ERROL'S BLOG

Home movie by The Milk and Honey Band

Just You

The Milk & Honey Band | MySpace Music Videos

This is just a lovely piece of home movie film made by the band who made the music. There's lots of this kind of thing around but this feels very genuine, very honest. A wonderful lightness of touch. 

$8bn gets clean water millennium target for the planet now

If this is true and feasible its fantastic. 

Surely the world's water companies would be interested in doing something about making clean water available to everyone? - What a legacy - 2009, met the millennium target and stopped half the people on the planet getting sick and dying from drinking dirty water. 

It will cost $8bn according to Michael Pritchard. 

Please pass this or the TED link on to a water company near you, maybe they'll decide to get together and do something about it, here's hoping, wouldn't it be great if they did? 

Thank you Michael Pritchard for figuring this out, and thanks to TED, and you if you send this on, for sharing it with the world.

The sound of optimism - analogue happiness

Playing the Theremin is a very odd experience - you make sound without touching anything except the air around a box which looks like a very early prototype of some kind of metal detector, in effect you're playing the air. This is Randy George who also does classical recitals with his theremin (on his site). 

Daniel Libeskind does Brand Planning

I saw this and thought a bit of simple word substitution might be interesting.

For architecture read brand point of view, for space read brand expression, and for building read campaign or creative execution - this talk is from TED by Daniel Libeskind on Architecture in 2007. 

Good for anyone who likes taking principles and thinking from one area and mapping them onto another.

Do lectures animation

Do Do Do Do Do animation from Helen Harrop on Vimeo.

Great positivity from Helen Harrop - this first attempt at animation of one of her doodles won her a free ticket to the howies Do Lectures. Found on Do lectures twitter at http://ow.ly/iFFq

A big conservation landmark from a baby elephant at Taronga Zoo

 

I'm delighted to say that this video is the sixth most viewed on Australia's YouTube today. 

It features Thong Dee, an Asian Elephant, and her new baby elephant that was born a few days ago at Taronga Zoo, in Sydney. Please pass it on, spread the good word and help some important conservation work get done. 

This is a first of its kind in Australia - the birth is a massive milestone in the Taronga Zoo Conservation Society's plans for conservation. There are only around 34,000 of these animals left in the wild. 

Taronga Zoo wants people to get involved and help them in their conservation efforts in any way they can. I've had the immense privilege of working with some of the people at the Zoo. They're wonderfully inspiring folk who care about doing the right thing by their conservation goals. The atmosphere there must be incredible. 

It can't be underestinated how a big moment this is in an enormous lot of effort by many very committed and passionate people over a long period of time. It's a magical thing too, being a time and a signpost to great possibilities. 

If you want to help Taronga and its conservation efforts, go to the Taronga Zoo website and find out more, or if you can, go and visit the Zoo, take in the atmosphere yourself, and talk to someone there about what you can do. Thanks for passing it on if you do.

Free film about our home planet - Recycle, reuse, and reinvigorate our appetite for doing the right thing by the planet

This is a talk about free film called 'Home' released last week on World Environment Day. 

There are some stunning images and some poignant commentary in this talk by it's creator, Yann Arthus Bertrand. It's completely copyright free. 

Plus see a fascinating study of people across the world at 6 billion others, another project by Bertrand as part of the goodplanet.org site, a non-profit environmental organisation he founded.

A wonderfully generous gesture.

Kesselskramer exhibition in Sydney

I saw this walking to work this morning in Bondi Junction. 

Kesselskramer are a famous dutch creative agency, often mentioned in the company of other great Amsterdam creative agencies like Strawberry Frog, Wieden + Kennedy, Droog and 180. This should be well worth checking out.

Maharishi and messages about doing the right thing

These are printed inside Maharishi clothes on the inside of pockets. A good point of view and a great way to let people know what you think and align with your views in a quiet way. 

For more great CSR see Toms Shoes in the interesting places column, check baggu bags on coolhunting.com and try this link to a howies post i did some time ago.

Stand for something against the intolerable status quo - give fans assets - start and feed a movement

In this talk at TED, Seth Godin adds weight to the argument that push marketing has had its day – he’s promoting the idea of tribes (the title of his new book) as being the way to go for brands in the connected world we are in.

He suggests that social networking technology has helped tribes form easily around niche interests and galvanize themselves into creating change - sometimes on a world scale.

He gives examples of how change can happen from Al Gore to Tom Shoes (in the interesting places column on this blog).

Status quo challenging ideas from leadership thinking, that become stories or big ideas that a person or a brand stands for are necessary. Then its harness tribes to create a movement and create change individuals couldn’t achieve by themselves.

But thanks to these times of internet connectivity, it seems like power to the fans of ideas that create a better way, is gaining on the power of the mass mindset.

Another good case in point of the influence of the internet and the power of social networks, is in this two minute extract of a talk given by Scott Thomas, which I found on at Coolhunting.com. Scott designed the Obama's digital campaign. Instead of just having people ordering campaign merchandise online, people were able to download Obama branded assets so they could create merchandise of their own.

Net result; Obama's vision of getting people more involved in the political process is achieved - and from involvement comes committment.

 

Here's an image from Seth Godin's TED talk.

Starbucks goes RED

Good to see more corporate giving in these times of economic stress. Well done Starbucks. I'm not sure what the deal is exactly with the contributions to good causes, but at least they've signed up. Signposting good intentions is a positive thing that may inspire others to get involved, so that's a definite win.

Also good to see this once trailblazing brand, flying a flag of philanthropy. Cynics might accuse them of going for a soft CSR sympathy dollar bandwagon but, I'm more optimistic there's a Warren Buffett-esque acting on a socially aware desire to have change for the good, happening here. The battle of good America v. crap America is hotting up perhaps - the popular hope has got to be that good America gets stronger, early Obama signs suggest it might, and that from here on, we all get to help in whatever way we can, to make crap America history.

Beijing Olympics quote

I was reminded of a good quote today which is Chinese. It connected to my last post in the Tokyo Olympiad film, and it was about complacency to a point, which connected to the Anti-Complacency League sentiment in the Paul Weller post. Here it is.

'If you are thinking of one year's time, plant a seed,
if you are thinking ten years time, plant a tree,
if you are thinking one hundred years time, educate the people'.

The best film of the Olympics ever made

Many would say the best film of the Olympics ever made is Kon Ichikawa's 1965 documentary, 'Tokyo Olympiad'. I'd agree with that.

Comedic, respectful of elite athleticism and dedication, tragic, beautiful, charming, disturbing, lonely, very human, weirdly not as uplifting as you might expect, something for the time capsule, something to show every new generation, arguably something for everyone. Here are two clips from YouTube.

Racewalking.

and Marathon.

Cool animation for cool Converse work

This is a direct link to the work above Psyop did for the Converse campaign by Anomaly NYC on Psyop's site. Great energy, edginess and authenticity. Also good to see are the interviews with Pharrell Williams and Santogold on YouTube.

Converse and (PRODUCT) RED doing good brightly

I saw these Converse shoes in a Hype shop window in Bondi Junction, in Sydney the other night. The brand is owned by Nike and it was one of the founder brands of Bono's (PRODUCT) RED initiative launched a few years ago in the US and UK.

The original brands in at the start of (PRODUCT) RED were Gap, American Express, Motorola, Armani and Converse. Gap did some t-shirts - INSPI(RED), was one design I saw pictures of David Beckham and Elle MacPherson wearing in a couple of different issues of mX the free Sydney commuter paper - American Express did a red card for use in UK and USA, Motorola did a red RAZR phone, Armani did some red sunglasses and Converse started their PRODUCT (RED) product line with some mud decorated Chuck Taylors. Apple have joined too offering (PRODUCT) RED bits of the iPod family, but Converse has, it seems, been the only brand to fairly consistently support the effort in Australia with a number of outings to market with new products.

A brand that innovates and gets to market fast and fairly easily might appear to be an ideal partner for a cause brand looking to have a lot of consistent market presence over a long time, with the message being kept relatively fresh. Though Apple may have had their (PRODUCT) RED Nano out for some time, it feels like Converse have been more active in their raising of the charity's profile.

What really caught my attention was the bright and optimistic nature of Converse's brand behaviour in this particular cause minded effort. Given the brand's stereotypical emo associations, the latest red effort could have been a whole lot heavier. It definitely isn't gloomy. It's very positive, rallying almost. It made me think about social efforts that are made, or could be made, by the commercial world again too, so thanks Converse and (PRODUCT) RED for bringing that very worthy but necessary point back into my head.

Howies doing great corporate social responsibility and innovative marketing at the same time

I've a lot of time for the Howies brand. They do interesting and sound things, which is a good thing to have around in a 'buy-me' world saturated with self-interested sales messages. It's also good to have in a society that increasingly looks to brands to signpost, and hold our hopes for, a better world - a world with better corporate social responsibility.

Howies is an active life clothing brand from Wales (skate and bikes with lots of mud, concrete and the great outdoors), that is arguably fast becoming an icon of world class corporate social responsibility. They have grown from tiny to highly influential amongst a growing and committed group of consumers, to become an exemplar of innovative behaviour and ideas.

It feels like momentum on green issues is about to go through an inertia barrier. In Australia, Earth Hour is getting lots of media attention and intentions to do good by a big idea from the media industry itself. In Monterey, California this talk by John Doerr (filmed in March 07 and posted in May 07) on TED.com, is powerfully cogent and emotional. He talks about how companies are making money from greentech, and it is one of the most moving talks I have seen on this issue.

Meanwhile on the more populist end of the scale, videos like this one I got sent the other day are getting passed around on facebook funwalls, simplistically putting the case for doing something about global warming.

Howies may already be a world class case study of 'innovation and creativity, meets sustainable and substantial revenue generation, from networked communities with a conscience'. They have recently opened their first shop in London's Carnaby Street and they are making corporate social responsibility work for their business.

This brand is about as integrity as integrity gets. A visit to their site is a breath of corporate social responsibility freshness that is modern, entirely optimistic and extremely authentic. I think if there was an epitome of 'Slow branding', like the slow food movement, this brand would be pretty much the standard. Howies has over a number of years been a patient and great grower of a brand. An ideas company that says it's a clothing company.

From a marketer's point of view, they are interesting too. The founders, Clare and David, are both from the creative industries in London, Clare was a writer at brand experience company, Imagination, and David was a creative at the ad agency, Wieden+Kennedy, and the people that work for them are classic Pro-ams, as Charles Leadbeater would describe them (amateur enthusiasts who are serious about a pursuit like the enthusiastic consumer groups that made 'clunkers' the forerunners to mountain bikes of California).

An activity they did recently involving a blackboard paint covered van is a typically engaging and inspiring Howies piece of brand behaviour that combines corporate social responsibility with marketing ingenuity. They asked for ten cheap ideas to promote the brand and this was one. A skate tour in a white van, painted grey with blackboard paint (cost 120 pounds), with a question on the front about Nuclear Power. One side of the bus was the 'Is it green?' side, and on the other, 'Is it dumb?' and they toured the bus around skate parks where people wrote their views on the bus .

From a marketing point of view again, this is high brand engagement, non-traditional, brilliant blog fodder, no media budget, highly imaginative, hopeful and fresh - completely 'let's do something interesting and positive' thinking. It was a good idea, from an idea led challenger brand, a cause brand, not consumer insight driven, but high ideal driven. Not done before, not part of a campaign with a strapline, no key visual, no functional rtb emphasis, but a definite signature tone of the Howies brand throughout, a rapid low-cost prototype activity that wonderfully exemplifies a 'try stuff often, and always be true to ourselves' culture that has faith in the idea that good business comes from positive and ambitious thinking and doing.

In more product oriented behaviour they are equally as innovative. Good examples being a collaboration with Honda to use metal from old Honda cars to make rivets in Howies jeans. Also Howies sells certain items of clothing where they keep separate bits of the clothing items in stock, so that consumers can replace the bits that wear out as and when they need to, without having to buy a whole new garment. If your jacket has a hole in its elbow, you send it back and get the arm replaced.

In his moving talk, John Doerr talks about his fifteen year old daughter turning to him and blaming his generation for the mess we are in on global warming. Howies embodies a sense of hope that consumers of the solution seeking generation, like John's daughter, might relate to> I think corporations interested in making money whilst doing the right things might learn a lot from this small brand with a big, and very timely, point of view.

If there is a core trait that enables it to trailblaze a fresh way of doing things, I think its their appetite for doing something special and being very open to ambitious and big thinking collaborations with like minded partners. Other brands that have created cultural phenomena and step changes in their competitive sets have also been compulsive big thinking collaborators. Nike+ is a good example of collaboration raising the game.

Like the blackboard paint van with Tom Seymour, and the rivets with Honda UK, other brands that do CSR and social comment well are often at their best when they are in coalitions of high principles and like-mindedness. I think the power of good collaboration is underated by most brands - the constructing a partnerships of rapid prototyping, to coin Michael Schrage, is highly risky, difficult to measure and so it gets the too hard to do tag in more traditional marketer and agency company cultures.

Successful collaborators like Howies though, show that having an appetite for chancing frequent connections with people, who are in sync with your point of view, in the spirit of doing something special, can be inspiring, good for society, and good for business. They embrace the open-endedness of things because it is their very nature to pioneer and explore, which is perhaps why the brand works well in the CSR context as a great brand people can believe in for the long haul, and when times get tough or uncertain.

just starting, again

It feels good to be back blogging after a spell out of practice. It's been Christmas, and I've scrapped my old blog, got a new design and a new appetite and intention to start back on this, my main blog, about things I find interesting in the world of brands and business, culture, design, and inspiring ideas in general.

I'm keen to explain my 'go to these sites' list and to get importing some bits from my other blog,
http://www.whatsinspiringaboutthat.com which I shall no longer be contributing to. All this and more to come. From now on, if anyone's interested in my points of view and various ramblings, I'm over here.

thank you for reading, contributing or just clicking through. Errol