11
Posted: Fri 9 August, 2013 Filed under: 2012/13, 2013/14, Change, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »Somehow, D4D™ has now made it to its eleventh birthday. I never expected it to do so, but I can’t deny, I’m actually fairly proud that it has.
Events over the last eighteen months have meant that the writing here has slowed down, and lost its frequency (and in some ways I feel it’s also lost its way a bit) but I’m going to see how we do over the next year, and wait ’til this time next year to see what happens. I might close it down, I might just keep it with irregular updates. Right now, I just don’t know.
The last couple of years have been – interesting, I think it’s fair to say. D4D’s been through that time with me (well, obviously) and will continue to do so, I think. There’s still a long way on this old journey, and I think/hope the next year (or two) is going to be instrumental in whatever comes next.
Advertising Morphosis – Friendly Money
Posted: Thu 27 June, 2013 Filed under: Advertising, Change, Creativity Leave a comment »Yesterday I wrote a bit about the changes in advertising for insurance comparison websites. The other main group that seem to be changing adverts at the moment are the Payday Lending industry.
Having worked in that industry, I’m probably a wee bit more attuned to those adverts than others. Part and parcel of being a geeky swine, I suppose.
Anyway, the two main companies whose advertising I’ve noticed changing are Amigo Loans and QuickQuid / Pounds to Pocket. Both have ended up with new agencies, I’m sure – the new advertising is worlds apart from the previous stuff. I’m not going to add links to their videos, I’m just interested in the way their portrayal has changed.
Amigo have gone from the Mexico-based advertising linked to their name to a newer one that appears to be more like Morph In Debt.
The other main one is QuickQuid / Pounds to Pocket – they’re the same company, so it’s really no surprise that they’ve gone down the same route with advertising, and the same agency. Interestingly they’ve gone away from the “realistic scenario” type of advert and are now using a theme of aliens and scientists. Why, I don’t know – I’m not an advertising wonk, so the whole concept is a bit beyond me.
All the same, it’s interesting to see how these things are changing, as these once ‘on the edge’ industries appear to be becoming more mainstream, more accepted, and (I assume) making use of larger agencies, with bigger budgets.
Advertising Morphosis – Comparing Confusion
Posted: Wed 26 June, 2013 Filed under: Advertising, Change, Creativity, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last few months, it’s been interesting to see the adverts on TV that have changed radically – and as it happens, there are two main industries who appear to have changed their advertising massively in that time. The first is insurance comparison websites, the second is payday lenders.
In both areas, I suspect the reasons for change are the same – of all the adverts on TV, those two sectors had the adverts that were the most annoying. Insurance Comparison sites advertising was pretty much universally loathed – I know that their ‘recognise the brand’ methods worked, but backfired in that I remembered the brands so I could be sure to never ever give them any money.
GoCompare was the biggest culprit on this, with their poxy opera-‘singer’ character.
He’s still around, but they’re fading the character out. (And not a moment too soon, in my opinion)
They’re interesting, because in a lot of ways they now seem to be acknowledging that the character is/was ridiculously fucking annoying, and they’re now working on keeping the character while hopefully reducing the annoyance factor significantly.
The next biggest one was Confused.com, who’ve got rid of their super-annoying animated and musical adverts…
And replaced it with a weird Wall-E-esque robot instead…
It’s all definitely an improvement, and on the rareish occasions I watch adverts (more often caused by forgetting I’m watching something recorded, and still watching the ads) I no longer feel the need to poke my eyes out and block my ears.
Coming close
Posted: Sat 22 June, 2013 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Change, Domestic, Finances Leave a comment »This month is probably the tightest I’ve had (now there’s a search phrase that’ll come up trumps) in the last year, when it comes to finances. The fact that it’s still manageable is – in my opinion – worthy of some note.
It’s been tight primarily due to the need to replace two techie items – as written about previously, both Laptop and Kindle have needed replacing – but I knew I could get through it. That on its own is a revelation, compared to how things were this time last year.
And sure, I could have waited to replace the Kindle – although I’m also aware of other stuff coming up next month, so such is life – but it was the decision I made, and as always I knew the consequences and what the month would be like.
I’m still ok – just – and I know there’s an extra dollop of money hitting my account on Tuesday, so it’s all pretty safe really, but it’s still made things interesting.
The development and progress from this time last year is interesting though. I’ve been able to do this without too much stress or juggling, and that shows me how things can – and will – be in future. I can do this, so long as I’m not stupid. (Well, not too stupid) The light at the end of the tunnel finally appears to be a light, rather than another train coming the other way.
Equipment Failure
Posted: Sun 2 June, 2013 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Change, Domestic, Finances, Geeky, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, iPhone, Shopping, Technology, Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »Don’t worry, this isn’t another post about the joys and pitfalls of getting older…
No, instead it’s about technology, and why the bastard stuff all ends up failing at the same time.
First of all, this post is being written on a new laptop – which I really could’ve done without having to get, but needs must when the devil drives (and/or you’re a web techie and wannabe-writer). The old Dell laptop – which it turns out I bought back in September 2009, so I shouldn’t whine so much, I guess – had been getting flakier over the last six months, but I’ve been eking out the life of it since then, suffering the occasional (and then more regular) hard-drive crash, and the ropy keyboard with some keys that only worked intermittently.
This week though it’s been crashing every time it was in use, and was obviously getting to the point where I needed to a) pull all the relevant data off it like NOW, and b) replace it with something else. And with a trip up to Manchester this week where I’m *really* going to need a reliable laptop, this was the weekend for it.
So I’ve bitten the bullet somewhat, and the new one is a (dirt-cheap) Asus thing, running the already-much-disliked Windows 8. To be fair to Windows 8, the old laptop was on the much-loathed Vista, which I never really found all that annoying. Eight annoys me more so far, but I’ll get used to it.
The other two equipment failures are both iPhone related, allbeit power-related rather than device-related. (Although I did think one of them might’ve been the phone being fucked, which was a real worry) First the Mophie battery case has failed. Again. (More accurately, the cable/charger for it, which will no longer charge) I love the Mophie cases, but they do seem to be somewhat crap, and only last about a year. And then the normal iPhone charge/sync cable also went kerfut and wouldn’t charge the phone. So I’ve had to get a new cable for that as well – considerably less expensive than the laptop purchase, but still, why all at the same time?
Oh yeah, and the fridge in the house also played up this week, with one day where it didn’t appear to be working all that well. Fortunately it’s now back up and running.
But why the hell would four things, two fairly major, all decide to kiff out within the same week? Weird things, I tell thee, weird things.