I saw a few interesting things people had written on one of those pen testing pads the other day, so I wondered if it’d make a good blog. Let’s see.
There’s an associated Flickr group here, where you can add your own photos.
I’m interested to see what people write when they’re encouraged to just write something… anything… in the name of trying out a pen.
Should brands try to be more like movements?
In a busy world, we look for whatever shortcuts we can to help make the best choices. If something’s popular… well, we’ll tend to assume that’s for a good reason and straightaway, we’re likely to give it more interest.
So it’s not so much what brands say that’s important, as how much we think they’re liked by others. (And that’s increasingly easy to find out.)
That leaves a couple of things for brands to do, I reckon.
That’s this week’s patchwork edition of the Amsterdam Weekly. As you can see, they didn’t sell it all (41% if you can read the bottom right bit).
[Bit of background - they've lost an investor - they're struggling for money - they're selling blocks of the paper to readers to raise awareness and a bit of cash.]
It’s a sad situation and I hope they pull through. But what’s good about all this is the way they’re connecting with readers. Assuming they make it, anyone who’s helped out will feel a lot more involved with the paper.
That’s their product really - for readers and advertisers - an active community at an intersection of cultures. The more they can do to bring the community to life and connect readers, the better their chances of a future.
It feels like a big part of their future lies online where there are so many ways to give their community some life. But not just online. In the short term at least, they need to make their campaign as visible as possible. Everywhere. Draw on whatever good will they can to get free badges, stickers, signs… anything so that readers can show their support for the paper.
The acuteness of the problem is something else to communicate. They’re not asking for help forever. Just the next month, to get them through a sticky cash flow period. People need to act now. Then the Weekly can go about safeguarding their own future.
A half-readable paper like this week’s may not be the best sign that they’re going to make it - and people need to believe that they will. (Does it remind anyone else a bit of Back To The Future - like the paper’s being rubbed out?) But perhaps a ‘vanishing’ edition is just the sort of thing that’s going to stir more people into action.
Fingers-crossed for them.
You can help by buying up some blocks in the paper, which I’m going to do now.
http://selltheweekly.spacebabies.nl/
[Oh, and got my name in this week's edition. Woo hoo! I was part of the advertising discussion about how to help save them.]
Amsterdam Weekly have a cash flow problem. Can I encourage anyone reading to buy a piece and help them through this sticky period?
In favour of openness:
In favour of secrecy:
Ok, it’s not quite as black and white as that. Both work. Most companies will use a bit of both. You probably just have to be a little more remarkable to pull off secrecy.
I have a nerdy habit of taking pictures of adverts. It’s not cool. Amanda rumbled me for it over the weekend as we were going through the old pictures on my phone.
Anyway, one of the pictures I had hidden there was a big, outdoor Virgin Atlantic recruitment ad for cabin crew. At the time I thought it was great.
This is a great painting. Park City Grill by John Currin.
All teeth and shallow laughter. There’s something deeply desperate about it. Two lonely daters each cut off in their own private world.
I like how the bloke looks like Cliff Richard dipped in sleaze.
Short version:
Demands on our attention are going up.
That might make us more shrewd with our attention in a variety of ways.
Brands should aim to give more value for attention, as people get more precious.
Long rambling version:
(This turned into a monster - no expertise here - read on for some unauthoritative ramblings.)
I’ve been thinking that a lot of brands could be more useful. Maybe usefulness is the next dimension that brands need in order to stand out.
It’s part of what I was trying to get at with the back-end stuff below.
Instead of adding to the noise competing for our attention, or forcing into places where we’ve no need for them, can brands and marketing be useful?
I was going to expand on this before I read these creds from Zeus Jones and realised someone else had done a much better job. (Built a whole company around it.)
But it doesn’t seem to be something that many brands are actually doing yet.
Would getting more pro-active about marketing help? Instead of waiting for internal pressures to throw up a brief, could we look more to the outside world and work out what’s actually needed?
More like new product development.
