Archive for November, 2010
a few things they never tell you about freelance life
I took the plunge as a Freelancer nearly six months ago – and haven’t looked back. But if you’re thinking of doing the same, there are a few things you should know:
You will be introduced to, on average, twenty new people every week. All of whom will assume you know their names, job title and desk location. Beg / borrow / steal the agency’s telephone list, organisational chart and seating plan at the first opportunity.
Do not offer to make a round of teas and coffees until you have first established the office coffee mug hierarchy and found out where they hide the trays.
Make friends with the receptionist. They know where you can park without getting clamped, what time the sandwich man comes and where the loos are.
Agencies tend to get freelancers in when they are very busy. Which means that you will end up working wherever there is an unoccupied flat surface. This could be in the corner of the creative department, in a meeting room, or equally you could find yourself tapping away at your laptop perched on a coffee table.
On the upside, as I said, agencies tend to get freelancers in when they are very busy. So everyone will be very pleased to see you.
An ode to list writing – and why FMCG ad men should take note
If I ever get asked to speak at anything like an Interesting un-conference again and have to talk about another of my secret obsessions, I think I’d choose Lists.
I love lists and I love list making. The mere act of writing everything down on a piece of paper makes me feel calmer and more in control. I’m obviously not as bad as the girl in BBC3’s Freak Like Me who lives her whole life via lists, but I do come from a long line of enthusiastic list writers.
My Dad loves a good list, except his are pretty much illegible and written in reporter’s notebooks, whereas my Mum must have been into recycling long before it was trendy as she used to write her lists on the back of old Christmas cards. Lists of things to pack when we went to stay at Grandma’s house, recipes, shopping lists – all tended to have a cheery robin or Santa on the other side.
The shopping list is an interesting one. As we are busy hurtling into the second half of a double-dip recession, it seems reasonable to assume that we are all going to stay savvy shoppers and be sensible with our money. If households start budgeting by writing a shopping list (rather than impulse buying in store) and the point of decision-to-purchase shifts, we could see marketing activity having to be targeted at the point of writing the list, not the traditional ‘point of purchase’ when our customer is staring at the shelf. You could argue that this is already the case for those who shop online.
I think, considering how central it can be to the purchase process, list writing is an under-explored subject. It’s time we started considering list writing as part of the customer journey.
People Power is going to change AdLand’s playing field
If there’s been a theme to the fluffier (non royal wedding related) UK news over the past couple of weeks, it’s been People Power.
From X Factor Wagner protest votes and Gillian McKeith’s 6th I’m a Celebrity trial in a row to the John Lewis cold doggy, People Power has been setting the agenda.
It seems that the Age of Conversation really is upon us and the viewing public aren’t prepared to accept either the storylines prescribed by reality TV – or anything else in the public domain they view as in some way not quite right.
Never mind the ASA or Clearcast, it seems that the Great British Public will now have the final say on whether your ad is appropriate.
I get the feeling that we will soon look back fondly on the days of the BACC and being mainly concerned with having to prove stuff was truthful. Now we have to keep every interest group, pressure group and hobbyist in the country happy. At the same time.
Perhaps this will mean we’re going to have to stop shouting at everyone (media strategy = X Factor ad break + more TVRs) and have more conversations with individual interest groups. Because you can’t make everyone happy, all of the time.
And perhaps, this is how things should have been all along?
John Lewis Christmas ad – have I found another version or perhaps a work in progress?
I’ve been doing a little online detective work this evening.
I regularly pop over to AdAge to check out their Best Ads and the John Lewis Christmas ad is currently one of their top picks.
Except it wasn’t the ad above. ‘Your Song’ had been replaced by ‘How Deep Is Your Love’. I have to say I prefered it!
I can’t seem to embed the version I’m on about, but you can view it here at Creativity Online (who seem to supply AdAge with content). I think the track used is by The Bird and the Bee, from the Sex and the City soundtrack:
Can anyone from John Lewis, agency Adam and Eve or production company Partizan shed some light on this?
Interesting North – the report
So I was at un-conference Interesting North in Sheffield yesterday. It was fab. The premise of the Interesting conferences (normally held in London and organised by Russell Davies, but transplanted to the North by Tim Duckett) is about ‘a day of brilliant people talking about their secret obsessions’. Basically, it’s about Brain Food that you might not find totally useful right now, but feel much better off for having been introduced to.
All the elements of the previous Interestings were there – bunting, fun badges, a stage, some speakers and an audience armed with cameras and notebooks instead of the usual laptops that normal conference attendees pull out. I also suspect that most normal conferences don’t involve enough denim to start a rodeo and a lot of people wearing DMs or trainers.
Which was what made the venue of Cutlers Hall such a contrast. Posh is an understatement, it’s a grade two listed, bling-tastic tardis of a place. The Main Hall we were in had chandeliers and maple panelling salvaged from the White Star liner Olympic – sister ship of the Titanic. Even the bloke taking coats was wearing black tie.
As well as the amazing friendly atmosphere and a chance to catch up with blog/twitter mates, the main point of being there was for the talks. Highlights for me were:
- Suw Charman-Anderson taking us through the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull (and trying to teach us how to pronounce it)
- Toby Barnes on how the James Bond baddies and their lairs are really Ian Flemming ranting about modern architecture
- Frankie Roberto on Lego and their skin colour policy
- Stephanie Posavec on the Man Skill of baseball scorecard keeping
- Matt Edgar talking about 18th Century industrial espionage in Leeds, complete with accompanying newspaper going into more detail and even better when (like me) you know the buildings he’s on about
- James Wallis on works of fiction with stupid Nazi related titles (he also did a brilliantly funny talk about the geophysics of World of Warcraft at Interesting08 which you can watch here)
Oh, yeah. I spoke too, about How Ladies Stay On Sideways (27/01/11 video has just gone up!) . Seemed to go OK and even though we were running an hour late by then, 95% of the audience were hell-bent on staying until the bitter end. For all the people who asked me afterwards about where their horsey sister/wife/friend could have side saddle lessons, get in touch with The Side Saddle Association and they’ll send you a list of local instructors. Or drop me an email (addresses on the right) and I’ll check my members handbook to see who’s near you.
There was also a really good goody bag for everyone. It must have been good because everyone took theirs with them – I only had to follow the train of people carrying brown bags up the hill to find the post-IntNorth pub. It even included branded merchandise - Umbro had very kindly donated several hundred t-shirts that should have said ‘we won the world cup’, but for obvious reasons were surplus to requirements and printed with the Interesting North logo instead.
My T-shirt is a unisex large, far too big for me. If you’d like it, leave a comment below explaining why and I’ll pick the best one.
The other genius thing the organisers did was print the un-conference program in the form of a newspaper (via newspaperclub).
My newspaper looks a bit battered as I was referring to it on and off all day long. Not only did anyone like me who arrived a bit early have something to read, I really felt I got more out of the talks by understanding a bit more about the speakers. It’s also easy to find people on t’interweb after an event when someone has handily printed their twitter and url next to a photo of them.
Thanks to Howies and their Dohboy for sponsoring lunch (meaning all the fivers went to the local Archer Project homeless day centre), Technophobia for funding the AV costs, Rattle for paying for the newspaper and Kiosk for the rather marvelous Interesting North identity. And of course, thanks to Tim, Greg, David, Saul, Aden, Jag, Ian, Erica and Dan who made it all happen.
See you all next year? Or how about a geographic compromise and we try Interesting Midlands?
Links:
- official photos
- Lanryd event site thingy
- twitter hashtag #intnorth
(films of all the talks due online soon!)
“I don’t know what the budget is, but even if I did I couldn’t tell you”
Via Research Queen Shehnaz (who I am currently badgering for a Guest Post), comes this gem:
48 hours until I have to be Interesting
So I’ll be speaking (and listening) at Interesting North on Saturday. All 300 tickets have long gone, but there is the odd unwanted one knocking around on twitter – check @IntNorth and #IntNorth.
My ten minute explanation of How ladies stay on side saddle is on last-but-one in the afternoon, but I’m really looking forward to the entire day, especially How might cities change as we pedal more and James Bond: Architecture Critic.
If you’ll be there too, please come over and say Hello (I look like this) – there’s nothing worse than sitting in a room full of people, knowing that you are virtually acquainted with at least a dozen of them, but unable to put faces to URLs…
Copy heavy is lovely – so long as the audience can read it
Via Wikipedia, I stumbled across the staggering estimation that 100,000 pupils each year in the UK leave school ‘functionally illiterate’ – i.e. they cannot read or write well enough to deal with the everyday requirements of life in our society.
This prompted me to start thinking about all the adults I know who have literacy issues.
I have three relatives (all successful business men) who are rather challenged in that department and rely on their wives and secretaries to effectively interpret for them. These men were failed by their village school around half a century ago – and yet we’re still churning out teenagers who don’t have the tools to cope, especially in today’s fast moving world where online form filling is taking over and the days of the secretary and stay-at-home wife are on the way out.
Then there’s another relative who is very literate, but takes three times longer than everyone else to read stuff as I think he might be an undiagnosed dyslexic. Therefore he reads on a ‘need to know’ basis rather than for pleasure.
My point is, if we’re churning out 100,000 people a year that struggle with literacy (and at least with the older generation this appears to cross class and wealth boundaries) – how much of your target audience just won’t be able to read your carefully crafted, copy heavy campaign?
And don’t get me started on how, with the aid of a few lessons at the local library, everyone in Britain (however illiterate they may be) is supposed to be online by 2012…
One for all the Market Researchers out there
I was stuck in a traffic jam yesterday flicking through radio stations and this witty ditty came on (to the tune of Billionaire):
Original is here on Galaxy 105′s website.
extracts from real telephone depth interviews
“my short term memory has gone, I could have read your mailer this morning and wouldn’t remember”
“when did I first come into contact with [the organisation]? I’ve no idea, I’ve got a poor sense of time”
“hang on, I’ll just take my hearing aid out”
