Festival Fever

It’s that time of year again, and as the days begin to get longer and lighter our thoughts start to turn to summer; it's festival announcement time!

Most of our favourite festivals, from heavy metal and ultra cool to the wonderfully mad will, over the next few weeks, be strategically adding to their performance line up.

In a fiercely competitive, heavily populated and diverse UK market, much is made of these initial announcements. Many of our long standing festivals have a loyal and regular following that are bound to gleefully attend; Glastonbury2014 sold out in record time when tickets went on sale in October last year. 

Yet this is the period when those unsure on which festival to attend are swayed by the announcements of the headliners. Reportedly there are now over 600 outdoor summer festivals ranging in scale, theme, genre and demographic all taking place within the space of four months! An absolutely astonishing figure for a notoriously unreliable summer such as ours!

So just how do you know which tickets to book?  The experience starts from the upcoming, exciting announcements of headlining acts. Then you begin checking the websites – here the battle is won or lost. The website itself must grab your attention, explain the festival in a nutshell and entice you to part with your hard earned cash, all the while embodying everything that the entire festival stands for. Easy right? Perhaps one of the finest examples of this is the Wilderness Festival, a uniquely branded experience offering an altogether different festival experience.

The next experience is to increase interest and awareness of your event via the mediums of social media, encouraging everyone to ‘join the party’.  Again if the content, artwork and information appeals then it’s likely you’ve gained an attendee and brand ambassador for your festival!

So which festival headliners have caught your interest so far?  Which festival websites capture your imagination?.....And most importantly, have you got your wellies, rain mac and sun cream?!

It’s not too late to create your own festival for your employees and guests…in fact we're specialists on the subject! Check out some of our case studies for more information or join the conversation on our blog or Twitter.  We look forward to speaking to you!

Is there such a thing as bad publicity?

For those of us involved within the creative and promotional industries we all appreciate the power of print and the value in checking grammar, word flow and spellings before a big event. Occasionally slogans can get lost in translation with computers formatted slightly differently, not to mention the less Shakespearean versions of English used throughout the world.

But imagine our surprise when we heard about the latest news from multinational electronics company, Samsung at this weeks CES conference in Las Vegas.

We've all heard about Hollywood Producer Michael Bay leaving the stage during the launch of Samsung’s new curved TV, but the experiential side of the launch revealed a technological rain wall, sadly containing a misspelled ‘Experiece’; an otherwise inspired concept which looked great but sadly also captured the attention of social media.

Perceptions of brands have never been formed or altered quicker than they are right now with the accessibility of the internet and social media.

Both of these occurrences have gained huge exposure for Samsung, so you could argue that they have received more coverage than they could have dreamt of, albeit not directly about their product but it certainly goes a long way for brand exposure. So is it true that 'there's no such thing as bad publicity’?

See previous Blog entries for some of the experiential escapes The MotivAction Group have provided.

Remember… join the conversation and let us know your thoughts; follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook.

Brand Christmas

It’s that time of year again when the nations biggest brands unveil they’re multimillion pound Christmas blockbusters in the hope of sending sales, awareness and social media hits through roof in a bid to rule the media waves.

Ads are now purposely released during prime time ad breaks for mass exposure and aimed directly at the social media obsessed demographic. A tactic that has worked so well for John Lewis that its cartoon bear and hare characters now have they’re own twitter accounts with mass followings, see @JohnLewisBear and @JohnLewisHare! 

And this year's ad has already had twice as many views on You Tube than last year’s snowman ad, doubling the hits to the tune of 9.8 million views so far and dwarfing the theme packed M&S advert in the process.

So what are the crucial elements to a successful Christmas marketing campaign? The fresh thinking required for concepts that are both current yet classic whilst still original is a definite must and something we pride ourselves on here at The MotivAction Group.  This got us thinking about the many Christmas adverts over the years, Coca Cola, John Lewis, The Famous Grouse, or maybe Ant & Dec are a new Christmas winner.....but which is your favourite? 

Join us on Twitter to keep up to date with our blogs and discussions or leave a comment below.  We'd love to hear from you!  

Merry Christmas from everyone here at The MotivAction Group!

Street art hits the event world

Street art has always caused a stir, dividing the community into those who consider it an unlawful act of vandalism or those who rejoice in the name of arts and culture. Regardless of the on-going Tom and Jerry styled saga, graffiti has worked its way into the events industry with a subtle bang!

Street artists often hold the same aspirations as us here at The MotivAction Group, to not only ‘wow’ our clients but to truly engage on an experiential level, taking expectations of what’s deemed 'normal' to the very edges of its understanding. Bristol’s very own mysterious Banksy has been doing this for years, occasionally in the most obscure and even dangerous of locations, forcing the world to look and think a little deeper. Most recently he caused a stir in New York where he sold original canvases incognito for just $60 (£38) when they are said to be worth up to £20,000.  See more on this story here.

Within the ever developing events Industry a live graffiti demonstration or even digital graffiti wall can add an excellent visual impact to any event, pushing those corporate boundaries and bringing the flavour of a ram shackled, down town 1980's NYC to the conference hall to wow, shock and stir the imagination in the best ways possible.

Graffiti Workshops also offer an excellent experiential team building option with hands on and artistic twists.  And with Wi-Fi instant streaming capabilities allowing event delegates to share their fantastic experiences via social media, it can cause real ripples throughout the twittersphere adding further value and exposure to the event. 

The most exciting and inspiring variation of events industry graffiti fun is served up by the Graffiti Van. Offering events attendees a novel yet fresh way of creating some potential ‘art’ along with plentiful laughs and lasting memories. The contradiction of using an ex-ice cream van as a black board providing an experience that’s both a little naughty and a little nice.

So regardless of your personal views on whether the action of using spray paint onto walls is a crime against the eyeballs or innovative opportunist art that allows creativity to thrive in places where it should not, the utilisation into our events can prove a pivotal feature that will keep your attendees singing your praises long after the paint is dry.

See our previous blog entries for some of the experiential offerings we've found this year!

Remember that you can let us know your thoughts by following us Twitter or liking us on Facebook. 

Happy Halloween...

Our dearest of friends from across the pond have long celebrated the force known across the globe as Halloween with a real American sense of enthusiasm which now appears to be spreading.

Here at the Creative Enterprises Hub, along with countless others within our industry, we view this strange celebration of all things dastardly and bizarre as an excellent theming opportunity, or just an excuse for a party.

Here’s a selection of our favourite highly themed and experiential examples;

Thorpe Park Fright Nights

Thorpe Park provides the ultimate ‘Fright Night’ having teamed up with the Scare Group UK to offer attendees not only a terrifyingly lit turn on the parks rollercoaster’s but in every crack and crevice of the park zombies, along with a variety of characters from the Saw movies, lurk with the no other intent than to scare.  Genuinely only for those with a high scare threshold, consider this almost a health warning! 

Click here for further details.

The Halloween
Playground at The Vaults

As ever London offers an array of fright nights from the grizzly to the gruesome, most coming in the shape of The Vaults, a now unused Underground train station filled with mystery, history and tales of another time and another world. These masters of morgue promise a playground for the freak in all of us.

 Activities include DJs of the undead, the graveyard cinema, the abandoned end of pier arcade games and crazed capers from the finest twisted cabaret acts.  Click here for full listing.

The establishment of World Zombie Day only reinforces our developing fascination with all things spooky!  The event takes place in over 50 cities worldwide where organized marches of the undead are staged with a meet place and a detailed route for the general public to either join the chaos or hide. This year’s London march started at Marble Arch Tube station and spread right across the capital ending up in a Zombie Ball.

This Halloween, rather than being frightfully dismissive or venting annoyance at the fact kids are knocking on the doors for sweeties, perhaps we should start to embrace this celebration, both within the industry and our social lives to fully realise its theming potential.

According to the demand for such events and activities, this could be a strong event theme throughout the calendar year.  None the less it will prove a ‘freaky’ one to watch over the next few years.

See previous Blog entries for some of the experiential escapes The MotivAction Group has provided clients.

Remember… let us know your thoughts; follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook. 

The next big thing or just a voice in your head?

Marketing is evolving at breakneck speed as technology and consumer habits change. Ten years ago mobile was barely on the agenda for many brands; now it’s fast becoming an integral part of any multi-channel strategy. 

While it’s never simple to judge exactly where the industry is heading every time a new “seismic shift” is on the cards, it will be interesting to see how brands and consumers alike take to an entirely new advertising channel – and whether bone conduction really is here to stay.

German company Sky Deutschland plans to use the new technology to broadcast adverts on the nations’ railway network. Bone conduction involves passing vibrations through the consumer’s skull to transmit soundwaves to the fluid-filled chamber in the ear known as the cochlea. From there the information is transmitted to the brain and the subject hears the sound as though it is coming from within their own head.

It may sound reminiscent of a futuristic thriller, but bone conduction technology has already been in use for some years, particularly in headphones and some types of hearing aids which are worn behind the ear – which also indicates that even deaf people will be able to hear the adverts being broadcasted. 

What’s more, talk of Google using the technique in their upcoming Glass unit suggests that it could be set for widespread dissemination in the next few years. It’s certainly a bold new technique for marketers to add to their sizeable toolkits. But plans to employ bone conduction to broadcast adverts to passengers resting their heads against train windows have been proving controversial ever since they were first announced a couple of months ago.

According to the Daily Finance, the YouTube video demonstrating the technology had received more than a quarter of a million views in early July, of which seven out of ten had rated the concept with a thumbs down. That’s overwhelmingly negative, and comments going as far as to decry bone conduction advertising as an invasion of privacy are unlikely to be won over in the near future. A number of comments voice their sympathy for commuters who are unable to enjoy a quiet minute of rest after a long and arduous shift.

So, what are the chances of bone conduction taking off as a worldwide marketing tool? It isn’t too hard to see why the industry is fascinated with the idea, but it seems consumers will be harder to convince. Still, appealing to passenger’s wallets could make the difference. 

In the UK, years of fare increases as fuel prices have risen have left commuters facing ever-higher transport costs. It could be that injecting some much-needed revenue from advertising into the country’s rail network is just the ticket for passengers, especially if it prevents another price hike, pushes fares downwards or even pays for more and better services.

It remains to be seen whether bone conduction marketing makes its way over to the UK, or indeed whether it is taken up at all.

Either way, in the sense that it’s captured our attention and got us talking, it’s already working!

It’s all gone ‘Cirque Berserk’!

Roll Up! Roll Up! Roll Up!

The event theming trend of the year has caravanned its way to an event near you. It’s The Circus Theme!

Since its arrival the Circus has fascinated us Brits and as a consequence it’s no wonder that event agencies like The MotivAction Group are re-imagining ways to present everything you can do under a big top.

You’ll be pleased to know that you don’t have to spend the sort of budgets that Cirque Du Soleil have at their disposal to create a truly crowd pleasing performance.

A fantastic example of this is our local friends that organise the Standon Calling festival every summer. The weekend’s acts (including De La Soul – I’d forgotten all about them!) will be housed in a big top and the on-site bar, sweetly called the Strongman’s Arms, will be hosting a series of quirky sessions including ‘The Art of Whipping’ and ‘How to Conquer Your Fear of Clowns’. I can see that they might appeal to some of MotivAction’s employees!!

If Circus appeals then also check out London’s Southbank where the Wonderground Festival is now fully underway, with shows ranging from Canadian Lumberjacks to a traditional Parisian Burlesque knee’s up. There’s something for the clown or contortionist locked away in each of us. 

So, no matter what your stance is on clowns being funny or just plain creepy, it’s clear that the circus hasn’t lost its appeal.

Now, where did I put my whip?

Lets us know your thoughts; follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook & read all our latest Blogs

MotivAction pack EE’s suitcase for the summer

If you’re travelling through Stansted or Manchester airport on your summer holidays over the coming weeks you won’t fail to notice the rather large suitcase MotivAction has produced for EE’s latest roaming campaign.

Our brand ambassadors are on hand to tell holiday makers about the fantastic roaming rates they can receive to make sure they’re in touch with family and friends whilst abroad.

If you’ve got a brief sitting on your desk for a live marketing or brand experience campaign then feel free to share it with our lovely team of creatives at MotivAction. We’d love to help!

Get in touch with Andy Cording: andy.cording@motivaction.co.uk or call 01920 458555 to find out more.

The Olympic Park’s ‘Pop-Up’ Legacy

We don’t know if you noticed but a rather large sports festival popped up in the East of London last summer. And it seems that it’s set to become a firm favourite with festival and sports organisers wishing to ‘pop-up’ an event.

Harnessing the nation’s feel good factor following our Olympic glory, the park has already played host to an array of outdoor cultural events, ranging from the Open East Festival, the Wireless Festival and this summer’s hugely popular Anniversary Games.

The sheer scale of these projects really does impress. Amid the on-going renovation works you’d never expect to find swing ball arenas, cultured catering, multiple stages and the largest chunk of astro turf you’ve ever seen! It’s no mean feat!  

So far, the immediate Olympic legacy has been most enjoyable, with the diverse nature of the Park’s Event calendar perhaps the most pleasant surprise. Yet, the best bit of the lot is the fact that this ‘Pop-Up’ perfect festival ground is wham bam in the middle of London’s east end bringing exciting arts programmes to the masses, a green playground which really shouldn’t be.

Keep your eyes peeled for more thought provoking ‘Pop Ups’ as the trend continues to sweep the industry.

If you’d like to hear about anything we have professionally‘popped up’ here at MotivAction, get in touch.

Lets us know your thoughts; follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook & read all our latest Blogs

Play to win, don’t play to play: launching Varo Foods’ Moinmoin product

“Play to win. Don’t play to play.” said the Managing Director of Varo Foods in amazement after first setting his eyes on the Westfield Stratford demonstration kitchen we had created for him.

It may sound like an obvious statement but sometimes it can be hard to hand over the keys to your prized brand to an experiential agency and just let them ‘get on with’ creating a sampling event.

It probably hadn't helped that we’d been planning the launch of his new Nigerian delicacy Moinmoin for nearly a year, discussing a range of different venues and events and having to cancel them as the product simply wasn't ready.

Moinmoin is a dish served at Nigerian celebrations (known as Owambe) and family recipes are a closely guarded secret handed down from generation to generation. So it’s no surprise that Nigerians are very outspoken about what makes a good Moinmoin. You can see why no one had yet dared to package it as a convenience food - there was a lot at stake. 

Getting the recipe just right and waiting for the glacial manufacturing process to complete meant that the product sampling activity just got pushed further and further back. After all this time dealing with suppliers it was evident Varo Foods’ Managing Director hadn’t realised just how professional the live sampling activity could look. 

That’s precisely why he got MotivAction involved at the outset. We would take care of the whole process, ensuring our brand ambassadors were fully briefed, that Westfield Stratford’s demonstration kitchen was bright and vibrant and most importantly that his shiny new brand was properly represented throughout the whole weekend. 

No matter the client, brand or budget, MotivAction are there to win; not simply to play.

And you know what? It all paid off. After trying our hot Moinmoin samples the Nigerian target audience couldn't believe Varo Foods had managed to create such a tasty product. During our three days at the demonstration kitchen we had sold hundreds of tins of Moinmoin, created tens of thousands of opportunities to see the brand and Varo Foods saw their social media activity increase three-fold.

It looks as though Varo Foods’ Moinmoin has all the ingredients it needs to win!

If you would like to know a little more about the sampling activity we created for Varo Foods please get in touch with me at ideas@motivaction.co.uk and I’ll happily send you a case study.

A Brand Experience Case Study: Gore-Tex demonstrate that technical clothes can look stylish

After the success of the PR launch MotivAction delivered for the Gore-Tex ® SURROUND™ Product Technology launch in January they asked us to deliver a new brand experience live event that would showcase garments featuring their Gore-Tex fabrics and treatments.

Gore-Tex has been providing waterproof and breathable membranes and finishes to clothes manufacturers such as Berghaus and North Face for many years. However, many fashion consumers don’t realise the range of cutting-edge fashion brands that feature Gore-Tex or just how ‘on-trend’ some of the styles are. Gore-Tex asked us to showcase some of these garments to fashion journalists, particularly the Japanese influenced brands, such as Bathing Ape, nanamica and Visvim, who have developed a series of very stylish clothes.

MotivAction took over the Future Gallery, a fantastic white studio space in London’s Covent Garden and produced a colourful and vibrant, modern Japanese-inspired fashion show. We created bespoke mannequins from brightly coloured Perspex which were used to showcase some of the key garments. On the walls we hung giant coloured frames at jaunty angles within which we hung branded shoes.

The focus of the day was two high impact fashion shows in the style of a photo shoot. Shot on a bright blue background, our stylish models paraded in front of the photographer and his shots were instantly projected onto the walls around the journalists.

The event created a real buzz with journalists exclaiming how much they enjoyed the brand experience and the opportunity to get close to the garments. In fact, by the following morning many bloggers (such as Hypebeast, the most read online fashion news and information outlet) and journalists had written about the clothes they had seen.

Posted by Andy Cording, Brand Experiences Account Manager

Interactive game proves a hit for telecoms brand experience

Queues of people formed up and down the country as people waited to take part in a game of batak for T-Mobile’s latest experiential campaign.

Reactions were tested to the limit as people competed to attempt to hit the most lights out in 60 seconds, with the top scorer at each location winning a Blackberry handset.

The brand experience game was not only fun but created an excellent visual using clever branding and design to turn the game into a phone. Most importantly, while people queued there was a great opportunity for event staff to talk to potential customers about their latest proposition and boost those sales!

Posted by Debora King, Project Manager, The MotivAction Group

‘Tis the season to get ‘fest’-ive for brands

It comes around just once a year and there are absolutely no snow covered scenes or cherubic choristers in sight. That’s right, the summer festival music season is fast approaching. And it’s not just the world’s music fans that are gearing up to see their favourite bands. The world’s biggest brands pay good money to attend the summer festivals because they know that when music fans aren’t moshing or doing air guitar, they have a captive audience that will interact with their brand.

These days brands wishing to do their brand experience activity have so many festivals other than Glastonbury to choose from. Festival organisers have realised that festival-goers that used to enjoy them in their youth would still like to attend even though they now have children. Harvest at Jimmy’s Farm and Latitude are two great examples and many brands that target this audience benefit by creating standout brand experiences that entertain and engage them.

And don’t think that festivals are strictly the domain of trendy twenty-somethings. There are festivals aimed solely at the toddler market. Lollibop in Regents Park is a summer festival for kids under the age of 10 and features appearances Rastamouse and Peppa Pig. They even have Ministry of Sound put on a mini disco for them! Again, the brand experience or live experiential opportunities are endless.

Throw in some MotivAction brand ambassadors that are trained to engage and talk with enthusiasm and knowledge about your product and you’ll find it’s a winning combination.

So, if you want your brand adored and loved by a captive audience at this year’s summer festivals then you’ve still got time book some space. Give us a call, we’ll be happy to help.

In Brand Experiences we Trust

Every Monday a chap called Roy H. Williams (otherwise known as the Wizard of Ads) drops an email into my inbox. The week before last his newsletter informed us readers how customers aren’t gullible anymore – they can sense when you’re trying to sell to them. They aren’t interested in ‘positive thinking’ and gloss anymore; they’re all about action and doing. “Don’t tell us, show us!”, he continued. How true this is, given that these days household budgets are squeezed and every purchase is thought about long and hard.

Every year we hold a meeting with our Brand Experience Event Managers. It’s an opportunity for them to share their stories and experiences from the past year as they’ve toured the country doing store launches and promotional activity for our clients. We give them all manner of activities to do, from hosting product launches for our many and varied clients to a range of different promotional activities we manage for clients like T Mobile. The one thing that really stuck with me after this meeting was how they kept talking about how the activities we dream up for them to run encourages shoppers to queue and wait to take part in the activity. This, they tell us, gives them a chance to stand chatting to the shoppers, earning their trust, telling them about the brand and showing them the latest handsets and gadgetry. The shoppers soon forget about the potential prize they might be able to win on the wheel of fortune and, with the help of our brand ambassadors, ask to be ushered into the nearby store to purchase the product. How about that for delivering results?

It’s always been the case that brands require a solid marketing mix in order to get the best cut through for their products but with the right idea and the right people it really is possible for brands to genuinely gain the trust of their customers.

You are spoiling us (Brand) Ambassadors!

In the run up to the New Year the whole team at MotivAction have been working their socks off to win some fantastic new brand experience projects for some of the world’s best-known brands. In addition, Dave Turner our Operations Manager has been busy visiting universities and holding recruitment days to recruit the next wave of brand ambassador talent. I thought I’d catch up with him to find out what he and the team look for in great brand ambassadors.

What’s the most important quality you look for in a brand ambassador?

Being a brand ambassador isn’t an easy job. Imagine standing in a busy shopping centre and trying to encourage passers-by to stop and be engaged in the client’s brand or offer. You don’t have time to be a sales person, you only have time to be their best friend. So, what do we look for? Mostly natural charm and charisma.

What is the selection process like?

It’s actually quite tough. We only have a few hours with these guys so our interview techniques have to quickly identify those that are going to be great at the job. We carefully outline the nature of the job to each of the interviewees and we then give them the opportunity to leave half way through if they don’t think they are going to be able to do it.

You spend quite a lot of time on the road searching for brand ambassadors, what are the benefits to our clients?

It’s really important that our clients’ brands are represented properly so we work hard to find brand ambassadors that we know, that work well in a team and that will deliver 100% of the time. Then we can match specific brand ambassadors that will work best for a specific client.

If you’re interested in becoming one of MotivAction’s Brand Ambassadors visit fill in our recruitment form or drop us a line with a little information about yourself to crew@motivaction.co.uk.

London City brand experience event snowballs into online marketing success

Earlier in the month London City Airport approached MotivAction's brand experience team to engage with London city-types to make it their airport of choice when they’re thinking of heading off for some fun on the slopes this winter.

As you’d expect, the team here came up with a really lovely idea to install a giant snowglobe in the Jubilee Mall at Canary Wharf. Passers-by were encouraged to jump into our snow-filled paradise, pop on a few ski-wear props and have their photo taken by our very own professional photographer. These were then downloaded onto a computer and the entrant’s details captured so they can view a web gallery after the event.

There’s no doubt this was a success – those that got involved enjoyed a fantastic Friday lunchtime treat and the client felt their brand was properly represented. The biggest impact was probably made by the hoards of city workers that may have considered themselves to be ‘too cool for school’ to actually get in the snowglobe themselves. But this didn’t matter as they were absolutely crucial for promoting our message beyond Canary Wharf. They spent a good portion of their lunch hour taking pictures and video on their phones and spreading the message for us far and wide through Facebook and Twitter.

How cool is that?!


Posted by Andy Cording, Brand Experiences Account Manager, The MotivAction Group www.brandexperiences.co.uk

Some thoughts on powering an ancient brand

Select the satellite view on Google maps and search for a town in Morocco called Merzouga. If you zoom in really close in to the outskirts of town where it meets the red sands of the Sahara desert you may notice a very faint black line which, if you carefully follow it for a couple of miles, you'll see that it snakes out to a series of canvas covered buildings owned by the indigenous tribe of Morocco: The Berbers.

The Berbers have inhabited the hostile and arid desert for thousands of years - happily surviving in seemingly impossible conditions. Not only do they have the stultifying heat to contend with but they must look after their families and animals, ensuring they have enough food and water. In addition, they’ve had to achieve this amongst the backdrop of constant invasions: from the ancient Greeks, the empirical Romans, and most recently by tourists wanting to live a bit of the real life by taking camel treks out to their encampments and to spend the night living with The Berbers under the stars amongst the dunes.

The Berber story is quite impressive. In amongst all this change the Berbers have stuck true to their roots by always maintaining their identity, their traditions and lifestyle whilst adapting to new regimes, religions and, even, tourism. A good example of this is that faint black line I mentioned in the first paragraph. It’s an eight inch cable that feeds power to these seemingly isolated camps. It allows tourists to have hot water, a flushing toilet and stoves for the hosts to cook on. And do you know what? The Berbers make a tidy living out of it. Not bad eh?

It led me to thinking that The Berber brand is probably one of the longest brands to have survived. And the only way they’ve managed to do it is to adapt or die. I think many modern day brands could learn from that little black electric cable that heads out into the desert.

Posted by Andy Cording, Brand Experiences Account Manager , The MotivAction Group

Apple of the Brand Eye

Ironic life isn’t it? On the day I attend a breakfast briefing on the power of brands, heavily featuring one of the world’s super brands, Apple, news comes through of its inspirational leader’s passing. Think Apple; think Steve Jobs. Think Steve Jobs; think Apple. The signature of truly great brands is their ability to live on beyond the company’s products, services…and people. This surely is going to be the biggest test of Apple’s claim to be a truly great brand. How much of their swashbuckling, pioneering, maverick, user consciousness and human style is the personality of their most famous leader and how much is part of the Corporation’s DNA. The future months and years will reveal all.

In the meantime, here are some inspiring words from the great man. Steve Jobs, RIP.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
– Stanford commencement speech 2005

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“There’s nothing that makes my day more than getting an e-mail from some random person in the universe who just bought an iPad over in the UK and tells me the story about how it’s the coolest product they’ve ever brought home in their lives. That’s what keeps me going. It’s what kept me five years ago [when he was diagnosed with cancer], it’s what kept me going 10 years ago when the doors were almost closed. And it’s what will keep me going five years from now whatever happens.”
- AllThingsD Conference, 2010

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“We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build.

When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”
– Playboy magazine 1985

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“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
– Business Week 1998

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“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful … that’s what matters to me.”
– Wall Street Journal 1993

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“Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works. The design of the Mac wasn’t what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that.”
- Wired magazine, 1994

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“In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.”
– Fortune magazine 2000

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“Innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10.30 at night with a new idea, or because they realised something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem. It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.

“And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.”
– Business Week 2004

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“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
– Stanford commencement speech 2005

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“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”
– Stanford commencement speech 2005

The most ‘on-brand’ resignation letter I’ve ever seen

So, Steve Jobs has finally resigned as Apple's CEO. For me, the most interesting part of this story is the way in which he penned his resignation letter. It wasn’t bitter or self-pitying, it was just so 'on brand' in its tone and affections for Apple's staff and community. In it he said that he would:  "…like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee." and signed off with: "…and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you."

These are humble sentiments coming from a man that is regarded as having saved Apple in the mid-90's - wrestling it from the clutches of failure and turning dull PC's in grey boxes into a set of highly desirable products and design icons.

Rather than positioning himself as the saviour, I'm impressed with the way he's been able to put ego to one side and understand that although the brand wouldn't have sky rocketed without his intervention, the Apple brand experience, it's personality, the diversity of its game-changing products and its tone of voice have developed a life of their own and has become so much bigger than him.

It's hard enough to walk away from something you've given a lifetime's work to but to do it in such a manner deserves respect. Here's to Apple and good health to Mr Jobs.

Posted by Andy Cording, Brand Experiences Account Manager 

Are the wheels falling off your brand experience? A cautionary tale…

I love my bike. I shouldn’t, but I do. When I tenderly lifted it out of its packaging just after it had been delivered to me I was shocked and disgusted to find bubbles of rust beneath the paint, at the top of the forks. There shouldn’t have been rust on it, I bought it from new. And, when I’m charging up and down the roads and towpaths of East Herts the chain, more often than not, will unceremoniously slip off, leaving me coasting with my legs spinning like Wylie Coyote’s after he’s discovered he’s run out of road. Even though I end up with greasy hands after every trip; even though the saddle was designed by medieval torturers; and even though there are no gears and only one brake: I love this bike. It’s obviously a bag of spanners and I was so obviously ‘done’ out of £100 but I think I look great on it. You see, it’s one of those ‘sit up and beg’ bikes that you find in Amsterdam. You know the type: swept back handlebars and trendy light grey, skinny tyres. It’s the type of bike that only harmless eccentrics would buy, and that’s precisely why I bought it. There was no advert that persuaded me to buy it – I deliberately hunted it down on eBay. It was the next piece in the jigsaw of the brand vision that I had created for myself. Instead, I’ve been let down by a sub-standard product which has left me fixing my bike on the side of the road while other really trendy Home Counties dudes with more common sense than me vroom past and scatter me with dust in their brand new cabriolets. So learn from my mistake: if you want your brand to succeed, invest in it properly. Posted by Andy Cording, Brand Experiences Account Manager