Clare Townhill

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I think that this is one of the most interesting bits of business thinking I've seen in a while. How to take a phone directory service above and beyond the competitors and into a whole new territory. It also seems nicely tied into the consumer insight 'too many numbers for too many things'. For most, if not all consumers simplification is always welcome where this kind of thing is concerned. I'm not sure whether they've absorbed AQA or have created an echo of the service they provide. Or, on the otherhand, is this a last ditch attempt to make as much money as possible from data and mobile network charges as possible before we can all access the interweb from our pockets for a figure substantially less than 59p.

The Architecture of Information

I toyed with the idea of becoming an Information Archictect for a while, I'm still not sure that I'm completely over the idea. It's a job that brings together two things that I have great passion for: Libraries/librarianship + digital media. Not surprising therefore that I enjoyed this:

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I should also add that any slight datedness from the presentation (not that I can see any) is my fault not Idris Mootees. He posted this in July last year. I've only just discovered it now.

Monkey Making

I love this slide from Lynetters photo stream. She's bloody right too. If it looks like an ad, smells like an ad (read: something being pushed at me at increased volume during the interruption of a thing I've chosen to look at) consumers are unlikely to treat it as the 60 second cinematic triumph the agency and client believe it is. Effective and engaging comms strategies are all about giving consumers a reason to want to spend time with messaging, resources, things. Intrigue wins hands down over bludgeoning Janet-and-John clarity. See the much lauded Dairy Milk 'Gorilla':

A great example of how to garner interest but then do fuck all about fanning the intrigue: would it really have been so difficult to create whosinthesuit.com? Why no interactive voting mechanism for the many who gave the screen both eyes for a change? It just seems such a waste of the all the richness that digital could have offered had the lazy fixation on push-and-shout been overcome with a modicum of pull.

Origami Unicorn

My first blog-post. I suppose I'm just going to have to just to get over my fear of self-broadcast and just bloody get on with it. Thanks to the great blogs of some much cleverer people than me, I recently came across theories about 'Transmedia' and the debate sparked by Henry Jenkins' book, Convergence Culture. Not convergence in the sense of the Black Box Fallacy (the idea that all technology will eventually flow into and out of a single device) but convergence in the sense that no-one can know everything but everyone has something meaningful and different to contribute. Applying this theory of cultural convergence to the changing consumer consumption and interaction has spawned transmedia planning.

A transmedia planning model - swiped from Jason Oke’s blog, taken originally from Faris from Naked’s blog - both good posts, links below.
Faris Yakob's Post
Leo Burnett's Toronto Blog
The idea that media persists as layers in ever more complicated information and cultural stratem really appeals to me. It acknowledges that consumers form meaningful mental connections between bits of information drawn from multiple media platforms:

Printed words did not kill spoken words. Cinema did not kill theatre. Television did not kill radio.

And no doubt the internet will not kill TV either, but it is, will and already has forever changed the way that people consume TV, and the way they define what TV is, c.f. Neave and iTV1. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that the reason I like the transmedia planning model so much is that it lets each medium in a campaign play to its strengths. Media neutral planning's well, neutralness always irked me. It always seems to deliver matching sets of luggage that are either about creating print ads for the TV, or each other, without considering the most meaninglful way to create an interesting experience for consumers, or what the best role for the medium is. Media are different. They have different strengths and weaknesses. The transmedia model seems to allow for this thinking, and at its best creates multilayered creative work that provides multiple layers of interest and fun for consumers. Again to borrow the words of Henry Jenkins, 'The key is to produce something that both pulls people together and gives them something to do.' My favourite so far of these is the M&M's Dark work, part Heironymous Bosch, part crispy shelled candy.
M&Ms Dark Game
A search in Google for 'M&Ms Dark Answers' yields 169,000 results. Not only is it fun to play, it brings people together to help solve all the clues in a much quicker and interesting way than a single individual sat head scratching at their screen.

Before this bloggohoea persists any further I should probably explain Origami Unicorn (if anyone's still reading, a definition for my cryptic post title is the least you deserve). The "origami unicorn" featured in the director's cut version of Bladerunner led many to speculate that Deckard, the protagonist, may be a replicant. Creating "origami unicorns" for consumers lets you convey that there are secrets there to be uncovered, and rewards for those willing to invest the time. This means that you can potentially motivate conversation and engagement as online discussion forums to work together mutually decode the layered content.

Henry Jenkins' Blog:
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