May 31, 2008
Fresh Air Computing
As I type this, it's a beautiful evening with a bit of soft rain falling, I'm enjoying a fresh espresso made from beans from Dark Horse Espresso Bar in Toronto and rather than the usual trick of slouching over the laptop on the couch, I'm sitting outside.
We just today invested in some outside furniture I very much appreciate, which I'm sure is the biggest part of the reason I'm outside. (Not to mention that my sigificant other is at Sex in the City tonight and I wasn't able to make it on account of parental responsibilities). But I have to say, geeking out never felt so healthy as when you can smell the rain and get some fresh air while doing some work on the laptop.
I'm sure if I worked in some type of gazebo thing to keep the direct sun off my laptop screen while still allowing some fresh air to oxygenate my brain, that would be the best thing ever for a lot of reasons.
I think I'm going to have to start working like this more often.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 10:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 6, 2008
New Years Resolution: Get Your Internet Together
It's 2008 now...
That means it's getting to be about 10 years since a lot of companies put up their first websites. And the sad truth it, most haven't progressed that far from where they started.
Sorry-looking websites abound while seemingly everyone in the company agrees that the website is ugly and old and embarrassing and all that. But, it stays the same for this reason or that.
It's come to mind a lot lately how much resources and budget have to do with the success of initiatives. And no more is the gap often more apparent between a stated priority and actual priority than when it comes to the internet. Calling up an interactive design shop with $10 or $15K in your budget isn't going to get you far. It's not like everything has to be outrageously expensive, but you don't have to look far into the budget to see things that get a lot of more money than that. And I'll wager many of those things don't see the light of day from where your customers are standing. But your website is often the first component of your brand experience that prospective clients are exposed to.
So, if you are looking at budgets at this time of the year....
Be bold. Ask for an adequate amount of money and expect that there are aspects that you won't be able to anticipate. And if the money doesn't come, it's pretty good proof that no one cares that much. Companies throw money at things they want to fix. If there's no money, it's a pretty low priority, regardless of what anyone says about it.
So, it's 2008! Why not make this the year that the website doesn't suck anymore.
After all, why live life knowing that you have an ugly website?
Make that change!
Posted by Derek Leverington at 11:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 22, 2008
Canadian Virtual Hospice Palliative Care Video
This is a video project I produced last year, but was just recently uploaded to YouTube.
Special thanks to Jessie Wallace, Ryan Latham, CJ Gibson, Colin Hubick, Roslyn Kozak and a great bunch of clients at the Canadian Virtual Hospice (the best Canadian palliative care site out there).
Posted by Derek Leverington at 9:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 14, 2007
Making change happen faster in Adland
It seems like a lot of blogs ramble on about things that the author thinks should happen or their opinion on what did happen.
This role of reporting or offering opinion is all well and good, but in some ways I think it's follows traditional journalism a little too closely. For those of us interested in being agents of change, what if we put a little more effort into writing in such a way to practically help the process of change actually happen.
Got your client to make the leap to skip TV in the ad budget and plunk it down on online? How about sharing that with the rest of the group.
I find that anecdotal stories are often more persuasive than a stack of research, especially if it's a story about a recognizable brand and the story ended well. And if the client is leaning towards it, it just might the nudge to get them to take the leap.
So, here' my short list of ideas:
1) Make plans when you are budgeting to allocate to online advertising well up front of developing the campaign media plan.
Halfway through the year or the campaign is not the time to come up with some brilliant strategy for the use of online. In fact, it may take you a couple of years to win the battle, but keep bringing it up. Change takes time.
The best conversation I ever had with a client in terms of results of getting more focus in online advertising went something like this in a budget meeting:
"I'm thinking this year I'd like to spend half our ad budget in online media. Whaddya think?"
And there's been no looking back since then. It's been a wonderful success all around.
2) When you're pitching that big online media plan in the planning meeting, have some strong creative concepts to go with it.
Let's be honest. Budgeting is a rational process but like any decision, it's also emotional. If you're pitching an idea, be excited about it! And have a really good idea so other people can get excited about it too!!
Everyone loves to work on new and interesting things as long as they don't feel like it's putting them in a risky position. You need to create enthusiam and be able to make it happen.
If you can't do those two things, you're not going to be able to move the yardsticks.
3) Allow yourself extra time to execute the new big idea.
If it's a big idea or novel, you probably haven't done it ten times already. So, allow yourself some extra time to make it happen. The last thing you want is be late on delivering the big idea you got everyone so excited about. It's nice if it's a positive experience all around.
4) Make a big deal out the results once they come in.
We're trying to change old patterns of doing things. It needs to be crystal clear to all involved that this new way of doing things works so that it ultimately becomes the way that things are done.
You can tell a lot about an organization's priorities by where the resources are allocated. Go and fight for you piece of it. Once you do that, you can make all your best laid plans come to be.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 1:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 20, 2007
How did the Courtney Jobse tale end?
d:notes by Derek Leverington: Courtney Jobse
So I did up this post the other day to try and track down a friend of mine what moved away about a year and I had been unable to track down.
So, I ended up hearing from him. And how you may ask?
Facebook.
Of course.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 11:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 23, 2006
iTunes tries to sing a different tune
Naming is one of the most underemphasized aspects of brand design.
The most common mistake - names that are too abstract or non-descriptive - often done in the name of sounding cool or creative. One of the best practices - naming a product/service so that it associates itself with the product category without explanation - so I kind of get it after just hearing the name.
One of the better examples in recent memory of good product naming - iTunes.
This has it's own catch-22. What about something wonderfully named like iTunes when you want to expand the offering to video-based content when the name suggests a music-based offering.
Well, it looks like the first thing Apple did is quit calling it the iTunes Music Store in favour of shortening it to iTunes Store. (At least, that's how it appear in my lamer Canadian version where I can't actually purchase movies).
I'm really interested in seeing how this works out. Success in one category doesn't alway ensure success in a seemingly related market. And the competitors are started to stack up in this category with several other recent high-profile video download launches - Amazon among them.
I'm watching this case study with interest. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Apple evolves the naming of iTunes gradually to position the brand for market leadership success in the movie and video content category. Although currently used to name their simple video editing software - the name iMovie is kicking around the stable.
They face some challenges though. The name is one. The other is that they are up against a more sophisticated digital right management technology in Microsoft's Windows Media DRM. Fancier technology affords control is this is the kind of thing that content owners like Hollywood studios get seduced by. Although for all the WM DRM technology innovation, Microsoft and partners have come nowhere near replicating iTunes success.
And I don't care how wonderful the Zune is - Microsoft is at a huge disadvantage is trying to make up ground in this race. This isn't like switching where you buy your cup of coffee. Consider the collective consumer investment in iPod players, the money spent on proprietary iTunes songs and getting used to the best user experience around - I'm not going to be switching to anything else anytime soon and I don't think I'm alone in that view.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 9:41 PM
August 22, 2006
Stop Crying Web...
I don't know why this is, but why is it that everyone always overestimates how quickly the internet is redefining the rules of the game?
It's frustrating to me too - Mr. Early Adopter - but the truth is:
We don't all have blogs.
Most people don't read blogs.
I doubt anyone within 100 yards of here knows who Jason Kottke is.
"Uh, Derek, where can I look up what a wikipedia is?"
Very few know what an RSS feed is let alone use an RSS reader for their information foraging (although their boss may have sent them to a lunch-hour training where they learned what it looks like). Until web browsers make this thing painfully simple, the grapes of RSS are going to be too high for most people.
On the whole, we still reads print magazines and newspapers far more than we read online magazines and newspapers.
I'm not sure there are any truly bona fide internet celebs in the public consciousness.
I can't download a movie from Hollywood studio like a I can a song from iTunes.
Short of porn, most video is broadcast via cable companies and satellite providers.
There's very limited us of IM apps in the workplace.
Hardly anyone over 30 sends more a few text messages per month.
Most of the ad budgets go to TV and print.
Let's face it, the pace is slow. There's no big stick out there beating us over the head to change other than our own desire to do so and the habits of the more younger, more technically savvy redefining the face of the average buying consumer. And that takes years to make a difference...
It'll be 60-odd year until the seniors of the time grew up with the internet their whole life. That's a long time away ...
In the meantime, the new order of things slowly settles in. The quicker ones among us will be identify oportunities and build businesses around intellectual property they'll likely sell to an established player rather than take to market themselves. A few of us ad-type will do something interesting and maybe get in an article somwhere but the rules overall will change slowly for our trade.
Fact is, for every year that goes by, we only get one year older (I know, I'm brilliant...) so it's going to take time for the wallets of a new generation to take over from the baby boomer economic powerhouse.
Till then, pine away you yearning futurists... pine away...
Posted by Derek Leverington at 6:57 PM
May 27, 2006
WWWaiting for the web to make good...
Here’s some stuff that I’m waiting for regarding the internet:
1. More use as a primary delivery channel for video and audio content.
I applaud the decision by Fox to start to deliver prime-time content over the web. Look for a lot more of this. The old television broadcast infrastructure has a bull's eye on it's forehead. It was built for a different time.
2. A true celebrity to emerge from the internet.
Right now our celebrities are created from old channels i.e. Hollywood, fashion magazines, big record labels, and are generally born by buzz generated from the established marketing machines.
I heard a great definition awhile ago that "a celebrity is someone everyone knows."
To date, I can't think of a single instance of someone that has emerged as a celebrity into the middle of public consciousness that originated off the internet. This will only happen as more entertainment is delivered primarily over the internet.
The only possible exception to this (and it's not the most lofty) is Paris Hilton. I simply don't think she would be as well known were it not for the porn video that was circulated on the internet.
I'm crossing my fingers for something a little more laudable.
If anything, look for the emerging niche "micro-celebrity". Someone that a lot of people know, but not everyone. Best example in current terms, a really good college band - very popular among broad geographical areas but to a specific demo. Great marketing opportunities here for the right brands.
3. Home internet service bandwidth of 25 Mbps commonly available for $50 per month.
This is where it starts to get interesting you can deliver almost any type of content you'd need. At this speed any form of audio, hi-def video, games on demand, and you-name-it all becomes possible.
4. Offline media budgets spends to hit the knee and start to drop dramatically in favour of internet spend.
It's slowly starting but the bulk of the big media budgets still go where they always went.
Boring...
Well, they aren't getting through to me. I'm not hanging out there anymore.
Goodness... who knows... maybe this whole concept of markets of one will actually happen someday.
The truth is, all of this is going to take longer than I'd like and it's only because content owners and infrastructure and quite happy with it the way it is.
Once a new generation of content developers i.e. independant musicians, indie film makers, hot shot podcasters, etc. decide that they are going to deliver exclusively over the web, we might be able to get somewhere with the web taking over as the primary delivery channel for entertainment and art.
Posted by Derek Leverington at 4:25 PM | Comments (0)