This is long overdue, but here is the extended "What's Next for 2009" presentation I delivered at UBA's 60th Anniversary Congress a few weeks back.
As you'll see, a lot of bits are the same, some bits are new. Thank you to everyone who contributed thinking to this updated version. I'll definitely be doing more reaching out in the future.
As for the event, it was one of the best run days I've been a part of in a long time. I learned a lot from the other speakers and from conversations held during the coffee breaks, lunch, happy hour and dinner. (You can download copies of all of the presentations from the UBA's page recapping the day. Look just below the recap video. I think you'll find interesting points in each of them, so I highly recommend it.)
Thank you to all of the wonderful people I met in Brussels for your conversations, kindness and feedback. And a big thank you to Chris, Jan, Frédéric, and Alice for your generosity and graciousness.
A few weeks back, Marta Kagan asked me if I'd be interested in coming up to Boston to present at Marketing 2.0:unfiltered, an event put on by Espresso. I said yes and so, over the last few days I put together the above presentation to share with the group. (Giving it tonight. I hope they like it...)
For background on it, we came to the conclusion that an updated version of the What's Next presentation I did a year and a half ago would be an appropriate way to open the night up. As with last year's version, if you've been following things like many of us have, you won't be surprised by anything here. It's truly not anything revolutionary. It's more of a concise view on what's been happening lately and what that points to for how we should be approaching things to create a better future for marketing.
Mostly, I had a lot of fun putting it together and simply wanted to share.
As always, would love any constructive feedback you have...
Some of you may have noticed that sometime last April, we (space150 – where I work) quietly launched ideas are awesome. Now that we've got some momentum behind it, I thought I'd share more about it here.
In February we were debating what to do with the agency blog. It was kind of just poking along as people didn't have a lot of time on their hands to contribute to it regularly. So we decided to start thinking about what else we could do that would fit well with our culture and allow us to share some of it with others.
In looking at a common behavior within the agency—people sending out agency-wide emails about something new, cool or interesting for discussion, often at the same time, if not before a lot of the leading trend blogs picked it up—a small group of us decided that a site that took advantage of this already existing behavior and documented it would be very worthwhile for us and our clients at a minimum.
Around that same time, I had been giving a presentation to various clients of ours on key themes for connecting with people to look at for 2009. Putting the presentation together took a decent amount of time, as you can imagine, and in going through it a few times, we realized that it could be used to guide this new agency blog's categories.
So far this seems to have worked out pretty well. By using Tumblr to power it, people are able to quickly put up a post with whatever it is they came across. In addition to the site, we've also created a Twitter account for it where we currently have the site feed to, but we'll be doing more with in the very near future (I'll announce that shortly here as well).
Anyway, wanted to share with you so you could check it out if you already haven't. Please let us know what you think—feel free to leave any comments or thoughts here. Also, here's the presentation I mentioned earlier in case you're curious as to what was behind the themes/categories...
More fun work from Skittles. Love what they've been up to lately, including the new site. I find it highly amusing that so many people got worked-up over the site re-design. Had they used a more standard navigation, nobody would be accusing them of ripping off every other site on the web, but because they used something different that very few others have, people freaked. Amazing what a healthy bit of chaos can do to make people talk about your product. Thank you Skittles for mixing it up.
Came across this presentation by John V Willshire this morning. Many of us have been on the track of "doing things" for people with marketing instead of just saying things for a while, but liked that he shares some interesting stats on the Cadbury work and how it's helping sell more chocolate bars. Anyway...
Was just catching up on The Office via DVR and this gem came on. I found it very unexpected for Lay's, and I think that's a good bit of what makes it work. It also helps that in a world filled with depressing headlines, this delivers a moment of reprieve and makes you smile.
The reason this all works in my opinion, is because they found an interesting way to tell us that Lay's are made of only three simple ingredients by first reminding us that potato chips are fun to eat and that they can often be found on tables and plates with other foods that make us happy at social gatherings of family and friends.
It's not hard to imagine the brief having something about playing off the tension around potato chips - that potato chips have become infamous for their role in the growing obesity problems in the States and are often associated with people who are "couch potatoes," when in truth, Lay's potato chips are fun to eat (especially for kids), and are made with only three simple ingredients, making them better for you than other brands of potato chips.
Of course it doesn't hurt that they have borrowed a piece of what made Sony Balls great - putting a simple song behind it that helps draw you in.
The only thing I think they missed was to provide easy social media sharing and embedding functionality on their site alongside the commercial. If you're going to go to all that effort and cost to produce such a well done spot, why not make sure you enable it to spread beyond where you place it in case people want to talk about it?
Anyway, overall a very nicely done piece of advertising for a product I haven't thought about in a long time and can't recall any specific advertising they've ever made under previous tag lines around not being able to eat just one.
Update (02.15.09):
Charles has a nice write-up pointing out the same work, including the below spot, and links to a couplemore posts on the ads. Glad I discovered them the way I did. Finding out Jason and Juniper Park are behind them makes me smile even more. Love to see great work coming from even greater people. Nice job, Jason and team.
Found this video on Campaign Planning. Not sure how it's been out for over a year and I'm just now seeing it, but oh well...
At first glance, I couldn't believe it didn't win the AARP contest it was entered into; but, seeing as how it was heavily inspired by a 2006 Silver Lion winning ad, I'm a little less impressed.
Still a great message and a powerful way to present it though.
Gatorade has been running these spots for a while now.
If you haven't caught on, it's for their new logo and new product names.
They're using these commercials and some others to "create conversation" around the new look.
Personally, I think they're trying a little too hard. It's not like the liquid inside the packaging changed all that much, if at all. And for that matter, neither did the bottle shape from what I've seen at retail.
Same goes for the rest of the packaging changes Pepsi Co. made. I get it, and I do think that if they're about being young, evolving their packaging is a good idea. Especially when their number one competitor has held on to a very classic look.
However, I'd rather have seen Pepsi Co. put a few hundred million dollars into figuring out how to distribute their full product line in packaging that has a lower impact on the environment than putting a new coat of paint on everything. But that's just me.
Anyway, what do you think about the Gatorade work?
Are they the right way to let people know they've got a new wrapper around their bottles?
all views expressed on this blog are those of the author alone and do not necessarily represent the
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