Parable

 

I am not normally a fan of “social experiment” ads. There was a nasty spate of them a few years ago - either manipulative codswallop by beauty brands for “poor me” narcissists. Or po-faced offerings from previously jolly beer brands jumping on the latest Twitter trend. Patronising, preachy and pretentious stuff, instead of being informative, entertaining or useful.

However, when we’re talking life or death rather than cans of cheap lager or mostly-water body lotions, maybe such ideas can make a point. 

“First Aid for Humanity” is an ad by VMLY&R Poland for the Polish Red Cross, supported by BNP Paribas. The idea was a first aid training course that used dummies that not only looked like real people, but were modelled based on real people who have faced discrimination. These were a homeless man, a Muslim woman refugee and a genderqueer activist. The participants in the course were encouraged to set any prejudices they may have had aside. At the end, they met the people behind the dummies in real life to hear their stories.

Have a look here.

I listened to a talk by Orlando Wood the other day, and he mentioned that advertising that gets noticed employs metaphor, connections and relationships and is in some ways like a parable - it’s not telling you what to think, but leaving you to process it and work that out for yourself.

And of course, “First Aid for Humanity” is a 21st-century retelling of one of the greatest parables of all time - The Good Samaritan (see Luke 10: 25 - 37), about the man who “fell among thieves” and was ignored and left for dead by both a priest and an assistant priest of his own religion before he was rescued and cared-for by a man of a different and opposing religion. 

“First Aid for Humanity” is an effective piece of communication, but I did wonder if it could be have been even more effective if the dummies had gone beyond the “acceptable” victims of discrimination. 

What if your neighbour is a skinhead football hooligan with a few dubious tattoos?  

Reinventing the past

 

My dad used to annoy me something rotten when we were watching something like Colditz or The Great Escape by pointing out inaccuracies in anything from the pilots not wearing masks through to how many stripes a colonel should or shouldn’t have on their uniform.

Now that I’ve reached a certain age, I find myself doing exactly the same when it comes to advertising. When some bright spark starts talking about how such and such a campaign has revolutionalised, disrupted or utterly transformed the category’s communication, it’s usually to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Yes, I know - people want simple stories of from:to, of heroes turning things on their heads, of creatives taking humungous leaps. Short attention span and all that. The vogue for storytelling has a lot to answer for.

Still, it’s sometimes worth putting the record straight.

Recently, in Campaign, I read an article from a chief strategy officer from a major international agency praising Persil’s Dirt is Good campaign. Now, I also admire this campaign, despite its occasional forays into false directions. The campaign has been running for 17 years, which is pretty good going. The chief strategy officer makes plenty of good points about the campaign, yet dismisses all pre-2005 detergent advertising with a sweeping generalisation:

"Historically, the casting and scenarios for washing powder ads were dreadfully homogenous, typically oppressive portrayals of perfect Stepford mums beaming at a neat stack of clean clothing.”

I wonder if he ever saw this Ariel ad from 1997 as a lad? Can you spot any of these:

    - Mum’s perfect kitchen?

    - perfectly folded piles of clothing?

    - oppression?

    - Stepford mums?

No, me neither. All I can see is a brilliant piece of communication, based on a universal human truth: the younger generation think they invented the world.

Sigh.

Method in Madness?

There was a time early in my agency career when creativity just happened - in a mysterious way - and questioning how the the creatives got to their ideas was likely to earn you at best a sarcastic riposte, and at worst eternal banishment from the creative floor.

Of course, we had a high-level idea of how creativity worked, but on the whole we were interested first and foremost in cracking ideas that fit the brief - and if they were really cracking, the brief could be made to fit ;)

These days it's all very different. There are no mad geniuses prowling the second floor and throwing typewriters out of windows. We're all team players, and openness and transparency is all the rage, including the tedious, usually post-rationalised blow-by-blow thought process of how you arrived where you arrived. I blame all this Design Thinking gubbins - the thought of scrums and sprints gives me the heebie-jeebies - it doesn't sound agile to me, rather completely exhausting.

Creative processes are described in flow charts and icons:

Occasionally with a few disembodied arms and hands - or brains - to add the "human-centric" touch:

Can I be the only one that feels as if these standardised processes lead to standardised ideas?

Even in a completely different world - literature and fiction - authors seem only too keen to display their working on social media, usually in the form of a forest-slaying over-abundance of Post-It notes:

I really don't want to read that novel, however it turns out.

My favourite representation of the creative process is this one:

I take a deep breath at this point and tell myself that it's a good thing that there are different ways to approach creativity and as long as I'm not forced into one of these flow-charts of Post-It proliferations, then let it be.

Adobe Create have come up with a rather nifty tool (not a process) to discover your own creative type.  No surprise that I was the Visionary (who looks like the lovechild of a cactus and a cucumber - well, that was a surprise).

And, for things to go pretty swimmingly, I have to get together, not with a cactus or a cucumber, but with a Thinker.

Who I am sure comes armed with a stack of flow-charts and a catering pack of Post-Its.

Loop-the-loop economy

Lufthansa have occasionally offered products that fall into the up-cycling and repurposing category in their World Shop, from messenger bags made from old life-vests through to on-board drinks trolleys to use in the comfort of your own home.

This year, there is a whole collection, made not just from the interior materials, but also from the aircraft itself, in this case an Airbus 340 that had been in service since 2001.

As well as the natty bags and wallets, there is now furniture. A coffee table made from the A340's aileron slats and a very stylish bar:

The beauty of these design items is, of course, not just the quirkiness of the item itself, but the story behind it. Who sat in the seat my sports bag is made of? Who has looked out of my "bar" window - and over which land or sea?

This may not offset flight-shame for the most hardy among us, but it does do something to forward Lufthansa's reputation in both design and responsibility.

A bit more down-to-earth is a new app brand that's hoping to aggregate all those return-your-clothes-for-money schemes: Stuffstr . Nice idea, and one that it would be good to see working.

But will you eventually be able to sell back your Stuffstr or even your World Shop up-cycled purchases there?

Book Branding Part 2

In my last blog post, I talked about Author Branding vs. Book Branding, and today I'm going to launch something rather special that's been waiting in the wings (or the hangar) ready to fly.

If I'd decided to go down the Author Brand route, I expect I would have put something together that would have ended up looking like every other Author Website, with a few fun facts about my schooldays, how much I love cake and how many cats I have (none).

But I decided early on that people aren't that interested in me, rather in getting a glimpse into the world of my books: characters, cars and planes featured, links and more. And all my websites do allow a little bit of author-ego indulgence as I'm not completely immune to the lure of the limelight.

The original idea for the look of the website came from Stefan Lochmann, the designer. In the stories a 21st century boy, born into the digital age, travels back in time to the mid-20th century. In the same way that the book design reflected an old book "found" in an attic, Stefan wondered what an "analogue website" would look like.

The idea translated into the websites for the first two books, each reflecting the specific setting and atmosphere of each story, but with the central idea of an "analogue website" made up from signs and materials from those times. So here, for example, we're whisked into a Cold War winter of 1957.

Website for Trouble in Teutonia

As with the book covers, the websites all reflect the essence of the book series: The Past is a Dangerous Country, and play with the digital/analogue theme as well as each having its own individual feel and atmosphere.

The latest story, The Al-Eden Emergency, is set in a 1966 Middle East and Swinging London jetpunk world. There's a preview shot at the top of this post to entice you in, and I can now proudly present the finished website.

Just be careful you don't tread on any scorpions!

Political Shandy?

I must admit to having felt slightly queasy about the Budweiser 'patriotic rebrand' this summer, whereby the 'great American lager' was packaged in a new design where 'US' replaced 'AB' and 'America' replaced the brand name, along with the slogan 'America is in your hands.' Odd, really, as I have no qualms about brands from the UK getting all patriotic now and again .

Maybe the difference lies with the tonality: the British way is almost always tongue-in-cheek and rather self-deprecating whereas the Budweiser packaging seemed bombastic and taking itself far too seriously. I wasn't the only one, however: plenty of liberal-minded commentators found the Trump-style rebrand a little hard to swallow.

Budweiser is now coming in for criticism for its Super Bowl commercial: Born the Hard Way, which follows what I expect is a new advertising trope for 'story of our founder starring a moody and hunky young actor' - see Burberry.

Born the Hard Way tells the story of the founder of Anheuser-Busch, the brewers of Budweiser. Adolphus Busch was born just down the road from us, funnily enough, in Mainz-Kastel. He emigrated to St. Louis in 1857, at the age of 18, and the rest is history.

The film emphasises the difficulties faced by immigrants, and the hard work put in by Busch to found and develop what has become 'the great American lager.'



So now the criticism is coming in from the other side: the Trump supporters who see this as blatant anti-Trump propaganda.

I'm not too convinced that politics and beer is a good mix, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see a few more of these 'founder stories' doing the rounds.

Levis would seem to be a prime candidate.

Storytelling by numbers?

Seeing the rather splendid Wes Anderson Christmas Ad for H&M has reminded me yet again of how close the worlds of branded communication and entertainment have become. The current interest in storytelling, which I've blogged about here, shows no sign of abating, and, while I have some misgivings about the way storytelling is being pushed by naive and/or unscrupulous consultants, it's a subject which is close to my heart.

There's a good article in The Atlantic by John Yorke which poses the question of whether All stories are the same - and if so, why?

The article starts off with looking at the similarity of many story-lines: Avatar and Pocahontas, for example, or Jaws, Beowulf and Jurassic Park. My favourite that I always use is those three great 19th century novels - Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary and Effi Briest, along with the 20th century true story of Princess Diana - unhappy wife commits adultery and comes to a sticky end.

Story shapes and structures are remarkably similar. But is structure something that can and should be learned? Screen and novel-writing courses, and increasingly courses and services for brands and companies include a lot of theory about structure, narrative arcs, inciting incidents, heroes' journeys and all the rest. I have ploughed through Joseph Campbell myself, and it was a bit of a slog.

Some would argue that it's not necessary to learn all that stuff consciously, that it's better to assimilate it naturally through listening to, watching and reading plenty of stories yourself. I was at a school class of 10 and 11 year olds recently, and gave them a simple bit of theory about beginning, middle and end aka the 3-act structure. But I honestly don't think they needed it. All the short stories they produced had a shape, a structure, that made sense.

I belong in the camp not of rejecting all the theory outright, but of not getting too tangled up or constrained in it. The author of the article warns: 'It is all too tempting to reduce wonder to a scientific formula and unweave the rainbow.' Furthermore: 'all great artists ... have an understanding of the rules whether that knowledge is conscious or not.'

For anyone involved in telling brand stories, it's the same. Imagination, a way with words and pictures and an understanding of the brand - where it's come from and why it exists - as well as a big dose of human empathy will get you further than knowing what % of the way into the narrative the second inciting incident should come.

Once you know the rules, you can break them.

Now, get me on that train to the Grand Budapest Hotel!

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?

Great stories, well told

The connection between ad people and novels is one that continues to fascinate me, not least because of my own rather feeble attempts to be the next J.K.Rowling, ha ha. And I've blogged about ad people that write, most recently here.

There's an interesting article about copywriters and novelists, by Lisa Friedman, here, which looks at 10 reasons that great copywriters (should) make great novelists. There's knowing your audience, there's the killer work ethic, the ability to tell a story, the economical use of language, and more besides. Summing up, it boils down to having an innate feeling for people and what makes them tick, combined with excellent skills of expression. In other words, the ability to tell a great story, well.

And talking of novels, and ad-land, I can most heartily recommend the new book above, Spin My Little World, by Abigail Cocks. Less about ad-land as set in ad-land. The main character, Bo Simpson, crashes and blunders her way through life armed with high fashion, low-life connections, a refreshingly un-PC attitude and lashings of foul-mouthed humour. I'm sure I worked with her once.

I also worry that I was her once.

Behind the scenes at the museum

When I was a young lass, I can't remember anyone aspiring to be a curator when they grew up. Curators were associated with museums and long-dead dusty creatures encased in woodworm-infested display cabinets. Of course, museums have changed since then. Gone are the hand-scribed labels in fading purple copperplate and the forgotten cellar atmosphere. It's all flashing lights and hands-on experience.

Curator, from the Latin curare ("take care") traditionally meant someone who took care of and managed objects - artefacts, specimens, paintings or sculptures. But recently, as we've entered the digital age, the role has widened to include digital content and data - and, with it, interpretation and selection as well as simply "taking care".

Today's curators are Rock 'n Roll. Literally. I have seen the word in connection not just with contemporary art exhibitions, but with music festivals and DJs, with technology and even with curators of style and taste. It makes sense that with so much more creation going on as a result of the digital explosion, that there must also be more curation: interpretation, selection, guidance, juxtaposition, focus.

There are even people whose job description is Brand Curator. Whether this is what used to be a Brand Manager is not clear but these people have the remit of "delivering a curated set of customer experiences" as I read recently.

In these times of rapid change in marketing directors and departments, there does seem to be a need for one person in a company - with experience and a real feel for the brand - to take the role of Brand Curator. While focussing on the past and assimilating the present as it happens, such a person could also be of great use in guiding the latest marketing director into the future.

Trailer Tale

My alter ego, S.P.Moss, has written a children's adventure story, The Bother in Burmeon, and marketing my own product on a limited budget has been a fascinating experience. The last thing I want to do is use this blog to promote my book in a blatant and in-your-face way, but I hope that you'll forgive me the odd little indulgence.

The marketing departments of the large publishing houses have been using book trailers for some time now, and it's a route to draw attention to your book that also makes sense for those who are with  smaller publishers, or are self-published.

There are a lot of book trailers out there and, while some of them are pretty impressive, many are not much more that a cover/pack shot plus back-cover blurb. This really isn't making the best use of the medium.

A book trailer is an advertising spot for the book and, like all advertising spots, it should have an idea. That's one reason I'm so pleased with my trailer, created by an ex-colleague from Saatchis, Roger Mönch. The idea is about "imagination", which ties in nicely with the theme of the story.

And it's not just a great idea, but it's beautifully executed, too.

OK, Roger!  

Brand Challenge

"Eating the Big Fish" by Adam Morgan is one of my favourite business books, which has stood the test of time since its publication in the last century.

But, of course, one thing that's changed beyond all recognition in the last 13 years are the media that brands can use in their challenge.

So it's good to see that Adam Morgan has a new book out, co-written by Mark Holden of PHD, who should know his media stuff. This book does two things:

1. It classifies nine challenger brand stories beyond the one we know and love - David and Goliath aka as "The Feisty Underdog". And expresses what drives these brands and what they are challenging (not necessarily the market leader).

2. It looks at media choices best suited to telling the ten different challenger stories.

The book is called "Overthrow: 10 ways to tell a challenger story" and the website is here.

You can even find out "which challenger type you are."

Second Hand Rose

One of my favourite trends at the moment, identified by Trendwatching and others is Recommerce. You'd never dream of chucking out your 5-year-old car, would you? Or pulling down your 10-year-old house? With the car, your opportunities to sell on are either do-it-yourself, which costs time and effort but you'll probably get a better price, or to put it in the hands of the dealer which is a heck of a lot more convenient but often disappointing in terms of financial reward.

Of course, Recommerce is a new-ish name for something that's been going on since time immemorial. Second-hand books, clothes, furniture, the flea market, the antique shop, the pawnbroker, classified ads and all the rest. And the last ten years or so have seen all this individual activity leap onto the internet with ebay, amazon marketplace and the like.

But outside the car industry, few companies have involved themselves in Recommerce regarding their own brands and products, until recently. Obviously, the costs and resource involved would not have justified the gain.

We live in a different world now. Recommerce satisfies peoples' need to be shopping responsibly and sustainably as well as saving money in cash-strapped times. And I believe that there is another human benefit that is integral to the Recommerce concept. Think of any antiques you own - they all come with a story - of previous owners, when and how they were crafted - and they carry with them a glimpse into a lost world.

If companies can tap into this aspect of Recommerce, they can strengthen their brand through its past.

Just one example of Recommerce is "Common Threads" the official co-operation and marketplace between Patagonia and ebay.

And a positive consequence of Recommerce is that it begins to erase the horrible words "consumer and consumables" from our vocabulary.

Good foundations

If you're looking for stories about your brand to imbue it with substance and authenticity, you can do worse than look back at the person or people who founded it. More often than not, you should be able to trace back to the original idea or purpose that launched the brand, which may be more interesting than whatever is currently written on the brand's Mission Statement.

Many brands are unthinkable without their founders - Steve Jobs and Apple, for example, or IKEA and Ingvar Kamprad, whose initials give the first two letters of the brand acronym and whose legendary cost-consciousness pervades the IKEA ethos.

Even under Unilever ownership, the names and personalities of Ben (Cohen) and Jerry (Greenfield) and the Vermont provenance drive the premium ice-cream brand.

Another example is what Guinness is doing. Arguably already one of the world's strongest and story-rich brands, Guinness has established "Arthur's Day" in honour of the founder, Arthur Guinness. Until 3 years ago, Arthur Guinness was a signature on the label and no more, but the 27th September is now designated as a day to "paint the town black" amid musical performance and celebration - to the benefit of the Arthur Guinness Fund for social good.

And the advertising comes from Saatchi & Saatchi, an agency who knows more about the strength of founders' names than most, even if the founders in question have moved on.

It ain't what you do...

Joanna Shields, MD of Facebook for Europe, Africa and the Middle East has recently drawn parallels between Facebook and the early days of TV and John Logie Baird. She's encouraged marketers to get involved in creating "big, bold and meaningful ideas the world will want to share".

She has a point - the potential of connecting billions of people around the world is quite something. I do think, though, that one trick brands have to learn is how to use Facebook and its like to get people to actually take action. I don't know - I've "liked" so many things and joined so many groups, but have acted on precious little.

I expect that one way for brands to get people to take action is to do something themselves. In the Cyber Category at Cannes, it's reported that brands "behaving" rather than "telling stories" won top honours, the brands in question being Nike+ FuelBand and Curators of Sweden, where the official Sweden Twitter account was handed over to Swedish citizens.

I suppose it's like the managers of these brands. Who gets on - the one who tells stories in the pub or the one who gets things done?

But, as the song says "it ain't (just) what you do..."

"Liking" ourselves to death?

Like most teenagers, "Brave New World" and "1984" were somewhere on my reading list once I'd graduated from the Puffin Club. I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't reread either book since and have fallen prey to the popular view that both authors were saying the same thing.

I've recently come across a quote from Neil Postman, from the foreword to his 1985 work "Amusing Ourselves to Death" which rang so true, reflecting where we've come in the three decades since 1984:

"Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."

The truth drowned in a sea of irrelevance, a trivial culture, reduced to passivity and egoism, with an infinite appetite for distractions - Postman had a point when he postulated that Huxley got it right.

It's ironic that maybe Orwell had the better title and buzz word - and that "Big Brother" as shorthand for Reality Show has become the phrase that we've adopted to describe our own 21st century Brave New World.

Does a book need a website?

Does a woman need a man?

Does a fish need a bicycle?

Rather like these questions that I remember from my student days, the answer is that it depends on the book and it depends on the website.

In a rare glimpse into the mind of my alter ego, the children's author S.P.Moss, maybe the more honest answer was that I wanted a website for 'The Bother in Burmeon.'

Books have got by for years and sold millions without websites, but I think I can justify my indulgence on a number of grounds.

My main audience is children aged 9-12. Their mode of operation is digital and visual and, although 'The Bother in Burmeon' is unashamedly retro in style, I felt that a visual presence beyond the cover design would act as a doorway into the world that the story portrays.

And what I don't know about publishing is made up for (I hope) in my experience and knowledge of marketing. Having a well-designed website which adds value to the book, rather than simply repeating it in another medium should help me to be recognised in the overwhelming world of children's books.

I hope that my creative partner and I have made a half-decent job of it.

David vs. the Amazon

For years, I loved amazon without really thinking about it. Living out here in Germany, it's invaluable, I teeter in and out of being a Top 1000 reviewer there and I've recently acquired a Kindle.

But there is another view of amazon that I'm becoming increasingly aware of - as the big, bullying monopoly that's killing off real bookshops - especially the cute quirky little independent ones. (By the way, the pic is of Ripping Yarns in Highgate. Never been there, but I must!)

In this article from the Huffington Post, there's some super thinking about what those independent bookshops can do. And it boils down to using your competitive advantage.

Rule 1: Don't play amazon on price - you'll lose

Rule 2: You're local - use it. Be something in the community.

Rule 3: You're real, bricks and mortar - use it. What events could you hold in your store?

Rule 4: You're staffed by human beings who love books, not driven by algorithms - use it!

Let's hope that these Davids fight back and don't go the way of record stores.

Blistering Brandbuilders!

I'm all a-gog for the new Steven Spielberg/Peter Jackson film of Tintin, which opens here this week. It's a project that's been in the offing ever since Spielberg first laid eyes on the Tintin comics thirty years ago (what a deprived childhood the poor man must have led.)

Apart from the film living up to its expectations, my main hope is that Tintin does not become brand/blandified, in the way that other children's characters have. I'm talking about the process by which a once quirky character has all its edges filed down to a uniform "soft play" surface which then takes over the world via pyjamas, rucksacks, reduced-sugar yoghurts and "sleepover" nappies. Thomas the Tank Engine and friends are one major culprit, but the prize for the most successful blandification must surely go to Winnie the Pooh. For a Bear of Very Little Brain, he certainly knows how to make money.

But with Tintin, I feel that there are just too many edges, nooks and crannies for comfort. Too many bits which probably don't warrant much digging and delving. Too much of an un-PC, non-bland nature.

In the end, my advice to Tintin is this - don't let them cut off your quiff, young man!

Paperback Writer

Like most bloggers, I rather fancy myself as a writer. And now, helped by a fantastic new idea that's been doing the rounds of the internet since last Friday, I know which writer I am most like.

Apparently, sections of this blog are comparable to Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut and David Foster Wallace (I'm not sure I like this one as a. I'd never heard of him and b. once I google'd him, I found out he'd topped himself...)

The link to this new way of wasting time is here.

And why stop at your own writing? Why not try it on some of your brand communications? Is your brand more of a James Joyce or a Dan Brown?