The Write Stuff

I can’t help feeling excited about the buzz in communications recently. Despite the obvious and very noticeable downturn in the advertising business, it seems like everyone has a plan up their sleeve. I just read that the Belgian agency Boondoggle has a co-development project with its employees, where they invest time and share profits for business ventures that might come from it. One of the first (and oh so topical) is the Tweetnotebook that I Tweeted about a while back. I’ve also been asked to help develop no less than 3 iPhone apps recently. And there are others
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I’ve been working on a few projects recently that can best be described as “personal branding”, coaches or consultants that decide to build their business under their own name. But “personal branding” has a very selfish ring to it. At its worst, it’s an exercise in ego-stroking. But as the “brands” in question were perfectly aware, there’s more to personal branding than “me-me-me”.

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Spare a thought for the music biz: over the past seven years, overall sales of recorded music have been slashed by 50%. Whole parts of the business, such as CD plants and retail outlets, are disappearing. Even professional users, such as video games and TV stations, are putting pressure on the rates to be paid. In fact, the very notion of a “record” business is no longer really applicable. Midem, as the worldwide music community’s annual gathering, has obviously been affected by this. Despite what you might think, the trade fair has been growing over the past few years (with the obvious exception of last January when it fell right after the credit crunch). How? By staying one step ahead of the game.

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The digital sphere is increasingly blurring the lines between audiovisuals and graphics. Although TV documentaries remain relatively straightforward, everything else is becoming more graphic. Double Double is a young production company that is situated right on the edge of both genres. The founding members are graphic designers as well as being directors (and an experienced sound designer too). The result is stylish audiovisuals (the word video is pretty much meaningless by now). The Write Stuff provided the basic text on their website at Double Double.

When the going gets tough, the tough get out and meet each other – or they should do. I’m a firm believer in working trade fairs, having seen ones such as MIDEM and the Film Market from the inside, as well as writing for MIPIM, MIPIM Asia and the MIPCOM fairs. Although many of these have seen falling figures since January of this year, one has seen a substantial growth of 10% in sales: EAS. With the Belgian agency Tagora, I wrote the website, brochure and collateral for the 2008 and 2009 editions.

Their business is attractions and theme parks, a sector that is growing. The explanation for this growth seems to be that people are travelling less far on holidays and will therefore be spending more time at theme parks, museums, attractions and attractions. Check the EAS 2009 site.

Having done some corporate vids and drives to promote companies as a good employer, I have to salute this lovely piece for Intel (the thing you have inside but you don’t really know the significance of – an interesting branding achievement in itself). It’s unabashedly nerdy, charming and shows great community spirit. There’s admiration of achievement, blondes, a coffee machine and people singing. My type of office, in fact! The agency is Venables Bell & Partners.

The EU’s DG Health & Consumers have come up with a viral campaign produced by the Mostra agency to increase awareness about online rights for younger shoppers. They just needed a wrap up line and did we have any ideas for a suitable URL?

Finding URLs is a bit like finding a brand name. Of course there is a perfect one that sums everything up in between 5-7 letters and is funny, witty and a guaranteed magnet for visitors in itself. Problem is, it’s been taken. There are also a good number of almost-perfect URLs that are very close to your best choice. But as this is a public service type of information, you can’t risk taking a name that might be hijacked by your close neighbour to peddle porn or something (a fate that befell the Festival de Cannes a few years back). So you have to dig a little deeper. With French-speaking copywriter Chantal Debauche we put together a few ideas and then wrote the list of do’s and don’ts to the client’s brief. The URL? Quite simply Gimme the info.

I dropped by the Entreprendre fair yesterday for one thing, a talk by comic strip artist Midam. If you have kids, you might know him better as the author of the Kid Paddle character. He gave a fascinating look at how he runs his business – as a business it is. Despite claiming he couldn’t really draw (modesty, modesty), he is applying a model for anyone involved in the creative industries.

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It’s cold and damp up here in northern Europe. So here’s something to look forward to: the ultimate wet dream for writers, a sunny swimming pool with a Wi-Fi connection!  I did some adaptations for two websites recently and can’t resist adding the photo just to brighten up my day. Villa Triagoz is located in St Barts in the Caribbean, while Les Sources is located in the south of France.

I was reading recently that  to keep moving forwards you have to set yourself goals, and a good trick is to have a visual reminder of that goal on your desk. I think many people now do this spontaneously, as I see a lot of glorious sunsets and family photos being used as screensavers.

Today, I must admit, this is exactly the way I feel. Yup, I’ll go for the sunny pool with a Wi-Fi connection!

Midem, the foremost music trade fair, has just started using its new visuals to drive early-bird sales (the event is in January). The above image is just one of a series of tasty portraits produced by Consorcom. Note the strong use of the M logo. The Write Stuff worked on the brochure, which is in production. It’s quite tasty as well, so I’ll post a page or two when I receive them.