Confex 2010 Presentation

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

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....

“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?

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

Make Recycling fun

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

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

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.

Its just slick... thats all!

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

Guerilla projections, lighting and installations

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

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!

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!

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

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...

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

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

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

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 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.

‘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 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!

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.

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

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...

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

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!

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