Showing posts with label digital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital. Show all posts

Tuesday 3 January 2023

Rishi Sunak - Infosys Billionaire & Digital Concentration Camps




Will one journalist ask Rishi Sunak about his WEF membership and his top priority for CBDC cashless economy?

15 minute WEF travel restrictions now in Oxford & Cambridge, Paris and the rest of the world to follow?


Neither of these stories can be published in the mainstream media, and the zoning story has been largely scrubbed from twitter. What do I think of Elon musk?

Saturday 3 August 2013

The History of SEO




I'm spending a lot more time on SEO these days. This new presentation is a good history of the topic and even though it's a hundred slides it can be read in ten minutes. Maybe twenty if you're not a fast reader.


Sunday 19 February 2012

FBI, DHS, CIA NSA & The Rest Of The Alphabet Soup Taxpayer Pig Trough Snouts Snooping In Social Media On Your Dime




I've seen these social welfare tax sponging psychos with government jobs and pensions for life recruiting in Bangkok Craigslist for people willing to run five or more personas in Facebook and Twitter. 

I also come across their hate fuelling comments sponsoring Israeli terrorism all the time and all I can say is it smacks of a hubris and end of era desperation when an empire is so paranoid and  overstretched it needs to bully and smear a debate with a simulacrum of voice volume in social media.

Like the Washington Post uncovered in its ground breaking two year investigation that everybody was too busy selling Groupon coupons or watching Minaj/Whitney sleb rituals to study. The security state is so gargantuan nobody knows how big it is or how to reel it in. A life of lifeless cubicle rats attending meetings with so many powerpoint slides they walk away with zero understanding of what was said. It's a Bush family gift to the world of trademark psychopathy and expense.

The elephant in the room is the 9/11 false flag event with criminals still waiting to be rounded up. Instead the completely discredited law agencies pursue the ordinary people's privacy. It's far easier, takes no courage, costs more money, pays more pensions, and dishes out more badges for the fed's bottom feeders to jerk off over.

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Who Let The Logs Out?

I've always liked politics though it wasn't till I turned my gaze on the United States and began to inhale a lot of political  biography that I discarded with European policy debate. The thing about American political life is that it's the only game in town. Noam Chomsky memorably pointed out in Manufacturing Content that the reason the European Press gets to say a lot more than its transatlantic other half is that they are largely irrelevant. That's the truth of it in much the same way that most E.U. politicians ignore the English Language Xinhua despite a prestigious and ostentatious recent Manhattan office lease deal.

The internet though is proving to be the most creatively fertile and outspoken media aperture ever. Here are two I came across yesterday. I'm usually suspicious of any appropriation of Rap because it gets done so badly but Robert Foster's Juice Media is exceptionally coherent, hip and engaging. 



And lest anyone accuse the internet of dumbing young peoples chances of learning then EconStories.tv is the most polished and tightly edited introduction to Keynesian Economics available anywhere.



I came across this thumb snapping content through the only news media organisation that I watch on screen. I don't have a TV by choice, and Al Jazeera are the most even handed global news service to my mind so I picked up on this via there Listening Post channel on Youtube. Incidentally one of their last shows titled Thais turn to New Media is worth a look.

Monday 19 April 2010

McCann

McCann are taking a bit of a kicking at the moment. Senior staff being poached, clients in New York bailing out and all the usual shit one is accustomed to hearing about from the agency that used to by and large run Coca-cola worldwide and probably got a bit too fat on it.

I do urge you to read "For God, Country & Coca-Cola". It's freaking ace. It maps the brands distribution in advance of U.S. troops securing Europe, city by city during the second world war. It's one of my absolute favourite marketing stories and one that inspired me when pitching Coca-cola in Asia because I concluded in Vietnam, that with under the counter Coke sales in Ho Chi Minh, the beverage had succeeded where the US marines hadn't. Not a bad USP.

The creatives did good work on the "Freedom" positioning. I still believe its got legs today. Actually they went off piste and did some nuts stuff that would put CP&B to shame but Asian clients are reluctant to be first. In some ways it's the pressure of growth. Best work comes in a downturn.

Anyway, McCann aren't totally shit. I've bumped into two kick ass digital transmedia pieces from their Israeli office that are well worth your time.



I always know it's good when I think that's how I'd do it. Modest aren't I? Here's another.



PR brief anybody? So well done Nir who I think had a lot of input in this.

Monday 22 March 2010

Anatomy of a Hashtag #cashgordon


Tweets containing JavaScript is a new one for me, though anyone who thinks there's any difference between the Tories and Labour is deluded. They're all 'on side'. 

Look at who's introducing the digital *reform*... Lord Mandelson. 

What a snake. Pic via @megpickard

Friday 26 February 2010

Hero



I did mention back here that the Scandinavians are producing some of the smartest and most creative work on the planet and I stand by it. Particularly digital.


Via Leon

Thursday 24 December 2009

Crackunit Predictions



Iain's done the only predictions for digital in 2010 that has wetted my appetite.

Monday 9 November 2009

Digital at the IPA (Tim Malbon - Made By Many)

 photo firehydrant_zpsbee3e30a.gif


I watched this some months ago and have been trying to remember where I saw it. Anyway, I've found the source and all I can say is that if you're beginning to grasp the real time nature of adaptive marketing as outlined over here, this is simply the best video to explain clearly how digital is best seen as a Jazz ensemble rather than an Orchestra. It's precisely why the old war nomenclature of tactics, campaigns and targets are increasingly irrelevant in advertising. 

Think about loving your customers up if they're not glued to main stream media all day long.

Thursday 9 July 2009

Real Media



As I've been running on vapours and not always had access to a computer, I've been blogging with paper and pen sometimes in much the same way as I started to write my first post over here, on a flight from New Delhi to Mumbai in 2006.

There's lots of mistakes and chunks missing if you can see at all, but just in case anyone wanted to see how appalling my handwriting is I thought I'd post them anyway. I'll try and get them typed up later this week and really there's a self referential (ooh so po mo) element to this because the longer of the two posts is about Understanding Media from a paper (analogue) to electronic spectrum; or if we include this post it's starting off electronically. You may note that I used the back of the police report for my stolen goods to write this (so some good came out of it) as well as the EMERGENCY number for the British Embassy that the police gave me and which didn't work. Meaning I had to sleep in the police waiting room for the night before borrowing precisely Two dollars to catch the ferry home the next day.





Friday 27 March 2009

The Plot Thickens



This idea is beginning to unfold in a way that I appreciate very much. The transmedia influence is gathering steam if you can spot the link from yesterday's photography on Flickr that I posted about.

Friday 22 August 2008

Warte Bis September

This is Nils and he's waiting until September. The Kaiser thinks it's for Ikea but whoever it is they've just gone and nailed advertising on the internet. You can call Nils on +49 40 22 61 11 61 to ask him why, in any language. It's one of the best bits of digital I've seen since the Uniqlo thing. Again simplicity is best.

Via Marcus

Sunday 17 August 2008

Made in England

 
Currently trekking across the Americas from Mexico to Canada along the continental divide is Cookie from Made in England. Along with his mate Paul he's been blogging the journey and they are both (after what seems like forever) just over the halfway mark now. It's terrific blogging and he and Paul are both doing it for Charity which you can check out over here 
Just as exciting is that if he makes it back to London, Cookie has one of the best digital graphic design blogs that I know of. You can still sponsor him mile for mile as it's not certain that he's going to make it with his toes disintegrating as we speak, thus saving yourself a couple of dollars you cheap skates ;)

Wednesday 18 June 2008

Fink about the money!


I was over at Zeus Jones blog a few days ago, and Adrian’s post on monetization of social media got me thinking about digital again, and whereas I usually fire off a long comment when that happens, I reckon it’s time to write some thoughts down over here.

Firstly I can’t bear that word monetization. It’s the English part of me I guess, but it just feels crass that everything has to be monetized. I’m reminded of this each time I watch Fox News, because all the bullying of any (pinko Commie bastard) liberal guests they bring on to bait is won by their vulgar but implicit idea that if profit is not made then its not of worth. This is the point where I think the United States has gone slowly wrong in the last 50 years because the values it was built on are not about profit to the detriment of all else. OK I got that off my chest. Back to making money! We’ve also all got bills to pay. The environment of course being the biggest!

Yes of course there should be some sort of transactional value exchange model between social media platform providers and the people who frequent them. It does however feel like the old media model of huge profits and mass market broadcasting persuasive powers has disintegrated.

Micro-transactions work very well here in China for the most popular platform QQ using a virtual currency that is paid for in hard cash. (Kind of like a Second Life model) but this is where I like to think social media should embrace a number of revenue streams and think about revenue diversity because it’s obvious (to me) that good old fashioned bread and butter banner advertising works very effectively in Facebook. I generally love the ad to the left of their pages because they are eerily effective and are mainly China location based services making them highly relevant. In short they work. I like them even.

So we’ve got micro-transactions, and then traditional banner advertising. I like to call this distractive (contextual) advertising because if it’s good enough, then it distracts much like print advertising does today, interruptive advertising which is generally disliked but is based on the commercial break and includes pre-roll advertising as well as the hated pop up and even ideas such as “get this digital mobile phone for free as long as we can give you x number of ads a month”

I also think there are more innovative ideas that could be considered such as tiered or rewarded internet activity. Adrian has done a fine post about social media but as he correctly points out most people are hanging out on the net to get away from dull content and patronizing marketing communications. However the tiered subscription or rewarded activity is based on a model that really needs to embrace some ideas that Adam Crowe was, I think, the first to bring my attention to. The notion of data portability. The information accumulated by internet usage should belong to the customer not us.

If we (or Google or the ISPs) do the unthinkable and give our potential customers their own internet usage data to trade with us we then are truly opening up ideas loosely called the free market economy. It’s probably more American/United States than apple pie and fanny packs put together now that I think of it. This then opens up our potential customers to benefit from their data portability in the best way possible. The provider they choose to allow receipt of marketing communications from. It’s a bit like a bazaar. If you don’t like the voice of the trader or the goods they are selling, you can stay clear of them. Imagine a world where in return for premium content we permitted ourselves to exposure of specific marketing models. If the advertising sucks we make a decision about whether we can get by with lower value advertising-free content or not at all.

Either way I think we are moving into a new era of marketing communications because as an advocate of 'the medium is the message' it's clear to me that I never got ‘spammed’ while watching a commercial in a movie theatre, direct mail is lower down the food chain because its so much more cheaper to indiscriminately ‘target’ (using the language of old) with geography or basic demographics acting effectively to the point where a 3% response rate still makes it worthwhile.

But here’s the context. The internet is both a place where I can watch a Cannes winning Youtube clip and also open up my mail to be offered a larger penis or a fake Rolex watch. That never happens on TV or even direct mail and so the value of the internet is diminished by this activity. There are innovative ways around this if advertisers want to raise the perceived value for a short while. Like for example if I was P&G I would buy all the available online advertising space within a specific digital media aperture. Maybe the whole of the NYT or The Guardian for a few days. Just wipe out every ad in the online editions and put one sponsor message on there, advertising some spot removing clean or dandruff clearing shampoo. Something relevant seems appropriate!

There are ways to be creative on the internet, although finding the clients bold enough to do stuff like this is tough. Anyway in principle the point I want to end on is that it's not us who should be targeting the customers, it’s the customers who should be targeting us.

This is after all the 21st century and not the 20th. We had two world wars in that one.

Update: Adam links to this which is just the sort of example I'm talking about with P&G. i.e. buying space that would normally be filled with ads.

Sunday 15 June 2008

Is Google Stupid?

Baidu is the search engine of choice in China. Google has 27% market share here and it is growing, but Baidu has double at 55%. There are plenty of reasons, that extend from cultural inclination, history and product offering, but the one area that Google consistently fails to embrace is the notion that people can be driven to internet services from what I like to call hard media. Time and again I've seen very simple and effective advertising for Baidu. On Friday while taking a subway trip I saw yet more examples of invitations to use Baidu and took a quick picture.



That's a search box in Chinese underneath the English name with the search button on top to the right of it. It's quick, simple and effective. One of the dimensions of media that is talked about very little outside of the creative execution is the notion of trust and credibility. Just buying that media space says a whole lot to prospective Chinese internet search engine customers (think 'we're Baidu and we can afford this space), and I've been irritated for longer than I've been in China that Google has failed to grasp a window of opportunity by using simple and traditional media. I've noticed that the paper tray mats in KFC were also being used by Baidu for a co-promotion recently and the reason why I think Google has slipped up is that I really wanted their Google Talk feature to become more popular. It could have done that and created momentum for user growth in more of their products too, quite easily.

If the internet is today more understood to be about the power of community, then it smacks a little of brand arrogance not to approach people and potential communities in the media that they may have exposure to more easily, or even prefer! Its us that are the digital evangelists. Most people have lives to get on with.

I absolutely love Google and their products (Google RSS Reader kicks ass). There's no doubt that they have been one of the most exciting and innovative companies on the planet. They are also phenomenally successful, a veritable black swan, but I think they have missed an opportunity to make friends, by not talking to people outside of what we are increasingly glued to. Our computer screens.

It would be nice to hear their brand voice elsewhere. The medium is after all the message and the internet isn't the only one that matters. Or even should.

One last point as there is more depth to this issue than I want to get stuck into here, is that Baidu is better at finding free mp3 files which is a contentious point, but in terms of efficacy I understand that Google is better, and for sure in English Baidu's best search result on me is by a long chalk unrepresentative. Yet still my Chinese colleagues prefer Baidu in some contexts.

You know Google; if you're listening, sometimes people like to find what they believe. Not believe what they find. Baidu is better at that function in China and that is the marketing challenge for Google here.

Saturday 3 May 2008

What's your magic?

There was a time when this sort of solid gold presentation was only possible to people who ponied up 500 quid at a conference, but is now available through the generosity of folks like Iris and Contagious with their 'Under The Influence' talks (held reasonably enough in London pubs) and of course Iain Tate of Poke who are probably the hippest and thought leading digital agency in London. This is magic.

Tuesday 26 February 2008

He shoots. He scores.



Just before I got shipped outta London to Beijing I met up with some great guys from TBWA/RAAD who were talking about some very attractive Middle East planning action that would have meant a gold plated Royce, a Vertu mobile and a dental plan to force people at 100 paces to wear secret-service dark shades to protect their iris from my egregiously shiny white teeth. Sadly I couldn't take them up on their exploratory offer because of my commitment to move to China, but they did ask if I knew anyone I could recommend.

Which got me thinking!

It had to be someone who was into digital and I also thought international which isn't for everyone so it was a toughie. But one of my thoughts was Sam Ismail. I suggested it might be worth hooking them up. They asked me why I wasn't charging a fee for this but then disintermediation, reputation management and network nurture aren't easy ingredients to whisk-up into a sound bite on the spot so I just told them I'm nice because I needed the love right then. Anyway, as was the case with Famous Rob who landed a number oop North from an introduction I talked about back here I'm pleased to say that Sam is going to be a big planning Kahuna in one of the most dynamic and culturally rich places on the planet too. Fresh out of a psychology degree and straight into the world of marketing communications. It's an experience that will make him grow and I'm looking forward to the Middle East cracking out some innovative numbers because Sam is most definitely capable of delivering welcome surprises. All he's gotta do for this gig is kick back a little and let people get to know his heart of gold first and give them time to dig his burning intelligence second. He says the job thing is a lot down to me but like I told Famous Rob they should thank themselves (and their parent's genes).

That and the guy who started off the whole planning blogging gig in the first place because there was a generosity of spirit which not so long back was rare to find in the previously often pious world of planning. One that is increasingly now benevolent and collaborative.
Vive L'internet folks. I feel we're just scratching at the surface of its potential and it's not about the electronics. It's about the potential of the human spirit, which for whatever reason needs nurturing and given every chance. Everyone needs an ounce of luck in this world and if you do get some, try to find a way to pass it on because karma is, in its own way, an investment in our collective future. As long we expect nothing from it. Another philosophical paradox folks but well done again Sam. I'm very proud of you and here's a dirty mug shot before the gay crew-cut look you've recently adopted to let you know I got it all on file ;)