Tip of the hat to Greg Verdino.

In response to a recent new biz request from the good folk at Five by Five, I came up with this. The brief: “I want an agency that can help me with thought leadership for the next 3-5 years”. A chance to say our piece and inject my own thoughts and build on some recent activity from some splendid world wide webbers. I blatantly stole the headline from the recent AdAge Power 150 bloggers article too (see a few posts back). I’m enjoying the freedom to come up with this type of stuff. More to come soon. What do you think?

Crystal Ball 2.0

We could talk to you for hours about how we’ve evolved from web 1.0 to web 2.0 and what cool and funky new things you should be involved in. We could even start to blind you with the black art that is the semantic web, or web 3.0 as some unimaginative web folk have termed it.

Or we could just say this…

If you think in three years that you’ll start with the intent of having 60% of your budget on TV, 20% on Press, 18% on PR and sponsorships and a generous 2% on digital (up from current 1% of total spend), then we’ll happily work with that 2% and magic up some digital greatness.

But…

… your starting point tomorrow should really be the same as today.

Strategy and ideas.

Why?

The best idea always wins.

That will never change. Whatever new-fangled digital technology comes our way in the next three to five years, if we set out to “do a You Tube channel” or “have a group on Facebook” then we’re missing the point entirely. Chasing after the next big thing (or Big Shiny Object Syndrome) pushes you toward tactical execution rather than strategy.

Digital will never be about one piece of technology or ad format. It will never be about a destination site alone. Or just banners driving to it. Great brand strategy is and will continue to be delivered by utilising the world of digital marketing opportunities. Detaching it. And then having your brand advocates distributing the message, rippling it through their social network.

Great strategy and execution is, and always will be, under-pinned by great insight.

As the digital world evolves, so must the process for garnering these insights. No longer just pontificating and navel gazing, digital planners need to listen. And observe. Using a variety of emerging methods beyond the focus group: Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, Utterz etc. You’ve probably heard of Facebook. If you have no clue about the rest, better come talk to us now.

As we evolve, so will our digital marketing opportunities, especially co-creation. We need to let go of the legal and corporate reins and allow our consumers into our world. Collaboration leads to innovative experiences. And brand engagement.

Just talking (advertising) and having a destination site is not enough today. Certainly not tomorrow. Experiences, participation, being personal and attentive, continuous learning and evolving is.

Evolve with us.

Inspiration:

Katie Chatfield – Get Shouty : http://katiechatfield.wordpress.com
Matt Dickman – Techno//Marketer : http://technomarketer.typepad.com
Paul Isakson : http://paulisakson.typepad.com

Image

Just spent an hour or so watching Aki Spicer (the Chuck Norris of account planning according to one fan boy on the live chat) of Fallon presenting to both the internal audience at Fallon and the global audience (of 60 at the peak) who were interested in social media. A smart presentation with good, clear examples. Aki was honest up front to say it was a kind of social media 101 as essentially the “socials” are to inform, inspire and educate internally at Fallon but even still some good thoughts and inspiration. I really enjoyed it. Especially the fact that it was done using social media - check out all the options to participate (detach and distribute in the flesh, people). It’s so damn easy now to use these things that it’s almost criminal to not do it. A big round of applause.

Fallon do these every month so I look forward to checking in again. However, I will probably choose a different channel to view the session as the live chat on Yahoo! Live was a bit pointless and distracting, especially as each comment makes the irritating “boing” and distracts from the speaker. The broadband pipe at work also held up pretty well for the streaming and any pauses didn’t actually lose any words which is usually the case. Although the time delay when Aki got a bit excitable and waved his arms made me lol.

What will I take away (apart from the content which is down below, obv): I would like to do something like this with our planning function. And that delivering these things using social media has to be the norm, not the exception. Makes a mockery that location is important when I can tune into the US at 5pm GMT and participate live. Walk the walk and all that. Great job, Aki. I’m enthused and inspired.

Here’s a great presentation from the Techno//Marketer himself, Matt Dickman. Definitely worth 40 minutes fo your time. A really well structured presentation with neat examples and good brain food to start the day.

And here’s 8 future trends from Leo Burnett in London. Nice to hear a British voice too.

And here’s another! This time from Paul Isakson (found via David Armano)

If these three things can’t help me pull together a “what’s next” point of view then nothing will.

A sackful of stuff and things today as will be away for Christmas.

God bless your brand (thanks to Bo Hellberg)

Fancy attending a Jedi bootcamp? These people exist.

Star in a soap by uploading your photo to check if you’re hot or not. (source: popbitch)

Get fed up with those inane, circular questions about having content above the fold? Use this as ammo to wipe the floor with ‘em. And this as a fabulous creative example to put the knife in. (thanks to Karen Gwyer)

Fabulously weird story about coffee bukkake.

A year of ideas.

Physics get all web 2.0 and funky (thanks to Mel Ferguson)

Ever get stuck trying to find logos to dump into slides. Here’s a load. Free. (source: Drew’s Marketing Minute)

Not content with advertising Snickers, Mr . T turns his mohawk to World of Warcraft

Stats and nuggets on search & myspace

Stats and examples on social media marketing

Even Hugo Boss are getting into the music scene but at least they’re letting you upload your tracks with a chance to win some MTV thing. But does anyone watch MTV anymore?

Facebook events relevant to our trade

Belching rabbits. Shame it’s only on the Wii.

Ad week article: Is social media killing the microsite? ( Found following armano on twitter who now also has a product page on Facebook where you can get all the nice graphics)

And talking of Facebook, here’s some interesting stats from the UK market.

Good examples of social media in this post.

And being a slide monkey, I always like to share things like this. Loads of presentation templates, tables, graphics etc. to spice up your decks.

Image at top from here.

Balls. Lots of them. For free. And lots more stuff too. Liven up your powerpoint today. Like I did. Better still, get Keynote. Like I did. And although it’s for free, donate something. Like I did - a coffee.

Are blogs reaching the final frontier before Man? Blog in space. I can’t tell if this is for real or not.

Yet another form to fill in to claim your online identity. I won’t as patience is running low.

Toyota meets World of Warcraft. 7 million play that every day FYI. Thanks to Matt Dickman. Check out his new project too.

Over at his blog, Vincent Thome has written a paper on experimentation. I think he has some great ideas here. I even felt compelled to write a serious comment rather than the usual guff I leave. What do you think?

Some decks from a recent web 2.0 summit in Californ-i-a

Earlier this week there was a conference for girl geeks interested in technology, web 2.0 etc and it’s brilliantly called she’s geeky. (Found following Charlene Li from Forrester on Twitter). (Image source)

Facebook brand tie-ins that are bad get a lot of press. But here are two good examples. Herbal Essences which I found via Advergirl & O2 win a MASSIVE university big party thing. Leigh sums up why they both work very eloquently even though her comments are attributed to the shampoo stuff:

Set up as a group, not a personal account. You’re not a person, why pretend to be one?
Creative focuses on the ‘passion’ elements of the brand
Targeted approach to deliver visit > engage > share behavior (stuff to do when you’re there + a reason to come back)
And, the team invested in solid seeding behavior

Download a Forrester study of business decision makers use of social media in B2B world from the American Business Media.

Kids bored this half-term? Get them to draw Yoda (source: showmescifi)

There are now more than 1 million UK members of Linked In. And I can download a badge to add to my profile as I joined before it hit this landmark. So I did. But I’m not so sure why. A million is hardly exclusive. Does it help in anyway? Will it improve my life?

I walked back to Waterloo after a meeting in London Bridge on Friday. It was mighty cold. But took these two shots of London Bridge itself & the big spider thing outside the Tate. Thought you might like them.