Brand Republic Blogs

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.

What I hope to see at Cannes. External website

by Wayne Deakin, 17/06/2013

So Cannes is sixty. In those sixty years there’s been “changing of the guard” many times over and I am hoping to see a new seminal shift once again this year. I hope this year we see those that challenge the very way we communicate in this industry applauded and rewarded with big shinny doorstops.

How to be socially intelligent External website

by Andrew Needham, 17/06/2013

Today organisations are subjected to a growing level of collective intelligence and value creation from outside the company’s walls as they strive to compete in a much larger ecosystem of consumer participation, innovation and big data. There needs to be a knowledge framework to help companies connect the dots and maximise as much value from this social universe in a way that drives competitive advantage for the business while also driving meaningful experiences for the consumer. We calls this “social intelligence”.

Social intelligence is an adaptive, continuous, collaborative and open consumer driven knowledge framework that sits at the centre of a company’s organisation like the hub of a bicycle wheel where all marketing and business disciplines feed into and out from the customer. In this model the empowered customer is at the heart of everything a company does.

Social intelligence for brands

Don’t be afraid of the ‘dark data’ menace External website

by Nick Evans, 17/06/2013

SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott was speaking at an industry conference recently where he made an interesting declaration: “War on dark data”. I didn’t realise that data could be such a menace!

Smart billboards External website

by Greg Taylor, 17/06/2013

Just because walls are flat doesn’t mean billboards have to be. IBM and Ogilvy France have launched a series of outdoor ads, each with a different shape and purpose. (Good spot, Jamie.) There’s one you can sit on. Another you can shelter under when it rains. And another that makes dragging your bag up steps that little bit easier.

Skip and a trip down memory lane External website

by Rachel Brushfield, 16/06/2013

Do you like reminiscing?

I went to an event this week and one of the speakers was from advertising; Nick Mustoe, a familiar name from my JWT account planning days!

Nick now runs Kindred Agency and as someone rare in advertising with white hair, is living proof that you CAN adapt to a changing profession and still be successful, and my goodness hasn’t it changed!

Media360 2013 engages hearts and minds External website

by Arif Durrani, 14/06/2013

This time last week, we were gearing up to hear Phil Lander (pictured), senior director at BlackBerry, discuss plans for turning around the one time mobile market leader.

If any brand typifies the pace of change we’re all living through right now, then I guess BlackBerry is as good as any, having gone from market leader seven years ago, to battling for survival against new giant rivals Apple and Google Android. It paid a heavy price for failing to adapt quickly to consumer demand in the smartphone space.