Creative Agency Secrets

I went off to have a congratulatory cup of tea with Lucian Camp of CCHM:Ping yesterday.  We first met sharing a platform speaking about marketing for professional practices way yay ages ago.

And he’s build Camp Chipperfield into a merger with Hill Murray to form CCHM and then they engineered the merger with Ping to make CCHM:Ping… and now they’ve sold.  Three years hard work beckon!

He is back being Creative Director, which I suspect is a great move back into a role he enjoys.  It’s rare to see a senior person de-mote themselves from Chairman to a dynamic, involved executive role.

We shot teh breeze in a small way discussing some of the issues facing integrated agencies.

Why oh why do clients and prospective clients insist on pigeon-holing agencies?  When you are integrated it’s pretty galling to hear that you are known for your direct work or digital or whatever….. particularly as you can hear one thing one day and the opposite the next.

I loved his description of clients.  There are those who have spent their careers in financial services marketing (he calls them "lifers") and there are others who have worked in other industries (he calls them "tourists").  Great!

When a marketing programme really kicks off and you see results, it is very gratifying.  Sergio Lopez Figueroa’s music composing for silent movies is beginning to happen.

His Tate Modern event was a good success…. about 3/4 full but totally sold out.  Some of the complimentary tickets given out weren’t used which was a shame.

But the Guardian and the BBC Mundo wrote about it.

And making live music to film is often the last bastion of the unlistenable.

Yet for most of the concert, Spanish composer Sergio Lopez Figueroa pulled it off - creating a coherent response to short films not prized for their coherence.

Figueroa’s best work is in his score for Un Chien Andalou,
a rich and dramatic response to this notoriously opaque (and
intermittently shocking) sequence of dream-like scenarios. By making
his music flow both with and against the film (featuring more of the
outstanding Maya Sapone), Figueroa has created a provocative new work.

Events like this are ultimately worth going to because they create
"cinema" out of a bunch of old films. Sure, you can now get restored
DVDs of some of the best-known work in the avant-garde canon (which is
fine for private study), and you can YouTube many of these clips, too.
But sitting at home, watching scratchy black-and-white shorts on your
PC or telly doesn’t always make for much of an experience.

Programming these films with live music denotes a degree of
commitment that the audience can immediately appreciate. It’s an event,
turning these celluloid moments into something that’s still on the edge….. John Walters

And he’s been invited to do similar things in New York and Sydney…

If you are in any doubt about how useful social media is - read this.

I posted a request about needing a copy of an article from an academic journal.  Within minutes, I have an emailed copy from one guy - who I know.

Within the overnight period when I’d gone to bed there were four more replies in my in-box from people sending me copies they had taken the trouble to scan in for me.

Guys, I am so grateful. 

But the reason for posting this here is to say that the power of the network is the main reason why social media is working so well now for so many people.  It has to be easy, everyone must be able to work it out and find applications to their own life / business circumstance and then it has to have that compulsion to keep coming back for more…..

In a year since I started this blog, I have been wowed by the readership and the connections I have managed to make.  And then what flatters me again, is the readership of  HEROS who have come to read me… GapingVoid, Paul Walsh, LisaMarieMary, James Cherkoff, ICPM.  Guys - you are IT.  And I read you…. and F**K you now read me.

thanks - really, thanks. 

[so I furled the page image to look at again in a quiet moment!!]

if you write a blog and nobody reads it, nobody connects to you - your time is vainity and wasted.

spent the weekend hosting a party in the garden behind my Mother’s house… Vann Summer Fest.  Here are the photos from last year and this on Flickr.

We had a ball.  the only non-washed-out Festival in UK this year!

Hugh, sent this poem over as a reminder of the wonderful chinese lanterns we lit after the band and before the fireworks and the midnight movie on Saturday…. thanks!

The Armadillo
For Robert Lowell

This is the time of year
when almost every night
the frail, illegal fire balloons appear.
Climbing the mountain height,

rising toward a saint
still honored in these parts,
the paper chambers flush and fill with light
that comes and goes, like hearts.

Once up against the sky it’s hard
to tell them from the stars–
planets, that is–the tinted ones:
Venus going down, or Mars,

or the pale green one. With a wind,
they flare and falter, wobble and toss;
but if it’s still they steer between
the kite sticks of the Southern Cross,

receding, dwindling, solemnly
and steadily forsaking us,
or, in the downdraft from a peak,
suddenly turning dangerous.

Last night another big one fell.
It splattered like an egg of fire
against the cliff behind the house.
The flame ran down. We saw the pair

of owls who nest there flying up
and up, their whirling black-and-white
stained bright pink underneath, until
they shrieked up out of sight.

The ancient owls’ nest must have burned.
Hastily, all alone,
a glistening armadillo left the scene,
rose-flecked, head down, tail down,

and then a baby rabbit jumped out,
short-eared, to our surprise.
So soft!–a handful of intangible ash
with fixed, ignited eyes.

Too pretty, dreamlike mimicry! O falling fire and piercing cry and panic,
and a weak mailed fist clenched ignorant against the sky!

Elizabeth Bishop

I have posted in the past on how to generate a pipeline of sales leads for your business. Here and here.

But reading Brian Carroll recently he added one with particular poignancy for me today.

The velocity of inquiry follow-up matters. Your
response time say’s more about you then you realize. If your
competition takes 24 hours to respond and it takes you days to respond,
you’re in big trouble. And don’t just send a canned response either.

I received a lead for Rowperfect by email…. I answered the enquiry the following day (which is later than I normally do but I had a great excuse - but it was an excuse not a reason).  And when I spoke to the chap, he’d bought elsewhere.  Darn and double darn. 

An interesting report from Immediate Future on brand profiles online and particularly in the social media space.

Most of the stats do little for me except to prove that online and offline brands are ranked differently…. yes, you do have to work the online space to get the profile there (doh!).

some nice insights.

LG, Kraft, Amazon and Reuters, who performed well across all social
media, have done poorly in the selected social networks. These brands
are currently not inspiring the creation of groups and therefore
conversations are minimal.

I like this…. the idea that you need to do your own promotion (I can’t really call it online PR becase the methods and media are so different) and that you brand presence needs to be driven.

Companies wanting to understand the conversation around their own brand
must go further than measure share of voice and sentiment. They must
delve deeper and isolate the buzz compared to influence. Influence not
only plays an important role as a way of converting buzz to impact, it
is also crucial to get a correct impression of the sentiment
surrounding a topic or brand.

Social media conversation is not only about the numbers. Social media in itself has influence.

not sure what this last sentence means…. it isn’t amplified in the report.

Agency.com’s recent research   (June 2007) shows that while only 8% of internet users in the UK (approximately 2.3 million people) actively upload content and reviews regularly, these 8% are hugely important for brands. This
is because their ability to influence other internet users is immense.
In essence, they are affecting the behaviour of millions and changing
how audiences inform opinions about brands, products and services.

It is this group that brands need to identify and influence. Brands
will need to charm advocates and inspire positive debate. Companies
that put strategies in place to rebut negative comment will need to
consider not just relevant communications, but customer service,
product value and business performance.

The influence of social media on a brand is relative to topic. In each
subject area for each brand, there will be different influencers,
different detractors and advocates. Determining the most influential blogger, forum member or network takes time and can, and does, frequently change.

Brands must pay attention because audiences instinctively turn to the
web for information. Search engines drive people straight to comment
and conversation, often bypassing a brand’s website and its marketing.
The influence of social media is crucial if brands are to survive their
ownership by audiences.

Great summary, Katy and you team have done us proud.  What was sad for me was that I have corresponded with you in the past and yet you didnt’ send me a link to this great work.

I got it from another blogger… Joined up marketing is still needed online as well as offline!

Here is a good exposition on the pros and cons of Facebook versus Linked in. 

Read the comments.

I am reserving judgement for now.  What I need is the ability to run my business online and also run my social stuff.  Trouble is my clients are generally not interested in my rowing activities [except EML who have an office in a boathouse - so cool….].

And there are limitations.
1 - I can’t import all 3 of my blogs
2 - Furl doesn’t seem to connect in as a feed yet
3 - It is hard to promote the blog outbound…