Forcing Ourselves To Slow Down

We all talk a good game about slowing down sometimes… taking the time to better examine what’s around us. For those of us in communications it’s often something we want our audience to do – to take the time to consider what we have to offer or to better consider what we are trying to communicate.    
            
Heiner Goebbels ‘Stifter’s Dinge’, now running at the P3 industrial space in London achieves what many crave – and perhaps gives some clues for communicators.

 

It’s an opportunity to meet the futures of music, theatre, performance and art installation, courtesy of Artangel (http://www.artangel.org.uk/). It’s a spellbinding blend of word, music and vision featuring five electronically programmed pianos and an extraordinary variety of digitally actuated sounds – from huge plastic pipes to plant containers and a supermarket bag. The natural world is explored – a forest of ice, rain on pools, the fizzing of life beneath the water’s surface.

 

It’s a triumph of the imagination and a must see for anyone fascinated by how experiential boundaries can be stretched. Described as a performance without performers by Goebbels, the pianos do make a gesture of appreciation to the audience as the piece ends.

 

Unmissable – and vividly memorable. ABD

Is There A New Bond Film?

CRICKET went to see the new Bond film ‘Skyfall’ last week. The cinema was packed… and the one we visited had been pretty solidly booked from opening night the previous weekend. Little wonder when you consider the omnipresence of advertising and publicity for the film. It seems like every newspaper has been reviewing, running Bond features and competitions; that every TV and radio talk show has interviewed the stars; and Bond specials are on every satellite and terrestrial channel. We’ve mocked up the Angling Times cover but we’re sure there were editorial meetings at both Angling Times and Crochet Monthly where supporting the movie with a feature was discussed…

So why have the media got behind this particular Bond film so wholeheartedly and is there such a thing as too much publicity? Does such an onslaught start to breed some sort of resentment amongst the public?

The answer to the first question is probably money and momentum. A new Bond in a Jubilympic year meant that the publicity machine started playing in earnest almost a year ago – and we reckon that much of that was telling trade partners that this would be big. And once that machine started everyone wanted a piece of the expected financial bonanza. So a clever bit of B2B strategy ahead of the B2C.

As to whether they over played their hand from a consumer perspective… well the numbers at the box office would probably suggest not. Skyfall had made £37.2m in the UK in its first seven days – to overtake previous record holder, the last instalment of the Harry Potter series. Skyfall is already 2012's third highest grossing movie and may now be on course to beat Avatar’s £93m for the highest-grossing film in UK cinemas of all time.

So a good UK result. But it was interesting that in talking last week to a Shanghai based client that he had seen very little publicity – strange for a film where one of the main action sequences is set in Shanghai, and a sequence that makes the city look pretty amazing. Perhaps Bond is after all an acquired taste. JS

When does being Customer Centric become digital stalking?

We are big buyers of music at CRICKET. We like independent record shops though when we’re busy Amazon becomes the default supplier. Yesterday the latest CD from Neil Young & Crazy Horse was released – a minority taste perhaps but each to their own. We also like a bit of analogue in our digital world, so late last night I re-visited Amazon to see when the limited edition triple vinyl edition was being released.

 

First thing this morning I followed a colleague’s link to the excellent Pursuitist website and a feature on the late Steve Jobs luxury yacht. I then noticed a bizarre coincidence - the pop up ad from Amazon was recommending the very same vinyl edition of the Neil Young album I’d looked at, but not bought, last night. Obviously this was no co-incidence – a minority vinyl edition from a minority musician that happened to be the last thing I looked at around 11pm on my iPad in the comfort of my home was now being promoted to me on a website I only visit in the office.

 

Clearly the Amazon cookies were busy through the night linking themselves not just to my private home computer but also to my office account… from where I order most Amazon things.

 

Dead Clever? Yes.

 

Customer centric? Maybe.

 

Smart business? No.

 

I don’t think I want to do business anymore with a retailer who is digitally stalking me. Without being over dramatic it feels like an invasion of privacy. When I buy a CD from the excellent bricks and mortar retailer Fopp I don’t come home to find an assistant hanging around outside my house with an armful of CD’s I might like. Just because digital technology enables Amazon to do the equivalent cheaply doesn’t mean it should do it.

 

We’ve talked often in these pages about the importance of managing every aspect of brand behaviour to match a company’s vision and values.

 

Amazon states: ‘Our vision is to be earth’s most customer centric company’. Making sure I’m only ever a click away from buying from Amazon may make good business sense but I’m not sure if it’s what we want.

 

When Jeff Bezos created Amazon, he said ‘If you make customers unhappy on the internet they can tell 6,000 friends’. I think they may be doing just the sort of thing that turns Brand Champions into Brand Terrorists. JS