Spikey Potatoes

There's a stretch of road between my house and work which is possibly the filthiest patch of tarmac on the planet. But I like it because there's always something going on: Hackney council inventing a new way to deter fly posting, a new organic, free range, hahal butcher and today - spikey potatoes. Usually I traverse the stretch on foot, but when I'm running late like today, I brave the bus. Sitting on the upper deck you get to see the tops of bus shelters. How many media men must have pondered the merits of selling this grubby canvas? They are mostly a dedicated gallery space for cigarette buts and pigeon poo, but today it's spikey potatoes. Someone, somewhere in East London has the time and inclination to adorn potatoes with wooden spikes and coloured paint and then place them atop bus shelters for commuter's delight. They are beautiful objects - little tubers of happiness. And on a journey down Kingsland Rd at 8am in the morning, they give you hope that the world really is OK. A big achievement for a potato. A quick Google reveals chatter about these objects that have apparently been appearing now for a couple of summers along the 55 and  242 bus routes. And the best part is that no one knows who is behind them or why. And I kind of hope I never find out. Because their real beauty is in their generosity.

Photo from Flickr

Steve "Copy Head" Heath

Steve was recently promoted to Head of Copy at Albion. He brings a wealth of experience from many agencies including Saatchis and Joshua and has won awards above-the-line, below-the-line... hey there is no line for us, but suffice to say Steve can do words for anything.

Anyway, a while back Natalie gave everyone a lump of clay to make something with. Surprisingly Jason is one of the few people to make something - a nice Albion mug. But this week Teddy made this homage to Steve. We're not exactly sure what it is, but we like it.

Bon Voyage Skype Nomad

After weeks spent studying a 10 foot high stack of Lonely Planets at our office and more than a few near breakdowns over internet dongles, the Skype Nomad is away. Rebecca Campbell will not sleep in the same place for the next 33 days. In fact she will not stop at all for her entire trip across the globe via everything from camel trekking in Australia to dog sledding in Alaska.

It's all part of a product demo to show that Skype is now mobile and that you don't have to be chained to your desktop to use it. It's one of those ideas that most clients would run a mile at (no pun intended) so in Rebecca's own words "shimmies to Skype for having the balls to put it out there". Rebecca is also raising money for Motivation, an international charity who support people in low income countries who have mobility disabilities. It's a nice cause so If you're feeling flush please donate.

 

Good ol' Blighty posters

The Modern British Posters Exhibition at Saint Martin’s is a beautiful and sometimes humorous trip though poster advertising during the first half of the 20th century. Those days when you could advertise petrol by pointing out that magicians prefer shell. The collection focuses on Shell Mex, BP, London Transport and the Post Office as well as propaganda and post war posters.

Messages are usually simple, straightforward and punchy and the graphic use of shapes adds to the impression of a strong nation with plenty to work for and be proud of.

I especially liked the posters advertising modern British buildings being built from the rubble. Perhaps our current government could do with instilling a sense of pride in today’s Britain using public announcement advertising. Advertising used for making people happy? Just a thought.

IPA Fast Strategy conference

  Hello. Christine here. I’m a new planner at Albion.

  On Monday I went to the IPA’s Fast Strategy conference, and thought I’d share my thoughts.

  Tim Lindsay of TBWA opened the day, with a quote from Benjamin Franklin: ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over, expecting different results’.  Slightly ironic, as he then went on to replay their standard agency creds!

  However Tim Hames (The Times), Mark Earls (‘Herd’ guru), Rob Forshaw (Grand Union) and the planning team at Leo Burnett all made the day actually very good. And a brilliant ‘live brief and 3 hr / 3-way pitch’ task did reveal who really could think fast.

  Interesting things that came up...

1. Tim Hames ‘colourful’ tie. He referred to it 3 times. Oh and talked about his advocacy of the three F’s when working fast – Flat structure, a shared Formula, and Flexibility  - adapting to change and keeping things fluid.
2. Mark Earls suggesting collaborative beginnings were crucial. By creating a Wiki and posting a link to it on the Planning for Good Facebook page, he completed the fastest ever consumer research / opinion seeking exercise I’ve ever witnessed – and from all over the world. Impressive.
3. They managed to play ‘Who let the dogs out’ 3 times at amusing moments.
4. Good fast strategy can only ever come from very well defined (or re-framed) business objectives (Cue discussion on worst ever business objectives on a client brief – ‘make our brand cool’ was probably the winner). Sainsbury’s example was interesting – ‘Grow the business by 2.5 billion over 3 years’ was reframed by the team at AMV to ‘get every customer to spend £1.14 more on every transaction’ and then ‘Try Something New’ was born in 30 minutes)
5. ‘Light lots of little fires and see which ones work’. Mark Earls turned the debate into a more interesting one - not about fast or slow strategy but about open rather than closed strategy. The idea being, you have a core thought but it should be fluid, evolving and allow you to do several things simultaneously and build on the ideas that work.
6. Finally Rob Forshaw talked about making consumers your partners, and moving from push media to pull media, and content centricity rather than channel centricity. I liked his idea that the best ‘fast strategy’ was strategy that was placed directly into the hands of consumers, and allowed them to continually evolve it (i.e. Boots 17 MySpace community set up for teenage girls to create new products, these products will be featured on their website, then produced carrying the names of their creators, then these create word of mouth, producing a viral co-creation/purchasing/web content generating circle)
7. A good fancy biscuit AND muffin selection throughout the day.

Yummy

The Charge Plug. Me wanty wanty.