Dave

Last night the Dave crew were living it up at Sketch to pick up another award. This time it was a MediaGuardian Innovation Award for our work for Ski Republic.

Dave was tasked to create a new brand for the business and then launch this in the UK and France simultaneously. The task was simple, though far from easy: to secure 50,000 ski rentals in the first season from a standing start.  We beat this target two months early!

We were up against Mencap and the The National Magazine Company.

The MEGAs were launched last year and are judged by a high profile panel including Peter Bazalgette, Brent Hoberman and Katie Derham, the Megas provoked debate, discussion, tantrums and tabloid headlines, and ultimately a fantastic line up of winners. Channel 4, Playstation3 and the team behind the online launch of Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” were amongst the winners in 2008.

Onwards and upwards!

Read about the awards in The Guardian

History is full of discoveries that have become milestones in human thought, and inventions that have led to paradigm shifts in civilisation.

There are accepted lists of the most important, from the wheel and gravity to the microchip. Then there are the inventions that make a difference to our everyday lives, the objects that distil this white hot  technology into a usable format. Unsung heroes such as microwaves and credit cards.

The object that transformed my life and thousands of others in a subtle but profound way was the Walkman. Not strictly an invention, simply a refining of process, the initial product was so simple that many people could not understand what it did or why anyone would want one.

For those of us who did understand why, the Walkman did several things. It liberated music from the home, created a thousand imitators and ensured the success of the humble cassette. More than this, it tapped into the beginnings of MTV and gave each of us a personal soundtrack to accompany the unfolding pop video of our lives—at least until the batteries ran out.


It seems a little sad that Sony were unable to maintain a grip on the zeitgeist. Next to the iPod their products look slick but soulless, there is no experience attached to them, they’re just about the delivery of music. They seem to have forgotten that music is about enjoyment, not owning a multinational record company. Perhaps the developers at Sony should dig out their Personal stereos, spend an hour or two playing some old albums and get their groove back.

Last night Dave hosted the Luxury Marketing Council’s monthly chinwag.  This was the second Obama-themed event I’ve attended since the coronation, sorry, inauguration.  And, I admit to being a little sceptical when I read the title, “The Obama Digital Campaign: Digital Marketing in Politics and Luxury”.  A tenuous attempt to be topical or a cynical use of ‘Obama’ to lure in the crowds?

Well, I was right about the crowds; over 150 of the great and the good from Chanel, Mulberry, Rolex, Gucci, American Express, Serpentine Gallery and many other glittering names flocked to our bar at Dave Towers.

But as for the tenuous link, I was wrong.  It turns out that digital marketing in US presidential campaigns has a lot of lessons to offer luxury brands.  Honest.

Dan Rowe, the Dave representative on the panel reckons luxury brands have become egocentric.  They don’t involve their customers in the development of their brands.  In today’s open-source world that won’t cut it.  They’ve become super-protective of their logos and view inaccessibility as a route to prestige.

While there are good reasons for this behaviour, Dan Rowe thinks they need to be more open about how they manage their brand assets – just like the Obama campaign was happy for his image to be expropriated by Shepard Fairey – the curator and creator of the Obey website (“Manufacturing Quality Dissent since 1989).  Fairey was able to express the spirit of the Obama campaign eloquently and powerfully.  And the party machine was smart enough to recognise that the ‘spirit’ of a brand is much more important and powerful that the ‘letter’ of the brand.

Naturally this alarmed the luxury marketers who are used to battling hard to protect their brands from counterfeiters and pranksters. 

Watch this space to see Tom Ford embrace a Popbitch mash-up.

Oliver James’s thesis on where we all went wrong has been around since 2007, but its subject matter has taken a far greater significance in the last 6 months – in the face of economic meltdown, spiralling rates of anxiety and some pretty damning reports of UK society at large. Which is why it’s worth a read, or a re-read – because if you want some thought provoking stuff on how we got into the economic mess and emotionally dislocated societies, that we’re in today, then this is a good place to start

Whilst we’re not
a.    not qualified psychologists to comment on the methodology and observations,   
and
b.    not in unanimous agreement with all his points of view, that can descend into rants

This is a fascinating insight into mindset that is ‘affluenza’, those who have affluenza, the type of cultures it thrives in, and some lessons on where in the world it’s not and why.

James finishes his thesis with some ideas of how to rid ourselves of affluenza – which gives some great food for thought on a changing world for marketers out there..

James finishes his thesis with some ideas of how to rid ourselves of affluenza – offering great food for thought for anyone in the marketing industry.  After all, if we can see where it all went a bit wrong, then it’s much easier to sort it out…

At the end of last year, Intelligent Life wrote that we’re living in an age of ‘mass intelligence’
and the appearance of websites like arts and letters daily would add to the evidence that we are.
Well worth a look for suitably high-minded point of view on today, and great links to global news and opinion.

http://www.aldaily.com/

The optimist’s view of a changing world

Whilst we at Dave are a pretty optimistic lot anyway, even we’ve found the never-ending bad news stories hard going. That’s why we’re recommending The Optimist
It may sometimes err on the side of twee, but it makes a good, good-news start to the day… 
Add it to your favourites now:  http://www.optimistworld.com/

The School of Life

Where do you go to answer the big questions? Like, what’s the meaning of life? Why are relationships so complicated? How do you create a work, life balance? Welcome to the School of Life, where you can learn good ideas for everyday living.

These interesting thinkers from the world of art, acting and academia explore and expand your mind, body and spirit with subjects ranging from philosophy to literature and psychology to the visual arts.
In these times of uncertainty and change, it seems essential that we all evolve our knowledge on how to live a better life. Let’s get enlightened.

School of life bloghttp://www.theschooloflife.com

Linefeed is graphic designer Michael Bojkowski's website. Not only a blog, it is also a gathering of all the social networks he subscribes to in one place – 30 in total! – consequently establishing an online persona through all his entries.

So what do we know about him? He's a rodent-looking avatar who wakes up listening to OMD's "souvenir" at 6am, hates remakes and spent a week-long eating soup back in January. They way forward to establish a profile within the cyber community.