I don’t normally like highlighting specific pieces of work and picking on them. But in the context of the 7 Sins of Digital I had to post this.
It’s Interflora’s new eBrochure. For starters anything called an eBrochure should be put straight in the eBin. But it’s the use of the killer page curl that really gets me. (Ashley even listed page turns as his 7th Sin in the comments).
They say:
Welcome to Interflora’s new and exciting interactive eBrochure.
Clicking the eBrochure will open a new window.
You say:
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…
Why it seems like a good idea:
You can just take an existing print brochure and put it online. And it’s got familiar things that people get.
Why it’s not a good idea:
You can’t search it. It’s not linkable from outside. The links from the eBrochure to the website are really disorienting. Most of the text is too small (so you have to have a crappy zoom function). It’s just all wrong. Oh and it’s called an eBrochure…
There’s a bunch of things that people who are just getting into digital always seem to propose at some point or another. I guess they’re things that are part of the learning process. Things that a lot of us have done, and hopefully learned from. I’m not suggesting that anyone is stupid for doing any of these things (I’ve done the majority of them at least once). But I’m hopefully going to explain why they’re not good ideas in most cases.
Of course they’re not deadly. And like all ‘rules’ there’s good reasons to break them. But in most instances these things are not good. I’ve left out the new ‘trendy’ things like Google Earth, SecondLife, UGC, etc. I’m saving those for 7 deadly sins of digital 2.0.
In no particular order…
Tamagotchis
They say: “A game where you have to feed this little character to keep them alive, and you give them stuff, and they do stuff”
You say: “You want to create something based on an obsolete early 90s toy that wasn’t actually any fun? And you’re expecting people who don’t give a toss about your brand of fake-cheese-based snacks to go though a bunch of meaningless interactions for no real reward why?”
Why it seems like a good idea: prolonged engagement, a ‘relationship’, the original tamagotchis had a certain amount of Jap-cool
Why it’s not a good idea: they weren’t actually fun then, they’re still not now, if you’ve created one in the past you’ll find that the involvement rate drops off faster than a D’angostini subscription after issue one’s free binder. And it’s been done lots of times before.
Screensavers
They say: “Let’s make a screensaver”
You say: “When was the last time you installed a screensaver? When was the last time you saw a screensaver on someone’s screen?”
Why it seems like a good idea: screensavers were kind of fascinating when we were younger, at the time they were much richer and more visual than most of the web stuff that was around. They were animated, they had flying windows, zooming starfields, even scrolling text! They’re full screen (so they look a bit like a TV). And the idea of something that’s sitting there in the background, hiding, ready to jump up and surprise you when you’re being lazy has some kind of appeal I reckon.
Why it’s not a good idea: screensavers are a product of a byegone era, people don’t like installing stuff, the only time they actually come to life is when you’re not there. And they’re kind of a beacon that says my computer should be off or at least asleep to save power, but I’d rather show off some fancy graphical nonsense.
Interfaces that look like the tops of desks or tables
They say: “We could make it look like the character’s desk, you can click on a file to read it, if you click on the answering machine you can hear a message… And so on…”
You say: “Oh FFS we can bend space and time and create things that redefine the way that the world works, but you want to use a clumsy metaphor that people are going to have to decompile in order to figure out how to get to a bit of information that in some rare case they might actually want. And it’s not extensible. And besides how many people watch youtube videos of their own adverts in the residue at the bottom of a coffee cup? And it’s not accessible… And so on…”
Why it seems like a good idea: its safe and familiar. Everyone understands atoms and physical things. Lots of people don’t understand navigation, menu structures and information architecture. So it’s easier to ignore them and cling to something comfortable and comforting, like a messy desk.
Why it’s a bad idea: Aside from the stuff above it just is, trust me. Perhaps this imagined conversation between me and Ridley Scott makes it clearer:
Me: Hi Ridley, please will you direct a commercial for me, it’s basically a 60 second spot and it goes like this. We open on the first page of a book. There are words on the page, we need to wait for people to read the words. Then a hand turns the page and we move to scene two. It’s the second page of the book.
Ridley: Silence
Me: It looks like an aged book, there are coffee ring stains on page two.
Ridley: Silence
Me: You still there?
Desktop assistants / characters
They say: “You know the Microsoft paperclip, can we…”
You say: “Stop right there sonny, don’t say another word! Nobody likes the paperclip. The only good thing that ever happened to the paperclip was death. Even Bill Gates hates the paperclip.”
Why it seems like a good idea: being helpful is good. Stepping outside of a web-page and having some form of permanence and ongoing relationship makes sense.
Why it’s a bad idea: people don’t like installing things, they want things on their terms, it’s been done a lot and failed a lot no matter what the sales guys for DeskBuddy(tm) tell you.
A virus
They say: “Could we create an actual virus that spreads our message”
You say: “Why not do it in the real world instead – why not just make a branded version of HIV, there’s more people in the offline world that you can infect”
Why it seems like a good idea: massive unstoppable spread of your message.
Why it’s a bad idea: viruses are not a toy, they are really not good, you don’t want your brand to be associated with not good things, unless you work for evilcorp.
A ‘viral’
They say: “We’ve made this film, can you make it a viral”
You say: “I’m just going outside to suck on an exhaust pipe for 30 minutes – if I make it back I’ll stick it on YouTube for you”
Why it seems like a good idea: we’ve all seen ‘viral’ hits, they’re things that everyone has watched, that have been passed around, loved and genuinely become part of the culture of the web. We’ve not all seen the ‘viral’ wasteland, the thousands of clips that sit gathering dust at the bottom of the ‘exploding heads’ category on YouTube. And because most of us only see the good stuff that works we assume it’s easy.
Why it’s a bad idea: because it’s not easy. Now that ‘viral’ has become a dirty nasty industry full of paid for placements and seeding bungs you need to plan for it from the word go. It’s mostly not really about things being viral at all, it’s just about dark media buying.
Starting a list of seven things and not counting how many you’ve got.
I’m going to open this one up for submissions, anyone got any ideas for the 7th deadly sin? Best suggestion wins a book from my library. Seriously I’ll send a good book to you if you come up with the best suggestion – plus happy to replace any of my ones that are rubbish…
To me this shows exactly how not to approach bloggers to get them onside. I’ve not put in a link to the site, and I don’t want one back from them. But if you do want to visit the site you can figure out the URL from the text above.
Reasons why this is bad:
1. It’s blatantly a mail merged email. And a pretty badly written one at that.
2. It addresses me as ‘crackunit’ – that’s not my name. It’s not hard to figure out my name.
3. Why would I want them to link me to my December 2006 archive?
4. It’s badly targeted. I don’t drive.
I’m guessing that they’ve just done a big search on blogs that mention Toyota (and I talked about a Toyota website, from a craft point of view, last December). What’s ‘interesting’ about this is that it shows how even a bunch of brand enthusiasts (or in this case a for-profit organisation) can muck about with perceptions of your brand.
I thought I’d posted the Blendtec ‘Will it blend?’ ads from YouTube before, but it doesn’t look like I did.
Anyway I thought they were great, genuinely viral ads. Showing a slightly geeky professor / home shopping channel presenter blending all manner of things. Marbles, a can of coke, a rake, a garden hose, an iPod… You can see all the clips here on the Blendtec YouTube page.
What was great about them is that the line is really blurry, are these serious or funny? Plus they just keep on making newer, more ridiculous ones.
So in an act of total fingers-upness to the geek community they’ve taken our latest object of desire and put forth the challenge:
Everybody knows that the iPhone can make phone calls, play movies & music, surf the web, and a lot more. But, Will It Blend? That is the question
Great article about project management. I particularly liked the bit about striking a balance between the science (what you should do) and art (what you need to do) of project management. Meri Williams nails very concisely and eloquently a lot of the things I’ve never manged to express.
Another favourite bit:
If you’ve ever tried to just send a site live and then held out your hand for the check, you’ll have experienced what I term the “undead stakeholder” phenomenon: people who had a stake in the project returning again and again with more requests or improvements or even just support queries.
I’ve used the term ‘Zombie Projects’ to describe the same thing.
Essential reading for anyone who manages web projects in any way shape or form.
This is one of my favourite projects of recent times. It ticks all of the boxes that get me excited about the work Poke do.
It’s a simple idea, that hasn’t been done before (as far as I can tell). We were basically tasked by Orange to come up with an interesting way to give away a bunch of tickets for Glastonbury. So we came up with the idea of:
Putting a GPS enabled cow in a field (it turned out to be a bull later so we could turn the name into a tabloid-friendly pun)
Showing it’s position live on the internet, along with webcams
Whoever guesses where the bull is going to be at a certain time of day will win tickets
I really hope that it gets picked up by the online community. It just feels like the kind of idea that people could get excited about. It’s one of those things that creates an interesting interface between the real world and the web world, and it’s a bit silly too (which often helps).
(In case you’re worried, we were very careful that the activity doesn’t in any way interfere with the Bull’s normal life. The whole thing has been devised in consultation with the farmer and the RSPCA)
As I’m now on the TaxiWeb here’s something else taxi related. I saw this parked near Old St yesterday:
It’s a London Cab painted with pole dancers. I thought to myself. That can’t be right, I’m sure the Taxi drivers code wouldn’t allow you to advertise like that. Especially with a ‘drive to you smutville for free’ promotion. Then I realised it didn’t have the light on the top. So it’s not a real cab, it’s just a smut-cruiser. What a horrible thing.
I’m not normally all that excited about awards. Having been on the judging side a couple of times you start to see how ‘the system’ works. And to be honest I think that a lot of the work Poke do isn’t really ‘award fodder’. The Webby’s are slightly different. The judges come from a wider base, the entry process doesn’t allow you to submit a jazzy film to explain why you should win. It’s basically just the URL to the site. The judges then have to figure out if, and why, it’s good.
I know that the Zopa win isn’t just down to Poke. It won because it’s an interesting idea (that hopefully we helped to express in an appropriate way).
In many respects it was a dream job for us. We got to work with a brand that had an awesome tone of voice and heaps of personality, as well as it being a proposition that’s totally right for now. And that’s not to mention the team we got to work with…
I’m not saying that working with a startup is easier. It has its own set of challenges: everyone is very close to the brand and has a strong opinion on everything and they work in startup time (i.e. it needs to happen now). But the energy and enthusiasm that an entrepreneurial team generates is really motivating.
Without wanting to miss anyone at Zopa out. Sarah, Justin, Dave, Tom, James, Tim and the sadly missed Richard we thank you all for everything.
Of course there are brilliant people in advertising who ‘get it’ too. And blatantly you don’t have to be a web-obsessed geek to come up with interesting interactive ideas. But naturally it becomes easier to consider this world if you spend some time in it. So, at the very least, you understand a few of its basic rules.
It helps to appreciate what makes a great game. Or be able to feel the difference between a good application and a lousy one. To understand how important online relationships are to people. To have lived a day in Second Life before recommending it as the solution to a problem. To be a user who generates content and not a marketeer who just hypothesises about it. The list goes on…
I read an interesting quote recently, I forget where. But the point was that almost anyone could have a go at coming up with TV advertising ideas – we’ve all sat through so many commercials in our lives the techniques and language of TV ads are part of mainstream culture (I’ve got no doubt at all that they’d be second rate rubbish, but there’s something in the thought).
On the flipside, your average teenager with MySpace/Bebo/Facebook pages is way more qualified to come up with ideas around social networks than most boardrooms full of marketeers.
I think you get the point.
From what I can see, lots of the people who really live and love this stuff have taken refuge in small digital agencies. They wouldn’t survive in a place where their Internet access was subject to WPP Group firewalls (although they’d probably hack a way around it). They need to be allowed to run instant messenger and install applications on their own machines. They’re also more comfortable knowing that they can survive being just a little bit nerdy and their obscure cybercultural references will be understood by most people, not just the IT work experience guy.
Of course this will change, and I’ve got no idea where the talented young creatives who’ve lived their whole lives with this stuff will gravitate towards over the next few years. I’m guessing they’ll head for the places where they feel understood and the places with the best opportunities. Who knows whether these will be the same places?
If you’re excited by the possibilities of digital, there’s nothing like having a team around you who are all connected, online people. People who share an enjoyment of constant change and upheaval instead of fearing it.
