Get Shouty

Fionn from DGM gave a comprehensive and totally accessible presentation at the Bootcamp last week on SEM.

Who knew that effectiveness modelling could be funny?

The term that resonated with me was : Return On Ego.

The context here was making sure that you compartmentalize business decisions in the online space between those that are founded on KPI’s and those that make the Brand team feel good.

I love the concept of being able to analyse the sexy but a bit vapid vs the perhaps a little dull but efficient.

Hot!

Update: Had to share this quote from Philippe over on Sean’s Craphammer site

About ego, always remember the wise words of Baba Ram Dass (a friend of Timothy Leary): “The Ego is an exquisite instrument. Enjoy it, use it–just don’t get lost in it.”

These images are from the Thank You Project, which is truely lovely in it’s sentiment and almost equally as awful in it’s visual and experience design.

 This online exhibition collects and displays thousands of thankyou notes and images. You can browse the gallery (this is cool! check out the Mum messages, or the great teacher messages, or just thanks to the universe messages) or create a thankyou for someone you know.

Like this:

I’m presenting at the  interactive boot camp over the next couple of weeks, the first one on Wednesday,  and have been tasked with giving a bit of a 101: “How to plan great interactive media campaigns”.

My process is this, used to create ‘digital connections’  between consumers and brands:

It’s a continuation of my thoughts on Loveocracy and another post  and some bouncing back and forward with Sean and Gavin.

The centre of the diagram is brought to life with this kind of voice over: 

“digital connections opportunities present themselves when we look for an overlap between the Brand Position and Consumer Interests, what Position unites the two and what Promise can be tactically expressed?  Aiming to be inside this area makes great sense.  It’s the point at which all the vectors unite”

I surround this with robust research (insights), consumer experience design (context) and evaluation modelling (building actionable intelligence) processes.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and get your examples on great interactive media planning.

After I’ve finished the bootcamp I’ll compile it all together and post the presentation for all to share.

David Armano’s latest post Blogs Are Free Samples of Your Brand has an interesting, call to action: Stop calling yourself a blogger.

“Blogging is a commodity.  Anyone can do it.  We are human beings with passions and interests that come out in our blogs—not the other way around.  Stop calling yourself a blogger.  You are a… (designer, businessperson, marketer, artist, baker, mother, grandfather, etc).  Calling ourselves bloggers takes away from what makes us unique.”

An article in the New York Times, Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog  puts forward that the term might be Artist 2.0:

“It’s possible to see these online trends as Darwinian pressures that will inevitably produce a new breed — call it an Artist 2.0 — and mark the end of the artist as a sensitive, bohemian soul who shuns the spotlight… being a musician is rather like being a business manager, memoirist and group therapist rolled into one, with a politician’s thick hide to boot. “

Joseph Jaffe has a posted a video from his Australian visit, Content + Context, which brings to life Adam Curry’s claim that in 5 years time 50% of all content will be consumer generated.

That’s quite a trend. With over 75 million blogs there are a lot of people who are doing it, a lot of people expressing themselves. Not all of it will be good, sure. But is it vital to define people who create content? Are they artists? Are they bloggers or vloggers or podfathers? Do you define the nature of expression ,or the nature of the person, by the materials used? Just because people had access to pencils, it didn’t make everyone a writer.

Isn’t it more important for people to define themselves? Isn’t this Creation Age all about self definition and self expression?

I believe that the hand of an artisan is shaped by their tools. Sergovia’s hands were undoubtedly those of a classical guitarist, I have a film producer friend that could organise a colony on Mars in two weeks and I can spot a network engineer at ten paces.

I am blogger.

Fundamentally, the resistance I have in turning away from allegiance to the medium is the notion that building something, expressing something (for someone else) is somehow more valid than creating it (for yourself).

I’d have to disagree.

With great respect David: blogging is unique. It’s solitude and time to think in very good company. It provides structure and discipline to create and it provides feedback and authority to just born thought.

Oh, and loads of stuff to Get Shouty about too….

Hanging out at the Water Bar, originally uploaded by josephjaffe.

I believe I was talking about brand minxy-ness here.

The guy to my right has obviously never heard anything like it.

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Joseph Jaffe was in town this week. He dropped his balls (you had to be there), fought some dinosaurs (hooray!) and held court in his self depreciating chap-tastic fashion.  Interested and interesting wins in my book,  and he has had double servings of both for breakfast.

It was quite an experience to watch him skillfully acknowledging the old school resists to his message, while still challenging the assumptions and prompting innovation testing.

It seems that marketers do want to do something different and join the conversation. Unsurprisingly they don’t want to spend their budgets on projects that might not get results. 

What they want to do most is create the old sales spike. Not a long term brand building proposition sure, but when the average tenure of a CMO is 23.2 months there doesn’t seem to be much incentive to create long term value.

Evaluation modelling is really the key here- which combination of the digital channels, or as Jaffe would say, which of the 93 crayons can you use to create the best picture for your brand?

I’m a maths fiend. I love how you can make numbers dance and tell a story and there’s a creativity to crafting a series of premises that a financially driven board can follow. I’m looking forward to new metrics on a brand by brand basis beyond TARPS and CPM.

The only figure worth a damn is TWB (time with brand). You win if people choose to hang out with you and you loose if they ignore you. Thanks for the juice Mr Jaffe!

Thanks XKCD for the pic.

Thanks also to Paul for last name vigilance.