The Escape Blog...

Be careful out there folks! What Twitter giveth, it can also taketh away.

A recent story broke in the US where a PR executive was hired to give a presentation on social media to 150 employees at FedEx in Memphis, Tennessee.

On arrival, it turns out that this guy was considerably underwhelmed with the city that was home to Elvis but nonetheless, tweeted thus:

I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say “I would die if I had to live here!”

Unfortunately, someone from FedEx was following his tweets and decided to share his critique with the FedEx management team. It seems they like living in Memphis thank you very much and took a dim view of the post.

So the PR guy’s employer got a letter from FedEx corporate, an excerpt of which read:

“We do not know the total millions of dollars FedEx Corporation pays [the PR company] annually for the valuable and important work your company does for us around the globe. We are confident however, it is enough to expect a greater level of respect and awareness from someone in your position as a vice president at a major global player in your industry.”

Quack. Quack. Oops!

And so the moral of the story is… look before you tweet!

Design Week announced today that The Times are set to unveil a new design for their Saturday edition. The new look will get its first outing tomorrow. This in itself is nothing out of the ordinary, in fact its great to see they still place a value on the design of the paper, but it did get me thinking about the future of the traditional newspaper and those designers that specialise in editorial.

Its is well documented that the publishing and printing industries are experiencing particularly difficult times. This decline is surely as a result of the way people get their information now. The internet provides us with a far greater array of choice, and opinion, not to mention the opportunity to answer back. RSS feeds enable information to be delivered directly to us, how we want and when we want it, whether through our computers or mobile phones.

So where does this leave the traditional newspaper? Although my background is traditional design for print and its sad to see it decline, I fear the end may be nigh for this form of communication. I am sure this will take a little more time but lets face it, communication ‘is’ changing constantly. I will watch with fascination to see how ‘the papers’ tackle this situation. Will they have the creative nouse to think how best to maintain their revenues?

We’ve talked with quite a few people recently about becoming very niche with their business offering. This may be an option for the newspapers too. Why try and cover all the bases with one document when you could create niche publications (or websites) that send targeted information to a willing audience? This could provide the opportunity to sell these publications much cheaper but in greater numbers. The same may work for niche web advertising, sell the space cheaper but offer a greater chance of exposure and click through. I guess in many ways the website already offers this? That in itself tells a story.

Its certainly interesting times for traditional forms of communication. When I talk to my kids in a few years time about the paper round I used to do ‘when I were a lad’, I’ve got a funny feeling they’re going to look at me blankly.

I took a call the day before yesterday from a man called John who told me he worked for Xerox, as we have a Xerox printer in our studio he had my attention.  He went on to tell me that Xerox wanted to replace all the units in the field of our particular model - free of charge.  I’m a bit of a cynic and when a deal seems to good to be true I like to see hard evidence rather than listen to the chat.  I asked him to send me through the details via email which he agreed to send to me yesterday and he did.  The first thing I noticed when I read this was his email address.  It was clearly not a Xerox address, alarm bells started ringing and this prompted me to go to his site, You said you worked for Xerox John and you clearly don’t, OK I see you are the Xerox authorised concessionaire for the South of England but you started this whole thing with a lie and guess what I don’t trust you now.

The coated paper manufacturing sector has seen some significant re-structuring.  It also continues to see costs rise coupled with a deterioration in the UK exchange rate which makes it unattractive for suppliers to export their products to the UK.  Those factors are to be passed on to the end-user.  Coated paper prices are therefore expected to rise by 7 - 9% at the beginning of February 2009.

Whilst the coated producers have a specific set of circumstances affecting them, some of those factors are not exclusive to their area so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see similar rises in the not too distant future for the uncoated sector.

Christmas is traditionally a very sociable time of year - and never more so than 2008 according to Hitwise, because millions of us were being very sociable indeed - on-line that is.

So now that the tinsel and turkey sarnies are nothing more than a rapidly fading memory, it’s probably a good time to look back on 2008 and ask, “Who were you networking with at Christmas?”

Facebook, for example, saw a spike in traffic which reached a new high on Christmas Day 2008. In fact, Britain’s most popular social networking site accounted for 1 in every 22 UK Internet visits. With a market share of 4.65% Facebook’s traffic was up 69% compared to Christmas Day 2007 and was the second most visited website after Google UK (8.63%).

According to Hitwise, “For the week ending 27/12/08, YouTube accounted for 2.13% of all UK Internet visits compared to 2.11% for Live Mail. During the same week, YouTube was the third most visited website in the UK behind Google UK and Facebook, while Live Mail ranked fourth.”

To summarise, there seems to be no respite from the relentless strides that social media is continuing to make in the UK.

Exchange and Mart are to print their last magazine in February 2009.  The success of their website which has seen a 21% year-on-year growth makes it a no-brainer for the brand.

Despite numerous price increases over the last year, paper is actually 20% cheaper than it was 6 years ago.  This is according to the NAPM which I should add has caused a bit of a stir amongst paper buyers, primarily because in the current climate it really doesn’t feel like it’s cheaper.  Increasingly I find it’s not just about the price, the environmental issues are growing ever stronger.  To that end Arjowiggins know that designers need to recognise the need for cost reduction and environmental impact and have created a new division which will focus on cutting edge environmental papers.  Angel De Vorchik, Marketing Manager of Arjowiggins Graphics UK explains further.

This new advert from Audi promoting the new streamlined Q5 is very clever and its hard to argue against the fact that its visually engaging. So engaging that, and this may just be the designer in me, I struggle to accept the fact that there was enough cardboard from the original box to create the car shape. Plus, where did the scapel come into it to make the cuts and create the wing mirrors and steering wheel? Yes, I know, I am taking it ‘far’ too literally, but I cannot help my initial reaction, its just what it made me think.

Anyway, the scope of the cardboard engineering is not my main point here. What engaged me most was Woody Guthries ‘Car Song’ as the choice of soundtrack. It could be argued that it is a little twee in nature but boy is it captivating. It is now so lodged in my subconscious that I no longer need to look at the screen to see the visual, or should I say, the car, when the advert comes on the telly.

The clever use of music in adverts has become more and more widespread in adverts over the last couple of years. From the Sony bouncing balls, to the more recent Boots Christmas advert, products are being promoted as much by sound as they are by sight. As simple as this may sound (no pun intended), its actually very clever marketing tactics. Although we all have our sensory modalities, as individuals we characteristically use a particular sense more than others. Some people are visual, others auditory for example.

Its worth bearing this in mind with all marketing activity. You may think you know your audience but do you really know what element of your communication they will really connect with? If you are producing a brochure, its worth considering not only the visual aspect of its content, but also what the paper feels like in their hand. It could be their reaction to either of these sensory experiences that drives them to a yes or no purchase decision on your product or service. With that in mind, its worth considering all your options and as creatives, its our job to ensure you know what your options are.

Going back to the Audi advert, I’m pleased that the advertising agency has connected with me and made me think about how they did it. As a creative its easy to think you are just a ‘visual’ person, but as has been proved here, its not the case, it was the music that really engaged me. Its worth thinking about that next time you plan to communicate with your audience.