Diesel: A-Z of Dance

This has got the hallmarks of a great campaign in the making.

A great campaign that has the potential to mix paid media, earned media and that holy grail of advertising, user generated content to great effect. Other than the fact that the execution is banging (which is 90% of the brilliance) here’s what I think those hallmarks are;

Paid media

It’s ready to go as a TV ad / cinema / pre-roll and could be adapted to any format you’d care to mention.

Earned Media

It taps right into an observed internet phenomenon that gets stuff watched / shared. And that’s making lists. Just look at the outrageous success of Buzzfeed, all powered by lists.

User Generated Content

1. Its asking the right sort of people to participate. It’s not asking everyday Joe Bloggs to ‘show us your best whatever’ as so many desperate brands do. Its talking to people who are really good at dancing, who love to show off and would love to be in an ad. It’s talking to the interested few not the disinterested many.

2. It’s walked the fine line of inviting participation and begging people to help with the advertising.

‘Dance your way into our follow up’ - We’ve already done one and its fucking cool. Dance your way into the second - earn it.

3. I don’t think the choice to set most of it on the street is purely artistic. It’s made it really easy to get involved. Pick a letter, do that kind of dance and do it on the street to fit in to the video. Everyone’s got a street to dance on.

What do you reckon?

P.S. If you liked the article and can give it a little shout out on Twitter that would be hugely appreciated!!

APG Noisy Thinking: When I'm CSO....

The CSOs from 7 of London's agencies each nominated one of their 20 somethings to share, within 5 minutes, their thoughts on re-imagining the planning world as if they were the CSO. I was fortunate enough to be invited and if you'd like to hear my thoughts just skip to 2.26. Or watch he whole thing, there's lots of really interesting takes on the subject.

What would you do as CSO?

How Brands Grow

This is the Dirichlet model of brand choice and purchase rates for Coca-Cola in the UK. Put simply this is how many people are buying coke how many times a year. It shows us that the vast majority of Coca-Cola’s customers very rarely buy Coca-Cola. This is also true for Pepsi. And Coca-Cola in the US. In fact this pattern ‘generalises around the world, over time, across product categories, and for all the different market research providers.’ 

Clearly this totally contradicts loads of ‘marketing wisdom’ to do with loyalty and brand love. The Dirchlet is 25 years old and has survived 25 years of testing. It is one of marketing science’s greatest achievements as it provides the basis for many of the scientific laws that can be applied to brands. If you’d like to find out how this reveals predictable patterns in buying behaviour and sales growth, in jargon free writing supported by empirical scientific evidence, then I strongly recommend you read How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp. 

In Case You Ever Needed Proof That There Is No One Way Of Doing Things

Daft Punk’s 5 year teaser campaign and Beyonce’s shock overnight album launch on iTunes - Both awesome, both causing massive spikes in internet search traffic, although Beyonce is of course starting from a much higher base.

My 5 Favourite Adverts Of 2013 (Not Made In 2013)

Rather than contribute to the endless roundups of this year’s ads all over the internet I thought I’d share my 5 favourite ads that I’ve been inspired by this year. In no particular order;

Starting with the product is pretty brave and this gorgeous piece of film is now on permanent display in the Louvre as an example of modern art in advertising.



I dare you to find a 20 second advert you love this much. Straight to the point, hilarious and memorable. What more can you ask for?

The craft in this is just outstanding. Goosebumps don’t lie.

Still as fresh as the day it was made.

I struggle to think of an advert that understands the people it is talking to more.

P.S. What are your favourites?

3 Books Everyone In Advertising Should Read

I'm sure I'm not the only person in advertising that has been recommended about 3 million must-read books about behavioural economics, strategy, thinking differently, problem solving, social anthropology... the list goes on. So it's with a bit of trepidation that I'm writing this post. Having said that these three books all made a big impact on how I work fairly immediately and I think that's worth sharing.

A Technique For Producing Ideas

This book is 45 very small pages long,  you can read it in half an hour. That alone almost makes it worth reading. However the legendary Bernbach makes an even more compelling case than that - 'James Webb Young conveys in his little book something more valuable than the most learned and detailed texts on the subject of advertising.' 

Project Colour

 “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it… Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

- Steve Jobs

In 1997 the Government’s  ‘Excellence in Schools’ report argued that unlocking the potential of every young person was of vital importance and concluded that Britain’s social stability and economic prosperity were dependant upon doing so.1

Following on from this the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCEE) published a report concluding that “a national strategy for creative and cultural education is essential to that process.”2

It argued that the importance of creativity in the workplace had become paramount and that this coupled with the Education Reform Act’s emphasis on the need for education to equip young people for that working life, meant that developing creative abilities should be seen as a general function of education as it would benefit all children.3