Citizen Space

My dad doesn’t really understand what I do.  He’s 64 (nearly 65) and no matter how many times explain the nuances of viral marketing, he still struggles.  Or so I thought, until he shocked me by creating his very own viral ad for his company the Alarm Monitoring Company – a company that specialises in “monitored burglar alarms”.

Check out his viral efforts here – viral genius, or viral suck?

I think I can say for certain that it’s really not very good, and kinda backs up my theory that he doesn’t get what viral is (or rather doesn’t listen to me – a life-long gripe).  Here’s my quick analysis of his efforts:

- OK, so the generally creative conceit isn’t too dreadful.  The idea of promoting an alarm by showing it in action (burglars breaking in etc.) makes sense. (that’s the positives over and done)

- But, then we come to the narrative.  I mean – sorry – what narrative???  Two blokes jump through a window, rummage around a bit, set the alarm off and run off with the beautifully scripted words “F*ck me, I’m off!.”  Come on – I’ve seen better in episodes of Prisoner Cell Block H  Sunset Beach.

- And then there’s the direction.  I’m not quite sure how many takes it took to shoot (I hope one), but if you’re gonna allow two of your employees (sorry – actors) to spend time jumping through your home window in a not so convincing I’m-a-burglar-breaking-into-a house-way you may as well shoot it properly – otherwise you’re wasting everyone’s time – including the people who have to watch your sorry ad (me).

- And to cap it off, there’s the music.  A bossa-nova keyboard version of Queen’s “Another one bites the dust”.  This for me is the final nail in the viral coffin.  I mean, why didn’t you go for the pan-pipe version???  Everyone knows Queen sound better in pan-pipe than bossa nova. 

So there you go.  As a founder of a viral marketing agency I’m ashamed of my father.   PLEASE NEXT TIME LISTEN TO ME DAD AND DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME MAKING SUCH PAP IT MAKES ME ANGRY AND MAKES ME WANT TO TYPE IN CAPITALS. 

Rant over.  Back to work.

I randomly came across this lecture by Beth Noveck for the Stamford University Human Computer Interaction Seminar entitled “Technologies for collaborative democracy”.

Once she’d got over the introductory bits of her presentation of various e-democracy projects from around the world (which covered the usual Downing Street e-Petition stuff), she went on to make some really interesting points.

Here’s a random selection of some of the things I learnt from Beth Noveck’s video (N.B. I only last til 40 mins, when I got hungry!):

- Her main interest is in how to break out of the current nature of ad-hoc democratic processes – e.g. one off consultation events of things like Flash mobs – and create ongoing collaborative governance.

- Vermont is trying to become the “digital Delaware”, setting up a legal framework for creating “virtual companies” i.e. legalising online collaborative partnerships

- Libya’s Policywiki – bizarrely, Libya has embraced e-democracy, and has set up a Policywiki,  enabling citizens to take part in collaborative policy making.  The projects been funded by the Qadhafi foundation.

- I liked her description of the Peer-to-patent’s project as creating a “Human database”.  It was also interesting to hear how the peer-to-patent project uses highly structured participative process, aimed at experts.

- I LOVED her anecdote about Thomas Jefferson being the founder of participative governance. 

- Her point about collaborative governance being about effectiveness not equality was something that I’ve been thinking about for a while.

- Visual deliberation – I thought this was her most interesting point.  She described a research project’s findings that found that when we see ourselves in the screen we change our behaviour.  And gave the example of how if you morph your face into the face of a President you’re more likely to vote for them.  Further she made that described how President Bush colourised his face darked in ads targeted at black and hispanic neighbourhoods.

- Group brain – this is the point that if you explicitly identify a group as a group, then they’re more likely to act as a group, and be more effective at solving a problem collaboratively.

- Social Translucence – following on from the Group Brain point, is the question of what happens when you see yourself as a group in a screen?  And also, how do you design interfaces that create this?  She firmly believes that this idea would  bring about change.

She then got on to a point about “Green Chicago”, at which point my hunger took over and I had to go!

I found this quite amusing.  Apparently if everyone in the UK used BP Ultimate petrol, the amount of petrol saved (because of its super-duper efficiency) would mean you could drive to the moon and back 29,446 times!

Bonkers!
Along these lines, boffins at BP (or their PR agency) have calculated that you could also:

-    Drive round the world x  564,894 times
-    Drive round London (on the M25) x 120,230,769 times

Which all pretty useful!

You can check out their new ad on the matter here – see BP Ultimate takes you further

Comet have pilot launched free electric vehicle charging (the first scheme of its kind). To see a car docking at one of their “Plug & Go” points, visit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh-B3nzVwVg

‘Plug & Go’ is a response to electric vehicles becoming a high priority for Government as the UK strives to meet its CO2 emission target by 2010. Should the initiative prove successful the intention is that the service will be rolled out across Comet stores nationwide.

Most importantly, Boris Johnson is big fan, and is quoted saying ‘I want London to be at the forefront of the electric car revolution and we can only do this if we make it easy for people to charge up their electric vehicles. I would like to give Comet a congratulatory pat on the back for offering free charging points and for helping their customers to make the switch to an electric car.’

This is a fun and quirky little consultation game from the HMRC called Charterpelago.  Dealing with an issue like how a big government department (like HMRC) communicates and gets feedback on something like their Charter is obviously tricky, however I think the balance of fun + engaging visuals does well in creating a feedback platform for young people (me included!).

We picked this up from YouTube linked to the National Year of Reading’s new campaign.  Hip Hop Grannies – LOL!

I never thought I’d hear Chris Moyles talking about “consultation” – but he did just that in his breakfast show yesterday morning.

As a brand of research activity consultation rates pretty low in the general public’s perception – with most people associating consultation exercises with village halls, weak coffee, stale biscuits, and even staler conversation.

So it’s nice to see the self-styled “Saviour of Radio” bigging up the BBC Trust’s latest consultation exercise – and putting some real energy into it. Maybe this is because this isn’t a village hall-styled consultation – but instead an easy-to-use e-consultation without a stale biscuit in sight.

Perhaps as Chris Moyles has now established himself as the Saviour of Radio, he should be looking to move on to save other communication channels. “Chris Moyles Saviour of e-consultation” has a nice ring to it (ish)?!

N.B. this post about online consultation was first written on this viral marketing blog

Play it at http://www.campaigngame.us/index.php

This is a great new viral out of WWF. Made me laugh (and wince!)

I was at the launch of the Home Office’s anti-binge-drinking campaign in Covent Garden yesterday.

It’s an ‘across-the-line’ campaign including TV ads, online ‘viral’ video and, as I saw yesterday, physical/ambient advertising.

The launch ‘event’, such as it was, was centred around an unused shop-front near Covent Garden. The Home Office had rented the space and used the shop windows to display mannequins; however, rather than showcasing fashionable outfits or the latest cookware or whatever else mannequins normally showcase, these had been posed, dressed and made up to represent beautiful people in the throes of drunken idiocy, pain and/or humiliation.

Thus we had girls being sick, guys kicking stereos across rooms and, er, some other things that weren’t as easy to make out. The installations are designed to match up with the TV ads, all centred around
the question ‘you wouldn’t start a night like this so why end it that way?’.

I was pleased to learn from one of the Home Office representatives in attendance that this campaign had been exhaustively researched and put together following consultation with members of the target audience. I know that’s what you’d expect from any large advertising campaign but it’s (sadly) still commendable when government agencies manage to go with the established, proven, successful approach rather than just pleasing the people above them in the political food chain. I was also told that the viral element of the campaign was a far harder sell to ministers; I get the feeling that with long-established things like TV ads, the ‘right way’ to do them and the value of them have gradually permeated through to the slow-changing culture of government, whereas the newer media are still struggling to gain acceptance and understanding. Apparently, the viral had to be reined in a bit before ministers were satisfied to run with it.

Speaking of which, I heard that not everyone was too happy with the setup of the display: an unfortunate aspect of this particular instance of the campaign was that the models had not been lit in their shop windows, which were covered in a reflective black film (to lend an air of ominousness, perhaps?). This meant that, on a bright day like yesterday, it was near-impossible to make out the models. What you could see instead was yourself reflected in the film, alongside the bright and altogether legible strapline (see photos), giving the suggestion that you wouldn’t begin your evening in your current state. I might not have had my gladdest rags on but I still thought that was pretty confusing, to say the least.

Still, it’s fair to say that the faux fashion displays, or perhaps the throng of assembled people looking at the faux fashion displays, were attracting a decent amount of attention from passers-by. The Home Office had interviewers on site to gather people’s first reactions; they’ll also be running recall and other follow-up surveys to measure success, and of course keeping a keen eye on any changes in the trends of binge-drinking and anti-social behaviour. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of response these ads prompt; what do you think?

Binge-drinking ‘guy’ TV ad: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EuowE1SXNkA

Binge-drinking ‘girl’ TV ad: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3jftfU30xJg

Binge-drinking viral: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=T8vCUSD6nuc