Great project with very good "viral" potential, particularly around Easter from exactly one year ago (Easter, 2009). Agency and clients get few "thumbs-up" from my side:
for the courage the touch this sensitive issue that so offten is full with hypocrisy;
for the ability to react to the context (or, whats more probable, to create some of "early publications");
for the courage of client to take this polarizating decision instead of some "corporate risks"
for the courage to play it big;
And after all - the biggest risk in marketing communication is to get stacked into the grey area of illusionaly safety and medocrity. At the end of the day it is always waste of money. Nobody cares about grey, medicore and overly safe ideas.
Besides of that one main tasks of any marketer in this era of social platforms and extreme abundance of information is to move the customer out of the zone of indifference and comfort in order to incite the conversations, either big or small, and to move forward to some action.
Challenging conventions, particularly controversial ones, is not the worst beginning point.
it builds endlessly on and from what came before, creating novelty
in new combinations. How the most awesome stuff comes
from the broadest set of sources and inspiration."
The quote above (and following video) via an entry in one of the very best planning blogs (and significant source of my inspiration and further research for few years) called "Talent imitates, genius steals" by Faris Yacobs. Articulated and explained deeper by nobody else than Steve Jobs back in 1994 it finally gets much deeper meaning:
"It comes down to trying to expose yourself
to the best things that humans has done.
And then trying to bring those things in to what you do"
Why should graphical identity in the Digital Age should be 2D? Why should it be static? Can in be open source? Can I adapt to the context of situation and usage?
There is a great example (case) on how to approach the creation of graphical identity in the age of digital technologies and social platforms . And the result is much more than just a graphical identity or just identity. It's rather a dynamic, open and flexibe system. By Wieden & Kennedy London.
"Two years ago it would be implausible. Five years ago it would be impossible. But if it turns up in the news tomorrow would anybody be shocked?"
There is a story attached. Almost true story that in five minutes tells us about the increasing power of social networks and a breathtaking way from the very near future.
And all the behaviors we do practice on Internet. Creating content. Commenting on content. Sharing things. Remixing things. Calling for action. Going for action. Flashmob. And then, almost always - action going unexpected way.
The video (performance) is one more proof on how connected we are already and one more sign of increasing power of social media. And besides of that it makes me think again on what makes storytelling great in multi-media age. It is not anymore just about telling the story.
After a little bit than a year of silence in my blog in English (and few quite an active and insightful years with my blog in Latvian) one thing was clear - I have to take one more attempt of sharing my thoughts and findings also in a blog in English. That was the promise that I have made to myself and more than few of my collegaues, ex-collegaues and friends all around the World. And to my new collegaues in Instinct BBDO and BBDO Russia Group.
The question was time (as always) and the question was name (ZZ Corner felt a bit self-centric and a bit outdated). But in the absence of ideas three days ago I was ready to continue my trip with "ZZ Corner". Blog was ready on Saturday night.
On Sunday morining when I saw a great warm campaign of Tropicana "Arctic Sun" through Vineta's blog with reference to author of never ending discoveries and piecies of purely human inspiration, leading DJ of #twitterkrogs - @verners the doubts were back again. And after finding out Patric Watson song that was used in the case I have postponed re-opening for exactly two more days just to consider renaming it "The Great Escape".
Why? Because we all are in the middle or beginning of several Great Escapes in a way. And we are ones that can make these escapes happen in positive way.
A great escape from the age of mass media and "one way transmitting" of messages with no feedback, no opportunities for dialogue (back to the natural state of conversations in bigger and smaller groups and two-way communciation);
A great escape form rationality and purchasing power (GRPz, TRPz) dominated ways of doing marketing and advertising to much more creativity dominated, human-centred, decentralized and value-creating ways of it;
A great escape from the age in economy dominated just by ROI and some financial ratios, to much broader and deeper definintion of value creation;
A great escape from organizational structures that were used to serve some purpose for dozens of years and provide the security, predictability and comfortable life-style of its top managers and owners towads more flexible and dynamic and rather project based structures that focuses on creating value and creating awesome results in every activity;
A great escape from vertical and closed structures of power to opportunities to create and maintain horizontal and much more open ones;
A great escape from ages where creativity and creative work were considered privilege to the age where it is available to and expected from everybody;
A great escape from the "Age of Innovation" to the "Age of Creativity";
A great escape from the age where access to information and education was considered luxury to the age where we have to learn completely new skills to live in the age of abundance of information and education materials for the first time in the history of mankind;
A great escape from predictability from quite a static view of the world ("If A, then B, if B, then C"), to the age of dinamism and unpredictable feedbacks and synergies ("If A, then B; If B, then both A and C changes; and if A and C changes, they both change B again in a ways that is quite hard to predict"), that makes life much more interesting and challenging;
And at the end of the day also a great escape from being lazy and rather repetitive in my thinking towards a little bit more systematic and much more deeper way of putting my thoughts and ideas together and going deeper in the issues I am interested in and going broaded.
I think, I have decided. On the name. On "The Great Escape" while writing these random thoughts.
I am not making any promises on how frequently I will be able to devote time for more than few lines on idea worth to discuss, embedding great campaign case video or sharing the main idea from latest reading. Putting some of my own thoughts together takes time and some discipline (both of planning and thinking). So no promises. Lets see how it develops and where it leads.
This will not be copy of my blog in Latvian. Some entries probably will duplicate in the future, some of issues and ideas that were touched in Latvian entries probably will be developed further and deeper. And I will continue to nurture http://zz.typepad.com too.
If you are interested - you are more than welcome to subscribe to your e-mail (top-right corner) or to your RSS reader. If it speaks to you - feel free to share with your friends and likeminded people.
And I would particularly appreciate if you comment on entries and to participate in the discussions. Thoughtfully and critically.
But while I am making some changes and fine-tuning few more things - there is The Song with great animated video.
