The Staufenberger Repository

Day book gems

In an attempt to keep the studio tidy (we've got more people in at Studio Staufenberger), I thought I'd do a bit of clearing out and empty some of those unpacked boxes. Anyway I found a load of my old day books going back quite sometime. I remember being given one on my first day when I started as a graduate and told how I needed to always carry it with me:

This is my day book. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My day book is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it, as I must master my life. Without me, my day book is useless. Without my day book, I am useless.

Going back through them was like reading a personal diary but rather than capturing significant events, history is recorded through a series of status meetings, briefings, brainstorms and random note taking. But the best bits are those pages where you've scrawled down a random idea than never goes any further than that page. It was the idea you had every intention of returning to and working up into a big idea only for it to be confined to a cardboard box under you desk till the office move. So rather than let this happen I had the intention of setting them free one by one. The only problem was they all suddenly felt a bit dated. What were once genuinely 'fresh ideas' all seem a little stale. To avoid this problem when I go through my day books in 2011 every idea I put down will have to be accompanied by a 'use by' date. Or maybe I'll leave my day books in the freezer.

Day book gems 2

Having said all that about stale ideas I quite like this one we had for a high street bank. Entered into the day book sometime in 2002 (before Flickr).

Basically, banks should offer data storage as part of their everyday banking activities. I trust them to look after my money why shouldn't I trust them to look after my digital pictures, my MP3s and my video clips. The banks customers could upload (or deposit through a USB socket at the cash point) their digital assets on a regular basis safe in the knowledge that they wouldn't be lost and the file format would be upgraded over time. So if I wanted to look at a load of jpegs in 20 years they would have been already switched to the prevailing file format of the time.

Rather than just holding my money my bank would hold more personal things like wedding pictures, little Johnny's first steps caught on camera and even that long forgotten mixtape (or whatever the MP3 equivalent is these days). How about that for emotional attachment? 

Forgotten Strategies

Patrick finally unpacked the boxes of magazines under his desk, amongst which there are some real gems, more on that in a future post. One in particular caught my eye...

1987 is drawing to a close and the style magazine i-D name their December/January issue the Happy Issue, calling for everyone to Get Up, Get Happy.

It will be another 10 months before mainstream British youth are screaming "acieeed", market traders are making a fortune selling smiley t-shirts and the The Sun newspaper runs a story, under the headline 'Evil of Ecstasy', about the new horror drug threatening British youth.

But let's go back to i-D. Amongst the music and fashion features is a double page spread. On the right hand page is a moody black and white picture of handsome young man in a Homburg hat, slight stubble and dark roll neck shirt. The corner of a letter pokes from the bottom right of the page. The copy reads:

Hat by Fred Bare £34
Roll-neck Shirt by French Connection £31
Braces by Terra-Nova £14.50
Kilt Pin by Wright & Teague £25
Letter by Royal Mail 18p
By Air, By Land, By Hand
Royal Mail

Now we can only assume that someone at the Royal Mail decided it was about time those kids started sending more letters and the best way to do that was to make letters 'cool'. Cue youth press campaign. Now it's safe to assume that by summer 1988 (or the Second Summer of Love) sending letters came off second best to driving around the M25 looking for a rave. But maybe we've missed the point, perhaps we've completely misunderstood the objective. What if the campaign was actually a success? We want to know. If anyone knows the agency that produced the work, let us know. We'd love to know more.

Stories make things sticky

We like stories here at Staufenberger Towers. Not just because we like reading and watching films, but because - from a communications point of view - they're a great way to get people involved with what your brand is doing.

You've probably seen this bit of video that's been doing the rounds. It's a great illustration of the power of narrative, even one so slight that it's more of an anecdote than a story.

You're also probably aware that the story - that it's a music machine made of agricultural equipment (check the YouTube description here for the full spiel) - is completely untrue.

But it's clearly the story that has given the footage - created by Animusic - its infectiousness.

And the fact that people are hooked by the story, despite its obvious CGness, is further proof that a good narrative - however brief - is a great way to engage an audience.