brand new

It's just about the content?

Last week, Millward Brown produced their top ten hints on maximizing the chance of a brand video going viral - there's info on the report here and here.  It's a pretty remarkable read as I think it captures a lot of what is wrong with research today and, more broadly, a view of how communication works and our ability to create stuff that is 'viral'.

The first warning sign is the assertion that of the 102 ads tested, less than 15% were viral hits (ie watched more than 5,000 times per week on youtube in the US).  Yes, this was a test of what TV ads became 'viral', not content in its broadest sense (and seems a far higher number than the reality of things that really begin to spread and take hold through culture).  'Viral' is defined by times viewed, not its 'spreadability'.  At best, it's a study about amplification of an ad through unpaid media.  A lot of the tips also seem to focus on 'tricks' to buy virality, rather than trying to understand the nature of things that spread.

Then they do their usual trick of saying that often 'viral success' has little to do with what really matters - 'persuasion'.  So, MB are still hanging on to an increasingly discredited view that advertising works only (or at least primarily) through persuasion and that the decoding of commercial messages is critical, not whether the brand is able to play a bigger role in culture (perhaps by creating it).

Finally there is a brilliant moment of have your cake and eat it.  After trotting out their usual ingredients of successful advertising (and if you've done any MB debriefs you will know these by heart) - awareness index, brand impression, use of celebrity - they then have the audacity to talk about "keeping your fingers crossed".  Arguably, the best advice ever given by Millward Brown but not one that I would want after paying tens of thousands of dollars for research predicated and sold on the power of a predictive in market score.

It's research like this that is increasingly to blame for the increasingly drunken way we make decisions (the old Ogilvy adage of people using research like drunkards use lampposts - for support, not illumination) and our attempts to predict the unpredictable.  It may be 'nice' to have a number for the board meeting, but it is often a number that bears little resemblance to reality.

The web and the real world

About 2 weeks ago Merton did his best Ben Folds impersonation as he hit the next button on chatroulette

Last night, Ben Folds thought he'd pay homage to the person who paid homage

(Clearly, this is chatroulette, so a little rude and NSFW)

Making digital work

Next month, I'm going to help curate/lead/provoke a 2 1/2 day workshop at Boulder Digital Works called Making Digital Work.  I'll be talking about briefs in the post digital age but there's going to much better stuff from the likes of Derek Robson, Richard Schatzberger, Edward Boches, Alastair Green, Michael Tabtabai, Brad Smith and others.

There's going to be a bunch of good talks, but I think the breakouts and conversation will be the best bits.  And you need to be there for that.  So sign up and be part of it!  There's more details here.

Ask Rich

Rich Silverstein is going to do a fairly rare public keynote on March 18th at the OMMA global conference in San Francisco.

To keep it nice and lively (and, well, a bit more participatory and conversational) he's going to answer questions posed to him on twitter.  So, if you have a question you want to ask but have never had the chance, tweet your question with the hashtag #askrich. The most popular and/or interesting are the ones most likely to be answered. 

Made slowly with care

Last weekend I was lucky enough to spend my first weekend in Napa (yes, I'm walking a San Francisco ad cliche).  Pretty amazing place, and some seriously stunning food.  (If you're ever in or near Yountville, I strongly recommend a visit to Bottega and Ad Hoc.)

It struck me how a lot of the weekend felt like it was reminding me of times past.  it was about sitting down and taking time to enjoy a glass of wine and food.  About the product you were enjoying being the result of a few simple, high quality ingredients being combined into something that showed the chef's skill of technical ability, taste and confidence in restraint (the antithesis to both fast food and the overbearing whizzbang of nouvelle cuisine).  And the desire to serve it in a relaxed, homely style that feels refreshingly at odds to the daily cut and thrust and posturing.

I'm going to stretch this to make a point.  What concerns me when I look at a lot of the work we're producing as an industry at the moment (and frankly the culture we're consuming) is that it's often all about technical fireworks to dazzle, rather than showing the restraint to let the quality of the idea come through.  To use technology as an enabler, rather than a dazzler.  To embrace that less can be more. To create a relaxed environment.  Maybe it's time to make more work that's a bit of an antidote to the speedy fireworks of today and remind us pleasantly of times past.