I was brand manager at the Guardian when the “Guardian Unlimited” websites were launched in the 90s. As part of the launch, I was tasked with creating a CD-ROM called Get The Net which had starter ISP software and this video of the editor, Alan Rusbridger, giving his thoughts on the internet revolution. I think his thoughts stand up pretty well.
My money is on this being the decade of disintermediation. The technology, trust and social graph is now in place to allow people to deal directly with each other and cut out the corporates.
Brent Hoberman (my former boss) and Stelios have just announced plans to make EasyCar a person-to-person car club
HouseBites is attempting to revolutionise takeaways by providing a platform for chefs cooking at home
AirBnB is a global network of accommodations offered by locals
Comedian Louis C.K. is getting a lot of love for selling his video simply and directly to his audience
And there’ll be more to come.
Could this give rise to the ‘nano-business’? Millions of people like you and me turning on/off supply of services we provide to suit our convenience. By day: accountant, on Sundays: curry chef
Encouraging parallel conversations during live events has been gathering pace recently. The Guardian have long had much success with their interactive minute-by-minute coverage of sport, and more recently live rolling news.
Even sweet old Radio 4 is getting in on the act; last night I heard them encouraging people to use the hashtag #r4riot and join in with one of their live shows.
But my favourite example recently is Riz Ahmed, an actor in Four Lions, tweeting live (simultweeting?) along with a screening of the film on TV. What a great way to spread the word and encouraging re-watching. It’s a bit like the audio commentaries you get as extras on DVD, but much more vital.
Like everyone else, I’ve been beguiled by the unfolding hacking drama at News International.
It’s been well discussed that it took the confluence of tenacious, brilliant reporting from the Guardian with the amplifying power of social media to really land the killer blows.
One thing that’s really struck me, though, is the impact of social media on crisis management PR.
NI took the understandable step (eventually) of publishing an apology last weekend in all the nationals, followed by “and now let’s put it right” the day after. These are classic steps in the crisis management playbook.
However, are they relevant any more? Within moments of the apology being published, it’d been dissected, remixed, lampooned and re-broadcast by the Twittersphere – undermining its power markedly.
Traditional crisis management has relied on a scarcity of the ability to broadcast. I.e. get your message on tv/in the papers and that’ll drown out dissenters.
Well this is audacious. Their explanation says it all
This video was created as an official response to the Newsweek article calling Grand Rapids a “dying city.” We disagreed strongly, and wanted to create a video that encompasses the passion and energy we all feel is growing exponentially, in this great city.
People don’t like ads interrupting their viewing, and adverts that aren’t relevant to particular viewers (or skipped) don’t work.
Step forward MirriAd – a neat way of allowing product placement to be inserted post production. Its effectiveness will all be down to execution, but it’s a very neat idea. Imagine being able to place ads into programmes tactically at a minute’s notice, or show ads for products a particular viewer has been researching online.
Miso is kinda like Foursquare for TV – you check-in to programmes you’re watching.
It might be easy to dismiss Miso as derivative, but I think it’s got a good chance of catching on (I’ve talked about Real-time watercooler moments and social tv before).
Whereas “Bob just checked in to North Acton station” is so what, “Bob just watched Madmen episode 4×10 can elicit real interest for a conversation – “Ooh what did you think of the bit where…?”
I suspect we’ll see a slew of other non-location check ins – sports games? fashions? video games? books? I can imagine “Dave just checked into The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” being a basis for a conversation.
One of my favourite NPD tricks is Break One Rule – take a successful formula and change one thing. I think Miso does this well.
…but they need to avoid news feed pollution. It was already pretty grating seeing too many Foursquare check-ins. Now that’s going to step up another order of magnitude.
This extraordinary ad/short film from Diageo makes for compelling viewing. Aside from the green screen magic (presumably?) and great choice of actor in Robert Carlyle, it is notable for two other reasons:
Use of story
Appreciation of stories is hard-wired into our beings, and this is a good yarn with arcs, conflict, ambition and resolution. We’re being fed a brand story, but in such an engaging way that we accept it.
Breaking media format
They’ve made an ad that is six and a half minutes long. Up until recently, such a length would have been laughably prohibitive, and indeed the days of 60 or even 90 second spectaculars seemed to be on the wane. But of course nowadays, good content spreads on digital channels where media cost is free and not constrained by programming breaks or convention.
