Thought. Insights. Amusing waffle. The Brass blog is always worth a read.
The Importance of Being Influential
Gaby Ferry September 3rd 2010 no comments
We’ve been contributing to the debate about the role of online influence this week. As part of our ongoing Connect team workshops, we’ve been exploring questions of relevance, metrics and ROI that can be attributed to this holy grail of the social landscape.
Although this debate is not new, the evolving social landscape has heightened the role of influence and influencer for brands and agencies alike. While many are laying claim to owning the winning formula, with no industry standard, influence remains an elusive force.
Central to this debate is: how do you define influence?
The industry is currently wrestling with this question. Recent contributions have been made by the CIPR which has created a panel of specialists to try and quantify influence and the implications for UK business.
The ever excellent Brian Solis is currently conducting a poll to clearly define this area, with the results being published later this month. We’re also waiting for the outcome of the Fast Company’s hotly debated Influence Project which, while being an exercise in popularity more than influence, has helped push the topic up the agenda and brought tiara-wearing Mari Smith to online prominence.
We’re monitoring this debate closely and our next session will cover the role and influence of the peer group vs. wider relationships on influencing action.
What are your thoughts on the importance and role of influencer for social media and marketing?
Arcade Fire use HTML5 to create interactive music experience
Sam Watson September 1st 2010 1 comment
“Imma” let you finish Kanye, but Arcade Fire have the best video of ALL TIME!
If Kanye West wants to interrupt anyone for any reason at this year’s MTV awards then it should be over Arcade Fire’s latest video for “The Wilderness Downtown”.
It’s a refreshingly different way of creating a music video, utilising some pretty slick web technology such as HTML 5, Google maps API, and a mash up between the two, including 3D tree rendering on the maps, and a flock of birds flying from window to window.
I like it because it’s not a traditional video in any sense and, more importantly, it’s not a traditional website. It doesn’t follow any of the web standards that we are so used to seeing.
Yes, it’s not the nicest design in terms of the window pop ups, but I like it for that; it’s honest and it’s really more about how the site interacts with the user. The relevancy of the technology to the song makes the video a complete experience; the song is about childhood so you are asked to enter the town in which you grew up in, which then becomes part of the video.
I’d really like to see more like this on the web and hope that this inspires designers and developers (and even marketers willing to take the risk!) to break free of the current website formulas and really utilise the web to its full potential; creating truly dynamic pieces of work.
There are many HTML5 examples out there but this is bringing the technology to a different audience. If you know of any other sites that really break the mould then let us know in the comments section!
(Oh, and if the Kanye reference is lost on you, take a look at this YouTube video.)
Cream of the Crop: Creative Review features Sh! Award winner
Leah Kayles August 27th 2010 1 comment
There’s a new face in the Brass office this week. Our 2010 Sh! Awards winner, Matt Young, started with us on Monday after grabbing the top prize for his ace animation and design work.
Matt features in a two page spread in this month’s Graduates issue of Creative Review, which features his smiling face on the front cover.
Fresh from Leeds Uni, where he graduated with a 1st no less, Matt’s already nabbed a prestigious D & AD pencil for his work, which includes animated films with a simplistic, ‘lo-fi’ style, using paper and stop motion techniques, and bespoke book designs.
Excitingly for us, Matt’s work will be displayed alongside his fellow Sh! finalists’ in the Brass Gallery from the 7th September.
Pop in and have a browse round – we’d love to see you!
Is the cat out of the bag?
Leah Kayles August 26th 2010 3 comments
Unless you’ve been hiding under a stone (or in a bin) for the past week, you’ll have heard the story about catwoman by now.
If you haven’t, we’re not talking about Michelle Pfeiffer unfortunately, nor Halle Berry. In fact, to avoid any confusion, we’ll refer to her as catbinwoman from here on in.
Catbinwoman is in fact a grey haired lady from Coventry who was caught on CCTV placing an unsuspecting feline in a bin.
Due to a strategically placed CCTV camera outside the cat owners’ residence, catbinwoman was caught in the act of petting the animal before picking it up by the scruff of its neck and throwing it in a wheelie bin.
The cat was eventually retrieved by its owners and you can read the story in more detail pretty much anywhere on the web.
What makes this story particularly interesting however, is that the cat’s owners put the CCTV coverage up on a Facebook page called Help find the woman who put my cat in the bin, and the news story to some extent then turned into one about social media, as opposed to being simply about the event itself.
Twitter was of course abuzz with the topic before very long, with every man and his dog (or cat) jumping on the bandwagon, whether to offer outraged opinion, bewildered bemusement or simply to crack a few jokes. (You can also now follow @catbinlady’s very own tweets, but, be warned, this may be a ‘joke’ account..)
The question is, how has social media impacted upon this whole story?
Personally, I first picked up on the story through twitter. If it wasn’t for the huge, snowballing response on twitter and Facebook, would this really have been such a big story?
Looking at newspaper coverage, the crux of the story has become less about a woman committing an act of animal cruelty, and more about the social media storm that was caused as a result.
Event takes place – social media picks up on it – traditional media reports on the fact that social media picks up on it.
Is this the shape of things to come?
If so, is this simply another example of newspapers losing their grip and social media forging ahead in the battle to provide timely and relevant news? Is the cat out of the bag; has social media proved itself to be the only news we need?
We’d love to hear your thoughts…
Brass work featured in Lürzer’s Archive ’200 Best: Packaging Design Worldwide’
Lisa Wisniowski August 24th 2010 no comments
The highly acclaimed publisher, Lürzer’s Archive has just launched the latest in their ‘200 Best’ series – 200 Best: Packaging Design worldwide – and we’re chuffed to bits to find out our work for specialist tea company Mallard has been featured.
Lürzer’s received over 4,732 submissions from 55 countries, so it’s a fantastic achievement to be featured alongside the likes of designs for Coca Cola, Levi’s and Panasonic.
As Lürzer’s themselves say, the book is “not only an extensive source of ideas for all those involved in packaging design but also a veritable treasure trove for marketers seeking designers able to extract that added value from a product”.
You can see all the details on our work for Mallard the full case study at – http://www.brassagency.com/our-work/mallard-tea.aspx
Blekko – Another Google killer?
Ching-Yun Huang August 19th 2010 2 comments
Pretenders to the Google throne
Since 2008, a few search engine start-ups have joined the search war to compete with the world’s most powerful search engine, Google. Many claimed to be Google killers: like Cuil, the search engine that defines itself as the ‘coolest’, or Wolfram Alpha, the search engine that claims to be the only one to provide all the answers you need. But how many of these new search engines ever got popular? The answer is none.
Cuil is basically dead while Wolfram Alpha is struggling to be recognised by users as a search engine such as Google, Yahoo or Bing. You may be wondering, if new search engines may never be able to compete with those search giants, why would I want to talk about Blekko, a search engine that most of you have never heard of?
The answer is simple, because it is different.
That old chestnut: does sex actually sell?
Lisa Wisniowski August 17th 2010 2 comments
I’m guessing you’ll all have seen or heard about Reebok’s latest outdoor campaign promoting their Easytone trainers by now.
A new product launch in itself doesn’t usually garner such extensive press coverage or buzz online, but the fact that brand ambassador Kelly Brook was naked (but for said pair of trainers) may have had an impact…
It seems that yet again, the ad world has returned to the assumption that ‘sex sells’.
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Down on the farm…
Paul Mallett August 16th 2010 no comments
We took a trip to one of Ribena’s blackcurrant farms on a sunny summer’s day not so long ago, and got snap happy with some shots of the wildlife and the juicy blackcurrants. Check out some of our pictures below.
It’s enough to make you don your apron and get making some blackcurrant jam, isn’t it?
You can see the rest of the photos from our day out at the farm on the Ribena Flickr page, as well as the Ribena Facebook group.
Enjoy!
Birds of a feather flock together
Simon Shaw August 9th 2010 1 comment
In the months leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq hundreds of thousands took to the streets to protest at the prospect of military intervention in the UK’s largest ever street demonstrations. Those opposed to the invasion could not see the logic of war; others, including many members of parliament, were firmly in favour, seeing continued inspection and multilateral action through the UN as appeasement.
The tendency to seek out and spend time with those most similar to us goes some way to explaining this. This phenomenon is called homophily – literally meaning ‘a love of the same’.
Like it or not we are likely to befriend, work with and share our world with people who have common backgrounds. Without us realising it our opinions are often confirmed, reflected and reinforced – not challenged. This is important as we understand much of the world we live in indirectly, through what we hear about it, not what we encounter ourselves: it’s possible to miss all kinds of changes, trends and opportunities by talking only to those who agree with you. Had East Coast liberals widened their dinner party invite lists in the run up to the 2008 presidential election they might have understood what they found irritating about Sarah Palin – her being short on specifics and long on folksiness – was precisely what appealed to much of small town America.
So, what does the phenomenon mean for marketers?
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Is it ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ to a Dislike button?
Charlotte Brophy August 2nd 2010 4 comments
The call for an official Dislike button on Facebook has been further fuelled by Mark Zukerburg’s comment recently on American news channel ABC, stating that he would “definitely think about it”.
So, why has this become such a talking point amongst the site’s users? I think that some are simply keen to have the button from an “I want to dislike things” point of view. I’m referring mainly to the 3.2 million who have joined the group and signed the petition supporting the concept, probably without giving a second thought to the impact it could have on brand pages. And conversely, there are those who have; namely those who utilise Facebook on behalf of brands who anticipate such a function to be an issue if it were to be created. 
However, according to Mashable’s Pete Cashmore, there’s nothing to worry about. He thinks that Zukerburg is “humouring us” and that Dislike buttons won’t be coming to Facebook anytime soon for one key reason: “it would damage the company’s relationships with brands, businesses and web publishers – these groups are essential for building both web traffic and ad revenue”.
I agree. It wouldn’t make sense for Facebook to damage such relationships for the sake of a Dislike button to please the general user, but is that the final word on the whole debate? Of course not.
New Facebook buttons keep popping up through third-party sites, so although the Dislike button might not exist on Facebook officially, it has already cropped up in other forms – Facemod and Facebook Dislike – and can still have a detrimental impact.
It’s widely agreed that a Share button would be more appropriate, especially for the more distressing stories where it is seen a tad distasteful to Like, i.e. ‘I like Swine Flu’. But, like many of the said-to-happen developments in the social media world, unless it comes to fruition, everyone will just lose interest and move onto the next thing. Next week, I might be posting about a Hate button that has been launched by Facebook which is causing massive controversy. Quite doubtful I realise, but I’m no Mystic Meg.
Image courtesy of Oldmasion: http://www.flickr.com/photos/httpoldmaisonblogspotcom/221227903/.
