Archive for May, 2007
The joys of an unstructured Summer
Via Life in the Middle I found this beautiful piece on the howies’ website about the joys of an unstructured Summer.
I’m not going to get on a plane and fly somewhere warm either (mainly because I’m allergic to sunshine and would make myself really poorly), but I’m going to make a real effort to have a childlike Summer. Feels like its time for another game of Innocent Drinks Summer Bingo.
Learned behavior
My horse has got a bad back. So I have to do some simple physio on him before we can go out for a ride, which mainly involves manipulating his legs to stretch his muscles out. He’s learned the order this all happens in and gets terribly miffed if I get distracted and miss something out, even holding the correct leg up to point out my mistake.
Its learned behaviour. And it only took him a few weeks to pick it up. But he has no idea why we are doing all this stretching. I guess if I stopped doing it for a few weeks he’d stop reminding me too.
It got me thinking about consumer behaviour and what we are trying to achieve when we work on a communications campaign. We can change consumer behaviour to the point where they would be upset if that behaviour was prevented (Got Milk? is a great example), but shouldn’t we be working harder on the attitudes and beliefs behind that behaviour?
I’m talking about the kind of step change in viewpoint that lasts way beyond the duration of the campaign. I’m not saying that I have the answer to this, just that the holy grail has got to be a result where consumers understand why they’ve changed their behaviour and voluntarily keep at it for the long term.
And this sort of illustrates our predicament (with thanks to gapingvoid):
these projects are giving me a rumbling tummy
I’ve been hungry all the time for the past couple of months and I’ve suddenly realized why – my list of recent projects includes chips, bread, cereal, soft drinks and pastries.
I’m not quite sure where the pet food and property regeneration projects fit into all this but it certainly explains a few of the food cravings I’ve been fighting a losing battle against.
Lauren in Leeds
Lauren, an ‘Australian instillation artist wannabe, who swears alot’ (her words, not mine) was in Leeds on Sunday. I think it would be fair to say that her trip was not a complete success.
The Situation Leeds contemporary art thingy she came to see was mostly closed/not there/not working on a Sunday, despite its flashy website that promised lots going on. And it was blummin freezing cold and chucking it down with rain. So not the greatest welcome to the city.
We ended holed up in the Arts Cafe putting the world to rights and it was lovely to finally meet Lauren after reading her blog but it was embarrassing to be simultaneously let down by the weather and the city council. Leeds is a fab place, honest Lauren, just come back next time when the sun is shining and I’ll take you to Salts Mill to see the very cool Hockney exhibition and then to the original Harry Ramsdens for some proper fish & chips.
I’m working on this theory…
I’ve been helping out as a Steward (judge’s assistant) at a regular local horse show this year and as a result I’m developing a kind of unofficial work-in-progress theory on Competitive Horsey Mums (CHMs).
CHMs are a very specific tribe, but are closely related to Competitive Ballet Mums and Competitive Football Dads. They can be identified by the bags under their eyes (up since 5am getting the pony ready), distinctive calls “heels down Victoria” and aggressive behaviour (towards both the judge and their own offspring) when their little darling only finishes second.
There was the CHM at one show who insisted that although her daughter had just been squashed by her pony slipping and falling sideways on top of her, she was to get back on because “we’re here for the points” (for the end of season trophies). Another CHM tried to tell the judge exactly which qualifying-for-a-bigger-and-better-show certificate she wanted.
Thank god my parents were never like that. But it makes for a very entertaining day watching CHMs in their natural habitat.
Picture taken from Clive Power’s flickr (not of my horse show in order to protect the innocent)- creative commons rules apply.
This is your player calling
I was at my sister’s house last night and the phone rang for her Other Half. Its was Leeds Centurions, aka Leeds Tykes, the local rugby union side.
They were ringing to remind him to renew his season ticket, with the usual ‘book early and get three free games’ type incentives. But there was an extra hook, one of the injured players was making the call. As I understand it, this guy had been off injured for a while so they’d transferred him into the marketing team and he was spending his evenings drumming up season ticket business.
Of course my sister’s other half was thrilled to chat to the player and happy to renew his season ticket there and then. But it got me thinking – can you imagine Michael Owen manning the phones for Newcastle United?
Bits & Bobs
My team are thinking about investing in some mind mapping software as both a thinking tool and for presentations. Does anyone have any recommendations?
**************************************************************
A new guy started in the Facilities team today. He was born in 1987. I’m feeling very old.
****************************************************************
The Next Northern Planning Summit is scheduled for the first week in June in Sheffield. More details here and/or on Andrew’s blog when we make our minds up on a night/venue.
Tweaking the SatNav Curve
I don’t think the adoption curve (innovators, early adopters etc.) is completely accurate anymore – its become a more dynamic model.
Take Tom Tom. I suppose I’m an early adaptor/early majority type and I bought into portable sat nav last year after getting lost once too often. After it got me to a city I’d never been to before, round five trade counters and back home again without getting lost, I was a total convert. So I lent it to my Dad (who is in his early 70s and still doesn’t know where the ‘on’ switch is on the computer).
He discovered that he didn’t need to strain to read road signs in the dark with satnav. Another convert, probably 12 months earlier than he would have otherwise bought in to it. So he told all his sixty and seventy-something friends how fabulous it was and they discovered that you could pick the ‘no motorways’ option and have a lovely country drive to your destination.
So because I brought the technology into our family, my Dad’s social network went backwards up the adoption curve, but only in this case, for this product .
Which means that the strength and relevance of the connections and networks of the left hand side of the bell curve define how steep the curve becomes, I think.
Bring the love back
Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions seem to have decided that if Apple can slag off the competition, then so can they – in this case, TV, outdoor and just about every other media that isn’t (surprise, surprise) a digital CRM solution using Microsoft products. Sweet but a bit too forced to have the watchability of Mac and PC.
You can find the film here on their Trade Marketing Manager’s blog. Yes, really, their idea of viral marketing is putting it on their marketing manager’s blog. But then, I have linked to it…
We have charts and graphs to back us up
Heather has sent out the results of her annual Planner survey. It makes very interesting reading, but I especially liked the front page:
Holy Cow has been busy too, digging up this fab trends and insight presentation. It makes the very valid point that we are now educating students for jobs that don’t exist yet using technology that hasn’t invented…
