now in colour | andy whitlock's grubby blog

May 10, 2011

Turning negatives into positives

Last week we posted a playful recruitment ad for a copywriter and we’ve been blown away by the response. (15,000 search results and 792 tweets in just a few days) I won’t bang on about it because it’s unattractive, but in social media terms it ‘went mental’.

When things ‘go mental’, they energise you and I’m excited to read the entries (we have 35 already), but it could have been a very different story.

When we found out Laura was leaving us, it totally demotivated us. It had taken ages to find her. We had already created and built a bespoke ad, gone through 30 applications and interviewed 8 people (two of them twice). And then she left after about 5 weeks.

The idea of going through all that again destroyed us. Or almost did.

I’m a firm believer that the smartest way to deal with negatives is to turn them into positives and this experience has cemented that belief. Negative energy is still energy. The question is what do you do with it. It reminds me of improv comedy. The cardinal rule is to keep things moving forward. No matter what happens around you, you have to go with it (if someone tells you you’re a transvestite who is sexually aroused by ice cream, then you are!) If you fight against it you arrive at a standstill. And standstills are the most demotivating of all.

Instead we find ourselves energised by the enthusiasm people have shown and we will interview the next batch of copywriters invigorated and excited.

leave a comment tagged: lessons, poke, ramblings

May 9, 2011

Early (learning) adopters

Ben once told me that kids’ toys are a good place to look to get a sense of what emerging technologies are about to get commercially interesting. If it appears in kids’ toys, it’s getting cheap enough to mass produce. And toys are about (often silly) fun, so an idea is likely to be approved faster here than in an arena with more serious intentions. Sifteo is a good example.
Reading Bill Bryson’s At Home yesterday (at home) I discovered that this isn’t such a new thought after all:

“In Central America, the Maya also independently invented the wheel but couldn’t think of any practical applications for it and so reserved it exclusively for children’s toys.”

Who knows how accurate that is, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

leave a comment tagged: interesting, technology

May 5, 2011

Obama stole our writer

We found a great copywriter. Then she went to work for Obama. So we’re on the look out again.

Books for dessert

Last night during dinner, my wife mentioned that when she was younger she automatically put salt and pepper on her food. (She no longer does) Three minutes later I owned a new book. Weird? Five years ago, yes. But not any more.

Her mentioning of salt and pepper reminded me of Bill Bryson’s new book At Home. I recalled a radio interview about the book, which looks to decode the meanings, designs, cultures and etiquette around details in the home. Like why, out of all the spices in the world, we have salt and pepper on the table?

“Why not pepper and cardamom, say, or salt and cinnamon?”

Good question, Bill.
To cut a long story short, I remembered that I wanted to read the book, reached over to my laptop (terrible manners, I know) and bought it for my Kindle. It was immediately sent to my device and the moment we finished dinner I read the first chapter.

It was one of those beautiful moments where I thought: I bloody love technology. I often have moments where the endless new possibilities frighten the hell out of me, but on this occasion, for all the complexity that lay behind the scenes, the experience I had was effortless and rewarding.

As technology seeps into the very smallest cracks between seemingly disconnected moments and actions, the more these moments become possible. Every mealtime conversation should result in owning a new book. Brilliant.

3 comments tagged: behaviour, ramblings, technology

April 29, 2011

Why we should pay attention

Comedian Mark Watson has written a good post about the Royal Wedding (capitals, right?) and why it’s important.

He compares ‘the attention given to events’ (how many people want to watch) with ‘the price paid for art’ (how much someone is willing to pay). Importantly, the first is plural and the second is singular. Because events are social – and therefore socially shaped.

On art:

“You and I would not pay half a million quid for a picture of a one-eyed woman even we had such money. But if someone will, as someone did at an auction in London recently, then it automatically becomes ‘worth’ half a million quid whether it’s bollocks or not.”

I once argued that it’s potentially in our interest to pay more for things – given that it also makes us value them more. Perhaps the same can be said for paying more attention to things. Anyway, Mark continues…

“For me, the importance of events isn’t intrinsic, but should be measured by their influence. You might think football is pointless, but if half a billion people watch the World Cup Final, then something massive has happened whether you like it or not.”

That’s the beauty of a socially curated world. A billion people can’t be wrong ;) Mark concludes:

“The Royal Wedding is worth the attention we collectively pay to it. And – again, whether you like it or not – that is a massive amount.”

Are you egg number 2?

Below is a video from our recent Predict-a-chick Easter experiment, in which we challenged people to predict which easter eggs would hatch first. As you can see, egg number 2, Benedict was most enthusiastic to greet the world.

POKE is now looking for its own Benedict. We’re looking for a junior planner, who is ready to work on some very exciting stuff; who is smart, hungry, pro-active and possibly covered in feathers.

They should ideally have about a year’s experience. They should be super keen to learn, comfortable getting their hands dirty with research and enthusiastically support a senior planner. If that sounds like you, get in touch at iwantajob@pokelondon.com. If it’s not you, I would appreciate any help you can give in spreading the word.

Yes, the chick metaphor is a bit weak. But, you know, I had a couple of drinks and it seemed like a good idea. It’ll give us something to talk about in the interview.

Should we?

Years ago, a popular question in marketing was ‘can we?’ Technologies were emerging more slowly than ideas. Now, of course, the answer to ‘can we?’ is always yes. The more important question is ‘should we?’ I’ll bet that question isn’t asked nearly enough.

2 comments tagged: ramblings

March 29, 2011

Boiled Frog Syndrome

Boiled Frog Syndrome is based on…

“the premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.”

I read about it in this book (which is excellent) but lazily took the description from Wikipedia. It’s a concept/metaphor I’ve come across a few times recently, although mostly never named. Watch this truly phenomenal ten-minute talk by Dan Gilbert in which he applies the boiling frog syndrome to global warming as well as explaining other reasons we’re rubbish at tackling the most threatening forces.

1 comment tagged: interesting, psychology, videos

March 27, 2011

The lady in the loft

We moved into our new home four months ago. Last week, I was lying on the bed and noticed that a part of the wall I had never really looked at had a panel on it, attached with four screws. Out came the drill and a few moments later I had pulled the panel away and found a secret storage space. Yes, I felt like Indiana Jones. And yes, I also wondered if I might find a body.

What I did find was five framed pictures wrapped in newspaper that was dated May 1996. Most of the pictures weren’t my taste, but then I saw the picture at the top of this post. I really like it. And I can’t wait to put it up somewhere. I love the idea that this picture has some history with the house; a history I’ll never know.

I’m pretty sure the people that owned the house before us – and maybe the people before that – never opened this panel. Very exciting. To me.

leave a comment tagged: me, miscellaneous

March 23, 2011

Systems within systems

This is the best thing I’ve read that explains why you can’t predict the results of your marketing campaign or ‘branded utility’:

“You cannot even reliably predict the next move in a chess game. Why? Because the ‘system’ involves more than the rules of the game.”

Your campaign is a tight, finite system (involving motivations, interactions, ‘channels’ etc) but it overlaps with many other systems (mechanical and social). Your little ‘chess game’ does not describe the edges of the playing field. All you can do is create a game compelling enough to feed into – and from – greater, more meaningful systems and relationships.