MACN BACN

So BACN is the new new thing. As of last weekend it is the term to describe emails that you want to read, just not yet. This might have interesting implications for creative agencies - can they create email programmes that store themselves in a BACN BANK (BANC?) until you're ready to read them? Can they be tagged by the user or the brand to stop going into spam filters? Can we create BACN PACKETS of user-chosen content that waits patiently to be read at the right place and right time (distributed content?) or time-expires? And are branded (opted-in) emails by definition BACN not 'spam'?

Mumblecore

I read an article in the NY Sunday Times about Mumblecore. This is a new film movement (I guess only in America at the moment) that relies on naturalistic, low-budget production and often improvised dialogue. It's apparently a defining genre for today's 20-somethings. So will Hollywood or Madison Ave find it first? Will it translate to the UK? And, maybe interestingly, why on earth would a traditional ad agency be any better at making mumblecore ads than say a 20-something video-literate blogger? Perhaps this is another example of how traditional classifications and definitions of agency specialisation are going to erode. And another question mark over how agencies resource.

What's in a word?

So integration is what we do, but it's a dirty word. Intermediaries and clients don't like it as it implies a lack of specialisation, yet I don't think I've delivered a campaign in just one channel since about 1996. But blended seems to be a word that's popping up more and more. Blended implies an agency skill in mixing specialisations together around an idea. The ability to blend channels, messages, resources becomes a core competancy, whereas integration is the lowest common denominator? It's only a word change, but maybe that's how memes take hold.

Is blending, then, a core planning task? Are planners well placed to be the agency's internal mixologists? Maybe. If planners are also responsible for finding the strategic idea and turning that into a platform for creative, is it too much power to cede to planning to have them be the people who blend the resources available?