Where is a person to rest their legs?

I was out to a meeting a few weeks ago in Cork Street, but I was about a fifteen minutes early. I'd walked down from Baker Street and so thought I'd find a seat somewhere and read my book. Which was when I realised that there aren't any in that area, and then I thought actually, it's pretty difficult to find seats in most city or town centres. Generally, they aren't configured for this. And then, would you believe it? I saw a bench in the distance. Ah, I thought, there seems to be someone sitting on it. Well, there may be a space. But what do you know? It was a bench, but with a couple of sculptures of people on it. So, Westminster will provide a bench for 'art' but not for people....

A cold evening on Piccadilly

I happened to be wandering down Piccadilly a couple of days ago when I happened upon an Audi car showroom. Now, this area is probably one of the most expensive in London (The Ritz is just across the road), so I was quite surprised to see something that one normally sees out of town. I guess this is because car showrooms tend to take up a lot of space, they leave a lot of space empty, and space is at a premium round here. But you need space to walk slowly around, to view from all angles, to appreciate the lines, reflections, chrome, extravagance. I think advertisers to want us to experience some cars as pieces of cool art or sculpture, to coolly view them from a distance.


But then, in the background I saw some objects I really hadn't ever expected to see. Coats, rucksacks, trousers and a few other items of apparel. So, is it a car showroom? Is Audi a car manufacturer? I think so, but Peugeot designs and sell what are, apparently, very good salt and pepper mills. Porsche just sells cars? You can buy Porsche LCD screens and even kettles and toasters. So, perhaps these are less car manufactuers, and more brands. Brands allow brand owners to extend products beyond what they are typically known for, whilst often, at the same time, those new products reinforce brands in terms of projects for which they are already known. They are a way of categorising objects and attributing to those objects meanings constructed for those brands. Of course, this is open to interpretation - those objects have to credibly reflect the brand. I can imagine an Audi shoulder bag, refrigerator, or juicer. I can't imagine a packet of Audi chewing gum.

Bebo's launch of 'Open Media'

I went to Bebo’s launch of ‘Open Media’ yesterday at BAFTA on Piccadilly (picture and video of Jamie Cullen below). Open Media allows broadcasters and labels – aka ‘Partners’ - to provide short and long form content totally free to Bebo’s 40 million members. Partners include CBS, MTV, BBC, Channel Four, ITN (which is either odd or hopefully unrealistic, given Bebo’s demographics)‘ and BSkyB.

As with YouTube, Partners’ will not be charged, and they can even use their own players. So, although the BBC will use a Bebo player initially, it will be moving over to using BBC’s own iPlayer. And although not applicable to BBC, Partners can advertise freely and even retain 100% of any advertising revenues.

Open Media allows users can store and curate their favourite video content within their own profiles, and virally distribute that content throughout their ‘friends’ network and the wider Bebo ‘community’. So for companies, it’s a no-brainer. Instead of waiting for people to come to their own sites (e.g. BBC iPlayer and 4OD), companies are going to where the hard to reach audiences are.

What’s in it for Bebo? Bebo claims that the addition of thousands of hours of premium content from major global entertainment and emerging new media companies will increase users’ engagement with the site and thus the value of Bebo’s own advertising and brand associations.

Because social networks are built for individuals, corporations need to tread carefully. In her blog, Jemima Kiss says companies need to be fronted by people that can talk with and engage with other users, or they need to present themselves as companies. Hence, instead becoming people becoming ‘friends’ of companies on Bebo, members can become ‘fans’. But I think that the problem with companies presenting themselves as such means that they are open to accusations of not engaging with the community. Bebo, YouTube and MySpace are characterised by interaction – being active members of communities. As with smaller online communities, people who don’t actively participate are considered lurkers and are even flamed. If companies aren’t there to participate and conform to the norms of the group, then other members will wonder why they are there.

Product placement

I really hadn't realised what big business product placement is on TV and in film. There is even a 'Top Ten' product placement list produced each week by Media Post), and there are companies devoted to it - ITVX.com. It seems that a goal of product placement is to make branded products appear integral to or fit seemlessly with a plot or scene. They aren't out of place and so don't jar with the audience. Spiderman 3 went way over budget and so had to use product placement to gain funds. But it can become ridiculous when overdone, and there are some funny 'mock' ups of product placements in films. I've put a couple below.

Another post about Nike

The Wall Street Journal has an article about Nike's marketing strategy, away from endorsement deals with the likes of Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, and toward under the radar influencers, or even 'influencers of influencers'. So Nike has taken on Mr Cartoon, tatooist to Eminem and 50 Cent as a way of continuing to gain capital with young, Latino hip-hop loving people.

As with many other organisations, marketers employ 'coolhunters' to find out about what will be (or so they hope) the most cutting edge trends in culture. They then use their findings to help companies to resonate with their core audience.

Naomi Klein wrote about this kind of behaviour by companies in 'No Logo'. The effect is to make companies such as Nike look like they are in on whatever's new from the very beginning. They take hold of what's new to make it their own. Of course, not everyone is happy seeing Nike do this. After Steve "Birdo" Guisinger (owner of Consolidated Skateboards - a small but influential Santa Cruz retailer called ) painted three less skateboard decks with images that lampooned Nike's attempts to craft a more street-smart image, Sandy Bodecker - Nike Head of Global Design - bought them on eBay and displayed them proudly in a prototype for a Nike retail concept store. "I personally was very pleased to be in such august company" he says.

Nike

There's an interesting article in Sunday's New York Times: The New Advertising Outlet: Your Life, about a move away from advertising by Nike. Advertising has become less about telling people about a product - information - and more about experiences and constructing aspirational, attractive meanings and associations around products and brands. Nike has long drawn upon language and imagery of aspiration - transcending ones limitations to achieve ones best through the Nike brand and its products - in its advertising. But now, Nike is moving to provide 'aspirational' experiences to people through free services, irrespective of whether or not they already own Nike products. Nike calls its third floor of its New York store the 'Nike Running Club'. There, runners can map out running routes, receive training advice and attend an evening speaker series. All this is for free, even if they aren't even wearing Nike. The company pays five coaches and 17 pacers to lead runs three times a week in Central Park. Nike says all this is part of its efforts to connect with people directly, rather than through advertising and marketing.

Nike isn't alone in doing this kind of thing. Companies like Apple and Sony do it too. Sony has a huge store in Berlin that is especially designed so people can go in and try out most, if not all, Sony's products, get advice and generally have a good time. You don't need to spend anything. Of course, people do this kind of thing in stores anyway. But at Sony, Nike and Apple, people are actively encouraged to do it.

On the surface, this seems new. But when I was talking with Delia about Nike this morning (not the kind of conversation we have every day), she said that it isn't new really. You used to be able to go to your local hardware store and get loads of advice from the owner, from putting up a shelf to putting up a shed, or just pop in to your local corner food store and have a chat. Some of these places still exist (although not in Guildford where we live, which is almost saturated by the standard high street stores). For owners of these kinds of places, providing free advice or just a place to drop into to have a chat, doesn't form part of a general strategy to 'connect with their customers'. They 'just do it'.

Fitzbillies mmmmm.....

My brother Pete, and his girlfriend Jo looked after our gals over the weekend, which meant that Delia (my wife) and I could go away. We stayed at their house but spent most of our time in Cambridge. It was a bit of an eating fest (one of our fav past times:). We went to a fish restaurant on Saturday evening, but the best find of the weekend was 'Fitzbillies', a bakery and cafe on Trumpington Street. It's well renowned (even outside Europe!), especially for its Chelsea buns, which are amazingly delicious, wonderfully moist and full of fruit and cinammon. And the cream cakes are something to behold too.

All of this and the fact that it's unique - it's not part of a chain - made a great find. And I think this is a main point - serendipity. Many high street cafe brands pride themselves on the fact that you can go anywhere in the world and you know you're going to get . (Starbucks is the pinnacle of this boast.) Fitzbillies' cakes and their great tea are better than anything you will find in a branded high street cafe (plus there's no piped music, and mobile phones are frowned upon), but you won't know this for yourself until you visit it. Perhaps one of the reasons we were so taken with their cakes is that we have become accustomed to food that's bland, pointless and really quite bad. We just didn't know what 'bad' was until we found something a good deal better.

BMW 3 Series commercial

There is a new BMW TV commercial appearing in the US about unexpected consumer behaviour around the BMW 3 Series (see below). It goes something like this: The people at BMW didn’t expect people to customise their cars by painting them, for consumers to create a ‘cult’ around the 3 Series, or for people to act in some of the other ways they do. Of course, marketers, advertisers and so on do not determine consumers’ practices, even if they would like to (but, conversely, neither do consumers exist in a vacuum). So, in reflection, isn’t the BMW advertiser stating the bleeding obvious? Of course BMW didn’t expect people to do these things. People will nearly always behave in unexpected ways, you can’t foresee everything, and you can’t determine people’s behaviour. But by creating this commercial and by highlighting the unexpected practices of people around the BMW 3 series, the BMW advertiser uses these practices to promote the 3 series. It's "Hey look what a great product the 3 series is because people have been doing these unexpected things". In effect, the BMW advertiser cleverly (though perhaps perniciously) links people’s practices to the brand. It's "Look, you can do this with a BMW car; through this car (because it is a BMW) you have the capacity to create the unexpected".

Letting go of content

The broadcast industry is said to be going through a dramatic, even paradigmatic, change.

The story is that once, broadcasters pushed content when they thought best to the audience and the audience seemed happy to orient their everyday lives according to the broadcast slate. On the one hand, the broadcaster who controlled the content, on the other, the audience.

Of course, it wasn't as simple as that. People used their videos to tape content and then watched when they want. They could even keep that content. Twenty years later, I have a few video tapes of films I like and would never want to record over.

Now, we hear about broadcasters having to, and even wanting to, let go of content - to let the audience mash it up, embed it where they want. But when a broadcaster puts linear content out via TV, viewers are configured to make a direct connection between the content and the broadcast brand, whether its NBC or the BBC or whatever. Viewers see good content and broadcasters want them to reference that content in terms of the broadcast brand.

So, what happens when that content appears on YouTube and that content is then embedded on people's websites? To what do viewers attribute value? Letting go of content means risking losing brand value. How can broadcasters negotiate this?