Articles from: LBi

Once upon a time…

So what do you get when you fill lots of balloons with compressed air and interesting words? In this challenge we had a collection of balloons which need to be popped and then their wordy contents rearranged into two amusing stories.

We’re just trying to get the resulting X-rated stories past the censor before we can post them here…

UPDATE: On reading them back, it’s clear you had to be there… All those Booker prize winners really don’t need to worry.

Once upon a time…
a sad LBi pleased jester the wizard BADGER who magically grab ed Thurlow the COW dwarfs belly
“Oh no I didn’t” proclaimed King SPARKLE flash.
Oh dear the evil mad WITCH had her weekly ecstasy stroke they danced a warm SLIPPER potion
the Backstage where Stain wee red a wrapper

Once upon a time…
the hungry WIZARD breakdanced with THE happily endowed MAIDEN but she then caressed SIMON GILL’s behind
Big red bat
perhaps the photoshop knight rarely was on fire
and together they was going boop boop! time… FLIES
all happily walked in the white horse to climb and JUMP the SPINNING DONKEY where small PIG danced

Up next was our 5 minute sketch-off. The rules are simple; sit opposite a fellow member of the creative department, arm yourself with a small set of markers and one piece of paper. 1 2 3 sketch.

And a few of the results.

Next in our series of Friday frolics was the ‘always successful’ create a typeface from your own possessions in 8 minutes and no longer. Cue the normal stuff like: belts, shoes, wallets, glasses, keys, mixed in with a few more sign of the times items: lanyards, USB sticks, monitor leads and batteries (lets not ask). I don’t think it will be getting commissioned by FontFont any time soon but I’m sure we can do something creative with it.

A TrueType version can be downloaded from here.

Our Friday typeface created from items about our person

Yesterday evening at the Truman, we had the wonderful pleasure of Microsoft giving us the lowdown on the latest and greatest in the world of creative products and services coming out of Redmond. The audience, mostly from user experience, creative and client services, were treated to demo’s of Silverlight, WPF, DeepZoom, Surface, Live Mesh, Azure, Secondlight, Windows 7 and so much more. With so many creative technology engagements at LBi, the fit of these technologies alongside some of our .NET, SharePoint, Endeca and EPiServer builds makes a lot of sense for our customers.

It was a great insight into the ‘New’ Microsoft and where it’s heading, I’m very excited that LBi are part of this venture and look forward to seeing our UX/Creative teams blend with Microsoft to develop some very cool, exciting and cutting edge creative digital solutions.

A big thanks to the Microsoft folks who spent the evening with us. James, you blew us away with Azure, ‘gen 4’ data centers and Windows 7. Michael, thanks for showcasing the likes of Surface, DeepZoom and Secondlight – very cool stuff indeed! And off course Matt, our account manager, for organising things on the Microsoft end.

Right, where did I put that copy of Expression Blend…

Whilst creative judges and juries fail to admonish the jolly corruption of children in the selling chocolate to lonely women (and instead get down to late 80s freestyle electro), there are important things at hand ineligible for easy cool. 

<insert chocolate-vomit.jpg here>

Now that the Evil Eye of Mordor has temporarily passed from the energy companies to the Bankers… (and having recently worked on briefs for both) it strikes me there are some major insights relating to all forms of ‘corporate evil’: 

<insert bad-apple.swf here>

We, the consumptive populous require proof positive of corporate change in order to believe again. We want clear and easy influence… To be certain that the corporate villains are listening and repenting… And that this ‘change of spots’ is having a measurable, positive effect on our lives. 

We are conflicted, we want our guilt expunged without having to sacrifice warmth or mobility (or a million other convenient dreams)… we want CorpsUnited to change on our behalf, that’s what we’re paying for damn it!

It is said that capitalism is built upon scarcity and debt, and yet the human spirit craves the opposite… some say we are living through a 12 month window of opportunity disguised as a recession. ‘What Ever. My head hurts. I feel powerless. This is confusing. I don’t think I can make it without my two weeks in the sun’.

<insert therapist.ai here>

Here in the home of building believable brands, Marketing demands aimed at stereotyped targets seem redundant, self-indulgent and transitory. We are not immune from the dark side but we are relentless in our desire to make stuff that works and that is built on the solid foundations of listening to real people. To be part of their lives in any moment, mode or medium they feel or request. To be meaningful and sustainable. We are at Base Camp. There is a climb is ahead.

<insert corporate-optimism.mov here>

In the mean time I’d like to alert you to the genesis of a new cult: Cabralla. Sounds a bit like Kahbalah doesn’t it, well it’s pretty popular these days and not just with the creative elite. Supposedly the only effective protection is the gospel of the First Things First Manifesto, (old testament 1964, new testament 2000). As the followers of Fallon deride the disciples of IDEO (who pity them in return), some of us remember a simpler time pre-dotbomb, and imagine a future where ideas are the integrated currency - where everything else; every channel, format, media, platform and process… is open, available and perpetually intermixing. 

Some of us are nearly there now… we’re waiting for you…

<administer cold compress> 
</end waking dream>

(Playlist disguised as Post)

LBi London’s office is famous in it’s own right and has had many incarnations. Here’s our second floor creative studio space courtesy of Goldfrapp.

Digital agency - scooters? Errr sorry about that…

We got Twatted on Friday, if that’s the correct usage for being nobbled by rogue Twitterers. Tweetjacked? Twunted?
 
Whatever, a former employee - one has to assume - created a Twitter account in the name of LBi UK and started tweeting negatively about the agency.
 
How did we guess it was a former employee? Well, for a start, the Profile (description of account holder) read ‘a really shit employer’, which kind of gave us an inkling that someone had had a negative experience here.

And then there were a couple of negative comments that showed some inside knowledge about the agency - a particular irritation with the new brand positioning around ‘believability’ was evident.
 
The links to negative/ambiguous press were fair enough - here they are again, for the avoidance of any doubt or wish to hide them - the Margin story and the ePR story. We don’t necessarily agree with the deductions of the ‘margin’/'headcount’ story (and see also here for the whole story on LBi’s strong performance globally in 2008, especially in the UK); but we’re quite proud of the PR announcement.
 
For reasons not fully articulated - quite hard at 140 characters, admittedly - ‘LBiUK’ didn’t like it, though it appeared to be more on grounds of bad journalism than any particular problem with this fast-growing part of the New Marketing landscape.
 
So what did we do about our Twunting friend/enemy? Well, we blogged about it here, for one. We started talking about whether we need to claim our own formal Twitter identity and start using it - we do.
 
And reluctantly - but unavoidably, given shareholder responsibility, etc. - we requested Twitter close the account on grounds of defamation and misrepresentation. There were issues with illegal use of company logo and other assets too.
 
But it was reluctantly, because we haven’t got anything to hide, and also, there’s always quite a lot of appetite for a forceful and forthright discussion at LBi - especially about LBi. The important thing, I think, for everyone here, was that we didn’t try and hush it up and quietly ‘dispose of the problem’.
 
I was quite impressed when I found that ‘LBiUK’ had already disappeared on Saturday morning, since there’s been a fair bit of publicly voiced concern about Twitter’s inability to police itself in real time, and we were told it might be six weeks before anything could be done…

Then again, I now note that Twitter are not taking any responsibility for this and the request hasn’t been dealt with yet - so maybe ‘LBiUK’ has merely slipped back into the shadows, pending another ‘attack’…
 
The most disappointing thing for me was that this could have been done a lot better - funnier, sharper, less petty. ‘LBi UK is a shit employer’? Hardly sparkling repartee, is it?

And ‘LBiUK’, if you’re reading this, please: if you want to have a pop at LBi because you didn’t enjoy working here and think we don’t do things right and hate our new positioning - bring it on, basically. We welcome constructive criticism, always. Only be a mensch, wouldja, and do it in your own name like a grown-up, not in ours, like a child, yeah?
 
By hiding behind LBi branding and identity, you’re doing nothing but the equivalent of shouting rude names from a safe distance and then running away sniggering, like a guilty 12-year-old. This is just a little unbecoming, a bit facile - mildly amusing, but not particularly damaging to us, advantageous to you, or demonstrative of much wit or savvy.

Back in November and inspired by Chris T and Clara’s trip to Hyper Island we decided to change our creative team meetings. Instead of just showing off our work; finished and in-progress, we decided to begin with a 10 minute challenges.

Inspired by the impressive show of facial hair for Movember we decided to get everyone in on the act. Cue card, scissors, some double-sided tape. Interestingly we all went for something a little different.

A sample of our facial hair experiments

Last week a few of us went over to the B.Creative Showcase, an event by Blueskies a recruitment company. The event featured 70 pieces of work from agencies and in-house teams, played host to 2 guest speakers and a young creative’s portfolio clinic. These youngsters were then encouraged to speak to the assembled guests in the hope of attracting attention and employment. It’s been done before but I do like the fact Blueskies Creative does this – they’re giving back – opening their wallet. It helps show they at least understand what we (as an industry) do, what we look for, how we like a free drink and how we like to show off.

That leads me to a shameless plug. Our ‘really proud of’ piece of work featured that evening was from our Generation Green and the Eco-Rangers campaign. Here’s our specially crafted poster for the event.

Last year we had our This is Living campaign on display, composed for the large-scale, print friendly resolution and with no browser windows.

Rory says

Rory Sutherland was one of the guest speakers at the event and he certainly got a positive reaction. His talk was based around 3 points addressed to all:

1) Ban advertising in the press until the journalists you are indirectly paying for actually right something positive (read more about this at Rory’s blog)

2) Nurture young talent, especially in these difficult times otherwise we’re likely to have a large gap in our collective skill base in a few years.

3) Start being positive, start saying we’re doing this ‘as well as’ not ‘instead of’. Consumers media spend has gone up considerably with the digital media revolution yet brands continue play one channel off against another.

So in the spirit of this post, we’ll see lot’s of action; press advertising fall off a cliff to then rally with a ground swell of feel-good journalism. Agencies taking in a good number graduates this summer which manifests a up-surge in creative quality and output in the run up to the London Olympics in 2012. Increased collaboration between agencies as brands use the multitude of channels at their disposal, to gain increased success. That would all be a good thing.

I’d be lying if I said our own wallets are tightly wedged into our open and expectant mouths, but points 2 and 3 are being worked on right now and I hope to tell you a little more about them in the near future. Let’s remember to look out for those just starting out, let us put our money where our mouth is, after all, that’s what new marketing should be doing.

UPDATE

Rory’s full speech can be found here.

There’s no escaping it, times are rough and tough.  We’ve been bracing ourselves and tightening our belts to the point where we’re running out of notches. Green shoots of recovery? Yeah, right.

Clients are shaking their heads as they ponder budgets for 2009. The IPA and other industry gurus will no doubt be knocking on their doors with some solid scientific evidence that cutting ad spend has a long-term detrimental effect. Will it be convincing enough? Partly. But accountability will be more important than ever.

We creatives can expect a rather large magnifying glass to hover above our heads, scrutinizing our work and looking to extract every last drop of value from it. Clients will be looking us straight in the eye and demanding, “hey smart Alec, stimulate me some green shoots,” as though it’s all our fault.

You can imagine agency presentations across town this year. They’ll be rather like the old Fairy Liquid TV ads. “Your previous strategy only washed this many dishes. Our fresh, new, lemon scented strategy will stretch your budget to this many dishes.”

We’re already seeing conventional reactions to the crunch; big football sponsorship deals being pulled, four figure global lay-offs, corporate art projects canned.

Spectacular big budget broadcast will be seen as spectacular, big budget wastage. “Open on a tropical beach? You’re having a laugh, mate. What’s wrong with Skegness?!” And that’s just in the tissue meeting. Increasingly throughout 2009 you will hear themes of empowerment, sustainability, innovation and inclusion surfacing in articles.

Industry old boys will continue distancing themselves from broadcast, “Did we say tropical beach? Noooo! Of course we meant Skeggie.” New kids will be hyping the relevance of ’social’ and ’service’ design. Digital agencies can go even further: “We open on user generated shots of Skeggie.”

Yet do we need to get all doomy and gloomy about this? Well, it’s not ideal. I’ve seen tropical beaches and I’ve seen Skegness and, with all respect to the Lincolnshire Tourist Board, I know which I prefer. Yet, the new economic climate does open up a very real creative opportunity.

The good news is that clients are on our side. They know that, as the crunch bites down hard, creativity needs to flourish.  Not just in the way it connects them with their consumers, but the way it helps run their business.  Working smarter, innovatively distributing content and creating cost-effective dialogues is now higher up the agenda than ever. CMO’s will be empowered to make the big balls decisions using “the current climate” to reinvent their approach to their budgets.

So let’s not disappoint them. We too need the balls to grasp the challenge.  Let’s reinvent the industry; move from Broadcast to Narrowcast. Embrace Branded Generosity. Be being bold enough to zig while everyone else zags. Connect with consumers by building believable brands; ones that stand up to the scrutiny of the empowered consumer.

Green Man. Culled from Greyscale Obscurity.

Oh yes we have skills, and we are not shy. This is Murray’s birthday card, drawn by JPT. Think of it as an antidote to Adobedom, pencil therapy, something to do with the importance of making stuff. Bring on Spring with birds, beards, ukuleles, neon feathers and leafy garlands.

Back in Spring we were lucky enough to get to hang out with the guys at LBi Syrup in NYC. A great time was had by all, (naturally), but the highlight was being there just after the team had launched Hope.Act.Change.com

We looked briefly at the project back in LBiQ 2, but the recap (if you’re unaware of it) goes a little like this: inspired by Obama, will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas put out the “yeswecansong“, (part of what Jeff Howe referred to the other night as the first ‘crowdsourcing’ of a presidential candidate).

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