Debut Single from Grand Rose Band

Check out these rockers from my home town of Bath

New Phrase Required

I've been working on a new business pitch recently to extend our remit on an existing Client. We can obviously offer our Clients economies of scale from a financial point of view. But we can also offer the equivalent from a thinking point of view - the Client doesn't have to pay twice for the same thinking applied to different channels of customer communications. I'd like a good phrase to describe this. "Thought Consolidation" is my best so far. Any ideas?

Generation @

I was recently asked to write a "thought piece" for mobile phones and the youth market. I used this "Youth of Today" document from ChangeThis and a Business Week article "The MySpace Generation" as part of my inspiration.

The next generation does not see a difference between on and offline. For them digital technology is not a channel, but an intrinsic part of life. It’s how they organise themselves, interact with friends and express themselves. However it still remains a tool – it is a means to an end.

The universal driver is to feel belonging, to be able to identify with a scene, an attitude or group. The children of “Generation @” are Skaters, Riders, Townies, Technos, Goths and Geeks. Finding a sense of identity is paramount. And technology is the key to finding it. Marketers speak to the youth audience as a homogenous mass, yet they see themselves in clearly segmented groups that have strict attitudinal and behavioural demarcations.

Their attention is divided and reactive to the myriad incoming communications they receive via their handsets and computers, so they’re hyper-distractible. As a result they’ve become a generation highly adept at dodging messages, not listening long enough to hear and also filtering out what’s not important to what they’re doing. They’ve evolved a 6th sense for spotting fakes – obvious ploys to infiltrate their world for commercial purposes rarely work (Google will need to handle YouTube very delicately if it wishes to continue to see exponential growth).

The next stage of connection for this youth audience is predictable – as accessing the internet and digital content via mobile handsets becomes a more and more plausible option, “Generation @” will be conducting the vast majority of their inter-human connections via their handset. This will correspond to a significant revenue opportunity for whomever is providing the handsets & network services.

Retail trends away from ‘price’ to ‘authenticity’ are highly relevant to this audience – they want to buy into a genuine story, something they can identify with and believe in. When they shop they’re seeking an experience. They want to be able to try products, get some proper advice and be treated with respect – witness the success of Nike Town and the ever-burgeoning Apple Store retail experience.

In summary, there is huge potential with “Generation @” to be the provider of choice for the identity-giving technology they crave. Delivering an authentic experience is the key to this, playing on their terms – creating a virtual store in Second Life will get a conversation started with the right audience, but if it is not delivering something exceptional, then the conversation won’t go quite as you planned.

Redundant Copy Feedback

I recently saw a comment that some copy should be written to "make it sound like it was written by a copywriter". I assume that this meant that it should be written well - I can't imagine anyone wanting their copy written badly!

On deeper consideration, this comment is so utterly redundant. A copywriter, by definition, does not write like a copywriter. Their job is to write in the style of the brand they are representing. The writer themselves may well have their own style of writing that it quite different from the work they produce for their Clients.

Second Life Summary

Here's a few links that serve as a summary of Second Life, the digital world with seemingly endless possibilities.

An author replicates book for launch...link

US presidential candidate makes a speech...link

Replicating the Burning Man festival...link

U2 allegedly play a gig (there's dispute it was really them!)...link

And finally - BBH launches in second life!...link

Family Planning Advice

Godin on Cheaper

Seth Godin observes that taking the "cheap" route is the soft option - link. It's also very hard to stop doing "cheap" once you've started down that path.

Sliding to Death

Found this picture over at Presentation Zen. This exemplifies so many things about poor presentations. Check out that visual aid - text too small for the audience to read and way too complicated (the audience will be struggling to read rather than listening to the speaker). Check out the presenter on the right - text book crime of reading from the slide, alienating the audience. I can guarantee that this was one hell of a dull presentation.