.oO Tailwind

By Warren Hutchinson

The Greenpeace Orang-Utan’s struck Unilever on Monday and within an hour the blogosphere was rampant with rampaging Orang-Utans, videos, images, stories.

As ever ‘Transparency Tyranny‘ is rife and digital is the driving nemesis of corporation x.

What are Unilever doing in response? And how are they going to engage in this digital onslaught, this citizen journalist propagation and ironic spin of ‘real beauty’?

I’m really interested in the strategy behind all of this and how it unfolds. In the inception of the ‘campaign for real beauty’ I wonder if they thought about defensive strategies should stories (which they MUST have suspected) such as this emerge.

On the Unilever site there is a front page news item titled ‘Sustainable Palm Oil’. Click through and you see a video from their SVP of Communications and Sustainability starting with a statement that:

“We have great sympathy with what Greenpeace are trying to achieve, they are drawing attention to a really important issue” - Gavin Neath, SVP Communications and Sustainability

I find the role of SVP ‘Communications’ (Spin) and ‘Sustainability’ incongruous, but that’s another issue.

Unilever are part of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, or RSPO for short, and unsurprisingly they are playing up to this. Unilever claim to be instrumental in setting up the roundtable for sustainable palm and carrying it forward.

The transcript can be found here.

The response is a step, I’d rather see something directly relating and acknowledging the Greenpeace efforts, an alignment of sorts. They are playing it down, but not explicitly responding.

The ‘Dove in the News’ site is even wetter. Dove is all over the news, but it is not showing here.

Cue fingers in the ears - “la la la”:

The problem is, in order to hear Unilever’s point of view you have to mobilise yourself to go and see their site, navigate and watch a polished corporate video.

I can’t, yet, find any level of engagement by Unilever with the user-generated, mobilised, chatteriffic sphere of blogs, video sites and social networks. Searches for ‘Greenpeace, Unilever, Palm Oil’ only result in links to sites siding with the Greenpeace effort and not Unilever.

Designing a strategy for organic search traffic is required or else people will simply miss Unilever’s point.

I had a quick scan through the Facebook groups and found lots of Unilever corporate groups for ‘Graduates’ and ‘Management Schemes’ but UNSURPRISINGLY I found the Facebook group ‘Dove: Not so clean’.

Okay - it has 12 members so far.

Corporations are really uncomfortable with this stuff and they continue to ignore dealing with it.

And in closing, the final statement by the interviewer:

“Gavin Neath - thank you very much indeed”

smells horribly corporate and reeks of Aunty (The BBC for non-UK readers).

By Warren Hutchinson

Only last week I was having a conversation with one of the brains behind the new LBi Quarterly called LBiQ about the Dove campaign that gave Unilever permission to engage with audiences as an authority of ‘real beauty’.

We debated the merits of Dove’s ‘campaign for real beauty’ and how a good old fashioned campaign can bring new light to an otherwise dying entity even in today’s ultra transparent web 2-oh world.

Recruiting ‘real women’ from London streets, using portrait photographer Rankin to shoot the images and celebrating 95% of the female population as having a normal figure, it was a good idea well executed.

Well, today as I was crossing Blackfriars Bridge in London on my way to work in Clerkenwell I saw that Unilever’s London HQ had become besieged by Orang-Utans in protest about the beauty line’s impact on wildlife via the extraction of palm oil in rain forests.

In the words of the Temptations;’…beauty’s is only skin deep yeah yeah yeah‘.

The protest coincides with a released Greenpeace report called Burning Up Borneo which reports on a link between Unilever’s relationship with palm oil extraction companies and the destruction of Orang-Utan habitats. Apparetly 80% of Orang-Utan habitat has been destroyed in 20 years.

More here from Orang-Utan Outreach if you are interested in the plight of ginger monkeys (I know, I know).

Also, good video here from the BBC.

Do you know which of your household products use palm oil? Or where it comes from?

Personally, I haven’t a clue.

It’s used in cleaning products, fabric conditioner, margarine, soap and a whole host of cosmetics. It’s also used as a crop for bio-fuels, so demand for it is going up.

However, it’s further proof that in beauty terms it’s what is on the inside that counts.

Anyway, here are some pics I snapped on my mobile:

Apparently, the protest was staged simultaneously at various Unilever sites in London and Merseyside with some protesters gaining access to the factory on the Wirral.

After good work from Ogilvy & Mather on the concept in 2004, this kind of communication/brand strategy is always open to subversion in this way. I’m expecting Howard Sheldon from the Halifax ads to have some dark financial past secret exposed at sometime bringing his personal equity and thus Halifax brand integrity down like a house of cards.

I find it ironic that the concept of ‘real beauty’ is being subverted by something that is entirely un-beautiful. Okay, the sorrowful near-human gaze of an Orang-Utan’s face aid in the sympathy somewhat, but ultimately my take away was ‘Dove products are responsible for dying Orang-Utans’.

Yes, my takeaway.

Interestingly, most of the coverage of this protest that I have seen centres on Unilever and not the Dove brand so the Dove ‘campaign for real beauty’ might get away with it unscathed.

New Piccadilly Cafe London

Originally uploaded by Gee Bee

RIP New Piccadilly Cafe, which closed in September 2007.

I was hoping to have a meeting there a few weeks ago when I soon realised that plan was a flawed one.

An awesome venue for cheap eats in an authentic 50s style surroundings. Proper caff fare was to be had for a small amount of hard-earned.

The interior was amazing, Formica lovliness and 50s streamlined styling on everything from signage to lampshades. A veritable banquet and postcard from yesteryear slap bang in the middle of horrid, touristy old ‘Lie-Cester Sqware’.

I was first introduced to this gem of a venue, just off Piccadilly in London, by my mate Fosta’s then girlfriend. It’s been closed, no doubt , to make way for some crappy chain venue where they make enough money to pay the rent.

From Classic Cafes: “Described by the Financial Times as an “orgasm of searing yellow Formica”, this is truly a cathedral amongst caffs run by the irrepressible Lorenzo (a true son of Soho) and his crack team of uniformed waiters. This is the last of the big hitters left in Soho and one of the largest original cafes left in Britain: pink Formica coffee machine, big plastic horseshoe shaped menu, wall-to-wall laminate surfaces and lots of brilliant booth seating. Even the New Piccadilly menu is a stone design classic. A place of reverence.”

I loved the way that the guys used to wear white uniforms with epaulettes on their shoulders and served a can of coke with a glass. So classy.

I love authentic Cafes. I’m going through a bit of a ‘Fry-up’ revival which contradicts my half-marathon training.

Oh well, everything in moderation…

Here are some images of the well wishing message written on the hoardings:

JOSH DION BANDOriginally uploaded by yeyo1

Whilst in New York I had the pleasure of one of those serendipitous moments when going out on a Thursday night.We jumped in a cab in Times Square, and whilst being with two American colleagues, we were none the wiser as to where we should go for a decent, non-toursity night out. Even though we were tipped to hit Greenwich Village for a few bars.

We said “take us to the decent bars” and the cabbie, all polite and trusting like, suggested we go down to Bleeker. When we got there we strayed into a bar called ‘The Bitter End‘.

For a $5 cover charge we could grab a stage side table and enjoy one or two beers. There was a band on who were okay (Stratespherous) and then a second that were really very good (Fools for April) an the third (The Josh Dion Band Official site MySpace site) were really really awesome.

This very energetic American, rocky, soulful, bluesy live group made my trip.We were on our way out after Fools for April as we wanted to see more of Bleeker, but when I saw the next band carrying in a Fender Rhodes. If you don’t know what one is (!) remember the opening to the TV show Taxi?.Anyway, I’m a fan of any band that has one. Then I noticed their bassist had a very similar bass guitar to me and I was staying. He was gooooood btw.

They set-up in an interesting way, with a drums at the front and as soon as they started energy and soul were the name of the day. They belted out what appears to be a set that’s done the rounds as you can buy a live album with something very similar to what I heard.No matter. they had the now full crowd of The Bitter End head-nodding, foot-tapping and jumping.

As it turns out, The Bitter End has somewhat of a pedigree when it comes to live music. Apparently a recognised hang-out for record industry types and new emerging bands, people to have played there include Stevie Wonder, Gil Scott-Heron, Curtis Mayfiled, Joan Baez, Jonie Mitchell and a few other names you may have heard of.It made me think that you couldn’t do this in London.

London is a place that requires not only inside knowledge, but clear planning. you couldn’t walk into a place like this, off the street and only pay $5 and see such quality bands.The Josh Dion Band are well worth checking out as they now have a residency, every Thursday at The Bitter End. I think they start at 9pm.

When I head back to NYC I’m making sure I’m there to see them. I only hope they come to London at some point.Thanks for making my trip guys.Anyone in New York on a Thursday - go check them out. Seriously. Go check them out.New York 1, London 0.

London Waterloo Says Goodbye to Le TrainOriginally uploaded by Snowbadger

I blogged this a while back, March this year in-fact, but it’s finally happened.It shut after 13 years and 81 million travellers.Blimey! Is it really 13 years since it opened? I remember it happening when I was just starting University.Waterloo has given it’s International train route over to St Pancras with the promise of 186 mph speeds.Imagine doing 186 mph through Kent en-route to the Chunnel. That must be amazing, I can’t wait to have a go.I’ve travelled via Eurostar a helluvalot over the last 2-3 years as I’ve been working with the lovely people at Orange and France Telecom, and I have to say I am a big fan.It’s so much less stressful than flying. You leave the centre of London and arrive in the centre of Paris.No queuing, no security, no fuss.Anyway, here’s a picture of the now closed Waterloo terminal.Why do they insist on calling the place you depart and arrive a terminal? It’s not nice, particularly if flying, people are already edgy.

Wow.

That was the network effect in full, errrm, effect. At the time of writing some 11750 people have signed a petition stating:

We, the undersigned, call on the London Olympic committee to scrap and change the ridiculous logo unveiled for the London 2012 Olympics.

Whilst over on the BBC 606 website there have been some 2799 comments, and very few of them are complementary.

Now, before you carry on reading, I want you to go and watch these 2 videos. It will take a few minutes of your time. 5 max. Then we can carry on.

1. Video 1 - An animation aimed at depicting the energy of the brand
2. Video 2 - The ‘brand video’ aimed at depicting the qualities of the brand

Watched them…?

Good. Now we have a little context which most of the petitioners probably have no interest in attaining.

How do you feel?

Put aside the fact that the logo/lock-up/identity is super-crazy-manic and concentrate on how you feel about what you just saw.

Do phrases such as ‘rubbish’, ‘obvious’, ‘disgraceful’ and the like come to mind? Or do you feel a little bit charged, a little bit hopeful?

I’ve been working on this project since December and I’ve been working with the involved agencies and of course the London Organising Committee and I have to say that, for me, this brand works. Or at least it will work once we get past the initial cynacism and reaction. It embodies the energy, the vibrancy and the difference that this Olympic vehicle is hopefully going to be about and I’m writing this post as my way of saying to the teams I’ve worked with ‘Great job’.

It certainly inspired and stimulated a reaction, we’re all participating in this one and thanks to the network effect everyone is included.

The double-edged sword of web 2.0 in full swing.

Brands are not just logos of course, so today’s reaction is to an image. Further, I suspect that most people who have signed the petition or voiced their disapproval haven’t yet explored the story or the videos I’ve linked to and have been harbouring resentment ever since London won the opportunity to host.

It’s true that dissatisfaction and resentment always air more readily than satisfaction and support, but today did surprise me somewhat. I suspected that there would be a body of responses in the vein of ‘I don’t get it’, ‘My 5 year old could do better’, ‘What a waste of money’ etc because these things are always levelled at identities of this nature.

I wonder why people feel the need to expunge such vitriol when in doing so they are dismanteling the need for an emblem of hope, of change of being the best you can be, of being Olympic. It’s not about what it looks like, it’s about what it stands for and that’s what I think hasn’t yet been understood.

Over the next 5 years we’ll see exactly what this means, we’ll feel the experience of London 2012 and we’ll see change happen.

I’m hopeful. I’m confident. I’ve seen the people at London 2012 at work and I for one believe in their passion to do things differently.

But then, that is just my opinion and I’m just throwing my hat into the ring of network effect.

The company I work for didn’t develop the identity, we delivered the range of London 2012 websitea. But I say this not because I want to distance myself from the furor surrounding the identity but because actually I’m quite jealous that were not more closely aligned with this controversy. Our team have done a fantastic job in taking an incredibly challenging brand world and rolling it out as an accessible website given the logo, colour palette, typography and I think it achieves almost everything we wanted to.

It’s clear, legible, bright, energetic and engaging.

But I have to hold my hat off to the team at Wolf Olins and to Locog for trying something so daring, something so brave. Particularly given that in many sense as a design challenge developing Olympic brands is pretty much a poison chalice as everyone seems to love berating it, whatever has been done.

This is brave work particularly given how precious the Olympics is to people and particularly to Londoners at this present time.

Compare it to other Olympic marks of the past. They are dull, meaningless, formulaic and uninsprational, inunispiring, non-inclusive and not particularly stimulating.

.

Click here to see them close-up.

Beijing is the next host city and their identity is about celebrating China and about Chinese culture. A statement on their websites says:

Every emblem of the Olympics tells a story. The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games emblem “Chinese Seal, Dancing Beijing” is filled with Beijing’s hospitality and hopes, and carries the city’s commitment to the world.

It’s all about Beijing and that kind of inward looking presentation wouldn’t befit London. Largely because London is a city of cultural diversity and is overtly outward facing but also beacuse London sees itself as a world stage. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s very appropriate for Beijing. I like it, particularly the Fuva who are there to carry a message of friendship and peace — and good wishes from China — to children all over the world.

Argue the toss about whether or not this brand delivers that, but I say it delivers a statment of intent - that this is going to be different and that this is about taking part. You can say one thing, this has not been designed to sit smartly on a polo shirt or coffee mug. In the context of Olympic branding history it screams change.

Right on.

The brand story is about passion, inspiration, participation and stimulation.

I watch those videos and I feel that. I watched them with my wife and she felt that too. Idon’t mind saying that I felt emotional in a good way. It was lump in the throat stuff and I’m proud to be part of it.

By the time the Games arrives, everyone should fel proud because everyone will have the chance to join in.

I hope that everyone feels something when they see those videos and that they start to consider that this is an emblem for something and that bashing it is like bashing that person riding the bike, the granny and her karate, the kid and the horse.

Let the discussion continue.

John Maeda @ Design Museum, London

Originally uploaded by Snowbadger.

I’ve just been to his talk at the Design Museum with some colleagues and came away feeling nostalgic, a little sad and a bit inspired.

Nostalgic because Maeda ‘plays’, he makes stuff, he doozers away and this reminds me of my first years studying product design when we were encouraged to do that; making furniture in workshops and mechatronic robots in the labs.

I hope we get to a point where the culture of what we do at LBi has this level of experimentation. That would be cool, we’ve started at least.

I’m a little sad because I’m no longer making stuff like that. I use excuses like time, responsibility and whatnot but that’s no good. Maeda has 6 children, and I only have 2!

I want my job to provision me this as his does.

I’m inspired because he’s pointed out that we let ourslves become defined and that we shouldn’t. Hence the usual questions of “is it art or design?” That he refuses to answer - “I don’t care” he says.

Pigeon holes have gotten in the way.

What is an Experience Architect? What is a designer? Etc etc. Does it matter? Aren’t we all interaction designers? Experience designers? Why label at all? Can’t our brand be an indicator of what we might offer?

I don’t want to be a pigeon. They’re skyrats.

I’m inspired by Maeda’s rules of simplicity (though a little too simple!) and observations of complexity and reflecting on our internal discussions about ’simplicity being very hard’.

I’ll be going to the riflemaker to see his 16 ipod fish. It didn’t look that good, but the other stuff did.

I love the Eurostar.

For me it has been ideally placed for my regular trips to Paris and even though I live near to both it and Heathrow airport I choose ‘Le Train’ whenever as it takes roughly the same time. I’m not sure of the carbon footprint of either journey, but the train is a far nicer experience than flying IMO.

This year will see the London Eurostar terminal move from London Waterloo International to St Pancras. For those that don’t know London this means that it is moving from one side to the other.

The main aim is to shorten the journey through southern England to the coast and tunnel entry point in Kent because apparently St Pancras is better placed to link with the ‘high-speed’ rail routes down to the coast.

It’ll be 40 minutes Quicker apparently which is a shame becaus eyou lose some of that travelling across London. Well I would.

So what will happen to Waterloo ‘International’?

Apparently nothing that inspiring.

This is old news, but so far I’ve not seen anything happening.

That whole area is going through a massive regeneration right now as I understand a lot of buildings are coming down and three high-rises, dubed the ‘Three Siters’ are going up in next to the London Eye and Shell building.

It’ll probably mean that my business meetings in Paris are now better served by flying (boooo).

I’ll miss you ‘Le Train’… amitiés.

A colleague of mine has recently posted on the state of cycling in London. I wrote about my frustration at the lack of integration between the rail networks and the city when it comes to the transportation and storage of bicycles, but Stephen highlights a very good point.

Riding a bike in London canbe exhillerating fun (!) but the authorities do little to encourage us out of cars and onto greener forms of transport.

I spoke with a colleague yesterday who tiold me that it takes the same amount of time to ride a bike in as it does to ride a motorbike!

I mostly ride through Holborn or Blackfriars on my way to Clerkenwell where the office is. Either route I take is strewn with potholes and uneven drain covers.

I have a rather nice folding bike that has thin wheels so I try to avoid riding through these hazards as a way of saving my wheels.

Swerving from buses and eager taxi drivers who just love pulling out in front of me is enough fun as it is, I don’t need the crappy roads. They are horriffic.

Recent visits to Amsterdam and Cologne show what it should be like.. Incidentally here is an interesting statistic from a Dutch cab driver; there are 1.5 million people in Amsterdam, 1.6 million bikes and 700,000 bike thefts a year!!

So everyone has a bike, but half of them steal them! Brilliant.

Would you believe it?

I’ve started talking to another of my ’station platform buddies’ now! He’s a guy I’ve stood next to for 3 years and we’ve never so much as said hi before. But today he joined in a conversation I was having with the only person I speak to at the station.

Of course, being English we have to be given permission by the circumstance, so the fact that the train was n hour late was enough. If you just openly speak to someone for no reason, you’d be locked up here!

Stupid isn’t it.

I’m going to try and reel in the other ‘platform buddies’ - I challenge you to do the same.

Yeah you know the guy, say Hi to him.

Okay - so this post is pure drivel. But I do find this behaviour interesting.