Selfridges is stampeded by bright yellow sheep

We were amused to read, in the Evening Standard the other day, that Selfridges has recently come under attack from a flock of bright yellow sheep.

As part of a campaign to celebrate British Wool Week, the landmark store was over-run by the woolly masses in a PR stunt that was undoubtedly eye-catching – if not a tad familiar…Despite being impressed with the campaign idea, and being fans of British Wool, it did seem to bear a striking resemblance to a campaign that we ran for Saks Fifth Avenue back in 2005 as part of their cashmere promotion, where we unleashed Cashmere goats on the store.

On Thursday night at the Natural History Museum the world was introduced to a little yellow tag that will come to symbolise the struggle of millions to make the world’s roads a safer place.

Back in May we were part of a WPP competition to design a logo for the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety, the most ambitious campaign ever to reduce deaths on the world’s roads. The statistics make for horrifying reading, particularly in the developing world, ranking with TB and malaria in its impact, and growing fast every year. The Decade of Action aims to halt this, and with a concerted effort reverse the trend.

This will take the support of millions of people. And we didn’t think a logo would do it. We needed a physical symbol of support. Something you could own, could hold in your hand, could wear to show you were part of the fight. The AIDS ribbon, the poverty wristband and the remembrance poppy have become enduring symbols of their causes, and many imitators have taken advantage of the power of those symbols. We created something new that people could use just how they wanted: a metal tag that can be a badge, a necklace, a key fob, on a coat, a bag, even a pet.

Under the strapline ‘Wear. Believe. Act’ (a very smart idea courtesy of our friends at the FIA Foundation, the people behind the Decade of Action) the Tag was presented to the great and the good in the safety world as preparations begin for the global launch of the Decade in May next year.

Etienne Krug

It’s a little late for the great dinosaur in the main hall who oversaw proceedings, but we hope the rest of us will start wearing our support for the Decade – however we want to do that.

Melinda and TEDx Host

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be invited along to the latest TEDx event in London. As we’re arranging our own TEDx event in October – TEDxNewSt – I was interested to see, first hand and up close, how they are run.

The event was held at the Science Museum in London and was the first event, of its kind, ever. The first session (95 mins) was broadcast live from New York. 82 events took place in 40 countries, simultaneously, around the world, all live-streaming the NY feed. Once NY had wrapped up the first session, each individual event got on with hosting their events independently with their local speakers live in the room. There was a group in Auckland (NZ) who were hosting their event at 03:30am in order to take part and as we live-streamed them in to say hello, we were told how their adverts for the event read “Pyjamas are optional, progress is not”. Nice. What was even nicer however was the fact that there were indeed people in their pyjamas in the room too.

The overarching theme of the event was about the future and how we can positively effect global issues such as eliminating polio, fighting malaria, reducing child mortality rates and empowering women.

The speakers on the live feed from NY were really engaging and inspiring. As the event was co-conceived by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Melinda was one of the key speakers. Her talk was very insightful as she spoke about how development agencies and NGOs could learn a few tricks from Coca-Cola in how to reach the far corners of the earth and inspire people to want to purchase their products/lifestyles. Hans Rosling was also on stage with some very encouraging stats on child mortality rates, delivered in his own highly inimitable style.

Hans Rosling

Also Mechai Viravaidya (or Mr.Condom as he was fondly referred to) showed a presentation on his foundation’s innovative and, frankly, awe-inspiring methods of introducing condoms into the Thai communities. He is responsible for this post’s title as that was one of the first things he said in his talk and it’s really stuck in my mind.

Mechai Viravaidya

There were many, many other speakers involved in the entire event, all of which were rich with content and inspiration. I would urge you to watch the recording of the NY live-stream available on the website as it’s really compelling.

And if that whets your appetite for being inspired and wanting to do things better/differently then be sure to find out more about our upcoming TEDxNewSt event on October 15th.

So taking our urge to watch cats, Ikea has teamed up with ad agency Mother to shoot this remarkable ad, using their Wembley showroom and a 100 cats. It seems to have paid off though – at the time of writing the video has already had 173,586 hits in just two days, the making of (below), attracting 1,318,505 hits! I’m wondering if there’s an opportunity here? Has Quicksilver ever thought about dog surfing videos?

PS. If your thinking of going to Ikea, you might want to take some antihistamine tablets before you go…

A humorous message from David Shrigley and Save the Arts to highlight the real, positive economics that the arts bring to the UK. You can show your support by signing their petition at savethearts-uk.blogspot.com.

So yesterday via Twitter I received two identical tweets from the same ‘company’. Being a little more specific, one form the ‘official’ Twitter feed of that company, the other from the ‘personal’ Twitter account of the MD of that company. I say personal, however in the profile he states that he is MD of X…. so in my book, that counts as a representation of that company is a ‘pseudo corporate’ feed. So, two identical tweets, sent from the same ‘company’, to the same individual, me, in the space of a few seconds.

Now if that happened with email, to which I had subscribed, i.e. which is permission based, as is Twitter… I’d be annoyed and think ‘what a stupid company’. Well the same thing happened with those tweets, I thought ‘what a stupid company’. Just because they are short, possibly less intrusive than email, it’s still really dumb to send identical messages over different accounts when you have the same person subscribing to both accounts on the other end! We wouldn’t do that with email would we? And as the business that did this was, surprise surprise, a social media agency (ROFLMAO)… that makes it, as we say on the Internets, an EPIC FAIL.

So, to an extent you have to say ‘bless’, let’s face it a lot of people working in social media, on the face of it, aren’t that experienced in the grand scheme of things, email is for old people right? But more seriously it points to the fact that platforms such as Twitter, even when combined with some of the 3rd party corporate tools, are still massively lacking in maturity and functionality to run at the same level of ‘permission’ and accuracy as email or more traditional direct communications. To my knowledge, (I did say this was ill-informed) no tool exists to manage Twitter subscribes across a companies multiple accounts in the same way as email (i.e. with really thorough, get prosecuted if you mess up, list and subscriber management… yes I get that Twitter is a little less complex in that if you unsubscribe that’s that, to an extent). If it does I get the impression many companies aren’t using it. As far as legislation goes, again I’d welcome an update on this… however, if the law doesn’t hover channels such as Twitter in b2c communications, isn’t it about time it did?

Read more…

Maybe I’m just predisposed to Metro because the logic of it appeals to my own professional philosophy about thinking differently and inventing new opportunities rather than just iterating the same tired old ideas all the time. But in any case I’ve long considered Metro to be a great example of a brand that fundamentally understands its proposition and knows how to deliver it. Until now.

So this week I see that Metro has launched a campaign intended to persuade us to take our copies of the paper with us when we leave the train and put them in the recycling bin. It’s littering, apparently, if we leave them. And that shows me that Metro doesn’t understand its brand anywhere near as well as I had thought. You see Metro has established itself so firmly in the unique circumstance it created that it has transcended its functionality and become cultural. When you travel on the tube it is not littering to leave your copy of Metro on the shelf behind the seats, it is a public service to your fellow commuters. To take your paper with you, and to bin it, is to deny someone else the opportunity to pass their travel time productively. Pick a carriage of people and ask them, they’ll all agree, “please leave your copy of Metro behind in case one of us wants to read it”. In fact almost the only emotional interaction that ever takes place between non-acquainted human beings on a tube train is the brief smile and warm eye contact that is exchanged when one places a paper down and another immediately picks it up. It is that, dear Metro, that is your brand. And this advertising campaign undermines it.

As all discarded Metros get collected by LUL staff at the end of the line, and are presumably recycled, I’m not concerned about the environmental impact of my objections here. I just hate to see a good brand get it wrong.

Jim.