Man on the moon

Love the REM song Man on the Moon. The song was a highlight in the movie of the same name on Andy Kaufman, particularly effective on the big screen with large sound system.

The movie wasn't so good. Having looked at the book I was keen to see the movie, Andy Kaufman suffered the same problem Peter Sellars did and that is he really didn't know who he was. The movie failed to nail this, they had him making many frank admissions and talking to people when it was clear in the book he wasn't capable of it.  (The movie trailer)

 (Springsteen joins REM)

But that's not what I was thinking about when I heard the song today.

What I thought about was 'do you believe they put a man on the moon?'. 

I do.

I also don't believe the US or UK Governments faked 9/11 or 9/9.

Or that the UN is a giant conspiracy to overthrow the US Constitution and has an army of black helicopters.

I think we're in the 'New Dark Ages'; science is openly ridiculed, superstition in the form of weird consipiracies are all the go and religious fundamentalism in the major religions is thriving. 

Worth a screenplay or play I think.

Posted via email from SamNZed's posterous

testing

Just seeing if I can email posts

Posted via email from SamNZed's posterous

Dumb dumb dumb = iSnack2.0

So the story is the new Vegemite product is to be called iSnack2.0.  Assuming the name survives any legal challenges from Apple it's dumb.
http://bit.ly/U5HBy or more usefully - 'It's vegemite but it's different' http://www.vegemite.com.au/vegemite/page?siteid=vegemite-prd&locale=auen1&PagecRef=758
Yes '27-year-old father-of-two from Western Australia Web designer Dean Robbins has coined the name for the new Vegemite, with his winning entry chosen from a field of almost 35,074 submissions'.  The other 35,073 submissions must have barked and howled badly (although there were only 16,071 unique names).  And why not entrust branding and naming of products to anyone?  It's easy isn't it.  I mean writing is easy - we can all use a keyboard. Logos are easy - we can all draw pictures.  And after all - we're all experts in politics and business as we can listen to Radio Live or TV news. Even though we're all experts and qualified to design brands and names I suspect Dean saw lots of fun in the design and thats how he came up with it.
There are three clusters of reasons I think it's dumb. In reverse order of significance

1) Brand identity and Brands dependent on other brands

Apart from using 'i' being brand theft, let's assume Apple let it go on the grounds they're not in the revolting spreads market. You can't have your product dependent on the whim and fortunes of another brand. While it is unlikely Apple may do something dumb, pollute all of a province of China, be bankrupted in an IP case, whatever.

And here's the thing - what are they saying? That this is a snack with Wifi?  That this is a snack for people who own an iPhone? Does this spread come off your Mp3 player easily?  We've mixed silicon chips through it?   Probably that this is the spread for cool young people.  Have they got a budget to place it in that market?  Is it part of a brand strategy or just a folly?  And so are they now gonna rebrand the wrapper to look 'cool and sweet for yuff'?

2) Spoken brand

How do you say it?   Eye snack two point one will never work. So it will be i snack OR worse vegemitesnack or ivege (or 'cream vegemite')  2.0 is just not gonna survive Don, Doreen, Jayden and Allysa's breakfast time. (Just give me coffee and pass the cream vegemite stuff!)

People will never write it correctly - not so important in an age where people don't write anymore but I can imagine dairy owners misspelling it badly as it has a '.', a capital in a strange place, and snack is as easily misspelt as potato. [hint: there is no e in potato or tomato UNLESS  pluralised].

3) Longevity

Ten years ago when I led changing the physical branding for the Christchurch City Council we were presented with one option which was a graphic presentation of  www.ccc.govt.nz rather than saying Christchurch City Council.  The designers said that this would show we were modern and up-to-the-minute. (They also had a well-meaning promotion campaign in their pocket that was effectively 'Hey we have a website!'). While almost all companies had websites then the other main reason we rejected it was because it sounded and looked very nice and futuristic at the time, and that meant it would date quickly.

iSnack2.0 looks like a temporary product. That may be the strategy but if it did for some weird reason take-off (perhaps lots of people getting depressed and seeing it as a low-level self harming masochistic thing) the name will need to be rebranded very quickly - probably to VSnack or, if Apple don't make it hard, iSnack.

I really don't like competitions in the brand, design and naming area. Yes they build popular support, but no they don't hit the mark for the strategies you should be following.  Also, in the case of - 'draw us a logo' you end up with things you can't use any of, creating a disappointment or rejection of customer participation.
Why do I care?  I take brand strategy far too seriously. Understanding what products, services and organisations do of value to their communities, customers and stakeholders is one of the things I do. Really though I hate seeing a job in this area done badly. If we leave it to amateurs we all look like amateurs.

Posted via web from samnzed's posterous

Ch ch ch ch changes

I went to a conference once where 'Changes' was the theme and all through the event Bowie's Changes was played.  Essentially the conference was good but not that many changes in PR were clearly sketched at the time (late 90s).  When I reviewed the notes maybe 5 years ago when I was throwing stuff out it occured to me again that you don't always see the changes for what they are.  We talked about email and mentioned the web but the full extent of the revolution wasn't clear.

Anyway on a personal note I've been grappling with a few issues of career, family, passion and although what is changing is not obvious yet I have discovered my attitude towards writing is again altering. 

Quantum randomness

'Anyone who has not shocked by Quantum theory has not understood it' Niels Bohr 1885-1962

The world was apparently turned inside-out with quantum physics and I love the idea that particles more than light years apart are somehow in sync or communicating and that the certainty of the physical world may not be as certain as we think.

BUT

The physical world is pretty dependable.  If I leave something on the clothes line it is there or i can usually find it or there is a very clear physical explanation of where it has gone. Of course car keys are not always where I leave them but that may be random failures in my brain.

So yes I am shocked but at the same time I don't understand how Quantum theory affects the physical world I live in.

Living in the past

Every now and again I realise I am reacting or acting based on the past. Bugger.

Obsession du jour - Social Media and internal communications

I have been reasonably sure for a while that corporate PR has to change. This is due to the fundamental changes in media and communication wrought by the web (often called social media). In my earlier career it was easier to have a staff policy that only spokespeople can talk to media. It would usually work.
There were problems sometimes with people at public meetings or being interviewed or reported for an outside work issue. And of course at a barbecue staff could say anything. 

But then sometime a few years ago it all started to change. First there were bulletin boards and news groups.  these were followed by Blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn Youtube, and now Twitter. Now people are more visible and having meangingful policies on controlling their views and activities is impossible. There are employment policies of course but really.....  You can get staff blogging via work controlled blogs, but really they can still blog in their own time.

Also social media has created potential to harm brands and companies - consider
Burger King staff member having a bath in the BK sink http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1iyN7Y-jJQ
McDonald's staff wrestling http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSdBKG6pYGc

And of course there are videos of misbehaving staff and blogs and Facebook posts running down companies.  You can have a complicated system to monitor blogs, bulletin boards, as well as Talkback and other media but that doesn't address the problem.

The real answer is that we can't control people. When jobs were for life there was a chance.

The solution I think is we need to start to place internal communication where it should be in the communication tool kit: right next to customer and shareholder PR - at the top. Not an add-on or something run by HR.  Meaningful, planned, sustained communication with and from staff, and the building of a sustainable and constructive internal culture need to be a priority.

Happy, loyal and positive staff are the best defence against the ravages of FB, Twitter and YouTube, they are also the best opportunity to succeed in the new environment.  These staff will also provide defence against customer backlash and other 'crisis' issues.

Why Tim Barcode?

Years ago when I was writing plays as soon as actors knew I had written them they started to change them make adjustments and generally argue a lot. When I wrote plays as Tim Barcode, aside from the odd word, actors just did it. There was also a backstory that Tim Barcode was from Melbourne, so there was almost a reverance about the scripts.

It was when Playmarket told me they couldn't help me unless I went under my real name that I reverted to that for playwriting. Oddly I've been less successful since I took their advice.

will try again

Got side tracked by a range of projects but will be back