Sledge Blog

Women who mean business

This week I was lucky enough to attend Gather 2008, the annual WACL forum (Women in Advertising and Communications London) at RIBA.  The daylong event, put on by women for women, is now in its thirteenth year and is recognised as the key training and motivational event for rising female stars in the communications industry.
The event was sponsored by Google, Heart FM and Thinkbox TV. Lindsey Clay, Marketing Director at Thinkbox, and chair of WACL’s training and development committee, was responsible for organizing this year’s event and had invited me along. Delegates were treated to a sparkling array of the industry’s leading female movers and shakers all giving us their top tips for success in the business and illuminating us with personal anecdotes and words of female wisdom.  Industry luminaries at the event included host, Ita Murphy, MD of MindShare and President of this year’s WACL; ballsy Stevie Spring, CEO of Future Plc and former CEO of Clear Channel; Helen Calcraft, the highly successful, charismatic and motivational Managing Director of Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy; Tess Alps, inspirational CEO of Thinkbox TV; and Cath Kidston, UK Designer.

The speeches were informative, honest, refreshing and highly entertaining and the day passed more like a day out with a group of female friends than your average watching-the-clock training conference.  Not that the serious issues affecting women in today’s workplace were in any way muffled or skirted around. Key issues discussed included work-life balance, successfully balancing demanding career and motherhood, bullying, female insecurities at work and equal pay.  Delegates were encouraged to find confidence in the workplace and strive for success in a number of ways with top tips ranging from ‘lose the fear – it’s never that bad!’,  ‘drop the invisibility cloak’ and, my personal favourite, when in times of trouble and adversity just  ‘ply on the red lippy…’. A highly informative and entertaining day – It was one of the most engaging training sessions I’ve ever attended. KS

Nice present

To the Sword

In case you missed it, Saturday evening saw the continued and quite unfathomable revival in English rugby fortunes with the march of the national team into the Final of the World Cup at the expense of hosts France.

Following a number of hours of amusement baiting French friends, the smug-faced glee remained well into Sunday, helped in no small part by the site of very timid-looking Sebastian Chabal in a great piece of newspaper advertising that tapped nicely into the spirit of the nation, whilst continuing to rub salt into collective French wounds.

Wilkinson Sword can be applauded for taking full advantage of the association implicit in their name, reducing Chabal – the talismanic, caveman-like symbol of French solidity, passion and flair (some might say arrogance) – to his more youthful, much less menacing former self. This creative approach nicely parallels the removal of the French, conveniently via the boot of Mr. Wilkinson himself, from a tournament they looked to have a great chance of winning on home soil.

The snappy, humorous manner of the communication is also a great example of marketing being conducted in line with real-world happenings, playfully drawing people in to share the joke together whilst positioning Wilkinson Sword as central to the discussion and, importantly, hinting at the attributes of the product. Such a shame, Sebastian!

Undo

Sometimes art direction just hits the mark... like this one from OLAY. No copy, no need.  Apparently the original brief was 'apple Z’ and I'm not sure the target audience will get the reference but who cares it’s spot on.

Leo

Cut Chemist

Rather beautiful new online ad for the new Apple Nano - check it out here. Music by the brilliantly named Cut Chemist, formerly of Jurassic 5 fame.

Parade of Icons

An article in yesterday's Media Guardian discussed the third annual New York Advertising Week ; a festival of advertising with lots of different stuff going on, aimed at various different audiences; clients, agency types, people looking to get into the industry and the general public. Nothing too surprising until you come across reference to the parade of ad icons.

Seemingly the parade sees icons from the Jolly Green Giant to Tony the Frosties' Tiger strutting their stuff through the streets of Manhattan. The public not only throng the route but actually vote in their thousands for their favourite icon - for the record Colonel Sanders won gold in 06.
The article rightly points out that the parade is emblematic of old advertising, 'when a big green chap wearing a toga made of leaves only had to say "ho-ho" to have people snapping up his corn by the canful.' If advertisers and brands can't do a better job of engaging people, this will annual promenade of foam characters will come to be seen a funeral parade.

The post-advertising age

The following quote from Philip Gould, in the latest edition of Market Leader, is a rather beautiful way of  describing the changing relevance of advertising agencies. "The buildings stand but the intellectual pre-eminence and communications power has wilted. Agencies have fallen and risen and the business of advertising has continued, but the context in which advertising is conducted has changed.
Advertising was once the sun at the assured centre of a constellation of stars. Now it is a fragment in an exponentially exploding communication universe."

Push the button

Vancouver based Rethink Advertising have designed these rather lovely bus stop posters for Solo's walkie talkie phones. Push the button and you can talk to someone at a bus stop hundreds of miles away. It would be great to observe people using it; I have visions of urban kids screaming abuse at unsuspecting and slightly confused grannies in mountain towns.

Space Agency

 

Here are some great examples of creative thinking and use of space. Getting you message through needn’t be boring.

TATE

You might remember that I (Jez) did an internal presentation earlier in the year on the marketing that the Tate are doing to attract a younger audience to their galleries. This ad for the Tate Britain just won an award in the outdoor category at the Cannes Advertising Awards. Do you think it is any good, is it really engaging enough to get people to read 500 words - or maybe that's not the point?