4 Fuks Saké

Cultural Intelligence

I once wrote a small book on the nuances of global culture and their effects on communications campaign. It's "How To Create Global Talkability," and you're free to download here. This is from The Poke is equally as insightful - Europe, as viewed by Americans. 

Publicity & Public Service

My work has inspired me so much, I am arsed to write 100 words. 

4 Fuks Saké is nearly four years old. If I didn't work in this industry it wouldn't exist, so some discussion around Cake work is to be expected. Today - two pieces of Cake work, two films, two different reasons for their existence. They explain a little bit about how people like us are producing video (or 'content' if I'd like to pretend to be more important) to deliver slightly more nuanced objectives. 

1. IKEA. Cats - The Experiment.

We work with Mother and Vizeum on IKEA. A new direction suggests to people that IKEA knows what makes homes and households function as well as look good. Homes that work make for happy households - ergo "Happy Inside."

Mother develop a beautiful treatment for a 60" film. Let 100 cats free in IKEA Wembley and see what happens, because when it comes to finding happiness, a cat will find it and sod the rest of us. My Mum's cat Millie pissed off a week ago and she's still not come back. 

Anyway, what follows is not rocket science. If someone sees that ad in XFactor for the first time, it may well be the case that they'd go, "Shit. How did they do that?" So we created a film, "The Experiment," for people who's next move would be to head to Google and search for IKEA Cats. It's just shy of 2 million views a week later and it creates fame for the campaign. The more eyeballs, RTs, and masturbatory blog posts to draw attention to it, the better. That's all.

2. Stephen Fry's 3D TV

On the other, a modern day public service film. Today's public servant is Google. We go to it and ask it to solve everything. Like what is 3DTV? So it's nice to find Stephen Fry explaining it to you, and politely letting you know that it's Sky who's offering it to you. Yes, Sky would like some eyeballs on it, but there's no frenetic grab for them or a desperation to call it 'viral.' It's just a little more pleasant to find this, than an ugly piece of commercialism. Unless of course you think Fry is ugly. 

Write As You Talk And People Will Listen

Let’s put the unnecessarily gargantuan and catastrophic loss of life in Iraq, Kosovo and Afghanistan to one side for a moment. I’d like to quickly rush to the defence of Tony Blair.

Blair’s crime (literary, not war) is that his memoirs are just a bit too informal for your average political tome. A largely complimentary piece dissects his writing style here, but you get the sense the praise is all through gritted teeth. “It is all about being colloquial…Blair likes to write as if he had the reader with him...it's 'anti-literary.'" Etc.  

Writing is only great if people want to read it. Memoirs are the personal recollections of the man or woman himself. You want to hear the voice. That’s what makes Alan Clark’s Diaries a masterpiece. That’s what makes the job of Wayne Rooney’s ghostwriter the ultimate hospital pass.

As our brains change shape to cope with the welter of information we’re having to deal with (read old post here), we’re finding it harder to read. Which means writing skills need to get better. They seem to be getting worse, and there seems to be a lot less love for the actual craft which bodes badly for the future. 

At the end of the day, the job of writing is communication. Blair reads like he sounds, and people listened to him. It’s a good skill to have if you want to get things done, especially if you need votes to do it. 3 election victories are good KPIs.