Speaking easy!

We're shortly holding a ball for our client Homeserve (you'll probably know them from their little red vans). Sounds simple enough, but this experience is for 1,000 people under a 1920's prohibition Speak Easy theme. So we're transforming a space at Birmingham's popular Custard Factory into split warehouse back alley and a high glam caberet. All this is complete with dressing rooms to get into the fashions, shooting galleries, dancing shows, actors many live performances. The event itself takes place on 7th December, so more pics will follow.

WBIN Fashion line

Well who said we were just an agency? 2008 will see the launch of our own little range of WBIN (We Believe In New) t-shirts.

Don't panic we're not aiming our sights too high or aiming to be the next Diesel or Howies. We just figured we keep creating lots of fun designs we'd like to wear, so why not offer them out a little further.

Get in touch if you're interested in seeing the designs when launched and we'll keep you posted.

Red Bull snowbombing

We're pretty pleased with this one. We've recently launched this activity for Red Bull via the on trade using online, viral and POS.

The campaign concludes in January when we take 120 winning folks to Austria for a ski break Red Bull style!

What's in the box? (Click this title to link to Flickr)

We wanted to show some of the folks working for the brands we'd love to work with how we approach things and why we're a little bit more individual here at The Open Consultancy..

So, true to our belief in New, we've designed our own range of designer toys; completely original and individually hand painted by Open staff. We're sending each one of them out in their own little gift box, complete with an Open poster and a little personal introduction card.

We think they're pretty special and show we take originality very seriously! You can see all the designs which are growing all the time on our Flickr space - just click the title of this post to link.

Which one's your favourite??

Say hello to Maisie!!!!

Big Congratulations to Hannah and Frank on the birth of their beautiful daughter Maisie!

Hannah, in usual form finished at Open for her maternity leave on the Thursday, her waters broke in the evening and Maisie was with us on Monday morning - no hanging around!

Maisie's doing great, but when we took the pics she was a little bit hungry, so not feeling too camera happy!

We got Maisie a big bear to look out for her - It's even bigger than Hannah (not hard really) and also pretty handy on a Mac too!

Say hello to Julia!

Another new face here at Open, this time an Account Director. Julia's always got a happy smile on her face. And with the experience she has in the drinks industry, why wouldn't she be smiling!

Ending the week with Jagermeister

It's been a fine week here at Open and we're proud to announce we've been chosen to work with the Jagermeister brand in the UK. It's both the world's 9th largest selling spirit brand aswell as the world's 9th fastest growing spirit brand!

We're all very excited about helping this growth continue and perhaps enjoy the odd one or two Jagerbombs along the way.

Open poster

Here's the first glimpse of a forthcoming poster for Open. As you can see it's all about our belief in New and it shows that new ideas can come from anywhere as they spill out into the world! It's a collage and pen doodle piece, created without the assistance of a Mac - Lo-Tech is the new school!

Consumer vs Self!

Isn't it interesting, the nature of extremes?!

Normal is boring as we all know, but we accept normal things more easily. So in turn extremes are now promoted more readily as a defining characteristic of something we accept, which then makes extremes normal. Following this?

So here we are, all normal and happy by our extremes. But creating this polarized world means fractures for the common ground as our opinions become naturally divided: Fast convenient life vs. slow natural living, buy local produce vs. world flavours, travel to experience new cultures vs. don't increase your carbon footprint, read books to embrace literature vs. don't print, enjoy good food vs. strive for size zero ... you get the gist.

As an illustration of this world of contradictions think about drinking water. At the sametime New York City is advertising the benefits of drinking tap water to its residents, the fashion media is encouraging its readers to wash their hair in Tasmanian Natural Rain Water (So pure its never touched the ground!).

The interesting thing about these extremes is that they're not split by generation gaps, or affluence, or social persuasion, but they can all exist within the individual. But don't things feel out of sync? In some ways there seems a natural balance of things that will play out as we realise our 'normal' lives can't meet all our expectations, or will we simply come to accept our contradictions as the norm?

Either way, global culture has a way of fluxing through states of harmony and conflict, the challenge is recognizing the difference between the two.

Wall scribbles

Push me, Pull you.

Does culture create trends, or do trends create culture?

Not an essay subject I promise. Just wanted to put the thought out there.

When I attended the last Trendwatching.com seminar I observed the couple of hundred brand managers & marketeers avidly scribbling notes about the different cleverly named trends being described as potentially something that may be big culturally around the globe.

So a thought dawned. If these folks didn't magnify these small trends through massive media spends would they actually become mass consumer culture anyway?

Whilst it's an easy win to ride on the back of something that has started with opinion formers and scale it up, it's always better to originate.

Braver, riskier sure, but originating something new and bringing it to the world has so much more credibility and scope than becoming a virtual sponsor for it.

So rather than looking at what can be capitalized on what's already out there, the focus should be on genuinely originating cultural innovations.

Okay, it does sound like an essay subject. Discuss.

Paper weights

I've decided to stop going to the gym!

Instead I've simply taken to buying more visual reference books. I can manage about a 100 reps between the book store and the office, then I need a bit of a sit down.

This latest edition to my fitness regime is the beautiful Illusive. It features some of Open's favs like Andrew Rae's work and it's well worth a peak if you can lift it!

Or if you're too lazy to walk it home, I'm sure Amazon will pop a copy on your doorstep.

Talking Shop

Imagine the scenario... Your dinner party host has just set out their signature salmon mousse and the pleasant Teacher you've just met next to you says "So what is it you do for a living?".

You try by starting with a fumbled "Well I work in the area of brand communication". "Oh you work in an Ad agency?" comes the polite response. "Not exactly, it's broader than that, like experiences and ambient and er viral". "Viral you say, what's that?". Erm... er, well it's not just viral actually, it's more experential, ambient, buzz, er... Brand Engagement?!". A vacant look meets yours... "Yeah I work in an Ad agency".

"Oh right, what do you do there?". !

I feel desperately sorry for a client looking for an agency these days. Ad agencies promise to be experts in everything and no one else really knows how the hell to badge themselves.

Edward Bernays founded the term Public Relations in the 1920's something which still makes clear sense to everyone today - good work Eddie. More recently Ty Montague (JWT New York - Co-President Chief Creative Officer) said that new marketing practices are coming out of small agencies that as yet do not have a satisfactory name for what they do. In Campaign last week Carl Johnson of Anomaly said no one in their right mind would open an Ad Agency now, instead referring to their practice of developing intellectual property for brands.

So now there are specialisms within disciplines within services - Confused, you should be!

Add to this the job titles from agency to agency that seem to be made up from meeting to meeting; then not only do you not know what the agency does, you'll have even less an idea about what jobs the folks in agency actually do?

Here at Open, things are a little more simplified - we do ideas!

If you've any questions, please contact our Snr Creative Inspirations Innovator on the office number. Thanks

Blown up TV

A supplier we're working with on an interactive project at the moment also produce this inflatable event space with a 360 degree video projection on the dome.

Beats booking a conference room for the brand launch eh!
Good work.

Rubber brands

Having been car shopping recently, a simple thought struck me (yes, they usually are!).

Good brands have more options. They have broader personalities, so broader appeal and more connections with consumers.

Revelation I know, but whilst this is so obvious, why are so few brands doing it?

Car brands especially are expert at it - within the same model of car, it can be tailored to become a sporty, masculine, youthful fashion oriented road beast, or a sedate, refined, elegant, mature, avenue cruiser.

In the same vein brands like Nike, Red Bull, Nokia et al have realised the scope for creating a more elastic brand position that can maintain its values and voice whilst adhering to an array of fragmented consumer groups in many ways. So why haven't more brands followed suit?

Chances are it's because there's a misguidance in the much revered Single Minded Proposition. Meaning, that the unifying thought or brand voice becomes the communication too rather than the thought behind it. When this happens you end up with one version of the same thing, said to different consumers in the same way - Dull!

But when you have a million ways of saying the same thing, each tailored to a different consumer group, you have a very powerful voice indeed.

Think of 'Coke side of life' for instance. So what's next? Maybe editing your own TV commercial in realtime online to create personalised communication for you or your friends? Nah, it'll never catch on.

Oh in case you're wondering, I didn't get the car, I didn't like the colour!

Doodling

Getting squiggly with something new for Open.

The world well drawn - freelancers please enquire

Long live the love affair with illustration.

For the people a few years back that said illustrators were a dying breed and that Macs had replaced pen warriors...Try getting a good illustrator now!

Love the work here of Beat 13 (see beat13.co.uk), but equal respect to John Burgerman, Andrew Rae, Peepshow, Non Permanent and anyone else out there making a name doodling.

Much respect for your imagination - long may the renaissance continue and if you have any availability please call Open soon as you can.

Close to our heart

Thought I'd share a couple of interesting visual books that have some of the nice outdoor, ambient and guerrilla work that's been picked up around the world.

I love to think that with the millions spent on advertsing, something as simple as taking a photo of a wall painted with a goal post outline and a swoosh can be published, blogged and carried right to the heart of consumer dialogue.

See Amazon to buy them.

The age of Nice

Have you noticed that if the 80's were the era of Gordon Gecko and greed is good and the 90's were all Gen X, Indie, Rave and a world wrought with recession, terrorism and the realisation that perhaps Greed isn't all it's cracked up to be and getting loved up can make it all go away.

And now, as we come to the tail end of the Noughties, everything is 'Nice'.

Anthropologists will tell you that we're entering a phase of new found cultural optimism which is emerging in the aftermath of war, natural disasters and new world market development. Wise words, but I also say it's because people are being Nice.

Creativity is now the preferred social cache and what you do, not what you've got rule the order. Both consumers and brands alike are putting pressure on themselves to provide voices and outlets for this new social creativity and with it a dialogue of optimism and positivity.

But how many social network sites can the web hold. How many blogs do you have time to read? (This one of course)
How many gigs can you go to? How many photos can you share, videos can you upload and watch?

There was a 90's saying: "I used to spend time to save money, now I spend money to save time".

So for us the challenge is harder than it ever was - gain the consumers attention and interest.

Well the good news is things are now more interesting, but now we're pitching for more time in an already crowded head.

So who wins? Well the nicest of course.

Welcome to the age of Nice.

Summer of Love for Homeserve

Our event and publicity team recently threw a huge party on behalf of Homeserve. We held it at Birmingham's cool Custard Factory for about 700 Homeserve folk under the Homeserve Summer of Love festival campaign.

With live bands, fairground rides, henna tattoos, remote control boats and loads more, for those that could remember... they said it was a great night.

Red Bull gives you wiiings...and wheels!

We're wrapping up our Red Bull 'REFUEL A BULL' promotion at the moment which has been a bit of a hit this summer. What was initially pitched at running in 500 bars ended up rolling out to more like 2500! So awareness and participation has hiked up dramatically and in October, one lucky blighter and their mate are off to Brazil to watch the last GP of the season from the track side. Give us a shout if you'd like to know more about this activity.

Hello Katie

There's nothing better than the smiling face of a newbie starting here at Open. This is Katie Holt, who recently joined us as an Account Executive. She's come from Cardiff, but she's not Welsh, but she does have a bit of twang picked up from her time there. Say hello to Katie!

Leave an Impression

We're loving working with Ballantine's whisky at the moment, with a fresh new positioning, the creative possibilities have opened ways of exploring so many expressions for the brand's new found voice.

It's always especially motivating to work with clients who have a genuine opportunity to radically push new ideas for a brand's direction. We're working conceptually and within areas of ambient and interactive with work due to break into European markets by December... so the next update will be the launch!

Thanks Charlotte, Agustin and Cristina!

www.ballantines.com

Wild scottish spirits

I'm spotting a theme here at Open, we seem to be enjoying great success gaining new clients in the drinks sector. I can't think why.

Most recent edition has been another of the fine Chiva Bros brands, namely The Glenlivet Single Malt Whisky.

We're working with the global marketing team on concepts for the brand across all key markets and whilst I can't share the brief, it's definitely one that is bang on for Open - every new project just keeps pushing our creative boundaries in pursuit of new ways of communicating brands.

So here's to 'The Real stuff'... Cheers!