It's all changing so fast...

This video just goes to show the speed at which the world is changing.

Soft Selling ESPN

I had a bit of a rant about Setanta earlier in the year about how they came storming into the football broadcasting market and expected football fans to dish out over £10 a month to see additional live games. Now that they're gone, ESPN have come along and are trying to shift the monopoly of Sky Sports. The big difference between ESPN's strategy and that of Setanta is that ESPN have taken a much gentler approach and have tried not to become just another broadcaster that wants consumers money.

In the 60 second spot below, ESPN have tried to reflect the passion of being a football fan. There is no mention of any monthly fee, just a delivery that indicates the channel is a passionate follower of football. The ad seeks to emulate the oath of football that exists in so many towns and cities across the country. The call to action in the final frame, enables ESPN to develop a brand experience for consumers through their customer service or online presence. After football fans rejection of Setanta last season, the knowledge that ESPN is not merely trying to take our money is one that I believe will gain the broadcaster a lot of support.



Obviously to try and maintain its dominance Sky has created a series of ads depicting the feeling football brings and how they share this passion. A similar execution to that of ESPN, it may be difficult for viewers to differentiate between the two broadcasters and therefore due to the high level of brand awareness for Sky Sports, the UK brand may just come out on top. A clever piece of strategic advertising from Sky.

Ad Grads Vs Grads

Hosted by NABs, the graduate workshop at JWT on Monday was a fascinating experience. I was able to gain a bit more insight into how agencies are run and what makes a good account man, and I took alot from the presentations. It was an entertaining delivery from Sam and Will of the AdGrads blog, who gave 10 tips in managing your online presence and how this can help (or hinder) you in your application. Overall, a very informative and interesting presentation.

During the workshop, I talked to other students attending about their applications and what they had done at university. I was surprised at the sheer number of different courses people had studied, from French to Anthropology and even engineering. Not one person I spoke to had studied advertising or marketing.

This got me thinking about my own choices and if my decision to study Advertising and Marketing communications at university would give me a distinct advantage over the other advertising applicants. I can obviously understand ad agencies thinking that a wider range of graduates means more perspectives on certain issues but surely those who have studied the advertising industry for the past three years, had experience working on real client briefs and carried out numerous pitches should have a slight edge in the application process?

Great Idea. Poor Execution.

When I came across the news that Championship Manager 2010 was available as a digital download where users could pay what they want and get it for as little as 10p I couldnt wait to get online and grab my copy. I rushed to my computer, straight to the championship manager website and followed the link to the download. Luckily, the page I was directed to contained a video telling me a bit more about the pay what you want scheme. Underneath the video, I was met with a large number of comments stating just how bad the process was for purchasing the game. Users were complaining that they had been charged either twice, three times or four times for the digital download due for release on September 10th. People were angry and it was easy to understand why. After reading the comments there was no way I was about to enter my card details to get charged several times.



The idea of allowing people to pay what they want for digital goods was promoted by the band, Radiohead who let fans choose what they paid for their 'Rainbows' album in 2008. That proved to be a huge success with Radiohead consequently delivering their music on a sell-out tour. My problem with the championship manager version is their poor execution. When the shop went live on 18 August, the process should have been perfect, but instead there were major problems that was making people think twice about purchasing the game.

For me, Championship Manager has always been miles behind the other management simulator game, Football Manager but this was an opportunity to get the game on people's computers and experience its latest overhauled game engine. Instead, its just got fans angry and has confirmed my views on Football Manager's superiority.

The key point to take from this is the importance of a smooth execution. Having a great idea that will get people talking about your brand is one thing but delivering it simply and effectively is vital to the brands' reputation and long term success.

Unbranded Search

I came across this site courtesy of @MisEntropy which allows you to make web searches without the brand of the site being shown. It is then up to you to choose which set of search results are most relevant to you. For some reason, I thought I would pick Bing results the most as I thought the test would show me how much the Google brand was involved in the process of using a search engine.

I carried out the test 5 times just to see who might win. The search terms I used were simple and common phrases with one being a little more uncommon. Obviously, the most relevant results are subjective to my own preferences but to try and be consistent I deemed the most relevant results as the set which included the most relevant website in the first position. Below are the search terms and the most relevant search engine.

Things to do in Portsmouth - Bing
Fifa 2010 - Google
Nike+ Running Shoe - Google
1/4 inch torque socket set - Bing
iPhone good apps - Google

None of the yahoo results were up to the standard of the other two engine results. Doesn't prove much but it was interesting to see how I would view results without the Google brand glaring back at me.

Brands as Attention Brokers

A brand which has been hit hard during the economic downturn is British Airways, posting a £148 million loss up to the 2nd quarter of 2009. In order to soften the blow, they have decided to allow advertising to be placed on the back of some 12 million boarding passes.

Obviously, when a huge loss has just been issued, the company is going to look for alternative revenue streams in order to lessen the impact on British Airways operations. So the answer, is of course, to sell ad space. A relatively low-risk way of raising a bit more capital to inject into the business.

British Airways are being particularly selective in the brands they will allow to advertise in order to maintain as much control over the British Airways brand image as possible but I can't help but feel that the consumer is the one that is being used. After reading this story on the guardian website, it got me thinking about brands selling the attention of their customers to other brands in order to increase revenues.

In the pre-internet business model, consumers attention was bought and sold by brands and media institutions respectively. However, the consumer is no longer passive in nature, therefore making it more and more difficult to buy their attention. Through using particular elements of the British Airways customer experience as a message platform for other brands, British Airways is becoming a broker for their customer's attention. A strategy which I think is dangerous. There are so many brands competing in all marketplaces, that when a customer chooses your brand over others it is vital that your brand does all it can to satisfy that customer. If brands begin to exploit this and use the customers attention as a way of leveraging money from other brands, then it can only backfire.

The problem is the short term view on raising capital, as long as the business is running smoothly and posting profits in the short term, we'll deal with the long-term when we come to it. For the sake of raising a few quid now and selling the eyeballs of their customers, British Airways are threatening the long-term prominence of the brand.

Some great print executions...

Over the past few weeks, I've come across a few print campaigns from around the world that have really struck a chord with me. Now usually I'm not a huge fan of print advertising as its such an easy form of advertising to ignore, but these campaigns are well executed and for me, highly engaging. Ads via I believe in advertising.

The first ad is from Publicis, India for the dog laxative brand Kennel, highlighting the speed of the tablet.



The second ad, again from Publicis, India, is for omax photography lenses. A wide angled lens, that enables you to succumb to your voyeuristic tendencies. A really great piece of creative.



The last ad campaign I found very well executed is for the hot tub brand Luxor that are deemed "extremely relaxing". Certain groups of people coming together and putting aside their differences to relax in the hot tub together. Brilliant.

Cleaning up the beach

I have to share this with everyone, this great ad from california putting the fun into messing up the beach. Having lived in the sunny seaside town of Bournemouth for the past three years, I'm used to seeing some of this stuff on the beach!

Checklist for Getting a Job in Advertising

For the past few weeks, I have been thinking about creative ways of cutting through the clutter and getting my dream job in a communications agency. From a certain individual on my university course to resume songs posted on YouTube, I have seen a decent amount of attempts from others to persuade potential employers that they are perfect for the creative communications agency.

A certain individual on my course has gone to town on their application and it has proved worthwhile with a job offer at a top london agency. The individual in question delivered a few strategies for getting the attention of his favourite agency. The first was to stand outside the office building and hand his CV to every single person who came out, a tactic I'm guessing that would annoy most but would surely make people remember him over everyone else who simply sends their CV in the post or via e-mail. Another tactic employed by my coursemate was to send the agency a mobile phone with only one number on the sim card. An expensive way to cut through the clutter.

Other stories I've heard from the various blogs I read, have included one guy who got all his friends to pester the CEO of an agency through Twitter, trying to convince him that he was worthy of a job. Another attention grabbing tactic used by an advertising job seeker was to recreate a 1972 Cosmo centrefold featuring Burt Reynolds in which the copywriter posed nude with only a Television set masking his modesty. As the individual had only just been laid off by his previous agency, he was established enough for the picture to build momentum and get people talking about him.



The video application is something I've seen spring up a few times across various blogs and it's a simple and great way to visualise a dull CV. The video below is by an american marketing student showing potential employers what he has to offer in a creative and engaging way.