Budapest Tales

Just back from visiting Budapest and in the process of setting up a partnership with an agency over there who are effectively our interactive production arm. At the invite of their CEO myself and cherish's head of production took 4 days in Budapest and then out at lake Balaton and were treated like kings. The people were a joy, hospitality was amazing, the weather in the 30's and quite frankly coming back was hard. I am looking forward to very exciting times ahead with the skill, commitment and scalability this partnership will provide. On the pic you can see the end of another free dinner with founder on my right and CEO on the far right of the pic...oh their names...not a chance until the partnership is signed!

...England cont.

...or is it this one? Votes on a postcard.

England

Which image some us Brits up...is it this one?

Bigger and older is not always better

Interesting to see the world of marketing really buzzing over in London, lots off opportunities and good work happening. It makes me smile to see the tidal wave of movement towards digital and integrated marketing and the traditional agencies also now trying to differentiate themselves by wanting to be integrated but by saying they don't consider themselves integrated and that is some way beyond that...how suprising to see them being dare I say a touch arrogant (not). Let us not forget the late 90's when the traditional agencies first ignored then clamoured to be part of the integrated clan. Much time has passed and much learning has been gained but I still see campaigns driven by TV creatives then thrown to the digital team for a treatment...it takes more than a shrewd acquisition and a hire or two to break down years of working practice and to really understand how to interact and stimulate a consumer and not just bombard them with one message through multiple media channels.

Unusual Pets

This is first of a series of posts from a visit to London. My friend has a new pet, a rabbit. Interesting choice for a working man, but it seems happy, living in one of his draws and coming out to play when visitors arrive. Interesting looking thing it gets in the strangest of places but seems to bring him pleasure so who am I to judge!

Ooooh exciting

Other highlights of the week is moving to closure on capturing one of the Netherlands best known brands as a client hopefully to be finalised in the next 2 weeks, also looking at a new opportunity in an existing client and the confirmation of a meeting at the end of the month with one of the worlds best know brands...all very non-informative I know but you know how it goes...suffice to say lots of good stuff going on, but we still need more good people (see earlier post)

The Advisory Board

Another week flies by. The intention was to update a little everyday but of course that will never happen! Last week highlights include the formation of the cherish Advisory Board. This is a collection of people who will help advise me and coach me in the development of the cherish business. It's been so inspiring to hear peoples response when asked to join, real interest and desire to help (for no money it must be said!) and a real sense of belief in the business and myself so very humbling and equally exciting. Can't make those involved public at the moment but a fine bunch I can assure you!

You learn new things every day...

...sat drinking coffee with someone far younger and cooler than me who is a musician and designer discussing his thesis on Futurology / Future Studies.

Now I have always believed the understanding of cultural trends is increasingly relevant in advertising, in particular because I believe advertising needs to illicit response, engagement and dialogue with consumers to build relationships, not just batter them with one way explosions of creativity. This means you need to be cleverer and understand how to trigger peoples touchpoints through humour, love, desire etc the extreme emotions - you need to make them want to engage. When adding the European dimension to that, the ever growing number of cultures each with their own history, behaviour, humour, trends this becomes a pretty complex area.

I was considering hiring a sociologist to look at this but it seemed a little too removed from what we do as a business. A futurologist however seems very interesting. Maybe the world knew about Futurology, but until this morning I didn't. Any Futurologists or Future Studies students looking for an internship? Get in touch...