Filed under: Our team, management | Tags: agency, calendar, Carrie Bradshaw, CRM, deadlines, Excel, Google, invoicing, management, pipeline, project management, sales, scheduling, scheduling software, Search, software, time management, time saving
As I sit here endlessly typing different search criteria into Google hoping that I will find some little gem that I have never stumbled on before, I can’t help feeling a little frustrated. As much as I can appreciate it is not nearly as interesting as any subject matter that Carrie Bradshaw would be chatting about, I do feel that it is for me, and others who share my job role in like-minded agencies, worth asking the question………..Why is there NO decent scheduling software available?
I told you it wasn’t riveting stuff and I’d like to say that I am urging people to tell me that I am wrong, or that I haven’t looked in the right places etc., and I am hoping that there may be some miracle out there that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg and actually does what I need it to. People will laugh but scheduling is really important and yes yes I live for it, and in reality an agency can’t function properly without it. It would be great to find software that is easily updatable and makes it easy to get information across to the rest of the agency.
Every bit of software I come across is project management software. It all boasts some miracle time saving devise and the magic that is knowing everything regarding a project, and as important as this is, and yes it is important, I can’t for love nor money find a solution that actually deals with managing people. Not projects, not money but people and time.
All they seem to offer me is a calendar!!!!!!!! or if I’m lucky multiple calendars! I mean for crying out loud are you kidding me. I have, it has to be said, worked in this industry for longer than I care to admit, and I have been in an agency or two in my time, and all I ever come across is people who work in production or creative services who spend their lives updating excel documents like I do. So I see a gap in the market. An actual solution for agencies who want to deal with their sales pipelines, CRM of clients, general project management stuff, invoicing and yes somewhere to actually organise all deadlines and people. So someone I am hoping will hear my cry for help and point me in the right direction. Failing that I’ll ask my extremely clever development team to make me something spectacular.
Filed under: Brands & Marketing, Social Networking/ Word Of Mouth | Tags: 3 questions, advocacy, brand, buzz, co-creation, co-creators, I used to be a zombie, Kill Bill, LEGO, monty python, Nokia, NOTLD, NOTLD:R, pillow fight, talk radio, word of mouth, zombies
Night of the Living Dead - remade by the fans
Speak to some of Neoco’s big global brand clients and you will soon hear them going on about the ‘co-creator generation’ and how to engage them. Co-creators are a group of people who share a similar love for something and work to create or progress the ’scene’. Have you seen the Kill Bill special ‘fan’ edition (The Whole Bloody Affair)? Or what about the Lego Mindstorm development studio or any of the Lego scenes on Google Images or You Tube…
Co-creators or the generation thereof are not categorised by age or similar demographics, they are actually a mind set. It’s mostly a co-incidence that they are of a similar age or sex. A general rule of thumb is the more niche the cause, the more passionate the co-creators. In some ways, that’s why the big brands are destined to fail with their recruitment of this audience as by and large, people just don’t care enough about a mobile phone and the intrinsic links to other content (music, video, photos, etc) are too generic to evoke true passion.
An example of a genre that is never short of co-creators is the living dead, or zombies. From zombie pillow fights in Seattle to zombie talk radio podcasts, the world of the dead has never been so alive and online has made this possible. The latest co-creation to hit zombie-land is NOTLD:R – an interesting remake of the 1968 movie Night of the Living Dead. The whole movie has been cut in to scenes which are then distributed to co-creators who have to animate the scene in their own way. The new animations will then be recompiled for an entirely new experience of NOTLD. Sounds very exciting but to a lot of people this sounds quite sad and those people are missing the point. Co-creators are passionate about their interests and spending four months animating a scene for a collective movie is a state of mind and emotion. These people would not go watch a football game, they would be the ones who get painted and turn up with drums, horns and flags at every game.
So whilst the idea of involving co-creators is a great one, the brand needs to ask a few questions first:
Is our brand strong enough to withstand the impact of co-creation
Is our proposition really inline with their passion?
What do we want to get from this?
If you can get positive answers from these three questions, you might just have something that could involve or attract co-creators and all the positive word of mouth, buzz and advocacy that it brings. Be warned though, if you even have one answer that is not strong you are likely to just end up with a handful of zombies going through the motions.
Filed under: Brands & Marketing, Cool & Online, Events, Hot List Clients, News | Tags: 15 seconds of fame, Andy Warhol, competition, diva, exhibition, fabulous, icon, letters, marketing, showcase, Southbank Centre, The Hayward Gallery, video, Warhol, widget
I went to the Warhol’s exhibition yesterday at the Southbank Centre and I truly loved it! I especially loved the letters and invites sent to him that he kept in his time capsule: fashionable gallery openings, letters from young boys – offering to be models and perhaps join his entourage of Warhol’s superstars – friends reminding him how fabulous he was. It doesn’t get any more diva than this!
Warhol and his work was camp as Christmas with all the excesses that may come with that festive period (not including food). I love the way he was able to market himself and make the Warhol experience so complete: paintings, drawings, films, composed photographs, TV, contact sheets, Polaroids, booth pictures, even cardboard boxes silkscreen on wood!
I am a great admirer of his talent to make people buy into his ‘iconicity’ whilst he was alive – I think I secretly wish i could have been able to be part of his entourage. I would have moved to NYC to make it happen if I had had the chance to live in his time and be included in his cliquey group.
The Hayward Gallery has organised a video competition coinciding with the Warhol exhibition – 15 Seconds Of Fame. Neoco has created the website and widget that showcases the best videos entered in the competition at www.15secs.tv. The curator of the Hayward Gallery will choose the winners and their videos will be showcased at the entrance of the Warhol exhibition.
The competition is open until the 2nd of January 2009 and anyone can submit their 15 second video. Best of luck to everyone who enters.
Filed under: Events | Tags: Add new tag, creative, De-construct, Design, Digital, digital design, event, Fred Flade, The Typography Circle, type, Typography
Fred Flade – The Private Life of Digital Typography. This event hosted by The Typographic circle tomorrow night (Thursday 20th November @ 7pm) is something we at Neoco are really excited about. It’s a must for anyone interested in typography or digital design. Fred Flade, of digital creative agency De-construct, will be talking about typographic design in the digital space and celebrating exceptional examples around today.
This is an event designed to explore communication through type in an environment with shrinking technical limits and flourishing creativity. The Typographic Circle is also a client of Neoco’s and we’re proud to be responsible for their website and email management. A group of us will be heading down to Knightsbridge for this event and not just for the free drink!
Why not come join us. You can still book a place by emailing info@typocircle.co.uk
Tickets are £15 for non-members, £10 for members, and £5 if you’re lucky enough to still be a student.
Watch this space for our review of the evening’s events…
Filed under: Brands & Marketing, Events | Tags: advertising, Andy Burnham, conference, control, digital marketing, engagement, futurology, i'm in charge here, IAB, Jerry Yang, Justin Billingsley, MP, Orange, piracy, robots, Rt. Hon, who's in control, Yahoo!
IAB Engage 2008
This year’s IAB Engage Conference was yet again packed with impressive speakers. Digital Marketing professionals and advertisers came together on Wednesday to discuss issues from piracy to measuring engagement, from integration of TV and online advertising to the extreme possibilities of the future – we’ll be sending our robots to shop for us within ten year apparently, and our dreams will soon be infiltrated by product placement via our personal contact lens screens!!
The Keynote speakers, Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang and Rt. Hon Andy Burnham MP, were less controversial and engaging than some of the others guests but their presence was a testament to the high profile of the event. A real highlight was a presentation by Orange brand director Justin Billingsley who certainly made the case for making digital the starting point for any marketing effort.
As impressive as Orange’s campaigns are, it is clear that their creative ideas only work because they are based on a simple principle. Namely that digital marketing should aim to entertain, answer, or add utility before it aims to advertise. This is a great way to make sure brands are working with consumers and not at them and it’s exactly how Neoco approaches its work.
The theme of the conference was “who’s in control” which framed the discussions perfectly. More than one speaker argued that marketeers have the power to make the difference – good news for us! Recent Neoco campaigns, however, are a testament to the success of putting consumers in control. For my part, I can’t help thinking control is the subject of so much debate because it’s basically a redundant concept but perhaps that for another blog piece…
Filed under: Cool & Online, New Technology | Tags: amazon, beta, gimmick, i buy 90% of non-food stuff online, PR, purchase, shopping, website, window, windowshop, wishlist
virtual window shopping at Amazon
The saying is that everything comes full circle, eventually. Fitting then that Amazon, the company that effectively killed the idea of window shopping (or took it to the nth level depending on your viewpoint) have released a new beta site called Windowshop.
Use your arrow keys to pick a genre, and then space bar to zoom in and watch the video content. It’s fun, well made but ultimately just a gimmick. A nice add on might have been a hook up with your amazon account, add to wishlist, etc. Still time for these add-ons though as it is a beta, though one wonders if it will ever leave beta or is it just a nice little bit of PR?
