Filed under: Communication Strategy, Culture, Innovation, Marketing, Technology
So recently someone sent me this ad for a scientific calculator …
I’m not sure when it’s from, but a quick search revealed the RadioShack TRS-80 came out in 1980 so it’s certainly a long time ago.
But here’s the thing, I don’t just like it because I’m a nostalgic fool, I like it because despite being very product focused … despite them shoving a ‘direct marketing’ element into the execution … despite the product costing a bloody fortune … it’s refreshing to see an ad that gets to the point rather than pontificate about what it ‘believes in’.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe the values of a brand are massively important, however so many brands these days spout a bunch of contrived bollocks … either because they haven’t got anything interesting or valuable to say about their product or they’re a faceless corporation attempting to sound ‘purposeful’ by retrofitting some bland, meaningless value-terminology to themselves, despite no one actually giving a fuck about what they say because all they do is exactly the same as everyone else.
Phew … I feel better after that.
But that aside, maybe I like this ad because it seems to have inspired the positioning for Nokia’s N95, the first – and possibly last – time the Finnish phone peddlers did something that was innovative [for 2007] both in terms of the product and their point of view.
However, if I’m being totally honest, the real reason I like it is probably because I still use this as my calculator.
Yep, the one I got when I was 12 [or maybe 13] … 2 years after the TRS-80 came out.
The one where I’ve still not used 99% of the buttons on the left hand side of the calculator.
The one that is so old that the screen doesn’t let me type 553l8008 clearly.
The one I wrote a blog post about.
Which all goes to show, it might be a new year, but I’m still as pathetic as I’ve always been.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Devious Strategy, Health, Human Goodness, Innovation
… well this is that product.
How brilliant is that?
I utterly love it. LOVE IT.
It works on so many levels it’s ridiculous … from friendship, play, health and life.
The fact adland – an industry that claims to be obsessed with creativity, but really is obsessed with making ads – bestows huge amounts of praise and awards for ‘solutions’ that have questionable purpose makes me feel a bit ill.
Hell, this is a football that could even make Nottingham Forest seem like they were doing something useful. For once.
Seriously, this should have been done – or at least backed – by FIFA, given all the shit they spout about trying to make the World a better place through football.
But of course, what they actually mean is that they can make their bank account a better place through football.
For more information on this brilliant idea can be read here.
Innovation.
It has kept the World evolving, developing, learning.
It has created new normals for each and every one of us to build off.
It has revealed what humanity is capable of doing and inspired us to believe in what we can still achieve.
Innovation is a wonderful thing.
OK, so a lot of it is – arguably – more evolution than anything else, but it is important which is why companies make a big deal out of it.
Now of course, what some companies think is important innovation is – often in the public’s eyes – nothing much at all.
Sometimes that’s because the public don’t understand the significance of micro-innovation.
Sometimes that’s because it’s innovation for innovations sake – designed for PR hype rather than to provide the audience with something genuinely valuable and useful for their lives.
And sometimes it’s because the company are talking a load of shit because offering a product in 3 new colours is not innovation or evolution whatsoever.
But regardless what the reason is, I think we can all agree that if you’re going to say how innovative you are, you should – at best – create a product where your innovation is obvious for all to see/experience or – at worst – explain what you’ve done.
Which is why this ad for Parker Pens bothers me so much because, on first glance, it appears to do none of them, it just tells you that they have … which is also slightly undermined by showing a pen [and a photographer] that both look like they come from 125 years ago.
OK, so some people may argue that will pique my interest to find out more. And yes, it’s true I noticed the ad and am commenting on it … but I – like 99% of the population – have better things to do [or at least, have more things to amuse them] than search for a website to discover the innovations Parker has brought to the World but maybe, if they’d framed their communication in such a way that it said they were behind many of the things the World now takes for granted, it would make me want look at them – and their products – differently and then I’d want to know more.
OK, maybe that wouldn’t work either … but the odds would definitely be vastly improved.
But alas they didn’t do that because this smacks of an ad that was created simply to make the board of directors feel happy with themselves rather than make the average person on the street give a fuck.
Filed under: Agency Culture, Crap Marketing Ideas From History!, Egovertising, Innovation, Marketing Fail, Only In Adland, Square, The Quest To Progress
… that would explain this.
Make sure you watch the video.
You HAVE TO watch the video.
Seriously, when someone senior in adland says …
“The industries future is solving problems rather than just driving awareness”
… it not only shows how out of touch and out-of-date they are with the things countless agencies, brands and individuals have been doing for years, but how much this industry needs progressive leaders – and clients – to get us all out of this mess.
It only gets worse when the example he gives to demonstrate this ‘new thinking’ is Volvo Paint … an idea that’s OK but ignores the countless others that have not only been developed in the past 10 or 20 years, but have genuinely infiltrated popular culture.
[Though, to be fair, that’s more by brands than agencies]
What next, a speech on how WAP will make every mobile a potential marketing platform?
For fucks sake. Seriously, for fuck, fucks sake.
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NB. As I am writing this post quite in advance of when it comes out, there’s a chance you may not be able to access the clip because you have to be a paid subscriber. If that is the case:
1. I will try and find a link to what I’m talking about that gets around the ‘paid’ block.
2. All you really need to know is that Grey’s deputy worldwide chief creative officer – who I am sure is a lovely man – say’s ‘solve-vertising’ … the ability to solve problems not advertising awareness of them … is the future. Yes, solve-vertising.
It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic.
Utterly, utterly tragic.