- Page 22 of 35 - Radical thinking for the brand advice business

15/02/2008Inspiration

The Workers Plea

workers plea.jpg

My father and I were talking recently and he suddenly produced a note he has carried in his wallet for the last 30 years. And this is it, ‘the workers plea’, in all its typewriter written glory.

I thought you might be interested in it whether you are an employer or an employee. It seems to encapsulate a basic code of conduct between people and hell it might even work in other relationships. For what it is worth the conversation we were having was actually about the relationship between the governed and the state.

24/01/2008Articles and columns

Boring people know the most interesting things

by Richard8 Comments

This is my first NMA column for the year and its about measuring the effectiveness of digital campaigns. Obviously there is quite a tongue in cheek theme about bringing the digital geeks and the research geeks together but the serious points are about looking beyond intermediate metrics, the folly of accountability and need for greater ambition in digital campaigns.

As ever, enjoy.

20/01/200825/05/2012HHCL, Planning

United we fell

by Richard3 Comments

Image courtesy of Casual clicks Now that I am safely ensconced in my new advertising home I thought I’d put up some stuff from United…

18/01/200825/05/2012Uncategorized

The Advocate – January

by Richard28 Comments

Image courtesy of Threeminds. Ah yes, the advocate. I have let it fall a bit by the wayside recently but the new year seems a…

04/01/2008Uncategorized

The adliterate address 2008

by Richard5 Comments

Greetings adliterate readers everywhere and a belated happy New Year.

I’m not in the habit of writing self referential posts but a little bit of an agenda for the year never goes amiss.

2008 marks the third year in the life of this website, starting as it did in March 2005. And my sincere hope is that I can continue to deliver a relatively frequent diet of new ideas, contrary thinking and unpalatable opinions.

It also sees me take up gainful employment once more as I am now Director of Strategy for Saatchi & Saatchi in the UK, so can once again trouble the ad industry from the inside.

Now conventional wisdom suggests this will see a decline in blogging activity. I really hope not. In fact, having had nine months outside the ad industry doing brand consultancy, I found it more difficult to generate content with all that free blogging time that when I was working in an agency.

I guess the easy bit about blogging is finding the time, the difficult bit is finding the ideas – because if you have an idea then the time finds itself.

And being surrounded by the world of brands and everyday brand problems is always more conducive to having ideas than being at home with the mac.

So fear not readers – the online journey goes onward.

And, of course, if there is anything that you’d like to see more or less of this year drop me a line.

07/12/2007Provocations

The death of serendipity

by Richard30 Comments

Serendipity is not only a beautiful word it is a very beautiful thing.

One of the great delights of life, serendipity ploughs a furrow between co-incidence on the one hand and fate on the other while being part of neither.

But I’m rather afraid that it is progressively disappearing from our lives, collateral damage in the quest to deliver and receive ever more relevant entertainment and communications.

27/11/2007Brands

Minnows in a world of giants

by Richard4 Comments

I did a panel session a few weeks ago with Russell at Promax, the annual conference and awards for the TV promotional people in the UK.

We were on the same bill (well they were on the main stage and we were in the studio) as some real giants of the media world – Will Gompertz (who heads up Tate Media), Emily Bell (the genius behind the Guardian’s mastery of the world of online journalism) and the legendary Stephen Berlin Johnson (he of ‘The Ghost Map’ and ‘Everything Bad is Good for You’ fame).

I was scared of messing up so I made some notes about the subjects we were due to cover and I thought I’d post them. They are a bit scrappy but if you are interested you will get the general drift.

25/11/2007Brands

Why we love Innocent

by Richard17 Comments

The marketing community are often accused of being rather over enthusiastic about Innocent – harbouring feelings about it that aren’t perhaps shared by the wider world.

Indeed you would have been hard pressed to find people out side the North London media community at this summer’s Innocent Village Fete, I even spotted James Murdoch there.

21/11/2007Provocations

I don’t want you to be my friend on facebook

by Richard28 Comments

When I say I don’t want you to be my friend I don’t mean you, dear readers.

I mean brands.

Even lovely Innocent thinks I might want to chum up to them on the social network de jour and I don’t, I’m sorry I don’t.

08/11/200712/05/2012Articles and columns, Provocations

Emotion is the greatest form of interaction

by Richard19 Comments

Image courtesy of Ali K I recently had the pleasure of judging two sets of industry accolades. The first was the Account Planning Group’s Creative…

31/10/2007Advertising, Planning

Coherence is more important than consistency

by Richard11 Comments

One of the things that I always bang on about without really thinking about it in depth is the idea that Clients and agencies need to place less emphasis on consistency and more on coherence. So I thought I’d worry this one out a bit.

18/10/2007Articles and columns

Are brand ideas too big for advertising?

by Richard18 Comments

This my most recent column for New Media Age . In it I expand on the idea, that you will also find in the Battle of Big Thinking speech, that brand ideas now too big for advertising.