amazing how often agencies and clients forget that people are far more likely to do something that is fun.
6.  Naughty. It started off as a little rebellious. FIFA thought about banning it. Like all cultural movements that merely makes people want it more.

Probably the most important thing for us to remember though is that no one really knows where the vuvuzela came from. It’s not a brand, no one seemed to own it. It came from the street. It’s easy enough for us to use the six points above as a checklist for our work – although we rarely do – we must. But what’s more interesting is how you make a deeper cultural splash. That’s the real Kool-Aid. I’m still working on that.

Category: Events, Film & Television, Our People

Rosé Tinted Glasses.

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

In a rare moment of clarity I have jotted down some thoughts about this year’s Cannes festival. Although last year “Change” was very much on the agenda with Obama’s election campaign winning the titanium grand prix, it set the tone for this year’s event too.

The twentieth Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcase was introduced by a live Richard Myers hologram who explained that Paul Arden would have loved to have been present to introduce the 20th showcase, unfortunately he couldn’t make it as he was dead. Then via a little bit of digital wizardry a talking Paul Arden hologram did indeed introduce the event. You’ll have to ask David Perry about how they actually managed that, but it looked stunningly real. For the films themselves there was a unanimous favorite, the pixels film.

 I think the reason the theatre clapped mid way through this spot was that it combined a number of elements that people love. The craft was obviously present, there was a nod to the old with space invaders and Pac Man characters but also the new with visual effects. All this told charmingly over our very own Manhattan skyline. What’s not to love?

As for some of the other films I had a chat with some senior Saatchi London folk and there was some disagreement over what was hot or not. Personally I liked the crazy woman running away from the machete wielding fat man, I thought it was hilarious. Some of the others, not so much, but where would be the fun if we all agreed on everything?

I hunted out some new technology at the Microsoft tent, to see what we might be expecting to change over the next year or so. The ‘Natal’ project that I wrote about before is now officially called ‘Kinetic’. I stood in front of the Xbox while it scanned in my body parts and then played a white water rafting game and a driving game, using just my arms rather than a controller. A lot of fun and I’m sure destined to change the gaming industry. Just imagine an air guitar version of Rock Band. The other thing I liked from Microsoft was a piece of software called ‘Pivot’. Essentially it was a contextual visual version of excel. One example showed a collection of all the covers of Sports Illustrated which you could then categorize into say, boxing or soccer. There were many other things too which lead me to believe planners will find that Pivot will be both highly addictive and highly additive.

An industry that has been forced to go through massive change is the record business. I met Jennifer Fromer from Interscope Records who has the enviable task of trying to converge brands and artists to find new revenue streams. She had some great stories about the Lady Ga Ga telephone video including why they wanted Miracle Whip, it seems Ga Ga has a liking for that particular product. For more sustained success Jennifer urged agencies to get in touch with record companies at a much earlier stage in the creative process. Artists are much more interested in working with brands on a content and ideas level rather than just getting money for product placement. For me the most important thing Jennifer talked about was the huge success that is The Beats by Dr Dre headphone product line.

When Interscope first heard about the iPod, way back, they correctly thought that music quality was going to be an issue. So along with Dre they developed a quality alternative to those nastily little white buds. A few years later this is a $25m brand. Jennifer was very coy about whether they actually make more money through selling headphones than music but the fact that both a Lady Ga Ga and P-Diddy product extension are coming out, along with a Mary J Blige sunglasses line would seem to indicate that it’s been a worthwhile detour. For those of you that know me you will know that I firmly believe we, as a creative agency, are capable of creating products and brands that will make money. We know that our traditional sources of revenue are being cut. If the music industry can put aside some time and money to develop products surely ad agencies must too.

In terms of the awards having judged the one show this year there were no real surprises, except for perhaps the titanium grand prix. The digital grand prix went to Nike’s brilliant tour de France live messaging campaign, chalkbot, while the top film prize went to Old Spice. We picked up a gold for the Fruit By The Foot spot which was well deserved. What’s interesting is that the phrase from this spot, “I’ve replaced your…” has become a YouTube sensation, second only to, you guessed it, “I’m on a horse”. This is great evidence that proves the notion that if you want to grab people’s attention and make them participate then you need to be creative, you need to go a little left field, try new things rather that stick to the same old tired formulas. Some real data from the IPA in the UK actually states that ads that win creative awards are 11 times more efficient at delivering business success than those that don’t. Please print that last sentence out in a 100 point font, stick it on your wall and chant it religiously to yourself and your clients daily. You have no excuse not to change your ways.

I suppose the one bit of controversy was the Titanium grand prix that went to the Twelpforce campaign for Best Buy. Some would say this is not a piece of creative. I would say that’s entirely the point. This is a service, a utility, rather than a film or a site but it’s certainly a creative solution to a business problem. I hope this Titanium paves the way for more people to think about changing the way they approach briefs.

What else happened in Cannes? I got a little tipsy on the rosé, a little sunburnt and watched a little too much football. Which just goes to show it’s actually all too difficult for people to change their ways.

Category: Awards, Creative, Film & Television, Our People

French Lessons

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Last week I went to the Creative Social event in Paris. I have been going to these events since they first started in Amsterdam in 2004. Creative Social is a conference but not a conference. Only 35 people – mostly digital creative directors attend and it’s invitation only. Sounds kinda snooty but it couldn’t be more open, inspiring and friendly. Over the course of two days we saw projects that everyone else is working on, and heard from speakers predominantly working outside of the industry – probably why we learned so much.

There is more thorough information on the social blog but here are a few highlights that seem to ring true for anyone in a creative endeavor.

We heard from French street artist Zevs (pronounced Zeus – check out his brilliant site), a very thoughtful, humble man you may have seen in the recent Banksy movie, Exit from the Gift Shop. He has a curious relationship with brands. Recently he was arrested in Hong Kong for painting a dripping Chanel logo, he narrowly escaped two years in jail. His dripping logo pieces appear everywhere but, in a weird case of keeper turning poacher, many brands have copied his approach, including adidas. His half a rainbow bus shelter idea was copied by McDonalds but when asked about he said he liked the McDonalds idea, how could he not, it was essentially his idea.

The one other thing he did that was cool was cutting out a huge Lavazza model from a billboard and then holding it to ransom – if an ad agency had done that they probably would have won at Cannes. Oh and did you know that Louis Vuitton copied their LV logotype from Leonardo Da Vinci, cheeky little scamps just dropped the D.

Jeremie Rozan, founder of Surface to Air, gave us a lesson in Small is Beautiful. With a team of only around 10 people he has a clothing brand with stores in Paris, Sao Paulo and, soon, New York, a graphic design business and a hugely successful music video directing career. His film for Justice’s ‘We are your Friends’ won pretty much every award going. He said the idea for it came one afternoon and they just went and did it. If only we – both agency and client – could be more spontaneous?

Some more lessons from outside the industry came from David Mallett, one of the worlds most sought after hairdressers. Chatting while cutting hair – I got the feeling that was when he felt most comfortable – he was a whirlwind of great stories and advice. He told us that sometime clients fly from the other side of the world for an appointment with him hoping for the perfect haircut. If he felt he couldn’t improve on their cut he would say so and send them on their way. Imagine a client with a good body of work approaches an agency, what agency on earth would say, ‘you know what, your existing work is pretty good, we don’t think we’ll change it’. They might lose that particular piece of business but now imagine what kind of respect that agency earns.

I had a lot of respect for Jim Haynes, an American living in Paris who for the last 35 years has invited 60 complete strangers to dinner in his tiny apartment every Sunday night. Talk about social networking. This guy has more friends than Mark Zuckerberg. He had some amazing stories, he told us that travel is the purist form of education, which I can’t help but agree with but the thing that stuck with me the most was that happiness is an intellectual decision he made some time ago. He simply decided to be happy. Food for thought.

So all in all a most inspiring few days, mostly because we heard from people outside the industry. There was one industry speaker, Mark Earls, the Herdmeister, and author of the excellent Herd. He talked about why copy each other – because it’s easier, what it takes to start a trend – five people and a fat bloke – then gave us a stupendously simple briefing technique. It was so good, in fact that I’m going to keep it to myself.

A beintot.

Category: Creative, Digital & Interactive, Thought Leadership

Is SEO killing good writing?

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

Take a look at this clip of music journalist Chris Wiengarten at the recent 140 Conference. He believes that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is killing decent music journalism. His main two points being that journalists are afraid to say a record sucks because The Google prefers positive copy and that timing is more important than quality. The race to be the first person to say ‘At the LCD Soundsystem gig, James Murphy looks cool, if a little podgy’ is now deemed, again, by Google and other SEO bots more important than a well thought out critique of the show three days later.

Then I read a snappy little headline about the snappy little headlines that get passed along on Facebook the most. Get this, posts that are positive are 30% more likely to be shared. And those with a sexual overtone are 90% more likely. In terms of the ‘quality’ of writing it seems that headlines written at a second-grade reading level are also the most likely to be shared. I’m English, I have no idea what that actually means but I’m guessing its not Shakespeare or Salinger.

Combine those two points and it would be easy to conclude that SEO is killing good writing. That if we want to get noticed we should dumb down. But actually I think it’s the opposite.

Recently I was talking to a friend about the Terry Tate Office Linebacker work that Reebok did a LONG time ago. It was still as fresh as a daisy to me though. Why? Because it had some great lines. My personal favorite being, ‘That ain’t new baby!’ Take a look.

And the recent Old Spice ‘I’m on a horse’ spot has racked up 10m views on YouTube already. Introducing a phrase into the common vernacular is marketing gold dust. We had some success with our Doghouse work for JCPenney and to an extent, within a niche, the Fruit by the Foot spot – take a look at the YouTube comments.

So in a world where everyone is trying to be positive and short and sweet (and a little sexy) and rack up those google hits – those same, competing, google hits I’m thinking it pays to be different. It pays to be goofy, kooky, off, weird, strange and all those other words that so give research panels the heebie jeebies.

James Cooper is SVP/Interactive Creative Director at Saatchi & Saatchi New York

Image source: Talk Macs

Category: Creative, Digital & Interactive, writing

Project Natal

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Stills from the Connect A Million Minds Project Natal case study

I’ve seen a few different videos of Microsoft’s Project Natal, the recognition based game controller. The first one Microsoft produced was a fairly simple product demo, including a kid skateboarding and family quiz night. Then there is the Jimmy Fallon demo and more recently the Lionhead Software demo. All are worth a look if you are interested in the future of gaming.

I saw Peter Molineux speak at South by South West this year on the emotion of gaming. He talked about how the third release of their blockbuster game Fable included a dog that followed you and the ability for characters to touch and hold hands. He felt emotion was the key to a more immersive gaming future. He’s probably right.

What’s interesting with the Natal demo is I think the more you move your body, the more you really interact – in a physical way – the more connection you will have with that game. I’m not really a massive gamer but there is nothing more pleasing than hitting a forehand down the line winner in Wii tennis.

I was wondering what some of this means for brands. Clearly the facial recognition in project Natal throws up some interesting possibilities. Could the camera recognize that the skateboarding kid had a healthy bowl of cheerios rather than a slice of pizza and give him more points? If I were playing the driver game they showcase on the Jimmy Fallon clip would my reactions be better if the Xbox knew I was drinking Red Bull (would it tell me off if I was enjoying a Miller High Life while driving?) These are all interesting things to think about when Natal goes live sometime in the future.

In the meantime I am just going to practice my skateboarding moves. I was always too much of a wuss to do it for real so the living room will allow me to achieve my dream of a 360 kick flip. Oh and while we are on the subject, check out this amazing clip of a dude who skates with his hands…

This guy is the clearest example I have ever seen of ‘Impossible is Nothing’.

James Cooper, SVP / Interactive Creative Director at Saatchi & Saatchi New York

Category: Digital & Interactive