Shiner is one of the UK’s leading action sports goods distributors.  Active within a number of different categories including bikes (bmx freestyle and race), skateboards (completes and parts), soft goods (bags, t shirts etc), scooters, inline skates, quad skates, protection, and shoes,  Shiner are a business run and managed by people who live, eat and breathe each of the sports that they operate in.

We’ll be working with Shiner on a new digital strategy for the business including e commerce sites and content creation and management, while maintaining  brand credibility and grass root support.

I mention this now for two reasons. Firstly it reminded me of an incident that happened to an old client of ours, Adam, and secondly the meeting I attended (fully clothed) dealt with data acquisition and the desire by brands to know more and more about their consumers. Here’s how the two are connected.

Adam is a well rounded character with a huge, loud laugh like a sea lion who has secured the best spot on the beach. He has a well developed ability to turn a profit at whatever he does, and a result has the generosity and means to entertain himself and others wherever his work happens to take him.

One night a few years ago, Adam extended his largesse a little too far and missed his last train home. A young lady may have been involved in mixing his drinks and decision making. However much she was involved earlier, the young lady had departed by the time Adam leant against the reception desk of an anonymous express welcome city lodge. The transaction was simple. He needed a room. The hotel had a room. Adam went to his door, fumbled his way in and swiftly disrobed in a way that in my student days was known as ‘mad monkey’. He was asleep by the time his ruddy cheeks met the cold, shiny surface of the polyester bedspread.

In the morning his trousers were gone.

Adam awoke simultaneously disappointed and thankful for his solitude. Not being one for introspection or the self indulgence of self loathing, he moved quickly to shower, dress and resume his sober suited life. Which is when he found that had no trousers. An exhausting search of the room, complete with a red faced, heavy breathed squint under the bed, revealed nothing. The only window was closed, and anyway it opened onto an internal courtyard, so that Adam could quickly reassure himself that he had not defenestrated his trousers in a moment of monkey madness.

He telephoned reception. His rapid, close questioning of the staff  was met with silence and blank dumbfoundedness. So he fashioned his bedspread into a sarong, put on his shirt, suit jacket, underpants, socks and brogues and went down to breakfast dressed like the  leader of a newly independent state who wants to celebrate his national costume while also looking like a man that the West “can do business with.”

Having restated his problem to the hotel staff, he repaired to the breakfast lounge and solemnly ate half a melon. It was while he was considering ruining this healthy start to the day with an attack on the hot plates of full English, that the duty manager approached him wearing a huge smile and carrying a pair of trousers on his arm.

Pressed and folded, they were indeed Adam’s. But how? Where? Why? The duty manager asked if Adam might like to dress and then join him in his office where he would be only too glad to explain, but needless to say, without hesitation, the manager could reassure him that the hotel was very embarrassed and would not be charging Adam for his overnight stay.

A short time later, Adam heard how, late the previous evening, long after he had occupied his room, another similarly disheveled business man had entered the hotel and asked for a room. In a mistake that could only happen thanks to the technological ‘development’ of electronic card keys, the man had been given the same room as Adam. He too had fought his way enthusiastically into the room, and such was his inebriated befuddlement, when he saw the large form of Adam on the bed, simply accepted the fact, took off his clothes and fell asleep on the floor.

Still later into the night, a member of the hotel night staff noticed that the two gentlemen had been given the same room. What to do? A decision was taken. Yet another electronic key was activated, and night staff crept into the room to survey two very drunk men, and a random distress of discarded clothes. A further decision was weighed up. Adam was much bigger than the man on the floor, and would therefore be far harder to carry out of the room and into another. Furthermore,  the second man had paid for a bed, and would surely object less to being moved off the hard bristles of the carpet. Attempts to quietly wake the second man failed, and so with many stifled grunts and groans he was lifted up and carried off along the corridor to be put gently to bed.  At the same time, his clothes and belongings were gathered up with much anxiety and fevered haste. So much so that as laptop bags and shoes, jackets and wallets were scooped up, so in error, were two pairs of trousers.

Adam is never slow to see the funny side. With the relief of having secured the return of his trousers and a vivid picture in his mind of terrified, body snatching hotel staff lumbering around darkened corridors, he was quick to accept the offer of no charge for his stay and a free return to breakfast. It was only later, he told me as we shared more of his generous drinks allowance, that he became slightly upset by the thought of how vulnerable he had been at that time. Yes, of course given his level of inebriation he was more than partly to blame. But he still felt that his privacy had been invaded, that he had been put at risk, and that this had occurred due to technology. That the modern change in hotel security from ‘good old fashioned keys’ to ‘those f**king credit card things which never work, except it seems to allow in strangers or any staff who want a look’ had resulted in a small, but significant diminution of his safety when away from home.

As someone who works in brand strategy and digital marketing I am acutely aware that as consumers we are increasingly asked for permissions and access to our lives by businesses and brands. Consumers are rightly concerned that they retain control over how technology affects their lives – and that if permissions are given, that this technology should enhance, not diminish our quality of life. It feels like I’ve been in too many meetings recently where someone has triumphantly said ‘We will do X, and then we will have their details’ without it feels, giving any thought as to whether or not this is going to be a good thing for the consumer. So I would say this, if you’re a brand or an agency engaged in data capture (and doesn’t that phrase reveal how we view it as an aggressive, intrusive act?), ask yourself, do I want people in my room when I’m asleep? Is our digital technology being used so that we can blunder about in peoples lives, taking their trousers and making them feel diminished and vulnerable? For if, on analysis, it is revealed that are simply trying to activate a digital key to their lives without any benefit to the individual, then quite simply, we shouldn’t be doing it.

Peter

Goram & Vincent were appointed to redesign and re-platform the existing Philip Mould website.

The project objectives were to stimulate more enquiries about the works for sale, and to reposition the Philip Mould brand and gallery as more accessible, broadening its potential market appeal. It was also important that staff had a bespoke content management system that enabled them to add and remove works of art (and other digital elements) without recourse to the agency.

Fundamental to our solution was the creation of  an interface that showcases the paintings. As Philip Mould recounted in a 2006 interview "Something that pictures need in their presentation is oxygen, they need air around them.” It was this philosophy that led the business to choose their gallery location in Mayfair, and it was imperative that it was also replicated online. As a result, the ‘product pages’ take their cues from luxury fashion ecommerce to display the paintings to best effect, with a slick ‘zoom’ feature and an introduction from Philip via streaming audio clip.

As a part of this brief we were also asked to create and implement email communications, which included the design and creation of an email template, site integration, and training for clients on both the new website content management system and email platform.

Everyone at Philip Mould Ltd was a pleasure to work with, and we’re delighted that they are receiving positive feedback from their client base on the ease of use and clarity of communication provided by the new site. Finally it’s not everyday that you design and build an site with a £30,000 or less section! Why not have a browse now and pick up a bargain?

Location based apps, or geosocial to give the technology its more sexy name is often touted as being one of the key digital trends for 2012. It’s certainly been the source of some wonderful infographics from Jess3 and the next web. It’s all too easy however, especially for those of us who work in design, to be seduced by these visual delights, and to start recommending clients allocate budget to geosocial this year. But, and it’s a big but – should we be doing so? What are the facts as they currently stand?

Download the full PDF article here.

We all have two decision making states. Cold - super ego, rational. Hot - id, irrational, emotional. As the  authors of ‘Nudge – Improving Decisions about health, wealth and happiness’ by Richard H Thaler & Cass R Sunstein', point out

“For most of us… self control issues arise because we underestimate the effect of arousal. When in a cold state, we do not appreciate how much our desires and our behaviour will be altered when we are ‘under the influence’ of arousal. As a result, our behaviour reflects a certain naivete about the effects that context can have on choice.”

We first explored this with the NPA, utilising the research of  Daniel Ariely and his book ‘Predictably Irrational’ regarding the area of sexual arousal and the effect it has on our decision making processes. Ariely and colleagues asked male students a number of probing questions, such as: “Could you enjoy sex with someone you hated?” / “Would you slip a woman a drug to increase the chance that she would have sex with you?” / “Would you always use a condom?” and other choice queries.

There were then further sets of questions that went even further and asked about the likelihood of engaging in immoral behaviours such as date rape. The male participants were then asked to arouse themselves to a high level, but not to ejaculate. They then took the questionnaire again.

“Across the 19 questions about sexual preferences, when all the participants were aroused they predicted that their desire to engage in a variety of somewhat odd sexual activities would be nearly twice as high (72% higher) they had predicted when they were cold.”

“In the five questions about their propensity to engage in immoral activities, when they were aroused they predicted their propensity to be more than twice as high as (136% higher than) they had predicted in the cold state.”

“Similarly, in the set of questions about using condoms, and despite the warnings that had been hammered into them over the years about the importance of condoms, they were 25% more likely in the aroused state than in the cold state to predict that they would forgo condoms. In all these cases they failed to predict the influence of arousal on their sexual preferences, morality and approach to safe sex.”

The challenge for sexual health marketing is therefore that when you talk to the audience they are likely to be in a ‘cold’ state – but you want to influence them when they have got the hots for someone. Daniel Ariely says “We can teach them how to say no before any temptation takes hold, and before a situation becomes impossible to resist”  but this relies on the superego making decisions before the powerful id takes over, and this seemed to be unrealistic given the levels of promiscuity and the highly sexualised culture of the UK. However he goes on “alternatively, we can get them prepared to deal with the consequences of saying yes in the heat of passion (by carrying a condom for example)” which seems to be a far more realistic ambition.

The implication for our work with the NPA was that the client took the brave step forward of actually acknowledging that young people will have lots of sex. That it was pointless to ask them to “just say no’ because they won’t. When they’re hot, they’re not bothered.

For Drinkaware, the very current issue is that in December a lot of people, under the influence of alcohol, make a lot of 'hot' decisions. These will to be have more, health damaging drinks, to take drugs, or make a sexual pass at someone. First of all though, drinking. When consumers are in a hot state they are of little interest to our client Drinkaware, as their influence will be reduced.

After every 'hot' night out however, comes the 'cold' light of day. Where our rational self reasserts itself. Where we want to be good, well behaved and healthy. So does this mean that they will immediately download the mydrinkaware app, or pledge to 'never drink again?' Not in December. For though you might crawl back to your bed with your hangover, there'll be another great drinks party or dinner coming up, and there's no way you're going to miss it!

Behavioural economics tells us that procrastination is caused by this 'hot' temptation (for the next party) overcoming 'cold' intentions. So we give in to drinking again because we tell ourselves that we'll be good tomorrow, or the day after that.

Research studies show however that the best way to defeat procrastination is not to set yourself harsh rigid deadlines, nor to have no deadline at all. Rather it is to put in place a 'middle way' which is self imposed deadlines. So could we exploit the high incidence of 'cold' state hangovers in December by offering people the opportunity to start being 'drinkaware' in January? We acknowledge that December is party time, and we shouldn’t try and set people harsh deadlines or conditions, because we know that they will simply become 'hot' and fall into drinking again. We also acknowledge our propensity to procrastinate, and tackle that through what appears to be a realistic, manageable goal - start in January. So look out for Drinkaware activity in December, and if you’re in a cold, rational hungover state, sign up to MyDrinkaware and start your resolutions for 2012 a little bit earlier than planned!

Goram & Vincent (or Digby Digital as they were known then) did get back and invited me in for a chat, which resulted in an internship. They also offered to pay me too, which is a pretty rare occurrence for an internship these days!

I was keen on working within an agency environment as my background since graduation had been almost exclusively in the charity sector and I wanted some experience within a commercial environment.  I believe it’s one of the most exciting areas to work in at the moment as technological progress and availability of high-tech devices mean that there is a great potential to create unique online experiences for users, and that’s something I really want to get involved in! The experience has been invaluable, and it’s been great to absorb some knowledge from a bunch of people who’ve got heaps of experience in the area.

Something I found particularly exciting working in an agency environment is the range of sectors and variety of clients that you work across during the day. The morning could be spent working on a project for a fitness brand, then followed by an afternoon carrying out work for an alcoholic drinks company.  In my opinion, this is a really neat part about agencies, enabling you to gain a great deal of knowledge about how all sorts of companies work, preferable to becoming embedded in one particular area for your career.

Another aspect about agencies that’s different from working in-house with a small charity is actually having a budget to carry out projects. I’ve got used to running campaigns that have almost no budget or having ideas for digital campaigns, but knowing that it’s something that the charity wouldn’t be able to afford. Being forced to think of projects that you can be implemented very cheaply does have its advantages. You have to ensure that your campaigns that are original to be able to capture people’s attention rather than relying on traditional advertising and marketing channels for promotion.

My role at Goram & Vincent has allowed me to try my hand at a bit of everything.  From working on ideas for how a campaign could run, writing copy for a site, working on-site for a client, carrying out social media analysis along with more general tasks like, transferring copy onto a new site and cross browser testing. I haven’t been stuck with being the drinks boy (I suck at making tea/coffee) and photocopier robot.

Hopefully Goram & Vincent have got a few benefits from taking me on as an intern also. I’m enthusiastic and up for pitching in whenever needed, and don’t mind doing more menial tasks like testing and content migration – and they can use the time that would have been spent on this to do other things.

Being a 16-24 year old male allowed me to provide a fresh perspective on brands, from someone who is a prime target market for many of them. This came in particular use when designing social media campaigns as I could tap into my own personal knowledge of campaigns that have worked well on these channels – and what companies do that makes you quickly unfollow them.

The internship opportunity has strengthened my desire to continue working in the digital marketing sector and I have gained valuable contacts in the Bristol hub. This has already provided some freelance work on exciting projects, and shall hopefully lead to a long-term career in the sector.

First of all, we were formed out of two distinct businesses - Double Art & Digby Digital. Different and diverse in terms of skills, we are now united in a common aim; blood brothers in our commitment to creativity and effective design, digital and marketing communications.

When we came together we wanted a name that was:
Creative – memorable, surprising and different.
Effective – easy to search and find, on Google, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin.

After all, that's what we offer to our clients. Effective creativity.

Creativity - we produce marketing, design, digital user experience, web and mobile apps, advertising, media and content ideas which are surprising, engaging, and capture peoples imagination and attention.

Effective - we deliver results. Increased sales. Higher awareness, clicks, impressions and conversions. Changed attitudes and behaviour.

How do we work?
We like - A brief. An objective, goal, dream. An opportunity, problem, project.
We bring - freshness, originality, perspective, wit, ideas allied to experience, expertise, delivery & effectiveness.

G+V designed and built a web-based application with a full-featured ‘desktop’ version and a streamlined mobile version. It performs two key roles: giving users a simple way to record the drinks they consume, and provide interesting (and sometimes surprising) feedback about how those drinks could be affecting their health and lifestyle.

We just completed a further round of development to allows user to make the most of social side of the web. Users can share their information with selected friends, set themselves challenges and see how simple changes to their drinking habits can have an effect on their health, waistline and wallet. The app has now got over 100k registered users.

Visit my.drinkaware.co.uk