Teddy Bears' Picnic

The market for children's toys must be one of the most dynamic of what could be called "durables". Normally, any one toy is only likely to be played with by any one child for a couple of years maximum before it's broken or passed on to the younger sibling or the flea market.

But there is one toy brand, which happens to be German that I believe will not just still be going but could well be producing exactly the same models in fifty or even one hundred years time. I wouldn't put a bet on even Lego still being around in 100 years, but I reckon Steiff will still be producing its teddies and other furry creatures.

In the same way that the company itself has longevity and durability, so do its products. Toys from Steiff are very rarely thrown away and will more likely than not find new homes on ebay, often changing hands for hundreds of Euros.

In these days where brands are told that they have to be flexible and adapt to changing circumstances, Steiff is the antithesis. Still a family firm after 130 years, the company continues to be true to the motto coined by the founder: "Only the best is good enough for children".

Sometimes it's good to be steif , or stiff, as a brand.

Social Media Mumbo Jumbo

It may be my age, but I am still a little uncomfortable about the prospect of being T-shaped, having a transmedia narrative or even being responsible for the creation of an engagement platform.

Which is why it was heartening to read Justin Gibbons of WorkResearch in Campaign, reminding us of what good advertising (or brand communications of any sort) is based on:

1. Brand Understanding

2. Consumer Insight

3. A great idea (creative and media)

Getting to 1 & 2 and distilling this into a punchy creative brief to inspire 3 has always been at the heart of what Planners of any flavour should be about.

But...if you are ever the position where you have to write a social media strategy, this gem from Mike Phillips should help. You can mix verbs and nouns to come up with something that makes something quite straightforward sound as clear as mud.

I like "leverage conversations to maximise social currency and foster engagement."

Clippings

In the days before digital, the PR department of every brand and company spent hours scouring the press and cutting out snippets of interest. It's a habit that dies hard and I am also guilty of hoarding papers and magazines years past their publication date on the principle of "that might come in useful".

Campaign is just about the only trade press thing that I have in paper form these days and every so often I have to cull the stack that sits in my office. So here, at random, are four articles or thoughts that caught my eye 2008/2009:

Austerity and Brightsiding: Joyce King Thomas of McCann Erickson says it's "a good chance to get back to basics and teach my kids good values and not so much consumerism." Still on trend, still relevant.

Brand Invention: This was all about agencies, such as BBH's Zag, getting into creating, developing and launching new products full time. From their website, it looks as if they are still going strong - the best of luck to what I think is a clever venture.

Insights: More of a soundbite than a big idea, from Simon Law via Adliterate. "An insight is a revelation, which elevates it from being simply an observation." For ever and ever, Amen.

The Long Now: A very thoughtful piece c/o Laurence Green about long-term thinking, which introduced me to The Long Now Foundation, founded in 01996! Must find out more...when I have time.

Bittersweet

Returning from the sun to gloom and rain gives you an instant yearning to retrace your steps to whence you have come.

For me, nothing captures the spirit of Northern Italy more than those famous Aperitifs such as Aperol. While the Germans and Austrians are more focussed on what you knock back after the meal, the Italians have had the Aperitif off to a fine art for at least a hundred years.

I'm not talking Martini and Cinzano here: these brands have become too international, too ubiquitous. For me, it's the Bitters that sum up the quirkiness of the Aperitif. The ingredients are odd (artichoke), contradictory (bitter orange), mysterious (thirteen herbs and plants). The bottles, with their dark blues and oranges and gold-framed letters look like trinkets of Murano glass. Nothing looks as if it has changed since the early days of the last century when drinks like Aperol, Campari and Cynar were introduced.

I suppose you can drink the stuff at home, and dream, but I don't really want my Aperol gespritzt with grey German rain.

Ephemera

We often ask our clients to think long and hard about the business that they are in. Sometimes, when I think about what business I'm in, it comes down to a rather beautiful word. Brand communications are, as often as not, ephemera.

Ephemera used to refer to printed matter but I would include film, audio and internet on top of that. Like a mayfly, most pieces of brand communications are not intended to endure for any length of time, however long-lived the brand behind them may be.

But it's good that there are people devoted to keeping such ephemera alive. One place I really must get round to seeing next time I'm in London is the Museum of Brands, housing the collection started by Robert Opie. Because even though the posters, wrappers, packs and print ads of my past have long exited into the great recycling machine in the sky, the impressions that they made have left permanent traces in my mind.

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?

Funny old game

One of the things that makes working in brand communication so interesting is that you can never predict what exactly is going to catch the public imagination.

Take the recent World Cup. Apart from the football itself, what got people talking? And what scenes and images from the whole circus are we left with?

The sound that is most likely imprinted on the collective audio memory is not Shakira, or Waving Flag, or any of the other songs, but the monotone drone of the onomatopoeically- named vuvuzela.

And the visual image has to be a character with whom I feel a certain kinship. Born in England, living in Germany, Paul the psychic octopus.

And what have they in common? Well, without over-analysing, I suppose you could say that both a vuvuzela and Paul are a little rough and ready. Unpolished. Definitely not high-production, high-gloss.

Football and brand communications - both are a funny old game.