Body Parts

 

I’ve spent the last quarter-century blabbing on to whoever will listen about the expression “the consumer” - here, here and here (and there’s plenty more). It’s dehumanising, depersonalising and creates a notion of “other” that we don’t need.

Unfortunately, I have no record of my valiant attempt around the turn of the century to convince P&G otherwise. Although this slide does survive from that Powerpoint of long ago:

I can still feel the disdain in those inverted commas.

It particularly annoys me when pronounced “the consoomer”. But that’s just me being pernickety and a bit of a bore.

This depersonalisation becomes even more yukky when “the poor consoomer” is dissected into various body parts. And pounced upon by over-avaricious marketers:

“Owning more hearts and minds.”

“Increasing our share of stomach.”

And with social media, and the focus on Attention as a metric, there’s a very nasty expression that conjures up even more grisly images:

“Capturing eyeballs.”

I shudder to think what new KPIs marketers for period products, condoms or loo roll have these days.

A couple of years ago, I heard mutterings about “The Ear Economy”, but that seems to have gone rather quiet now. Or I’m going deaf.

Yes, yes, yes. It’s only words and a figure of speech.

Does it really matter?

Probably. If only because each of us is far, far more than the sum of our body parts. 

Perennial bloomers

 

The older I get, and the more years I notch up as a one-woman band here in rural Germany, the more amusing I find the antics of some of my marketing and advertising partners-in-crime. It’s that slight shake-of-the-head, roll-of-the-eyes kind of amusement with a muttered “what planet are they on?” under my breath. 

I heard a marketing director speaking on a panel discussion yesterday, who was (I think) seriously suggesting that the following could be a good idea. AI could, in the future, “serve” an ad featuring a person of the same skin colour as the recipient - presumably all in the name of personalisation, diversity and “feeling seen.” 

Where do I start on how wrong this is? What next? I’ll be “served” an ad featuring someone of exactly my age, so I don’t feel ancient, left out and invisible? What a ghastly notion!

Whenever I’ve ventured onto LinkedIn these days, there do seem to be plenty of people (at least in my feed) talking about bursting bubbles and getting back to reality. A recent WARC article by Richard Huntington is titled The Future of Strategy 2023: Marketing is in desperate need of a reality check. 

Richard makes the point that we both work and live in a parallel universe he calls Marketingland. I’d rather use that nasty, twee “Adland” moniker. By the way, when did that creep into the language? It’s not the word itself, it’s the way people use it, as if it’s some exclusive place to be proud of. Whatever, this universe is populated by the well-educated, metropolitan, relatively young middle class.

And why do people not just work but live there, too? Because this world is conjured-up “through distaste for the real one with all its ugliness, mess and complexity.” Richard then takes aim at various of Adland’s favourite tools (so to speak), including “the stinking edifice of generational marketing". This is described as “a charlatan’s business” and “should be given as much credence in sensible organisations as astrology.”

I’m with him. The whole Generations stuff, beloved of lazy journalists and denizens of “Adland,” is more full of holes than a Boomer’s string vest. Or was it the lot before them that wore those? Not only do the generation years chop and change as often as the UK cabinet, but the whole thing is utterly US-focussed. Where you are born is just as important as when, as Ipsos show. And I’m quite tickled that “GenZ" are refusing to behave as many marketers want them to, as Nick Asbury points out.

What to do? Richard Huntington makes a call to “love and respect the people we serve”. I’d leave out the love part, personally, but respect and value their perspective (even if you don’t agree) - I’ll take that. As Richard says, “Everyone is trying in their own way to be a good person living a good life.”

Another perspective on the generations thing is to Adopt the Perennial Mindset as in this article by Tara McMullin. The thinking is based on a book by Mauro Guillén: The Perennials: The Megatrends creating a Postgenerational Society. This challenges the idea of linear lives, moving from play to learn to work to leisure/retirement, and “age-appropriate activities.” Getting rid of the concept of “milestones” beyond referring to babies and child development. A Perennial is defined as someone “not constrained by their age and what they’re ‘supposed’ to be doing at any given stage of life.”

Despite being a Planner, I’ve never been that great on planning my own life. I recognise the inevitability of change and the unexpected. But I liked what this article had to say about a broadened definition of work whereby people can stay active and connected to friends - work more along the lines of mentoring and support as one grows older and hopefully wiser. Tara writes that “the idea of retirement feels elusive to anyone under, say, 55 today.”

Well, that just proves a point. It’s a while since I was 55, and although I do have a bookmarks file of “retirement jobs” (mentoring, teaching, pivoting) the idea still seems pretty elusive to me!

I know this way of thinking can’t be a replacement for all that generations guff. Or indeed for media planning based on age breaks. But I do like the principle of getting away from pigeon-holing and rigid categories of age, life-stage, or when exactly you were born. Away from the sequential model of life. And from many of these frameworks when they are too strictly applied. I have said here often: The Map is not the Territory.

And, back to that panel discussion and what AI can do. One point that does give me hope are the increasing opportunities for contextual media planning. Catching me in the right mood, at the right place and the right time is going to be far more effective than “serving” me some old bag with pasty-white skin who doesn’t look a bit like me. 

The Last Campaign

 

I’ve been reading Campaign for more years than the 30 on this anniversary issue from 1998. My  introduction to the British ad industry’s rag was in my first job, working in the market research department of Spillers Foods. 

The trade magazines were divvied up amongst the market research department to scour for articles of interest. The most senior and glamorous of us got Campaign, the middle-ranking execs got Marketing and Marketing Week, and yours truly, the trainee, got The Grocer. 

I loved Campaign - it presented a fabulous world of creativity, eccentricity, wit and wisdom that I couldn’t get enough of.

Once I started working at Saatchi, the magazine was still read avidly and woe-betide anyone that snatched the Group Account Director’s copy before they’d had a chance to look at it.

I’ve had a subscription to Campaign for the 20 years I’ve been freelancing. While it’s been useful to keep in touch with the UK ad scene, I have to say that my interest has waned. Concurrently, the price of the thing has rocketed, even though it has gone 100% digital, which should save costs, by my logic.

From 2021 to last year, the price of my subscription rocketed +172%, and a further price hike of over 50% came this year. 

Campaign still has a few good articles and thought pieces - and I tend to then look up the authors and stalk, sorry, follow them on LinkedIn. But I’m afraid much of it falls into the Reinventing the past category for me.

With those ludicrous price hikes, I’ve come to the conclusion that Campaign has lost its value in terms of being informative, useful or entertaining. Money that can be better spent.

And there seem to be one or two alternatives that won’t break the bank.

So, cheerio, Campaign. Nice knowing you.

News of the World

Back in the last decade, it was social media - Facebook, Mumsnet, various writing forums - that were my trap for getting tangled up in when I should have been doing something better. These days, I’m more likely to end up scrolling through endless articles and related comments on regular news sites.

It’s easier to justify because:

1. I’m paying a subscription

2. It’s a good thing to be informed about what’s going on in the world, surely?

Yet these news sites often leave me with that nasty bingey mental junk food feeling that I used to get from Facebook:

    - that wasn’t paricularly nutritious or satisfying

    - and I couldn’t stop: the “enough is enough” button was having a day off

I’ve been reading How Modern Media Destroys Our Minds, from The School of Life, which analyses this phenomenon and offers a few curative suggestions. 

The click-baity title I could have done without - another example of the mismatch I wrote about here. That aside, the book shows how the modern media preys on the less desirable aspects of human nature - passivity, celebrity, nastiness and distraction, which encompasses all sorts of stuff like helplessness, outrage, mawkishness, schadenfreude and sanctimoniousness.

It’s a relief to know that my own reaction to the modern media diet is not unusual.

On to the suggested cures. There are 9 of these, of which two particularly appealed to me:

Become an aristocrat (of the spirit)

This is inspired in part by Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly who declared that “the most beautiful destiny: to have genius and be obscure.”

The book says of Aristocrats of the Spirit: they are set apart not by haughty contempt but by a melancholic certainty that the disputes of the populace will be chaotic, brutal, partisan, deeply illogical and unfair because this is the normal, unfortunate lot of the human animal.

And that obscurity leads to the idea:

Never Be Famous

I’ll admit it: 10 years ago I loved the idea of collecting clicks and likes, for blog posts to go viral, for my books to be picked up by a top publisher and top director and all the rest. But the idea of that now is quite hideous. I like retreating back into obscurity, which is my “safe place”.

In a world without fame, certain books, sofas, cheeses or lamps will still be better than others, certain ideas will still be more valuable, certain people will still have hearts that are kinder and more sensitive, but none of these would have to be identified by the destructive and manic spotlight of the media.

Having said that, of course, this is one area (or many) where brands are not like people.

Hello, Piccadilly

The Piccadilly Lights have to be my all time favourite outdoor advertising site. As a teenager, the Claes Oldenburg picture above was one of my favourite art works, and possibly one influence that drew me into advertising as a career.

What I love about the Piccadilly Lights is the combination of tradition and innovation, and the way this advertising site reflects the changing social, cultural and technological landscape.

The first illuminated sign in the area appeared over a century ago - for Perrier, in 1908.

In the 1930s, neon technology took over, with signs for brands such as Bovril, Schweppes and the first appearance of the famous Guinness clock.

Coca Cola first appeared in 1954, and in the 1960s, brands such as BP, Skol, Players and Cinzano had their names in lights. Here's a picture from the early 70s.

By the 80s, tech brands had taken over largely from food and drink, although McDonald's first appeared in 1987. Here's a scene from 1985.

Not all these tech brands are still with us, and as their fortunes changed, so did technology itself. In the 1990s, the lights began to go digital, and in the new millennium,  LED displays came to the fore.

The Piccadilly Lights will relaunch in late 2017 as 'the largest single digital screen in Europe' aka 'The Curve.' Participating brands will include Coca Cola, Samsung and four more. The digital LED screen will be able to do all sorts of nifty stuff - real time, co-creation, social media and all the rest.

Any guesses for how it'll all look in 2117?

The story of the emperor's new clothes

The expression 'story-telling' is one that has crept into branding and business over the last few years (usually referred to as 'Story' in the singular with a BIG Capital Letter by those who think they are in the know). I've nothing against it - I have been known to tell a story or two myself. I think it's a lot to do with the massive change in the way people use media, and the vast choice of media available.

Brand communication has moved from (more of) a message/receiver model - although tell me people never used to discuss ads in the pub - to something more akin to a multi-media network. This was all brilliantly illustrated by The Guardian a few years back.

I say 'more of', because I think story-telling has always been an element of brand communication. Creative people in agencies have an instinct for story-telling: look how many of them become novelists and film directors. Back when I started in advertising, long-copy ads were still in vogue. I was involved in the development of some super ads for The London Philharmonic - the kind of posters that would fill up a dull minute or two waiting for a train. They were about the lengths the musicians went to to perfect their art - for example, the trombonist refraining from kissing his wife a few days before a performance in case of damage to the embouchure.

Stories are fine. Where I do object, however, is how some practitioners create their own (trademarked) tools and models, and sell these to the unsuspecting marketing community, like a dodgy lamp in the bazaar. These tools and models are invariably backed up with a reference to an academic, in all likelihood Joseph Campbell, along with numerous examples from the world of Disney, fantasy and Sci-Fi (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter being particular favourites). Suddenly 'Story' becomes a problem-solving tool for business.

I'd love to know how many of these tool-and-model-touters, the people who go on their seminars and the Corporate Storytellers (yes, really - Procter & Gamble have one) have actually read Joseph Campbell.

I've read The Hero with a Thousand Faces and found it fascinating. But it's certainly not a quick skim-through, at around 400 pages. I have studied psychology and read a lot of Jung, and I did not find Campbell's book an easy read. But it contains many, many beautifully-written and thought-provoking passages. Like this:

The unconscious sends all sorts of vapors, odd beings, terrors and deluding images up into the mind – whether in dream, broad daylight, or insanity; for the human kingdom, beneath the floor of the comparatively neat little dwelling that we call our consciousness, goes down into unsuspected Aladdin caves. There not only jewels but also dangerous jinn abide: the inconvenient or resisted psychological powers that we have not thought or dared to integrate into our lives. And they may remain unsuspected or, on the other hand, some chance word, the smell of a landscape, the taste of a cup of tea, or the glance of an eye may touch a magic spring, and then dangerous messengers begin to appear in the brain. They are dangerous because they threaten the fabric of the security into which we have built ourselves and our family. But they are fiendishly fascinating too, for they carry keys that open the whole realm of the desired and feared adventure of the discovery of the self. Destruction of the world that we have built and in which we live, and of ourselves within it; but then a wonderful reconstruction, of the bolder, cleaner, more spacious, and fully human life – that is the lure, the promise and terror, of these disturbing night visitants from the mythological realm that we carry within.

Now, compare that description of the unconscious with a 'framework' that I have seen presented on the internet as a simplification of Campbell. This 'storytelling framework' will (purportedly) help you to develop advertising:

A hero overcomes an obstacle in pursuit of a treasure, aided by a mentor.

Now then, just substitute the following words and phrases in the sentence above:

'Consumer' for 'hero'

'Problem' for 'obstacle'

'Benefit' for 'treasure'

'Brand - probably from Procter & Gamble' for 'mentor'

Sound familiar?

It's tasty, tasty, very very tasty

I quite often read through all those newsletters about new ideas and innovations and think – I wish I’d thought of that. And I am sure that there are more than a few brands these days that see something new in terms of media ideas and wish they’d got their name behind it.

Unfortunately, as much as many established brands talk about agility, many of their approval and testing processes are painfully and restrictively slow when it comes to getting something out there.

The neat new idea I’ve seen on my Facebook feed in the last couple of months is delicious little recipe videos, usually lasting less than a minute. Packed with mouth-watering appeal, these really do make it all look quick and easy. Fast food with a twist. And most of these come from Tasty or Proper Tasty, who describe them as ‘Food that’ll make you close your eyes, lean back and whisper yessss. Snack-sized videos and recipes you’ll want to try.'

Snack-sized videos. Brilliant.

Now, the interesting thing here is that behind the new brands Tasty (started July 2015, over 47m Facebook followers) and Proper Tasty (the UK version ‘in grams not cups’, launched December 2015 and an excellent demonstration of a global brand with local accents) is the digital media company BuzzFeed, better known for its clickbait headlines of the You Won’t Believe What Happens Next variety.

But BuzzFeed have been clever. They have realised that some of their Tasty audience (like me) probably isn’t into epic fails and awesomely cute fluffy kittens.

So you don’t have to like BuzzFeed (on Facebook) to like Tasty. In fact, you don’t need to go anywhere near buzzfeed.com – Tasty is tailor made for Facebook, and Pinterest, and Instagram, and Twitter, and … you can get it straight from there.

It’s not about ‘driving traffic to their website.’

And, although there are those who maintain that BuzzFeed and their like are driven by data and heavy on analysis, just looking at visitors to the food section of the main BuzzFeed site (14m, in the great scheme of things, not a lot) would not have led to this idea alone. BuzzFeed’s success is based on thorough data-crunching, yes, but combined with leaps of intuition.

It’s just a shame (I think) that a traditional food-related brand didn’t launch Tasty.

But then again, there are plenty more brilliant ideas to be had out there.

Life isn't seamless

Hot on the heels of my last post about our smoothie society, I would like to unpick a few seams and see what I find. There is an obsession amongst marketing folk these days with the word 'seamless', and I notice it creeping into general usage, too. Recently, a fashion company promised me a dress which would take me 'seamlessly from Spring into Summer', and I don't think they were talking about the garment's construction.

Typical of the 'seamless' obsession is this article by Margaret Hung, SVP Consumer Dynamics, Solutions and Strategy at Millward Brown. It's called Unifying the Journey. It starts off: Marketers have long embraced the concept of creating seamless and rewarding brand experiences along the consumer journey.

The main point of the article is that digitalisation means that sales channels and media channels no longer have a divide between them, and concludes that: The solution is consumer journey mapping, which helps facilitate an integrated sales and media planning process by revealing which sales and media touchpoints play a role in the consumer decision-making process and how they work together to influence which product and brand is ultimately purchased.

No. This isn't the solution. Or at least, let's unpick that 'seamless' word and see what we are actually talking about here. 

If we're talking about 'a seamless customer journey' (if we have to) - in other words, the way that people find and buy brands through their smartphones, stores, advertising, word of mouth (maybe) - then, I would say in this day and age that this should be as easy as possible as a hygiene factor, if you like. And a brilliant technical team who are skilled in the nuts and bolts (or whatever they have these days) of making that happen should be able to sort that out.

But 'a seamless brand experience'? I'm not sure. Seamless to me starts to imply a few other things. Bland. Mediocre. Uniform. Dull. Predictable.

What about surprise? Richness? Mystery? Charm? Discovery? Curiosity? Surely these belong, too, in a 'brand experience?' As Jung said: The unexpected and the incredible belong in this world. Only then is life whole.

Which would you prefer for your 'brand experience', metaphorically? The beautiful patchwork quilt by Lucy Boston? Or a seamless robe?  

Lust for Land

For the last year or so, a massive (42 sq m, so I'm told) patchwork blanket has hung on a house wall opposite our town hall. The blanket is made up of individual squares, knitted or crocheted by everyone from primary school children to pensioners.

For me, this comforting and colourful piece of art, along with the explosion of festivals, Tchibo weeks and Aldi special offers celebrating crafts, and home cooking, jams, marmalade, gardening, growing and making, characterises a particular aspect of the 10-year 'reign' of Angela Merkel.

Despite the fact that Germany is becoming more urbanised, German hearts still yearn for a simpler, slower, less technology-ridden life closer to nature. Probably the clearest manifestation of this trend is the success of Landlust magazine, which was launched 10 years ago and now enjoys a circulation of over 1 million - more than that of Der Spiegel.

And, yesterday, Landlust launched in the UK, with its German title and the tagline 'spirit of the countryside'. The British edition carries the same mix of crafts, nature and recipes, with a distinct German touch - the recipes include hazelnut cake, baked apples and Rouladen.

I suspect that an unashamedly German title launching in the UK would have been met with derision 10 years ago, but times have changed. I blogged about the subtle German invasion here. Can Landlust tread in the footsteps of Aldi and Lidl? Will the W.I be renamed Die Landfrauen?

Bad Behaviours

Behaviour is rather like Communication: the plural used to be just that, but it seems these days you have to stick an "s" on the end of both, so today I'm going to be talking Bad Behaviours on social media. From people and brands.

This is mostly via McCann Truth Central who, in their report The Truth about Privacy, looked at which behaviours from people (I do wish they wouldn't say consumers) and brands are judged to be cool, or anything but, in the US at least.

The cooler things you can do on social media as an individual include posting about major life events - babies, weddings being tops, although de-friending fake friends is also rated as pretty cool. As for brands, well, it's "allowing for in-store purchases using a smartphone" (retailers take note) as well as "putting relevant content on social media." Ah, but what is relevant, you may ask. Perhaps answered most easily by looking at what is not relevant.

For people and brands, the bad behaviours are the 4 Big Bad B's:

BULLYING - pretty obvious for people, but for brands, it's stuff like using your data without permission, such as Facebook's "sponsored stories"

BORING - all those latte macchiatos and "I've run 4.33333km" and for brands, the wonders of your production process on your YouTube channel, unless it's done in a particularly wonderful way

BOASTING - I've just checked in at the Ritz/Guess who got 5 As in her A levels?/my book is Number 56 in the obscure-self-published-fantasy-chart/our Facebook page now has 88m Likes (although we bought most of those...)

BEGGING - be my friend/share my funny cat photo/review my obscure fantasy book/like our nondescript Facebook page/send us a picture of you with Bloggo brand...

So, no surprise that the least cool behaviours on social media for people include adding people you don't know as friends/connections and posting frequent "selfies" on Instagram.

And, for brands, inviting consumers to enter competitions and asking users to share a personal story for fun.

So, when you're looking at your branded content, it's a good start to check that it's entertaining, informative or useful.

And that it's not bullying, boasting, boring or begging.

Life in the old dog yet

In a post a few weeks back, I noted how Coca Cola has been toppled off Interbrand's top spot by those relative new kids on the block, Apple and Google. Despite this, the brand is showing healthy growth and could even teach a few of the new boys a thing or two about marketing.

One of my very first memories of Coke advertising was a groovy, happy-clappy film of a crowd of young things on a summer hilltop singing "I'd like to buy the world a Coke". You could run that film today - on other screens of course - because Coke is still about refreshment and happiness, all wrapped up in good-natured global togetherness. It's less about the strict consistency of corporate design manuals and more a feeling of being true to your self in your outward expression.

The "share a Coke with" named bottles this summer - and it was fascinating to see the names change as we travelled across Europe - was a stunning idea that I am sure will be talked about in years to come. And another innovation is Coke becoming a channel or medium. Instead of the usual corporate web page, Coke has launched CocaCola Journey, a digital magazine buzzing with stories from how to make a Coca Cola Cake to sending a Coke can into space, as well as plenty of the obligatory CGC.

It's a refreshing, happy online magazine, with something for everyone. The corporate facts and figures are still there, but not on the front page.

 A good example of how brands in the 21st century should behave, even if they are 127 years old.

In the brave new world that has such internet in it, why do we still have graffiti?

About fifteen years ago, before people started talking about "digital",  I remember the phrase "new media" was much in vogue. In those days, the phrase referred primarily to the internet or "the information superhighway" or "worldwide web" as it was still known as then. Since then, we've seen the birth, childhood and adolescence of Facebook and YouTube and all those social media Web 2.0 chappies and the "new" kid on the block is anyone that has anything to do with local and mobile and social.

Maybe I've been around that new kid's block a few too many times, but I'm not sure that these "new" media are changing my life or anyone else's as fundamentally as some would like to think. Do you remember, as a child, marvelling at the wonder of television or video, feeling empowered as no other generation before you had been? I expect not. Like today's children and their relationship with the internet, you wonder at what went before, not the norm that you've grown up with.

And however technology may change, human drives, motivations, dreams and desires don't, much. You can declare your love for someone in public over Twitter, or you can spray can the nearest bridge.

Old media never die. They just don't get Twittered about.

A snortin' good ad

Back in the last century, The Guardian created one of my all-time favourite TV ads - "Points of View" aka The Skinhead Ad, which cleverly showed how one should look at a situation from all points of view to see the big picture.

Well, The Guardian has done it again. This is definitely my favourite ad so far this year, showing how the story of The Three Little Pigs might be reported in today's world. The illustration of "Open Journalism" and how a story grows and evolves through classic and social media is nothing short of brilliant. And, by showing it, the paper can claim the territory, the way of thinking as its own.

What I also like is that it's not a brand new creative idea. It's clear that the creatives who worked on this were inspired by virals of the "Christmas Story on Facebook" ilk and have used the huge popularity of these to The Guardian's advantage.

I nearly said "paper" just then - but it isn't just a paper any more, is it?

If social media were really such a revolution, wouldn't we be making a song and dance of it?

In the last week, I've noticed more than a little social media fatigue. Not only have a couple of bloggers that I read written about "disciplining" their social media behaviour, but I've also seen the phenomenon of "Facebook Suicide" - in dubious taste, but complete with note.

Of course, it's people of my sort of age doing all this. As far as I can tell, younger people just get on with it and use social media as an everyday part of their lives. A teenager hasn't known a world without Facebook, so they are not going to make a song and dance about it. Which leads me on to my theory that, if you want to know what's really important in the lives of young people, listen to their music.

Going back to the days when a career in account planning wasn't even a twinkle in my eye, there were a few songs about that made references to media or means of communication. Hanging on the Telephone, Video killed the Radio Star or that awful thing with the guy whose girlfriend is killed in a car crash and he calls her answerphone to hear her voice one last time.

And these days, although the artists may have risen to fame via MySpace (what was that?) or use a bit of textspeak in their lyrics, I haven't heard any of these songs:

Digital killed the Video Star

Facebook Love

I'm in love with a German blogger

or

Every breath you take, I'll be following your Twitter stream

No, rather predictably, the songs are about the joy and pain of love or partying on Saturday night.

Just as they were when communication involved a handful of 2p pieces and a phone box that stank something rotten.

Facebookends

The talk on Facebook, funnily enough, is that usage of the social media site has dropped in Britain, USA and other countries where it enjoyed its initial boom.

And it's not just doom and gloom in virtual - social media sites and their use/abuse are dominating conversations from the dinner table to the halls of government.

Of course, the "glass half empty" among us will cite MySpace, Second Life and the rest of the "flash in the pan" casualties of the social media revolution, but I think Facebook has simply made too many inroads into too many people's lives to disappear in a puff of smoke.

I must admit that my own relationship with Facebook is uneasy. I've been part of it for at least four years and never really fallen in love with the place. In fact, my news feed often reminds me of one of those sensory or motor homunculus figures that show proportionately how much of the cortex is taken up by certain body parts - in that it gives an unnatural view of who my real friends are and how important they are to me.

I know I should get wise and delete a few people or at least remove them from my news feed, or create some sub-groups or other such cleverness. But it's just not worth the bother. In fact, what worries me most of all is exactly how you delete your account should you decide to vote with your feet.

It'll be interesting to see if I'm still hanging in there in four years' time.

iCapitulation

Nearly six years after first seeing the Web in mobile, I have capitulated and got myself an iPhone.

What may be of interest to anyone looking at this particular Customer Journey is, firstly - how long it was. I mean, six years of knowing that I could have all the benefits of mobile internet at my fingertips and not doing anything about it!

And then there were the two "nudges" or "moments of truth" that shoved me to the point of no return. The first of these will have all the Customer Journey Academics nodding sagely. Last time I was in England, I couldn't check in over the internet. Which meant that, but for the legendary kind-heartedness of Lufthansa (what?), I would have been separated from my young son on the plane.

But the second one is both silly and frivolous. You see, when I was in London, I bought a rather natty iPhone cover. So I just had to get something to put in it.

Right - off to become a fully-fledged Apps bore.

The third dimension

For me, the best campaigns are not those that are merely "integrated", whatever that means. The best campaigns are those that, like people these days, flit effortlessly from the real world into the virtual world and out again, edges between one world and another blurring as they go.

But I don't think it stops at two worlds. Take the IKEA Campaign for the catalogue start from Germany - Der neue IKEA Katalog kommt nicht allein. At the centre of this campaign is (arguably) a rather traditional and old-fashioned medium - a paper catalogue. But IKEA has surrounded this medium with a story (IKEA designers coming into real German homes to do makeovers) which is played out in the real world, and on the internet via IKEA's own community and what are now known as "earned media".

It could have stopped there. But what I particularly like about this campaign is that it adds a third dimension. After virtual and real, this is a sort of hyper-reality, the world of larger-than-life. The designers don't just sidle into Germany with the next train from Malmo - they are parachuted in. And it's this hyper-reality, which uses the film medium to its best extent that adds stature, greatness and good old entertainment value to the campaign and the brand. Here's some content I couldn't have created myself. And sometimes people need that.

Radical Solutions

As a freelancer, I sometimes wonder if I should set myself up as a proper company, rather than carrying on as the flexible sort of one-man-band that I am. I've got a cracking name in Secret Agency so I guess it would probably involve getting a proper logo done and a sign by my door and maybe tightening up exactly what my offer is a touch. But usually, the whole idea of the bureaucracy and admin that's involved in Germany for setting up a company makes me shy off.

But I'm always interested when people I've worked with in the past set something up. The latest one I've seen is the Radical Company, newly opened for business in Camden and a number of other locations around the world. Apart from their radical attitude, the company has made a focus on digital media their point of difference.

I suppose that I would not have been surprised had the Radical Company been set up by an ex-colleague of recent times, one of my former interns or someone of similar youth. But the great thing about it is that it's the brainchild of someone who I associate with the golden age of Saatchis and TV advertising - Graham Thomas. Instead of joining the "things were better in my day" crew of old advertising hacks with their Mad Men-wannabe tales of non-stop champagne, cocaine and rock & roll, Graham has looked where things are heading and sprinted right off in that direction with the speed of a teenager.

I wish them all much success.

Damaged

I don't know who I'd least like to be at the moment - Raymond Domenech or Tony Hayward. Domenech is on the way home with one goal and a mutiny to show for France's World Cup campaign, the reputation of French football in tatters.

Disasters happen, from losing a football match or two to serious disasters like the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Any company or brand has to be continually aware that something can happen that will cause damage to human and animal life and to the planet, as well as their company's reputation.

But many seem to make the mistake of worrying about the company's reputation, their life and their job first and foremost. The Chief Executive of BP seems to be doing just that - trying to shrug it off, reacting too slowly, dodging questions, passing the buck. Surely it is better to overreact, to act in any case quickly and, importantly, to put people first when such a disaster occurs by a genuine expression of empathy and compassion.

Useful or entertaining

I am going to use a bit of a Marmite approach to social media in this blog as well as playing by the rule of only passing stuff on that's useful and/or entertaining.

First to the useful stuff. Love social media? Then look no further than the Ethority Social Media Prism. A handy guide to all species of social media so that you can know your micromedia from your curated network, your y!gg from your Digg, your tumblr from your Flickr.

But it may be that such an abundance of social media flora and fauna soon begins to raise your hackles and you flip into full-on hate mode. In this case, I can highly recommend this comic strip: "8 websites you need to stop building". Awesome Jim, take note.