Little thoughts, daily

One rather nondescript Easter holidays whilst at University, I hitch hiked across Europe. The highs and lows were extreme to say the least. In fact I’m pretty much wiping the tears off my keyboard just thinking about it.

It made me realise that so much of the joy of travel is the spontaneity and the surprise of it, that sense of unexpected discovery as you turn the corner and are invited to play a game of dominos with four Italian granddads.

So can you bottle up and sell spontaneity and surprise when it comes to travel? well, at first glance it appears almost impossible. How can you organise the random and relevant on a mass scale?

American express have just done this with their latest venture, Nextpedition. It takes the enthusiasm and open mindedness of the average twenty something traveller and marries this with a nice little insight around these people just wanting to get out there, eager not to lay down a minute by minute itinerary or spend a whole day on trip advisor sifting through dodgy recommendations.

It does this through a combination of a short questionnaire, a quick consultation and a rather large cheque to Amex. The willing participants are given an identity and a slowly unfolding plan days before their departure date.

So the question is would you with your twenty something days a year away from work put your trust in a credit card company to organise your holiday or would you rather just book those flights to that place you love? right now I’m sceptical that something like this can work on anything other than a very small level with the more experimental and affluent sector of the travel market. If you don’t trust Amex would you trust Lonely Planet or Time Out? It certainly raises a whole host of interesting questions…but for now I’ll stick to my original holiday plans thanks.

{ 0 comments }

{ 0 comments }

Here is something I wrote for the dare feed

It’s 6 p.m. All over Canada, people are arriving home, flopping down onto the sofa and watching TV while wondering what to make for dinner. They’ll see lots of commercials, all promising some combination of culinary euphoria, domestic harmony and utter convenience.

In February, something changed. Swiss Chalet (think Bernard Matthews but Chicken and Canadian) joined the ranks of brands using TV to speak to this tired, hungry audience however they had an idea that showed they understood three very important things about their audience and the business they were in.

Firstly, they knew that whilst TV might be an isolated channel on the media plan, the way people consume isn’t in any way exclusive. Secondly, Swiss Chalet knew in an increasingly fragmented media landscape, opportunities were starting to arise that previously seemed nigh on impossible. Thirdly, they knew how bloody delicious chicken looks when juicy, succulent and rotating on a rotisserie.

Linking up their TV media strategy to their Facebook presence, Swiss Chalet have created the first ever 24/7 TV channel dedicated solely to rotating chicken. As the chicken cooks, a promo code regularly appears, driving viewers to the brand’s Facebook page to claim an offer. Awareness of the channel has been created using a 30″ spot featuring a Swiss Chalet employee talking about how great it would be to have a channel dedicated to roasting a chicken.

“We know it’s a little wacky” says Mark Daprato, VP marketing at Swiss Chalet. Well we think it’s actually not at all. It makes complete strategic sense and shows a thoughtfulness for the ways people actually consume media rather than simply plumping for communications in pre-defined boxes because that’s what brands have always done. Peoples’ behaviours are changing, some brands react, while others stick to what they know.

{ 0 comments }

piracy is always framed as free vs paying and the reasons for both. No one ever concentrates on the user experience and irritations associated with buying the legit product. reduce all this crap and actually make it easier to find the product in the first place and we might see a redress of the balance. We seem to spend most of our time thinking about pirates as criminals and the subsequent punishment rather than pirates as consumers annoyed by crap user experiences.

{ 0 comments }

Being there, the experience of sucking it in, interacting and doing in the real world is bloody brilliant, quite how people thought the internet threatened this thing is baffling. Over the last few years, you can’t turn on your computer or open a paper without hearing about another digital revolution that will threaten all that we know. The most ridiculous of these threats is the one that claims digital consumption is a direct substitute for real world experience – as if they are directly comparable but digital wins out on the grounds that you don’t have to leave your bedroom or put on a new shirt.

This was never ever going to be the case for one simple reason, we’re talking about human beings.

Here is Wired Magazine’s Chris Anderson pointing out how we always over estimate the effect of technology in the short run and build up a head of steam about how all our old human ways will die out at the hands of monorails, spacesuits and the jetsons.

Simon Jenkins puts it really well in his latest article on protesting and why the internet may be able to assemble a crowd but won’t on it’s own create change. Change is most compelling when it’s ‘live’, there are some things the internet can do, there are others it can’t do.

The new, post-digital “age of live” is as vigorous in politics as anywhere else. As live assembly moves out from the screen, asserting itself in entertainment, religion or green activism, the internet is merely a summons. Politicians too have found they cannot abandon the hustings, the handshake, the public debate and the demonstration. Anti-politicians cannot abandon the demonstration and the riot. Everyone wants live.

Joseph Pine (the guy who you imagined all lecturers looked like before you got to uni) nails exactly this point when he talks about the move from services to experiences. Experiences are authentic, they are real. There couldn’t be a bigger leap from the commodotised world. No wonder the live music industry has never looked so healthy.

{ 0 comments }

I’ve always found the period in NYC between about ‘79 and ‘83 one of the most inspiring stories of creativity I’ve ever come across. Against all the odds, hip hop, break dancing, remix culture, a new form of djing and graffiti all emerged. It represented a new era in African American self expression which is now a worldwide phenomenon.

Style wars is a film you all must watch to understand the motivations of self expression that lay behind the wave of graffiti that took hold across the NYC subway.

[click to continue…]

{ 0 comments }

Right, any recommendations for Lybya or Bahrain? bit short in that department

{ 0 comments }

Displaying information on the device from Jordi Parra on Vimeo.

{ 0 comments }

{ 0 comments }