With the new series of Mad Men starting this week, we've been making our own little homage to the golden days of advertising.

When we were brainstorming with our client Notting Hill Housing to launch a new development in the former Freemans catalogue printworks site, our minds were cast back to stylish yet cheesy catalogue shoots from the 50's and 60's and all things vintage. So with our lovely photographer and some inspired prop buying we ended up with these beauties, which have caused quite a stir in both the property press and Octopus towers.

You can just see Don Draper smoking, scheming and drinking Scotch after a long day at Sterling Cooper.  Martini anyone?

Jon

Since Summer decided to take its ball and go home, I've found myself spending the evenings catching up on instructional television (not really). Having devoted most of my time to avoiding adverts by watching DVD boxsets, it was almost refreshing to catch a few of them the other night - until I saw one for a product named Retardex.

I say 'product' because I'd like to invite you to have a guess at just what kind of merchandise would earn that sort of moniker. Actually, no, let's not waste time on guessing games; surely we can agree that it almost doesn't matter what the product was (mouthwash in case you're interested). Retardex is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a flattering name for anything. Perhaps every single Marketing and PR person at that organisation was off sick the day they made that decision.

All of which got me thinking about brand names in general - from the slightly-pretentious-but-really-quite-clever (Nike, named for the Greek goddess of victory) to the weird-but-it-works (Amazon, should bring to mind swamps and snakes but somehow harks of adventure and discovery instead) and even the far-too-graphic (Anusol, treats haemorrhoids, enough said). More than that, it made me wonder at what stage of the naming process do organisations decide to involve their comms teams?

While I always hesitate (albeit momentarily) to make sweeping generalisations, the answer to that seems to be 'right at the end'. Brainstorms are held, focus groups are brought in, research is done, marketing strategies are worked out but somehow the people who have to communicate what the product stands for often seem to have little or no input into one of the first things about it that anyone will see or hear. Which seems bizarre given the role we play in shaping how a product or service is perceived by its audience.

That isn't to say that every brand name chosen without consulting a PR person first is uniformly rubbish - indeed, I have no reliable statistics to back up any such claim - or that getting the PR team involved first guarantees good choices(no numbers on that either, sorry).  But as PR gets increasingly involved with different parts of the business and reports to stakeholders across client organisations, I imagine (and hope) we'll certainly get asked more often from now on. Makers of Retardex, our number's in the book if you need it.

Lakshmi

A few weeks ago my husband told me with disbelief that he had received an email from the office manager at the place where he works, asking him what he wanted for his Christmas dinner this year at the annual knees up.

'It's ridiculous, I don't know what I want, it's 5 months away!' he said. But when I asked him what did he think he'd want, he said without pausing for thought; 'Well it'll be the prawn cocktail, turkey dinner and the Christmas pud'.  And you know without checking the menu they will all be there.

So my point is this, generally we do know what we want, we just need to ask ourselves a simple question.

So if you have a particular niggle, problem, stumbling block, or just something you want to change, ask yourself; 'What do I want instead?'

This question, can help you change the 'neg' into a positive and desirable statement. (I want to lose a stone = I want to be fit and healthy) Once you see it as something more attractive, you are more likely to start making changes to achieve it. The next step is to write a list of all the actions you could take (eat my 5 a day; drink 8 glasses of water, limit my daily tea intake to 2 and so on). Choose your preferred actions and go for it! In fact, if the actions are appealing, you may not be able to stop yourself. All of a sudden you could be moving towards something really exciting.

Talking of which, it's only 4 months away now...

Lisa

At Octopus, we start our day with the papers. We have done so since the day we launched ourselves into the world at Octopus Towers nine years ago.

It's so ingrained that it's almost a religion (not a proper one obviously, more like Jedi-ism or Scientology). Although we have modernised over the years, adding RSS to our inky fingered news search in the morning, the principles are still very much the same.

With our collective noses buried daily in the papers we know immediately when we have arrived at Silly Season each year.  The annual parade of nonsense stories (and, let's be honest, a good helping of PR guff) to fill the otherwise empty news pages.

This year, Twitter has made it all the worse, with farcical stories shouted and bounced off the walls of the online echo-chamber.

But if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.  Herewith, my most stick-in-the-mind Silly Season contributions so far. An interesting sign of the times that so many are about fat issues?

5) Most Pet Dogs Are Too Fat, Study Finds

4) One sausage is apparently much better than three

3) Call us fat, not obese (and later we are 'sleeping' not dead)

2) Ashford anglers mourn death of giant carp

1) Cheltenham chicken lays giant egg, but it's not as big as others

If you've seen any better (or should that be worse?) examples of Silly Season in action please do leave us a comment and let us know!

Emily

Ok, so I know that everything is moving online, and using our BlackBerry/iPhone/iPad/laptop is what keeps us going everyday as we constantly crave that unlimited, quick, delicious information. But I have to draw a line somewhere, and that line is with e-books.

Call me old fashioned, but I love books. I love the look of books, the feel of them, the smell of new pages, I even love sticking in my little silver bookmark to show people how far I've got in the book (feeling particularly satisfied when it's a really big book). It's also the thrill of adding a new "trophy" to my bookshelf. To me, the thought of replacing books with e-books is almost sacrilegious.

I feel that when you take the time out to read a good book, the last thing you want to do is look at yet another handheld device when settling down to read your romantic novel. It just doesn't make sense to me. Using the Kindle as an example, I try and think of what kind of people would buy one, and the first two types that come to mind are the typical business man/woman and the 'cash rich, time poor' who get it out to read on a plane or train journey to pass time. As a passionate book lover, I'm struggling to see how it could replace the original print version.

When I come across stories about e-books either in the paper or online, I take the time to read them, as well as the comments of that story to try and grasp what people think about them. To my surprise, they are predominantly positive - people seem to love their Kindle. People talk about the convenience, the space saving, the unlimited access to books, the fact there you no longer have to queue in book stores or have to order them in when what you want is out of stock. Ok, maybe there is a point there, but when they mention convenience, here's what I think of: I love reading a good book whilst lying on the beach (If I was using a Kindle, talk about getting sand in unwanted places!) or whilst soaking in the bath (hmm...are they water proof?). That doesn't sound too convenient to me.  Clearly, it's only the old fashioned book girl that still won't let go of her paperbacks for the reasons I've mentioned above.

We still need a lot of convincing. I will never say never, and maybe one day we will be persuaded to trade but, for now, I will keep on adding countless books to my precious collection.

Jen

On a recent visit to the Channel Islands my attention was grabbed by a piece of graffiti, which you'll see for yourself below.

My eye was first caught by its visual simplicity - a few words chalked on a plain background. No gaudy colours and idents here.

And unlike the tag-obsessed graffiti that now adorns much of the urban landscape, this example harked back to something you don't see so much of any more - graffiti as a way of conveying a message.

It could be a political message.  It could be a societal message.

And I say could be, because frankly days after clapping my eyes on it I'm still not at all sure what's going on with this one.

What's it doing right? Well, it's informative. Assuming it's accurate information - which for the purposes of this exercise I'm going to. And clearly plenty of thought went into putting it somewhere where it would be read.

But what's it doing wrong? Well, I can't divine the author's intent; am I to infer there are too many people working in finance, or not enough? Does the author think the island is badly served by the finance sector? Or are they celebrating?

So it is (here comes the subtle segue into something to do with PR) with poorly written corporate communications, marketing, advertising and even PR material. You may have included lots of pertinent facts, you may have identified an issue that needs addressing, and gone to great lengths to ensure people read it. But have you told the reader what you think and have you helped them form an opinion - hopefully one that's the same as or very close to your own?

If you haven't, you're probably not best-placed to make the kind of judgement call required to improve on what you've written.

So, phone a friend or, if you haven't got any, phone a fiend. Or go 50/50 (whatever that might mean in this context). But run it by someone else and ask them to tell you what they've learned.

On that note, I shall sign off and ask someone to read through what I've just written.

Sean

Hands up if you have Google set as your home page? Go on, don't be shy. You're not alone anyway, that's for sure. According to US firm Net Applications' NetMarketShare Internet Market Share Data, Google accounts for almost 85 per cent of all search engine traffic globally.

It's the undeniable market leader when it comes to search, and is where the majority of consumers internet journeys start. But have you ever wondered how exactly Google works?

For a long time magic beans or at least some kind of medieval conjuring remained a popular theory, but there is actually a great deal of science behind retrieving those results for a distributing volume of 'Is Lady Gaga a man?' searches.

Well, as luck would have it, long-time Guardian tech journo and pipe smoker Jack Schofield was kind enough to share a brilliant infographic of just how exactly your average Google search really works on his Twitter feed recently. It's an accomplished overview for those of you looking to explain in crystal clear detail just how Google pulls back the most relevant data from some 300 million searches a day, all in under a second.

So, wonder no more, and check-out this handy overview below:

Infographic by PPC Blog.

Dave

We've all been there - trying to find the cheapest car insurance deal or the savings account with the highest interest rate.  So no doubt you've heard of Confused.com.

You can imagine our delight when we recently had the privilege of hosting Kelly Davies, Head of PR at Confused.com, as part of our series of Lunch-time Learning sessions!  Kelly, living and loving every second of her role, was able to pass on some insightful wisdom and advice.  We got a fascinating view into how she has taken Confused.com's PR from fairly non-existent, to a well-respected press office that generates national coverage, daily, through creative campaigns and excellent execution.

A great example she shared was regarding the bleak month of January - the busiest time for car insurance renewals and the toughest competitively for price comparison sites.  Rival brands spend BIG on high-profile campaigns, so how could Kelly do something different that sparked interest in their brand, without costing the earth?

Shall we bubble wrap a street?! Enter 'Accident Avenue'.

The stunt involved bubble wrapping (literally) a Worcester street that, according to Confused.com's data, has one of the highest number of car insurance claims in the UK...

The stunt was seeded online with a targeted teaser campaign, and the launch itself was initially online with exclusive shots posted on Twitter, Flickr and Facebook.

The online buzz helped fuel the offline sell-in, with awareness already on the rise.  A short video 'wrap' of the day was posted on YouTube, while filmed footage of residents' reactions and customers' comments really brought it all to life.

And this is what made it a success - valuable, interesting and varied content.

'Accident Avenue' is a great example of blending new with old - using good old pictures alongside social media to create the buzz, online engagement and offline pitching to boost the launch, and filming of real people in a real street to make it more personal.

The launch-day results were staggering - multiple national and broadcast hits, 100s of online clippings, 1000s of click-throughs to the pictures, 100s of tweets, a huge increase of @confused_com followers...and, the icing on the cake, a significant uplift in traffic to the site on the day of the launch.

From tactical irrelevance to bottom-line influencer - amazing what a LOT of bubble-wrap can do!

Dan

We like to think of ourselves as a fairly modest bunch at Octopus. Well, most of the time. But every now and then we pull something out of the bag that just deserves a good old pat on the back; this week happens to be one of those weeks. We're very proud (and not a bit smug) to say our very own Customer Kings campaign for Cisco has been shortlisted for not one, but two awards this week. These are on top of the four nominations and the PR Week award that the inaugural Customer Kings campaign scooped last year.

When we started to think about award entries for Customer Kings 2010, we approached it with mild trepidation - could we really pull off something better than last year? Had we set the bar too high? Well its seems that we just might.

Today we found out that not only had Customer Kings 2010 been shortlisted for this year's PR Week Award for Best Technology Campaign but we're also in the running for Best B2B PR Campaign at the B2B Marketing Awards. So far so good!

Fingers crossed!

Sarah

I love it when a plan comes together.

And that's exactly what happened when our creative team and a few of our social media gurus got together recently to figure out a way to step e-marketing up a notch or two.

The result was something we're calling the Three 'S' Methodology.

The three Ss (sense, speak, and share) combine social media insight and outreach with first-class creative to deliver highly targeted and relevant online communications.

We've put together a very short slide show that explains how it all works. If you're interested to see it, send a request to julian@octopuscomms.net

Julian