The mistake occurred as part of a stunt launched in May by which facebook members handed over control of their statuses to Dr Pepper for the chance to win a thousand pounds. The statuses would then be made as embarrassing as possible, capitalising on the company’s strap line, “What’s the worst that could happen?” The kerfuffle arose as a result of an unsuitable update being posted on a 14 year old girl’s page.  While this may well have caused irreparable damage to the brand’s image now, but without the benefit of hindsight the risk may have seemed worth taking.

What Dr Pepper and their agency, Lean Mean Fighting Machine, inadvertently stumbled upon was either a spectacular piece of bad luck or really a catastrophe waiting to happen, depending on which way you look at it. The failure to check the database of potential statuses for the kind of post that looks entirely innocent at first glance – but after a little research turns out to be incredibly explicit – is the ultimate cause of the episode, but perhaps the kind of joke necessary to properly catch the attention of your common or garden facebooker needs to be a little risqué, doesn’t it?

The problem for brands and marketers is that though social media is by far the most effective way of getting the attention of young people, there is a dangerously narrow line between humour and obscenity that has to be respectfully toed. In order to win over interest and grow your brand’s profile, visibility on sites like facebook is a good idea, but not one without its drawbacks. After all, online social networking is a relatively new phenomenon, and marketing on the platform an even newer one. Dr Pepper’s method of approaching the challenge was a clever and innovative one, but hopefully the irony of the tragic consequences that befell a drinks manufacturer whose ad campaigns highlighted the often dire results of risk-taking has not been lost on businesses and agencies looking to social media as a means of expression.

Carol O’Mara
Business Leader
GyroHSR London

The recent election brought home just how much power this network has and, quite rightly, the coalition government has recognised that it isn’t something only useful for the election but in the longer term.   It makes perfect sense to use the heightened engagement in politics from the election to retain involvement from a wider audience.  This view is also directly in line with the greater vision of Facebook – it was created as an entity in its own right, far more than just another site because it enables interaction in a more powerful way than any other.

This is because Facebook isn’t just another website or technology, it is a social utility and should be used as such.  No other channel or media offers this direct, real-time dialogue by which the public can be engaged and understood.  Facebook is more than a network of people, it is a tool to reach out to them, share information and gain understanding which can’t be replicated by other tools available but is invaluable to the political sphere.

Of course, it’s not infallible.  The very nature of Facebook means you can’t censor it and you have to take the rough with the smooth.  But that’s just what makes it such a valuable tool for politicians who need to work more transparently than ever to clean up their profile following the scandals of recent months.  The truth is, a political Facebook campaign isn’t a disingenuous attempt at being cool, it is something that any representative body can’t afford not to engage in in modern times.

By
Richard Perry
Chief Operating Officer
GyroHSR

Twitter: richjperry
Linkedin: uk.linkedin.com/in/richardjohnperry

World Cup 2010 spectators wave their vuvuzela horns while watching the opening game between South Africa and Mexico in Durban. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Now I live close to the Heathrow flight path in TW1 so I probably get used to background noise quicker than most BUT surely, surely, surely the noise and atmosphere created will be one of the key elements that will make this World Cup what it will become –special and unique. The alternative – to ban the vuvuzela – is to celebrate the generic. To long for a World Cup just like the last one and the one to come. Think about it. Ban the vuvuzela? Where would we go next? Or perhaps more pertinently, what would our memories be made of if we had previously thought like this? Let’s take to our time machines, go back to Buenos Aries in 1978 for example and outlaw ticker tape. We could then set a course for the Azteca stadium in 1986 and stop people from standing up and throwing their arms in the air. Yes it’s a simple point yet I’m amazed to see the volume of counter arguments running rampant on twitter and the wires. This World Cup will be great in spite of global brands that sponsor it and the global media owners that cover it. It will be great because of a 30-yard pile driver from someone we least expect, a dazzling piece of artistry from a Messi or Kaka, a crazed celebration from Maradona and inevitably a penalty shoot-out for England. But more than that it will be great because of what Africa and African culture brings to it. It will be great because of the vuvuzela!

By
Richard Mabbott
SVP, Planning
GyroHSR London

There was clearly some kind of counsel strike going on….Each day a fresh layer of black and blue bags piled up; resembling some kind of gruesome flower display. As it went on, I started to feel a bit offended by the sight and smell, and a bit sorry for the visiting tourists confronted by the mounds of ugly rubbish. Not what you really want to see on your holiday.

…you can call me stupid, but after a week and a half it suddenly dawned one me that the bin men weren’t the problem, we were. We’re the ones who produce all this rubbish, they just take it away and put it somewhere we can’t see it. The problem is society is obsessed with buying and consuming, but very little thought goes to where it all goes when we’re done. We make ourselves feel better with token gestures, putting our used papers in the recycling bin, our green bottles in the green bottles bin, using recycled paper… you get the idea.

So I woke up one morning with the thought in my head that maybe the rubbish strike was a great opportunity to make a point and get people thinking about what happens to our rubbish, so that they might spend a bit less time producing it.

I jumped out of bed (not a usual occurrence) and ran to the window hoping that the bin men hadn’t decided to “unstrike themselves” and went and did a little scouting to make sure the rest of the city was still covered in rubbish. It was.

Headed to work and had myself a 8:30 brainstorm with the team. Then a couple of hours later, props and camera in hand we found ourselves wandering through the red light district of the city looking for the most photogenic rubbish piles.

View the video here (YouTube Video)
Even being caught red handed in the middle of the red-light district stuffing a pair of purple tights with bubble wrap by the police didn’t stop us. Uttering the stock phrase, “student project” which sent them happily on their way, smiling and waving at us to carry on.

We set up our little stunt and stood back to see what happened. We got a lot of attention, with people stopping and asking questions and taking photos. We even got onto the Amsterdam news site. Did it make people think any more about the rubbish they produce, I’d like to hope so.

http://www.at5.nl/gespot/41051/it-s-big-and-it-stinks

By
Michelle Henley
Creative Director
GyroHSR Amsterdam

Ash cloud returned, blew over, returned, blew over …
Greece went bust
Greece was rescued
The UK voted
The UK was thrown into political turmoil
The Eagles sent the Owls down

Oh, and one other thing – The World Cup bandwagon got well and truly rolling!

Back in London this week and I feel I can’t move for brands getting in on the act of hyping both the event and England’s chances (2nd round exit to Germany?).

For some brands the link to World Cup 2010 is clear. Adidas? Check. Carlsberg? Yes I can see their relevance to the competition too and the “teamtalk” execution is certainly rousing if it fails to quite get the hairs on the back of my neck standing as high on a second viewing. But Kit Kat and Mars though? C’mon! Give me a break …. (sorry!)

Anyway, the brand that has executed a World Cup idea most beautifully has to be Louis Vuitton. It’s here and it’s cool. It has Zidane, Pele and Maradona in it so how could it not be? Even if their link to the beautiful game is tenuous at best.

http://www.louisvuittonjourneys.com/legends

By
Richard Mabbott
Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning
GyroHSR

As an unrepentant early adopter Iʼve had my nose pressed up against the Apple store window in NY for a month, figuratively speaking. I have been waiting for them to open the store so I could get in and buy one. Well thatʼs not strictly true, as I couldnʼt be in NY for the great day I had my brother in laws nose pressed against the window last Saturday, and having bought it he dispatched it to me courtesy of FedEx. Iʼd decided to buy the full fat 64GB version. Friends told me to wait for the 3G launch, but no I wanted to play with one of these at once.

So, Iʼve now spent the last few days playing on the thing, tucking it away in small, very small, bags when I go anywhere. Leaving it lying on the sofa when Iʼm sat there, or by the side of the bed, in the kitchen in fact anywhere and everywhere. You see the thing is truly the ubiquitous tablet weʼve all waited for. Once youʼve got one, you want it with you all the time. E-mail, calendars, address books and music all sync effortlessly and with little need for technical understanding beyond having the ability to tap itʼs touch sensitive screen. It also plays, and sells you of course, movies, TV shows, music and hundreds of thousands of apps.

Then, for me there is the killer app, the reason I actually bought the thing in the first place. iBooks. Iʼve played with Sony Readers, flirted with a Kindle and tried even earlier attempts to make e-books actually work. All of them, so to speak, were not worth the paper they werenʼt printed on. Remarkably last year sales for e-readers were still up around 5 million for gadgets that were still functionally pretty useless. The problem with e-readers up to this point has always been a choice between long battery life or vibrant living colour.

So, back to my dusty books. Well theyʼve been like family members to me each and every one loved, written in, read and re-read. I remember the first book I actually paid my own hard earned cash for (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – but I was only eight and it was actually pocket money). The first business book I bought (Kotlers Marketing Management). I have first editions of James Bond, a complete set of Churchillʼs A History of the English-Speaking Peoples and over two thousand or so other books in my dusty library.

Which brings me to my dilemma. The iPad is by a long way the best reading experience Iʼve ever come across. The screen is bright, and you can adjust it, and the response time to page turning is, to deploy a much over-used word, phenomenal. I bought my first iBook yesterday, Andrew Marrʼs History of Modern Britain, and can now lie in bed at midnight and read it without having to strap a small flash lamp to my head. So now for the first time I look at my library and see the equivalent of 2,000 VHS video tapes or 2,000 vinyl LPs. Is my beloved library now only filled with 2,000 lumps of dusty pulp? Will I still buy printed books? Thatʼs the question. It seems that finally technology has caught up with the printed book after around five hundred years of dominance. I can carry my ʻbookʼ and indeed entire library around with me where-ever I go and read where and when I want. Thatʼs remarkable.

And when technology shifts in such a dramatic fashion, you can be sure there will be huge impacts and opportunities in a brand and marketing perspective. The ability to target and develop true relationships with consumers has never been more attainable or immediate. Thatʼs the exciting bit.

The iPad is quite simply a game changer. Nothing, at the moment, comes close.

(P.S. the keyboard is also good enough for me to be able to write this blog while traveling on the Stockholm underground!)

Julian Stubbs
Head of Global Branding
GyroHSR Stockholm

We were exceptionally fortunate to secure The Right Honourable The Lord Heseltine as keynote speaker. Lord Heseltine was captivating and spoke at length about the differences and similarities between politics and business. He also gave his personal observations on the economic outlook and what this meant for marketers.

His speech, plus other impressive speakers from businesses like Kyoceta Mita, Pearson, Fujitsu and David Brown, can be viewed at www.brandordemand.com, where you can also weigh in with your own opinions.

I think it’s fair to say that the question of Brand v Demand is something of a false dichotomy, and it was interesting to see some quite strong opinions as to the merits of each. When put to the vote, I think unsurprisingly the consensus was that brand expenditure was more worthy, yet a passing look at market expenditure would suggest otherwise. There seems to be some dissonance between marketers’ espoused views and their own actions.

I’d also add that brand spend isn’t as vulgar or extravagant as some might assume, and while it’s not easy to measure, it can be done. Debates like this will continue until marketing can drag itself up the business food chain: some of the most successful businesses in the world are run by marketers.

As you’ll see, there is no easy answer to the Brand v Demand question, but it made for a fascinating and exciting day. Look out for other similar events in future.

Danny Turnbull
Managing Director, European B-to-B practice leader
GyroHSR North

“The Lazarus profession: how advertising keeps rising from the dead”

Perhaps if I explain the choice we all have to make, you’ll forgive the hyperbole. We’re all familiar with the current status quo, the received wisdom on integration. Consumers have access to more channels. They engage with different disciplines in different ways, and the TV spot is no longer king in the way it used to be. That much is recognised. So, until now the solution has been ‘take a brilliant brand idea (usually from a TV or press ad) and replicate it across all these brave (if slightly scary) new channels.’ Big Ideas, usually straplines from big brand campaigns have been simply handed down to other channels and expected to fly in the same way. After all, a big idea that doesn’t travel is a dead idea, right?

Well, yes. And no. A big idea must travel – but that doesn’t mean it must simply be slapped on a direct mail piece or a viral and expected to deliver in the same way as a 30-second TV spot. For too long, the ad agencies have created something beautiful, and once they have envisaged how it will deliver to a mass audience –they’ve chucked it back to their below the line friends and expected the same creative to translate virally, digitally, experientially. It won’t. It never will. And now, our world is divided into people who accept this and embrace it and people who won’t, who can’t.

This brave new approach should be about understanding the communications challenge and then feeding it through to everyone from every discipline at the same time. That way you aren’t pushing an idea into the confines of one discipline or another. Rather, you are celebrating and respecting each and its ability to deliver the big idea. Give everyone the challenge at the same time, no artist every delivered the masterpiece from a Paint By Numbers canvas – they always start with the raw materials. Change the way you look at your role. You aren’t the Creative Director, or the Marketing Director. Rather – you are curator, a facilitator – you bring the elements together and let them sing in the loudest, most relevant and exciting way possible.

Just as the Old World was once transfixed by ‘media neutrality’ and ‘seamless execution’, now we must embrace new additions to our lexicon, and challenge the old ones as we do so. For years, we have chased Fool’s Gold, the dream of seamless, cross-discipline delivery. And what does seamless mean to us? It means no interruptions, no surprises, no joins. But if you don’t deliver these clear differentiations between channels, then how can you engage through each one? A viral and a TV ad can’t be ‘seamlessly’ joined. They are fundamentally different, and that difference should be celebrated. The joins, the moments of difference are what will surprise the market.

And indeed, we should challenge the notion of the ‘Big Idea’ itself. What does ‘big’ even mean? Where once it meant ‘easily transferred’, now it must mean ‘expansive’. A true big idea just keeps on giving, and can be ignited across any channel, in any way. For so long, we have thought of our big ideas as fireworks for instant gratification. But we have been all about the visual display, and forgotten about the big bang we should be leaving.

And this new approach works. It is living, breathing happening at this very moment, as we speak. In the US, telecoms brand Sprint had one aim in mind – to be associated with the one thing consumers really want from technology – immediacy. The brief was ‘help us to own immediacy’ – and it was issued to everyone. And the result? A beautiful, engaging mishmash of touchpoints that celebrated the concept of immediacy in the way best suited to their channel. So, the Big Idea expanded. It became a brilliant, throbbing, fact-filled TV ad, a revolutionary widget, an interactive Yahoo takeover. These elements weren’t seamless, they were linked but they had their own characteristics, they existed as their own celebration of the Big Idea…this became the “Now Network” campaign.

I have seen the dramatic differences when you hand someone an idea, not an execution. When I worked with the US’ Office of National Drug Control Policy to help combat habitual drug abuse, the team and I started by identifying the insight that the issue wasn’t exacerbated by drugs themselves, it was driven by the ‘influence’. We personified this influence as the enemy and called every agency together in a room – planners, media buyers, PRs, creatives. We asked everyone to come back with their interpretation of “the influence being the enemy” and in return, they showed us the power of letting a great idea breathe through an endless number of creative (and sometimes unexpected) collaborations and channels. It worked in print, it worked in film and it worked digitally. It didn’t roll seamlessly over every channel. This became the “Above the Influence” campaign.

If you can’t remove yourself from the mindset of ‘seamless’, ‘transferable’ and ‘adaptation’ then you will never champion the new version of ‘integrated’. If you think integration should be about taking an execution and applying it everywhere then you should be working somewhere else, in branding perhaps. After all, that is the branding approach isn’t it? Making touchpoints consistent, keeping a unified identity. Advertising and marketing must be about igniting, not soothing seams.

We must believe our ideas live longer than an awareness campaign – we must have faith that they can fly in millions of ways –not through careful adaptation, but through noisy, viral, visual ignition. Because if they don’t, they will fester in the seamless wallpaper of old-fashioned integration. Let us never forget who we should be talking to, and no consumer ever said “the best thing about that campaign is the way it looks the same on the posters and on the website”. Never did, never will. So you can keep chasing that reaction or you can become a curator and let each element bring the Big Idea to life. The time is now – you are with us or against us, in support of creative eclecticism or in opposition.

Choose wisely, the future of the brands you are looking to ignite will depend upon it.

By Christoph Becker
Chief Creative Officer
GyroHSR