Infomagination

Killer charts: why we're right to be pissed off about MPs' expenses

Great story on the BBC website today, showing how the income of our MPs compares with the man and woman on the street.  All it takes is a couple of glances to realise why people are so pissed off with "the thieving fuckers" (as I've heard them called).

First, let's take look at a typical person's household income.  The average is about £390, after tax and benefits, for a two adult household without children.

Now let's compare with an MP living with a non-working partner, the kids grown up and gone, and no other income:

The result is 3 good reasons to be mad at our MPs. 

1.  Their average expenses alone place our MPs above about 30% of the population or 17 million individuals.

2.  Their salary alone places them above about 91% of the population: 55 million people.

3.  When combined, the "honourable" member earns more than 96% of the population: 58 million people. A working partner would push them higher still.

Is it any wonder we're so annoyed?

Lessons from the Watchmen

Yep, I'm back from my holiday, sporting not just a lacklustre tan but a tasty new titbit of infomagination, courtesy of a book I read on the beach. 

Having loved the film, but hearing it was vastly inferior to the book, I thought I'd give the original graphic novel of Watchmen a go.  Whilst I'll let other people tell you how amazing it is (and it IS amazing), I will pluck out a surprising piece of prose from the end of one chapter.  It's an article written by the man behind Nite Owl, one of the "costumed heroes" that star in the story.  A keen ornithologist, he writes an entrancing personal story showing why information is nothing without imagination.  Here's a short extract:

BLOOD FROM THE SHOULDER OF PALLAS

Is it possible, I wonder, to study a bird so closely, to observe and catalogue its perculiarities in such minute detail, that it becomes invisible? Is it possible that while fastidiously calibrating the span of its wings or the length of its tarsus, we somehow lose sight of its poetry? That in our pedestrian descriptions of a marbled or vermiculated plummage we forfeit a glimpse of living canvases, cascades of carefully toned browns and golds that would shame Kandinsky, misty explosions of color to rival Monet? I believe that we do. I believe that in approaching our subject with the sensibilities of statisticians and dissectionists, we distance ourselves increasingly from the marvelous and spell-binding planet of imagination whose gravity drew us to our studies in the first place.

This is not to say that we should cease to establish facts and to verify our information, but merely to suggest that unless those facts can be imbued with the flash of poetic insight then they remain dull gems; semi-precious stones scarcely worth the collecting...  the two enhance each other, a more lyrical eye lending the cold data a romance from which it has long been divorced.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Go Go Google Search Options!

All the information in the world is useless if you can't find what you want.  Google have always known this - and their ability to connect people with the things that they want, by organising that information, has made them the most powerful brand in the world.  Never one to rest on their laurels, however, they've just added a bunch of new features to make finding what you're looking for even easier.  Check them out in this video, then give them a go next time you're on Google, just by clicking "show options" at the top of your search results.

Whilst you're having a play, I'll be off on holiday for a week.  See you when I get back!

People don't want numbers, they want stories.

How can you bring your data to life?  By putting life into your data.  This video for World on Fire, by Sarah McLachlan, does that in spades - with beautiful and moving results.

The next time you present some stats, how can you really show who and what they represent?

And, for the marketers out there, what would happen if you used a small amount of the money you spend on production to really change people's lives - and filmed that instead?  Even if it was just for internal use? 

Could your brand be the next Secret Millionaire?

The 100 most Twittered about brands

Just picked this up on Brand Republic...  Fun looking at how few followers a lot of the big brands have, even if they do get talked about.  Not surprising, though.  How many of them really have anything interesting to say?

		Brand Mentions	Followers
1	Starbucks	3.37m	120,868	@Starbucks
2	Google	1.01m	307,342	@Google
3	BBC	703,000	15.777	@bbcnews
4	Apple	512,110		None
5	AIG	455,000		None
6	Amazon	245,760	1007	@amazon
7	Microsoft	221,000		None
8	Guardian	211,000	14,913	@guardiannews
9	Dell	185,000	287,575
10	Coca-Cola	135,600		None
11	Ford	130,000	2,256	@ford
12	Sony PlayStation	117,550	20,651	@SonyPlayStation
13	eBay	107,000	1329	@ebayUK
14	Sony	107,000		None
15	Disney	106,000	7,354	@wdwnews
16	Yahoo!	94,500	9,541	@yahoo
17	Sky	74,370	10,248	@SkyNews
18	IKEA	72,300		None
19	IBM	70,400	1,180	@ibmevents
20	Nokia	68,100		None
21	Ford Scott Monty	62,600	16,562	@scottmonty
22	Guinness	59,700		None
23	HP	56,720	1,682	@hpnews
24	ComCast	50,400	14,688	@comcastcares
25	Skittles	48,600		None
26	Canon	48,200	605	@canon
27	McDonald's	45,340	234	@MONOPOLYatMcD
28	Channel 4	39,300	6,932	@channel4news
29	Lego	39,100		None
30	Pepsi	37,400	757	@pepsi
31	Samsung	35,800	582	@samsungmobileus
32	Intel	35,700	464	@intel
33	Tesco	35,500		None
34	Nike	32,800	1,167	@nikeplus
35	Honda	31,400	2,693	@Alicia_at_Honda
36	BMW	30,600	1,265	@BMWSauberF1Team
37	T-Mobile	29,900	1,443	@TMobile_USA
38	BT	27,540		None
39	FedEx	27,100	1,108	@mattceni
40	O2	25,900	2,371	@O2UKOfficial
41	Vodafone	25,400	802	@Vodafone_News
42	Bosch	25,300		None
43	RyanAir	25,200		None
44	Toyota	22,600	2,321	@toyotanewsroom
45	VW	22,190		None
46	Mercedes	21,600	1,506	@TheFifthDriver
47	Subway	21,200		None
48	Cadbury	19,900		None
49	Audi	18,600		None
50	Burger King	18,500	2,496	@thebklounge
51	Marmite	15,600		lovehatemarmite
52	Chanel	14,700		None
53	Citi	12,600		None
54	EasyJet	11,800		@easyjetservice
55	H&M	11,500	2,701	@handm
56	Porsche	10,600		None
57	Zara	10,000		None
58	Gucci	9,990	436	@gucciofficial
59	Nissan	9,740		@NissanSports
60	UPS	8,960	5,381	@trackthis
61	Motorola	8,320	346	@motodev
62	Avon	8,132		None
63	Marks & Spencer	7,900		None
64	Heinz	7,500		None
65	Royal Bank of Scotland	6,945		None
66	Asda	6,650	147	@asda
67	Accenture	5,970	2,126	@Accenture
68	HSBC	5,760		None
69	Lexus	5,690		None
70	British Airways	5,670	1,202	@British_Airways
71	Siemens	5,640		None
72	Gillette	5,250		None
73	Barclays	4,840		None
74	Sainsbury's	4,300		None
75	Budweiser	3,980		None
76	Louis Vuitton	3,950		None
77	Lovefilm	3,720	1,503	@lovefilm_uk
78	Smirnoff	3,380	514	@Smirnoff_EXP
79	Banco Santander	3,330		None
80	UBS	3,330		None
81	Shell	3,100		@shelldotcom
82	Colgate	2,870		None
83	L'Oreal	2,813		None
84	Citroen	2,810		None
85	Rolex	2,630		None
86	Cartier	2,100		None
87	Knorr	2,030		None
88	PG Tips	1,400		None
89	Oxo	829		None
90	Birdseye	748		None
91	Levi's	700		None
92	Specsavers	665		None
93	Duracell	621		None
94	BP	600		None
95	Schweppes	570		None
96	Habitat	500		None
97	Direct Line	500		None
98	Andrex	474		@Andrexpuppy
99	Vauxhal	470		@vauxhallnewsuk
100	Dulux	208		None

Readings taken over a "several day period" in April.

The first ever online advertising science fair

Are you sick to death of bullshit masquerading as facts?

Are you tired of smarmy-young-things and their bounty of hyperbolic new-age marketing jive?

Then you, my friend, are ready for First Ever Online Advertising Science Fair.

Here's the deal.

The Editorial Board of The Ad Contrarian is looking for a few good facts. Not opinions, not bullshit, facts about contemporary advertising and marketing that are either interesting, not widely known, or misunderstood.

Here's what you need to do. Scour the net for interesting factual stories about advertising or marketing. No "expert" opinions; no tired "how to's", just the facts, ma'am.

Write a brief one-paragraph description and include a link. Send it to adcontrarian@gmail.com.

- c/o The Ad Contrarian. 

 

I've entered.  You should too.

The ecstatic complexity of Mark Lombardi

I don't know about you, but for me, the sheer volume of e-mail I get makes the odd, old fashioned letter all the more special.  So, it was with great pleasure that I recently received one from Jim Surguy, alerting me to the work of an American artist/historian called Mark Lombardi, who specialised in drawings documenting financial and political frauds.  This one documents the  Harken Energy scandal, where links are drawn from suspected financial wrongdoings by George W Bush (in the 1980s) to Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. 

Conspiracy theorists love this stuff.  Not least because Mark died in slightly suspicious circumstances - and because the FBI requested to see one of his pieces in the aftermath of 9/11.

As the article Jim sent me concludes, however, "if the goal of information design is to make things clear, Lombardi's drawings in fact do the opposite... their only meaning is their ecstatic complexity; understanding them is less important than simply knowing they exist." 

Life is complex.  People are complex.  And as the increasing number of tools to map your Facebook friends shows, our social networks are no different. 

In the face of such complexity, what can we do?  Well, for me, acknowledging and embracing complexity is an important step in itself.  If advertising and marketing works, then how it works is never simple.

If we can agree on that then maybe we can agree on what to do about it - and stop fantasising about controlling complexity when we should be hunting for ways to influence it.  Then maybe we'll get closer to marketing in the real world.