Brand Republic Blogs

Ogilvy snatches Cannes Lions Media Grand Prix External website

by Louise Ridley, 19/06/2013

So this year’s winner of this year’s Cannes Lions Media Grand Prix is… creative agency Ogilvy and Mather (O&M) Amsterdam?

The fact that an ad agency has walked away with media’s top prize this year will no doubt raise a few eyebrows, especially among those who still view Cannes as being dominated by advertising’s old guard.

Think People, not Consumers and other thoughts from La Croisette External website

by Paul Frampton, 19/06/2013

Last week I gave you some headlines from our new wave of Meaningful Brands research that demonstrates the huge disparity between consumer expectation and reality. A sobering reminder; only 7% of people would care if a brand vanished tomorrow in the UK.

Chronicles of Cannes – Day Two: The Redux External website

by Adrian & Sophie @ Evidently, 19/06/2013

Day two dawned….and with it another migration back to the Palais.

Annie Leibovitz explained the art of bringing a story down to a single moment, and shared the inspiration behind the campaign she created with Disney making tales as old as time relevant to today. We heard from Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots at Google (yes, really) reinforcing the importance of storytelling in driving audacious invention. Mother warned us to hang on to the joy of craft and keep our brains happy in order not to become advertising douchebags. And Facebook discussed scalable creativity.

Mini Instagram projector External website

by Greg Taylor, 19/06/2013

Dim the lights. Pass round the popcorn. And treat your friends to a slideshow of all your finest filter-tastic snaps.

Projecteo is a mini projector created just for Instagram pictures. It was created last year, and thanks to $87,000 of Kickstarter funding, has just launched to the public. (Cheers, Keely.)

Read more on Mini Instagram projector…

Crowdfunding steps in – where our banks fear to tread External website

by Mano Manoharan, 19/06/2013

The ‘Not so secret life of an e-commerce entrepreneur’ continues…

What has the Statue of Liberty got in common with Kickstarter? Well in 1885 cash from more than 120,000 civic-minded Americans helped New York build the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. That makes it the first record of ‘crowdfunding’ – comfortably beating Kickstarter by nearly 130 years.

Social Brands: Part Five – Change is coming External website

by Simon Kemp, 19/06/2013

For the past few decades, marketing has been dominated by a mass-media paradigm. During that time, we’ve defined the ‘best’ marketing as that which makes the most efficient use of broadcast media, and as a result, we’ve spent decades perfecting an approach that’s all about reducing the cost of interrupting people.

Your brand doesn’t speak to me – Anjali Ramachandran, PHD UK External website

by Test User, 18/06/2013

Anjali Ramachandran is PHD UK’s innovation director and is blogging live from Cannes 2013.

As part of Omnicom, I was one of a select group of people yesterday invited to attend a panel discussion on the ability of brands (or lack of, depending on which angle or brand you’re coming from) to speak to a female audience.

Chronicles of Cannes – The Arrival External website

by Adrian & Sophie @ Evidently, 18/06/2013

The annual advertising hajj that is the Cannes Lions has kicked off in a steamy haze of rosé, Brazilians and flashy boats. Twelve thousand delegates are desperately seeking out free drinks in between trying to squeeze into packed talks by a mix of celebs, industry legends, wannabes and hasbeens.

Should brands get involved with Snapchat? External website

by Julie Thompson-Dredge, 18/06/2013

The photograph of two teenage girls recreating a Cara Delevignge-style funny face on Snapchat’s homepage gives a good indication of where this buzzy new app see their audience. For the uninitiated, or those no longer in the sixth form, the app works by allowing smart phone photos or videos to be sent to groups or individuals, with the images then self-deleting in seconds. The additional fun part is a function enabling graffiti style captions or other sketches and scribbles to be overlaid across images.

WHO’S GETTING SCREWED? External website

by Dave Trott, 18/06/2013

Amy Lockwood wants people in the Congo to use condoms.
1.3% of the people living in the Congo have HIV Aids.
That doesn’t sound like a lot.
But the Democratic Congo Republic is the size of Western Europe.
And 1.3% is nearly a million people.
So it’s crucial they use condoms to stop spreading the disease.
Amy Lockwood runs The Centre for Innovation in Global Health, at Stanford University.
She was puzzled why only 3% of people in the Congo use condoms when international aid agencies send them by the truckload.
Plus which, the aid agencies also send out lots of advertising and marketing material with the condoms.
Before Amy had her present job, she was in marketing.
And she could see the two things just didn’t add up.
So she asked the locals, shopkeepers and brothel owners, why their customers weren’t using the condoms.
They said the condoms and advertising weren’t attractive.
Amy thought there must be a disconnect.
Between the people who were approving the advertising and the people it was supposed to be aimed at.
She noticed all the messaging in the ads and packaging was about: Fear and Fidelity.
1) Don’t get an incurable disease.
2) Stay faithful to one partner.
As Amy says, these probably aren’t what you’re thinking about at the moment you’re about to use a condom.
You’re probably thinking about sex.
But the problem is the advertising isn’t done for the audience that are actually using the condoms.
In fact the audience isn’t anyone in the Congo at all.
The audience is in the USA.
Politicians, donors, clinicians, philanthropists, aid-agencies, non-governmental organisations, development institutions, charities, governments, funders.
And none of these want to see a message about sex.
They want to see messages about Fear and Fidelity.
So the condoms are soberly and demurely packaged.
With names like: Vive, Trust, Protector, and Prudence.
Names the audience in the USA will approve.
And the advertising features lines like: “Thank you for taking care of yourself and protecting your partner.”
Because that’s the message the audience back in America wants to hear.
The only trouble is the audience that they want to use the condoms isn’t in America.
And that’s what Amy Lockwood said is one of the most important lessons she’s learned since she graduated with a marketing degree.
And it isn’t something they teach you on the course.
Your real customer may not be your perceived customer.
For Amy the real customer is sitting in America.
The real customer is the person who approves the advertising.
The perceived customer is sitting in the Congo.
But you can tell that isn’t the audience the work is done for.
And that’s how most of advertising and marketing is.
Amy Lockwood says there is one fundamental question we all deceive ourselves about.
And, unless we answer it truthfully, advertising and marketing are just a waste of time.

Read more on WHO’S GETTING SCREWED?…

Safe and sexy phone case External website

by Greg Taylor, 18/06/2013

When it comes to phone cases, everyone has a choice. Go big, chunky and – generally – ugly, but know your phone will stay safe. Or choose a blinging number that looks good, but which will disintegrate long before your phone does.

Read more on Safe and sexy phone case…

Attribution modelling is fatally flawed External website

by Sam Barnett, 18/06/2013

It’s 2013. Companies like Scanadu are building the real-life medical tricorder once imagined in Star Trek; Virgin Galactic is on the verge of sending people into space for their holidays (beats Magaluf); and my company now makes 3.4 billion real-time decisions every day on the web. An inconceivable feat ten years ago.

Infographic: How to create the perfect post on social media External website

by Tim Grimes, 18/06/2013

It takes a lot of trial and error to understand what really makes your fans tick and what resonates within the community. That clever photo of something you think is absolutely hilarious could actually lose you a few fans and no matter how interesting a fact is, it’s never interesting enough to warrant a three paragraph explanation on one Facebook post…

Cannes Virgin seeks founding client – Monday. External website

by Mike Nicholson, 18/06/2013

Went to Thenetworkone’s event.

There I met Julian again who kindly introduced me to various fellow independent agencies.

There were guys from all over the world.

China, Brazil and Amsterdam to name a few.

Rembrandt shows how to use social content to engage External website

by Chris J Reed, 18/06/2013

The opening of the new Rembrandt museum in Holland does not automatically make you think social media and flash mob but it did to sponsors ING with great effect!

D & AD and the Yellow Haired Trophies External website

by Lol and Nat, 17/06/2013

Thanks D & AD, for a great evening last wednesday.

Hats off to the organisers for deciding to jetison the awards do formula of having an overpaid comedian present the awards in between quips about what a silly industry advertising is (as you sometimes get when Simon Amstell, Stephen Mangan, Edith Bowman et.al. are at the mic).

A Wish for Cannes – A More Creative Future External website

by Jonathan Akwue, 17/06/2013

For Britain to regain our position as a creative superpower, we need to learn lessons from the world of sports and open our doors to a more diverse pool of talent.

Has the time for connected TV advertising finally arrived? External website

by Jeff Siegel, 17/06/2013

Brands today understand the importance of using data to tailor their messages and to reach their key target audiences, so it would be reasonable to assume that TV and its ‘shotgun’ approach to advertising is becoming less appealing. Indeed, the IAB announced in 2009 that online advertising spending in the UK had overtaken TV advertising for the first time in 2009, many industry executives believed the death knell had sounded for this channel.

Mobile marketing set to explode in Latin America External website

by Marcio Chaer, 17/06/2013

Telefonica Digital has recently announced it will be the headline sponsor for the Festival of Media LatAm in September. This is a key regional advertising event and, as one of the leading mobile marketing companies in the region, we are excited to support it.

The psychology of nostalgia External website

by Andy Nairn, 17/06/2013

How would you complete the word: “COFF_ _”?

If you answered “COFFIN”, then according to a recent study cited in this month’s edition of The Psychologist, you have a higher-than-average anxiety about death – whereas if you answered “COFFEE”, you have a more positive sense of life and mortality.