I've been dipping into Regine's blog http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/ on and off for years, so it was great to see her speaking live.  I think she took the prize for the most "way out there" presentation, not sure how it relates to day-to-day marketing but it was fascinating none the less.  Regina started her blog focusing on use of digital technology in art; but now she's bored with that so has branched it off to focus on bio-technology, which was the focus of her talk. 

• Manipulating the body is an extension of things we do already... tightlacing, plastic surgery, laser surgery, tattoos, prosthetic limbs....  What's coming next?  Example of people who have implanted magnets under their finger to try and get a 6th sense / ability to feel electromagnetic waves
• The Victimless Leather Jacket... a miniature leather jacket grown by some artist out of human & cow cells....an example of something that is "semi living"... How will we relate to such things in future when they come out of the lab?
• Nanotopia - growing stem cells on our own bodies... Futurefarm... an extension of trade in body parts that is already occurring?  Might lead to new class distinctions, people who can afford to buy things grown for them by others???
  
• Next generation memento mori... eg: in victorian times people used to wear lockets with locks of hair of dead loved ones... in 21st century perhaps we'll have a similar thing except that it'll be semi-living/grown from cells of deceased???  (this of all the things she showed us freaked me out the most)
• Disembodied cuision - meat grown in petri dishes.  They had an exhibition last year in Paris where had a meal of this... Seems odd to us now, but in 1970's France people refused to buy supermarket plastic wrapped meat and yet now they all do, so perhaps we'll change too
• "This time, scientists have more imagination than artists"... what's happening in labs is mysterious, by the time it gets out it might be too late to say it's not what we wanted.  The role of artists is to raises awareness of what's going on. 
  

PANEL:  The marketing gap in green

(sorry no photo for this one, they were all too blurry)

This panel ended up being up being a general discussion about the notion of "green" marketing and what it meant, what the challenges were, etc. 

Karen Fraser (Ethical Index & the Fraser Consultancy) - moderator

• Envision a future where consumers are able to specify their ethical/sustainable preferences in what they buy - more subtle than boycotts
• One third of people talk about ethical issues surrounding brands with their friends
  

John Grant (BrandTarot)

• 4 out of top 5 "eco-unfriendly" brands named in recent survey were aviation... Aviation is this summer's 4x4
• Green marketing isn't about creating green brands. 
  
• Green issue isn't going to go away if there's a recession; the same as health issues for people don't go away.  But a lot depends on the media and how much they choose to maintain focus. 
  
• Job of designers & marketers is to create an intuitive connection & positivity around things that today are awkward - to break through and overcome fundamental myths that are preventing take-up of some solutions (eg: composting toilets, methane fuelled power)
• At the moment, "green" is in the equivalent clumsy stage of digital in 1995... Green is also like digital in that it's a pervasive issue
• Sustainability programmes in companies don't always have to be only for altruistic reasons - eg: GE does it to force the pace of regulation on standards etc and thus drive out their competition
• "Gcommerce" - eg: Freecycle.  Working with an insurance company on developing a system where people could lend each other good they don't need that often (eg: power drill)
  
• "Local" is going to be a big issue for supermarkets in the next year or two.  Now we have the technology to make local as efficient as mass production.  Also, Water will be the next big ussue not only because of toxicity but also because it's most likely to start wars
• News Corporation is a great example of an organisation being transformed - giving lightbulbs to offset; now championing no power standby
  
• Re:  what should agencies do? --- he can't see green being part of a mainstream agency, there's a need for breakaways, just as happened with digital
  

Diana Verde Nieto (Clownfish)

• Green isn't about charity, it's economic.  Greener brands are helping to edit choice
• Technology is part of the problem because of the cost of energy in connecting to the internet
• Communications agencies should be mediators, getting client marketing departments to talk to their CSR departments
• Eg: of Ariel 30... didn't change the product at all, just promoted washing it at 30 degrees which saves a lot of energy
• Carbon footprint is the big issue now; Water toxicity is the next big issue
• She hates carbon offsetting calling it the "morning after pill of environmentalism"
  
• Re:  what should agencies do? --- teamwork (talk to NGO's etc)
  

 Tamara Giltsoff (OZObrand)

• Green marketing isn't a trend, it's moving to a sustainable new approach to doing business
• You can't decouple environmental issues from social change because you're affecting the way people live, eat, etc. 
  
• "Conspicuous organics" - people who don't always go organic but do for dinner parties
  
• Not everything has to be about selling new "product"... there is also room for innovation in service; "see the world through a service paradigm". 
  
• Look behind any product, where can you express values throughout?  How do brands make it tangible, how do they show they're making these decisions?
• Most of public aren't thinking "how can I do better", more "I'm feeling a bit guity - do whatever you can to make me not feel bad"...   What's needed is reframing - not about making less guilty, more just a "nicer and better way"
• Agrees with John that News Corp are a great example... BSkyB were years ahead on their corporate framework, so now in good position to focus on the consumer side. 
  
• Re:  what should agencies do? --- Don't treat it as special interest, that's why the environmental movement failed.  Nobody is an expert, what's needed is naivety to fuel innovation
  

There was also an interesting comment from someone in the audience... legislation is part of the problem.  eg:  Can't call something whisky unless it's bottled in Scotland, means that there's a lot of extra shipping costs from Chinese whisky makers just to ensure that that requirement is met


25 signals for change
Niku Banaie (Naked)




Niku is an old friend so I was looking forward to seeing him present and he didn't disappoint.  He opened with a lovely story about his grandfather who was one of the leading innovators in pinball type games... and an inspiration to "see opportunities in people's very simple needs".  So the presentation was structured around these needs...

Need for love: 

• "where's the love in our connected world"?  Lack of intimacy... there's something fundamentally missing or reforming in these connections
  
• Americans becoming lonlier - eg: Gabe Henderson shutting down MySpace account because of 'superficial emptiness'
• Eg's: 5 minute friend; Guardian soulmates the most traffic to entire guardian site; Hug t-shirt letting you send vibrations via bluetooth
  

Need to learn:

• "Living in open source times - sharing is best"
• Eg's: MIT Open Courseware (now anyone can access MIT course materials), FabLab (travelling lab to poor countries to let them make the tools they need), ExpoTV (video opinions about products), Instructables (sharing how to make things), Crowdstorm (social shopping, products go to top based on buzz), Disaffected game
  

Need to give back:

• "Grow your own future"
• Eg's: waiting lists for allotments; Patagonia (get out of jail free card for environmental activism), KIVA (invest in entrepreneurs in developing countries via a direct connection), Freecycle
  

Need for simplicity:

• "We've just got too much to deal with"... we've got full lives but becoming uncomfortably full
• "Impatient generation"
• Eg:  Google/Craigslist (interface makes more appear less); Sugar GUI for $100 laptop for kids who've never seen a PC before
  
• Laws of Simplicity SHE - Shrink, Hide (complexity), Embody (add sense of values) ...   eg:  Technology that disappears: WiFi umbrella that glows when the forecast is for rain
• Some things are dreadful though (Flexpets); mustn't forget the emotional and social aspects

Need for play:

• "Don't think like adults"... reframing products to be used in different ways
• Eg: climbing wall in Japan which has bricabrac, old picture frames, etc on it; DutchTub that's a BBQ and a hottub;  Mii - Mii's on parade

How digital media screwed the media business
Mike Butcher




This presentation felt a bit like him reading out an article, so I hope he turns it into one if he hasn't already.  :-)   He made some interesting anologies and points, including:

• Spoke at the beginning about industrial revolution uprisings and how the initial ones (eg: Pentridge uprising of 300 people) failed because people didn't have ways to communicate and organise fast.  Then the printing press was developed leading to Pamphlets which were read out to people in reading groups... a cheaper, faster means for information exchange & social discourse, with the result that 60k people turned up at Peterloo protest.  Now that enough people are online we have "Digital Pamphlets", blogs etc which is yet another improvement in making cheaper/faster
  
  

• Classified ads are becoming self organising - eg: craigslist, freecycle, facebook marketplace
• Not only Google going after traditional classified market of newspapers, but new startups- Nestoria, wayn etc. 
  
  
• Old media is growing but not leading anymore.  Old media does not have a god given right to survive, it has to earn it's audience... BUT politics and culture are always better when people are infomed...  ???Is the future smaller publishing houses / A-list bloggers being distributed via new old media incarnations???
• Nice chart showing falling revenues from traditional media (line on top sloping down) and rising revenues of new media (line underneath sloping up), with a Black Hole where the two meet, because no-one knows yet whether new media revs will be enough to offset losses from old
  

PANEL:  Turning trends into insights






This was a kind of weird panel which sometimes felt a bit academic (discussion of how things were defined), but it was still interesting.  Personally I thought Beeker captured it best with her point about it being alchemy... I think that's why they were struggling to be practical & specific in terms of how you actually DO it. 


Steven Overman (Lowe Worldwide) - moderator

• Trends/insights are only useful if they jive with the culture of the company we're working with.  Idea of "wine cellar" - any idea that the client isn't ready for, put away to mature
• Be careful not to use terms that encourage ivory tower thinking
  
• Bringing a trend to life for a client isn't usually about telling them something they've never known, just something they've not thought of/noticed/understood meaning of before
  

Faris Yakob (Naked)

• Re:  what is a trend? --- trends mean patterns, consistent movements... but also can mean fashion/fads.  Lifespan of trends depends on how you define
• Re:  what is an insight? --- insights have become a strategic currency to justify recommendations. 
  
• Re:  how to make an insight inspiring? --- Less now about coming up with linguistic expression because have so many other tools to express it - illustration, demo'ing, etc.  Language narrows down meaning, focuses... vs insights are about the reverse, about sparking ideas...  
  
• If it's an awkward thing to communicate can use humour to take the sting out of it (eg: Jon Steel pitching to Porsche using cartoon showing guy saying "what an asshole")
  

Beeker Northam (Bloom)

• Re:  what is a trend? --- trends mean patterns of human behaviour
• Re:  what is an insight? --- Insights are a way of looking, revealing some kind of fundamental truth.  But in advertising sense it has sometimes got confused.  There's a difference between insights that are observations vs those that are exponentially powerful.  If there's an insight it's a platform, a fuel for creativity... 
  
• "It's like alchemy - there's a difference between knowing something and creating something out of it"
  
• It's dangerous to think of insights as "truths", because they can be just different ways of looking at something that's attractive/gives you a fresh perspective
  

• Re:  how to make an insight inspiring? --- Less wordsmithing.  The more you can give hooks, sparks (not random but selected discriminatingly) as stimulus the better

Simon Sinek (Sinek Partners)

• Re:  what is a trend? --- Trend spotting is a dangerous idea because trends are an observation - but who decides the meaning?  Key is to start with a trend and find meaning... if you know your values/purpose then it give you a filter - and then trendspotting is valuable. 
  
• Re:  what is an insight?  --- Insight used to be clear, it is Meaning.  BUt now it's bandied round and confused, just like the word 'brand' has been... Insight is only found by analysis (of observations)
• There are only 2 ways to influence human behaviour - manipulate or inspire.  Manipulation has only short term value (eg: price cuts, promise of something)...  Inspiration is the only way to influence long-term (eg: Martin Luther King rally relied on inspiring people to spread date & purpose of march by WOM).  "Products that change industries are the companies that inspire"
  

How to build innovation into a brand
Jeremy Ettinghausen (Penguin)




He talked about how Penguin have managed to revolutionise their approach to marketing over the past few years.  I found it interesting, not least because I couldn't figure out why as a consumer I'd never bumped into the campaigns he talked about (I'm sure it was in the marketing press but I don't read that).  I love books, read avidly, and have fond memories of Penguin brand... perhaps I missed it 'cos I'm not in their target group?  Hmmmm... or maybe my problem is that these days I shop for books almost exclusively at Amazon or airports.  :-)  Anyway, I digress, here are my notes:

• Previously marketers at Penguin were only implementing decisions made by others.  Now marketing is at the heart of the publishing process; "marketing sets the table". 
  
• History - Penguin started advertising Penguin brand in early 00's "Love Letters", "Be Here", "Anything Elise is a waste of paper", "Read more" campaigns.  In 2003 appointed firt creative director and got research that said despite the advertising Penguin brand was still seen as dusty, old-fashioned, worthy. 
  
• In 2004: "good booking" campaign (with books sold to guys as a kind of pickup line).  PR was huge but not all good, and noticed the emergence of literary blogosphere critique.  General sense that Books are not sexy enough to the "FaceTube generation" - you can't have a conversation with them, they're too linear...
  
• In 2005:  building off success of audio books launched ReMix competition, with classic lines from books being made available for people to mashup... Best ones put on an iTunes album.  Also Penguin Podcasts - social marketing.  
  
• Now... active in Second Life for over a year, meeting with authors etc. Blogging.  Videos on Youtube.  "Working hard to make the product do the marketing"... "Rarely buy advertising space at the side of Hammersmith flyover anymore"
• 60th anniversary Penguin Classics - did have a traditional campaign but also Ambient hoarding, Classic reading at Fruitstock, Designer Classics with Paul Smith. 
  
• My Penguin - books with blank white covers for people to decorate themselves and give as gifts; photos of covers uploaded to Flickr
• Dream Eaters - published online in installment form before book released
• Penguin are about "enabling conversations about books, authors and stories"... "Not quite sure where the journey is going yet"

Alternative reality games
Dan Hon (Mind Candy)





I've long had a soft spot for this kind of thing ever since my days of playing Majestic.  For many in the audience though, I think the concept of ARG was new, and certainly I didn't realise that it was as advanced in the UK as what it seemed to be with these guys.  Going to try and get them to come in to present in a Brown Bag Lunch...

• Alternative Reality Games (ARGs) are a platform to tell engaging stories.  "It's all about creating experiences that give very good effective suspension of disbelief"... kicking off in similar feeling to Michael Douglas in The Game, or Keanu in The Matrix (get a thing in strange package & suddenly it starts...)
  
• There are no controls you have to learn - it's role-playing yourself doing things you already do; and it gets you out into the world
• Most games also run live events - eg: 30k participants in recent game run co-branded with BBC at the music festival in Preston
• War of Worlds - Orson Welles radio play - the first ARG??   showed how much entertainment can move you if you believe it's real
  
• Recent examples of ARGs:  Lost game, Heroes 360, AI The Beast, Microsoft Halo2...
  
• 9 inch nails Year Zero... when you play CD it heats up and when you take it out the heat sensitive ink printed on it reveals a special message that takes you into the game.  For Trent, it's not only about the music anymore, he's communicating his ideas in other formats too. 
  
• Immersion breeds passion - narrative builds ties...  Eg:  players who handfolded paper cranes imitating a japanese ritual to commemorate death of a character.   "Our players are very very driven... and sometimes a bit psychotic!"
• "Our audience lives eats and breathes Web 2.0" - Eg: they built a Wiki to track the story; they created a google map, they even collaborated to write a book that was printed on demand in order to pass a hurdle in the game.  Right now they've built a system to crack a military code that would ordinarily need a supercomputer for, by running it across thousands of computers worldwide
• Perplex City stats:  40% UK, 40% US, rest english language markets;  50/50 almost 60/40 gender split in favour of women - think this is because it's got such a strong story, it's like following a soap opera.  Average age 26 but ranges 14-70.  Audience funnel:  a small cadre who are seriously engaged and do everything, with larger majority who follow along on blogs etc
• Learning a lot from TV - how to cope with people coming in half way through (eg: short video recaps); doesn't have to end on a bad note provided it's written well. 
  
• Marketing opportunities "Product placement on crack" ... opportunities to showcase products within the story... opportunities to require people to interact with products in order to progress story (so great if require you to learn to use a new feature on mobile phone for eg).  Driving foot traffic... eg: flashmobs to a retail store... Driving click traffic... they follow every link in depth
  

10 reasons why digital is better than advertising
Iain Tait (Poke)




His presentation grew out of a series of blog posts from March/April this year.  I really enjoyed it.  It was also quite amusing how he kicked it off...  "I don't hate advertising... some of my best friends are in advertising" being the language of racism (!!)...  "One day little digital children and little advertising children will play together"...  

Rather than attempt to badly rewrite his presentation, here are the points he made and links to his original blog posts

1. We don't have to do advertising
   http://www.crackunit.com/2007/03/26/10-reasons-why-digital-is-better-than-advertising-number-1/
   
   
2. You can just do things
   http://www.crackunit.com/2007/03/27/10-reasons-why-digital-is-better-than-advertising-number-2/
   
   
3. A 'just do it' culture of entrepreneurialism
   "The great thing about the web is you can fail fast and you can fail cheap"
   http://www.crackunit.com/2007/03/28/10-reasons-why-digital-is-better-than-advertising-number-3/
   
   
4. Egos are marginally smaller - we know what we don't know and look to collaborate when we need
   http://www.crackunit.com/2007/03/29/10-reasons-why-digital-is-better-than-advertising-number-4/
   
   
5. Online audiences are great - rude, opinionated, stupid, fickle, smart, informed, inspirational, loyal...    Instant feedback...  They know way more than we do...
   http://www.crackunit.com/2007/04/10/10-reasons-why-digital-is-better-than-advertising-number-8/
   
   
6. I want to be an inventor ... "can create something new every day"
   http://www.crackunit.com/2007/04/24/10-reasons-why-digital-is-better-than-advertising-number-9/
   
   
7. There's less to lose
   http://www.crackunit.com/2007/04/02/10-reasons-why-digital-is-better-than-advertising-number-6/
   
   
8. You don't have to work somewhere with blokes surnames on the door... not locked into old structures
   http://www.crackunit.com/2007/04/03/10-reasons-why-digital-is-better-than-advertising-number-7/
   
   
9. Working with people who properly LIVE in the digital world.  "The internet is not a specimen jar"... you can't understand it without immersing yourself in it.  Sidenote:  impressive stat he threw out that 1/2 people at Poke blog.  Vs at traditional agency is more likely less than 1/2 people even read blogs let alone write them.  Says it all really.
   http://www.crackunit.com/2007/04/24/10-reasons-why-digital-is-better-than-advertising-number-10/
   
   
10. Rules are changing every day   (this wasn't in his original list of 10 but is self explanatory)
    

PANEL:  Can planners really be the new creatives?





This was quite weird for me to listen to, given that I consider myself neither a planner nor a creative...  I couldn't help but get the sense that it was arguing over boxes when frankly we should just chuck the boxes out and get on with the work.  Anyway...   I jotted down a couple of points. 

Jessica Greenwood (Contagious) - moderator: 

• She didn't really do a spiel herself, it was focused on the panel.  But it was interesting, she asked people in the audience to put up their hands if they were a planner or a creative.  Of those who were one or the other it seemed about 2/3rd planners, butI'd say at least 60% of the audience were neither.  So it was an interesting mix.  Sad thing though, when she asked if there were any planners from traditional agencies, no-one stuck up their hand. 
  

There were four people on the panel:  Amelia Torode (VCCP), Flo Heiss (Dare), Liz ??? (Profero) and Harry Fowler (MajorPlayers).  Unfortunately my notes are such that I can't remember who said what anymore.  Here are a couple of quotes that came up during the discussion:

• It used to be planners told creatives what pitch to play on... now "planner tells creative what game to play, on what football pitch"
• "Good planners have always been creatively minded... Good creatives have always been able to generate insights"
• "For digital, don't have to go to Art School to be a Creative Director"
• A good idea can come from anywhere but needs to be the right kind of idea for the business problem - so need the knowledge/consumer focus... and that's what planners bring. 
  
• "Ultimately the clients own the idea - they don't need an agency to tell them"
• "The sooner we recognise it's one world and work together the better" ... in context of coming together of digital & traditional
• There was a side discussion about the crazy "Is blogging killing planning" debate at IPA where the arguments made were that people shouldn't be sharing insights as it was 'proprietary', people had no right to position as experts. etc.   But creatives have always shared... good ideas spark other ideas.  "Best planners are those who illuminate and share ideas" ... 

Wine 2.0
Hugh MacLeod




I'm a big Hugh MacLeod fan, have read his blog http://www.gapingvoid.com for years.  So it was a treat to hear him speak, I'd not expected him to be quite so, um, energetic... literally running round the room.  Nor did I anticipate the decidedly American twang to his voice.   But it was really cool.  His talk was basically about what he's done since quitting Leo Burnett years back... blog for savile row tailor that tripled business in 6 months, and most recently the Stormhoek winery in South Africa which he's managed to turn into the "unofficial cult wine of silicon valley" etc.  I'm sure would have been great for those who don't read his blog, but because I do, I didn't take many notes as I'd heard most of it before.  But there were a couple of points that I jotted down:

• Concept of Stormhoek as being a "social object" vs the production paradigm.  Social object = something that people can gather around... http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/003087.html
  
• "Blog marketing is very disruptive - so please understand what it is you're trying to disrupt"
• "What makes a product interesting is the heart & soul in what makes it live... it's not just the molecules"
  

Seriously, if you don't already, go read Hugh's blog.  My favourite posts:
http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/002843.html
http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000823.html
and of course http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html



Visual business
Martin Cole (WPP)



So, the whole day was great and I enjoyed every session - the first conference I've been at EVER where this was the case.  But for me personally, this was my favourite session.  It was like looking at something from a totally different angle.  (Then again, I don't get to work with so-called "creatives" very much so perhaps that's why I liked it).  Also, I liked the fact that it felt recently hatched, an idea still being polished round the edges.  Anyway, here's what I jotted down. 

• He recently made a documentary for Channel 4 called "In search of cool".  I wish I'd seen it, but I googled and found this: http://wklondon.typepad.com/welcome_to_optimism/2006/10/the_search_for_.html
  
  
• "Clients have got their heads around what we do... that's why digital is so interesting, as they haven't yet so we can charge them for it"...   His presentation was about an idea he's still working through about a way of repositioning what it is that ad agencies are actually selling/doing.  Used the example of Kim Jones (fashion designer) who said that what he has which makes him worth paying is "visual taste"... a way of approach the world & looking at it; a way to make something appear cool. 
  

• He spent a while riffing about the history of how we got to a visual culture...  visual things (coins, rugs, wallpaintings...) among first sign of an emerging culture.  In the distant past it used to be an uncommon necessity (eg money) or a luxury.  But starting in Victorian era it began to shift....  Vicoriana; fairs/freakshows which were all about 'looking', Brunel bridges weren't just designed for function but also for beauty, etc.  Hindenberg disaster first simultaneous media event - first time a video of something that happened spread all over the world within (few days). 
  
  
• Today we have a visual culture...  Cities are profoundly visual environments & bulk of people live in cities... He did a nice graphic of how much of our wiorld is screen based.  eg: Days per year spent looking at a screen (for US).... TV 70 days.  For TV, cinema, games... 110 days.   How many screens per person (adding up all the TVs, mobiles, PCs in the world) ... by 2010 one screen each. 
  
  
• "Most people don't read the internet, they scan it.  They use it more like a picture than a book"
  
  
• Because we've got visual culture, we've got visual business.... the value of companies are tied to visual things... But we've got no visual businessmen!  Traditional approaches to business & even training (MBA) do nothing to develop your visual skills.  Businesses don't understand it themselves but starting to understand now that it has value for their business... Given that visual skills are at the heart of what creative agencies have, this is where can earn big $$$.    In Silicon Valley, companies are starting now "looking for Art Director type skills to be on their Boards"
  
  
• Eg's of beauty being key for business success:  Motorola Razor ; "Google wasn't successful because it had a better search technology; it was a beautiful interface"  (actually I disagree with him on this, I think it had and needed both)...    It used to be said that form follows function... but now this isn't necessarily true because people like using beautiful things.  Eg: research done in Japan and then again in Israel about ATMs.  One ATM was designed to be beautiful but not work very well, bad interface with things not lined up, too many clicks etc.  The other was designed to be ugly but work brilliantly.  In both studies in reality, people much preferred the beautiful one and thought it worked better! 
  

PANEL:  Change the world





Piers Fawkes (PSFK) was the moderator and he did a great job by asking questions rather than giving a spiel himself, so I'm afraid I don't have any points attributable to Piers... except to say thanks a lot to you and your team for organising a fabulous and inspiring day.  :-)    Here's what I jotted down from the others:

Johnny Vulkan (Anomaly): 

• "If you apply creativity to business it's amazing what you can achieve" - eg:  Hugh MacLeod
  
• At Anomaly only 1 client pays a conventional fee.  Everything else remuneration is based on success... creates a good dynamic - sense of partnership, less likely to splurge...
  
• "We don't need large organisations anymore - but they're not going to suddenly disappear"
• "Internet has made everything transparent... the only protection you really have is to be genuine and not be a dick"
• Brand is becoming a dirty word... It's a thin veneer pasted over a product... In this era of transparency brand is something that gets earnt, it's not something that marketers build
  

Stan Stalnaker (Hub Culture):

• "Traditional buy-sell model is changing... What's happening now is that demand is first and supply has to adapt to meet demand"...   Applies to ad agencies too - we don't make sausages or cars but we do "make desire"... Future will be about collaboration.  Web 2.0 is showing it's happening for consumers, but it's not happening in business yet. 
  
• "Whole world operates on three flows of information - news, WOM and marketing".. problem is marketing people aren't taking responsibility for what we do/advise... we don't price the externalities in. 
  
• Demand is exploding in the developing workd and there's not enough resources to go round.  Next 10-15 years there'll be food/water/commodity shortages so we need to figure out a way to consume less
  

George Parker (Madscam):

• Big Dumb Agencies (BDA's) all belong to publicly traded companies.  They have to report their numbers every 3 months or else get hurt by markets, thus they can't afford to operate like Anomaly (remuneration based on success) as that's not as reliably predictable in terms of growth. 
  
• Not all old agencies are bad though... eg: Goody Silverstein are 22 years old but have changed with the times
• "After the next nuclear holocaust there'll be cockroaches and ad people" (!!)
  

Russell Davies (OIA):

• "90% of agencies were always crap.  It's not like something's been changed by the arrival of the Internet"
• "Agencies are like car dealers, they got really rich in the 80's and don't know what to do next"
• "Marketing is a failed science...  Marketing used to provide the thought leadership in commerce for businesses, but now they're looking to designers & technologists as they're smarter/more open..."
• If I was in business I'd be thinking of advertising agencies "You have some elegant 2.0 theories, so please just go do something"
• "Everyone assumes everything is a subset of a marketing problem, and we';ll fix the world by fixing marketing.  That just isn't true"... There are things we can do, but shouldn't kid ourselves
• "There's a generation of people brought up in Planning who are just fed up of only thinking..."
• A lot of old models are based on concept that "someone else has ideas and then you present it to each other for a year"... based on old system where you needed to make it last a year because you got paid based on time taken. 
  
• "If you never said the word 'brand' again and said only product, company, reputation, things would get a lot clearer".  Referred to a South American blog AdStructure(?)  on which a key guy from old school of advertising admitted that 40 years of brand/marketing theory just doesn't work. 
  

And that's it.  It was a great day.  :-)

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