HEAD BLOG

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.

Microsoft seem unable to commit

Now you see it, now you don’t. Microsoft released their new branding device and company tagline yesterday.

And then withdrew it.

It drew the usual polarised opinions on Twitter and then, just a few hours later, was taken down. The tagline was for real but the logos, which showed the Microsoft product family, were not, in fact, new logos. Rather, they were an example of “a standalone treatment to show the flexibility of joined brands” (Engadget).

The opinions, the polarisation, the hate, all of these are de rigeur for any new brand these days. When opinions (such as mine) can be released and propagated within seconds, it’s inevitable. What’s interesting, to me at least, is that Microsoft chose to withdraw them.

Brand design is such a personal art. You either love the logo or you don’t really care. Even the haters will continue as usual once their bile has sunk back again.

So why would Microsoft back down?

When it comes to creating logos to reflect brands, many companies, large or small, want to please everybody. They want something that (as Steve Jobs once proposed) becomes a jewel. Everybody loves jewels. They sparkle, attract our attention and are worth a fortune.

What’s more, we love them instantly.

Open the box and what do you see? That’s right, treasure. And desire plays out upon our faces. It’s the reaction beloved of companies.

When that reaction is lessened, for whatever reason, a company can be thrown into turmoil. They sense a lack of love and fear that will reflect upon their business.

It’s easy to see why Microsoft would do the same.

With Apple being the… ummm… being so well loved by consumers, Microsoft feel threatened. Witness the constant faltering and self doubt over many of their product launches lately. They get buzz but then lose it through the self doubt and inaction. Apple announce a product and then release it. Apple love themselves, Microsoft don’t.

They need to realise that many people are happy with what they produce. It might not be passionate, it might not be vocal.

But they show commitment nonetheless. They should understand that self doubt is infecting their brand more than any perceived criticism.

A little self-love would inspire far more confidence than the efforts of analysts and graphic designers.

Have Microsoft allowed too much time to pass between announcing Natal/Kinect and its release? From all the chatter at E3 it seems the veneer has worn thin and people have already moved on to the next big thing.

It’s been a few years since anyone at Head First attended E3. We tried it for a while, went along with the belief that decisions and impressions were made in equal quantity and that we would break into the States with our creative vision for how video games ought to be marketed.

The truth, however, is that E3 is a show for the public. It is designed to impress the journalists who then trumpet the products they fall for. It really is an amazing event for bringing the spectacle of gaming to the attention of the world.

Last year, that spectacle revolved mainly around Natal, a new take on technology championed by Nintendo through their groundbreaking Wii system. Natal, by Microsoft, blew everything else out of the water by appearing larger than life and selling itself on a dream.

It was a dream that managed to make Nintendo look as though they were just mumbling in their sleep. Here was the true vision of motion control, the future in vivid technicolor.

Microsoft had done what few people credit it capable of doing, they’d pulled an Apple out of the air.

Move on a year and much of the talk about Natal centres around the renaming to ‘Kinect’ an ugly portmanteau to many; and around fake families showing off the technology in demos that many commentators are labelling as disappointing. The buzz, hype and excitement of a year ago has been replaced by reality.

Practical limitations for gaming have been raised over this past year and the answers don’t sit well with the hardcore. Sony, touting their own motion controller now neatly called ‘Move’ are on full assault, pointing out that games need buttons and who wants to be seen playing with invisible guns like a five year old.

It’s clever marketing on Sony’s part who were seen as the poor cousins only last year with technology totally lacking in ‘wow’.

But timing really is everything and now the playing field seems a whole lot more level.

If Microsoft had announced, wowed and released within months rather than a year and a half then maybe they could have carried us along just as Apple seem to with each of their visionary but crippled devices.

That, however, isn’t the case and we’ve had a year to consider what we want (if anything) from motion controllers and are in a position to make calm, informed decisions. That means the money men must also address the economics of these devices, counting them against percentages of current ownership rather than, as once hoped, driving hard core consoles into the Wii owning public where fake families have been happily jumping up and down, waving their primitive sticks in the air, for years.

Would gaming benefit by following United Artists and Image Comics in creating a publishing model that put power into the hands of the developer?

I’m not talking here about sharing resources for marketing or creating a high profile publishing brand that the consumer can look to as a mark of quality simply because it’s developer led, not entirely at any rate. I’m talking more about creating a publisher that can better nurture the production of better games through a business that values ideas above strategic loss and minimal risk.

When Chaplin, Pickford and Fairbanks used their collective power to break away from the studio system they discovered that there was more to making money from movies than just starring in them. Being loved is one thing but producing the quantity of movies it takes to run a successful business… well that’s something else entirely.

Especially when, as an artist, you actually care about quality.

In the hands of Duke Nukem creator 3D Realms it would be easy to see a “talent first” studio fail before it started. Sure Broussard no doubt believes in quality but the harsh economic drive that makes an artistic venture financially viable isn’t all that evident.

A new publisher would most likely be drawn from the development studios who hit the headlines (not so long ago this name call would have almost certainly included Infinity Ward but times change). Their proven success at making huge hits grants them godlike power in calling the shots.

But are they the right model to follow?

There are, after all, other developers who produce big hits that make the money but don’t get the critical acclaim of the games press. The likes of Ben 10 and Carnival Games spring to mind. The latter especially because it doesn’t have any grand brand or technical wizardry driving its success. Carnival is, it appears, just a game that the quiet gamer wants to buy. And buy. And buy again.

Surely, in this new publishing model we are creating, they would get a seat.

Of course it depends on what a coalition of developers want out of such a publisher. Individually they can probably all get more of the profits or call the shots on IP.

So maybe they would want to create a publisher of been there done that; of experience where the developer of Carnival can turn to the developer of Duke Nukem and say “forget about the tech, just make him dance.”

Nothing says “I don’t really care” like an e-card. After their initial novelty veneer wore thin, the e-card became confined to businesses  who wanted to trumpet 1) that they can save money by donating to charity but really can’t be bothered 2) that they are now taking a low-carbon approach but really can’t be bothered or 3) that their MD received one from his son (who couldn’t be bothered) and who thinks it represents the future. Of not being bothered.

Just hours after installing the new super one hour photo developing machine, everbody’s grandmother went digital consigning vast towers of squeaky paper and “leather” bound photo albums to the warehouse of oddities last seen in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Suddenly we could all take as many rubbish photos as we liked without some sixteen year old slapping a sticker on our faces telling us to do better.

Websites such as Photobox (Flickr capitalised late on this) sprang up to turn those digital files back into “product” and find a use for all the paper we thought we’d saved.

There are, of course, lessons to be learned from the e-card and the sudden collapse of entire film-to-print industry. We clearly wanted to carry on taking photos and share them with family and friends. We also enjoyed the freedom to “get creative” with our work. Especially when it came to personalisation.

Which is exactly what Moonpig saw and capitalised on to great effect. From out of nowhere came a brand with no real world value. Moonpig just created a great product at the right price and it caught on.

It must have caught the stalwarts of the greeting card industry by surprise. Just as Kodak were caught out by the rapid take-up of digital, so were Hallmark and their heavyweight counterparts. To the outside observer they seemed unfazed by Moonpig’s success even though it was clear from the start that this was an idea which would grow and grow.

Unfazed or calm.

Business strategy is a difficult beast to pin down. Those of us who press our noses up against the windows of other businesses like to weigh in on the decisions made by marketers.

I’m no exception.

Often it’s a good exercise, a sort of what-would-I-do thought experiment that sharpens the mind. Or distracts from real work.

In the case of Moonpig, I’ve often wondered why the big boys didn’t jump all over them immediately. They have the resources to protect their business on and off-line so were they being slow and out of touch with the way the Internet was shaping business or did they have a much larger strategy at hand?

We’ll never truly know of course and perhaps it doesn’t even matter because what they have established looks pretty good. It will appeal to the “rest” of us who are slower to adopt new ideas. Those of us who waited for Boots to begin processing digital films again.

The gut reaction (from what I’ve heard) is that Hallmark were just slow to react, caught with their pants down. And I’d be happy to go along with that if I wasn’t regularly having to think different about what my own industry perceives as good and bad packaging.

Because I don’t think it’s that simple. And thinking like this makes me want to look at things differently.

I can see a good business case for Hallmark waiting. Their name and reputation wasn’t going to disappear overnight and so, if they were fazed by the Internet explosion, it didn’t need to matter too much. They could afford to wait. They could afford to let Moonpig take all the risk, spend all the money and get people used to the concept of ordering and personalising cards online. After all, it’s an approach which works well for Apple who often wait to see how people access new technologies before jumping in and “innovating”.

Hallmark are now advertising on TV. They are doing it in a very “Moonpig” sort of way but with the Hallmark brand. If they go the whole… hog… then they should tie in deals with Boots and use their stores to carry the message back out into the real world where its customer base still live and shop.

With the news of Twitter’s changing terms and conditions and the recent privacy related payout from Facebook, questions regarding the effectiveness of online advertising have been raised at the Head First water cooler. That and what madness Jordan will reveal next. Read more…