Blog

James Devon

26th April 2010
Whilst I was away...

It's been a little while since my previous entry. And I think I've got a reasonable excuse.
Here he is:

I've also been writing an IPA Effectiveness Award for Everest. They've enjoyed some spectacular business success since their return to TV with ads created by MBA. How does 6% growth in a market that declined 25% sound? We think so too.

Catching up with the RSS and Twitter there's a few notable nuggets worth sharing.

1. $73k bar bill (via DigitalBuzzBlog)
A really neat campaign that added the expenses of a car crash to people's bar tabs... watch the video for reaction & realisation. Cheap and powerful idea.

2. 6 Foundations of Great Digital Creative (via Digital Buzz Blog)

6 Foundations of Great Digital Creative
View more presentations from bastardil.

3. The Universal Packaging System (via PSFK)

4. Ideas that do(via Faris)

This video is all about how brands need to change to doing things rather than simply projecting a certain image. Thought-provoking stuff.
30th March 2010
Efficiency and Effectiveness

Time to dance on some semantic pinheads.

I've always loved this cartoon from gapingvoid:

Which goes some way to explaining why I like to tease apart Effectiveness and Efficiency. Here's how my version of the story goes.

1. Effectiveness

2. Efficiency

3. Effectiveness & Efficiency

This becomes really important when working out what your objectives are. To take a customer journey as an example, a brief may start with a need to rationalise the number of communications. This is an efficiency argument, not an effectiveness one. By culling some comms you will reduce cost, but you must not lose sight of the fact that you may also reduce your effectiveness. Far better to disentangle efficiency and effectiveness early in the process and aim, as usual, for top right. Top right should always be where it's at.

It's worth noting that this also has implications for Performance Related Pay (PRP) contracts between Client and Agency. (Incidentally, PRP is an important part of MBA's relationship with its Clients - surely any agency promising enhanced business performance for Clients would incorporate this too?)

Of course this has all been better expressed elsewhere. So I'll finish with a quote from Peter Drucker:

"Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.”.
19th March 2010
We're recruiting.

We're looking for an Integrated Account Manager to work on some of our lovely Clients. If you're interested please tweet @ClaireFrankling with why you should get an interview.
9th March 2010
Being late and being right

The London Eye is celebrating its tenth birthday today. It has become an iconic part of the London skyline and has attracted 36m visitors.

(picture sourced from here in Tristan Legros' photostream)

But who remembers that it was late?

Those of you with simple mathematical skills will be able to work out that ten years ago was after the millennial celebrations. Shouldn't a millennium project have been ready before the clock struck twelve?

Well, ideally yes it should have been ready. But it wasn't. They got it right instead and launched it late. 36m visitors in ten years and no-one remembers it being delivered late.

Just saying.
18th February 2010
Musings on Transmedia Planning

We've been having some very interesting chats with our Clients about Henry Jenkins's concept of the "Transmedia Narrative" and how this relates to marketing. You can see my thoughts on the subject in this recent article in Campaign.

Much has already been said on the subject of "Transmedia Planning" e.g. this from Faris plus this and this from Henry Jenkins. The below diagram is from Faris's post.

I'd like to propose an addition to this thinking. And perhaps it's something that was already implicit in Faris's version. Although the disparate channels don't have to be saying the same thing, there needs to be some redundancy between them so that people can bring the parts together to form a coherent story. There needs to be a strong core theme.

Now this is hardly revolutionary. However, it feels a valuable addition to the story. Besides, it makes the diagram look more like a ship's wheel (is that the right term?). Which has got to be a good thing.

If you're interested in reading more about the transmedia narrative then you must read Henry Jenkins's recent "seven principals" (part 1, part 2) in addition to chapter 3 of "Convergence Culture".
17th February 2010
Delicious Coffee and Tasty Customer Engagement

Our esteemed CEO, Stephen Maher, has been experimenting with foursquare of late. Maher is Mayor of several places including Wandsworth Common.

Just down the street from our office on Charing Cross Road is a delightful coffee shop by the name of Caffe Vergnano. I highly recommend you visit for a most delicious coffee. Mr Maher visited recently and he checked in with foursquare. And because he's a technical wizard, this resulted in an automatic tweet...

Shortly after, @CaffeVergnano responded to Stephen with a tweet of their own.

A few things to note:
1. This type of interaction is simply charming for the customer.

2. Caffe Vergnano is activity listening to what's going on - hunting any mention of "Caffe Vergnano" on Twitter and responding accordingly.

3. Hopefully they'll give us discounted (free?) coffee now we've given them some free promotion via this blog and my Twitter feed ;-)

[Update 18/2/10]
Caffe Vergnano responded to my cheeky request...

Boo. I went to Starbucks this morning.