designing, experiencing, innovating

Japan Car at the Science Museum: how Japan’s car manufacturers are imagining a networked future for our cars

a trip to the Science Museum on Friday saw Mediation and colleagues visit the Japan Car exhibition. described as an exploration of the car as a 'mobile cell', the exhibition shows how Japanese car design reflects the 'soil and the
spirit of Japan'. click thru for the exhibition's Flickr and YouTube sites.

one of the most interesting aspects of the exhibition was said exploration of car as mobile cell;

"The future will bring more than individual drivers each controlling a single car. cars will become parts of whole transport systems integrated with the surrounding city. the essence of a car us already shifting from its drive train to its information systems … The concept of cars evolving into moving urban cells is visualised by portraying cars as blood corpuscles flowing through capillaries."

the concept is captured in this video from the exhibition, which shows visual representations of traffic volumes and traffic flows around central Tokyo; generated from GPS signals continuously transmitted from several thousand cars.

"the cars are seen to be circulating, radiating out from the central area near the Imperial Palace just like red blood cells traveling around the body through a network of blood vessel centred on the heart". its a very new way of examining how the nature of the network will come to predominate how we communicate – both passively and actively – with each other.

how long before cars get their own social networking system? our vehicles constantly transmitting data about where they go and how they get there to their Facebook equivalent? what will they learn from each other? and what will we learn from them?

great exhibition, which the manufacturers don't seem to have capitalised on in a wider marketing perspective. perhaps these things are just better left to exist in isolation; another element to be added – by consumers – to their brand molecules (as theorised by John Grant in After Image). then again, Mediation can't help but think there was an opportunity (missed) to take the great contents of the exhibition to a wider – broadcast – audience. press partnership anyone? …anyone?

converging, experiencing, innovating, selling

When brands hit the high-street: How National Geographic made their brand manifest in spectacular fashion

I learned three things in a jump into central London yesterday. one, that Uniqlo doesn't do gloves. two, that the recession has yet to hit Abercrombie & Fitch, the till queue for which was a good twenty-punters long. and three, that National Geographic have opened a rather amazing store on Regent Street.

National Geographic are not the first (and they won't be the last) media organisation to open a branded retail space, but they're certainly in line to be the one that opened the grandest. its 20,000 sq ft across three floors sells everything from bug spray to the latest technology in exploration gear, but that is just the start.

the store also aims to provide an absorbing learning experience through interactive visual displays as well as an auditorium to host film
screenings and public lectures. it's an amazing space, and one that will go towards funding the Society's aims, as copy in the store explains:

"when you buy at the National Geographic Store, you're helping launch new expeditions across the world. thanks to your help, projects we've helped fund have uncovered the Inca city of Machu Picchu and the wreck of the R.M.S. Titanic. today the Society supports more than 500 expeditions and research projects a year" (source: poster in National Geographic Store)

it is certainly opening in interesting times; as an article in Retail Week observes, the store is likely to be the last major opening Regent Street (and indeed London) will see in a while:

"Retail pundits will tell you that Regent Street is a thoroughfare
filled with brand flagships where having a presence is rather more
important than making money. This may be so, but in recessionary times
the tendency to let the eye stray towards the bottom line is more
tempting than last year."

which is a shame, because it's exactly this kind of initiative, exactly this kind of engaging brand innovation, that is most likely to future-proof a brand. as a focus for PR efforts, as a destination, and as a source for new news and sparks for word of mouth, the National Geographic Store is everything an interactive and engaging brand experience should be…

…an experience grounded not in the necessity to sell, but in the discovery and exploration of why that brand pertains to exist in the first place, and what that brand's point of view on the world is; the concept and idea of that brand made manifest. everything, in short, that a retail space in the early 21st Century should be.

cinema, experiencing

Surviving the BFI IMAX’s SAW marathon: why too much of something can be just as tough

it was the Spice Girls who observed that "too much of something is bad enough, but something's coming over me to make me wonder of too much of nothing is just as tough" …well it's not. you really can have too much of a good thing. on Friday Mediation spent an all-night marathon in the company of Saw I thru V. one night, two beers, three friends, four cans of Relentless and all five Saw movies in one sitting.

it all kicked off at 11pm on Friday night when Mediation and another 300 people gathered at the BFI IMAX near Waterloo. the next nine hours of our collective lives was spent watching the five movies which collectively are the most successful horror series of all time.

whether I'm just getting too old for this or whether it came off of the back of a busy week, (or maybe it's because the fourth and fifth movies of the franchise are pants in comparison to the first three) it was tough old going. I confess that my eyelids took over a short way into episode four but managed to rally to make it thru the silliness of the fifth …and shortly after 9am Mediation emerged blinking into the grey winter light of Saturday morning.

the whole thing is utterly ridiculous of course, but it has to be said there is a genuine buzz when consuming content in the company of others who love said content enough to miss a night's sleep to do so. a buzz that is heightened – to a degree – by the venue and staff who do their damdest to keep the spirits up and the coffee flowing.

they could do more to make the experience more of, well, an experience – but for that that matter so could brands… the evening was a great opportunity for an energy drink or vitamin supplement to do some sampling and attach themselves to the experience of the event.

so opportunity missed this time round, but don't worry – the next all-nighter is already planned for May, where the IMAX will be screening all three Lord of the Rings movies in one go. now where did I leave my detachable Orc-ears?

advertising, broadcasting, experiencing, television, viewing

Things I’ve learned about TV ads; courtesy of a Night of the Adeaters

TV ads sometimes get a bad press; often seen, unfairly, as the blind refuge of the creative process. they're blamed for narrowing creative thought into a pre-determined construct that's allegedly irrelevant in a digital age.

well a night with the Ad Eaters is more than enough to demonstrate otherwise. what occurred to me last night, as I sat watching several hours of TV ads from around the world, was how perfect the audiovisual short is for communicating a brand – or indeed any – idea.

it's no surprise that the 'TV ad' became the common currency of the advertising agency. indeed one can't help but think that even in the absence of a broadcast model that reinforced the TV ad construct, the short AV piece would have emerged as the vessel of choice for brand ideas. forcing clarity, relevance and conciseness, it may come to be seen as the 20th / 21st Century equivelent of the cave painting or Aesop fable.

there was as much joy and pleasure in seeing again BBH's Underwater Love for Levi's (above) or early Smirnoff efforts, as there was in seeing for the first time some of MTV's campaigning work or an Audi ad with a dog chasing a car in the snow…

some other things I learned last night:

most of the best ads are for cars. fact.
it's impossible to make a good fragrance ad. fact.
some brands have the right to set agendas and others just don't
an audience of ad types loves a bit of worthiness – ads for the UN Development Fund were guaranteed a splattering of applause. as the lovely Jon A puts it: "the skill of communication is like the skill of swordsmanship: it can be applied in play or in war, for better or for worse". we collectively aspire – it seems – to do the formers.
it's impossible to aggregate ads around a city – "ads set in Paris" just doesn't work as a filter

all in all a very cool evening. if there's one observation it's that the filtering could have been better. an evening like that is essentially acting as an aggregator – so Ad Eaters has to work as hard as possible to be the best aggregator that they can be. not doing so will only undermine future efforts – and contribute to the feeling of watching a very extended version of Tarrant On TV. only without Chris Tarrant. and not on TV.

Kudos to the IPA, CBS and Metro for sponsoring, and a big thanks to David at Metro for facilitating…

experiencing, innovating, social networking, viewing

Cutting thru choice fatigue: How the Secret Cinema and Nokia dictate and curate a unique movie experience

Thursday lunchtime Mediation received the following message from Secret Cinema: "Lords and Ladies, Dukes and Duchesses, Partisans and Plebians and the Claypool Foundation of Arts. Secret Cinema in association with Nokia will take place this Friday 3rd of October at 8pm … Dress should be majestic and wondrous for this shall be an evening of wild, wild romance, honey song, long journeys, laughter and dance."

Last night Mediaton therefore duly popped along to Hackney for this month's secret cinema event. their website observes that "the internet is changing the way way we watch films. the secret cinema changes WHERE you watch film."

but the event goes far beyond screening in an interesting location. the movie – which isn't revealed until the very last moment – is explored and teased from the moment you arrive… key scenes, themes, characters and quotes are all on display in everything from the actors who greet you to the pre-screening entertainment. it's brilliant.

but the best bit is when the movie starts, and you're sat watching the Marx Brothers' in A Night At The Opera – a movie you may never have otherwise seen, with a few hundred other people who similarly had no idea that was the movie they would be watching. in a world of choice fatigue, it is a curious joy to have an evening of your time dictated and curated by others.

Nokia do well to be associated with the Secret Cinema organisation and movement. they also do well to screen a short movie at the event which, rather than being an ad, shows established artists revealing what they would do for 96 seconds. it's all in aid of promoting Nokia's mobile TV channel capsule 96 and it feels entirely in tune with the event.

if anything, Nokia could be doing more to create associations with the event… rather than getting an email revealing the location, how much more interesting and intriguing would it be to get content and clues direct to your phone. sophisticated flash-mobbing making the event even more engaging courtesy of Nokia.

thanks to Eva for the heads up on this, very appreciated. Secret Cinema was a joy to attend. get yourself along next month for a bit of mystery.

partisans queuing outside Hackney Empire

performers entertain before the movie starts

our compere for the evening

actors perform an iconic theme from the movie

Nokia's trailer for Capsule 96

performing a piece from the opera featured in the movie

a silent movie short

after all the teasing, the big reveal…

content creating, designing, engaging, experiencing, gaming, social networking, user-generating

What brands can learn from Superstruct’s invitation to fix the future

you are officially invited to create and explore the world in 2019. but be warned, it's not going to be pretty. the Institute For The Future has developed Superstruct, an ARG that aims – with a massive number of players' help – to chronicle the dark future they predict for us, then help them fix it.

"With Superstruct IFTF introduces a revolutionary new forecasting tool:
Massively Multiplayer Forecasting Games (MMFGs). MMFGs are
collaborative, open source simulations of a possible future. Each MMFG
focuses on a unique set of “future parameters,” which we cull from
IFTF’s forecast research. These parameters define a future scenario: a
specific combination of transformative events, technologies,
discoveries and social phenomenon that are likely to develop in the
next 10 to 25 years. We then open up the future to the public, so that
players can document their personal reactions to the scenario."

its a fascinating concept. taking the ARG to the next level and using Surowiecki's Wisdom of Crowds to capture and identify our most likely (and most successful) responses to multiple 21st Century threats. you can join the simulation and watch videos outlining the 'superthreats' we face on the Superstruct website.

brands could learn a lot from this endeavour. at it's most basic, the IFTF – thru Superstruct – is encouraging a community of people to engage with an idea. that isn't a million miles from what most advertisers want people to do – only they generally use advertising to convey the idea. and are then a bit vague about how people can get involved; other than buy stuff of course.

but if a brand really wanted to break the mold. if a marketing team really wanted to explore and communicate something in which they believed by creating a platform thru which a community of people could genuinely engage with the idea, the brand and each other… they could. think how much more powerful M&S's Plan A campaign would have been if they had engaged with a massive community of people to explore ways to make sure we didn't have to resort to plan b. think how much more traction you could get by using media to communicate the project and report its progress.

the risks are huge. you have to be radically transparent; but most brands have to be radically transparent already. if you get it wrong no one will care; but if you get it wrong now people can filter your messages out. you have to be hyper-creative; but creativity has never been more important. you have to rely on people pro-actively and constructively contributing to the platform; but people demonstrate time and time again that this is something they're increasingly comfortable doing.

and if the risks are huge, the rewards are greater. get it right and you not only engage an audience in something your brand stands for, but your brand may even make a bit of a difference… as well as creating affinity and customer value – and therefore revenues – on the way…

content creating, experiencing, innovating

How Diesel brought together art, fashion, performance and media by taking Holograms to the next level

at a time when its not always enough for brands to engage us with their ideas or imagery, it's no surprise we're seeing a host of alternatives to 'broadcast adverts' being explored. everything from events and experiences to content and applications are being developed to communicate with us on our – rather than brands' – terms.

in this context, where it has become the convention to be unconventional, an arms race inevitably develops: no one does events as well as Nike, or experiences as well as O2 etc. brands can be at best nervous and at worst avoid completely exploring such territory.

not Diesel. the above video is of their Spring/Summer 08 catwalk show in June at the Pitti Immagine Uomo fair in Florence. the brand brought brought together Barcelona animation studio Dvein (GGI visual effects and 3D animations) and Danish multi-media production agency Vizoo (technology) for the show, neither of whom had previously worked
on anything like this before.

the result is spectacular – a ground-breaking event, experience and subsequently content all rolled into one. as the CR blog post puts it "a perfect blend of cutting edge digital art and performance."

many brands would have stopped there, but Diesel took the crucial next step of maximising their investment by telling people about it. there's a marketing rule of thumb that for every pound you spend investing in an asset you should spent between one and three pounds telling people about it. of course as user-distribution (YouTube etc) develops these economies change, but Diesel still found time to make and deploy the little effort below.

by encouraging people to visit diesel.com to experience the holograms as they happened, the brand blended old and new world media (almost) as seamlessly as they blended live models and holographic sea creatures.

content creating, experiencing

How Fraser and Rik came Back From The Future and did a bit of cultural remixing on the way

so here's a video of the lovely Fraser and Rik performing at the Fringe this year. I'm posting because its actually a great example of cultural remix; of users re-appropriating broadcast brands in a new context.

I wrote back in November a post about the evolving ecology of TV and how it had to learn to sit in peace alongside its new user-generated siblings. at the time I commented that:

"both [corporate and user-generated content] are entertaining, and both have their place in the new TV
ecology. it's notable that DoomBlake's recreative remix is
entertaining because of the original context as defined by
Lucas's commercial creative vision [of Star Wars]. these content siblings need each
other – one as source material, and the other as a way to stay
contemporary in a changing world"

I kinda think that in their own unique way, Fraser and Rik in coming Back From The Future are doing their own little bit for the future of communications…

ad funded programming, advertising, branding, content creating, experiencing, planning, regulating, viewing

Transparency; how Mother’s Pot Noodle has it and MG OMD’s Beat: Life on the Street doesn’t

on a visit to Edinburgh's Fringe Festival this weekend Mediation was lucky enough to catch a performance of Pot Noodle: The Musical. created by Mother Vision, the show is a surreal and entertaining hour long advert for Pot Noodle – and it doesn't really pretend to be anything else. in fact its quite clear on the matter… its an ad. it knows it is. its written in the script.

I couldn't help but contrast this to the recent discussion and debate there's been around MG OMD's AFP for the Home Office. Beat: Life on the Street was a Sunday night show first broadcast last year on ITV. the show is now reportedly being investigated by Ofcom amid concerns it broke the broadcasting code requiring that programmes "must not influence the content and/or scheduling of a channel or
programme in such a way as to impair the responsibility and editorial
independence of the broadcaster".

so what we have here are two very different bits of content, each designed to form part of the brand narrative for two very different organisations. but whereas one has (at the time of writing) a two and a bit star rating on the Fringe website, the other is being investigated by the regulator. what sent them in such different directions?

well… what divides them is transparency. Pot Noodle's musical has it, and Beat: Life on the Street just doesn't.

you can't make a programme that's funded by the Government and which is specifically designed to change people's perceptions of a state organisation and not tell people thats what it is and what its trying to do. that's not smart media planning, its propaganda.

what's such a shame is the strategy from MG OMD is great. in a video on the site, Head of Strategy Jon Gittings comments that the aim of the the programme was to amplify the real experience the public has with PCSOs, to:

"use communication to recreate [the] direct content that would then go on to increase value [of PCSOs] … we would create virtual experiences that bring PCSOs and the community together"

thats great thinking. de-branding it is not. brands have to be explicit about their intent. whether you make noodle snacks or uphold the law, you have to protect your integrity. say what you like about Pot Noodle making a musical, they were up front about what they were doing…

as one comment on the Fringe site notes: "I doubt that i'll ever be convinced that branded shows at Edinburgh are
a good thing but i struggle to criticise when i'm entertained as such".

well I doubt that I'll ever need convincing that smart relevant content creation – including AFP – can play a part on many a schedule; but I'll sure as hell won't struggle to criticise it when brands and (worse) their agencies think they can do so without being honest about the communications' intent.

———-

supplemental:
thanks to Phil who pointed me in the direction of a BBC report on Pot Noodle which includes an interview with the creatives from Mother who devised the thing…

engaging, experiencing

Seeing beyond the Stunt…

thanks to Jonathan Pearson for this link… over 200 people freeze in place on cue in Grand Central Station in New York. what’s great about this isn’t just that it’s a simple, elegant example of how drama can be created in public spaces; but rather the response it got from the bystanders in and around the station… not only were they intrigued throughout the stunt but gave spontaneous applause at the end.

they didn’t know why they were clapping and cheering, they just knew they’d witnessed something different, amusing and out of the (all too) ordinary. it would be great to see this kind of sponteneity incorporated into comms planning – in previous posts I’ve talked about how we should be encouraging consumers to join the dots for themsleves, by creating what JJ Abrams calls Mystery Boxes…

I can’t imagine a better mystery box than the one in the above video… why did they freeze? what’s going on? what happens next? will they do it again? the answer in the above case was that it was for art and art alone, but if it could be harnessed as a means of engaging consumers with a brand idea, it could become very powerful indeed…

I think things like this are all too often dismissed as stunts. and yes a stunt it undoubtedly is, but when incorporated into a multi-media (transmedia) campaign, it could potentially be a great deal more. what’s lacking are not better stunts, but the imagination to build such events into campaigns in intriguing and relevant ways.

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negotiating the future of media and communications

Category Archives: experiencing