I think, therefore IP

I've just read 'Magic and Logic', the report prepared by the IPA, ISBA and the Chartered Institute of Procuring & Supply - and I love the fact it dares to think big. Understanding how agencies create value is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to achieving a mutually rewarding client agency relationship. They note that the way forward is not the tired fee-based arrangement of yore, but a more radical re-think on IP. Some agencies have succeeded in negotiating the IP rights in their work, and licence ideas to clients for a fee on the basis of a tariff for the use of the idea based on geographic usage and media usage and time. Agencies are beginning to own rights to music, characters, brand names, properties, brand entertainment, content, games and brand creation. In other words, owning more of the output. What creative agencies do every day is surrender original thought - names for new products and promotional themes, etc - as part of a fee. Traditionally, the idea has given them the permission to charge a fee, produce the work or take part the media commission. But as the fee becomes the sole form of remuneration (and even that's getting squeezed), where does the value get recognised? As one agency said 'we know our IP has value. Nobody makes us give our IP away - it's our choice. We've decided to sell it. We charge a different amount depending on whether we keep the IP or not; we ask clients to decide if they want to pay less and licence the idea from us, or pay more and keep the IP rights'. And it's far easier to wrap up all the diversion, distraction and contemplation needed to arrive at an original thought within the IP rights. Jeremy Bullmore has described the current agency business model as 'insane'. 'Agencies', he writes, 'are not only members of a cottage industry, but they also work on a sale-or-return basis. Everything they make has to be different so there are no economies of scale. If clients don't like the first product they're offered, their agencies have to make another one for free. And maybe another. They can spend three months producing nothing of value - or can make a client rich on the back of an idea that took less than a minute to flower. Accepted definitions of efficiency are at best irrelevant and at worst destructive.' And so say all of us. So isn't it time to reflect true creative value based on the rather more familiar parameters of intellectual property?

Christian Aid Poverty Over - been there, done that, got the T-shirt

I really love the beautiful simplicity of the new Christian Aid campaign theme to eliminate global poverty - "Poverty over", with the word 'over' embedded in the word 'Poverty'. So much so that I actually had a hand in creating it seven years ago at DP&A - a fully integrated cause-led campaign for our charity client global NGO World Vision. 'Poverty over' with the word 'over' embedded in the word 'Poverty'. Outdoor, TV, DM - even the T-shirt, which still sits on my desk as a source of pride and a memento of what could have been if 'Make Poverty history' hadn't launched soon afterwards and consigned our campaign to history. So I'm grateful to Christian Aid for giving it another outing. And I hope it will succeed. To which end, and as a footnote, they may want to contact World Vision for a few campaign learnings.

The 99p culture. Rumours of its death are greatly exaggerated.

So The Grocer believes the 99p culture is dead - killed off by pound shops and more sophisticated shoppers who can spot a 99p deal coming a mile off - and automatically round off in their heads. The penny is of no interest to them whatsoever, say the analysts - a cynical ruse to conceal the real rounded price whose virtue is its honesty.

The round pound is here to stay, they say - and products now sport '£1' or '£2' in big, bright, colourful packaging as a badge of honour. But I'd say its death is greatly exaggerated. Try telling MacDonald's that a penny short of the pound is a moribund sales technique. Or, for that matter, British Airways, who practice the technique on a more elevated scale for a higher net worth customer.

British Airways sale prices all end with an naughty nine, as if £299 to Dubai is a vastly better deal than the £300 plus it once was. In fact, one glance at today's offers and you'll clock Eurostar's £59 return to Paris and Harry Potter DVD's at £4.99 in Sainsbury's.

We're all still rather fond of our end nines. Could it be that, with the new sobriety and the age of the frugal shopper, 99p takes on an added symbolism, meaning and nostalgia that the round pound simply can't achieve? The '99 with a flake in it' type of nostalgia that we all crave after this economic hammering we've all taken? By the way, a chicken breast sub is a very tasty £2.99 at Subway. Reassuring to know, isn't it.