Recently, I won some Eurostar tickets over on David Hyde's blog, which was pretty exciting. David asked me to report back from my prize jaunt to Paris, and I have, with two longish posts on his blog.
I'm a Mac man through and through. So seeing Microsoft spew out another multi-million-dollar turkey of a marketing campaign ought to be yet another reassuring confirmation that I'm on the side of the computing angels. And it is.
But rather as The Sun's recent hyper-cynicism over the Jacqui Janes affair has actually managed to create sympathy for our otherwise derided PM, so the Windows 7 campaign actually manages to engender a pity for Microsoft I hadn't imagined I could feel. It's the sort of emotion you might feel for a chicken trotting gleefully into the slaughterhouse. The creature is too stupid to save, but you can't help a certain pity for its cheerful, fatal idiocy.
'Crystal' explains how she came up with Windows 7. Is anyone convinced that 'Crystal' is real?
The reason this campaign has affected me so, where others elicit only sneering (or a powerful gag reflex), is that somewhere inside it is that most precious of things: An Idea.
In this case, the Idea is that Microsoft has listened to its vast audience and created an operating system that actually addresses their needs.
Not only is that a powerful proposition, especially for one of the globe's most impersonal brands, it's also actually True. Microsoft, I read, really has consulted on this new release. No fewer than 15 million people have played with the beta version of Windows 7, and helped shape the eventual product.
So the new campaign line - I'm a PC, and Windows 7 was my idea - is (gulp) a really good one. It has all the virtues one looks for. It's authentic, simple, relevant, intriguing...
And they've killed it. Like a gang of Neanderthals startled by accidentally creating fire, Microsoft have stamped all over something could actually have been very valuable.
Doing it properly would probably have been cheaper, too. Real Windows users, speaking genuinely about how their ideas had fed into Windows 7, would have been genuinely compelling. (Just look at the cheap-as-chips but undeniably effective ads for Confused.com. Nothing like a testimonial.)
It could also have been an effective counterpoint to Apple, highlighting the latter's tendency to be a little too smug and self-satisfied. Microsoft could have positioned itself as the PC of the people - not simply the PC imposed on the people by virtue of corporate muscle and the accidents of history.
An idea is an uncut diamond. Once found, it needs to be cut and polished to bring out its natural, simple brilliance. Microsoft have found a jewel, covered it in synthetic plastic wrap, painted the whole thing gold and stuck on some glitter and stars from the stationer's. Amazingly, they've managed to make a compelling truth look like a marketing lie.
Instead of real people, we have actors failing in the most obvious and embarrassing way to look and sound Real. Instead of clear demonstrations, we have quick, indistinct shots of menu bars and desktops. Instead of an idea we have lurid, generic packaging that barely reveals the shape of the valuable truth within. Instead of a gem, we have a trinket.
Sadly, like chickens and Neanderthals, Microsoft seem incapable of learning from their mistakes. Maybe they're so huge, the mistakes barely slow down the lumbering juggernaut of their sales machine. But with Apple gaining more and more ground (helped enormously by Microsoft, as Apple's latest campaign makes clear), can the big old dog really afford to ignore the nipper at its heels?
POSTSCRIPT: Thanks to Ars Technica, I've discovered the 7 Second Demo campaign. It's much better, because it doesn't rely on pretending the obvious actors are real people. (It's the pretending that hurts.)
(Although they couldn't resist that little 'power' reprise at the end - shame.)
Last night I went along to Logan Hall to listen to Paula Scher of Pentagram talk about her life and work for D&AD. And it was fantastic: Scher was funny, impassioned and direct, and talked fluently for an hour and a half, which is pretty good going.
The talk will eventually appear on the D&AD site. They've already got video of some of the Q&A session, one of which is especially relevant to this post (below).
Paula took us through her whole life, beginning with a shot of the home she moved to in the 1950s, when she was just seven. Shortly after moving in, she told us, she went for a ride on her bike. When she wanted to go home again, she found that all the houses on the street were so identical that she couldn't find her own (she hadn't learnt her new address yet). It was a disorientating and distressing experience for a seven year-old.
Half-jokingly, she said that this was probably the impetus for a life-long dedication to the 'non-uniform'; trying to create things that were unlike anything around them. It's as good a mantra for design and branding as I can think of, and the work Paula showed, from throughout her career, demonstrated her single-minded pursuit of that deceptively simple ideal.
In fact, she's managed to pull off that trick of the true artist, by making work that is indeed very different, even among itself, but which is also recognisably her own. Her distinctive way with type, especially, is a consistent theme, even though the actual designs might be dramatically different. Something Scherian - Scheresque? Scheric? - seems indelibly ingrained in it all.
A devil's advocate could argue - with some success, I think - that this could be an issue for her clients. A lot of the classic graphic work, especially the identities, is as distinctively Paula Scher as it is The Public Theatre (above) or the Walker Art Centre (below, although since rebranded).
As it is, I love both these identities, even though you could argue they're a bit similar. Scher said she hated it when clients called and said, 'We saw what you did for AB&Co, could you do something like that for us?' But the clarity of her vision is so strong, it's hardly surprising that her work often carries her own brand as much as those of her clients. (Although there are some classic rebuttals to that argument, not least the famous Citi identity below.)
Given that, it's not surprising that she's found a new life latterly as a fine artist, creating increasingly enormous painted maps, bursting with information and opinion, that are 'sort of right'. (The one below of Florida allowed her to vent her spleen about the famously unjust 2000 election results there.)
Her cartographer father apparently provided the seed of this obsession, and told young Paula that no map is ever 'true' - they can't hope to be exactly precise. Indeed, she said, some maps are actively misleading - like the gas station maps that highlight not the major roads, but those on which the company's stations can be found. Here's her talking a bit more about the maps:
Scher linked this 'sort of right' quality of her map paintings to journalism, arguing that the average magazine article was probably about as accurate as her somewhat shaky geographies.
This, for me at least, created a peculiar tangential parallel to one of the more bizarre audience questions. A German fellow sitting near me asked Paula if she liked Talking Heads - a question he apparently asked of all New York-based designers.
Her answer was a simple and bemused, 'Yes I do.' This is the correct answer, given that there has never been another band as great as Talking Heads. Ever.
This set off two trains of thought for me.
One, that Paula suddenly reminded me strongly of that other gifted woman holding her own in a male-dominated group, Tina Weymouth.
(Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads above, Paula Scher of Pentagram below)
And two, that all this talk of 'sort of right' facts put me in mind of the Talking Heads track Crosseyed and Painless, one of their finest moments and as irresistible a juggernaut of smart, funky, brain-fizzing pop as you are likely to find. (I quite like Talking Heads.) In that extraordinary song, David Byrne tells us that:
Facts are simple and facts are straight Facts are lazy and facts are late Facts all come with points of view Facts don't do what I want them to Facts just twist the truth around Facts are living turned inside out
(Listen to the song - albeit not the ideal version - on Blip.fm here)
I think he's right. And Paula Scher's right too. It was an inspiring talk, which got the mind going in all sorts of directions, as you can tell.
I just received an email from a fellow creative. Said creative had been given a written brief, which still bore a list of hints at the top for whoever was writing it. One of these read as follows:
Brevity. Creative people are not too bright. [So] don't tell them what they already know and spare them what they don't really need to know.
This seems an extraordinary attitude, and made me wonder how widely it was shared. There have certainly been times when I've discovered that there was more information to be had than what I'd been given, but it never crossed my mind that the client might have considered me too thick to handle it.
What do you think? Is this a common belief, or just a rather hilarious aberration? Do tell in the comments (anonymously if you prefer).
Apart from sub-editing quibbles with the title (it really ought to be My iPhone and I speak different languages, of course), I found myself nodding along with Michael's whinge about the iPhone's predictive text.
It's the apostrophe predictions that really annoy me. Every time I have to write what the hell (and I do more often than you'd think), I end up with what the he'll. The iPhone also insists on turning my possessive itses into it'ses. And so it goes on.
As a fanatical Twitterer, this is a significant pain in the backside. I tweet a great deal from my iPhone - as my wife will be only too glad to tell you, along with gnashing teeth and rolling eyes. Then there's all the usual emails and texts one ends up sending on the move these days.
As a writer, I'm naturally keen that everything I send out into the world is correct (or at least is the way I want it to be). And as a professional writer, all these things - emails, texts, tweets, blog posts - are little calling cards for me. So it's infuriating when technology insists on ducking them up (as the iPhone would have me write it).
But as I smiled along to Michael's rant, I remembered the most important thing I've learnt about Apple technology, which is that it's almost always better and simpler than you think it is. (Especially if you have any experience of PCs, which inculcate one with the sense that computers have to be incredibly complicated to use, as well as unreliable.)
Based on that oft-learnt lesson, I quickly checked the Settings menu on my iPhone. And there, under 'Keyboard', was the little toggle switch I needed: Auto-correction on/off. Bingo.
I still think they could fine-tune the predictive text - why the hell am I more likely to be saying he'll every time? But once again, I've been reminded that with Apple, the answer is usually a (very intuitive) click or two away. And I've fallen a little more in love with my iPhone.
This week's election in the US was thrilling. We've seen a lot of very unpleasant history being made in recent years, so it was thrilling to see the explosion of optimism that blasted across the world from Washington on Tuesday.
So it's rather depressing and wearying to see that not even this historic moment is beyond the grasp of those looking for any handy bandwagon to hitch their brand to. Since the election I've had two emails from organisations hoping to piggyback on Obama's success.
The first came from Network Solutions:
The next, from Mad.co.uk:
No links, because they don't deserve them. Does this sort of thing convince anyone?
I'm not sure what people feel is gained by this sort of language. We all know what they mean, so why not be straight about it? They've merged, and that means they don't need so many people. It's an unpleasant fact of corporate life, but it is a fact and we all know it.
Jargon like this makes the brand look silly - surely they don't think anyone is fooled by it? It also makes them look a bit shifty and deceptive, unprepared simply to stand by its actions.
Listen to this: "At the completion of the planned synergy-related headcount restructuring activities, Nokia Siemens Networks expects to have in the range of 7,000 employees in Finland, from an initial base of approximately 9,200."
Seven stodgy paragraphs in and they're not letting go of that enormous phrase, "synergy-related headcount restructuring activities". And they've tied themselves in linguistic knots trying not to say, "We're cutting 2,200 jobs." Of course, we can all do the maths and we can all see through the smoke. So why bother?
All this reminds me of a recent News Quiz on Radio 4, in which Jeremy Hardy ruminated that new jobs are always "created", but cut jobs are simply "lost", as if the organisations were not involved. "Oh, sorry, Bob, your job's lost. We don't know where it's gone. It never turned up. Better not come in. Ever again."
