Ten things ....

As the Sunday papers clamour to provide us with their predictions for the year ahead, I had a think about a few things the past 12 months have taught us / me.

Here are ten to start with:

1/ 0.02mm is interesting in the right hands. Especially if those hands are the D&AD award winning team behind Sagami’s ‘Love Distance’ campaign http://awards.dandad.org/2009/categories/onln/online-advertising/25046/love-distance

2/ Markets can behave irrationally. How else can we explain UK bookmakers making England second favourites for the World Cup? (Yes I know, it’s the punters not the market that are behaving irrationally).

3/ We’ve gone real time. We’re texting, twittering, facebooking like …. It’s all about ‘Now’. Admittedly Vodafone cottoned onto that a while ago but Samsung tapped into that nicely with ‘impatience is a virtue http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8tWLEsLpxs

4/ Hash can be bad for your health - hash tags that is - as Habitat found out earlier in the year when trying to use coverage of the Iranian election to sell sofas. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/5621970/Habitat-apologises-for-Twitter-hashtag-spam.html

5/ The success of a campaign can be judged on recall of a TV execution? That was the argument some experts made to explain why an ad by ‘Confused.com’ had performed better than one by ‘Compare the Market’. Missing the point I think when you see that Mr. Aleksandr Orlov now has well over 600K facebook fans.

6/ That being said, TV advertising is far from dead. Comcast proved that without question – simply genius http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYAOLKSAaBM

7/ There is more than one way to skin a cat. Or launch a new car. As VW showed with the Golf GTI in the US http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/golf-gti-iphone-usa-2009-10-29

8/ You really are only as good as your last burger. See Fallon + Sony + Balls.

9/ Baku is interesting the first time you visit. On each subsequent trip it is blustery, dusty and a long way from home. Bakcell were doing well when we left them though.

And finally, one other thing that I now know all too well.

10/ Nappies are easy. Not pleasant, but easy. Thanks for every one Avie x.