Open to Everyone

It’s official - we are Mac monkeys!

The evidence is here. Featured are Stuart, Sarah, Sally and Darren who all competently operate a computer for their weekly bananas. 

Check out how you would look as a chimp, a different ethnic race, or even a painted masterpiece at: 

http://morph.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Transformer

Social Media shouting results in a Wispa

Yesterday (20 Aug 2008) the Telegraph reported that Cadbury is to bring back the Wispa chocolate bar after a trial period last year and social media sites like Facebook and MySpace set up groups to campaign for its relaunch.

The thousands of members of these groups, plus home-made broadcasts on sites such as YouTube have prompted Cadbury to make an inital run of 23 million bars from October to give the internet a chance to prove itself and to see whether the buzz created is all hype or genuine interest.

Darren, for sure, will be in the pleased to see the ‘bite it and believe it’ bar back in his local store!

The birds II?

Some of us got a bit scared this evening and began thinking that they must be filming the remake of The Birds (which is due out next year and will no doubt be even better than the original - why can't they just leave things alone?) near by.

Men aren't great with pain

It's always refreshing when a household brand pushes the boundaries in advertising. Well done to Philips for breaking the 'gender laws' with their campaign for the Satinelle epilator.

It's nice when people say nice things...

Here's a recent piece from Design Week that looks at some of the work we've recently produced on behalf of, and in conjunction with, one of the UK's fastest growing supermarkets, Netto.

Holitigue and other new words...

The annual battle between the Chambers dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary is well underway with the announcement back in June that the OED to include the term 'credit crunch' and in yesterday's Telegraph the Chambers edition fought back.

Along with 'credit crunch', 'postcode lottery', 'Hips' and 'Eco-Village' have made the grade. It makes you wonder what new and alternative meanings would graduate from use here at Public into the wider world.

As a starter for ten the picture on the left is a scan taken from an old Esquire magazine that has some brilliant suggestions.

Another perspective on 'Joined up thinking'

The earlier article on this got me trawling round inside the seldom used, cobweb-filled, corners of my brain and I managed to recall this gem from 'Dialogue and the art of thinking together' by William Issacs. It builds on the 'Four-Player System' developed by David Kantor, an American system psychologist and business strategist. It demonstrates real collaborative thinking in teams.

In any productive group the following 4 roles should all be in play:

Mover

Without movers there is no direction

Opposer

Without opposers there is no correction

Follower

Without followers there is no completion

Bystander

Without bystanders there is no perspective

All roles do not need to be in play at the same time but need to have been played before the thinking concludes...

It's easy to see how this becomes applicable to the creative process in the delivery of an all-rounded creative solution.

Darren Price

First posting... 3,2,1.... Blog's Away!

So I start this, my inaugural blog post with some trepidation maybe even wanting to keep this post a secret until I felt I actually knew what it was that I was going to profess! The perfectionist in me wanted it to be artistic, witty or unique enough before I announced to the Public world (no pun intended) that I had joined the blogging community. So with this post i’m now on a mission to get the agency blogging, to put down thoughts and ramblings, to bestow nuggets of creative genius upon us all, to profess trends, share pearls of wisdom and to create a personality that is uniquely us, that shows the world who we are, how we tick and how we embrace the powers of social media.

Now here’s the point of the blog (also known as the ‘rant’)...I also believe that companies who don’t understand the power of social media and the reviews that are posted on a forum could potentially be seeing their own world through rose tinted glasses. Take purchasing a television for example. All the ‘official’ reviews will tell you it has the best picture quality, amazing sound and killer styling, but dig around on a few forums and you’ll read a different story posted by owners of the particular model you may be considering. These companies may see a decline in sales unless they acknowledge what is said, respond to changing customer needs and trends, and may even ultimately see their product offering lose its appeal and relevance in today’s marketplace. 

Just because these company big-wigs don’t have time to read the blogs themselves, it doesn’t mean their prospective customers aren’t aware of what their peers are saying, nor does it mean that we should ever underestimate the power of The Blog!

Darren Price

The importance of joined up thinking

Very often people think that integrated means joining the dots between planning, creative and PR but the best know that it means including the media team too.

By bringing in your media specialists from the start you can work to create campaigns that are as impactful as this. It just shows the importance of and the effect of, being aware where, when and how people will view it. By looking beyond pen and paper and trying to create an experience not just an ad the campaign can really hit home.

Getting the balance right

Following a few conversations about a recent study that showed the clear benefits of gettting out and about at lunchtime, this piece in today's Guardian G2 goes on to praise the fine art of "faffing".

Whilst the piece probably goes too far (it is after all written by the editor of The Idler - which is a fine magazine but whose colours are firmly nailed to the mast) it does make you consider just how important  getting the balance right between working hard and ensuring you also take time to think and therefore maybe do a better job all round.

It's certainly worth a quick pause in the daily routine to consider.