WHEN MONKEYS BECAME MEN

Another day and another quote from an advertising agency CEO, who, with incredible chutzpah, is claiming his agency 'puts digital at the centre of everything we do'. If I was a client I'd be raising a quizzical eyebrow in their direction.How recently it was that these very same industry leaders were grunting, sneering and dismissing anything that jeopardised their 50 year old methods of engaging consumers.Digital consumption will overshadow all other forms of communication put together and make TV look about as engaging as staring at a box in the corner of your living room.Let's wave a cheery V sign to those antiquated above-the-line methods, beliefs and expectations and let's welcome the opportunity to inform and involve in ever more exciting ways. Let's say goodbye to 'Opportunties To See' (OTS) and say hello to 'Opportunities To Talk' (OTT - I might need to rethink my abbreviation here). Digital marketing is about mobilising your prospects and advocates by giving them substance and reason to engage with your brand. Blogs have created a form of brand hijack because consumers talk about brands in their own words, often much to the chagrin of marketers.As an industry, there's nothing we can do about that but it shouldn't be seen as a threat: it's the greatest evolutionary leap in the history of marketing. It's been a long time since anyone in advertising has been able to make a claim like that. About 50 years I'd say.

BLUE-EYED PLANNERS

If I had a pound for every time someone has asked me why my agency is called 20:20, I'd have... oooh about eleven quid. The peculiarity of the question is that if you knew what 20:20 means, you'd posess 20:20 and therefore wouldn't ask the question.The OED defines 20:20 (the colon is mine) as "keenly or acutely perceptive", so you can see why you might get an ironic smile if you asked me the origins of our agency's name. However, the relevance of the name 20:20 goes further than that, as '20:20 vision' means 'perfect eyesight', which brings me neatly to my theory about eye colour.Bright blue eyes have long been viewed as a quality that can help attract the opposite sex, but then so have brown smouldering ones. Researchers in America (where else?) have now found that our eye colour says a lot about our intelligence. I've always thought there was something to be discerned from eye colour and I've often used this theory in interviews of client meetings. If you're currently hiring, you might want to try out my theory...Blue eyed people are more studious and are able to concentrate for longer periods that those with brown eyes (this explains my appalling attention deficit in meetings that run longer than an hour). If you need a planner, find one with blue eyes. Brown-eyed people, by contrast, are more impulsive, competitive and emotional - the ideal qualifications for a creative superstar. Account managers should always have steely, unflinching grey eyes, whilst your entire finance department, who begrudgingly do the really dull stuff, should be staffed by green-eyed monsters.Heed my advice and hopefully you'll never find your agency staffed by red-eyed copywriters and boss-eyed coders. Or an MD with an eye patch.

I PREDICT A RIOT

I saw the future the other day and it was on telly. Sumo TV is a digital TV channel that broadcasts user-generated content relentlessly. It looks like crap because there seems to be no regulation over content, picture quality or subject matter. Just one big bubbling pot of random clips.So what's so good about that? Well in this on-demand world we now live in, it's good news that TV stations are moving away from broadcasters to facilitators. Just as the introduction of the Apple Mac caused doomsayers to fret over everyone suddenly becoming desktop publishers, User Generated TV (UGTV) will empower everyone to decide what they want to see. But just as Macs didn't make creatives obsolete, UGTV will spark a whole generation of movie makers, TV producers and content providers. New businesses will spring up with lean and nimble operations, producing instant content that we'll all be able to watch whenever we like. Never before have we seen consumers and content providers so cloesly aligned, because for the first time ever in TV, they are one and the same. It will be a riot.

JOURNEY OF ENLIGHTENMENT

I was invited to the opening night of Damon Albarn's Monkey opera at the weekend, and seeing as it premiered in my home town of Manchester, and it was part of the Manchester International Festival, nothing was going to stop me.'Monkey, Journey To The West' is a collaboration between Damon and all-round-animator-type Jamie Hewlitt, who formed Gorillaz. The opera is based on an ancient Chinese story of a journey of enlightenment. The use of animation and live action to tell the story is pure magic, and the music is fantastic. I highly recommend it to everyone.As for my own journey of enlightenment? Sadly, a 2 hour diversion on a Virgin train back to London and an encounter with two 'officials' at Euston only served to enlighten me to avoid train travel for a while.

ABSENCE MAKES THE ART GROW FONDER

It's been so long since my last blog I forgot how to do it. Like at school when you came back from your summer holidays and had lost the ability to hold a pen properly. (Or was that just me?)I'd ike to say I've been in Cannes for past few weeks, but the truth is I've been trying to move office and I've lugged so many boxes around my neck is now wider than my head. See, a good clearout of your office does wonders for the brain - it's how I imagine colonic irrigation: the thought is daunting, and the process may be painful, but the result is liberating. I feel alive, each new brief in the agency looks better than the last and the whole agency is fired up. I'd recommend it to anyone, and as my excruciating subject line suggests, it gives you a renewed devotion to your work. 

SAY YES TO SUBLIMINAL SEDUCTION

I'm a big fan of the part psychology plays in advertising, so I was intruiged when I found an old book on subliminal advertising in a second hand bookshop recently.The author claims that almost every printed ad contains deliberate hidden images and messages, ranging from naked people to the word SEX repeated in a mosiac. These images are not visible to the naked(!) eye, and are so well embedded that we don't notice them, but apparently our subconscious picks up on them and we act instinctively. According to the author, the word SEX hidden in an ad puts us in a susceptible mood and research claims that it moves us closer to a receptive state towards the brand. 

MOTHER'S DAY

Being a thoroughly modern sort of chap, I need no reminding that it's Mother's Day on the 18th March. This got me thinking...Why has there been no visible concerted effort by the gift flower industry to create more reasons to buy and send flowers?

PERSONALITY DISORDER

There's been an undeniable lack of blogging from me recently, but I have been busy and for good reason. Those Brand Republicans who read their news bulletin yesterday will have seen news of our acquisition of Keevill Barton Kershaw (KBK), a DM agency.The newsworthy part of this story is that my agency is digital and digital agencies don't buy traditional DM agencies.

FORTUNE TELLERS

Because of either a hangover, working weekends or the exact opposite - pure bone idleness, it takes me ages to read the Sunday papers.

Anyway, looking to the past to see the future is were I'm coming from (or is that where I'm going to?) and I mention this because I'm also reading the Blog of all Blogs, Samuel Pepys' Diary. He was a relentless blogger and rarely missed a day, but to be fair some of his days were pretty poor. Or to give him the benefit of the doubt, non-eventful. However, he had the odd blinder and here's what happened to him this week in 1664:

Up, and carrying my wife to my Lord’s lodgings left her, and I to White Hall, to the Duke; where I first put on a periwigg to-day; but methought my hair cut short in order thereto did look very prettily of itself, before I put on my periwigg. Thence to his closet and there did our business, and thence Mr. Coventry and I down to his chamber and spent a little time, and I stopping at the Coffee-house and so parted, and I took my wife homeward, and so home to dinner, and after an houre with my wife at her globes, I to the office, where very busy till 11 at night.

So, let me get this right. He got shut of his missus so he could get his hair cut. Then onto a 'Coffee-house' with the lads to talk a bit of business. He then picks up his other half for a bit of a fumble back at his place, before making up an excuse to go to the office. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT I DID LAST WEEK!

Look to the past to see the future is all I'm saying...