Day Number Two!

Today was a hit and miss day. I chose to go to the first master class of the day and it was a bit of a bust.  It was put on by The Times and it was about using the Apple Tablet for the newspaper to allow updated content and better advertising.  Right now, people just ignore banner ads because they know that it means someone is trying to sell them something. They also said that it is hard to build brand with digital media which is interesting because most everyone thinks that digital is the new way to go with a campaign… food for thought.  Apparently the Tablet is considered a “lean back” medium whereas working on a regular computer is a “lean forward” medium.  This means that people are more relaxed when they are using their Tablet and are more likely to use it more often.  Two ways to utilize the Tablet are immersion, using beautiful films and visuals, and interaction, making advertising synonymous with applications.   With the Tablet there can be an added depth to the ad and every interaction can be measured.  This medium is flying very low under the radar and it will be interesting to see where it goes in the future.  All of this was said in the first 15-20 minutes of the master class. It is quite possible that other important points were made but I was unable to hear them due to the incessant chattering of three French men behind me throughout the whole class… all 20 minutes of it.  I suppose the speakers thought that more people would ask questions because it was supposed to last for an hour.  The Young Lions zone may not be the best place for those classes because it doesn’t help with not being able to hear the speaker…

                Next up was the Mindscapes workshop. I almost didn’t make it into this one which would have been very annoying because I tried to get there early and was told to come back at 12.30… which is when it was set to start. However it all worked out alright as I was one of the last 5 people let into the room.  I got a nice up close and person, if not entirely comfortable, view of the speaker because I went and sat on the floor in front of everyone J This lecture was about the rules behind breaking the creativity rules. Up first was the need to fight for a cause and the importance of the brand creating the platform for people to fight for their causes so that it becomes associated with the brand.  It doesn’t even face to be a real or serious cause, just something that people can understand and get behind.  Another point was to create a new product/service and because people interact with it, the core brand/message will be reinforced.  One example of this was when a concert hall had lagging ticket sales they played the music to cows and sold the milk.  Apparently different music causes the cows to produce different flavors of milk.  As a result, ticket sales went way up and they now make a profit by selling the milk.  Another thought process was to use an offline concept to promote online products.  Playstation did this by setting up Mr. Lee’s Tailor shop where people in Lisbon could get super hero or villain costumes made and it was to promote a new game.  I’m not a “gamer” so this was a little harder for me to follow and I’m assuming there was an online component to the game.  The main focus of the workshop was the principle of removal or sabotage.  Most people think that creativity means creating something where is can also mean the removal of something… I mean after all doesn’t creativity usually signify change?  A prime example of this is the “Whopper Sacrifice” on Facebook where you had to delete 10 Facebook friends in order to get a coupon for a free Whopper.  Or another one from BK called “Whopper Freak Out” where the workers at BK were instructed to tell people that that Whopper was no longer available.  As a result, the customers freaked out and their reactions were filmed J One might be asking what these “rules” are good for when rules cannot replace talent. This is very true but they can open the mind up to new possibilities and provide a clear direction of where to start looking for ideas. For the workshop part of the workshop I worked with a man from Saudi Arabia and a man from Kuwait. The exercise involved the promotion of an online dictionary and we had to apply the theory of sabotage or removal.  We came up with having the papers, both print and online, be blank for a day and on then filter the consumers to a website explaining that the native language is disappearing and to use the online dictionary for their native languages.  All of us in this workshop that I talked to agreed that this was a hard concept to figure out in ten minutes but I feel like my group gave it a decent shot. For more information, go to themindscapes.com.

                The awesome part about going to the workshop is that I met a delegate from Russia! I am very glad that this happened in person and that I was able to get some more useful insight than I was getting from the internet.  Apparently one of the big problems for Russian advertising in the corruption in the system which does not work out well for creative people and smaller agencies.  They also seem to be having a tough time transitioning to digital because of it.  He also said that the direction of advertising in Russia should be to move towards integrated campaigns and to establish two way communication between the brand and the consumer.  He is currently working on a Panasonic project where customers can go to a website and look up and share information and get credits that can be spent on the site for doing so.  The project also has a phone application where if you are out shopping and don’t know what to get you can input characteristics of the person and it will suggest a nearby Panasonic gift to get them.  Too bad France doesn’t have that for some of the people I’m trying to get gifts for!

                I hung out for a little bit and then the 2^nd half of the Microsoft group headed to the Microsoft experience center to check out what the company is working on.  I’m not a super technological person so some of it went a little over my head but one really good thing was the Samsung touch screen table.  It is like a huge touch screen computer that is very interactive and can read special bar code so it can see as well as feel.  They are going to be out on the market this year for a cool $7900… pocket change right?? It is being marketed towards companies where that amount of money is seen as an investment, not necessarily the average consumer…. Although I’m sure we’ll hear about someone not so average person getting one of the first ones.

                Last up for my day, and the first seminar, was the Act Responsive seminar.  This was definitely the best panel that I have attended yet.  Each member has a set speech and videos of their various campaigns to go with them.  Some key thoughts for creating effective public service announcements are to treat them like normal brands to actually cause change, to sell hope, to be positive, and to understand human behavior. They had many other amazing phrases and examples but that was basically the gist.  Sorry to cut this one short but I am exhausted! I need to hit the hay so I can be bright eyed in the morning J

xoxo

Kitty