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Yesterday I was one of the judges on the Campaign BIG Awards “Digital” category panel. The panel itself was an interesting mix of agency peeps (Albion, Dare, VCCP, CHI), clients (Coke, Google) and media agencies (Mindshare). Although I can’t talk about the actual work or opinions on specific pieces, I can talk about some of the themes which consumed the judges.

Face recognition
There were quite a few entries that used face recognition technology either within banners or within branded experiences to give surprising, intuitive experiences. We are just scratching the surface and when you imagine a world that can detect not only your face, but your mood, we are headed towards some exciting stuff so long as it is used for good, not evil.

AR mobile apps
Holdy-uppy-printy-outy webcam AR codes are last year’s news. Mobile apps overlaying info and visuals went down well with the judges. This feels like the future, but expect a “seen it before” reaction from judges and the public if you put the technology before the experience when developing branded AR apps. It needs to be genuinely useful or entertaining to make the cut.

Facebook Connected films
We’ve nearly reached saturation point with customised films that import photos from Facebook profiles. Expect punters to be feeling the same fatigue as yesterday’s judges after a plethora of wonderfully executed “OMG I’m in a film with a famous person” pieces. There’s still plenty of life left in Facebook Connect though.

Branded alternate reality games
ARG’s were big news yesterday and some very iconic brands were forging ahead creating games that captured imaginations on a global scale. Some of the games entered were awe inspiring. Some were just down right unusable and a monumental waste of marketing budget.

Online/Offline mash ups
Many entries explored online participation that drove real world activity. There were some hugely ambitious projects offered up. The main challenges for entrants seemed to be A: Can you drive scale and genuine mass participation? B: With the costs associated with this kind of activity, can you build enough buzz in a short period to create something that people remember? A couple of entries did both questions fared well.

iPhone Apps
It’s clear that from a judges perspective the mobile app is here to stay as a media channel. Unlike some of the other technologies we saw, apps remain as fresh and engaging as the execution.

But is it “digital”?
Is a linear piece of film on a page digital? Does something need to be interactive to be defined as “digital”? The room weighed heavily towards thinking that interactivity defined work as being digital. I disagree. Why the freak do we keep saying “digital”? Is it any good? Did I engage with it and remember it? Was the content most suited to being viewed online? These are the questions for me. Work foremost needs to engage people and some linear pieces of content we saw clearly did a better job of engagement than pieces that struggled with complicated, nonsense interaction.

Is it viral?
Should effectiveness stats be provided for a viral piece? There was heated discussion around pieces that were effectively TV ads without a TV spend entered as viral entries. Around one piece we checked the Youtube views and were staggered to see 12 million hits for something that we all considered to be just a quite nice ad that shouldn’t be called “viral”. Should viral entries be judged on views or number of shares? I think not. As awards Chairman Damon Collins eloquently put it “Beavers on trampolines get hits.”

Is it relevant?
The most fundamental question of the day. Many of the entries put relevance down the list behind interaction. If it’s easy to make a 30 sec TVC that defies comprehension, this can be multiplied for digital experiences. Too much of what we judged was trying to be clever clogs instead of making the user feel something for the brand. And by the end of a day spent in a room with no windows, the lesson was clear. People aren’t robots. We don’t just get off on “new”, we get off on being entertained, informed, moved, educated, persuaded. Digital work that does this effortlessly, defies even being labelled as “digital”.

Perhaps one of the most thought provoking books published over the last couple of years has to have been Nudge: Improving decisions about health ,wealth and happiness. Last night, some of us were lucky enough to hear its author, economics god Professor Richard Thaler speak as part of the IPA’s Writers Unblocked series of talks.

With his co author Cass Sunstein, Thaler coined the phrase ‘choice architecture’, to explain how we, as humans, are all susceptible to the influence of a variety of environmental conditions that in turn, can cause positive and negative effects on our behaviour. He describes these factors as nudges. As he does in his book, Thaler took us through a number of examples of how ‘nudging’ can help to bring about changes in our actions. These ranged from the practical – such as the inclusion of smiley faces on some American households’ electricity bills when they used less power than comparable houses in their neighbourhoods – through to the hilarious – such as how the engraving of a fly, or insertion of goal posts in the drain of a urinal, could help the more careless males amongst us improve our aim in the bathroom.

For Thaler, it can be these little, relatively low cost initiatives that bring about some of the biggest changes in our lives, and in the case of global warming, potentially prove to be a solution.

Regardless of context however, Thaler cited 3 qualities that would automatically help to ‘nudge’ people. Firstly, as in the case of the urinals, Thaler argued that simply by making the more mundane tasks fun, it can be possible to both change behaviour and bring a smile to people’s faces. Secondly, again playing to human nature, he also argued that just making things easier to do was one of the most obvious and successful catalysts for change. Thirdly and perhaps most far reaching however was his support of sharing data and information – essentially enforced disclosure. That way, Thaler argued, it would be possible to regulate organisations based on what they revealed, rather than what they chose to keep private. Given the pace of change in life and both the public and private sector’s inability to keep pace with it, he maintained that through this sharing of data, we as humans would have been better equipped to cope and adapt our behaviour accordingly to one in a million chance events, from the credit crunch to the recent oil spill.

But what does this mean for adland? After such thought provoking stuff, it was hard not to agree with Rory Sutherland’s summation that Thaler’s thesis provided an “Uplifting view of our skills”. Despite the wealth of tools and advancements in the ways we communicate, so many campaigns today still focus on outright cajolement rather than the art of intelligent persuasion. Key to changing this behaviour is the genuine appreciation that it’s not always he who shouts loudest that wins the day – rather it’s human insights and psychological rationale that are the key to effective communication.

With Cafedirect being one of our clients and at the forefront of the fairtrade initiative, we were delighted to be approached by Chacewater School in Cornwall to judge some adverts that the children in Class 5 had created for the new fair-trade KitKat bar. Class 5’s teacher, Julia Bruce, had arranged all sorts of lessons and activities for Fairtrade Fortnight, including coffee mornings and lots of exciting homework projects  all centred around fair-trade.

Our judging panel here at Albion, consisted of Simon Gotschalk – The Business Director on Cafedirect, Tim Bateman – Senior Creative (who’s work includes Cafedirect ‘We are the growers’) and Hannah Yelin – Senior Planner on everything from Gumtree to Tickler Cheese and me Nick Curnow (and my Mum is Govenor of Chacewater School)

After hours of wrangling and debate we finally agreed on a winner. So congratulations to Curt and Ellie from Class 5 on a great job, an ad that got the message across simply and effectively. Maybe you’ll decide that advertising is something you will pursue in the future. We certainly hope so!

1. Amplify your history

Find an anniversary. 150 years. 100 years. 25 years. 3 months and 6 days since your CEO got some. Whatever. Grab hold of it. Design a commemorative logo. Revert to your old logo. Put it on a poster. Print it on some hand-screened bunting with your reissued product laid out in a wheelbarrow full of straw. Make it smell like 100 years ago. Don’t have any history? Get a corporate dog. Make it Twitter.

2. Give your customers access to the top.

Print your CEO’s direct line on your napkins. Print your CEO’s wife’s mobile number on your website. Invite criticism. Acknowledge your mistakes. PR your mistakes. Run an apology ad with a witty headline. Invite your biggest critic to an open debate. Invite them to dinner, with a film crew. Admit they might have a point. Don’t want to open yourself up? Get a corporate dog. Make it Twitter.

3. Give back to the community

Create an event. Create entertainment. People need entertainment. Make it free. No, make it cost a tenner but print a t-shirt and give the profits to charity; after you cover your costs. Make the event micro local. Have a street party. Now pump it global. Have a street party in every goddam street in every goddam neighborhood in every goddam suburb in the world! Sell street stalls to every multinational business on the planet. Too much hassle? Get a corporate dog. Make it Twitter.

3. Crowdsource your marketing

Find your fans. Give them the tools. Let them evangelise the shit out your business. 1000 monkeys, 1000 typewriters. Wait for art. Place the content in a Superbowl slot. Unbranded. With a 3 minute user generated content back-story. Don’t have fans?  Get a corporate dog. Make it Twitter.

5. Go green

Make your packaging compostable. Make your packaging factory compostable. Go carbon neutral. No, go carbon positive. Plant 6 rainforests for every sheet of A4 you company consumes. Get your customers to do the planting in exchange for green points redeemable against 6 participating green household utility companies. Now. Design a logo for it – make it look handmade. Crochet it out of hemp. Pump it on solar powered, ethically sourced, timber billboards. Happy pillaging the planet? Get a corporate dog. Make it Twitter.

6. Create a cause and effect

Selling batteries? Give two packs of batteries to the third world for every packet you sell. Hell, give the third world a torch and some batteries for every pack you sell. No, give the third world a torch factory and two packets of batteries for every pack you sell. Don’t need another cause? Get a corporate dog. Make it Twitter.

6. Give your minnows a voice

Find your lowliest minnow. Preferably middle-aged and a single parent. Give them a blog. Give them a megaphone. Make them the voice of the company. Let them construct a stand-alone customer service sub brand that hates your business. Or just make them CEO.  Don’t want to promote a minnow? Get a corporate dog. Make it Twitter.

7. Invent a new local product line

Everyone likes local. Even if you’re a global behemoth raping the planet, you can still do local. Time to add a new product line. Find a local business that makes things by hand, preferably hand-reared on their own property. Give the local community the profits to build a new library. Everyone likes books. But most importantly be OPEN about your involvement. You want to bask in the warm glow. And the locals need your authentically locally-laundered cash. Run out of new ideas? Get a corporate dog. Make it Twitter.

8. Create an unexpected product experience

Got High Street shops? Create a pop up tent in people’s back garden. They will like you and be excited by your spontaneity. Flogging a packaged good? Create a giant community version of it and let people suck the udders of your civic spirit. Can afford to be unexpected? Get a corporate dog. Make it Twitter.

9. Fail a little

People love to see others fail. And they especially like to see companies fail. So invest in some failure. Aim for the stars but really, aim to make a giant arse of your brand. People will like you for it. And it feeds back into Number 2. There are many ways to fail, but it’s most important that you give people something to talk about. Change your service. Make it more complicated so you can say sorry and recognise that the customer was right. Invest in a new corporate identity and completely ignore your product or service. Or sell your customer data. All great ways to appear to be more human. Prefer reliable success? Get a corporate dog. Make it Twitter.

10. Get a pet

Everyone likes animals. Have you seen the hits funny cats get on YouTube? Get a corporate animal. If you get in quick you can still exploit the cute cat/dog thing. Make it real. Make it open. But most importantly, make it Tweet.

This month’s creative breakfast theme was “Stories wot could only have been told through digital”. Everyone was able to interpret theme as they wished, submitting a link (art or commerce) for discussion. Here are the highlights.

Apple’s one billionth app download is not a classic “story” but it’s certainly one that could only have happened via digital. We discussed why apps have only been popularised by Apple and not one of the other handset manufacturers years earlier. It’s a hard one: the apps work and they are useful.

Penguin’s We Tell Stories is a collection of 6 stories from 6 authors that have been written by authors to capitalise on the interactivity that only digital can bring to a reader. This one caused great debate. What was this trying to achieve for Penguin? Is it the future of publishing? The consensus was that the written linear story is a long way from dead. The hardback we are not so sure about. However the traditionalists amongst us are having nothing of the Kindle.

The Blair Witch Project is 10 years old this year. The daddy of word of mouth marketing. It’s hard to tell now if the website was deliberately crap or whether the internet was just crap in 1999. Either way we still admire how high it set the bar for story telling.

My Damn Channel is what happens when writers create stuff without the studios riding them like ponies. We love You Suck at Photoshop. This feels like the future of comedy story telling. Short form. Timely. Script over production.

The Whale Hunt has been much lauded by creative folk. It’s hard not love the beauty of the gore. Skip to the blood and guts, then wonder at the download speed for those images.

The Sopranos in chronological fuck order. Who needs the bits in between really?

Obama’s first 100 days in a Facebook stream. The media dissected this every what way. But none had the, humor, cut through and modernity of this piece.

Susan Boyle: she is the global story of the internet for the month of April 2009.

Cisco Fatty. We love it when the internet attacks. It used to be emails of sexual office liasons. Now it’s Twaux Pas.

One Red Paperclip One of first “Hey I’m doing something random, help me out” events to capture an online imagination.

The Disposable Memory Project is capturing the images from over 100 disposable cameras left around the world. Proving that sometimes people will make an effort to be involved in something that makes life more interesting. But mostly not.

AOL search results A few years back, AOL made public a stack of user search requests. Compilations were created that revealed some very interesting human stories. You can still find them floating about online if you dig.

Bryony Makes a Zombie Movie One of Teddy’s mates AKA Paperlilies. Is this the future of movie making?

Steve finished the session by writing a story completely in analogue form with nothing but a pen and paper. It’s too long to transcribe and besides, it’s already lost. But the story ended with the word “Google”.

The art walk returned after a long hiatus, with a 3-in-1 itinerary. Mike R found genuine need for the art walk walking stick having sprained his ankle playing Albion football the day before.

First stop was a new venue for the art walk: Ferreira Projects on Charlotte Street. Resident artist James R Ford presented a show titled “Only boring people get bored”. The pieces ranged from one color jigsaw puzzles to videos of guitar hero being played. In the back room was an installation “33 things to do before you are 10″. Albion left the exhibit far from bored, but the show lacked the polish of something very special and felt more like an aspiring artist’s exhibit.

Next we headed to an art walk staple; White Cube in Hoxton Square, for a show by Marcus Harvey. Harvey is best known for his portrait of portrait of Myra Hindley. His new work Maggie seeks to be no less controversial. A 3D relief of Thatcher made from 25% painted dildos, 10% painted cauliflours and 65% other painted stuff. Both simultaneously stunning and predictable. Rachel Kneebone had a piece upstairs called The Descent that nearly upstaged the main show. A circular, white porcelain form of human creation, excess, gluttony, eroticism, birth and demise.

The third leg of the art walk was going to be Andres Serrano at Yvon Lambert. Unfortunately Nick screwed up as the show had already packed up. So the art walk triumverate turned into a… thing with only two parts… bi…. dual…. Let’s call it an anticlimax.

After an excellent kick off meeting with STA Travel, the team grabbed a late lunch at Pret A Manger in Kensington tube station. It turns out that Sam, one of our planners, used to work at Pret “when he was 18 or 19″. He said it was an excellent place to work until he got fired. Apparently whilst preparing sandwiches in a hungover state, Sam would kip in a quiet corner instead. Nice work if you can get it. Sadly, Sam couldn’t, and was given his P45 to take out. He wasn’t even offered a napkin to go with it.

Our conversation then turned to why Pret gets you in the door even when right next to an (arguably better) EAT. We decided that Prets are much nicer places now the acres of stainless steel are gone, and that you just can’t out Pret, Pret. The stories are deeper, better communicated and more believable. Whereas unlike Leon, EAT is just another sandwich chain, neither the underdog or more natural. But maybe it’s just Pret’s secret ingredient: sandwich chef’s sleep dribble.