Podcast from IAB Automotive Forum
June 19, 2009 by olivia · Leave a Comment
The IAB has unveiled the first in a series of podcasts which comes from their recent Automotive Forum, which included speakers from Microsoft Advertising, Yahoo!, Google, MediaVest Manchester, Syzygy and iCrossing. Dan Ng, Head of Planning here at Tribal, spoke on ‘a year of creative insights in Volkswagen.co.uk’.
To listen to the forum’s podcast or see slides from the presentations go to http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/iabunveilsfirstinaseriesofpodcasts290509.mxs
Matt’s ‘exchange of reality’ through TIE
June 19, 2009 by olivia · Leave a Comment
The International Exchange (TIE) is an exchange program focussing on pairing professionals from communications companies in developed countries with NGOs in developing countries that can benefit from their expertise. The professional has the opportunity to use their skills in a unique and positive way – whilst simultaneously experiencing life-changing personal development. This is an exchange of knowledge, culture, norms and values; an exchange of reality. Learn more at: http://www.theinternationalexchange.co.uk/
Tribal was invited to work with TIE and we sent Matt Oxley, our head of Tech, over to Brazil for a month of sharing, learning, and film making!
Matt Oxley, Technical Director Tribal DDB on exchange in Brazil
Matt’s experience
Matt spent his time in Recife, Salgueiro and the community of Conceição das Criolas to develop a short film on the partnership between International Service (IS) Brazil and AQCC. The purpose of the film was to increase awareness in the UK of the positive effects of IS Brazil development work. In a month, Matt was expected to create a film that would introduce the Quilombo community, the way of living of Quilombola people and their fights for rights. He was also expected to talk about the work and the impact of IS Brazil in the community, through IS’ placement of a Mozambican agronomist and development worker. A lot to get your head around in a month and a lot to cover in a short film. However, Matt accepted the challenge with grace and arrived in Brazil with an open mind, lots of energy, and a desire to reach all of the objectives agreed upon.
It was never easy, and certainly not a smooth ride, but Matt persevered and his time in Brazil was an incredible success. He made a huge impact on all of the people he worked with, created what will be an amazing film, and learned loads about himself and his profession along the way.
If you’re interested in knowing more about his experience, check out Matt’s blog from the trip: http://blogs.tribalddb.co.uk/tie/
Getting involved in our local community
June 18, 2009 by olivia · Leave a Comment
Volunteer
Use your paid volunteering day per year…you might even be surprised by how much you can gain from giving!
Whether you’re interested in young or old, the environment or the disabled, education or regeneration, the Time for Paddington team can arrange many local intiatives that would welcome your time and help.
Matt Ross interviews with FWA
June 16, 2009 by olivia · Leave a Comment
FWA were interested in what makes Tribal tick. So we gave them an interview with our Creative director, Matt:
Q. Please give us a brief bio of yourself.
A. Matt Ross, Head of Creative, Tribal DDB, London, UK
Q. What do you do for inspiration?
A. I photograph everything with my phone. Everything. Read this as well.
Q. Please list 3 of your favourite sites.
A. www.ted.com
www.fffound.com
www.artofthetitle.com
Q. What do you regard as being your biggest achievement?
A. Retaining my sanity and perspective.
Q. What software could you not live without?
A. MobileMe
Q. What projects do you have in the pipeline?
A. Something HUGE for September where Gordon Gekko-like greed is good. Something that will finally answer the question of which sex is smarter than which. And some more epic VW work.
Q. Who do you rate as being the top 3 design companies?
A. R/GA; Big Spaceship; Pentagram
Q. What effect on traffic do your new designs have?
A. Odd question, unless you mean what effect does good design have on traffic. In that case, massive. A good conceptual idea badly designed will never have the traffic it deserves. Conversely though, good design will never pull a bad idea out of the mire. The two are inseparable.
Q. Who is your target audience?
A. For the GTi Project it was 25-40 year old boy racers who haven’t grown up. So, basically everyone I know.
Q. What area of web design lacks the most?
A. e-Commerce. Amazon… Rubbish. E-Bay rubbish. Their IA and UX may be spot on and researched to the nth degree, but their design and application thereof is atrocious. Their ‘shop front’ looks like Poundland.
Q. What did your very first site look like? Is it still online?
A. Ha! It was a flash site that used vector illustrations in multi-layers. The animation chugged at about 2fps as the processor turned to goo. Horrible. Unfortunately it’s not online anymore, nor do I think I even have the swfs anymore. Pity… It’d be worth a good chuckle.
Q. Have you written any books, if not do you plan to?
A. Have an unwritten novel under my bed. It’s rubbish though. Just reads like a bad Hunter S Thompson.
Q. What was the toughest thing you ever did with Flash? How long did you spend on it? Is it still online?
A. The toughest thing… Hmmm…. Probably trying to do 3D when the plug-ins didn’t exist. Had to use cell animators, but that was fun in itself actually.
Q. Do you think Flash is here to stay
A. Yes, though it may very well morph into something different. Flash being launched onto television in the next 2 years will be a seminal moment. I think the de-ownership of universal software will also be a good thing. Instead of 50 similar products fragmenting the user base, one platform that is refined and developed with a scalability to satisfy any user. Then again, the mobile world still hasn’t managed any semblance of platform consistency. And they have almost 3 billion users…
Q. What are your views on design/graphic school. Do you think someone can get into the field without educational experience in a school environment?
A. Yes, but rarely. The only time I’ve seen it done with success of any meaningful longevity was through the creative code route (I stand to be corrected though!). Visual flash designers with no schooling, in my experience, struggle.It is always obvious to a trained eye that there is simply something… missing. There is real value in being bored out of your skull in a Renaissance art slide lecture, even though it may not seem like it at the time. It teaches you to LOOK at things properly.
Q. When your company was just getting started, what did you find was most effective for getting new clients?
A. Tribal has been around for many years. We find it most effective winning new clients when both agency and client have the same long term vision. Chemistry is essential. As is trust.
Q. How have you learned so many Flash/design skills and techniques and can you offer any advice for newbies?
A. The single most important skill I can say on a Flash design side is this: If you’re a designer, make sure you understand the capability of code. If you’re a developer, make sure you can translate a design perfectly into Flash AND take it from something flat and lifeless, to a piece of work that sings. If you can do both, you are a very very rare breed. I’d hire you tomorrow.
Q. What is the most expensive thing you have bought in the last week?
A. A sandwich. When did airport prices become the norm for a standard high street sandwich? Do these people know what everything else in the world costs??
Q. What type of overcoat do you wear when Flashing, basically are you a labels man?
A. I do like white overcoats. Makes me feel laboratorian.
Q. Any parting shots or pearls of wisdom?
A. Practice kaizen. And be brave.
Q. It has been a privilege, thanks very much.
A. Anytime, thanks.
About reproduction:
This interview may not be reproduced or used in any part without the prior written consent of the author. Reprints must credit FWA (theFWA.com) as the original publisher of this interview and include a link to this site.
Could you be the next celebrity car critic?
June 12, 2009 by olivia · Leave a Comment
That’s the question being asked by Tribal DDB, on behalf of Volkswagen. They’re looking to recruit a new kind of car critic: a straight talking, charismatic man or woman to review the Tiguan from a real-world perspective.
They’ll pick the nine best ideas and provide the reviewers with a Tiguan to test-drive for a week. The cars will be fully equipped with cameras and microphones to create a professional reviewing experience.
Once all the reviews are recorded, the public will vote to decide who’ll become their ‘People’s Reviewer’ and get to keep the Tiguan. Everyone that votes also has a chance to win some great prizes.
All people have to do to enter is visit The People’s Reviewer site and tell them how you’d put the Tiguan through its paces.
If you think you’ve got what it takes to put the Tiguan through its paces, have a look here.
GTI Project receives more acclaim
June 12, 2009 by olivia · Leave a Comment
Thanks to NMA.
Tribal DDB Worldwide on an FWA roll
June 8, 2009 by olivia · Leave a Comment
Tribal DDB Worldwide has had a fantastic run with the leading global forum for web creativity, the FWA. April saw Site of the Day awards for both Tribal Paris and Tribal Amsterdam while in May Tribal Lisbon and Tribal London were celebrated. Tribal London then went on to receive the exemplary Site of the Month award for May with the GTI Project, making it the second SOTM award for Tribal Worldwide.
According to Rob Ford from the FWA Network, ‘There was some very tough competition for SOTM but The GTI Project site was seen as the freshest and most original.’ As a monthly winner, the site is also entered into the FWA Site of the Year 2009, to be judged at the end of the year by an industry recognised panel.
Here’s a look at the winning Europe work from the last two months:
15 April: FWA Site of the Day Tribal Paris El Invincible Chlorophyllo take control of Chlorophyllo, the most powerful luchador in the history of Mexican cinema! An attractive adventure awaits.
20 April: FWA Site of the Day Tribal Amsterdam – Cinema 21:9 a truly cinematic experience for the world’s first cinematic proportion TV. Watch the film, click the hotspots, and explore the site.
4 May: FWA Site of the day for Tribal Lisbon – Volkswagen Tiguan The Volkswagen Tiguan ‘moving city’ campaign that reflects the adaptable nature of the Tiguan to an ever changing environment
SOTM May: Tribal London – The GTI Project – A giant Scalextric racetrack where GTI engineers race their new car in miniature, no less fine tuned and expertly engineered than its full size counterpart.
FWA was named the number 1 web award in the world, beating the likes of YouTube and the Webbys, in the Chicago Tribune’s first World Wide Web Awards Award 2007, in which they “consider the scores of sites vying to become to Internet excellence what Oscar is to film excellence.”
FWA is the most visited website award program in the history of the internet, with over 50 million visits as of April 2009.
Thanks FWA, we look forward to sharing future projects with you.
Westminster Keynote Forum
June 5, 2009 by olivia · Leave a Comment
Remarks prepared for the Westminster eForum Keynote Seminar: Behavioural Targeting, Social Networking and the Challenges of Online Privacy
Panel: Web 2.0, Social Networking and Online Identity
What challenges do Web 2.0 environments, social networking sites and cloud computing pose to those keeping data safe online? What users are most at risk of having their data stolen or used without permission, and what data is targeted? How can users be empowered to protect themselves? How can the industry protect users’ data from unauthorised use?
‘Only take what you need’ by Dan Ng
Dan Ng Head of Planning Tribal DDB London
There’s obviously a lot of data on individual internet usage but who’s using it? In many cases the answer is a marketer, one of the clients my agency represents in categories like cars, toys, toothpastes, and newspapers. As one of the data ‘users’ it was a bit of a surprise to find myself speaking in this first half of the day, but on reflection, we do collect loads of data.
Our experience has taught us that it’s only useful to collect and use data when it’s a natural part of the commercial conversation we have with people.
One important part of this approach is that we’ve had to admit, as marketers, that we don’t really ‘own’ the data (at least not philosophically). Data ownership has become less and less determined by site owners and advertisers and more and more by the communities that we serve.
For example, we’ve had several rebellions already on Facebook regarding data. Last year we saw petitions against a new, more restrictive users’ agreement, and just in the past few days I’ve seen people in the Creative Commons movement - a data rights movement - campaign inside Facebook for a new ‘ownership’ structure for the data (or content) that people post there. (Laws on data ownership will eventually follow the societal practice, but that’s for another time.)
So when we build large sites for our clients we are very careful about how much data we collect. If we can allow people to remain anonymous we will. In many cases, we just identify returning visitors with an anonymous cookie that isn’t tied back to any other system.
We could, if we wanted to, store much more detailed profiles that matched up their activity on our web site with their exposure to advertising banners when they’re out and about on the web. We would know if they were regular readers of certain blogs. Or we could append their e-mail addresses (which we collect to send them newsletters). We could do all of that but we don’t.
We only pick up enough data to be useful in our conversations with them. Like how many times this particular anonymous user has visited on the site, or how often they’ve looked at a particular product. It isn’t much different from how a good shopkeeper might greet regular visitors to a shop.
This approach might still pick up too much data for some people’s taste, but it does reduce the chance of real damage being done if our client’s site were compromised. A hacker getting onto our site (and we do take precautions but experts say it’s almost inevitable) might get into visitor data, but all they would see would be anonymous click-tracks. And that’s the way it should be.
The compulsion of course, is to collect as much data as possible and combine as many databases as possible. It’s a compulsion that as an industry we’re going to struggle with. We like targeting. We like to know who we’re communicating with. But it’s something that just isn’t going to work as we move forward.
The liabilities are too great. Losing valuable data - the kind that opens your customers up to financial and physical danger - hurts your reputation. Best not to take responsibility for things you don’t want to take care of.
And if, in the course of business, you must take on sensitive information, then you’ll have to adjust your risk management accordingly. We’re always aware of the value of the data we’re creating and how hard it is to protect that data.
Perhaps if we all plan for data as we would a natural resource - one that costs money to extract and money to keep safe - then we could avoid a lot of the challenges that we’re here to discuss today. And that’s the view from an ad agency. Thanks.