IF! from PSFK - fresh ideas and creative thinking for modern marketers

Fast Strategy

The face of communications has changed drastically in the past 15 years. As technology has exploded the speed at which we work has increased dramatically. This has resulted in strategists and creatives having to think faster than ever before.

The IPA strategy group recently held a conference to help those in the industry to come up with ideas more rapidly. Richard Huntington of Adliterate and Saatchi & Saatchi has posted his top tips:

1. Time is not the problem in creating strategy, ideas are. If you can find an idea the time will find itself.

2. Ideas first, facts second. Facts only make sense in the light of an idea.

3. There are only two criteria for judging your creative strategies - are they simple and are they interesting.

4. It is vital to be interesting, it is merely important to be right.

5. If you look in the same place as everyone else you will never find something interesting, no matter how clever you are.

6. Every great solution comes from a great problem. Make sure you understand the problem behind the problem that you are trying to solve.

7. Anything and everything can help you. Take a walk and think about how every shop, sign, ad, conversation and observation might help you solve the problem.

8. Be prepared. Keeping reading the weird shit.

9. Keep your focus on finding out the things you didn’t know you didn’t know.

10. Call upon your latent strategies, the strategies that you have always wanted to use but have never had the chance.

11. Remember that the stale strategic idea of one category is the ground breaking step forward in another.

12. Jam with other people, online or face to face. But don’t engage that trojan horse of mediocrity, the brainstorm.

13. Ask yourself what the brand’s position might be about the something we all care about.

14. A position is an opinion. We live in an age of conversation and opinions are the lifeblood of all conversations.

15. Plan from within. How do you feel about the brand, category or the wider world? How do you explain your own behaviour? You are not unrepresentative, you live in the same brand landscape as everyone else.

16. Trust your instinct - its the most truthful resource you have.

17. Fast strategy is more about decisiveness than speed. Often we need strategic courage more than haste.

Honda - Difficult Is Worth Doing

This is an interesting campaign from Honda. Having pushed the creative boundaries over the years thanks to a great strategy, Honda are now trying to innovate using media.

The latest campaign from the Japanese car manufacturer is made up of some outdoor posters:

Some short TV teasers:

Which all direct you to a blog:

It'll be interesting to see if people genuinely engage or whether it's an idea that just appeals to advertising types.

Clustarack

Someone shows Guinness how to do a 'one-action-leads-to another' ad without faking it (for a lot of money). Nice ad from Clustarack:

Drench

This new campaign from bottled water, Drench, is pretty fun. It's from the Gorilla school of advertising, although this time round there is a 'punchline'.

The reason advertising like this works is that it's incredibly likeable, different and surprising.

They've used a well known character from a famous TV show and made him perform in an unexpected way - this gives us the likeability.

The fact that it's for a bottled water and doesn't show either mountains, springs or people running means that it stands out from the category.

Finally the link between the film and the product provides a further element of surprise, helps it stands out from other advertising in general and a punch line which adds to the likeability.

It'll be interesting to see if the idea can work beyond a single ad as the campaign develops.

Link Fest

Here's some great stuff we've seen over the last few days but haven't had time to write about:

The BBC's HD ad:

Last.fm & YouTube mash-up

Spectra - a news and colour mash-up

The myth of storytelling in new marketing

Nokia's Let's Never Get Lost campaign

Adidas Grun - Guerilla Marketing

Branded Utility Using Twitter

FrogFuel is an interesting example of an online application that uses the latest digital communication tool Twitter. The system lets users track their gas mileage by letting the system know the miles the user traveled on their last tank, the price they paid, and how many gallons they added to your car. FuelFrog compiles and trends the information about the gas mileage, the amount the user spends and more. All this is communicated via Twitter. Track Your Gas Mileage with FuelFrog

Media Ideas: The Deck

If you're looking for a fresh way to leverage influential websites and blogs, you could consider The Deck that has a mighty roster of fabulous creative, web and design sites. Warnin - the ad network are rather selective and choose only products and services they like. one blogger we know says she can't stop clicking on the banners they serve on her own site because the products are always so good. The Deck says it is:

The premier network for reaching creative, web and design professionals, The Deck serves up tens of millions of page views each month and is uniquely configured to connect the right marketers to a targeted, influential audience.

The Deck

Retail Inspiration: Alife Tokyo

New York streetwear brand Alife has opened a rather fabulous looking store in Tokyo. No news about who the designer is - but if you are in the neighborhood, do make sure to check it out: 3-15-10 Jingumae, Shibuya-Ku, Tokyo.

Continue Reading "Retail Inspiration: Alife Tokyo"

Packaging : David LaChapelle Remy Martin VSOP Cognac

/Luxist points us to this new packaging for the Remy Martin VSOP Cognac by photographer David LaChapelle. LaChapelle took inspiration from the Paris cabaret scene during the Jazz Age when Remy Martin first appeared in 1927. Only 150,000 bottles will be produced. Remy Martin VSOP Cognac...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on May 2, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Food & Drink, Packaging Ideas | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

All 120 Crayon Names

Nearly 3 billion crayons are made each year, an average of 12 million daily. Crayola crayons come in 120 colors including 23 reds, 20 greens, 19 blues, 16 purples, 14 oranges, 11 browns, 8 yellows, 2 grays, 2 coppers, 2 blacks, 1 white, 1 gold and 1 silver -...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on May 2, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Packaging Ideas, Product Design Inspiration | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Guy Ritchie's Spot For Nike

Guy Ritchie directed this new spot for Nike and features folks like Arsene Wenger, Cristiano Ronaldo, William Gallas, Marco Materazzi, Ronaldinho and Ruud van Nistelrooy. Nice change of perspective. Nike [via]...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on May 1, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Sports, TV Advertising | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

60 x USB Driver

News of this USB Multi-Copier has been doing the rounds on the blogosphere with several wondering why you'd ever want to copy 60 USB sticks at a time. We're sure there must be some clever marketers out there who can fathom a plan - post-event memory sticks, anyone? USB...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 30, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Creative Ideas, Event Marketing | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Using The iPhone To Empower Retail Staff

Apple already tracks the revenue performance of its retail stores in real time at the Cupertino headquarters, and can immediately spot purchase trends, new product success, returns and other activities. Now, that technology is being extended to managers at the stores themselves with special software installed on an iPhone, allow them to track sales, inventory and employee performance.

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 28, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Retail Inspiration, Technology | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

McDonald's Gets A Fashion Makeover

First it was new designer chairs and muted colours, now McDonald's in the UK have decided that the staff themselves need a design overhaul and have replaced the brightly coloured uniforms of the burger-flippers of yore with a smarter, sleeker range of designs by UK design institution Bruce Oldfield....

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 24, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Food & Drink, Retail Inspiration | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

PSFK Conference Videos On iTunes

You can subscribe to our iTunes podcast feed to get free access to all our past conference videos and the ones from our last event in New York as and when we release them. Simply click this link....

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 23, 2008 | Tags/Topics: | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Where's Wally On Google Maps

Canadian artist Melanie Coles has painted a 55ft Wally on top of a building that can be seen by Google Earth satellites and put up a contest on her website to find it. How could you run a similar project? http://whereonearthiswaldo.wordpress.com/...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 22, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Creative Ideas, Online Marketing | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Operations As Marketing

Zeus Jones has a blog post on how company operations are starting to subsume the marketing function. They say that recent announcement from American Apparel that they are putting RFID tags on all their garments is an example of this fact: In fact, American Apparel has been a shining example...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 22, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Brand Ideas, Retail Inspiration | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Using Facebook

This press release provides some insight into how one tech company leveraged Facebook...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 22, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Online Marketing, Public Relations, Technology | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Getting Press From the Blogs

In this video, Mike Arrington speaks at Startup School 2008 about how to get, and how to respond to press for your startup. Share and annotate your videos with Omnisio! [From Mike Arrington at Startup School 08 | Omnisio]...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 22, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Public Relations | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Marc Schiller On Brands & Social Media

In this out-take from the PSFK Conference New York, Marc Schiller explains his agency's approach to helping brands use social media. ElectricArtists...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 21, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Brand Ideas, Creative Ideas, Online Marketing | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Noah Brier On Brands & Social Media

In this out-take from the PSFK Conference New York, Noah Brier talks about how brands should approach the social web. http://www.noahbrier.com...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 21, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Brand Ideas, Creative Ideas, Online Marketing, Viral Marketing | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Steve Rubel On Brands & Social Media

In this out-take from the PSFK Conference New York, Steve Rubel of Edelman talks about how brands should approach social media. http://www.steverubel.com/...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 21, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Online Services, Viral Marketing | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

O2's Memory Rings

Jason Bruges has created a memory project for British telecom brand O2 where he will show videos within a circular hut that will instill a sense of déjà vu. Rings of video projected onto the wall will show what happened outside the hut at different time intervals - from...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 21, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Brand Experience, Telecom | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Product Design: Paul Budnitz On Following Trends

In the Spring 08 Antenna Magazine, Lauren Silagy interviews Kidrobot founder Paul Budnitz. In it Budnitz explains how he launched the designer toy company, his approach to working with artists and how he tries not to to follow trends. It's well worth a read - there are a couple...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 21, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Design, Product Design Inspiration | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Research Tool: Facebook Lexicon

A new feature has made its public debut on Facebook in recent weeks - Lexicon - a tool for following language trends across profile, group, and event wall postings. The Lexicon is a neat feature that maps the frequency of word usage per day on Facebook walls. For example,...

Rob Kalin of Etsy On Making A Purchase Feel Like Getting A Gift

In this out-take from the PSFK Conference New York 08, founder Rob Kalin explains why buying through Etsy is like receiving a gift. Etsy.com...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 21, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Brand Ideas, Design, Online Marketing, Retail Inspiration | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Sneaker Vending Machine

Onitsuka Tiger has launched the world's first sneaker vending machine. Placed in Carnaby Street, London the machine can vend 24 pairs in 6 sizes. The machine will be making its way across the country and we may see the face of sneaker selling changed forever. via Scott Goodson...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 16, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Media Ideas | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Creating Interesting Press Ads

Scamp has his critics, but he's at his best when he provides his tips and this week has seen another of excellent posts. He suggests that if you're struggling with a press ad put yourself in to the mindset of Paul Belford and Nigel Roberts, two masters. "the entire...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 16, 2008 | Tags/Topics: | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Research Using Twitter Clouds

We were just admiring Beeker's Twitter Cloud when we realized that such an application could be used for research. The clouds highlight common keywords that people use in the Twitter feed. So... if you followed people who were your target market, you could get some interesting analysis, no? Tweet...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 15, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Research Ideas | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Audi RS6

This is the latest work from Audi and BBH in London. It's a fine piece of film and technically stunning but it seems that big visual metaphors and car ads have had their moment. First we had Honda Cog, then Honda Choir, recently we had Ford's awful orchestra and...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 15, 2008 | Tags/Topics: TV Advertising | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Under The Influence

London agency Iris have organised the second Under The Influence event. Instead of the usual conference format of grand auditorium and speakers giving a sales pitch, Iris have put together an afternoon full of interesting speakers and in the settings of 5 Borough pubs. They say: "Under The Influence is...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 15, 2008 | Tags/Topics: | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Argentinean Advertising

Daniel at Adstructure has put together a great post on why Argentina has been so successful at creating award winning advertising around the world, and possibly why London's hottest creative director, Juan Cabral has been dominating the creative world. "The secret: they created an argentinean way of doing advertising. Argentina...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 14, 2008 | Tags/Topics: | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Sony Images Like No Other

This is the latest in a long line of legendary ads for Sony that kicked off with Bravia's balls. Sadly it seems that the big idea hasn't moved on from the genius that was balls.

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 14, 2008 | Tags/Topics: TV Advertising | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Blog Content On Airline Entertainment Systems

On our recent flight on Virgin America to SFO we noticed that music blog/label RCRD LBL has a music channel on their In Flight Entertainment system. VA also has video podcasts from Boing Boing, Digg and TED which are updated monthly. Charles Ogilvie who created and runs the system...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 14, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Online Marketing, Publishing, Travel | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Using iTunes To Grow Traffic

Dan Hill, Director of Web & Broadcast for Monocle between 2007-2008, describes his approach at integrating the web into the publishing process. In one section he talks about they used iTunes to extend readership...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 14, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Online Marketing, Publishing | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Aeron Chair

On the Creative Review Blog they've charted the rise of the revolutionary Aeron Chair. The story charts the rise of empiriscm over aestheticism. "Every workday, 40 million white collar workers use office chairs, yet the design principles behind most of those chairs are fundamentally flawed. Mass-market furniture is aimed...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 11, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Design | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

The Death Of Copy

A couple of weeks ago we posted Scamps view that copy is dead. On the Dye Holloway Murray blog they've just come back from judging the writing category at the D&AD and noticed a drop in the number of entries into this section. They also observed that the style...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 11, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Creative Ideas | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Nike Joseph “Joschka” Fischer

It's not often that you get to capitalise on a high profile politician wearing your brand on an important occasion and standing for everything that you do. When this happens to your brand you have to take advantage of it and Nike have done just that. via Woweewow...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 11, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Creative Ideas | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Typography

This is a fantastic piece of typographical work and shows what is possible with a brilliant script and a bit of thought. Samuel L Jackson on top form helps too. Speaking of which, here's the new Virgin Media ad which features the great man: And its inspiration?...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 11, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Creative Ideas | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Chris Palmer's Last Shoot

This is a great little film from Saatchi & Saatchi....

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 11, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Creative Ideas | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

The Next Creative Revolution

Nick Law of advertising agency R/GA has written a fantastic article on the future of creative agencies. He argues that being able to tell amusing stories about brands on TV is no longer enough and often inappropriate. "While the followers of Bernbach are crafting the message, McLuhanites should be politely...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 9, 2008 | Tags/Topics: | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Planning At 40

This year marks the 40th birthday of planning. To celebrate the JWT has asked famous strategists to mark this incredibly important anniversary with their thoughts on the past 40 years and also the future. One of the strategists that have been asked to contribute is John Grant. He says he...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 8, 2008 | Tags/Topics: | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Is Research Hindering Creativity

| View | Upload your own Jason Oke, the Director of Planning at Juniper Park and formerly of Leo Burnett Toronto, recently presented to the MRIA's annual conference. He believes that: "research hasn’t been evolving at the same rate as culture, and instead of seizing the moment of opportunity,...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 8, 2008 | Tags/Topics: | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Fantastic Chart

This chart of the American subprime mortgage crisis is a fantastic use of data. It's very similar to the Global Cities art installation in the Tate Modern. You can view the huge version of it here....

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 7, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Creative Ideas | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

BMW Spends More Than Half Its Budget On Digital For 1 Series

An article in the New York Times looks at BMW's campaign to launch the BMW 1 series in the US. Almost half of the the campaign budget ($15 million to $25 million) is being devoted to online media. By comparison Internet ad spending for other models ranges from 1 percent to 15 percent of the total ad budgets.

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 7, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Automotive, Online Marketing | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Vodafone Lewis Hamilton

Whenever brands ask their agencies to use their celebrity spokesperson the work is usually pretty poor (think Gillette or Nivea), however, this new ad from Vodafone tells a charming story and keeps Lewis Hamilton where he's best. In the cockpit of his car....

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 7, 2008 | Tags/Topics: TV Advertising | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Comic Book Sounds

Not saw where I found these, but they're fantastic. Comic Book Sounds on Flickr...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 4, 2008 | Tags/Topics: | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Are Facebook Apps The New Branded Wasteland?

Three minds has a very interesting post on the recent trend for brands to create Facebook applications. The latest trend for brands looking to interact with their audience has been to create a brand related application. However, the last major web 2.0 craze for brands was Second Life which has...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 4, 2008 | Tags/Topics: | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Paul Arden RIP

The former creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi, Paul Arden has died aged 67. Creative Review said: "Arden was responsible for some of the great campaigns of British advertising, including British Airways and Silk Cut. But he will also be remembered as one of the great characters of the...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 3, 2008 | Tags/Topics: | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Absolut Machines

Absolut gives people the opportunity to interact with machines from around the world over the web. You can get the Absolut Quartet in New York to play for you, the Absolut Choir in Stockholm to sing for you. Absolut say: "Marshall McLuhan, a media studies pioneer who forever changed...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 3, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Design | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Lost Generation

Really nice idea. Via Serendipity Book...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 3, 2008 | Tags/Topics: | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

A Model For Communication

One of our favourite blogs is Digicynic written by Jerome, an engagement planner at BBH London. His perspective is often slightly different from the regular plannersphere thoughts. Jerome has recently been thinking about how communications have evolved as web penetration has increased and brands have become more interactive and tried...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 3, 2008 | Tags/Topics: | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Cultural Movements

Writing over on his blog, StrawbeerryFrog founder Scott Goodson talks about Cultural Movements as the StrawberryFrog approach which helps the agency define their competitive edge and DNA, and fuels a process that releases innovation and liberates creativity. Or so he says: Cultural Movements is what we do at StrawberyFrog to...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 3, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Brand Ideas | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

PSFK Conference & Coffee In San Francisco

Next week team PSFK will be visiting San Francisco and the Bay Area as we prepare for PSFK Conference San Francisco which is penned for July 16th (and 17th). If you are interested in helping the event as a speaker, sponsor, volunteer, workshop-faclitator, supporter or friend we'd love to see you at one of two coffee mornings we're holding.

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 2, 2008 | Tags/Topics: | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Using The MacBook Tilt

Josh Spear is reporting that hackers have created a Honda bike test-drive that allows users to tilt their MacBook laptop computer to drive the simulated bike on a course presented on their screen. Honda Test Drive...

Full Article | Posted by Piers Fawkes on April 2, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Automotive, Creative Ideas, Gaming, Online Marketing | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Converse "Thank You"

Converse is a brand on a high. Thanks to a fashion trend their iconic footware has become ubiquitous amongst the cool and trendy. In Japan to celebrate their 100 birthday they've created a campaign to thank all those that have been loyal and helped them get to where they...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 1, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Fashion | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed

Sticky Ideas

Last year Made to Stick was published by Chip Heath & Dan Heath. They analysed why some ideas are sticky and others just disappear. Bookjive have posted a summary of the book and Sparking Curious mind have picked out the six key traits: 1. Simplicity. Messages are most memorable if...

Full Article | Posted by Henry Lambert on April 1, 2008 | Tags/Topics: Creative Ideas | Comments (0) | Add IF! To Your News Feed