Tuesday, September 29, 2009 Outraged of Bristol

Ellen in the LEWIS PR Bristol office was humiliated when trying to buy a bottle of wine at her local branch of Threshers. Unsurprisingly, it made the Bristol Evening Post.

Two points: One, Ellen looks about 15.

And two, she was going to drink the wine.

But there is still no excuse for poor customer service.

clipped from www.thisisbristol.co.uk Does this Bristol woman look old enough to buy alcohol? Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 07:00 A 23-year-old Bristol woman says she was humiliated when a member of staff at an off-licence asked other customers whether she looked old enough to buy alcohol. Ellen Spenceley said she felt "angry" when she not only had her age and ID questioned by the assistant manager at Thresher at the top of Whiteladies Road, but was then scrutinised by other customers. Miss Spenceley, of Redland Grove, said: "I went in to buy a bottle of white wine for cooking – I wasn't even going to drink it – and the man serving asked me if I had any ID. "I said 'yes' and showed him my photo driving licence but he said he didn't believe it was mine. "The picture is six years old and I do look young, but I'm 23. I graduated from Cardiff University two years ago. "He asked me if I had my passport but I didn't, so I showed him my bank card which had my name on it but he still wouldn't serve me.

Monday, September 28, 2009 Vodafone launch + Dita Von Teese = awkward celeb

Vodafone hired burlesque dancer and Marilyn Manson's ex-wife Dita Von Teese for their Irish launch of Vodafone 360 last week.

Aside from getting Emmet Ryan at Villa81 all excited, she added little value to the press conference and awkwardly swayed during the long and boring briefing. (Warning: You will cringe.)



Mind you, she takes a nice picture.

Friday, September 25, 2009 The death of the newspaper industry - in pictures

Via Mint.com. Very US-focused by interesting collection of stats and indicative of what is happening elsewhere...

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 Cadbury's new ad: Zingolo

What follows a drumming gorilla, autonomous airport vehicles and children with electrified faces? A giant, spinning, hovering head with hair made of singing cocoa beans, course.



The new ad celebrates Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate achieving Fair Trade status by "celebrating all things Ghanaian: its people, its rappers, its dancers, its cultural figures and, of course, its cocoa beans." The central figure in the ad (aside from the floating head) is Ghanaian rapper Tinny.

Fair play to creative agency Fallon for taking things to such a ridiculous new level.

Thursday, September 17, 2009 Thoughts on Confused.com's 'cash for ideas'

I was interested to see in PR Week that Confused.com is offering the three losing agencies who tried out for their PR account cash for the campaign ideas in their pitches.

I've worked with numerous prospects and clients where ideas flow freely. Ideas you discuss during the pitch process often go on to be used in a full-blown campaign. Sometimes, you're not the agency executing it.

While many agencies, colleagues and friends say this is cheeky / outright theft, I've always tried to force myself to believe in the 'economics of abundance'. As a creative professional, I have loads of ideas every day (not all of them great). I'm happy to give a few away safe in the knowledge that I'll have lots more later. All you need to do is ask - and many of my network know it and do just that, at all times of the day (and night).

When we pitch for a client it's normally up to the pitch leader whether we put a disclaimer saying the ideas are ours. I'd normally vote against it, for the reasons above.

Plus, if the company does go ahead and cheekily use the ideas, then it not only tests the tactic out for you, but it demonstrates that the company itself was one you probably didn't want to work with anyway. Good luck to 'em, I say.

One agency has turned down Confused.com's offer of payment. I think I'd do the same thing, but offer them for free instead. What would you do?

Google Fast Flip - a screencast by someone who knows

My old friend Rob Enslin has recording a screencast introducing Google Fast Flip. Seeing as he's a digital development and community manager at a big publishing house, his interest speaks volumes.



Check out Rob's blog for his views on how digital is changing content distribution, delivery and the media landscape.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009 Twitter's up and down today

Not even a fail whale for company this time. Just an old-school error message. It's getting like the old days when it was down more than up. #twittersdownsoimbloggingthisinstead

Flippin’ ‘eck: Google Fast Flip isn’t fast, doesn’t flip

Google has released details of another product still in the lab – Fast Flip.

You’ve probably seen the way most magazines try to create online versions of themselves. Cue interactive page turning, fuzzy layouts and clumsy navigation.

Fast Flip promises to aggregate online magazine content into searchable archives that speed up the process. “What we need… is a way to flip through articles really fast without unnatural delays, just as we can in print,” enthuses the Google Blog.

Google has partnered with around 40 content partners (including The New York Times, FastCompany and Newsweek) during the trial phase. It has also designed a mobile version for Fast Flipping on the move. (But only, of course, if you’re geeky enough to have an or Android- or Apple-powered phone.)

I’ve tried Fast Flip and can confidently report that you get interactive page turning, fuzzy layouts and clumsy navigation. Unsurprisingly, reading print content in a web browser doesn’t work, and Fast Flip redirects you to a website as soon as it possibly can. So what’s the point?

When Google releases something from its Google Labs development arm, it’s normally about timing than anything else. There are hundreds of projects on the go simultaneously, so choosing when to make them public is often more about PR than sharing a technological breakthrough.

Fast Flip has found itself being heralded by the press as the saviour of the ‘struggling’ news industry. Not only has it found a way to deliver print content to our beloved computers, it will probably being able to monetise it too thanks to Google’s advertising and payments engine. Hooray! Print isn’t dead! Its future is online!

I’m sure this has nothing whatsoever to do with the Wall Street Journal’s Editor-in-Chief Robert Thomson calling news aggregators "parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet", or Rupert Murdoch’s plans to charge for online news content next year.

Thursday, September 10, 2009 Paris Hilton is real

I was completely and utterly convinced that the Metro had printed a picture of heiress and celebrity jailbird Paris Hilton's waxwork by accident today.



The skin is so obviously plastic, the teeth too shiny, the pose fixed and awkward, and the eyes glazed and pointing in different directions.

Then I searched AP's image library and found that it was taken at the opening of a Budapest department store which, as far as I can tell, she attended in person.



Sorry, Paris.

And congratulations on your entry into the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations for the immortal and timeless line: "Dress cute wherever you go, life is too short to blend in."

Wednesday, September 09, 2009 Channel 4 News meets The Mighty Boosh

This is almost too weird. (Via The Media Blog.)

Twitter down?

Uh-oh... This doesn't look good.

Tuesday, September 08, 2009 W00t That's What I Call Geeky Music! Vol.1

I was just thinking a bit more about Spotify and realised I've never tried out the collaborative playlists.

So in the spirit of social networking I have created the (potentially) ultimate nerd album: W00t That's What I Call Geeky Music! Vol.1.

Click it, launch it, and add your geekiest choons. I added some classic Tori to kick things off. If you add a song, let me know which one in the comments...

Let's create a social soundtrack!

Spotify: Why I'm not buying

I have an iPhone, love music, and love Spotify. But although tempted, I've decided I'm not going to upgrade my account to premium in order to use the iPhone app just yet.

Why? Well, I'll tell you. Because...

It's not worth the money.

Paying £10 a month to listen to someone else's music collection is too much. Spotify isn't even as good as borrowing. At no point are you really in possession of the music.

Their collection isn't big enough.

If I'm paying a subscription to hear music, I want unlimited choice. I don't want the nagging worry that the music isn't there. Note: There is no Oasis on Spotify.

The tech isn't reliable.

Spotify is still very new. The desktop client still crashes or loses connection for no reason. The search is worryingly dumb. The automatic update froze my computer.

It isn't social.

OK, so you can send links to playlists to people. But the content isn't truly portable, or embeddable, or shareable on social networks. It just isn't part of my life(stream).

It's free anyway.

I run the free Spotify service on my Mac at home, in my kitchen, plugged into a sound system. This is enough for me. I don't mind the ads. Even the Suitopia one.

Monday, September 07, 2009 Technology is great

This short video of my friend's robot monkey (he's called Liam, in case you were wondering) demonstrates perfectly how technology has made all our lives infinitely better. We left him on all evening and he mucked about, cried, belched, watched TV, then got bored and went to sleep (and snored).

Mind you, he still doesn't beat Big Trak. Anyone remember that?

Thursday, September 03, 2009 Live nude show at Edelman

I know you're not sick of the 'naked protesters glue themselves to Edelman's foyer' story yet. So here is some video of the event, made by the Climate Camp.

Shame she mis-pronounces Edelman as 'Eedleman'.

(Via Mark Borkowski.)

Feedly shows off startup service

If there is one thing that differentiates a young, hungry company with a great idea from an old, comfortable company that's a household name, it's the speed of communication with customers.

Feedly - the web-based RSS reader (although I'm doing it a disservice calling it that) - replied within 31 minutes of me randomly tweeting that Feedly wasn't working.



31 minutes later...



... And by the time I'd logged back in, Feedly had patched itself and was working perfectly again.

This level of attention to detail is what so many companies - large and small - strive for at the moment. I've heard so many reports of the big telcos and airlines, once known for appalling customer service processes, connecting one-to-one with users via Twitter.

It seems that the new battleground is the sub-60-minutes reply. Every time it happens, it's a joy. I'm aware that Twitter only represents a tiny population, and success rates are changeable, and that an hour is a long time for a response if you're hanging on the phone, but this represents a start. A strong start. And remember, I don't even pay to use Feedly.

As the large corporations start to realise that quick, direct connections with individuals is a good thing and start covering the other conversations (Facebook, Flickr, YouTube etc.), customer service will change forever.

I wonder if my new friends at Feedly can hear me now?

Wednesday, September 02, 2009 Apple vs. Samsung - the launch videos

Video content is important when new gadgets are launched. People want to see the technology in action, and there's nothing like rifling through YouTube for unboxing videos and demos to get you excited about a new toy. (Oh, that's only me? Ahem.)

These two original manufacturer videos showcasing their flagship mobile phones are great examples of how to get it wonderfully right, and how to get it desperately wrong. Admittedly, the Samsung phone was late to market and copied a lot of the Apple design, features and branding. But is there really any excuse for creating something so awful? Mind you, if I was looking for something with terrible screen lag, I'd opt for the Jet...

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Daniel, his Jet, his desk, and his three mysterious apples.



And Nelson, with his iPhone and, well, nothing else.

Tuesday, September 01, 2009 Gmail is down... Again

Gmail is down again. I just tried to access my account, received a server error, then checked Twitter and TechCrunch to see if the rumours were true and it really is widely unavailable. They are, and it is.

clipped from mail.google.com Server Error The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request. Please try again in 30 seconds.

Naked people at Edelman shocker - watching the PR pros in action

clipped from www.prweek.com

It's always interesting to see how a big PR agency handles its own crisis. Today, a group of naked protesters glued themselves to each other in the offices of Edelman PR (just around the corner from us in Victoria).

Making a point about Edelman's work for client EON and its coal-burning powerstation, the Climate Camp activists brought the spotlight onto a PR powerhouse.

Here is an excerpt from the Twitter stream of Edelman UK CEO, Robert Phillips:



And how about this article on Sky News' website, which laments the protesters' inability to have a decent conversation, "more intent on going for the headline, picture story and the sound-bite, rather than for a constructive and engaged conversation"? (Interesting view from a PR agency.)

So what do you think? Is Edelman right in demonstrating its complete openness and willingness to talk?

Or are they just very keen to be seen as approachable?

UPDATE: It's worth reading the comment from the Climate Camp on my post over on The Media Blog. Apparently there was a (fully clothed) representative there who was waiting to speak to someone from Edeleman. Guess what? Nobody came to speak to him...