cubemate | Dan Ng

links for 2008-06-30

• Has the Internet Failed as a Storytelling Medium? - Advertising Age - DigitalNext
  (tags: internet)
• Global City of the Year: London Calling | Fast Company
  It doesn't feel this glamorous
  (tags: London)
• Thoughts on Nokia’s NFC developments · Touch
  Thinking about phones touching\
  (tags: nfc nearfieldcommunications)

links for 2008-06-29

• Sales Guy Vs. Web Dude
  First Person Geek comedy
  (tags: geek humour nerdcore)

links for 2008-06-26

• Google Intros Ad Planner
  "The company has launched Google Ad Planner, a free product that promises to allow buyers to identify Web sites that match their desired target audiences -- and ultimately guiding them toward where they should spend their clients' dollars."
  (tags: media internet buying)
• Developer's Guide - Google Chart API - Google Code
  Oh yeah - hello dynamic charts! Whoo-hoo.
  (tags: google apis)

links for 2008-06-25

• Musings Inspired By a Quagga - Olivia Judson - Evolution - Opinion - New York Times Blog
  The Hall of Extinct Species is possibly the saddest place on Earth
  (tags: extinction evolution environment biology odes)

links for 2008-06-24

• An Unlikely Promoter Drives Nokia’s Push in Hollywood - Biography - NYTimes.com
  (tags: Nokia entertainment)

links for 2008-06-22

• Deloitte UK | The Digital Index | Assessing the state of digital penetration in the UK | April 2008 - Deloitte & Touche LLP
  Via nylonmeals
  (tags: penetration technology UK)
• F-H + Harris Interactive - Influence and the Internet research pdf
  (tags: influence internet)

British Television Power

I put together a short playlist of British television commercials to mark this year's Cannes-shortlisted crop. Which adverts would you add to this collection? (And what's the changing role of television for brands?)

The Scourge of 'Better'

There's been a spate of 'better' taglines recently. Is it a bit lazy to say your brand is better and not substantiate it?

'Together is better' - Gallo Wines, Cascade detergent
'Believe in better' - Sky
'We're better, connected' - O2

I smell some account planning in these lines. You can fall into an addiction to abstraction, and when things get too abstract they can become meaningless. Around here we like to say 'a platitude isn't a positioning'. If you've reached a point where your tagline is a statement that can't be argued with, you've probably gone to far.

Some taglines we work with here:

'We live in Financial Times' - Financial Times
'You either love it or hate it' - Marmite
'Das Auto' - Volkswagen

That last one is a huge over-abstraction (and we can't take credit for it) but I've learned to like it. It's bold (if not a bit German) to claim the Platonic form of 'car' for yourself. It only works in this country because it's in German - that alone changes its meaning.

Effective? Wii-ly?

The 2008 Effie Awards panel gave the Grand Prix to Leo Burnett's launch campaign for the Nintendo Wii in America. No disrespect to Nintendo or to Leo's, but it seems like the judges didn't really care whether the advertising was effective. In an interview with Creativity magazine, AKQA's Lars Bastholm wrote:

It's so easy to say the product sold itself, but I think the campaign was brilliant in that it realized that and didn't do anything to get in the way of allowing the product to sell itself.

I can't imagine an IPA judge ever saying anything that lame. Next time I'll be sure that my ad campaign doesn't 'do anything to get in the way.' Am I the only planner who thinks that you shouldn't get a Grand Prix for doing nothing?

I'll have to read the winning paper when it's posted to the Effie website. Did they find a way to isolate the effect of advertising? Did they find a control area of the country to compare their success to?

My hopes aren't high as this is how the Effies are judged:

70% of an entrant’s campaign, equally weighted

• Strategic Challenge
• Idea
• Bringing the Idea to Life

30% of an entrant’s campaign

• Results

Why do they even call them effectiveness awards when only 30% of the score is based on results?