This last few days have mostly been about heading west from Vienna to work on a brief with lovely guys and girls at an agency there. A couple of quite strange firsts for me. First night staying at a hotel for “business” reasons, which in my ears still sounds absolutely douchy (in relation to myself). First time “expensing” taxi rides from a train station to an agency. Haven’t done that before either, and feels equally strange. Could it be that at some point along these lines the day comes when people actually expect something from you because of all this?
I also learned how to get my telco to unlock tethering on my slowly fading phone (hat tip to Steff). I found out that I should read visa registration documents more carefully next time (hat tip to the guy who said njet). I learned that fundraising isn’t a very easy thing to do (which in turn teaches you a lot of things about advertising and “awareness” – ehem). And I learned that the 3G connection on trains here is quite horrible, which might be a good thing after all.
Every now and then in life an opportunity comes along and you just know you have to do something about it. An opportunity to put words and good intention into action. An opportunity to do the right thing.
Some of you might have already read Neil’s blog post about the project in Tanzania he decided to join as a team leader: The Great Football Giveaway.
When I read and saw this, I was at the same time amazed and sceptic. The trained critical thinker inside me thought, “Well, this isn’t quite going to save the world, is it!?” It pondered how there are bigger problems, bigger things that need to change for Tanzania (and a lot of countries) to accumulate wealth and get out of poverty. “Sure there are things more important than bloody football, right?” Right. There are.
On the other hand however, I immediately and intuitively fell in love with the pure simplicity and goodness of the idea. I admire people that do things, people that actually make things happen. “The Great Football Giveway” and Neil’s inspiring jump in at the deep end would most certainly be one of those actions for good.
In the end, intuition won. I realized that I fell into the “macro trap”: “countries”, “wealth”, “poverty” – I won’t be able to change anything at this scale – you know, the world hunger crisis etc. – anytime soon, while these kids would love to kick a ball about right now. The great Football Giveaway isn’t about saving the world. It is about giving kids joy and happiness. About sharing some of what we have to make a basic pleasure happen in a very rural and poor part of Tanzania. This was about action on a “do-able” scale. And it needs doing.
So I am joining a group of people based out of London and New York, who I mostly don’t know personally, but who I am sure are all awesome, in The Great Football Giveaway from November 4 to 14. The flight to Dar es Salaam is booked, jabs are to be arranged and most importantly fundraising is about to begin in earnest very soon. (We do pay for flights, accomodation, food etc. ourselves and are responsable for raising the funds for the balls.)
So much for my background in this, from now on, this place is going to be about what counts: getting as many balls directly into kids’ hands as possible. Once the fundraising starts, please do consider spreading the word, donating a ball or let me know if you contribute anything else to the project.
All of you probably know and remember the “Jew Star”, that Jews in National Socialist Germany had to wear for identification. Well, while of course not a measure as drastic as the this – what happend back then shouldn’t be compared lightly and therefore played down – a new action taken by the Austrian Social Democrats and the Conservatives bears some resemblance in spirit with these dark times.
Asylum seekers – transformed into a synonym for reckless criminals by Austria’s biggest newspaper – now have to stay in the refugee camp for five days and are not allowed to do such basic things as to go to a supermarket. (They have, of course, never been allowed to work, to ‘protect‘ the labour market and keep it in the hands of party-dominated chambers and unions. Fear of Eastern and Turkish invasion is still looming in Austria, even though the Turks aren’t even close to being the biggest minority here.) Now as one mayer of a town with one of the two refugee camps, with the daunting number of 80 inmates – can you imagine the hordes? – says, they are “not locked in [to the camp], because they can move freely in the area”. How nice, no cells for now.
Most cynical though is the fact that they can actually leave the camp, but they will be identifiable with a red card so the police can immediately arrest them. This is, by the way, the actual reasoning used to justify this policy. When caught, they are threatened with administrative punishment and detention prior to deportation. All of this was summed up in the newly created German word “Mitwirkungspflicht” (obligation to collaborate). Sounds nicer than “Internierung” (internment), doesn’t it?
So there it is, the breaking of another taboo in terms of treatment of refugees, another law tightening the grip over people who were not born – and who “we” don’t want – here, another policy mixing the vague and perfectly exploitable concept of “subjective feeling of safety” with immigration and refugee law. Heck, we didn’t even need the right-wing party to do this, the Social Democrats and Conservatives are willfully doing their job.
In light of Roma deportations, drownings in the Mediterranean and deaths at the borders of the Spanish enclaves in North Africa, this is just another sign of what we can expect from an entity devoid of any restriction, one that regards constitutions as as worthless as the piece of paper it was written on (because “fuck it, we are the ones who write it …”).
[T]he modern state is a compulsory association which organizes domination. It has been successful in seeking to monopolize the legitimate use of physical force as a means of domination within a territory. To this end the state has combined the material means of organization in the hands of its leaders, and it has expropriated all autonomous functionaries of estates who formerly controlled these means in their own right. The state has taken their positions and now stands in the top place.
So was at the Ars Electronica in Linz today, to get exposed to some new thoughts, experiments and visions about what is going on in this world today and I must say I came away pretty impressed. Not only because the venue is spectacular in its own right or because I met Lauren, but because I think there were some projects that were seriously inspiring.
(Now I have to admit – and I somehow can’t help it – that when I say that about art it is in a way “instrumental”. With that I don’t mean a pure sense of functionality, but rather the fact that I can feel some sort of “purpose” in how it relates to my life or issues that I think are relevant. So this doesn’t mean the other stuff is shite, obviously, I’m just officially not well-versed in arts, probably have a biased approach to it anyways and wanted to state this as an intro here.)
That said, one project that I found particularly interesting is “Dropping Knowledge” or the documentary that developed out of it: “PROBLEMA – sometimes the worst enemy is our own perception”.
112 persons from 56 countries convened at the Table of Free Voices in Berlin in 2006 to provide answers to global questions about such things as the economy, ethics, war and nation-states. Now, director Ralf Schmerberg (DE) has made a film out of the resulting 11,200 statements interwoven with footage of some of the defining images of our time. The result is major intellectual marathon.
There are different reasons why I find this very interesting. The first one is obviously the content. Don’t have to discuss this I guess. Another reason is scale. It’s a massive marathon of perspectives, intellectual data points from all kinds of different people from all over the world, answering questions about all kinds of things. This is fascinating and mind-bending on its own.
What really does it for me though is the use of questions. I once had a professor who at the end of a session about cognitive media effects asked students a simple question: if they knew some tool or event or person – I’m not quite sure what it was. Then he counted raised hands. At the beginning of the next session he asked again who knew the the person/tool/event. Percentage raised. “Damage” done. (This is of course simplifying matters as it isn’t persuasion in the strictest sense but only this thing called awareness (recognition, to be strict), but it shows how questions, as a special form of message, can lead to action and investigation into a matter without telling anybody to do anything.)
Now I’m obviously not an expert in socratic philosophy but I’m fascinated by the sheer power questions bring with them (plus I have to be because I need this as an excuse to get on people’s nerves constantly …). They frame issues in a certain way, shifting the perspective and focus. They have a higher chance of “change” or “persuasion” if you wish by the simple fact that we can hardly not think about an answer to it.
I don’t know exactly where I’m going here but it seems to be something as banal as: Well-framed open questions can lead to thinking and discussion which can lead to insight on the side of the one who answers. And an insight one gets on his or her own, instead of having it told from somebody else, is something one doesn’t let go of easily.
Every effort to change the world starts with people asking questions. I like that.
1803 comments to date at the website of Austria’s liberal daily “Der Standard”. Countless protest mails and calls at their headquarter and supposedly a call to boycott the brand in some parts of the internet that I’m not familiar with. And all because of what? Because NÖM – the milk brand from Lower Austria – decided to exclusively supply 300 Turkish supermarkets with bilingual milk packages. Every product in Austria has a multi- or at least bilingual packaging, but mention “Turkish” once in affirmative way in Austria and you provoke a public outcry.
This weekend, I am going to fly up to Hamburg to meet with a bunch of interesting people at the Planning Barcamp, a mini/un-conference around the overarching theme of “Context”. As Michaela asked us to come up with topics, I thought it might be a good idea to suggest the title of my bachelor paper that otherwise nobody else would probably read anyways. So, as a preview of what I am going to talk about on Friday (in a less academic and hopefully more interesting way), here’s the preliminary introduction to my “thesis”:
Creativity is an often used word in the context of marketing communications and brand management. There are magazines named after it, such as Creativity and Creativity Review, there are numerous awards around the globe judging and celebrating it and there is the APG Creative Planning award, which rewards creative strategy in the context of marketing communications and planning.
Creativity, of course is also the selling point of almost every agency or agency-like company trying to make a living in the widening domain of marketing services.
Creativity Is The Most Powerful Force In Business. […] DDB’s pursues collaborative relationships with clients and partners to find the hidden potential of people, brands and business through creativity.
Both independent agencies as well as large established agency networks claim to be at the forefront of creativity. More precisely, as Zurstiege (cf. 2005: 179ff) puts it, what agencies aim to offer and what marketers ask for is effective creativity or creative effectiveness. Therefore, as the relationship between creativity and effectiveness is a regular topic of discussion between advertising agencies and clients, within agencies, the industry press and advertising conferences, there is a stream of research dealing with creativity in the context of advertising. Google Scholar, which searches for scientific literature such as journal articles, displays around 100.000 entries for “advertising AND creativity”. Among the discussed topics are the definition and perception of creativity (D. C West et al. 2008; El-Murad & Douglas C. West 2004; Scott Koslow et al. 2003; White & B. L. Smith 2001), the effect of creativity on advertising effectiveness (Ehrenberg et al. 2002; Arthur J. Kover et al. 1995; Dahlen et al. 2008; Till & Baack 2005), and contextual issues that influence advertising and agency creativity (S. Koslow et al. 2006).
However, while creativity is the focus of awards, agency positioning and industry debates, and while there is work in advertising research towards “a general theory of creativity in advertising” (R. E. Smith & Yang 2004) creativity is generally not dealt with in detail in a broader brand management context(Kotler & Bliemel 2006; Fuchs & Unger 2007; Schweiger & Schrattenecker 2009).
For this reason this paper sets out to critically evaluate the functions and premises of brand management and more specifically what roles “creativity” could play in the ever-more-complex environment companies and brands are embedded in.
This is done by first analyzing the concept of brands and brand management as found in a literature review. In addition, the changing environment companies and brands operate in will be described, followed by implications for and a critique of brand management and research on the topic. Then, different meanings of and perspectives on creativity, both in today’s marketing industry as well as in the broader business context, will be examined. The last chapter will then merge the two streams and draw conclusions from the synthesis of the current state of brand management and a broader meaning of creativity in a commercial context.
(Will update the sources later.)
So much for the introduction. The good thing is, I’m not finished and will therefore have to present half-baked thoughts as discussion material. Of course, I’ll share the thesis here, once it is finished.
As another little confirmation that most of what is being written about “models”, “theories” and “new thinking” in communication, management and all those other funky disciplines has been more or less eloquently written before, a quote from the research for a paper I am supposed to be writing instead of this …
It has been found that a properly recruited, properly educated staff whose loyalty has been adequately ensured will work not only eight or more hours a day keeping up the Bell System’s public relations, but further, even in personal contacts and friendships, on company time and off, will serve as an efficient agent in spreading the Bell ideology and securing the sympathies and allegiance of groups and individuals to the Bell System.
(What comes now should probably be filed in the category: “Topics that I have no business writing about”, but anyways.)
One of the good things about being away from home is that you have an incentive for getting to know “home” better once you return. Things always change, some more subtle, others more visible and dealing with the whole “coming home” situation makes you more aware of stuff that you wouldn’t even have noticed before leaving. However, when I came home to Austria after my semester in Vancouver, I hardly spent time in Vienna. On the weekends I played tennis for my hometown and during the week I studied for a big exam. Then, in July, I took off to Budapest for three months. The only thing I saw from Vienna during that time was its train station.
So, looking back at the year since I came back, what has changed?
A lot, obviously, but what I think is really amazing to see is how the music scene in Vienna has built some sort of cluster at the edges of laid-back but energetic, raw but sophisticated, oldschool but innovative funkyness – can I get a “Ho!” for that? – and I don’t only mean the tonality of the music. Now of course, there’s always been underground Hip Hop and electronic music (sic!) in Vienna, and I’m most definitely not in a position to educate anybody about that. What comes out of Vienna recently sounds like that:
(It appears that Dorian Concept and The Clonious are only two of that bunch of producers that are pushing Vienna next to LA and Detroit as the hot spot of this intersection of Hip Hop and Electronic music. You know, Flying Lotus, Nosaj Thing, Hudson Mohawke and all.)
What I find interesting in all this are two things.
First, it seems like it took the opening of a third club right in the same are to ignite that breakthrough on a bigger scale. The “Fluc” had been home to Techno, Dubstep, Drum and Bass, Hip Hop and all kinds of other stuff for some years but it was always a little too alternative for a lot of people. The “Planetarium” right next door had its share of House, Techno, Hip and Hop and other stuff but was always a little too posh for others. So when the “Pratersauna“, a former sauna with outdoor pool and a “legendary” grimy heritage, opened in July 2009, suddenly 3 of the most popular alternative music venues in Vienna were all in a 5 minutes walking distance. And then, in fall, Planetarium and Pratersauna took part in the 5 days minifestival RUN VIE – a week “by the heads, for the heads”, organized by Supercity, one of the important platforms for what I’m writing about here. Sneakerness Vienna – a sneaker fair for the “sole culture” also was happening as part of that thing.
Now, almost a year later, another collective has formed that will bring Vienna its first electronic “festival”, with Austrian and international acts from Techno, to House, to Dubstep to Hip Hop, in exactly those three locations.
Proximity and momentum. Kind of interesting.
The second thing that I find interesting is the tonality, the look and feel of this ever-more attractive scene. At the intersection of all those genres I left it to you to determine the right words for the sound itsself.
However, apart from the sound I think there is something at the “core” of this scene with its different venues (and it’s not the toilet architecture as you can see). The clubs themselves are of course different from each other. Of the three clubs, one is under the ground, one is in a real planetarium and one in a former sauna (and/or swinger club). All of them, however, are improvised and minimalistic.
They are raw in the way how they approach interior and sophisticated/rich only in the music they play. All of them are in a district until recently famous only for the Prater, Vienna’s prototypical and stangely-famous entertainment sight, and prositution. So all of the clubs “benefit” from this “dirty” halo of the district and its grimy flair.
All of them are laid back in the sense that there’s no dress code, people from all kinds of backgrounds hang around there and that the whole thing is not taking itsself too seriously yet. They are oldschool in the fact that they are letting the patina survive – both in the sound and the style – and in building and innovating upon that.
And why funky? Well, a week ago I went to another one of the “fresh” venues, Club Morrison. This one’s not in the same area, but it is also in a former brothel and at least as improvised and raw. Ever since, I can’t help but link this whole movement to this movie that I saw in fall at the Viennale:
The patina, the sophisticated rawness, the disco flair, the grimy atmosphere, parts of the sound, the not taking it too seriously… I can’t help but think of it all as Black Dynamite, remixed Viennese style.
Years ago, when I moved to Vienna, I asked bounce!-records sage Plaq why there were no Grime gigs in Vienna. He answered that Vienna wasn’t raw and tough enough for Grime. Now, years later, we might have found our thing.
(Apart from the fact that I shouldn’t be writing about music – sorry to all you real heads out there-, this posting shows how limiting text is when writing about culture. I’d need way more pictures and video to properly get across what I mean.)
I have to admit that I’ve been a little fed up with advertising recently. Not because I’m surfing on the “advertising is the price that you pay for a bad product” wave. I don’t. Or because I’ve been preaching “social media” on a daily basis only to see people now abandoning their former golden calf. I don’t do that a lot either. Not even because I’ve typed myself silly about the “new customer“, agency models or how innovation is the new black. I think I’ve kept all that to a reasonable minimum.
Rather, it’s been precisely those debates and discussions that have made me a little tired of the bulk of the advertising discourse. Looking at twitter, blogs and AdAge It seems like everybody who’s holding at least a senior planning position in agencies big or small is busy hopping from conference to conference talking about the demise of the industry. Of course, not every stream of that discussion is dull and I’ve learned a lot from reading people who are incredibly smart and generous with their knowledge and experience. I’ll attend a planning barcamp myself this summer. And anyways it’s probably more an outsider perspective than an informed insider view. But still, my impression is: a lot, a lot of talk.
(Disclaimer: The next sentences may come across as a little bit of ass-kissing. And I agree. But then again, credit where credit is due.)
When I talk about exceptions, one of the agencies that has always been impressive in my eyes is – of course – W+K. Yes, they blog. Yes they retweet when their work is mentioned. Yes, they even have an opinion and voice it from time to time. But in general, their planners seem to be more busy (unsuccessfully) helping Labour to win elections than further contributing to the echochamber. Or repeatedly doingawesome stuff. And this is, in my humble opinion, a very good thing.
Now that was a very long prelude for a video. Here it is: Nike “Write The Future”.
This fully integrated campaign, spanning TV, cinema, print, digital, out-of-home and non-traditional executions is the culmination of an 18-month long collaborative effort led by W+K Amsterdam with support from W+K London and W+K Portland. While digital teasers were released on May 15th to build buzz ahead of the campaign, the official unveil is this epic 3-minute film called “Write the Future,” launching online tonight. The global broadcast will debut during the May 22nd European Club Final, a feat that required seven versions and 30 cut-downs to accommodate distribution to major networks in 32 countries.
From what can be seen in the admitedly media-biased twitter search people are loving it. They talk about it. And they will implement it in their lives. Heck, the whole set-up with different slices and pieces of film for different culture is brilliant. This is probably what Ehrenberg meant when he wrote about “Advertising as Creative Publicity“. This is what Lannon/Cooper meant when they wrote about humanistic advertising and asked the question “What do people do with ads?” – in 1983. And this – too – is advertising.
As a result of the content analysis of this literature, we identified twelve main themes which we thought were an accurate categorisation of the broad range of definitions of the “brand” in the literature, i.e. as: i) legal instrument; ii) logo; iii) company; iv) shorthand; v) risk reducer; vi) identity system; vii) image in consumers’ minds; viii) value system; ix) personality; x) relationship; xi) adding value; and xii) evolving entity. The categorisation into the twelve themes was fairly straightforward, since most authors used buzz words such as “personality” or “relationship” either in the definitions themselves, or in the discussion of their view of the brand. As we discuss in more detail in below, there is some overlap among the elements of different definitions, which are therefore not mutually exclusive. However, the twelve themes represent a categorisation of the most important propositions in the branding literature.
This is a quote from de Chernatony, L. & Riley, F.D., 1998. Defining A “Brand”: Beyond The Literature With Experts’ Interpretations. Journal of Marketing Management, 14(4/5), 417-443.
I think it’s valuable to read this kind of stuff and deal a fair share of time with what could be denounced as a pure semantic, abstract and theorectical exercise. Why? Because it could eventually help me to understand the perspective a client, partner, team or boss has on the topic, which in turn allows me to reach a goal easier just by making my thinking – or its packaging – more compatible with the associations people already formed. (That, and finishing my bachelor thesis …)
