Timezoneone Blog

Apple beat Microsoft in a full-on conflict back in the 80s…but that’s old news, now the real war is between Apple and Google.Apple and Google weren’t always “frenemies.” In fact the companies even banded together against their competitors, in 2007 the iPhone was introduced with numerous Google applications, including Gmail, the Google search engine and Google Maps.But the friendship turned nasty last year during some ‘swinging handbags’ over the Google Voice application and Apple’s refusal to allow the software into the iTunes App Store.

The Google Voice quarrel was probably a little silly: Google said it was Apple’s fault, and Apple pointed the finger in the other direction. Eventually, the US Government stepped in and began investigating the dispute. Eventually, Google’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, resigned from Apple’s board of directors.

As Google and Apple enter new realms, the two companies are competing in more areas than we might expect… In mobile hardware and software, Apple has the iPhone, and Google has the Nexus One and its Android software. In cloud computing, Apple has MobileMe, and Google has its suite of Web applications, including Gmail, Google Docs and Google Calendar. As Google’s YouTube unit begins renting movies through its Web site, it will start competing with the highly successful iTunes store. Then there’s Picasa and iPhoto.

One benefit is that strong competition between these two rival companies will be good for customers, driving down prices and bringing better services.

But both Apple and Google have plenty of financial muscle to prolong the fight. Instead of a healthy competitiveness, customers could end up embroiled in format wars between applications they buy for their phones and the software they use on similar devices.

Who do you think will win?

RMCD.

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In a fragmented media world that has is forever changing, there seems to be one media outlet that still dominates the ad-world every February…

The Super Bowl, the championship game of the NFL in the US of A, is known for the high-profile advertisements that air during its television broadcast. The broadcast typically ranks very highly in the Nielsen ratings, reaching more than 90 million viewers. Prices for advertising space can typically cost millions of dollars; 30 seconds of advertising time during the 2010 telecast is expected to cost US $3.01 million.

Here are a couple of my favs from previous Super Bowls:

This is a 30sec movie made for TV by Ridley Scott

As funny as it is, firing gerbils out of a cannon at your companies logo while trying to sell computer stuff online is just dumb…

RMCD

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Over the last few weeks we have been working on a top secret Out of Home campaign (OOH). The brief was to create some “high impact” OOH, that would get people talking.

An early step in our process was to find and review examples of other campaigns that were considered “high impact”.

Below are my favorites from the world of OOH.

 

 

 

 

 

RMCD

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This week I am in NZ, or as we simply call it, the HomeZone©.

My journey to the HomeZone© began with a couple of meetings in New York. Tatts and I met with the “Italians” over a morning coffee. We left this meeting quite confused; maybe we are a little too simplistic to grasp the complex nuances of their discussion points.

Then we met Nick Brien and had a very expensive lunch for three (USD$526.00). It’s too complicated to explain in detail, but it was money well spent. Nick is the King-Kong of the advertising world and has just been promoted to the biggest job in the ad world. He has the complicated task of turning around ‘McCann World Group’, which contributes 40% of the revenue of Inter-Public-Group. Nick has a simple approach to the challenge ahead…”Act like a Pirate, not like the Navy”.

24hrs later I landed in Dunedin. I was there to visit my Granddad, pretty simple really. My Granddad is from Czechoslovakia, and it’s a tradition that when family visits you do one simple thing – shots of slivovitz or as he simply calls it “plum juice”.

On my drive from Dunedin to Queenstown, a client from LA called me with a simple request…to hook him up with two tickets to the Super Bowl in 7 days time. This isn’t that simple, but rather quite complex. So far, I’ve managed to get End-Zone seats for $2500/person, the bummer is it’s become a little more complicated – the client wants better seats than the End-Zone.

While I’m in NZ, myself and a client from the USA (Bill Anderson) are meeting with the owners of some NZ Craft Beers. We are meeting with Richard from Emerson’s, Brian from Renaissance, Luke from Epic and Dean from McCashin’s. I don’t know any of these guys, but it was pretty simple to arrange the meetings. I called them on their cell phones which were listed on their websites…there wasn’t any secretary or assistant to complicate the matter. We have one simple goal from these meetings, to partner with a NZ Craft Brewery and import the beer to the USA. Apparently, simple little NZ makes some of the worlds best and most complex craft beers. All this is good timing, as coincidently, the USA beer drinkers taste profile has become more sophisticated and consumers are fed-up with the simple liquid inside a bottle of Bud Light.

I always look forward to the same simple things in the HomeZone©, Gourmet Burgers with the ironic ingredients of beetroot, egg and pineapple. A simple latte, it comes in one size only, and you can’t complicate it by adding vanilla, making it extra hot or doubling the amount of foam.  And of course the good old simple meat pie…meat and gravy wrapped up in pastry smothered with tomato sauce.

This morning I went for a run. How simple is that!

Calling back to the USA can be a little complicated, but I’d rather enter 15 extra digits and use the phone card versus paying T-mobile or Vodafone $3/min. The best way to call home is via a Skype video chat. Its amazing how much a simple smile from Stella can melt my heart on the other side of the world.

Anyway, time to wrap this up. I have a date with my Kindle to read the British Sunday Times; I find the NZ Sunday Herald a tad too simple…

RMCD.

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This week Air New Zealand launched the cosy couch in economy. As long as you really like the person you are flying with, you can cosy up on the couch! The foot rests of the new economy seats fold up so they are horizontal with the seat pan. This creates an almost flat couch / bed space. It is almost like being up the pointy end of the plane…but not quite. 2 passengers pay for around 2.5 seats for this to work. The seats were designed in New Zealand. It is great to see some kiwi innovation in the air. 

-Nigel “Beef or Fish” Foley

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The website http://www.climatecrisis.net/ is the official site for the feature film documentary “an inconvenient truth” starring Al Gore. The site details the key challenges we face regarding climate change and sustainability.

It also lists 11 things we can do to reduce our own carbon emmissions in the TZ1 studio and at home:

1. Change your light bulbs- Replacing one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent bulb will save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Our studio no longer has any regular light bulbs.

2. Drive less- Bike to work or walk or catch the bus more often to save money, parking fees and save one pound of carbon dioxide for every mile you don’t drive!

3. Recycle more- You can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide per year by recycling just half of your household waste. In the studio, cardboard recycling is collected from work four days a week and general recycling is collected every Wednesday.

4. Check your tires- Keeping your tires inflated correctly will improve fuel mileage by more than 3%. Every gallon of fuel saved keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere!

5. Use less hot water- It takes a lot of energy to heat water. Our shower at work has a low-flow electric instant-hot heater to save energy. We can also lower the thermostat on the hot water cyclinder to reduce our energy use. 

6. Avoid products with a lot of packaging- You can save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide if you cut down your rubbish by 10%.

7. Adjust the air conditioning temperatures- Moving our thermostat down just 2 degrees in winter and up 2 degrees in summer could save us about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

8. Plant a tree- Our trees on the balcony will each absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over their lifetime.

9. Turn off electronic devices- Simply turning off your television, DVD player and stereo when you’re not using them will save thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide a year. 

10. Try Meatless Mondays- Skipping meat one day per week helps save over 35,000 gallons of water. Cutting meat out of your diet entirely would help save 5,000 lbs of carbon emissions per year.

-Nigel “telling it like it is” Foley

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The TimeZoneOne studio is going green in 2010! Our team will be working on ways to make our studio a more eco-positive environment. Our mantra will be “reduce, re-use and recycle”. We already do quite a bit: kerbside recycling, kerbside cardboard recycling programme, secure document recycling, low watt lighting,  electric shower, trees planted on our building decks and many of the team cycle, walk or use public transport to come to work.

We can, of course, do a lot more and that is what we will be working on as a team this year. It will be our green revolution! 

-Nigel “Saving The Planet” Foley

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Leo the miniature schnauzer arrived at the Foley household on New Year’s Day. Leo may possibly be the cutest dog in the world and uses this to his advantage on a regular basis. Tonight Leo is going to puppy training class and we are hoping to get the best in show ribbon! We intend to be stage mom parents!

-Nigel “walkies” Foley

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Tom Peter’s has written a new book called The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence. Below are the top 19 E’s of Excellence, which I think are fabulous reminders of why we are in the business called advertising. If we strive everyday to embrace at least two to three of these TimeZoneOne and ourselves will be better and happier as a team and individuals.

•Enthusiasm! Be an irresistible force of nature!

•Energy. (Be fire! Light fires!)

•Exuberance! Vibrate – cause earthquakes!

•Execution! Do it! Now! Get it done! Barriers are baloney! Excuses are for wimps! Accountability is gospel! Adhere to the Bill Parcells doctrine: “Blame no one! Expect nothing! Do something!”

•Empowerment! Respect and appreciation rule! Always ask, “What do you think?” Then listen! Then let go and liberate! Then celebrate!

•Edginess! Perpetually dancing at the frontier, and a little or a lot beyond.

•Enraged! Determined to challenge and change the status quo! Motto: “If it ain’t broke, break it!”

•Engaged! Addicted to MBWA / Managing By Wandering Around. In touch. Always.

•Electronic! Partners with the world 60/60/24/7 via electronic community building of every sort.

•Encompassing! Relentlessly pursue diverse opinions – the more diversity the merrier! Diversity per se “works”!

•Emotion! The alpha. The omega. The essence of leadership. The essence of sales. The essence of marketing. The essence. Period. Acknowledge it.

•Empathy! Connect, connect, connect with others’ reality and aspirations! “Walk in the other person’s shoes” – until the soles have holes!

•Experience! Life is theatre! Make every activity-contact memorable! Standard: “Insanely Great” / Steve Jobs; “Radically Thrilling” / BMW.

•Eliminate! Keep it simple!

•Error-prone! Ready! Fire! Aim! Try a lot of stuff and make a lot of booboos and then try some more stuff and make some more booboos – all of it at the speed of light!

•Evenhanded! Straight as an arrow! Fair to a fault! Honest as Abe!

•Expectations! Michelangelo: “The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” Amen!

•Eudaimonia! Pursue the highest of human moral purpose – the core of Aristotle’s philosophy. Be of service. Always.

•EXCELLENCE! Never an exception! If not Excellence, what?

 

Fearon the most excellent.

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