human traffic

I was working on something the other day where the key job to be done was to "drive traffic" to a certain site. It suddenly struck me that some of the terminology used in marketing is a bit, well, aggressive really.
Of course traffic in this case actually means people.

A collection of unique and beautiful human beings with feelings and passions summarised with a dry collective term used mostly negatively to describe too many vehicles on the road.

So instead of traffic, why not people?

And then the word "drive" which in this case almost implies we are bundling people to a destination against their will (and to before we "drive" them we target them, hit them, blitz them etc) and suggests that people are just reluctant passengers neither expecting to or wanting to have any say on where they end up.

Shouldnt we really be guiding, encouraging, inspiring even?

"driving traffic" v "guiding people". This might be semantics but they make a hell of a difference to how we behave.

plane silly?

There's an article on the MediaGuardian site at the moment which I would link to if I wasn't writing this on my blackberry. Anyway, a company called ad-air are selling adspace on the ground alongside flight paths at airports. Ads can be up to 5 acres in size, copy can be changed every year and the ads will run at 30 international airports. Inevitably and slightly depressingly the story is full of sales puff and terms like "business travellers", "ABC1 demographic", "81%", "clutter free" and "unprecedented scale". A classic interruptive piece of unaccountable bad old media, just aching to be filled by one of those faceless corporate companies who so enjoy rugby metaphor ads (see below).

If anyone takes up the space, I'm willing to wager that they very possibly have a small penis.

Tut Tut Toshiba...

I think I will allow myself one more bad corporate rugby ad from the economist this week.

"in the heat of the game, a players ability to anticipate the run of play triggers an explosive chain reaction within the whole team...Toshiba shares this tactical and unified vision of the game of rugby. Every day we explore new avenues and apply an innovative strategy to develop products, which bring advances to television, photocopying, mobile phones and airconditioning"

Does anybody actually talk like this? Bland corporate advertising which assumes that people are robotic clones spouting management talk.

"Good morning, here's your weekly shortlist"

I'm sure that producing a video for vendors distributing the new shortlist weekly magazine was probably meant well and seen as a good way of communicating with staff.

Starts off with a massive lie "so often I choose to take a newspaper because of the way it's presented to me" and goes fast downhill from there. Zero integrity, zero honesty and unspeakably patronising. I love this clip.

prompts on a train

My last post has made me think about something we should do for itv. Why don't we do a deal with SouthWest trains so that every commuter service out of Waterloo features a little 30 second announcement on what the best thing to watch on ITV that evening is. The guard would have to read it out probably but they can make it clear that ITV are paying for this to help subsidise train fares (as passengers we have to put up with enough announcements as it is so one more won't make any difference and as it could change every day might be quite welcome for bored commuters). What ITV get out of it is a last minute prompt reaching several thousand potential viewers, nearly all of whom are going home and many of which are probably light viewers. It would have to be executed in a way that doesn't irritate passengers and genuinely adds value but this is probably just an executional twist. Must look into this idea a bit more.

morning drinking

Every morning (and indeed evening) on South West trains the "on board steward" makes an announcement inviting people to part with the best part of a day's wage in return for something from their ropey refreshment trolley. It's only a small thing but the script they read out is exactly the same all day and makes no allowance for daypart. So when I get the 6.24 train in the morning (and lord knows I love that train) within minutes I am informed that the trolley is selling "a range of beers, wines and spirits". Now given that the loud speaker announcement is just someone talking I think this is a pretty bad failure to understand your audience's mindset (maybe the people getting on at Haslemere are party animals and filling their boots but I haven't noticed) and a real wasted opportunity for Southwest trains to create a bit of empathy with their passengers. Basic stuff really but the small things matter.

rugby world cup. is it.

One of the more depressing aspects of the rugby world cup (apart from the sheer predictability of almost every result and the fact that only about 9 nations play the game seriously) is the horrendous use of "rugby is just like business" metaphors from virtually every faceless corporate business / banking brand out there. You know the sort of thing I mean. An image of a scrum or a line out with actors caped in mud and headlines saying things like "success comes from a winning strategy" and "by working together we find the path to success" I'm making these up now but "teamwork and dedication create winning solutions" that sort of thing. Always executed in broadsheet sports sections, the economist or slightly vulgar massive signs at eurostar or airports. I know that rugby has a desirable audience for a lot of brands but I have to say that some of the stuff popping up around this tournament is very wobbly. Swap one companies logo or indeed comms strategy for anothers and I don't think anyone would notice. It's just all so predictable and a bit dull. Not unlike the tournament itself then...