Ged Carroll

Blog

  • renaissance chambara retrospective

    renaissance chambara retrospective – whilst looking at something else I decided to do an animated GIF showing what my blog had looked like in various incarnations over the years.

    I didn’t even remember a few of the designs in the finished GIF.

    Disappointingly flickr doesn’t host animated GIFs so had to use another service instead.
    renaissance chambara since 2004

    make animated gifs like this at MakeaGif

    Before there was the website this was a contributed strand to an online community founded by Tony Perkins who had previously founded Red Herring magazine. Red Herring was one of the go to media for the original dot.com boom and bust. The site ran on a CMS called Netmodular and provided a community experience somewhat like Facebook, but more specialised.

    The AlwaysOn Network went through a number of changes. So I decided to strike out on my own with my writing. This was partly precipitated by my playing with platforms to work out how they could be useful for clients.

    I eventually went with Blogspot because it was free and had a good community at the time. The platform was easy to use and customise (in a similar manner to the way MySpace or Bebo were later on). Eventually, I wanted something that felt a bit more professional and the website moved from Blogspot to WordPress on Yahoo! Small Business Hosting.

    I chose Yahoo! Small Business Hosting for my first WordPress blog because I got a staff discount.  This decision was disastrous. I lost a good deal of my content, which I tried to recover via the Google cache and was partially successful. I then moved on to Media Temple as my hosting provider.

    The design of the site changed a bit over time, partly because the themes that I used were no long being updated from a technology point of view. I was very influenced by Derek Powazek’s approach to blog design with a single column of content.

    It turns out that doesn’t completely break down when you go through the site using a mobile device. Anyway that’s the renaissance chambara retrospective. Let’s see what the next 13 years of blogging will bring…. More on the transitory nature of the web here.

  • Old mix I’d done

    Digging through my digital archive I came across an old mix CD I’d done.

    Two Technics SL-1200 decks, vinyl records, a no-brand mixer with bass and treble levels on each channel that I had picked up at Maplins (think Radio Shack in the US) and a HHB CD-R 800 recorder to take it down in one take.  (For hi-fi heads, the CD-R 800 was made for HHB by Pioneer based on the respected Pioneer PDR-99. The differences were in the rack mount capability on the HHB in place of the wooden side pieces, HHB branding and some additional balanced connections on the back for recording in a studio.)

    It was sent out and given to friends as a CD in an A3 sleeve that folded down to CD size designed by Stephen Holmes at bloodybigspider.

    Track listing (as best I can remember) – if you recognise any of the other tracks let me know so I can plug the gaps

    1. Unfinished Sympathy (Nellee Hooper club mix) – Massive Attack. I am a great believer in starting with something people know. I prefer the Nellee Hooper mix over the more famous Paul Oakenfold mix of Unfinished Sympathy
    2. Reality (main vocal version) – DJ Spinna featuring Rich Medina
    3. Marscarter (BLHIII original) – Bernard Leon Howard III. A really nice track on the Tweekin label which I really liked. BLH didn’t release anything after this 
    4. Inspirations From A Small Black Church On The Eastside Of Detroit – Moodymann. I loved this track but wasn’t sure how to use it. In the end I just threw it in
    5. Unlabelled white label
    6. City People (Migs Dubpusher Rub) – Miguel Migs
    7. Jazz 2 B U (Johnny Fiasco’s after midnight mix) – Chris Simmonds
    8. Saxomus Bill – Jay Tripwire (you can find this on Beatport as Saxamus Brown – presumably because the original namechecks Bill Clinton)
    9. Hypnose (Tony Hewitt remix) – Phil Weeks
    10. Unknown white label
    11. Unknown white label
    12. My Dusty 303 – Dano – it manages to do acid house in a way that allows room for all the instruments to ‘breath’
    13. I go back (main mix) – Harry Romero featuring Robert Owens. Both are great in their own right but together this becomes phenomenal
    14. The Love Scene (Henry Street remix) – Joe – this is a remix of an R&B track that I hadn’t heard of. I like the way its built into a dreamy track, ideal for finishing this mix on.

    More culture related topics here.

  • IBM guilty + more news

    IBM guilty of age discrimination

    I, Cringely Is IBM guilty of age discrimination? – Part two – I, Cringely – this could get very interesting, IBM guilty in a court of law would pose a wide range of problems from a political and regulatory point-of-view. There will also be issues in terms of skillsets for looking after large legacy systems. More on IBM here.

    Consumer behaviour

    Has Desktop Internet Use Peaked? – WSJ – Data from the research company indicate overall time spent online in the U.S. from desktop devices—which include laptop computers—has fallen for the past four months, on a year-over-year basis. It dipped 9.3% in December 2015, 7.6% in January, 2% in February and 6% in March (paywall)

    Culture

    A Japanese guy remade The Life of Pablo without hearing it | Dazed – I think its better than the real thing

    Media

    Copyright fight club – POLITICO – Hollywood in one corner, internet companies in the other

    6 Reasons BuzzFeed’s Revenue Miss Is OMG! – BuzzFeed’s supposed to be the media company that holds the answer to the media business’s future in a post-banner world

    Online

    UC Davis pepper spray: PHOTOS – Business Insider – interesting case study of online PR clean-up that didn’t quite work out

    Rocket Internet Vows to Limit Losses After 2015 Cash Burn | BoF – just wow

    企鹅智酷 | Tencent Penguin Intelligence – great online research resource in Chinese

    The CIA Is Investing in Firms That Mine Your Tweets and Instagram Photos – (paywall)

    Security

    FBI hasn’t learned anything from unlocked San Bernardino iPhone, says report – CNET – quelle surprise, I can’t even believe that this is news

    Daring Fireball: Motherboard: How Canadian Police Intercept and Read Encrypted BlackBerry Messages – basically if you aren’t running your own Business Enterprise Server, your BlackBerry messages and email are up for grabs. If the police have the key you can bet other people can get their hands on it as well – a la the criminal record database access that is acquired by private investigators through nefarious means

    Web of no web

    Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks – The Atlantic – if you look at the lifespan of the equipment deployed, how would Intenet of Heavier Things last as long?

    The return of the QR code? | The Digerati – the QRcode never really went away, what is interesting is how Facebook has gone for something proprietary in its code design for Messenger

  • Integrated agency wins

    I started thinking about integrated agency wins when I read that Asda appointed Publicis after a short pitch process this week.
    ASDA
    What was notable about the win was that it covered both creative and media briefs. Notable enough to become a conversation topic when I met up with industry friends for coffee. Integrated wins are not that common.

    WPP has managed to win global single agency accounts:

    • Ford Motor Company
    • HSBC
    • Colgate-Palmolive
    • News International
    • Bank of America
    • Miller Coors
    • Ford Motor Company
    • Mazda
    • Huawei

    Then there was Enfatico for Dell.  Enfatico struggled with personnel changes at the client and client culture.

    The Publicis deal is is more modest in one respect, it only affects Walmart’s UK business, but is still £95m.

    On the face of it, integrated appointments have a lot to offer, so why aren’t they more common?

    Let’s first look at the pros of an arrangement:

    • Better chance of not getting silo-ed thinking from the agency. Both creative and media can be part of the ideation process. One of the big parts of WPP’s early success was a focus on media investment management. This broke the symbiotic creative relationship between media and creative. It worked well for a number of years, but with integrated agency wins, the pendulum seems to be swinging back the other way
    • New ways of audience targeting as part of the creative process. The concern is the combined profitability of the account. Rather than a focus on media profitability

    Barriers to adoption:

    • Current contractual timings don’t allow for pitching media and creative business together. It seems so obvious, but there may not be a convenient break clause in place
    • Pitches are often driven by procurement teams; who look at better value in continuity, rather than a more holistic approach

    Weakness of a combined media and creative agency arrangement:

    • The marketing group may not have strength in all areas. I worked for a large marketing group which held the global account of an FMCG company. Despite being part of a global marketing group, we couldn’t execute in two markets for the client. This affected the social media marketing work we did for them and they weren’t happy
    • Dependent on the marketing team, they may not want to work with a media agency that:
      • Operates an arbitrage model. Having bought the ad space from the media, they then sell it on to clients with targeting data
      • Operates a model that isn’t media neutral to meet wider internal goals
    • Clients often think of the arrangement only as a way of cost reduction

    There are also weaknesses with the single client agency model as WPP has done it:

    • Set-up costs are usually shared across clients, but where there is dedicated infrastructure. This cost will have to be borne by the client, upfront or salted in the fees
    • From a client perspective there is moral pressure to maintain the agency relationship. This complicates the client’s ability to ensure cost-competitive rates
    • Less opportunities to cross-pollinate ideas across categories. This is because the agency is focused on one client only

    While Asda have taken an interesting first step, hiring an integrated offering. The hard work is only now starting:

    • Putting in place the right working practices client and agency-side
    • Changing the creative process to take advantage of integration
    • Have a proven positive effect on Asda’s sales figures in the face of competition from Lidl and Aldi

    More posts on WPP here, and Publicis here.

    More information
    Asda hands £95m media and creative to Publicis Groupe in double coup | Marketing Magazine
    WPP Folds Ill-Fated Dell Agency Enfatico Into Y&R Brands | Advertising Age

  • Facebook Live + more things

    Facebook live

    A Facebook live streaming service (a la U-Stream and YouTube) was newly launched this week. You can stream on your page or in-group. There is a map to discover streams going on in realtime. I already  found one seminar by Nu-Skin a multi-level marketer of wellness and beauty products in Hong Kong as an example of where Facebook Live was being used from a commercial perspective.

    The Stanton Warriors embraced the new Facebook live streaming service to promote further fan interaction whilst they were in the studio. It will be interesting to see the best and worst that brands do with this medium. From a piracy point-of-view I would imagine that it is likely to be used for streaming live sports coverage – expect the Premier League to be very unhappy.

    RUN and RUN

    Not exactly the same sound but J-Pop act lyrical school’s debut track RUN and RUN has a really clever smartphone optimised video with amazing breaks of the fourth wall.

    UPDATE: Our James pointed me in the direction of an even better link for the RUN and RUN video on Vimeo that I hope works here

    RUN and RUN / lyrical school 【MV for Smartphone】 from RUNandRUN_lyrisch on Vimeo.

    If you can’t see anything point your browser here.

    Godzilla

    Japan’s king of all monsters, Godzilla returns from chilling out on Monster Island for his 31st outing in the Japanese cinema. This new trailer is interesting as the visuals evoke Fukushima Daiichi  nuclear disaster and the Great Tohoku Earthquake of 2011. Check out the Cloverfield-esque shots in the 30 second trailer below. There is a longer trailer where Godzilla appears fully in shot leaving no mystery to how bad ass he is this time. This means that the film is likely to go beyond his usual mayhem and might touch on contemporary issues.

    Vintage CGI

    Last, but not least; a vintage show reel by 1980s CGI shop MAGI Synthavision in its full neon wireframe magnificence and southern country rock soundtrack. More similar visual stuff here.