Just heard about Steve Jobs passing away today. I’m feeling sad and flooded with memories. Mainly memories of how his company’s products have positively affected my life.

1. 1987/1988. California. Whilst in an entrepreneur program at University. Peat Marwick sponsor our team and provide us with an Apple II computer to use for the next few semesters – no more computer lab for us! Woo hooo freedom and creativity for our project.

2. 1988 – 2007. California – Australia.  Due to career decisions switch between Apple and PC’s….. Always happier when I have an Apple computer….but employers dictate the technology. So lots of back and forth.

3. 2007. Sydney. iPhone 2. Need I say more …..except for the fact that I kept trying to ‘touch screen’ my work PC – and boy was that frustrating.

3. 2008. Sydney. I start my own consultancy and purchase the company’s first asset – a MacBook Pro. Bye bye corporate enforced PC’s I’ve re-embraced a Mac thanks to E….and I’m not turning back.

4. 2009. E and I form E&L Consultancy, upgrade the Apple Airport, purchase another MacBook and upgrade our iPhones. The functionality, design, tech support and customer service provided by Apple surpass any other technology experiences ever.

5.  2011. Having some dramas with my MacBook Pro….Apple replace it with a brand new one (after a few visits to the Mac hospital) I LOVE APPLE!

6.  2011. Visiting LA pick up a new MacBook Pro for my sweetie. He converts his entire music studio over to the Mac and can’t believe how amazing Ableton on his Mac is. He is so happy and blown away – creativity increases by 200%!

7.  5th/6th October 2011. We lose Steve Jobs today, but we have gained so much thanks to him – our world now has iPhones, iPads, Mac’s, Pixar and soooo much more.

THANK YOU STEVE JOBS – we honour your life, your products and your creativity for due to you we are more creative too!

I love Media – the industry, the concept, the execution, the fact that it’s often the touchpoint between brands and consumers, the trading of it, the strategy and art of it……it’s been a large part of my career and I’m proud to be a part of it.  However, as an industry it’s sorely in need of some change.

At the Mumbrella360 conference in Sydney this week I participated as a work-stream leader on the Mumbrella360 Manifesto for Change.  The desire for a Manifesto has come about because, as my colleague Chris Stephenson has stated, “Australia’s media planning and buying industry – like others around the world – is witnessing fundamental shifts in the media landscape…We need a shared manifesto. A manifesto for change. One that we all agree on. One that we can signal to everyone who works in our industry. One that we can signal to clients. One that frames the conversations between agencies and media owners. A manifesto that galvanises our industry, defends our margins and energises our people.”

The topics and issues we collectively addressed “live” this week in the Manifesto session are listed below.  What is exciting is we got somewhere!  Now we need your input – if it’s relevant to what you do.

Please check out our draft Manifesto and let us know what you think!

As many of you know my favourite saying is “Change is the only constant”.  Laura

Manifesto topics/issues list:

People – attracting, nurturing and retaining media talent

Remuneration – from transparency to media commissions, getting paid what we’re worth

Tech, Systems and Data – making the most of automation, trading desks and information, as well as debating who owns the data?

Agency and Media Owner relationships – is it time for a new contract? Expectations, behaviours and access in the 21st Century

Agency and Client relationships – education, expectations and getting paid for pitches

Planning in a post-broadcast world – moving the planning paradigm on for an on-demand world?

Social Media – the new gold rush or 21st Century Snake Oil, the future or a temporary distraction? And who should even plan it?

E&L have been working with start up boutique babylikestopony to develop branding, marketing & business strategy.

babylikestopony’s mission is to provide women with products to make them look and, most importantly, feel smokin’ hot. We call it lustful lifestyle, it’s indulgent, it’s defiantly sexy, it’s a little naughty and it’s undeniably empowering. Sourcing products from all over the world, many of which have not been available in Australia before babylikestopony is here to give Justin a hand bringing sexy back.

E&L developed a branding concept which walks the line between edgy and beautiful, taking inspiration from vintage couture fashion and overlaying a cheeky contemporary aesthetic. The brand personality extends through the tone of voice in social media which is already generating a great response in the pre launch teaser period. The social media strategy covers facebook, twitter, tumblr and will soon include YouTube and Vimeo. As well as the social media presence E&L developed a teaser web site to showcase the products and act as a hub for all the activity. Currently in final stages of production is the ecommerce shopping site which is due to launch in a matter of weeks.

Babylikestopony.com

Babylikestopony on facebook

Babylikestopony on twitter

Babylikestopony on tumblr

We’ve been working with the fantastic team at TagMan developing a suite of document templates which present a sophisticated and cohesive brand image.

TagMan offers a killer new single-tag solution to the problems of online campaign tracking. By acting as a single, universal tag and interface through which tracking tags and pixels can be deployed to an advertiser’s web site, online marketers can save time and money in the way they track campaigns and see how all online channels are working together.

Learn more about TagMan on their site and check out some of our work below:

I’m sitting in the waiting room at the Doctor’s office and realise that I’m not reading magazines anymore because I’m on my iPhone. Whilst on my iPhone I’m writing notes, answering emails-work related, Googling things I need to find, mapping directions to my next meeting, rechecking my inbox, reading tweets – work related again, BUT…. I’m not reading magazines, seeing the advertisements, or catching up on pop-culture whilst waiting.

I’m also not agitated or annoyed with the fact that I’ve been here waiting for over a half-hour though I was on-time for my appointment (now that I’ve typed that I’m a bit concerned about the time delay). Additionally, I’m writing this article, which wouldn’t have occurred otherwise in this time and space.

I do miss the advertisements (really) and the magazines but don’t want to stop what I’m doing.  Im busy and my iPhone is assisting me to get things accomplished and has in fact inspired me to write this article.

In today’s media consumption competition my iPhone wins.  But what about everyone else?

This is who else is here and what they are doing:

•            Man 65+ reading paperback he brought with him

•            Lady 50+ reading the Virgin Blue magazine from the selection available

•            Lady late 30s rummaging in her bags and now staring out window

•            Man 35ish filling in the obligatory forms

•            Lady late 20s reading Cosmo with a New Idea magazine in the ready position

Me and my iPhone aren’t the norm!  There isn’t another iPhone in site, nor another device for that matter.  People are reading magazines, filling out forms, sniffling and sneezing, but not online!

The waiting room isn’t filled with iPads (good idea though), it has my beloved magazine, there for one and all to peruse….where the adverts get to live on and on for many to view, skip, leave the page open to, or ignore.  But I must say the waiting is palatable for some more then others as the magazines are a bit old.  Oh, it’s my turn…..gotta go and thanks to my iPhone I didn’t feel like I was waiting!

LoyaltyDeck is a new offering in the loyalty management space, created by LoyaltyTech as a software as a service solution. Developed to compete with large, expensive & complex loyalty management tools, LoyaltyDeck provides all the benefits of the established options but at significantly lower cost and with increased usability.

The brand was developed to grow in to a suite of products using the ‘deck’ nomenclature. The icon is based on a stylised deck of objects and incorporates an arrow motif representing forward movement and connection with the intended audience. A complimentary colour palette for future iterations of the brand has also been developed so that the suite will inherit the icon, deep grey and typography of the master brand while differentiating each product through its name and colour coding.

E&L also worked with LoyaltyTech to roll the brand out to other key collateral such as the LoyaltyDeck website, brochures, posters and trade show presence.

Visit loyaltyDeck.com

Hello,

At the beginning of April, E&L Consultancy celebrated its first anniversary. During our first year we’ve completed a surprising variety of projects for clients big and small.

• We’ve created new brands and refreshed old ones
• We’ve strategically helped the traditional go digital
• We’ve brought the school of business into the twenty first century
• We’ve connected third world entrepreneurs with much needed funding
• We’ve helped launch revolutionary new products

Entering our second year we’d like to contribute to your success as we build on ours by continuing to deliver world class marketing & creative without the big agency overheads. We hope you’ll keep our services in mind should you or a colleague need digital strategy, marketing or creative services.

What exactly does that mean?

It means we can help businesses of all sizes effectively reach their customers and find greater success through:

• Engaging brand creation – positioning, logo development, brochures, sales presentations and more
• Social marketing strategy – identifying where you should participate, developing your tone of voice, creating your assets, managing the conversation
• Digital business and media strategy – redefining and/or reaching your audience cost effectively
• Digital assets – website design and usability, facebook pages, advertising campaigns etc.

Our size allows us to be nimble, our experience & partner relationships ensure we deliver great quality, and our passion for what we do means you’ll get a bespoke solution that’s in step with this ever changing digital world.

We look forward to discussing your upcoming requirements.

Call, email or tweet us for a chat.

Seems to me that with the imminent release of improved iPhone multitasking, I say improved because it’s always been there, just blocked from developers to protect battery life, it’s time for a live home screen.

One of the criticisms that’s often hurled at the iPhone interface is that it’s fairly poor at providing ‘at a glance’ information. Wake from sleep, for example, gives you time, date, and… that’s it. Unless you count the wallpaper of your pet/child/significant other as information. You need to unlock and dig in to individual apps for meaningful info.

But it seems like an easy fix would be to make all those little app icons work much harder for us by having them react to live info. Weather is an obvious one, it’s an optimistic little icon, suggesting it’s 22 degrees and sunny ALL THE TIME. Well, it’s not, so why doesn’t it tell me that? Facebook tells me the number of new events but no info to let me decide how important those events are, same with mail and messages and any number of social media apps.

What I’d love to see is a kind of mash up of the current iPhone home screen and OS X’s widget dashboard. A configurable area that gives you ‘at a glance’ info about what’s most important to you.

Mine could look something like this:

Easy, I’ve got my latest messages, weather, FB updates & upcoming appointments with just a glance at my phone. Oh, and the time and date too. Now that we’ve got our icons working harder, all that’s left to do is work out how we make them into delicious little cup cakes.

Happy Birthday to us today!

A year ago we officially started up our agency aptly choosing April Fools Day. Not because we thought it was a joke, nor because we are are joke playing hoaxers. Rather because it felt fun, light and memorable.

The little we knew about what The Fool stands for in mystical, symbolic and tarot definitions appealed to us for our new venture: beginning – starting something new, being spontaneous – feeling uninhibited, having faith – believing, embracing folly – pursuing a dream.

These definitions also felt appropriate for our industry and the work we do for our clients. The areas we specialise in are evolving constantly. To be successful we believe that being able to swiftly change direction, take leaps of faith, believe in our ideas, have a bit of fun and to always be open to something new is essential. We also, of course, believe it is imperative to be business minded, relevant, appropriate, authentic, effective and results focused.

Having completed our first year we can proudly say we have ticked every box. We have had the good fortune of working locally and internationally on 32 projects for 14 clients. Today, as we enter our 2nd year, we look forward to doubling our luck, minimising our challenges, staying on top of our game and having lots of wonderful clients, partners, and collaborators to keep us on our toes as we all, like The Fool, leap into the unknown.

The Fool

In medieval courts, the court jester or Fool was someone who was not expected to follow the same rules as others. He could observe and then poke fun. This makes the Fool unpredictable and full of surprises. He reminds us of the unlimited potential and spontaneity inherent in every moment. There is a sense with this card that anything goes nothing is certain or regular. The Fool adds the new and unfamiliar to a situation.

The Fool also represents the complete faith that life is good and worthy of trust. Some might call the Fool too innocent, but his innocence sustains him and brings him joy. In readings, the Fool can signal a new beginning or change of direction – one that will guide you onto a path of adventure, wonder and personal growth. He also reminds you to keep your faith and trust your natural responses. If you are facing a decision or moment of doubt, the Fool tells you to believe in yourself and follow your heart no matter how crazy or foolish your impulses may seem.

It seemed fitting to be sending the site for our favourite French bistro, Le Pelican, live over dinner with friends last Sunday night with a glass of red in the other hand. We chose Sunday night for the update as it’s the lowest traffic period for the current site and there was likely to be disruption during the switch, we weren’t expecting the dinner party to coincide, but it all worked out thanks to the wonders of understanding hosts, a MacBook and wireless internet.

The site builds on the branding we previously developed and is built on, WordPress, our small business platform of choice, to make updating a breeze.

Jeff and Ally intend to keep us entertained with recipes, special events and news, so if you’re a fine food fan jump on the site to sign up for the newsletter, join their Facebook fan page or follow Le Pelican on Twitter.

With the branding complete and implemented across stationery, signage and now online we’re sad to say our work is almost done, just some search engine optimization over the coming weeks and some social media advice to keep us coming back. Fortunately we don’t need an excuse to come back and enjoy the fine food and wine at the bistro. I can almost taste Jeff’s house smoked salmon now.

Visit the new site