Art of Pixar @ MOMA NY (and the Science Museum, London)
Two things struck me at the Pixar exhibition.
Firstly, that the show seemed built around the use of ‘old’ technology rather than the new. This was surprising, and charming. A Victorian zoetrope was the centrepiece, with a spinning three-dimensional animation of the Toy Story characters. There was genuine delight on the faces of all those watching – that people could be so beguiled by a concept from the past albeit with a modern and inventive twist – was refreshing to see. Similarly, there was a ‘movie’ of art from different films – essentially a slideshow projected on a panoramic screen – when the ‘easy’ thing to do would be show clips from the films themselves. They let the pictures do the talking, there’s no narrative/ Perhaps our presentations could benefit from a more pictorial or artistic approach?
The other thing was how relentless Pixar are to get things right. There must have been 20 or so ‘pre-volutions’ of the Sully character from Monsters Inc, each one rendered by different artists, then a number of artists riffing on their chosen direction. Sure, their movies live or die by the appeal and inventiveness of these characters, but I loved the way they can harness wildly different talents in the focused pursuit of the end result.
What are Integrated communications, and why are they a bad thing?
“More and more marketers are embracing Integrated Communications Planning to ensure that all their marketing communications work together in harmony”. (IPA)
(Mediacom): “In essence it means joined-up thinking. Joining up all agencies (advertising, media, PR, below-the-line, sponsorship etc) so that they work in harmony and with focus. Joining up all knowledge about the target audience so that they are fully understood. Joining up all the sources of data to fully understand how the advertising will work, and how well it is working”.
Lovely.
But, in reality, integrated communications are campaigns made to look and feel the same in multiple channels, for international, agency, or client convenience. There’s a misconception that the brand has to be delivered in a consistent way at all consumer touchpoints.
This belief is rapidly being dispelled by a few progressive agencies and marketers. Alan Rutherford at Unilever coined the phrase ‘holistic’ which is now taken to mean a brand idea or brand essence at the core of a campaign that is optimised for each channel. So the TV can look very different to the web to the RM programme.
A fundamental driver for this approach is the emergence of the experience economy. From Pine & Gillmor’s book (published by HBS), brands have moved to a new stage of added value, from products to services to experiences. “I think by now, many marketers have come to realise the importance of tangibility and experienced quality” (John Grant, The New Marketing Manifesto). In order to deliver the best possible brand experiences, they have to be optimised for each channel, not homogenised for every channel. Another proponent of this view is Jean-Maire Dru in Beyond Disruption: “The medium is no longer the message. The medium is now the experience and the benefit”
We’re seeing this trend evidenced in all the major IPA award winners – even small agencies on comparatively small brands are punching above their weight with well-crafted holistic campaigns. http://www.ipaeffectivenessawards.co.uk/shop/index.html
And this approach is working with consumers because the time is right – that technology in particular has changed the way people interact with brands; and the entertainment industry has conditioned people to new experiences that the communications industry have copied – e.g. BMW’s films & their new audiobooks.
As Nike puts it: “I believe that the best, probably the only job, for TV advertising, is to wrap a bundle of feelings and associations around the brand. Good advertising is very good at doing this. (Not that there's a lot of good advertising around.) - the conversation today is more about brands engaging in two way conversation - not broadcasting. Nike didn’t discover the power of advertising – they discovered the power of their own voice. It was true for advertising, it's even more true in the world of blogs and allied trades” (Russell Davies, Nike)
Integration is dead – long live integration
Pixel Thoughts is the name of a new group we've set up. Not a competition but there may be prizes. One shot a day. Most views wins (although I think this is a test of tags rather than photography)
It’s a freelance world. More agencies are more reliant on freelance creative than ever. Teams get exposure to all sorts of different environments and briefs that keep them fresh. Agencies get an influx of new thinking, shared experience of others ways of doing things, and solution neutral creativity. The concept of ‘line’ is still referred to openly and often - but usually in spite of any given agency’s freelance-driven creative capability.
Media fragmentation. Although people are consuming more media than ever, they are doing so through more channels, with more screening mechanisms and with more simultaneous channel consumption than ever before. In response, we see the rise of ‘lean towards’ media (to borrow Will Awdry’s lovely term for it) – channels that encourage people to participate and interact, to co-create and navigate on their own terms.
So where do we draw the ‘line’?
What do you think?
