Now that January is done, along with those pesky resolutions (probably) and rotten detox diets (definitely!), your thoughts, like ours, are no doubt turning once more to the most fruitful, enriching and downright entertaining ways to make the most of life in the city.

With this in mind, it’s time for a fresh instalment of the Madhouse guide to what’s hot on our patch in the near future. If you have a comment on any of the following, or have any suggestions of your own, then do get in touch – we love to hear from you.

For those who love a spot of musical theatre, don’t miss Oliver at Manchester’s Palace Theatre. The show, starring Men Behaving Badly star Neil Morrissey as Fagin, is on from the 25 January to 10 March and of course features all those unforgettable numbers like ‘Food glorious food’, ‘Consider yourself’ and ‘I’d do anything’.

A special Valentine’s Market is taking place in Piccadilly Gardens on 12-13 February from 10am- 5:30pm. We’re promised fresh local produce from the Real Food Market Traders – ideal for those planning a delicious dinner for a loved one. Hopeless romantics stuck for a gift idea can pick up something special from one of the jewellery, art or card stalls, and don’t forget a freshly-cut bouquet from the flower sellers.

An absolute must-see is  ‘A Flash of Light: The Dance Photography of Chris Nash’ at the Lowry Theatre from Saturday 11 February to Sunday 13 May. Showcasing Nash’s fascination with movement, light, colour and composition, this dazzling exhibition features three decades of the photographer’s most important work.

And last but not least, on 20 February the much-anticipated Jamie’s Italian finally opens its doors at 100 King Street. Celebrity Chef Jamie Oliver welcomes local foodies, fine-diners and fans to his latest eatery, based in the sumptuous surroundings of Lutyens’ recently restored, Grade II listed Midland Bank building. Bon appetit!

–

More enlightenment and opinion from Madhouse, Manchester’s leading integrated marketing communications agency

As all ad aficionados know, this weekend’s Superbowl (that’s a bit like the FA Cup final of american football, non-sports fans) is eagerly anticipated, and not just as an epic clash of gridiron titans. There’s the heartfelt singing of the star-spanled banner, the national celebration of american exceptionalism… and there’s the half time ads.

No kidding. A spot during Superbowl half-time is some of the most expensive advertising real estate on planet earth, and as a result, the ads themselves have become part of the carnival. Top-dollar productions with awesome celebs and massive concepts, pushing colossal products. It’s all a very big deal.

Speculation abounds in the run-up, and spots themselves are often closely guarded secrets. This year’s early running has been made by Honda, who have already revealed a heavily Ferris Bueller-flavoured Matthew Broderick in both teaser and now extended form.

However, the adman’s ad is surely this one for FirstBank. Simple, clever, unmissable. Perfect.

–

More enlightenment and opinion from Madhouse, Manchester’s leading integrated marketing communications agency

For example, ‘gamifying’ can help build loyalty to a brand, as you can add rewards for repeat purchases. The reason it works is that it creates a sense of progress, and this is one of the key motivations that helps individuals get through each day. If we didn’t feel as though we were making any progress at work, for instance, we would feel let down and ready to give up.

Gamification can get a brand in front of lots of new customers as well as loyal ones, as associating a good game with your brand can give it a real viral quality within the various levels of social media. It’s a fascinating area, and constantly developing, so if you’d like to discover more – as well as see which brands are getting involved in gamification – why not take a look at our presentation.

Please note that our Future of Digital presentations contain content and graphics from a wide variety of sources, all used for illustrative purposes only. We’re very grateful for this information, but if any of the originators would like a specific acknowledgement, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line at beth.baldwin@madhousehq.co.uk

–

More enlightenment and opinion from Madhouse, Manchester’s leading integrated marketing communications agency

Welcome to the new ‘timeline’ profile from Facebook.

While Facebook’s early adopters have been using it for a while, the timeline is finally being rolled out for everyone – no doubt to the accompaniment of some customary grumbling and groaning. But before you start worrying about the implications of Facebook changing again, it really isn’t that bad. In fact, I’d go as far to say it’s pretty awesome.

The whole idea behind the new timeline profile is that it is exactly what it says: it means you can view your whole life via your Facebook profile. The new timeline feature starts from the day you were born up until your last post.

Obviously, you haven’t been on Facebook since the day you were born, so the content is limited for your early years, but you can add in life events to populate your timeline: this can be anything from getting your driving licence to breaking a bone.

To do this you need to click on the little buttons next to where you would type your status; each one gives you a list of options or you can add your own. This will then give you a box in which you can enter the details of your life event and add a photo if necessary.

Your Facebook profile will automatically make this a star feature. Star features are another new part of the timeline profile. This feature enables you to make certain posts and life events more prominent on your profile than others. To turn it on or off, simply click on the star next to the post.

Another feature that makes the new profile more attractive is the new ‘cover’ image: this can be any image you like, the same as your profile picture. Personally, I think the cover images have lots of potential to be more creative than the average profile image, and can be used as something similar to a desktop background.

All in all the whole thing is pretty jazzy and after the initial couple of weeks of everyone whining about how different it is, I think this will be the best update so far; it certainly represents an exciting time for social media. Obviously it isn’t perfect and I still have some things that I wish would improve but all in all…

…well done Facebook!

–

More enlightenment and opinion from Madhouse, Manchester’s leading integrated marketing communications agency

A dodgy Coke habit…

As all enthusiastic consumers of caramel-flavoured carbonated vegetable soft drinks will be aware, singular purveyor Coca-Cola is in the habit of creating occasional new packaging designs; to mark the festive season, for example.

It comes as some surprise then, that this year’s “white can”, so-named for its predominant colourway, has met with a near-hysterical social media response from consumers.

The Wall Street Journal continues the story:

Coke said it became aware of consumer complaints through Internet postings and some telephone calls to the company. Many Internet comments have been critical of the white cans. “PEOPLE! Don’t be a victim,” wrote one consumer on Twitter, warning that mixing up Coke and Diet Coke is “a SHOCK to the palate!”

Another person accused Coke of “trickery,” and still another called the white cans “blasphemy,” among hundreds of tweets.

Mis-steps from this colossus of the branding world are not unheard of, and one cannot help but call to mind the New Coke fiasco. Looks like a classic case of bad planning.

Hat tip to Gawker.

–

More enlightenment and opinion from Madhouse, Manchester’s leading integrated marketing communications agency

Following our recent Madhouse seminar on The Future of Digital, we thought we’d consume a few blog-inches by looking at some of the trends that are likely to be transforming the way we all buy, share and communicate in the years to come.

So over the next few weeks we’ll be posting a series of thoughts on where things are heading; and while we wouldn’t want to be held to any specific predictions, we do know that the future is coming, and that change is here to stay…

–

More enlightenment and opinion from Madhouse, Manchester’s leading integrated marketing communications agency

It’s often said of Jarvis Cocker that, in his current corduroy-jackets-with-elbow-patches phase, he resembles nothing so much as a geography teacher – albeit of the kind who still seems close to his inner teenager even while describing the formation of an ox-bow lake.

It’s fitting then that he should recently have been back to school – The City School in Sheffield to be precise – to speak to the kids and play them a few of his songs. It was an appropriate venue for Jarvis, for although the glory days of Pulp must seem like ancient history to his audience on the day, The City School was his alma mater – the kind of anonymous, uncelebrated comprehensive school from which so many Pulp stories spring.

It’s a familiar journey for local boys made good: go back to the assembly hall in which you once snoozed, and deliver inspiring thoughts to The Kids of Today. Sports stars are particularly good at it of course, as their ‘Set your eyes on the prize’ speeches are shot through with the kind of ‘Go for it!’ exhortations that headteachers must love.

Jarvis though…

As you might expect from such a master of self-deprecation and kitchen-sink reminiscence, his appearance before a room full of contemporary school children was a more nuanced affair, deliciously captured on video for us all to enjoy.

Rather than stirring the kids into a motivational frenzy, he simply pointed out that when he first began writing songs, he found himself floundering around for a subject, assuming that the everyday business of school, girlfriends and hanging about outside shops wasn’t the stuff that art could be made of. It was only when he moved away from Sheffield that he realised that other people’s mundanities were different from his own, and that his memories of growing up in an apparently unglamorous northern city could be productively mined for inspiration: after all, to someone living on the other side of the globe, the finer points of buying Woodpecker cider from the local Spar must seem like details from another world entirely.

It was this realisation, and the songs that resulted, that finally exposed Jarvis and Pulp to a world beyond the indie ghetto in which they’d been ‘ones to watch’ for a decade or more.

The moral of this tale? Sometimes, the fuel for your creativity can be right in front of your face – but it can take an awful lot of staring out of windows and chewing the ends of pencils to realise it.

I’ll come clean: I’m a Pulp fan, a Jarvis fan, I’m from Sheffield and, to put it obliquely, I’m more or less of his vintage. The Sheffield he remembers is the same one in which I failed to get girlfriends and hung about outside shops, so I’m hardwired to respond to his softly spoken and twinkly-eyed pop. But I think anyone with an interest in the way a distinctive creative talent can find his voice after years of false starts will find something to enjoy in Jarvis’s beguiling school hall chat. And if, like us here at Madhouse, being creative is your business, you can never have too many insights into the way other creative people go about making the magic happen.

So watch the video. At the very least, you get to see Jarvis returning the books he borrowed from his school library over 30 years ago. But you know what? That’s not the half of it. Because behind all the knowing smirks, it’s actually rather inspiring too.

–

More enlightenment and opinion from Madhouse, Manchester’s leading integrated marketing communications agency

We were in Brussels yesterday visiting our valued clients – and good friends – at Toyota Europe. The city was looking as festive as you would expect, given that it gave its name to one of the key Christmas vegetables, and Toyota itself was channeling the spirit of the season with its traditional illuminated tree, and slightly less traditional illuminated car.

The luminescent vehicle certainly caught our attention as we entered the lobby of the building – though we couldn’t help feeling that maybe we’d stepped onto the set of the next Tron film by mistake.

Though maybe this is what Santa uses these days? In which case, perhaps he has a new corporate strapline:

Today, Tomorrow, Toys.

(Ouch).

–

More enlightenment and opinion from Madhouse, Manchester’s leading integrated marketing communications agency

Say hello to your digital future…

Madhouse has just hosted the latest in our ongoing series of quarterly seminars.

This one was entitled “The Future of Digital” and once again a packed house full of the agency’s friends and clients came together  to find out where our industry is heading.  The key question at this session was “what we can expect from  the digital world over the next two, five and ten years?”

Joining us to gaze into the crystal ball was digital expert Andrew Gordon, who talked the audience through a range of topics, asking thought-provoking questions and helping everyone to focus on the bigger picture.

Subjects up for debate included augmented reality, gamification, and even contact lenses you’ll be able to read your emails with. The thread uniting these diverse topics was “can we really predict the future?”

One thing that became abundantly clear is just how treacherous a business trend-spotting can be… one thinks, for example, of Ken Olsen (of Digital Equipment Co.), famously dismissing the concept of a PC in 1977 with a curt “there is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home”. Hmmm.

A particular highlight was this sensational Apple promo video from 1988, conceptualising tablet computing, Siri and video calling, not to mention high speed web connectivity,  an online encyclopaedia, and a bunch of other stuff that has actually come out of silicon valley since.

Rather than guessing, perhaps the most fruitful approach is simply to invent the future yourself?

If you would like a copy of the Powerpoint from the seminar please contact jenna.wilson@madhousehq.co.uk

–

More enlightenment and opinion from Madhouse, Manchester’s leading integrated marketing communications agency

Well, we knew it would be “all olympics, all the time”, and so it goes…

In the latest intalment, leading British contemporary artists have produced their own “Creative Spirit of the Games” 2012 posters.Such luminaries as your Whitereads, your Ofilis and your Emins have given it up, and despite the looming probability that all would be entirely awful, I reckon that at least three are rather decent.

Judge for yourself here.

–

More enlightenment and opinion from Madhouse, Manchester’s leading integrated marketing communications agency