There was a period, a long period, back in the history of advertising when certain things held true. An ad could give advice, for example, or have an opinion and the agency would be pretty certain it would be received as intended. If they made a claim that doctors smoked cigarettes because they were good for your health then you and I would simply just accept this as a fact. If the agency, on behalf of their corporate overlords, assured us that the oil pouring out of a hole in the seabed was actually beneficial to the sea life, well, who could doubt the printed word?

Authority was absolute. At least for the purposes of selling.

The change in behaviour, however, was coming. Our relationship with consumerism and the companies which provided us with product after product was bound to be affected by mass media which showed us different cultures and the impact of our actions upon them. We were given the means through which we could see, test and then question the decisions our political leaders made and we could organise like never before.

These insights into how authority operated affected our relationship with advertising. Like seeing the flaws in a parent as we get older, so were we able to see how misleading the claims of advertising could be.

The past ten years has seen change of this sort again but at an unprecedented pace. The Internet has begun to affect us in ways we were not prepared for and still don’t truly understand. It may well be decades before we adjust to modern life, if such a thing is even possible anymore.

Businesses, and the advertising agencies which represent them, have reacted in different ways. A tiny few have embraced, and appear to understand, the responsibility granted by social marketing but many still adhere to the Authority model, filling their pronouncements so painfully with jargon as to make it appear archaic.

The reasoning, I believe, comes from too much love.

The people who work with these brands all respect the process too much. If a decision is made to make bottled water from tap water then, because they understand the process then they respect the decision. It’s the same logic that swallows the line about a company’s interest being its customers so why would it ever do anything to jeopardise that interest.

The balance comes not from cynicism, however. This leads to being unable to sell what the company has to sell. A cynical creative is one not in a position to see the good in a product that might lie beyond the jargon-filled nonsense.

The balance comes from questioning authority, from demanding it to explain itself in terms you can understand and by using talking points and conversation starters, not declarations.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

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.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

My phone isn’t very good at making calls. I wouldn’t swap it for another.

I have a computer that isn’t very comfortable to type on. But that’s ok. Because I have another that is. That one just doesn’t show video very well.

Luckily I have a solution for that. I have a third computer that is perfect for typing and has a great screen. Everything looks amazing on it.

Only, it’s not portable.

Many people won’t go to these extremes of course. Many people will have one computer that does more or less everything they need, more or less satisfactorily.

I have a TV like this. It’s not flat. The colour is fading and the sound gives the sensation I’m sat in another room.

I’m ok with that.

Most things in life are about balance, about finding the one thing that matters most to you and just accepting the failings of the rest.

Sometimes advertising has to face up to this fact too.

You listen to a bunch of really cool things about a product and you realise that for every cool thing, there will have been a compromise. It could be screen size, it could be portability.

It will be something.

The trick is to understand what matters most and focus on that.

You can’t be everything to everyone.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

It’s easy to see why they take this view of course. The super companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple and… ummm… Head First occupy the places in the minds of people that can be identified as ‘brand aware’. When asked, consumers will probably be aware, not only of these companies logos, but also of their ideological standpoints.

What right thinking, emergent company wouldn’t want a piece of this action? To them, getting the brand right leads inexorably to prominence, take-up and financial success.

Allow me to tell you a little story.

A friend of mine started a company providing services to children. On a casual consultancy level, I was asked to chip in on the subject of brand.
My friend was very keen on creating a brand.

I probed a little deeper in order to ascertain what, exactly, was meant by ‘brand’ and, sure enough, the concept appeared to be linked tightly to logo.

That’s not right, I said. Brand is different to design. Think of brand as something you earn through great service and a lot of time. And even then, turning your company into a brand takes a whole lot more than making sure you maintain your logo according to a designer’s style guide.

Look at Coca Cola, I said. That’s a brand. However we may feel about it, whatever we may see in the difference between the public face they market and the reality of their business practices, they can be clearly identified alongside specific values.
And that isn’t because they have slavishly followed design guidelines down the decades. It’s because they have vigorously marketed their product alongside a very particular viewpoint. It has cost hundreds of millions and taken decades.

Even those companies for which brand status has come quicker haven’t fallen into the trap of being restricted design-wise. Their service has come before all else and that is what has shaped any design elements to their promotions.

And those elements have changed over time, adapting, as they should, to changing tastes, expectations and technologies.

So the next time a designer (or a client) insists that you must present everything in a certain colour in order to adhere to brand guidelines, do them a favour and tell them to Google ‘brand’ for a while.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

Many of us shrink from such displays even if we also display our books in such a way. Ours, for starters, have all been read, all loved and bought for the right reasons. We don’t buy art to match the curtains and we don’t buy books to rest between carved, wooden bookends.

But we do like it when others notice our more natural display of bookish taste. That old copy of Oliver Twist was bought second hand and read on holiday. That’s genuine. Dickens is a genius and still relevant today. And yes, we now buy hardback books, special editions where available, signed if possible – not because they look good to others but because they add to the pleasure of reading.

Because there is nothing wrong with collecting.

What is it about owning things that brings such pleasure? We all make our decisions, draw our lines in the sand when it comes to ownership. For some a “serious” book must be real but quick reads could probably be digital. For others all books could be digital but take away our LPs and there will be a ruckus. The pleasure is in the decaying paper, the smell, the scratchy sounds of the stylus, the ritual of purchase and consumption; things come into focus like stars aligning with our self-image.

Is the value, therefore, of a product in the core offering (the words, the ideas) or is it something entirely different, larger? Is it in the way it is wrapped up and presented? Is it in the kudos it bestows upon us? Why do we pay more for nicer packaging and to what level will this be replicated on digital devices? Much space is given over to the “dvd extras” approach but do they add any real value for the customer? Would, in short, the same consumer who might have bought into a physical special edition be persuaded to pay an extra few pounds for some behind the scenes video extras or author journals? Is physical design worth more than digital design?

Look at the chatter surrounding pricing on the iPad vs that of the iPhone. The standard of games on the latter impressed everyone and has shaken the world of gaming. Fully featured games for less than a fiver. Yet when it comes to the iPad people are wondering what is justifying the extra cost. Is screen size enough to charge more and if not how do we really know whether the game has been improved on the iPad?

It’s all a magnificent, personal and rambling subject of course. But as the road to digital downloads becomes as assured as the road to hell, it’s a subject worth considering.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

It also had the effect of exciting an awful lot of media buyers who know that wherever Apple walk, premium pricing “opportunities” are sure to follow.

The system was heralded as something new, as adding value to advertising as only Apple can by being more than than just animated text over a background – something most marketing people seem happy with when it comes to online advertising.

It’s a welcome move.

But it certainly isn’t new.

The Great Enemy – Flash – is capable of doing everything Steve Jobs demonstrated. It just isn’t done very often. All creative advertisers (not just Head First) understand that people don’t really want to click through because, well, they were on that page for a reason. Enabling consumers (or people, as we like to call them) to be diverted but not distracted is something we would all love to do because we’re people too. I’m reading a story and I like the cut of your ad. That doesn’t mean I want to marry it. I might explore a little further, see what the rollover state is but really, I’d like to carry on reading.

iAds “solves” this by not taking you out of the App space. It has the benefit of working within a fixed frame, thereby ensuring designers can make full use of space rather than be restricted to 300×250 or 728×90. And creating a mini-site within the ad, with all the hooks into the system is a great idea. It’s what closed systems can excel in.

But it’s not new.

Our recent ad for MotoGP 09/10 enabled people to choose from a variety of different trailers depending upon their interest in the game – from balls to the wall action to the more strategic coolness the game offers.

Much like the iAd proposition, it didn’t demand that you visit the website in order to explain why you really ought to buy the game. It showed you what was cool and then left it to you to decide.

We think that’s sensible. We know it helps sales.

Not all briefs enable us to this of course. Some briefs are written so that the client can increase traffic to the website.

And that’s ok too.

iAds will be a lovely advertising system. But it’s not new and certainly not innovative. All products can benefit from such an approach if they opt to bring the sales message to the person, not send the person to the message.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

And one comment struck me above all others.

Publishers tend to forget that not everyone accesses their campaigns online.

It’s an easy thing to forget.

Publishers, developers, creatives, writers, we all share one thing in common: our working days revolve around easy Internet access.

And whilst we are all video conferencing, instant messaging, twittering and browsing our customers and our audiences might be hard at work in classrooms and factories, call centres and ticket offices, earning their pay and looking forward to relaxing with friends during their leisure tine.

Internet usage, despite its rich experiences, may be crammed into brief periods before bed or at the weekend. Decisions on new purchases, be they books or games, cars or holidays, may be made in the cracks of their lives as they share their hopes and dreams with colleagues or flick through a lunchtime magazine or casually browse a bookstore on the way to buy a sandwich.

Just as I am sometimes surprised how few of my clients keep a Twitter client open behind the multitude of email windows and spreadsheets, so too am I surprised how easily I forget the real lives of others.

These lives are not impoverished by their lack of eighteen hour exposure to the bells and whistles, news and opinions of a life lived online. No. These lives are simply filled with different priorities and different processes and as we seek to make our information available to them we would do well to walk where they walk and pause where they pause.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

We’ve been following the series of articles about cover art over at Kotaku very closely indeed. Here at Head First we understand that cover art is a vital part of the marketing mix. For some games it is the only form of advertising a game will get and so conveying the right degree of quality and content is essential.

It’s not, of course, the last word. The under-discussed back of box is an area that serves a vitaly important role in helping consumers decide whether or not the game is for them (and this goes for pretty much any related product subject to the whims of casual browsing – books, films especially).

If you’ve not read our ‘hilarious’ take on the process of buying games then you can catch up here.

Right. The laughs are dying down and it’s time to outline a few of the reasons why the back of box is so important.

It’s estimated that 40% of purchases are impulse. That’s a pretty big chunk of people deciding right there and then to buy a game. They could be gamers who have a vague idea of the sort of game they are looking for or they could be Ma and Pa, looking to buy a game because little Johnny has eaten his peas.

Now that’s a pretty diverse audience right there but let’s assume they have all missed your advertising campaign, or at least that it’s not the influencing factor. Price and packaging are key factors in this (showing how a proper sales strategy – something games don’t do that well – and cover art is important).

It’s the back of pack that is interesting because that can make a real difference here. Ma and Pa may well be looking for cover art that resembles what they’ve seen before so they will be drawn to “that sort of thing”. That means they will be picking up the box and taking a closer look. They need to be impressed and convinced that the game will be right.

The back of box can do this by being impressive and by being clear as to its message. Great visuals will give an idea of what the game will look like but how do you go about doing that? Is one big screenshot better than five smaller ones? One might be impressive but five smaller ones might give a better impression of the varied gameplay. Then again, five smaller screens might get lost in translation as the detail becomes too small to make out so maybe you opt for a montage of screens to make, in essence, a new piece of cover art derived completely from the game itself.

Or maybe you get brave and decide that your screenshots look pretty much the same as those of the competitor. That’s not an unreasonable stance to take. Nor is it anything to be ashamed of. The quality of games these days is remarkable. Having something “just” as good as the competitor isn’t bad, it’s “just as good”. And even if it is only marginally better – is that really noticeable in the screenshots or do the elements that make it better come across during your involvement?

In which instance you can see a strong case for doing something different on the back of box. Making an argument, or a claim – “Makes Modern Warfare 2 Look Like Jet Set Willy” you might opt for over a simpler image just to show that your visuals are amazing too.

There’s no correct route.

The decisions made when designing the back of box art depend on all the questions, all the intended audience data and the ultimate goal of the publisher.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

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.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests: snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down

The poem is a lovely one. It addresses the relationship between Heaney and his ancestors and the way in which Heaney has to find his own craft, knowing, as he does, that he has “no spade to follow men like them”.

Heaney’s skill is in words and he uses this poem to explore that skill and show respect for men like his father who bring food from the earth.

In 2010, I explained to a client, I want to do two things. Just two things.

I want to improve my writing and I want to grow potatoes.

That made me think of the poem which, in turn, made me think about finding your own path in life; digging your potato drills.

That way you end up producing the kind of work you’d want to eat.

©2010 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.