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johnny be good: insights, condoms and comedy

22 Dec

I love the Condom08 campaign – the perfect marriage of real insight, a creative idea and seamless cross platform execution driven by data and user stories. And it’s about sex, and everyone loves talking about sex. Particularly Swedish people having sex.

I’ve been having a bit of discussion about this with perennial provocateur Mister Corbett. His view is that it’s a great idea but it’s not founded on an insight.

“The only disappointment for me is that only 4 out of 10 people felt more positive about condoms. The campaign deserved better than that I think. However the truth is though that, while it is great, it actually doesn’t in anyway actually address the real issues with condoms – that being that they interrupt the experience. It is wonderful creative thinking – but not based around any true insight.  I love the campaign – I just don’t think it is based on an insight, I think it is based on a great idea. That’s not a crime – far from it, it’s fucking great”

I disagree – I think it’s genuinely insightful; it comes from the idea that yes, condom use is interruptive, but if you flip it,  make that moment of interruption positive (you stop to put on a condom and load the app, perhaps while boasting about how great your graphs are going to look, baby) you change it from being an awkward moment to a fun and possibly sexy one.

That, coupled with the insight that people are desperately curious to know what other people get up to in bed – for all we have access to more porn and sex blogs than can possibly be consumed in a lifetime, there’s a little part of every adult that still wonders on some level  ”am I normal...?”* And nothing tells you what’s normal like some mathmatically vague graphs and stats.

(*FYI: you’re a freak. Embrace it. Life is short.) 

So is using the disruption of putting a condom on to feed our prurient interest in what other people do in bed – and secret desire to brag about our own prowess – genuinely insightful?

Is that truly an insight, or is it rather just an observation?

I think a handy way of checking if what you’ve got your hands on is an insight, or rather, a glibly stated fact is to imagine you’re a stand up comedian.

Will what you’re saying make people gasp, turn to their friend and say sotto voce with a delighted squeal   “I do that!”, or “my mum always…”, or are you more like that awkward stand-up whose set is a series of banal observations prefaced with “Have you ever noticed the way that…?”

An insight is the “oh em gee, that’s so me!” moment, the prod to the solar plexus, not the intellectually driven head nod. As Simon Law says,

An insight is a revelation that produces great work
(there should be a degree of “Fuck me. I never thought of it like that!”)

Peter Kay is a fine example. If you’re from the UK and have seen him talking about “the big light”, you’ll know what I mean. He presents the everyday in a way that feels like you’ve never seen it before, but with that telling jolt of recognition.

I’m here all week. Try the veal.

Notes I made on my iPhone whilst drunk or discombobulated

3 May

Thanks entirely to Matt Granfield for the inspiration… (All art is theft).

This is the stuff and nonsense I’ve recorded of late:

  • Old timey radio
  • Bootlace  – Elliot
  • Peter Watts – blindside – hardcore scifi
  • being in heaven – wtf?
  • the internet as domestic battleground – poor code of conduct, divulgence, boundaries. How can privacy, the right to own virtual space be re-imagined?
  • 11299912&11
  • Contagious
  • Karma chameleon: on integrity and consistency in brands

My, but my brain just whizzes and pops like a cerebral wee firecracker, doesn’t it?
I am already so forgetful now I fear by the time I’m legitimately senile, there will be nothing left but hand clapping and keyboard cat.

Why FourSquare is anything but…

24 Nov

FourSquare. In the immortal words of Thierry Henry, “let me break it down”.

FourSquare defines itself as “part friend finder, part social city guide, part nightlife game’.

The team claim that they “wanted to build something that not only helps you keep up with your friends, but exposes you to new things in and challenges you to explore cities in different ways.”

It’s a geosocial site (and application) which enables you to ‘check in’ at places and share details about your activity. More importantly – and this is what sets it apart from BrightKite et al -  it syncs info about local businesses to enable you to share your favourite places, give people tips about the things and places you love and create a to a to-do list based on the recommendations of friends and neighbours.

The opportunity for business is enormous, allowing brands to reward consumers who are advocates, to monitor, engage with and respond to users and to further cement consumer loyalty, e.g. offering you a free coffee if you check in at your local cafe four days in a row.

The B2C commercial imperative is obvious – can businesses afford not to have a presence on FourSquare?

The reason it’s so addictive – and will, I predict, become massive in Australia – is that it’s framed as a competition, with  just enough hipster credibility not to feel contrived.

You become the Mayor of a certain location by checking in there more frequently than anyone else, are given badges for particular activity (adding new places, spiked activity at night etc.) and user statistics are updated weekly on each city’s leaderboard (currently Likeomg, Warlach and I are amongst Sydney’s biggest hitters) – thus appealing directly to the ego and plugging in to our desire to be seen as influential, in the know, hyperconnected digital douchebags….

Rewarding users by offering them ultimately meaningless and arbitrary trophies demonstrates an extremely sophisticated understanding of the psyche of the early adopter/ digital native on the part of the creators.

It’s been hit by so much activity in Australia since its launch (in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne) on Friday that the servers needed to be upgraded, and I am still finding much of the functionality within the website is limited and buggy. It works like  a charm on iPhone though, which is after all where the heaviest use will occur.

Scoble says FourSquare is the next big thing, suggesting it’s as significant as the Twitter API release:

“It enhances your experience in each location. Check in at the Half Moon Bay Ritz and you’ll see tons of “tips” that people have left for you. Francine Hardaway, for instance, tells you where the best dog beachis. I tell you how to save $40 on smores. Other people tell you that Tres Amigos is the best Mexican place nearby”

This certainly looks like the first site developed for internet on the move that’s actually going to make it to the mainstream – the execution isn’t quite there yet but it seems to be well thought through at a strategic level, cleverly rationalised and with the key component -monetisation – built in from the beginnning.

FourSquare: pressing the “go viral” button any day now….


ill communication

5 May

I lost my mobile phone again on Saturday.
This makes the fourth time since December. It caused me pause for thought…
The first loss was as a result of my own stupidity (post GGD); the second, marital discord; the third, an act of petty sneak-thievery, but the fourth was undoubtedly more peculiar..I had a conversation whilst on a bus, and when next I checked, the handset was nowhere to be found…
In a post-Freudian analysis, one only loses things as a deliberate act; one unconsciously decides to rid oneself of the burden of life; of living. I don’t lose things as a general rule.
Can it be a coincidence that of late I’ve received a great deal of bad news via my mobile?
Loss, according to Old Faithful Wikipedia, relates to:

the death drive (“Todestrieb”) the drive towards death, destruction and non-existence. It was first proposed by Sigmund Freud in Beyond the Pleasure Principle.

Do I unconsciously equate my mobile phone with teh badness? Or am I just a slacker?

So I’m conducting an experiment: I shall live without a mobile phone for a week.
How inconvenient will this really be?

Will it, in fact, force me to:
a) turn up to appointments on time, without rescheduling or dallying
b) actually call the people I love instead of sending placatory but ultimately meaningless text messages
c) read great novels / listen to fascinating podcasts rather than noodling around on Twitter on my commute
d) learn to value my privileged ability to speak to whomsoever I choose, whenever I choose

I’ll let you know.

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