WHERE ENTERTAINMENT MEETS MARKETING (Picture: The DB10, on location in Rome.) None of us should be satisfied with what we believe brands to be capable of. Whatever we believe that capability, it can be more. When Henry Jenkins first introduced Transmedia in his treatise, Convergence Culture (2006), he spoke of... Continue reading

The meeting point of RETAIL and EDITORIAL was traditionally ‘THE MAGAZINE’. A style bible like Vogue or Harper’s, for example, would carry glossy colour ads of beautiful things, commercial messages betwixt a sacrosanct and inviolable editorial. I say ‘would carry’ when, of course, this practice still exists. Yet while it... Continue reading

"BRAND - a bundle of meanings, feelings and values, as seen and perceived in the eye and mind of the consumer." That's always been how I've defined a brand to people. And it's a definition that's more than not kept me on the right tracks. Brands communicate in hope that... Continue reading

Move-marketing requires ever-greater invention and playfulness. How you tease. What you reveal. When you reveal it. What you hold back. On the one hand, you have audience fragmentation, spiralling media costs, and an audience’s tech-assisted ability to edit and ignore. On the other, you have a digital playing field, transmedia story-telling, and the potential to grab pop culture by the throat. Continue reading

The ad model changed. An unintended consequence of Tim Berners-Lee sending an html missive, and the butterfly effect of digital revolution that followed. Technology evolved ‘media’, and turned a portable telephone into a pocket-able, indispensable screen and ‘Reality Augmenter’. The list of consequences doesn’t end there, of course, but the... Continue reading

Words. They equip us to define and explain, that’s their literal and ‘on the nose’ purpose. Their description in Hamlet (Act 2, Scene 2); “Words are the pegs on which we hang ideas”. Words as pegs. For ideas. I’ve always liked that idea. What I also find so eloquently smart... Continue reading

“Lowry … stood across the road from his subjects and observed. Often enough there are a number of individuals in a crowd peering back at him. They invite us momentarily into their world, like characters on a stage sometimes do, breaking the fourth-wall illusion.” ‘Sir Ian McKellen: My lifelong passion... Continue reading

“That first kiss, that pause, just before, that pause spilling with expectation and possibility. Eyes. Mouth. Parting lips. Anticipation. Closer. Yes. Complicity. A submission, a moment shared in time and trust, a kiss offered, a kiss taken; a first intimacy. Kissing is The Business.” Remember to Breathe: A novel (2012)... Continue reading

“Why not write the crowds into the song?” Some men are born great. Others have greatness thrust upon them. Slightly abridged, but you’ll recognize the line: Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, passing comment on how our natures and our circumstances influence how we step figuratively up to the plate. Philosophically speaking, provocatively... Continue reading

Epic Split. Volvo trucks (2013). Agency: Forsman & Bodenfors I got into the advertising business because I liked advertising. I liked it back then. And I still like it. And it’s why I’m inclined to still call an ad an ‘ad’, and view advertising as something that can be brilliant... Continue reading

Daniel Schorr (on TV): There's a tiny camera looking at you right now. Nicholas van Orton: That's impossible. Daniel Schorr: You're right, impossible. You're having a conversation with your television. The Game (1997) In David Fincher's 'The Game', Michael Douglas' over-achieving but bored-with-life banker, Nicholas van Orton, is either the... Continue reading

Tyler Durden. Renton. Remember those guys? One looked a lot like Brad Pitt, the other like Ewan McGregor. Two charismatic anti-heroes of the 90’s: poets, philosophers, one a pugilist, the other a heroin addict, and both occupants of society’s fringe. Irvine Welsh’s Renton advised us (with thick irony) to “choose... Continue reading

THE CASE FOR KISS KISS BANG BANG Like an Antony Gormley figure, there is something magnificent about the solitary human form; the James Dean loner; the Jack Bauer or Nicholas Brody lone agent. Stealthy types, moving in the shadows, on the outside – it reads cool off the page and... Continue reading

On 9 November 9th of 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. I was 16 at the time and I remember watching events unfold live on television. As I and the rest of the world stopped and watched, spell-bound, thousands of Germans from East and West swung sledgehammers and pick axes and... Continue reading

For brands, "What does great work look like?". This was the theme of a 10 minute talk I gave over at BAFTA recently. "Great work" doesn't look like advertising anymore, that was the thrust of it. And to hopefully make the point, I drew on a few nostalgic and very... Continue reading

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,' said Scrooge. ’But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me." Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843) I’ve just seen ‘The Future’, and I’m a... Continue reading

"3 is shy, not like 4, who's a real show-off." 7, I learn, is invisible, while 5 is musical (but short-changed of any super power such as invisibility). 6 is mechanical, 18 is a hunter. And gender divides them all. 3, for example, is a girl, "but 13 is actually... Continue reading

From Don Draper & Magic Bullets to Don Simpson & Going Native Last week, I spent more time than absolutely necessary discussing whether a lion could beat up a tiger. It's hard to put a billable ROI against that kind of agency chat. During the week, I also read a... Continue reading

We all love a good sound bite, a snappy label, a catchy tag. Our necks snap, our attention is caught, and we fall in love. New Labour. The Third Way. A Roadmap to Peace. Yes We Can. The Fiscal Cliff. Big Data. Editorial 101: give 'em the quotable and instantly... Continue reading

WHY WE ALL NEED TO START LISTENING TO JEREMY IRONS “I wanted to make a documentary about something that needed to be talked about. I spend much of my energies telling fictitious stories. This is a very true story. An important one.” Jeremy Irons, interviewed at IFFP When someone like... Continue reading

Why brands need to be Very Present & Very There There’s irony in the way branding has borrowed from the language of utility companies. Utility companies? After the picture, that’s maybe not the opening sentence you were expecting - but I assure you, everything will link up. I am though... Continue reading

Have you checked out Riffle Books (www.rifflebooks.com) yet? Their site's great and I'm a big fan of what Riffle are up to. And they kindly wanted to ask me a few questions. The interview is below, and also lives here on their blog. 1. How did 'Digital State' start? Why... Continue reading

I rather liked the idea of taking a very thin slice from between the pages of 'Digital State', and turning it into a piece of promotional content, that was both a single idea and (hopefully) held a little value in its own right. The result was 'Ball & Flint'. It's... Continue reading

What the future of branding has in common with Tony Stark, Charles Revson & Archibald Leach We all want to live better, fuller, richer, more complete lives. We don’t want to live by half measures, be Some Kind of Schmuck, Average Joe or Journeyman. A ‘Human Truth’, our ‘Human Condition’:... Continue reading

Here's a copy of an interview I did recently with the very lovely people at The Bookbag... When you close your eyes and imagine your readers, who do you see? It’s a lovely question, though the shape and form of “who” isn’t exact to me. I wrote ‘Remember to Breathe’... Continue reading