Experience this...

Oil and Water don't mix campaign.

2010-11-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

A project by Happiness Brussels Designed by Anthony Burrill Limited edition of 200 posters, screen printed with oil from the Gulf of Mexico disaster

All benefits go to CRCL, (Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana) A non-profit organisation dedicated to restoring the Gulf of Mexico’s coastal wetlands

OIL & WATER DO NOT MIX from Happiness Brussels on Vimeo.

Herne Hill Velo Drome

2010-11-04T10:22:00.000-07:00

I have written a post about this amazing cycling venue before I have even done one of the courses on the track and my sone and I often pop down at the weekends. Herne Hill Velodrome is a wonderful step back in time and one of those special experiences that takes you into the heart of cycling history, yet it is planned for demolition despite its incredible history.

Please help to stop the destruction of the oldest cycle track in Britain - the 1948 Olympic Cycling Championships venue. The future of this important community facility is looking bleak as the site is under-funded and deteriorating. The venue provides an exceptional resource for cyclists and the local community and its loss would be tragic. We aim to find a way to secure the future of the site and make it a viable long-term facility for all including local residents and schools.

The commitee are using Facebook to keep everyone up to date with all the news and activities on the campaign.

Don't worry if you don't use Facebook, you can still see the page - or just email us at support@savethevelodrome.com and we'll keep you informed.

A stunning use of live and film

2010-11-04T10:04:00.000-07:00

In life its the experiences that stick with us forever and I cant help thinking that those who witnessed this stunning campaign will remember it for some time.

Scrabble hired Ogilvy Paris and production company Paranoid to create a mixed media experience. Its a beautiful demonstration of how live and film can work hand in hand and its use of derelict space is a very inventive way of attracting the attention of passers by (ok some are staged, but you know what i mean.)

I'm sure that this campaigns viral power will live on for some time.

Scrabble : THE BLOCK PROJECT from paranoid on Vimeo.

Bompass & Parr

2010-10-29T04:57:00.000-07:00

Apologies for yet another post about those crazy guys from Bompass & Parr, my wife's sister is their agent so its nice to spread the word.

So following on from past exploits with Courvoisier and Ziggurat of Flavour at this years Big Chill Festival, (what an amazing weekend that was, thanks to Leo and the boys). The Jelly mongers now bring you The Chewing Gum Factory at the Whiteleys shopping centre. I attended the Gin & Tonic experience a couple of years ago and it was a very new take on an immersive experience, these guys really know how to take the very essence of a brand and take the consumer to a place that no other marketing medium could ever do.

The Chewing Gum Factory

Bompas & Parr is building an Artisanal Chewing Gum Factory at Whiteleys Shopping Centre. People are invited to learn the secrets of chewing gum manufacture at the worlds first mirco-factory.

Each visitor will be able to choose and combine 200 familiar and unusual flavours including iris, Hendricks Gin and tonic, curry and beer yeast. In total 40,000 flavour combinations are possible.

The factory is open from midday to 6pm, 25-31 October.

Tickets will be availble to purchase on the day (during factory opening hours) from the main atrium of Whiteleys Shopping Centre, Bayswater, London W2 4YN . Tickets are priced at £2.50.

Tickets are available on a first come first served basis. We regret that booking is not possible. Under 18s must be accompanied by an adult.

BMX Wonderment

2010-10-27T02:51:00.000-07:00

I still have a soft spot for all things BMX and came across this dude whilst scouring the web for some entertainment inspiration.

Tim Knoll BMX from tim knoll on Vimeo.

Projection Mapping

2010-10-22T07:17:00.001-07:00

This has been doing the rounds for quite some time now, first Lexus and now Toyota with the Auris. Its nice but getting a bit dated, so whats next?

You are the big picture by Aviva

2010-10-22T06:51:00.000-07:00

I have watched with interest and intrigue for the past fortnight the building of a picture on the side of Sea Containers House on the South Bank. Having been out of the marketing loop for the past three months I was fascinated to learn more about the project and the background behind this building picture.

So once gripped by enough intrigue I started to look into the initiative and found the multi platform experience very interesting and engaging. It started with conversation with the team that has been hanging from the building. The abseiling artists were taking a break so I approached them to learn more about the project and I was blown away to learn that it was not part of London Design Week it was in fact a brand initiative by Aviva.

Now this was especially intriguing because I have been an Aviva customer for many years and they have helped me on a number of times after a particularly bad motorcycle accident I had in 2008.

The initiative titled, you are the big picture by Aviva. Aviva is running this campaign to the relationship it has with its customers and to bring to life the extrodinary moments between the brand and its customers. They are celebrating these extrodinary people in extroinary portraits.

You are the big picture pays tribute to thesepeople in giant portraits designed to match the size of their compassion, resolve, determination or integrity.

I have been watching the portrait of Sylvia and her husband Allen. Sylvia’s story is centered around a life saving operation.

Why do I feel compelled to write about this campaign, well from the point of intrigue and the visual spectacle of the portraits coming to life and then the inspiration to seek out more information and then to get involved was a very inspiring and immersive experience and I think that Aviva should be congratulated for such a bold and inspirational campaign. The use of many platforms to create a campaign that will put Aviva in the hearts and minds of the public is an inspired one and proves that brands no longer feel the need to spend all of their budgets on glossy TV campaigns, it also proves that even financial institutions can be inspiring and bold in their message delivery.

I believe that even the most cynical of us would find some inspiration in this campaign, the live execution in itself must have taken months of negotiation and preperation and its tenacity must be applauded, I was watching and thinking “who are these people and why are they being portraid on this huge building? So of course I headed to the online to find out.

This then led me to be inspired to learn more dig deeper and then get involved myself.

A great campaign.

Influencer Marketing

2010-10-07T04:03:00.000-07:00

I am currently doing a lot of research around the power of the influencer network and looking at how powerful influencers are as a brand asset. I attended the Future Labs LSN:global Trend Briefing yesterday which inspired and confirmed many things. I will be putting together some thoughts around the content shortly but in the meantime here is a trailer for an interesting doco around influencers from R+I Creative.

INFLUENCERS TRAILER from R+I creative on Vimeo.

PaperCamp 2

2010-10-05T07:15:00.000-07:00

Looking for something different to do this Saturday? get yourself along to Paper Camp

The London Design Festival

2010-09-30T08:44:00.000-07:00

So, those that know me know that I have had some time on my hands recently so my son and I have been out and about over the past fortnight checking out the London Design Festival and the icon design trail.

Firstly Icon Design Trail, really really inspiring and i was honestly blown away by some of the outstanding ideas but also by the quality of the presentations and demonstrations given by these inspiring designers. I would strongly recommend those in the creative industries to pop along if the show is still on, for inspiration and tips on presenting creative ideas.

Secondly one of my favorite pieces at the festival was Drop by Paul Cocksedge. it was very interactive and the kids loved it as much as the adults or vice versa!

More details here from Dezeen

An installation by Paul Cocksedge Studio for the London Design Festival.

18th September – 8th October 2010 London Design Festival Size + Matter Commission Southbank Centre
Cocksedge conceived ‘Drop’ as an outsize coin ‘which has fallen to Earth from a giant’s palm’. Lightly buckled upon landing improbably upright.

Amongst other intriguing properties the giant coin is magnetic, encouraging passers-by to participate by affixing their spare pennies, facilitating a human connection with an otherworldly object. ‘Drop’ will thus be copper plated through many small human acts of contribution. At the end of the installation the public contributions will be counted and Barnardo’s corporate partners will turn every penny into one pound. The ambition is to emulate the success of the Studio’s ‘Kiss’ installation in Milan last year which raised a large donation for good causes.

The sculpture is made possible through collaboration with Arup and Van Driel Engineering.

Paul Cocksedge Studio is the internationally acclaimed design practice of partners Joana Pinho and Paul Cocksedge, based in London. The studio undertakes in-house design, commissions and consultancy work for a range of clients and sectors. Production ranges from bespoke manufacturing to licensing technologies. The Studio is dedicated to the creation of sophisticated, cutting edge products and installations.

Barnardo’s works with more than 100,000 children, young people and their families in 415 specialised projects in communities across the UK. We believe in the potential in every child and young person, no matter who they are, what they have done or what they have been through. We will support them, stand up for them and bring out the best in each and every child. Every year we help thousands of children turn their lives around. But we cannot do it without you. Visit www.barnardos.org.uk to find out how you can get involved and show you believe in children.

PING PONG PING PONG PING PONG

2010-09-27T07:12:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I'm not alone in noticing the current popularity of Table Tennis or as its widely known Ping Pong. This is surely one of those most popular of sports that can truly be embraced by anyone, my local park Dulwich now has a number of permanent tables and its difficult to even get on them at the weekends.

Check this little film I found:

PONG from California is a place. on Vimeo.

Projects Nelson, Coupland & Alice

2010-09-22T08:36:00.000-07:00

Since our recent purchase of the iPAD we have been making great use of the online bookstore as well as films, social media magazines apps such as Flip and many more, so i was really inspired when seeing this little video of what the future could hold for the online book.

Recently IDEO released a five-minute video exploring the future of digital books. Their illustrated concepts highlight some interesting opportunity areas in the publishing industry through three distinct reading experiences:

Nelson reinforces books as critical thinking tools, providing multiple perspectives, references, and current conversations on a single subject. The layers of information beyond the book itself provide greater context and encourages a deeper dive into the book throughout history and into the future.

Coupland addresses the challenge to stay on top of the thinking and writing in our world and professional field that so many of us feel. Readers can easily keep up with "must-reads" by following what colleagues are reading and interact with them through "book clubs" and other social layers (discussions, suggestions, lists, purchases) to help each other share and learn.

Alice explores new ways for users to interact and affect written narratives by introducing non-linear and game mechanics to reading. By introducing the reader's active participation, this concept "blurs the lines between reality and fiction." Certain interactions allow the reader to transcend traditional media by utilising geographic location, communication with characters, and user contribution to storyline and plot.

A very cool “blue sky” project from IDEO to say the least. I enjoyed the way they chose to compartmentalise the functionality rather than attempting to redefine the book in a single all-inclusive interface (a failure we see in most of these concept projects). This project, and examples appearing all over the industry, only further prove that the future of books in the digital age does not lie in single solution but rather a utilisation of technology to better address the wants and needs of users to share, interact, and learn more through specialised design solutions. We are certainly on the precipice of a whole new world for this morphed understanding of the "book."

Courtesy of Core 77

The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo.

2010-09-22T05:36:00.001-07:00

A lovely little film, shot on a Nokia

2010-09-17T02:37:00.001-07:00

Some photo's

2010-09-10T09:32:00.000-07:00

Lovely Heritage film

2010-09-10T09:24:00.001-07:00

I have to admit that i'm not a huge fan of the car but you can't beat getting insight into the heritage of such an historic British brand.

Been away for a while..

2010-09-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

Hi followers, its been a while. I have been taking it easy for the past three months and doing a lot of research and writing and looking at the the world of experiences, content rich media and the power of face to face communications.

I will be sharing some of my views and findings with you over the coming weeks.

Cat Herding

2010-09-10T08:52:00.001-07:00

A very interesting experiment carried out by a group of creatives for Ikea recently.

When will they learn?

2010-07-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

It’s an issue I have discussed before, but in my opinion, media buyers and planners still cannot seem to get their heads around the effectiveness of live events. Live events are getting recognition in their world, but they are the first thing to be removed from the marketing mix if the budget gets cut.

Measurement:

I think it may be hard for media buyers to understand the argument for events because traditionally, the effectiveness of events has been hard to measure.

The live event medium is still a relatively new marketing discipline. We know that event effectiveness can be measured, but often brands do not feel the need to invest in the measurement process – preferring to spend their money on the actual event itself because they have anecdotal evidence that the event works. Brands often measure event success in softer ways, by speaking to their staff and customers - so they don’t feel the need to rigorously measure it. And of course, big brands would not continue to invest in events if they didn’t deliver.

Media Planners prefer to buy media channels that are measured to within an inch of their lives. The data extracted from traditional TV, radio or print campaigns can sit happily on their screens and be utilised in the many tools they use to precisely plan a campaign. I’m not saying that this is wrong – they are effectively a guardian for a brand budget and they need to justify the spend, but perhaps it’s time for them to come into the real world of experiences and not just plan campaigns by relying on what it says on their screens? It’s a numbers game to them and they tend to go for size over substance - the more the merrier: “if our adverts are seen by over 1 million people, then that just has to be better than just a few thousand at an event?” – even if that smaller event audience really connects and engages with a brand – rather than passively viewing an advert and simply changing channels...?

Activation:

Another issue that has to be considered is that events take time to activate – they are not marketing items that can be picked up and created at the drop of a hat. Once a campaign has been devised it is then pretty straightforward to book and place TV, billboard or magazine advertising. But it takes time and creativity to turn that campaign into a live experience – whether that be for a consumer audience at a festival, a shopping centre, a B2B audience in an exhibition hall or for an internal audience at the staff conference.

There is also a lot of confusion in the market place caused by media agencies pretending that they actually create events themselves and then sending the brief to an events agency to do the actual work. Things get lost in translation – the agency account managers are not event specialists and so do not know the right questions to ask or have the experience to understand what does and doesn’t work. The event agency gets briefed by an intermediary who has a limited understanding – both of the brand and of the event mechanic – so it shouldn’t be a surprise if the resulting event is less than effective.

Media sellers need to look at the bigger picture and start to invest in the research of events and experiences or align themselves to research agencies such as Continental Research who have the experience and expertise to measure events – having measured at least 50 experiential and live event campaigns in recent times. In doing this they will see that there is huge value in the qualitative power of a live experience. Events are the most powerful form of engagement and are proven to influence the change in buying behaviours and advocacy of consumers. Today’s consumers are hungry for immersion, engagement and benefit and there is no proven benefit to them of a TV ad or a 46 or 96 sheet Ad. In fact recent research in the USA showed that at least 40 percent of people watching TV in the US are actually asleep!

This time of advertising is a one way communication – a message forced onto a consumer, so why should they listen? Brands that assume that their customers are receptive to this antiquated approach are often sadly disappointed. More and more, consumers ask ‘what’s in it for me’. We all know that it’s all about a relationship so why should that relationship be one sided?

Marketing has changed and media planners need to keep up. Events are a marketing tool and an effective one at that. Gone are the days of mass messaging and a one size fits all approach. It is not a numbers game and not a case of ‘throw enough mud and some of it will stick...’ Consumers are savvy and they understand how advertising works and they can choose to ignore it.

Brands can choose how they communicate with their audience: an immersive experience that engages and rewards a consumer or a static, one dimensional approach that just happens to be seen by a larger audience (but who are mostly asleep...) I know which one I would choose, and funnily enough, the savvy brands are choosing this approach too so why don’t media planners take this medium far more seriously?

Don’t mess with another man’s trade – The power of PR

2010-06-14T07:06:00.000-07:00

One of my pet hates is PR agencies who claim to run events, I've met a number of PR's that make claim to being Experiential and Events experts and I can say with hand on heart that they are not. And conversely I also get annoyed by event agencies who claim that they don’t need a PR agency and that they can do their own PR.

Are the skills involved with running an event transferable to PR? I don’t think so. Handling the press, writing press releases and creating ideas for articles is quite a separate skill set. So why do so many event agencies think they can do it themselves? It is true that most people, given a steer, could actually write a press release. There is enough information online to guide you in what to put (and more importantly what not to put) in a release but people still get it wrong. Speak to any journalist and they will laughingly tell you about all the errors they see in releases and why so many of them just don’t get used.

But are press releases all there is to PR? What about the creatively required to analyse our work, and pull out the trends and the issues that the press will want to hear about? what about the skill required to work with the media in a proactive way?

I have a very close relationship with my PR. I have worked with her for over four years and her work has been absolutely crucial to me - initially in my success in building my last business, and more recently in launching and then building RPM Corporate into the division that it is today. She is an essential part of the team; we work closely with her so she knows everything that is going on - what we are pitching for and the events we are creating. She even works directly with our clients so they know her, and more importantly trust her, to create some amazing coverage for us whilst observing their limitations and company guidelines.

I view PR as an essential part of my new business strategy. And it works – otherwise I would not be writing this comment column for you now!

We've been looking for better technical interaction

2010-05-13T05:43:00.000-07:00

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Immersive Google Earth

2010-05-13T05:39:00.001-07:00

Business to All

2010-05-10T01:51:00.000-07:00

In a recently published report to Government entitled “Engaging for success: enhancing performance through employee engagement” The Rt Hon Lord Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills said “Only organisations that truly engage and inspire their employees produce world class levels of innovation, productivity and performance.”

The report takes an in-depth look at employee engagement and reports on its potential benefits for companies, organisations and individual employees. It goes on to say that business and organisations function best when they make their employees’ commitment, potential, creativity and capability central to their operation. Clearly, having enough cash, and a sensible strategy, are vital. But how people behave at work can make the crucial difference between business and operational success or failure.

Gallup in 2006examined 23,910 business units and compared top quartile and bottom quartile financial performance with engagement scores. They found that: Those with engagement scores in the bottom quartile averaged 31 – 51 per cent more employee turnover, 51 per cent more inventory shrinkage and 62 per cent more accidents. Those with engagement scores in the top quartile averaged 12 per cent higher customer advocacy, 18 per cent higher productivity and 12 per cent higher profitability.

Engagement is two way: organisations must work to engage the employee, who in turn has a choice about the level of engagement to offer the employer. Each reinforces the other.

There are so many new and innovative ways to inspire and engage the internal audience, from social media to experiential marketing. Developments in areas such as digital theatre and content sharing are creating a revolution in the B2C market that producers of internal events simply cannot ignore.

These new methods of engagement are not just for consumers; it's high time that corporate companies started treating their internal and business audiences as consumers, and building more immersive and engaging 'business brand experiences'.

The recent credit crunch has acted as a catalyst for change across all sectors and now is the perfect time for businesses to readdress the way they communicate with their internal and external audiences. Lord Mandelson confirms this: “ A recession might seem an unusual time for such reflection – in fact, the opposite is the case. Because Britain’s economic recovery and its competitive strengths in a global economy will be built on strong, innovative companies and confident employees, there has never been a more important time to think about employee engagement in Britain.”

Businesses have a duty now more than ever to demonstrate how their business values match those of their prospects, in addition to reassuring their existing clients and employees. We are seeing more and more brands embracing the use of social media and digital platforms to share, measure, and amplify their events and marketing strategy. There is such a wealth of technology available that empowers businesses with the tools to create memorable experiences - for clients, prospects and staff alike.

Experiential techniques, once the exclusive property of the B2C marketing department, are now transcending into the corporate world and are being used to engage prospects and staff. The economic climate has forced a move away from big budget spending on one medium; as a result businesses are looking for new ways to interact with their target demographic.

Businesses are under pressure to engage prospects and sustain a healthy bottom line, and it is difficult to generate stand out and cut through in an increasingly cluttered and saturated market place. And with reports that distrust in big companies, whether as supplier, client or employee, is at an all time low, it is more important than ever for corporates to try and engage on a more personal level. It is high time that brands and institutions started to treat their internal audiences as consumers in their own right and look to turn these people into fans of the brand.

When awareness goes bad…

2010-05-10T01:42:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows that I am one of the biggest and most outspoken advocates of the use of digital and social media to inform, share content and generally amplify live events and experiential campaigns.

But those looking to support their event campaigns with social media should not go into it blind. You should ensure that your approach is strategically aligned to your objectives, that you are using the right platforms and that you are managing the level of engagement and response from your target audience - especially when you are using channels to drive the attendance of an event.

There is no event that that can afford a mass attendance beyond their maximum capacity. Think of the past mistakes such as Fat Boy Slim on the beach in Brighton where no one expected such an overwhelming number of revelers to turn up, and another more recent example of American Apparels “Rummage Sale”.

An American Apparel rummage sale held in London in April turned ugly, when nearly 3,000 people showed up to get their share of the retailer's goods.

The “Fame” influenced apparel brand hired more than 22,000 square foot of space in the East End’s trendy Brick Lane for the rummage sale. The event was announced through various social media channels and almost 30,000 people signed up to a Facebook group to say they were planning to attend the sale.

Still no alarm bells ringing for the organisers…

Past experience should have indicated something was about to go wrong - similar events in cities including Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, San Diego, Miami, Berlin and Austin had also attracted thousands of people in the days preceding this event with adverse reactions.

But still no alarm bells ringing for the organisers…

So the morning of the event arrived and 3,000 people were queuing when a small issue at the door occurs… “At 10am there was a burst of people coming to the front door. We couldn’t control that.”

“We knew it was going to be big but not this big” said a representative. Conflict in the line turned into a riot, in which ten police officers were hurt and three people arrested. The sale was shut down that day, but rescheduled to run through the next week with extra security.

The sale's organisers then tapped into social media once more and apologised via Facebook, saying they'd "never witnessed anything like it." That it was "overwhelming and humbling," and that they had "never witnessed anything like it and are disappointed and sorry that it happened."

The “riot” marks another strike against the company, which has fallen on hard times. This damage to the companies profile has been amplified through every social media platform known to man. Today’s Youtube culture has paid homage to the event with many, many uploaded videos of the incident.

How did they get it so wrong, was it desperation to get the numbers and make the sales? Was it poor digital strategy? Or was it just naivety? Either way, it was hugely damaging to the brand and its reputation.

Take heed, plan, plan, plan for every eventuality.

If you are using social media to amplify an event the sky can be the limit in terms of those that will register. You should also bear in mind that those that do register may also pass on the information to others - statistics show that you are eight or nine times more likely to engage with an offer if a friend or family member has passed on the information to you. To avoid things escalating out of your control, ensure that there is a cut off point. You must ensure that you are not running the risk of over attendance or over subscription.

This is were the value of charging for an event in advance works. This will not only give your event a perceived value, it will afford you the opportunity to create a definitive attendance structure. You can charge and the cost of attendance goes to charity.

You could also add into this a mechanic that allows you two way communication with your audience that also ensures you are managing the numbers – some of you may remember the M25 raves of the early 90’s - the location can be kept secret and then shared at the last minute with those that have registered.

The most important thing with public events is public safety, being able to pre determine all of the H&S factors makes the difference between success and failure. The team at RPM Corporate are well rehearsed in such matters having created and managed some very famous public events in the past - including the innocent village fete and Nick Jnr’s Jump Up children’s event.

The use of social media and digital amplification also helps to offset one of the most difficult and costly areas of event organizing - marketing it to your audience. Remember, we are currently in an event boom and events of all kinds are becoming very attractive income streams and the use of social and digital media will always enhance the experience – when properly executed.

UVA's Speed of Light

2010-04-15T01:44:00.000-07:00

So here is the finished piece, I highly recommend that you go see... its stunning!

United Visual Artists - South Bank

2010-04-12T09:27:00.000-07:00

A close friend of my Wife, Matt Clarke is one of the lighting guru's behind the entity that is United

Visual Artists, famed for their amazing backdrops to the likes of Massive Attack and many more.

They have just finished a project commissioned by Virgin Broadband to celebrate ten years of

UK Broadband.

Check out the making of videos at Speed of Light

Politics or just 'Waffle'?

2010-04-12T08:20:00.000-07:00

Those crazy guys at Bompas & Parr are at it again with another one of their food and drink related projects.

This time they are dipping their creative toes into the unsavoury world of politics. The latest project is titled Parliamentary Waffle House, where each item on the menu will be orderable in a variation corresponding to one of the three main political parties.

The punters orders will feed directly into a live action "swing-o-meter that gauges the mood of the country as people vote with their mouths. You can get your tickets here but I would imagine as with all of their projects, it will already be sold out.

Brick by Brick - Nice!

2010-03-29T04:14:00.000-07:00

On route to a meeting with our new sports apparel client last week i decided to take a look through the on board magazine and came across an article about a forthcoming Manchester exhibition involving an amazing artist who's main medium is Lego.

A man who quit his job as corporate lawyer to produce artwork with Lego has become a success, with some of his pieces valued at over £10,000. Nathan Sawaya, 35, has spent the last 10 years creating his Lego art which includes stunning life-size sculptures, models and 'flat' portraits.His works have been shown in a number of prestigious galleries and can use up to 150,000 tiny bricks in each one - he recently toured an exhibition 'The Art of the Brick' around the world.

Nathan says he has over 1.5 million spare Lego bricks in his New York studio and he spends around ten hours each day building with the toy.You can bet that after hearing how much the Lego are can be worth, parents around the world will suddenly have more interest in what their children are doing next time they get the Lego out.

See his amazing works at the Brick Artist site.

Heineken Italy - Random acts of Kindness.

2010-03-16T03:14:00.000-07:00

I love this recent campaign by Heineken Italy, I'm not a huge fan of football and have often wondered why people become so obsessed with the game to the point that they fit their lives around their football teams.

This campaign is aimed at such football crazed individuals and puts them in the position of choosing the game or their partner, job or friends... with a surprising outcome.

Nice campaign.

Heineken İtaly Activation from Kreatif360 on Vimeo.

RPM Corporate launch Advisory Council to offer a fully integrated employee engagement solutio

2010-03-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

RPM is very pleased to announce the launch of its Advisory Council – a team of experts in the fields of internal communication, employee engagement, digital communication, research and measurement & evaluation. The team has been built to offer companies a fully integrated and coherent employee engagement solution that starts with analysis and solution planning, develops engagement strategies, deploys communication activity and evaluates effectiveness.

“The Advisory Council is an intelligence network that brings together experts in each of the fields needed by a company to fully engage its employees. This initiative will ensure that RPM Corporate is involved from development through to evaluation to help companies turn employees into fans - what we term “the road to fandom”. We will be at the heart of the communications strategy and ensure that clients are using the right tools to engage their audiences and are getting longevity and ROI from their internal communications".

“We will be advocating how the plethora of communication channels and social media can be pulled together into a powerful and continually evolving organism that can engage, inspire and empower people and their organisations to be the best they can be.”

The specialists have worked at the top end of the business world for many of the country’s leading brands and organisations. They are recognised as leaders in strategic thinking and best practise in corporate communications.

The Advisory Council team consists of:
· Peter Agertoft – thought leader in employee engagement
· Stewart Atkins - communications technology and change process management expert
· Maurice Flynn - social media and digital communications innovator
· Ian Irving – live and digital communication and employee engagement specialist
· Richard Tolley – branding and marketing expert
· Ellie Wallace MSc MA Hons Dip M - internal comms strategy and implementation specialist
· Max Willey – research and evaluation specialist (Continental Research)

Full information on each of the specialists is available upon request:

Digital and experiential

2010-03-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

There are many advocates of the use of digital to enhance and amplify a consumer focused experiential campaign. We recently carried out a very successful Christmas campaign for a well known drinks brand which was supported by a digital campaign. The campaign used Augmented reality and ChannelFlip and created a huge amount of online buzz with a genuine call to action and point of discussion. The campaign created real seasonal standout over the Christmas period and recorded some incredible results in terms of web site traffic and content passed on from consumer to consumer. In fact our research showed that approximately 44 percent of all visits to the drink’s online presence (dotcom and Facebook) throughout 2009 occurred during the 7 weeks of our Christmas campaign and 660,000 E-cards were sent.

But just as experiential techniques can be used in a corporate environment to engage internal audiences, social media platforms should also be used to enhance internal events by engaging delegates pre and post event and on-site.

The use of social media can be used to create exposure and increase attendance pre event, engender engagement whilst on-site and then gather feedback and reinforce the event’s impact long after delegates return to the workplace.

Twitter is a good place to start – it is a very powerful tool in terms of pre event promotion and, as my team has proven in past experience with projects for clients such as Carphone Warehouse, Twitter is an incredible tool for engaging with audiences during an event. It appears that using channels such as Twitter in the corporate event environment actually liberates people to speak out when they would normally shy away from asking questions or offering commentary. After all – it is an effective communication tool - it enhances word of mouth and offers the opportunity to capture truthful commentary. In addition, it’s an easy way to share and gather information before the event, during the event and between attendees.

Social media has now become an accepted mechanic in the corporate communications arsenal. Portals such as Linkedin have opened up a whole new world of shared information and networking in the business world. Its influence has now led to some incredible new forms of networking technology that allow corporate event organisers to engage their audiences like never before. I am very proud to say that my division, RPM Corporate, is about to sign a deal with a technology supplier that has built one of the most interesting and technically advanced registration and networking tools to hit our sector for some time.

‘RPM Connect’ will allow an incredible range of audience interaction and networking as well as profiling, feedback, delegate management, content sharing and microblogging. This is just another step in our division recognising the value of social and digital media to content share and network.

I have used social media on many occasions and to great effect with past clients such as innocent (around its village fete), but the use of social media to support consumer experiences is nothing new and all good agencies utilise the various platforms at every opportunity. However in the corporate space its use is a little less common and this offers up a debate in terms of how can you, and how should you, use social media in the corporate environment?

I spoke at a conference last year and an audience member challenged my suggestion that social media opens a new opportunity in internal communications and employee engagement. She even suggested that it was dangerous to allow freedom of speech and it could open up a can of worms, and heaven forbid - what if the commentary was negative?

Well, in my opinion you cannot make change and improve if you do not know all of the facts and you do not know how your staff feel. But if you have the negatives you can turn them into positives. A client of RPM Corporate has embraced a proposition we made recently to resolve an internal communications issue. We opened a Twitter channel for internal communication, posed the question and thus opened the debate. Answers can only be a maximum of 140 characters so this ensured that employees think about what they say and how they say it. This mechanic also allows Direct Messaging for an immediate response and commentary is archived. The business has a massive network of out of office staff but they are all on blackberry so access to twitter is an easy communication and content sharing option.

Avoid the use of social media and the online community at your peril!

It is also clear from our experience that increasingly more and more brands are bringing digital techniques into the physical retail environment to add value to the shopping experience. I read recently about RFID Radio Frequency Identity being used on shopping trolleys so that location based advertising can be streamed to the screen on a trolley. This opens up a whole new world of marketing opportunity and it won’t be long before the event and exhibition industry will harness this technology.

Augmented reality in the corporate environment is also giving the challenge of engaging staff an interesting twist. I am currently proposing the use of augmented reality hotspots around the office of a major client, these unobtrusive hotspots will offer the opportunity for staff to engage with corporate message in dwell areas by simply pointing supplied interactive tablets or indeed their own mobile phones.

So all of the above proves that you cannot and should not ignore the opportunity to support live experiences with digital and interactive media.

Start at the very beginning…

2010-03-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

All corporate companies need to harness and focus the full potential of employees as individuals and as groups, towards the objectives of the company or organisation they work for. I know I have said this before, but a company should be focused on turning its employees into fans. Most organisations are not set up to create or maintain fandom among employees. HR is focused on managing employee satisfaction and dealing with pay and rations, the marketing department is trying to build the brand and drive sales, the finance department is measuring and monitoring the money and the CEO is often trying to define the vision for the future in terms that many people find difficult to relate to. But fandom in the world of sport is an old concept. In the corporate arena there is an increasing awareness and understanding among modern leaders that the traits of a fan – employee fandom - can be a phenomenal driver of employee and customer behaviour and ultimately financial performance.

We have seen many of today’s innovations being put to great effect when engaging consumers and I have been saying for a long time that these types of engagement methods are not just for consumers. It is high time that corporate clients started treating their internal and business audiences as consumers and building more immersive and engaging experiences. In these recessionary times of staff disillusionment and uncertainty a company has to engage and motivate its staff. To do this you have to understand your audience, how they communicate, what makes them tick and how they would like to be engaged.

If you have something to communicate, do not start with a pre-diagnosed solution. Do not hold an event simply because you have always held one at this time of year, or in a particular situation. Take a step back and take a long hard look at exactly what you are trying to achieve.

Start by working out what fandom means in your organisation, why it is important and what financial improvement you expect as a result of increasing levels of employee fandom. Look at working with a partner, or indeed partners that can help you get to grips and define exactly what you are trying to achieve. This process should start with analysis and solution planning.

With that step done look for real life examples from within your organisation that can be used to demonstrate what you mean by fandom, what the traits and behaviours you will reward and the financial benefits derived from behaving as a fan. Develop an engagement strategy - there is a plethora of communication channels that should be pulled together into a powerful and continually evolving organism that can engage, inspire and empower people and organisations to be the best they can be.

Establish a baseline measure of fandom in your organisation that will measure both the outcomes and the drivers of fandom. Consider working with a research specialist - initially to ensure that you identify exactly what you are trying to achieve and then to define exactly how you are going to measure and evaluate it.

Live events are an extremely powerful communication tool - especially when used in unison with other communication channels. Today’s conference and B2B meeting organisers are utilising the latest wireless and HD technology. When audience interaction, education and content sharing is required, we are seeing an increase in the use of interactive and touch screen technology as well as brands embracing the use of social media and digital platforms to share, measure, and amplify their events. There are so many new and innovative ways to inspire and engage the corporate audience and developments in areas such as digital theatre and content sharing are creating a revolution in the corporate communications and event arena. In this day and age there is no excuse for “death by PowerPoint” and I am certainly not referring to virtual events.

The recessionary budgets coupled with the challenging business environment of 2009 forced many internal events to shed their frills and focus on getting the message right. This confirmed to many, including organisers and clients alike that the most important part of any event is just how powerful face-to-face communication is, and how it is still the best method for delivering business content - not the 'whizz bangs' that can surround it. This education over the past 12 months will have a positive impact on conferences and exhibitions in 2010.

Experiential techniques, once the exclusive property of the marketing department are now transcending into the corporate world and being used to engage their staff. Never before have we seen so much distrust in big companies, but business leaders across the world agree that an engaged and motivated work force is the first step for corporates to take to reconnect with their customers and claw back this trust. We are all consumers, so treating staff as such and ensuring that all methods of internal communication are as engaging and relevant as the external marketing messages is key.

RPM TAKE TO THE MOUNTAINS

2010-03-09T08:19:00.000-08:00

This is it ladies and gentlemen this is what we have set ourselves up for!!

I will soon be blogging updates through one of the UK's leading event publications.

Confex 2010 Presentation

2010-02-26T08:26:00.000-08:00

I've had a number of requests for a copy of my presentation from yesterdays Confex session. Please feel free to drop me a line at ian.irving@rpmltd.com

A new kid on the block

2010-02-26T07:01:00.000-08:00

So, 2009 saw the demise of many a public event and/or festival, the innocent village fete was no more, Nick Jnr's Jump Up event was canned and even O2's very own Wireless changed hands. Of course the big boys stayed the course and saw record numbers of attendees as well as pulling off some of the most spectacular lines-ups to boot all this and some upstart by the name of Lee Deny charged through the pack with his 'own brand' not for profit LEEFEST and picked up numerous awards including the Grassroots festival award, and boy does he deserve it, a rising star totally unaffected by his rising stardom and a very pleasant individual.

And now it appears 2010 could be the year of that some others tap into the country's rising optimism and a desire to party like its 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970 or even 1980... ladies and gentlemen one of the finest locations in the UK has announced a collaboration with one of the UK's best known fashion designers to bring us a new festival that will bring the very best of British Cool from the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s & 80s, Featuring the leading DJs, bands, collectors, purveyors of vintage clothing and vintage vinyl from each decade, as well as contemporary bands and brands inspired by Britain’s rich cultural history.

The brainchild of Lord March... VINTAGE AT GOODWOOD will celebrate the very best of British cool. A festival that boast curation by some of the most influential figures from Music, Fashion, Design and Film. From an insiders perspective, trust me this is one of those not to miss events of the year. I will be keeping you posted on developments but in the meantime check out what Lord March and designers Gerardine Hemingway MBE, Wayne Hemingway MBE have concocted for the Summer at their lovely website.

Its Nike again....

2010-02-22T06:06:00.000-08:00

“It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at. Everybody gets knocked down, how quick are you going to get up?”

Is this the future of Augmented Reality?

2010-02-19T09:49:00.000-08:00

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.

Make Recycling fun

2010-02-19T09:43:00.000-08:00

Perhaps if recycling was more fun, more people would embrace its importance. You have seen Volkswagens Musical Steps, now see their arcade bottle bank.

Smart City Dressing

2010-02-19T08:54:00.000-08:00

Our sister company Smart City Dressing works with Councils, Town Centres and BIDS across the country brightening and dressing the city centre and offering branding and event promotion.

Think of it as an ambient Pop-Up...

This is one of my favourites which can be seen on The Uxbridge Road, in good old Shepherds Bush.

Contact Corey Clarke for more information. Tel: 0845 680 1706

The Power spoken word and face to face

2010-02-19T08:34:00.000-08:00

A wonderful event was held at The Conway Hall earlier today. The Story is a one-day conference about stories and story-telling. I have been working on a pitch today so could not attend so i donated my ticket to a friend who will give me more of a lowdown later today. I have been following the Tweets all day and it sounds like a missed a great event.

The event is a celebration of everything that is wonderful, inspiring and awesome about stories, in whatever medium possible. there were stories that were written, spoken, played, described, enacted, whispered, projected, orchestrated, performed, printed, generally in whatever form stories come in.

The Story event was not about theories of stories, or making money from stories, but about the sheer visceral pleasure of telling a story. Whether it is in a game, a movie, a book, or a pub, we’ve all heard or told or been part of stories that have made us gasp, cry or just laugh.

Slick APP, Slick Film, Slick Nike.

2010-02-17T09:17:00.000-08:00

Its just slick... thats all!

Nike True City Full Trailer - Offical HD from NikeSportswear on Vimeo.

Guerilla projections, lighting and installations

2010-02-16T09:46:00.000-08:00

Again research for a client has brought up some really interesting and inspirational ideas around the use of projection and lighting. At one of our recent creative lunches our production team brought a number of fine examples with them to share with the group.

I thought i would share a couple of my favourites with you...

RUNNING JUMPING RABBIT...

BRIGHTON PIER IN LASERS...

PUMA SPINSTAR...

Design Scholarship

2010-02-08T09:23:00.000-08:00

I love this.

Rethink Scholarship at Langara 2010 Call for Entries from Rory O'Sullivan and Simon Bruyn on Vimeo.

Get out of the Bar whilst staying in the bar!

2010-02-05T02:53:00.000-08:00

This rather amusing contraction was created by Saatchi & Saatchi for their client Andes Beer.

Very amusing of course but take the time to watch to the end and see heo it works in a real live environment.

Pop, Pop, Pop Pop Up!

2010-02-04T01:12:00.000-08:00

It appears that the world has gone Pop-Up mad, now I am not knocking the concept and i actually think that there are many benefits to pop ups in these recessionary times, if a brand can fill a decrepit and vacant space and give a good consumer experience at the same time then the more the merrier i say.

That said, i was really interested to discover this morning the Pop-Up Ad Agency The Idea Shop from Ogilvy. Ogilvy is giving back to the local communities in which they "pop-up", they are offering their expertise to local small businesses and social enterprises free of charge, simply book and give an overview of your potential needs and then "Pop-In" for an hour .

Interestingly they will also be holding talks in the space as well as keeping the world up to date through a Blog and Twitter

I LOVE IT, WELL DONE!

The state of the Internet

2010-02-03T03:41:00.000-08:00

I am working on a project with a lot of digital support and in my effort to confirm the power of the internet to the client my research came across this great graphic explanation of the internet on from the Focus website.

Click onto it for full effect.

O2 Winning awards in the finance sector already...

2010-02-03T02:32:00.000-08:00

I was with a potential client from Natwest yesterday discussing opportunities to create deeper and more immersive customer experiences based around the products and services on offer, in the meeting O2 was brought up by the client as an example of a brand that pioneers great customer experience around what is effectively an invisible commodity and Natwest wish to emulate what O2 has achieved in terms of customer engagement and loyalty.

You may or may not be aware of the relationship between O2 and Natwest but it is one that has already proven to be an award winning collaboration with O2 picking up two finance industry awards last night. The following video gives some insight into why the mobile market leader has taken a step into this volatile market place and is already reaping the rewards, as an O2 customer and a HUGE fan of the brand and its methods of consumer marketing I will be signing up to the service this week and i will keep you posted on the benefits from a consumer perspective.

Well done O2.

Its worth mentioning however that it is not all plain sailing for what was the UK's favorite supplier, it appears that it might not have the standout I thought according to the Marketing Magazine article I just read.

The first events industry TweetUp of 2010

2010-01-29T01:28:00.000-08:00

The Lovely Mr Peter Kerwood of Merlin Events Group hosted the latest events industry TweetUp at Madame Tussauds earlier this week.

Here is a video of the event.

The power of Digital & Live

2010-01-28T08:58:00.000-08:00

There are many advocates of the use of digital to enhance and amplify a consumer focused experiential campaign.

Twitter is a good place to start – it is a very powerful tool in terms of pre event promotion and, as my team has proven in past experience with projects for clients such as Carphone Warehouse, Twitter is an incredible tool for engaging with audiences during event. It appears that using channels such as Twitter in the corporate event environment actually liberates people to speak out when they would normally shy away from asking questions or offering commentary at an event. After all – it is an effective communication tool - it enhances word of mouth and offers the opportunity to capture truthful commentary. In addition, it’s an easy way to share and gather information before the event, during the event and between attendees.

Social media has now become an accepted mechanic in the corporate communications arsenal. Portals such as Linkedin have opened up a whole new world of shared information and networking in the business world and its influence has now led to some incredible new forms of networking technology that allow corporate event organisers to engage their audiences like never before. I am very proud to say that my division RPM Corporate is about to sign a deal with a technology supplier that has built one of the most interesting and technically advanced registration and networking tools to hit our sector for some time.

Well, in my opinion you cannot make change and improve if you do not know all of the facts and you do not know how your people feel. But if you have the negatives you can turn them into positives. A client of RPM Corporate has embraced a proposition we made recently to resolve an internal communications issue. We opened a Twitter channel for internal communication, posed the question and thus opened the debate. Answers can only be a maximum of 140 characters so this ensured that employees think about what they say and how they say it. This mechanic also allows Direct Messaging for an immediate response and commentary is archived. The business has a massive network of out of office staff but they are all on blackberry so access to twitter is an easy communication and content sharing option.

Avoid the use of social media and the online community at your peril!

So all of the above proves that you cannot and should not ignore the opportunity to support live experiences with digital and interactive media.

Those crazy guys at Bompas & Parr are at it again...

2010-01-26T09:40:00.000-08:00

I was delighted to be invited to their Gin Mist experience in Carnaby Street last year and it looks like they've gone a huge step further with an amazingly immersive experience for Courvoisier.

The photography is reminiscent of a David Lachapelle shoot and is well worth a viewing. These guys really know how to a brands essence and product at the heart of a gathering, this time they have created what must be the worlds largest Punch Bowl and have flooded a building with enough punch to serve 25,000 people.

I really do love it but i'm not sure of the issues of hygiene and the fact that you could raft across the drink but I don't doubt that they had all the bases covered on this front.

I really like the remote control garnishes.

Great car reveals...

2010-01-25T06:56:00.000-08:00

I was talking to an automotive client earlier today and we were discussing launches and new and interesting ways to wow the audiences at dealer launches.

So i was having a trawl through the web and came across one of fords recent launches. Despite the speaker presentations the reveal is pretty darn slick.

2010 NAIAS

Metamorphosis - Building the education centres of the future

2010-01-18T08:47:00.000-08:00

My team and I are currently immersed in a major brief for a UK broadcaster and education is at the heart of our thinking. In my research I have come across some outstanding initiatives that bring the end user into the planning and design and the outcome shows just how powerful this kind of end user collaboration can be.

This example especially resonated with me because I have a young child and education and choosing the right schools is currently high on my agenda.

Metamorphosis

This initiative also added further verification that my decision to include employee environment design into my divisions proposition is the right one. I believe that getting the working environment right can only help with employee retention, engagement and indeed productivity and what better way to engage than bring the employee into the planning... just another step in the right direction in terms of Fandom.

Also see Coolhunter for another perspective on the 'School of the future'.

Darth Vaders Shoes!

2010-01-18T04:08:00.000-08:00

Those that know me and the name of my son will understand my attraction to the latest campaign by Adidas Love it and I hope they come in kids sizes for my J.E.D.I

La Maîtresse de la Tour Eiffel

2010-01-18T02:50:00.000-08:00

I visit Paris at least once a year to immerse myself in the art and fine food and despite many visits I still do not tire of what surprises the city can bring, whether it be performance art, installations or graffiti there is always something new.

This is an installation by the artist Michel de Broin and is reputed to be the largest mirror ball ever made.

It gives a wonderful atmospheric experience in the incredible gardens in the Jardin du Luxembourg.

La Maîtresse de la Tour Eiffel | 2009 from Michel de Broin on Vimeo.

The RPM Corporate Division is up and running and winning.

2010-01-11T04:43:00.000-08:00

I am very proud to announce that RPM's new corporate division is now up and running and targeted to account for half of the agency's turnover within the next two years.

Already in the past 8 weeks the division has won two pieces of business and has secured the contract for at least one other client.

Since setting up RPM Corporate it has been my intention to recruit the best in class to drive the division forward and I am happy to announce the arrival of newly-appointed head of corporate Katie Kenny, formerly account director at Sledge. Katie is an extremely talented individual and brings with her many years of experience in the corporate communications and internal comms sector as well as extensive experience in the consumer and experiential markets.

Katie will progress her career and profile by leading an extensive team of producers, creative’s, planners and the “RPM intellectual Resource” she will also be the conduit to the board. Katie’s arrival along with other team members show’s how serious we are about the investment in this division and will give me the freedom to drive forward the divisions new business team as well as promoting the intellectual resource.

I am currently recruiting a number of experts in the field of internal communications, training and development for businesses, research evaluation and employee engagement to form the corporate division's Intellectual Resource team. Thus far the support from the existing in house resource has helped us to secure two project wins and a new long-term client so the integration into the RPM business has been flawless

The initial goal of RPM Corporate is to replicate in the B2B market what experiential can do for consumers. Essentially, our division mantra will be to turn “Employees into Fans." 

We will do this by creating comprehensive engagement programs that will first educate brands on the value of “Fandom” and then put into practice engaging experiences that will turn the employees into better supporters and promoters of the business. As a team we have spent many years educating brands about the value of consumer advocacy and it is high time that brands started to match the commitment they give to customers to their own staff.

Businesses need to start cashing in on the power of experience

2009-12-16T08:35:00.000-08:00

The internal communications industry seems to have a more wary approach to embracing new mediums in comparison to the B2C market. Whilst consumer brands have been quick to jump on emerging communication methods to market to their customers, they have often relied on more traditional mediums when it comes to communicating with their employees. Whilst it can be argued that this approach has proved effective in the past, I don't think that the traditional thinking behind internal events has been challenged enough.

Engagement is two way: organisations must work to engage the employee, who in turn has a choice about the level of engagement to offer the employer. Each reinforces the other.

These new methods of engagement are not just for consumers; it's high time that corporate companies started treating their internal and business audiences as consumers, and building more immersive and engaging 'business brand experiences'.

The recent credit crunch has acted as a catalyst for change across all sectors and now is the perfect time for businesses to readdress the way they communicate with their internal and external audiences. Lord Mandelson confirms this: “ A recession might seem an unusual time for such reflection – in fact, the opposite is the case. Because Britain’s economic recovery and its competitive strengths in a global economy will be built on strong, innovative companies and confident employees, there has never been a more important time to think about employee engagement in Britain.”

Now is the time to focus on your business brand - A New Approach

2009-12-15T04:06:00.000-08:00

In recent weeks i have been out and about meeting clients to discuss the new RPM Corporate Division and its reason for being, i thought i would use the blog to spread the word a little further because the reaction from clients has been very promising indeed and in fact we have already secured two new clients with our first employee engagement project kicking off in January 2010.

There are so many new and innovative ways to inspire and engage the corporate audience. Developments in areas such as digital theatre and content sharing are creating a revolution in the corporate communications and event market. In this day and age there is no excuse for “death by PowerPoint”; and I am certainly not referring to virtual events (don’t get me started on these glorified conference calls!).

In light of this, at RPM we recently launched a specialist corporate division, dedicated to providing a tailored and bespoke service for internal and B2B engagement briefs, headed up by yours truly.

This was a result of seeing a gap in the market for RPM to tap into, and knowing from a wealth of experience that this is the perfect time for re-addressing the way in which corporate clients approach their live communications, when talking to their internal and business audiences.

Today’s conference and B2B Meetings are utilising the latest wireless and HD technology. When we want audience interaction, education and content sharing, we are seeing an increase in the use of interactive and touch screen technology. Furthermore, we are seeing brands embracing the use of social media and digital platforms to share, measure, and amplify their events. You can be sure that 2010 and beyond will see clients enhancing their live experiences with the likes of 3D and augmented reality (watch the press for news of this with our project).

At RPM we live and breathe the power of experience, and have used many of today’s innovations to great effect when engaging consumers and delivering effective campaigns for clients. And in our view, these new methods of engagement are not just for consumers; it’s high time that corporate companies started treating their internal and business audiences as consumers, and building more immersive and engaging ‘business brand experiences’.

Ultimately, we are all consumers, and treating staff as such and investing time in ensuring that all methods of internal communication are as engaging and relevant as the external marketing messages is key in creating ambassadors for a business. Getting face to face and making sure that business messages are at the heart of the communication will be the key to success for clients in 2010.

It is our aim to build a division that provides a new and experiential approach to the way in which brands communicate to their audiences in the live environment. We will be building a sophisticated proposition that will be involved in the communication process from a very early stage, and following this we will create IP rights owned properties that clients can buy in isolation. These rights will cover areas such as communications audits, employee engagement tools and programmes and, of course, channel activation.

Experiential techniques, once the exclusive property of the marketing department, are now transcending into the corporate world and are being used to engage their staff. Never before have we seen so much distrust in big companies. With this in mind, and most successful business leaders across the world would agree, an engaged and motivated work force is the first step businesses need to take in order to reconnect with their customers and earn back their trust.

At RPM, our objective for the new Corporate Division is to focus on much more than business brand activation. Our aim is to integrate our thinking into our client’s business right from the creation of an idea, through to development, implementation and evaluation, and thus enable them to turn employees into loyal fans, which is arguably the best asset a business can have.

Recessionary times of staff disillusionment and uncertainty have created a perfect opportunity for this proposition. We have set ourselves some big targets and rightly so; I have 100% confidence that the team we are building and the existing exceptional internal resource at RPM will deliver tenfold.

Photographic endeavours

2009-10-11T05:21:00.000-07:00

As my slow progression into the world of Photography continues I’m increasingly finding myself seeking out inspiration from the professionals.

Today I came across some stunning images from the Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, his photography is mostly devoted to the reflection of how industry shapes certain natural landscapes and I personally think his imagery brings this otherwise unknown fact of the modern world to us with startling yet stunning effect.

Go see more for yourself at his site

Twitterature

2009-10-11T05:17:00.000-07:00

So we all now the ever increasing popularity of twitter and many of us have been embracing it for self promotion, new business and indeed Social Media marketing for some time and, like me you will no doubt have experienced its power and how it can increase awareness of your messages.

For example, prior to my departure from Sledge, Google analytics was showing that the main drivers to the Sledge.co.uk site were the following:

Google
Experiencethis/Twitter
Ian Irving Blog
Bing

And the hit figures from no’s 2 & 3 were pretty impressive, thus proving how powerful and cost efficient social media can be for business.

So, all this said… I was interested to read today of the forthcoming release of a rather interesting example of how Twitters USP has transcended into the more tangible world of literature. November sees everyone’s favourite publisher Penguin, release Twitterature… the worlds greatest books in 140 characters.

If for no other reason, as with any Penguin classic, it’s worth a purchase just for its achingly cool sleeve designs.

"A tool to aid the digestion of great literature" Says The Guardian

Buy it here

This got me thinking about the numerous speaking engagements I have coming up and perhaps I should consider taking this 140-character thing on board and see how I can adapt my Experiential Marketing presentations to meet this ever-increasing trend… Not groundbreaking thinking I know but I’m going to give it a shot anyway.

Interesting stuff...

2009-09-24T00:35:00.000-07:00

Social Media and Digital Amplification

2009-09-24T00:16:00.000-07:00

In recent weeks I have spoken at a number of industry events about the power of Experiential marketing in todays pressured economy. Aligned to these presentations i have been expressing the importance of brands embracing social media to amplify experiences and events.

current Sledge clients are embracing this with the use of Twitter and Face Book to support both internal events as well as consumer experiences. I was surprised this week to see many audience members at Event UK surprised that i encouraged corporates to use social media to engage their staff and enhance interaction and communication through a variety of social media channels.

So I have been doing a little more digging around and have enclosed some content below that should prove the value of social media channels, its should also become clear that in these times of restricted budgets these channels help to stretch the budget and spread the word.

In addition, here are a few tips around Twitter.

How to embrace Twitter and use this social media phenomenan to enhance your live events

1. Use Twitter to survey your niche audience… You can pose questions about site selection, content, speakers or other details about your event. A great way for immediate feedback prior to setting up event or feedback after the event.

2. Use Twitter for Hub of Info Updates… this will help create buzz and excitement around your event.

3. Create a chat around your event or topics around your event… This again creates buzz and excitement and can help grow the number of people who know about your event. Use the #, set up a time and have preset questions that you can ask. It will allow your attendees to give you feedback but even better is that it will get them to interact.

4. Promote on every signage, website, email etc… what the Twitter Handle is and the #hashtag.

At the event

 1. Have the attendees tweet about the event… Have screens throughout the event showing a live stream of what the attendees are saying. It will be fun and engaging for attendees.

2. Use it as a way to ask questions to the speakers… This can be done by attendees at the event and ones who could not make the event.

3. Use it as an “info central”… for any updates, changes to the event to keep attendees informed up to the second.

4. Organize a TweetUp mixer around the event… This can be before the event, at the event or after the event. Embrace the tweeple.

Now get out there and use Twitter for your events.

Lets take it a step farther and talk about how to use it to increase exposure, attendance, and engagement at your events… Twitter’s power shines in promoting events. Why, because it is a communication tool and enhances word of mouth. It is an easy way to share before the event, during the event and between attendees.

There are several things we need to do to begin our sharing.

1. The first thing we need to do is determine our audience… Who are you targeting? Who is your unique audience? How are they going to find this info? Who in that group has a huge influence in your target group and can help you spread your message?

2. Create a # Hashtag… which we learned earlier is a way to aggregate info about a topic, which is basically a keyword that ties everything together. I have several but I am the head of Atlanta Bloggers and we use the #atlblog – so everybody that communicates about the event uses that # so that you can search for it and see all the conversation that surrounds the events.

3. Do a search on Twitter http://search.twitter.com (I prefer the advanced search so I can search by area) for certain keywords that may encompass and surround your niche market. Type in keywords and see what people in your niche are talking about. Who they are and follow them. Engage them and let them know about your event.

4. If the event is big enough and ongoing. An option may be to think about creating its own Twitter Handle.

5. Get your current network and followers to RT(forward) and share the invitation with their followers. Give them a discount code to share with their group. It gets them involved but also added value to their network.

Ian Irving to leave Sledge...

2009-09-16T03:34:00.000-07:00

It is true ladies and gentlemen i will be stepping down as commercial director of Sledge and will be leaving to pursue new ventures at the end of September.

After 11 years, the time is right for me to leave Sledge and to pursue new ventures. These are very interesting times and I am currently looking at new challenges within the experiential industry. I’ll be remaining with Sledge until the end of September ensuring a smooth handover and helping the team to hopefully celebrate successes at the forthcoming Event Awards! I’ve had a great time at Sledge and have been privileged to work with a fantastic team of very talented people.

Nic Cooper, Sledge CEO, said: “I’d like to thank Ian for the tremendous contribution he has made to the Sledge business over the years and wish him every success for the future.”

At present, there are no plans to replace Irving.

You can read more on this story at Event Magazine.

Experiential is growing fast but how can clients be sure that they are getting a decent return on investment?

2009-09-13T07:44:00.000-07:00

We find that in difficult economic times there is an even greater demand for research to prove to advertisers that they are getting a return on every marketing penny they invest. This is especially true of niche or emerging marketing activity such as experiential.

Continental Research has evaluated the impact of over 50 experiential campaigns to date so are able to comment on ways of measuring impact. Different types of experiential activity call for different research approaches, but generally our preferred method of measuring impact uses a two stage approach:

At stage 1 we send recruiters to the event to enlist potential respondents from the crowd of event attendees, and collect their contact details. Stage 2 takes place approximately a fortnight later when we conduct telephone interviews with the attendees who we recruited. We leave a fortnight before interviewing to allow respondents time to purchase whatever product or service was being promoted – something we like to measure. Also bear in mind it would not be feasible to conduct the interview at the event itself as the brand experience is usually so immersive that to ask respondents, for example, whether they have heard of that brand would be slightly ridiculous!

We also conduct interviews with a sample of people who did not attend the event. These are matched to the attendee sample on demographics and key behaviour, thus allowing us to compare the two samples and attribute any uplifts in brand awareness, positive perceptions of the brand and purchase solely to the experiential activity.

Due to the large number of campaigns we have measured we have been able to build normative data (i.e. average scores) on some key brand metrics. This has the added benefit of allowing us to put clients’ results into broader context by comparing any uplift on their brand’s metrics against the average uplift.

The research has found that the impact of experiential marketing is truly phenomenal. Even two weeks after being exposed to the activity our norms show that typically someone who attended an experiential event is 89% more likely to cite that brand spontaneously than a non-attendee and 303% more likely to recall advertising spontaneously. This compares very favourably indeed against the impact of other advertising media we have measured.

Much of this can be attributed to how positive respondents are about the event – on average 85% will score the experiential event either ‘good’ or ‘very good’.

In terms of the impact on longer term metrics we would look at experiential’s impact on brand equity: Earlier this year Continental worked with Sledge – one of the leaders in experiential marketing – to evaluate some activity promoting the NIVEA Visage range.

If we compare perceptions of the range between the exposed and non-exposed samples it’s clear that the experiential activity has had a significant effect on perceptions of the brand (the red arrows denote statistically significant uplift):

Furthermore our normative data shows that 60% of people who attend an experiential event talk to other people about the event – on average between 4 and 5 other people! And 51% of people exposed to experiential marketing go on to recommend that brand typically to 4 other people.

This positive impact of experiential activity on an attendee’s perceptions of the brand and their likelihood to recommend it indicates that as well as boosting the necessary short-term measures (such as awareness of the brand), experiential is also effectively building a deeper, more long term relationship with consumers by significantly and positively influencing the way they think about that brand.

I can confirm that clients are demanding both ROI and also firm proof of the ROI from their experiential activity. It is imperative that experiential is evaluated, but whilst we wholeheartedly encourage our clients to have an evaluation element integrated into their campaign, budgets often dictate that this isn’t possible.

We encourage clients to reserve some budget to evaluate their campaigns, but many clients just don’t have any money. It is a sad fact of these hard times that agencies have to work harder to deliver more creative work that in return delivers a higher number of consumers - but for less budget. So there just isn’t any money left to pay for research and evaluation.

We know that when experiential activity is measured and evaluated the results are simply phenomenal. The work that Continental Research did for us for NIVEA proves this.

Social media and digital can provide a cost effective way to measure the success of experiential work. For last year’s innocent Village Fete we created several social media platforms (using facebook, flickr, you tube etc) for visitors to leave feedback, upload pictures and generally interact and tell innocent and the innocent community about their experiences. These sites helped create a community and turn visitors into advocates, but they were also very effective ways of channelling feedback about the event and of course, the brand.

This article was written in collaboration with my colleague Max Willey of Continental Research

Stormy times for Festivals

2009-08-27T04:11:00.000-07:00

As yet another festival bites the dust, (Beachdown) it is clear that only the strongest public events will survive the credit crunch.

At first glance it would appear that brand activity at festivals has declined in the past festival year. However, I honestly believe that it is not purely the case that brands are withdrawing, but that they are actually being less frivolous about their choice of festival. It appears that the “build it, brand it and they will come” approach is a thing of the past and rightly so.

I’m an advocate of the collaboration of brands and music as long as it is an enhancement of the music experience as opposed to a distraction or interruption. The last season of festivals really started to show signs of brands trying to totally interrupt the experience. One such example was the inclusion of a skate half pipe provided by an energy drink during a wet Wireless festival in 2008, it was of no value to any of the punters and it was in fact closed for the majority of the event.

This years Wireless Festival was as good as brandless from an experience point of view and it was really noticeable. What was the reason? One brand left and the others followed? Brands had less spend? To be honest, I am not sure but the thought that it was recession based was alleviated when I visited Lovebox the following month.

This year’s Lovebox was saturated with brand activity and if I am really honest, it was not a negative. The fact that there were so many brands there actually worked: the experiences really enhanced the event and the punters sure as hell got into all of the brand spaces I visited.

Clever brands are embracing experiences that are relevant and more often than not involve a great music experience in their own right. It’s not rocket science and it certainly isn’t groundbreaking to make a music event within a music event: Bacardi and Strongbow have been doing it for years with great success and now brands such as Rizla are following suit and building a hell of a following in the process.

Innovation is not necessarily the key to a successful activity, the key is relevance and enhancement. There have been some wonderfully simple executions that will be embraced and advocated by festival visitors - campaigns such as the 10p on a cup by Carling, or the Rizla invisible players for Rizla by Exposure. These memorable branded experiences do a great job with engagement and are very simple to execute, but I am sure they will be around as long as the very successful Strongbow Rooms and The Bacardi B-Bar.

If your product, service and your target demographic are relevant to a certain festival then why would you not consider festivals as part of your strategy. They deliver captive audiences that will engage with you and your product - as long as it fits and it enhances their experience.

The other important factor to consider (seriously consider) is the content that will you get from the involvement in a festival. What sort of amplification will you be afforded and how will you engage with the people you met at that event long after the event has finished?

In these times, ROI is king and if you as a marketer think that being there is enough to drive sales, then you are wrong. There is life beyond live and you must engage and amplify or the tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds that you spend will be worth nothing to the bottom line.

Give your fans something to talk about. Innocent’s village fete showed us that just because it was innocent’s festival, it didn’t mean that the audience forgot about the great experiences that were supplied by the likes of Yorkshire Tea and Pimms. Word of mouth is still one of the most powerful tools in terms of behaviour and opinion changing by consumers.

But if it don’t fit, then don’t try to shoehorn it in, because the consumer will hate you for it.

The targeting comes down to meeting your objectives and the relevance of your offering to the event and its audience. Some brands are lucky that they can strategically fit into many types of festival with little danger of disconnection or lack of relevance. Take for example the Pimms Bus: this experience can happily drop into most form of festivals from arts, historical racing, flying displays and village fetes to multi act music festivals.

Choosing the right festival is an imperative and should be right at the heart of the strategy or you will easily become another ‘me too’ festival player and just be considered ‘Live Spam’.

There is another serious consideration that brands should look at: is their experience and content worthy of a fee?

If your experience is strong enough there is every chance that you will get away with charging consumers for the privilege of being there and then you can further amplify the experience by giving them some price worthy content to take away.

As ever this years V Festival was a stonker and the eminent brand experiences of Strongbow and Bacardi drew in the masses as ever so it proves that there is still huge value to brands that feel festival activity will hit their target audience.

Shameless Plug for Sledge...

2009-08-18T02:50:00.000-07:00

Experiential agency, Sledge has been short listed for four awards at the 2009 Event Awards – considered the event industry’s number one award ceremony.

Sledge has been short listed for the Brand Experience Agency of the Year Award. Exemplary examples of Sledge’s work included the innocent Village Fete– a two day event for 60,000 people held in Regents Park London in August 2008, the NIVEA Visage Road show - a nationwide experiential road show that engaged with over 100,000 people (10% over target) and the Thinkbox Televisionaries Conference – a B2B event described as “as close to perfect as it could ever be!” by Tess Alps, CEO Thinkbox.

Sledge has also been shortlisted for The Green Award – utilising examples from their work with both innocent and O2 – especially their sustainability policies for both the inncocent village fete and the O2 Wireless festival.

Two Sledge events have been short listed for the Best Public or Outdoor Event Award – the innocent Village Fete and the Scrum on the Beach series of events for O2 that were held in five different locations nationwide in July and August 2008 and culminated in Trafalgar Square, London.

The Scrum on the Beach series of events for O2 is also short listed for the Best Brand Experience Event Award.

A panel of judges, hand-picked for their expertise, impartiality and respect within the industry, will deliberate all other categories and the winners will be announced at a prestigious award ceremony at London Hilton, Park Lane on Friday 25^th September.

Print goes Live...

2009-08-17T12:09:00.000-07:00

The current economy is bringing some awesome opportunities and allowing some clients to be braver than before and force change in their buying behaviours and experiment with new agencies and new channels of communication to support their Live initiatives.

I am thrilled and reinvigorated by the optimism that is sweeping through our industry at the moment. This past month Sledge has been involved in no less than seven pitches from an array of sectors including Beauty, Non Alcoholic drinks, FMCG, Automotive, Health Food and Indulgence… with two wins already confirmed things are in very positive flow.

One other opportunity has come from a Media client that wants to create it’s own event and utilise it’s content to reach out to its target audience from both consumer readers and B2B readers and engage them with a live experience. The unique approach they intend to take is a clever one, for they can see that there is opportunity to generate revenue from their live initiative. The team at the magazine knows that it already has an enormous amount of content that can transcend into a live experience, it has a huge audience and it is fast becoming a bible for its followers. We have been asked to look at replicating the magazine and it’s content and values into a reputable exhibition and awards.

This is not our first experience of this type of initiative, after many months of inept dithering by some ex colleagues, we are now pleased to say that a media client of ours intends to take full ownership of an exciting new event to take place in the UK, the event will see the client act as the curator of its own content in the live environment.

This will be an event that will embrace its audience and readers with a broad program of live content and will see it breakaway from the traditional route that newspapers have taken in the past with traditional sponsorship and the badging of existing events.

It’s yet another proud moment for the agency and one that show’s dedication and trust can get results no matter how difficult the economic climate.

LeeFest 2009

2009-08-16T23:10:00.000-07:00

A rising star on the festival circuit. We popped along to LeeFest at the weekend and were pleasantly surprised by this young lads initiative.

Learn from this economy.

2009-08-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

It is now very clear that most if not all marketers are being asked to do more with much less than budget than they have ever had. Today’s corporate demand of “Make more in profits, generate more business, manage more projects, collect more leads, produce more AP’s…” has put many of us in the difficult position of not having the resources to accomplish these goals due to our own demands.

So how is it possible to continue delivering exceptional results without the same level of resources we once had? Here are a couple lessons the current economy is teaching us:

Integration.

During a number of recent client presentations, I have been asked to demonstrate how our agency is aligning our internal human resources and expertise to benefit the clients overall brand objectives.

Similarly, more than ever agencies need to ensure that more of the clients integrated business units were involved in our proposals to support a broader portfolio of their products and services. There are multiple benefits to this focused approach, including exposure to other business opportunities in other sectors of the organisation and streamlining our own internal communications. From a client perspective, it has become clear that combining offerings from our business has led us to deliver richer, more robust experiences, while our clients achieved better ROI.

Expanding Networks and Outsourcing.

Many companies are reducing headcount and simply don’t have the capability, experience and internal resources that they once previously had.

Sledge believes you should view outsourcing in terms of what you can add, not subtract from a collaborative relationship. Outsourcing and strategic collaboration allows a company to create synergies, reduce liability and risk, improve communication and delivery, control costs and ultimately deliver a more significant return on yours and the clients investment. Moreover, outsourcing enables companies to be more efficient with their time, allowing them to channel their efforts on the core business competencies and objectives.

These are just a couple ways the economy is broadening Sledge’s capabilities and strengthening our ability to drive your ROI. Curious… What is the economy teaching you? How will you rise to the top in a down economy?

Me and 'GOD' hang out.

2009-07-24T09:39:00.000-07:00

Collaborative Engagement

2009-07-24T08:52:00.000-07:00

Over the past month or so we have been paying close attention to our supplier relationships and sitting down to discuss how suppliers and agencies can work harder and be more creative to collaboratively engage with brands to ensure that we inspire the brands we wish to work with. For example we recently ran a full experiential day at the offices of Sledge that gave a group of clients an insight into the strategy and rationale behind some of Sledge’s recent Consumer and B2B experiences.

The day was supported by our friends from Mindstorm who wowed our clients with their installation in the Sledge built ‘O2 Fan Space’ at the Arena. Imagine if the technology from the film Minority Report was available to brands for consumer and internal events… well it is!

Mindstorm is an award-winning software company that helps you do more with surfaces than you ever thought possible. Across surfaces, industries and across the globe, Mindstorm transforms otherwise static surfaces into intelligent displays, and passive customers into active participants.

Also in attendance were our friends from Spoonfed, showing their mobile web services. The number of festivals, conferences and internal business communications events in the UK is rising each year. As this number grows it becomes increasingly important to ensure that customers and employees are highly engaged during events; have the best possible experience; connect with old colleagues and friends; and create beneficial relationships with new people.

Mobienz achieves all of this through mobile applications and interactive mobile web services. We create branded mobile experiences that span the pre-, during, and post-event life cycle and allow event attendees to make the most of their time.

This event then progressed to a fast rib boat trip up the Thames courtesy of London Rib Voyages. The trip was a fast paced tour of London with champagne and entertainment (we were informed that the Kings of Leon had just stepped of the same boat… that upset the ladies in the group!)

I cannot recommend this Thames based experience enough, we had such a great time and there is no faster boat on the river. If you are going to a gig at the world’s greatest music venue then you MUST travel with these guys to top off the experience.

Once at the O2 Arena, we were given a full VIP tour of the building ending in a visit to the amazing British Music Experience played host to some of the worst drumming, singing and jamming to be seen since Boyzone launched their career. Again, this is a must for any music fan of any age.

In all the day was a huge success and the clients walked away inspired and motivated to lift the bar in terms of creativity and to be brave when considering the use of technology to engage consumers and staff alike.

This event also proved to all involved that collaboration between trusted and likeminded agencies can be hugely beneficial in these quieter times and even in the early stages of client relationships, these collaborations can really work in your favour and show that you are prepared to invest time and effort to ensure that clients are aware of the new developments in our industry.

If any of our friends or suppliers would like to try something similar or perhaps you are a venue or service supplier that would like to work with our client base and you have a unique and engaging proposition then please feel free to contact me to discuss.

The Royal Ballet - Cuba

2009-07-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

Britain's Royal Ballet is making its first appearance in Cuba. On Tuesday it began five days of performances that star dancer Carlos Acosta, described as the "event of a lifetime" for his native Cuba.

Ninety-six dancers and band members are taking to the stage in Havana. Performers from Cuban National Ballet will join them for three of the shows. Tickets are priced at 20 Cuban pesos, just under one US dollar and have sold out quickly. Some of the performances will be shown on giant outdoor television screens for free public viewing.

I took interest in this news not because I am a fan but because the interview with the principal dancer Carlos Acosta on the John Humphries show this morning got me thinking about the costs involved in attending such cultural experiences in the UK. During the interview Carlos said “ballet is so important to Cuba and this event is of such historic importance, and it is so cheap in Cuba that anyone can afford to see it”.

In fact the event sold out in minutes so the Cuban Government has ordered that giant screens be placed around the city of Havana to ensure that every citizen has the chance to see the performances and guess what, no brands involved and no fee to see!

This got me thinking about what this exercise must achieve for the cities and perhaps the nations morale and how nice it must be to experience something of such cultural enormity for free and then it got me thinking about the amount of events that the Mayor has been canceling especially in times of such depression for many Londoners.

Wouldn’t it be great to see more events of this type in London and the UK, I had a meeting at the GLA recently were I was informed that they had a serious challenge with taking live immersive experiences that would introduce arts and culture to the more deprived areas of London. An example used was “we could never get a Hackney teenager to attend an event similar to that of the innocent village fete”, “and thus introduce them to healthy living and low tech family entertainment”.

Events like the Thames Festival achieve this so I don’t see why this should be such a challenge for the GLA, perhaps some pop up events that screen empowering and inspirational cultural events to areas of London that are “deprived” and that no doubt have communities that would enjoy such opportunities.

Any comments?

The Air Tattoo

2009-07-16T03:52:00.000-07:00

Some Journalist friends and myself are off to Fairford this Sunday to the Royal International Air Tattoo. I have been asked to consult the on the Experiential and Brand Partnership potential of the event.

This is an event that my father has attended for many years, he is ex RAF and particularly poignant at this year’s event is the flight of the Vulcan Bomber an aircraft my father worked on during his time in service.

You may not be aware but this Cold War Nuclear bomber flew one of the most daring bombing raids in RAF history during the Falklands War as revealed in Rowland Whites number one bestseller Vulcan 607 (a great read!).

I am really flattered to have been asked to consult and cant wait to take in the enormity of this event, the attractions and interactive content appears to be vast and I am sure to be impressed by the production value of the event and the work carried out by my host Francesca Heap and her colleagues.

RECIPEASE

2009-07-13T02:29:00.000-07:00

Those that know me will know I am a bit of a food nut and cook and have a number of courses and cooking experiences under my belt, but I’m thinking I’m behind the curve a little when it comes to my discovery of Jamie Oliver’s new venture, RECIPEASE.

These Deli come Cookery School outlets have popped up in Clapham Junction, London and Western Road, Brighton and not only offer Jamie branded products, a wide range of good produce but also really useful experiences to help your confidence in cooking to grow.

I have just booked a lesson so watch this space for an update on the quality of the experience and any hints and tips gained.

Another shout out for Shoot Nations

2009-07-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

I just thought I would help out Alexandra in the press office at Shoot Experience with another big up for this fantastic event. A panel of judges including representatives from Plan, Shoot Experience and MTV will choose their top images, which will then be exhibited at the Oxo Tower from 23rd-27th September 2009.

Last call for entries for the 2009 Shoot Nations photographic competition

Time is running out to submit your entry for the Shoot Nations MTV worldwide photography competition.

With just a few weeks left hundreds of budding young photographers have already entered their best efforts in a bid to be crowned the 2009 winner.

The competition is open to anyone between the ages of 11 and 25, with winning entries showcased at the powerhouse of global decision-making – the UN headquarters in New York.

Run by in international children’s charity Plan and photographic organization Shoot Experience in partnership with MTV, the competition offers young people a unique opportunity to express how they feel about the world they live in through pictures.

Georgia Arnold, Senior Vice President, Social Responsibility, MTV Networks International, says: “We are delighted to be the media partner for the 2009 Shoot Nations competition, helping to give a voice to thousands of young people all over the world, through which they can make a difference to their own community.”

Shoot Nations is free to enter and the deadline for this year’s competition is July 31st. This year’s theme is ‘Growing Up in the 21st Century’.

Shoot Nations is an online competition, making it accessible to young people all over the world. Entrants are encouraged to submit photographs, drawings or graphic designs relating to their own changing world.

Over the past three years the competition has received over 2,500 entries from 108 countries. Over 15,000 people have attended exhibitions of Shoot Nations photographs on four different continents.

This year, selected photos from the competition will be presented to the United Nations Headquarters as a light-box installation in New York to celebrate International Youth Day on August 12th.

Plan spokesperson Sharon Goulds, says: “A great photograph can tell you so much about a person’s life; it’s such a powerful, immediate and impactful medium.

“I’m always very impressed by the standard of the entries from young people right around the world, and I’m sure this year will just as good if not better.”

Two age group categories will be open for entries, 11-16 years and 17-25 years.

Competition organisers expect about 2,000 entrants to submit up to three images each, with a brief explanation of why each photo demonstrates the photographer’s feelings towards growing up in the 21st Century.

In particular, gender will have a strong influence over the competition, with entrants being asked to look carefully at their place in the world and whether they feel there are any limitations or opportunities that come from being born male or female. The briefs for the competition are: Because I am a girl/Because I am a boy, What’s holding me back? and Taking control – what could I be?

Jeff Koons: Popeye Series – 2nd to 13th Sept at Serpentine Gallery

2009-07-08T06:09:00.001-07:00

80’s nostalgia artist Jeff Koons has his first solo show in a British public gallery will combine paintings and sculptures that combine historical art references with everyday images and objects.

This series revolves around the cartoon figure Popeye, who I am informed was invented around the time of the Wall Street Crash, could there be any relevance to the current boom or bust cycle we are in at the moment, or is it just that Koons was a former Wall Street broker and he is making a statement and laughing on his way to the bank?

Shoot Nations – Ends 26th July in Liverpool

2009-07-08T05:59:00.000-07:00

This is an international photography competition for young people and sees many youngsters choosing to document serious issues like climate change and pollution in their photograph’s, I’m informed the results are very impressive.

See Shoot nations to see some stunning images.

And that a child can shoot an image like this is amazing, makes me realise I still have a very long way to go with my own photography.

Bastille Day Garden Party - 12th July at Battersea Park

2009-07-08T05:53:00.000-07:00

July is going to be a great month for sunshine and interesting events and exhibitions around the UK. Here are just a few that I have been looking at and hopefully will attend.

Bastille Day Garden Party - 12^th July at Battersea Park

New to London, this celebration includes a French food market and picnic areas, tons of family-friendly activities and best of all a petanque competition.

Enjoy-Work initiative

2009-06-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

It has become very apparent that there is a considerable dip in external events this year and a substantial rise in traditional live events created to engage, motivate and inspire staff and B2B audiences.

We have been busy looking at a number of briefs for clients and we came across a very nice initiative by the development and management team at Chiswick Park. The Enjoy work on site team organise a wide range of events, challenges and activities that engage all those that work in the business park.

Take a look at the site to see the breadth of activities on offer and take some inspiration for your own staff.

Great Agency Website

2009-06-08T02:17:00.000-07:00

Arts council presentations

2009-05-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

Following a number of live presentations I have given over recent months to the events industry, I am very, very pleased to announce that I have been asked to speak to the Arts Council and its members at a number of regions across the UK, starting with Nottingham.

The Arts council is determined to encourage the growth of live experiences across the nation and has asked me to show how live experiences can change perception and behaviours of consumers as well as creating touch points and engagement channels for the public. I intend to show how live experiences can help to bring communities together and how using digital platforms can amplify these experiences and give an event a life beyond the experience.

My presentation titled Life beyond Live and the power of digital amplification will be available soon via my digital networks.

As the bond between Live events and Digital grows ever stronger and ever more important to advocacy numbers and the longevity of your message, Sledge is soon to announce a very exciting digital partnership that will see the agencies full service proposition through collaboration go from strength to strength. We have a number of case studies available that show dazzling statistics in terms of advocacy levels created through digital amplification.

Presentation dates and venues to follow shortly.

Jack Rouse at The Event Design Summit, Experience Trends

2009-05-27T13:54:00.000-07:00

The past year has seen me truly embrace the power of the digital space as both a powerful advocacy and amplification channel and as a incredibly powerful new business mechanic. I have had the pleasure of connecting with very interesting colleagues from across a variety of industry sectors, none more so than Mr Jack Rouse In a multi-faceted career that spans more than 30 years, Jack Rouse has embraced the worlds of academia, entertainment, education, culture and community development, and a quote of Jack's that resonates with me and the experience world I live and breath is “All of these worlds share one common element,” Jack has often said. “They all want to connect with an audience.”

Jack recently spoke at the Event Design Summit with nothing more than a t-shirt and a pair of jeans, no powerpoint no whizz bangs and no fluff, yet the audience hung on every word. I have acquired his every word from Event Design... Enjoy, it makes for an interesting read.

After the past month it’s fair to say that all bets are off, and trying to predict 10 trends you can count on would be the height of folly. Only a designer living alone on an island would be foolish enough to think that the global economic meltdown doesn’t affect the design world in several very serious ways. So perhaps an economist would have been a better choice for this speaking slot. But you’re stuck with me. And I want to focus on the fundamentals of the business of design with an emphasis on consumers, audiences, and clients. Others here are dealing with projects, materials, technology, and a wide variety of other design specifics.

Oh yeah—fair warning—part of the next few minutes may be depressing, but it does have a happy ending. So I won’t bore you with a PowerPoint, and great images of JRA projects, but I will mention that our work is primarily in history museums, science museums, kids museums, museums of conscience, corporate visitor centers, sports facilities, location based entertainment—and increasingly in the huge market of urban development and urban revitalization. While these areas are slightly different than some of your projects, the principles and skills are the same, so I hope some of what I have to say will be relevant. At JRA, geographically we focus on the U.S., Middle East, China, Eastern Europe, and the Asia-Pacific Rim. There are about 40 of us fulltime and dozens and dozens of partner firms and individuals assembled for the needed skills and talents of each project.

I’d like to do two things today: One—provide my overview on how I think the current global mess—and what else would you call it—affects our world and, two—what trends may emerge in the future following the straightening up of the mess.

As I tried to organize my thoughts for today’s session, I started by looking at some of the sectors where JRA works to see if I could feel better about what’s swirling around us. Part of our firm’s client list is in entertainment design—theme parks—usually a very unreal world where you leave your troubles behind and go skipping down the yellow brick road to Cinderella’s castle where you live happily ever after. Maybe this sector is ok because people will always want to be entertained. So I could quite easily go into my Pixie Dust mode and pretend that what’s been happening on Wall Street and in the global financial markets doesn’t really impact us here in the Land of Happy. But I don’t believe that and it would be a lie.

Another part of our firm’s work is in the arts and culture sector: history museums, science museums, kids museums, zoos. This is a slightly more esoteric world than the Land of Happy, because in this sector we satisfy the audience’s need to understand other cultures and the world around them. This is a basic human need and the housing meltdown and the demise of Lehman Bros. won’t impact this sector. So I could just as easily go into my Dr. Rouse mode and maintain that what’s been happening in the real world really doesn’t impact us here in Quest-for-Knowledge Land. But I don’t really believe that and it would be a lie.

Another part of our firm’s work is in the area of corporate visitor centers where corporations in all sectors strive to “connect with their customers in a meaningful and emotional way.” So they use experiential design to bond with the consumer and win clients for life, blah, blah, blah—you know the drill. What we do is not retail or trade shows, but rather bricks and mortar ego pieces for Coke, Ferrari, Packers, and others. Creating brand loyalty is particularly important in down economic times.

So I could put on my corporate communications hat and maintain that regardless of what’s happening on all the stock exchanges around the world, corporate clients will always find ways to support these initiatives and in Reach-Out-and-Touch-the-Consumer World, it will be business as usual. But I don’t really believe that either.

While these are all different sectors, they all live in the space we call leisure time. And long term that is what gives me hope. Globally, that broader world of leisure time is very accustomed to change. That world has seen sectors, trends, and fads come and go for centuries. The sector has experienced financial ups and downs and has lived through social and political upheavals—-and yet it is still here. So it would also be easy for me to put on my audience-focused leisure time hat and claim that this isn’t the end of the world and that with patience, planning, a willingness to accept major change, and with flexible strategies things will be OK. And I do believe that, and it is not a lie.

So in spite of what is to follow, this session will not end on a gloom and doom scenario, for people will always want to laugh and smile, they will always want to learn and open their minds, and they will always feel a need to connect with the customers they serve. One of the young co-op designers in our office asked me last week if she should consider changing her major in college. She was worried about the future. “Of course not,” I said. The role of experiential and event design may be hitting a major bump in the road and evolving in different ways, but the profession is not going away. But changes are coming and they likely won’t be minor.

You can look at it two ways, I added: “Is the glass half full or half empty? Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Optimist here,” I said. Half full. (You get a bit Pollyanna-ish when you live in the Land of Happy too long.) Smiling she replied: “Half full here too.” That’s the future and that’s cool. Economic history teaches us that when economics get rough, the focus of most individuals narrows and turns inward. This has happened in every single economic decline since the Great Depression.

The focus understandably turns to family, personal needs, non-discretionary finances and the necessities of life. The focus in depressed times is not so much on discretionary leisure time. So one could make a strong argument then that what we do for a living (supporting the leisure time sector) may seem a bit frivolous when financial worlds and social structures are crashing down around us, our clients, and our audiences. But one could also argue that no economic downturn lasts forever. That some of the greatest periods of creativity happened during periods of economic, social, and political upheavals, and that in times of stress, leisure activities become even more important.

Radio, tv, and the movies all matured during some very rough economic times.

Escapism is sometimes just what we need. So, half full or half empty? Optimist or pessimist? You can drive yourself crazy with pessimism, or look for opportunities within the storm and prepare for a changed world after the storm passes. So what’s the role of experiential or event design as we sink into this period of crisis? And what’s our role when this passes—when the sun comes out and we all skip and dance again into the Land of Happy Profitability? I think our role is to understand that when the sun comes out, there will likely be some fundamental changes in the way people look at leisure time.

No one knows how long his down-turn will last of course, or what the world will look like when the upturn kicks in. But we might find some insights by looking at the five stages of a global melt-down and seeing how they might relate to our world. First from a pure business point of view. (As the oldest guy in the room, I’ve lived through some of these before). Mild Amusement: This is just a blip. A correction. Ha, ha, ha—Let’s go have a drink. Shock: Well maybe this is more than a blip. Blips and corrections shouldn’t last this long. Let’s go have a couple of drinks. Disbelief: This can’t be real! I’m too paralyzed to drink. Fear: Damn!

What’s next? Trepidation: I better modify my behavior and my business models and be very careful going forward. According to most analysts, consumers now are somewhere between disbelief and fear.

Now here are those same five stages as they impact our studios. Curiosity: Will this economic mess impact us as designers? Bewilderment: Hey, the RFPs and RFQs aren’t coming as frequently. What’s going on? Realization: We better seriously look at our studio and business model with capital and credit drying up for us and for our clients. Investigation: What will our clients and various business sectors be looking for when this ends? Reinvention: What does our studio look like in a changed, more cautious world? At JRA we are moving from realization to investigation—knowing that some form of reinvention is out there. I think design and economics share one important reality here: periods of flamboyant excess are always followed by periods of change and cautious restraint. What trends come out of all this? Here’s a few I think you might be able to bet on:

Trend One: Design in the future may be more conservative, understated, and non-flamboyant. When the mood of the world is somewhat cautious and hesitant, location based and non-location based experiences usually do not want to look ostentatious. The trend will also be toward quality and doing a better job with a smaller footprint and a reduced investment. Happily this trend preserves the trend toward green design.

Trend Two: Green design itself may be increasingly challenged as capital dollars get tight, for we all know that green often costs more initially. So the focus for the designer must be on the long-term benefits more than ever before. We must become sales people for green. The financial argument that in the long-term, operating efficiencies will offset the higher initial capital costs, is still valid. But when clients struggle to get any capital, that argument becomes a little thin.

Their focus, like most of ours, is on the short-term. The fact that design strongly impacts the health of the planet is indisputable—but financial realities are also indisputable. The successful designers will be those who understand the increasingly important intersection between aesthetics, green, and finances; and who can make cogent business cases, not just design and environmental cases.

As I said before, doing a great job with a smaller footprint and less bravura may be both financially and environmentally the best way to go.

Trend Three: Another trend will be that more than ever we need to get into the heads of our clients. We need to understand their business, their financial models, and their quantitative criteria for success. Meeting their business mission and goals with creative solutions will be the price of entry going forward. I challenge all designers in our studio to see design as an extension of a solid business plan, not just as an extension of a brand or a mission. In many of our sector’s purchasing departments, project managers and bean-counters are influencing all kinds of creative decisions. They talk differently! Lamentable maybe, but a reality.

So many financial and business forces will be intersecting in the future—not all of them will be directly related to design, but they will have a strong impact on design. So I am highly confident that the composition of the studio will change to include skill sets that anticipate these intersections.

Trend Four: When the world rights itself again, audiences will have reevaluated their priorities in terms of leisure. We know that attendance is down at location-based and non-location-based venues, traffic on show floors has dropped, as has attendance at a variety of galas and fundraising events. This is no surprise, of course. But what it may signal for the long-term is that consumption and expenditures may not be viewed the same way as they once were when we get out of this mess.

People will still have leisure time of course, but maybe during this economic downturn they will have discovered different activities to pursue with their leisure time that are just as satisfying. This will definitely have some impact on the worlds of event and experiential design. Not the end of those worlds, but the coming perhaps of different worlds.

Trend Five: In a global world the opportunities for experiential design are much larger and much different than they once were. Here’s a happy trend that is not linked to the current global mess: Our studio used to design just for the sectors where we have expertise. More and more, we take a proactive business development approach to integrating that multi-sector expertise into large (sometimes massive) urban mixed-use developments. This involves a studio with different skill sets than we had just a few years ago. Huge global developers are increasingly realizing the importance of arts, culture, sports, and entertainment in differentiating their mega-billion dollar projects. We want to get in early—and in many cases they want us in early. So we have notched up our participation at MIPIM, CityScape, ULI, and ICSC.

Trend Six: I believe that it is inevitable that design firms and studios will be smaller after this economic crisis has passed. But the trend was already there as the world became flat, as project teams supplanted full-time staffs, and as the trajectory of everyone’s career path changed to accommodate a changing, more mobile workforce with changing requirements for personal job satisfaction. I believe this is a good thing as collaborative design trumps ego-centric design; as audience satisfaction is placed ahead of studio satisfaction; and as business realities exert an increasing influence.

These trends will play out in different ways and in different timeframes. But the future is still bright, partially because as I learned from that co-op designer last week, who considered changing careers, the passion for design still burns in many, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well, that’s cool. Experiential and event design opportunities will continue to exist and eventually grow all over the world. Audiences will want meaningful new experiences—they will want to smile and learn and connect, and our role in facilitating those connections will be as strong as ever.

Yes, I am 100-percent certain that what is currently happening on Wall Street and on the global scene will fundamentally change the way we do business—perhaps forever. I think it has to, for it will certainly change the way our clients think and the way they do business. This isn’t all bad in the long-term perhaps. In some ways it will be a bit cathartic. I’ve lived through catharsis before, and painful though it may have been, looking back I can honestly say that I and “we” emerged better for it.

We all live in a world of creativity and innovation. That spirit of creativity and innovation will be essential as we sustain ourselves and reinvent ourselves for the next cycle.

2009-05-22T02:28:00.000-07:00

Discovered this awesome initiative via a twitter friend. this a beautiful way of bringing a global network of real life stories and experiences through photography and text...

The disposable memory project have placed 128 disposable cameras in 33 countries across the globe in the hope that people will find them, use them and pass them on. It is hoped that the cameras will then be returned along with the story of their journey.

I love it!

Check out the site here.

Real Time Searching at Scoopler.com

2009-05-09T00:05:00.000-07:00

I have started meeting some interesting people through my Twitter community and picking up some great tips on how digital can support the campaigns we create for our clients, but perhaps even more importantly in these times of 'downturn' the digital space and the tips and pointers are leading me to some clever ways to raise the profile of the agency and spread the word with no cost.

Some new found friends, Dilan Jayawardane and AJ Asver have created Scoopler, Scoopler is a real-time search engine that aggregates content being shared on the net as it happens. Add your search topic and see the latest news and comments, films, images and stories.

Also see Digg for more up to date news.

Dorito's Dodgeball Live

2009-05-07T03:19:00.000-07:00

I was just Twittered by an industry colleague and informed a stunning and very amusing example of just how powerful the collaboration of Digital and Live can be. The Dorito's Dodgeball Challenge went 'live' a short time ago and is very much a manifestation of the sporting event brought to our attention by the most amusing Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn film of the same name. It also further enhances Dorito's foray into the digital and gaming space, also see Unlock XBOX

This unique and well executed campaign allows online users to fire 'Dodgeballs' from 6 cannons placed in a secret London location at a member of the public who's one desire is to be part of a team to compete in the Dodgeball World Series in Vegas against the 'San Diego Crossfire'

31 teams are traveling to London to do battle at the secret location, i will endeavour to find out more and keep you posted.

Go see it at Dorito's Dodgeball

I tilt my hat to the agencies involved a stunning example of Live meets Digital.

The Mid Century Show

2009-05-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

Mark the beginning of Summer and quell your addiction for design classics by escaping to the Seaside for our much loved South Coast show.

Enjoy top furniture, ceramics, glass and lighting while taking in sea views, great food, a free art exhibition from one of the UKs leading artists Susan Collins and creative Lift the Lid workshop for kids. Headlining our show is exciting new designer Zoe Murphy www.zoemurphy.com who will be unveiling her first Bexhill piece of customized vintage furniture following her Margate series. Murphy was recently shortlisted for the BBC’s New Designer of the Year Award and we love her work.

30 top European dealers specialising in furniture, lighting, ceramics, glass, art, sculpture and fabrics will be on hand to sell and chat about their twentieth century design classics. The De la Warr pavilion, a modernist masterpiece in its own right, is the place to be with funky design junkies flocking from all over the country and especially from Brighton, Hove, Hastings, St Leonards and Rye for their vintage fix and snort of sea salt.

For more info see link