HEAD BLOG

The new iPhone is crap. It’s not called ‘iPhone 5′. It only has a dual processor. It doesn’t have wings.

Apple’s announcement can be said to have underwhelmed the talking heads. Coming on the heels of Amazon’s Kindle it felt a little like they were standing still.

It was inevitable.

When a company releases a breakthrough product, everything after it is a case of enhancement. Innovation is the gunshot which makes us take notice.

And yet we still want to focus on that gunshot when in fact we should be focussing on the effect it has had.

Look at it another way and we see that there are two sides to product development: the solution and the marketing.

The solution is where the innovation occurs. You take a ‘problem’ and find a solution. It’s what led to the iPod, the iPhone, to Google, to Twitter, the Dyson and to all the other technologies that have become ubiquitous in our lives.

Marketing is how it reaches the public. Key messages inform as to what that technology, what that solution, can do for us. Will it let me talk to my family in Australia? Does it enable me to write tragic poetry whilst standing on cliff-tops? Can I use it to find my way to that secret club where we dress up? These are the benefits which innovation can bestow upon me, the humble user.

There comes a point, however, when the majority of people are just quite content with how their benefits are delivered. Whilst some might care about how pin sharp their photos are, more will be happy just to flick through the blurry images they fired off on holiday. Others might want 1080p in order to fully appreciate the bright colours of the shaky handcam film they downloaded. More will be content with the fact that all it took was two simple actions to start watching the latest Tim Allen christmas movie.

In other words, there comes a time when the physical phone no longer matters. How fast a piece of technology is is only relevant when it hinders the benefits it promised to deliver.

Amazon know this. Their innovation is in the ecosystem; in the delivery of benefits. So too is Apple’s. They just didn’t focus on that. If they made any mistakes with their announcement of the 4s, it was in allowing their usual secrecy to complicate their very simple message in a way that never happens with their routine upgrading of the desktop and laptop hardware.

Innovation happens once in a product’s lifetime. After that it’s a question of showing people what it can do for them.

Any time now the world is going to start up a demand for typewriters and all you fools with computers and keyboards had better watch out.

I’m certain of it.

I’m ready, of course. I’ll be selling ink ribbons on eBay at a premium price so as to cash in quickly before the shuttered factories are dusted off and machinery cranks once more into action. And after that, as old businesses are called to perform once more, then I will act as an advisor. A guru. Wise in the processes of touch typing and carriage returns.

Of course things aren’t going to be like they used to be. That would be silly.

No, these new typewriters will be modern. They will be optimised for Twitter; accepting tiny sheets of paper designed to be efficiently scanned in and distributed within the day.

Sure, it will be slower. But people will think more. Rash statements and bandwagons will be a thing of the past and only the most crafted thoughts will be considered.

Not everybody will adopt the new technology. Some people will continue to use a computer to bash out a hundred messages a day but this will be quickly corralled and those opinions will be placed in a digital kindergarten.

It will still be social. There’s no getting away from that. In fact it will be more social. More people will be involved in getting your message onto the Internet.

Oh, and we’ll have typing pools again. Those sounded nice.

So maybe I’m off on one or two of the details. But the technology we use will change, the way we define ‘social’ on the Internet will change. At the moment it is too preoccupied with the channels rather than the message so brands interested in the long haul will spend time learning the principles behind what doesn’t change. The principles of people. The way we like to listen, to talk and to while away the time in a bid to drown out the clatter of keyboards and work in our lives.

There was a marvellous article in The Guardian last week featuring Heavy Rain creator David Cage, discussing the potential for very different, challenging stories in the game space. It’s about how age brings with it different desires, and what effect that has on video gaming – something often seen as a young person’s pursuit.

As Cage says:

“look, I’m 40, I’m fed up of writing games where you shoot at everyone”

The fact that this is even an issue is interesting. Gaming, perhaps uniquely amongst entertainment media, really has grown up. An entire generation has stuck with the pastime beyond the childhood period. No other toy has this sort of power. As adults we don’t indulge in the marvellous imagination games inherent in (for example) toy soldiers. I don’t even think (to stick with toy soldiers) that one form of play transforms into its video game counterpart. So whilst we drop one form of play, that doesn’t mean we are “moving on” to video games.

Video game are, in other words, unique. They are a separate form of entertainment which was born as one thing and has now evolved.

As a result it’s not surprising that developers themselves can be heard questioning the relevance of another “space marine” game*. His words may well unite other developers as they begin to pass into middle age and beyond. What they ought to do, however, is prompt publishers to look at potential audiences of this demographic and carry out research into how strong a “grey gaming” strategy could be. I’m sure it won’t be made of up people all wanting games based on thoughtful introspection and arthouse philosophy exercises but it may reveal that a different approach is needed – whether that be in the storylines or in the marketing as we begin to question whether one size really does fit all.

*I disagree that games developers should avoid writing about situations for which they have no experience though. The imagination, rather than personal experience, is still the most vital tool in a writer’s arsenal.

In the car, early one morning, my friend told me his boss had been trying to persuade him not to retire next year. The boss explained that he had never had any complaints about that one plant (my friend loads aggregates, it’s typically a one person per plant job and you need to be everything from labourer to customer care manager).

So, no complaints. Not a single customer had to call in ten years to ask where their concrete was.

The boss said he wished he had more people like my friend and asked why he was so different to every other plant manager in the group.

My friend explained that he lived by a simple tagline (he didn’t use that term) which was ‘deliver the promise’. If a customer had been promised a load and my friend was running late then the customer still received it as promised, even if it meant working late (and loads are never, unlike taxis, promised as being just around the corner).

My friend is one of those people, rare in my experience, who pose a real problem to management. They are indispensable in their current roles but would be invaluable ‘higher up’ in a training or management role.

Such a simple philosophy can underpin any other brand. I’m writing this whilst stood across the platform from a billboard proclaiming NatWest’s charter commitments as they make promises (I wish they were different promises really but that’s a separate matter) which presumably they will deliver.

Advertising can sometimes be an attempt to make something from nothing, an attempt to hoodwink the consumer into buying something they do not need (or at least desire). ‘Deliver the promise’ is the antidote to this. It cuts through to the core of what any brand should be offering and enables campaigns to be bold and uncynical knowing that what they are selling will deliver the promise of reliability, genuine interest, comfort – whatever it is the product has set out to do.

A kitchen gadget, the sort we all buy, might therefore, through a deliver the promise strategy, be designed to genuinely change the way we peel or slice rather than being discarded after a few tries.

My friend has promised to retire next year. I’d hope his company wishes that this one time, it’s a promise he doesn’t deliver.

Few agencies have such faith in their own creativity that they stake their own money in supporting their claims to attract attention.

Head First is one of the few.

Recently, we had an idea, not an unusual event in an agency which has dealt with a series of high profile campaigns in its ten year history.

The idea was, if not simple, certainly straightforward.

We decided to design, create, release and publicise an App for the iPhone with the express undertaking that it get noticed. The App had to fulfil two main criteria: firstly it had to be true to our strong roots in gaming and secondly that it prove gaming is the best choice for keeping consumers engaged with any kind of advertising message.

Why gaming?

People never grow up. Too often, games are derided as being “for children”. In terms of coverage they are rarely afforded the seriousness given to other forms of entertainment. Whilst films can be lauded as an acceptable pleasure for all ages (even for the films aimed mostly at a younger market) games are left to the special interest magazines. In place of respect, more often than not, we get disbelief. Whilst movie stars are interviewed on prime time TV, games developers are largely ignored.

And this despite the clear (and considerable) financial benefits the games industry brings to society.

As an advertising agency with experience in the games industry, Head First know this all too well. Rather than being courted by other industries for its ability to engage with a consumer base that starts at age 0 and goes all the way up 100, know we are often categorised as ‘niche’. Just like gaming is often categorised as ‘niche’. Of all the reasons why you should choose Head First, the most relevant stems from our understanding of unifying such diverse consumer groups.

Yet ignore it, fight or or puzzle over it as we may, people never grow up. The thrills we enjoy as children, as we play innocently and wholeheartedly, never go away. Even as adults, weighed down by responsibility, we take every opportunity to indulge in play.

This is nothing new of course, these ideas are no pearls of wisdom.

And therein lies the paradox and the surprise. For when a game like Angry Birds comes out, it’s a shock that everybody and her grandmother wants to play it at home, on the train, in the park. Angry Birds is a beautifully crafted game to be sure, but it’s nothing new. Such games are the rule in the games industry, not the exception.

It is, in short, through games that not only do we first learn to, well, learn, but also how we continue to soak up information. We are at our most receptive when we are playing.

For Head First, tapping into that process isn’t so much a question of why, as it is why not.

That’s not to say adding a game element to advertising needs to mean making it into a platform game or a 3D Doom-a-like. Gaming means anything that is interactive, engaging and rewarding and with these three elements the approach, like that of Blues music, is endless. Head First could have designed Super Twario in a hundred different ways; what was imperative, however, was that it be engaging and rewarding in ways that Twitter, marvellous as it is, is not.

Because of this, Super Twario’s design had to incorporate these key game ideals whilst balancing that other essential part of the jigsaw: the concept of social networking.

Why Twitter?

On the face of it the question might be: why not Twitter? After all, as markets go, tapping into one that has an estimated 190 million users* isn’t a bad market to head for.

But consider that out of that number, Super Twario must take only those owning an iPhone and the number drops. By how much nobody knows but given the strong early adopter presence and, shall we say, a more independent edge to many of the people using the service and we must allow for the possibility that a good chunk of the audience will prefer Android over iOS when it comes to smart phones, if they choose a smart phone at all that is.

Then too there is the nature of Twitter. As poster boys for social networking goes, it’s up there with the best of them and is undoubtedly the fastest moving of them all. If any product already fulfilled the criteria of “interactive, engaging and rewarding” it would be Twitter.

Twitter’s approach, however, fitted perfectly into the game plan. Head First views advertising as a social, not anti-social, medium. Whilst the answer for many agencies seems to be ever more invasive media placements, Head First champion the pillars of social marketing as a way to engage with consumers. The company sees more value in a conversation than a decree and, as everybody can plainly see, the days of advertising as authority are certainly diminished.

Brands across the world are waking up to this, some more successfully than others, and whilst promotion will never be a truly level playing field, the rise of social marketing has given voice to the more creative and inspired communicators out there.

And that voice must be creative, it must be inspired in order to stand a chance of communicating value and benefit to a world turned cynical at the very idea of marketing.

Head First has shown how impact is born from creating products that engage with consumers. With a strong concept and no marketing spend, Super Twario remained talked about every few minutes for over a week, sent over 50,000 viewers to the Super Twario YouTube channel, was written about by most major commentators across the world, stayed in the What’s Hot section for over a month and inspired Apple to feature it in the App Store.

But more than that, it created fans. A base of people who are interested in talking, in using Twitter for the first time, in finding people who share their interests or any of the many pursuits that draw people together. That’s what creating an online community is about. Imagine if Super Twario chose to take a specific theme and create a community around that. A community that talked about their love of horror or sport or films in which their character could jump around and search out other people to talk to. Such a Super Twario world could have brand spokespeople in who would engage with anybody interested. To talk with rather than preach to.

If we can have such success within such constraints and unify such a diverse consumer base, imagine what such an approach can do for you.

* source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

He is the go to guy for many things these from fronting a startup to commenting on every issue under the sun (and probably on it too). With the effective departure of Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple maybe it’s time he took on a more serious role in the business world.

If legends are to believed, Jobs is the single visionary behind every successful Apple product launch. His carefully manicured brand image, as reliable as Bono’s sunglasses, have taken credit for the iPod, iPhone, and iPad in a series of moves that have led to the financial ascendancy of the one-time underdog. What’s more, this image has undoubtedly helped balance the rise with the anchoring of a more humble image in the eyes of the public.

To believe such legends, however, is to dismiss at a stroke all the thinking of thousands of employees. Engineers, artists and strategists may well have been encouraged by the reappearance of Jobs back in 1998 but it’s unlikely he hands them a ‘To Do’ list each Monday morning.

It’s startling, therefore, that the departure of a figurehead can make such a huge impact upon the Market. The notion that without him in the Director’s chair, the Apple show will revert back to less favourable fortunes takes neither the context of Apple’s mid-season break nor our current social attitude towards technology into account.

It does, however, reveal the importance of branding.

Company CEOs, much like politicians, are learning that education and ability are not sufficient qualities for leading a company. Wozniak may have been a genius on the circuit board but that beard would definitely cause trouble today. Our leaders, business and political, must represent the full package.

So back to Fry.

And a question.

Why not?

Could he generate the sort of interest, the sort of enthusiasm for product that Jobs does? Maybe not the same, but certainly of a level which would keep the world talking about Apple.

And certainly in a way that continues the levels of showmanship which have become almost mandatory in any product launch (although whether he could pull of a Samsung is something to be seen).

It is, ultimately, a question of branding. As the line between b2c and b2b blurs, as financial results are given the same media attention as football transfers (though the former aren’t usually as lucrative) then we mustn’t be afraid to interrogate our brands more fully. We are all businessmen, we are all showmen and if a brand is to be effective then it cannot shy away from influencing every area.

A comedian in a boardroom? Why not? We’ve had clowns in Downing Street for years.

Read part one of the Head First review here.

Perhaps the bravest part of examining our creative service meant proving ourselves in new ways. The landscape of advertising and design is changing rapidly and, whilst we still believe the idea should always come before the technology, it has to be recognised that being able to understand how that technology is affecting society can make all the difference from a strategic point of view.

Nowhere is this more prevalent than in social media.

So we set out to see how ideas could impact upon something as big as Twitter.

That’s when Super Twario was born.

In creating Super Twario, we wanted to show clients how a single exciting idea, bravely realised and confidently pitched, could resonate with people.

It did.

Even before Apple opted to run it as a featured app the test videos had been viewed over fifty thousand times and most every magazine had run a feature. Word of mouth carried the name of Super Twario right around the world and the Twitter searches we were running were moving faster than we’d ever expected.

We set out to get noticed.

We succeeded.

The meetings and conversations we have had since have been exciting and more apps, different apps, are in development.

All from the conviction we have that anything can benefit from a bit of exciting thinking.

What a year it has been.

So how’s your year been?

It’s not been the best has it? We have seen many companies, much admired companies, go under and many talented designers, game creators and writers have lost their jobs.

Recession has presented us with a whole bunch of challenges (are they still challenges or is the latest term “opportunities”?)

Whatever, it’s been tough.

At Head First we had to examine every part of what we stood for and what we offered in order to stand out.

And stay standing.

For a company that services such large brands that was quite the challenge. Early on we realised that “we aim to excite” was more relevant than ever before. We had to excite and we had to encourage our clients to excite.

As a result we began to talk to people, one on one, to show them the opportunities available by exciting people. We came up with ideas, often unsolicited, and threw them at the people we wanted to work for. It didn’t matter whether these were paid for ideas or even potential ideas. What mattered was that they were exciting ideas.

We ranged from suggesting ways for companies to open up new dialogues with their markets to examining what their real business actually was.

And if a client called us to a job we sometimes turned them away.

Not empty handed of course. But with an idea they could implement on their own.

An exciting idea.

For such a small company, Head First often punches above its own weight. There are few projects we have balked at.

That’s because we know that along with the ideas comes production.

You could say that Head First is about ideas in production.

When one of us comes up with an idea, someone else is thinking how to make it work.

Our clients seem to like this approach.

It means they don’t get one dimensional production. They get the responsive, thinking approach to production.

That’s much more exciting.

You sit down of an evening and watch TV. What else are you doing? Are you talking to friends on the phone? Are you on the Internet? Are you accessing the TV guide to see what’s on next or whether there is anything better on another side?

You sit down at your computer. Now what are you doing? Most likely it is the task you sat down to complete. You will be reading the news, shopping, chatting to friends or catching up on a programme through an online on demand service.

Both scenarios represent something of a dilemma to advertisers. Both tell us that our relationship with advertising has to change.

The power of TV advertising still holds sway over our purchasing habits. At least they do when we are watching the ads. But how often is that when shows are subject to Sky+ or distractions from other, living room based, technology.

Advertisers know this of course. It’s one of the reasons we see increasing amounts of non-traditional advertising be it through sponsorships, idents or product placements.

As technology enables us to set our own TV schedules and access entertainment in different ways, this becomes even more of an issue.

Then there is the computer.

Whatever that means these days.

Whether it is through a terminal in the corner of a room, a laptop or tablet perched on the arm of the sofa or via a mobile phone, it’s really the Internet we are talking about.

And there our consumption behaviour changes. We are either more focussed or certainly less amenable to advertising than we would be in our old, goggle-eyes days. We see the banners flashing in the frame of article and might, just might, take note.

But not in the same ways we would with a TV ad.

Advertisers might want to count the click throughs because the technology allows but we probably have other ideas.

We are on this page for a reason, remember.

Our relationship with advertising has to change.

Instead of seeing us as willing followers, eager to watch the next ad or cluck through to the micro-site where we can can “swish” our hair for some marketing person’s vain hope of building a community, advertisers need to understand the key changes in our viewing habits.

They, we, need to understand that the relationship needs to become more equal, more give and take and account for the fact that whilst we understand the need to be alerted to new products, we would like the method to change.

We would like to be informed rather than told about products; given reasons to purchase rather than slapped in the face and told to pay attention to advertising that has no message.

Advertising must seek to build a rapport with us and it must do this by engaging, not intruding. New technology demands advertisers take a new approach. Rather than deafen us with ever-increasing volume, they must work harder to let us hear the message they contain.

Our relationship with advertising has changed.

I mentor at a local college. It’s a great way to see how the next generation are being taught to approach advertising and design. I learn a lot about expectations, processes and ideas.

Oh, and I suppose I’m of some help to the students.

Whatever.

Each year, without fail, I see things I don’t like. It could be that students are being given six months to explore a brief when I know one day they will have, well, one day.

This year I got to talking about a design the student had done and I asked why he’d done it, what thought processes had led to it. We discussed it in some detail because I’d got quite a different interpretation of it. Ultimately I asked how the student “sold” it into the tutor.

The answer was that designs weren’t sold in. They were given no rationale.

It made me wonder that if students weren’t required to explain, if they weren’t required to show their working out, then what would encourage them to do any working out to begin with.

And without being able to explain why a design works then what faith could I have in the message it is supposed to convey?

Moving to old man mode, I believe that part of the reason there is any kind of debate about the quality of creative at the moment (a topic being run in The Drum lately) is that very little in the way of rationale and message is actually being demanded.

Perhaps if colleges took up the challenge to be more commercial in their teaching technique then we might see this change at grassroots level. Certainly a more vocational approach to design wouldn’t hurt as students learn to better understand the demands clients will one day put upon them.