The Secret Millionaire was a difficult watch for me. The emotional levels as you witness the hardships of individuals were there, but it was not that that tore me up.

I was born in Redcar. Just half a mile from the furnaces that formed the backdrop of the programme but they were never really my world. They were there. Always. My Dad worked at ICI, another succession of towers, smoke and fire that formed the trunk road that stretched for miles between sea and skyline. Dorman Long and its rectangular monolith overlooked the secondary school I attended. And the nights belonged to the red sky and black clouds that tore from the towers wherever you were in the area, from the ships bringing oil across the North Sea to the top of Eston Nab – turn around and you can so quickly blank it as your eyes search out the Moors and the still and the green beyond.

This was not my world although I worked myself in ICI for a summer cleaning. I remember straight roads, its own city, its own smells and its own sounds. I remember the laughs of the people who worked there, whose fathers worked there, and there fathers before them. But this was not my world.

My world was always out there. I always knew I would never stay there. I loved being there but I knew I had to go. Wanted to go.

So to watch The Secret Millionaire was torture as I felt like I was fighting my own stereotypes, my own truths, my own attitude.

I know people who live on benefits. People who live for benefits. People who know the system and how to play it. People who have never worked, and don’t intend to. Who find an excuse in the politicians, in the system, in people from outside, yet never in themselves. These are the people I thought of as the majority. These are the minority and I now know I was wrong.

I don’t want to say I have been fortunate. I don’t want to say I have worked hard to live a comfortable life and to have travelled many places in the world. What I have done, and what tortured me about the programme, was the willingness to stay. I have only been able to do the things I have done as I allowed the world in. That I saw that there was more, and I have just let it take me.

But then I go home. And home is what the north east still is to me. I drive up the A1 and I see the cooling towers near Doncaster and I know I have broken the back of the journey. And then she appears. Roseberry Topping. A beautiful maiden lying and awaiting my return. Her crooked breast jutting skywards to say, in a slightly slinky way, welcome home.

I look right only. On the right are all the secrets that The Secret Millionaire never uncovered. The secrets that the media won’t show. On the right is the green, is the air, the small villages, the winding roads, the streams, the heather and the cow grates. On the right is the quiet, the escape, the moments that prepare you for looking left as that is where the skyline sucks you back in as you topple over Ormesby Bank and the pit of my stomach turns. It does not frighten me but now, as a father, who was fortunate to have a father who didn’t push but whose manner just said, go, do something, I long for my son to travel even further.

Whether I look left or right, people stay the same. I went to a school reunion three weeks ago. Twenty three years since I had seen all of the people. An evening where I spent more time speaking to them than I did in 5, 10, 15 years of school. There was no pretence. There was no bragging. There was no fear. There were people, adults, strong, intelligent, fun loving people that made me realise, as did The Secret Millionaire, that a region is not created by the landscape, but by the hearts of the people within it.

That is my north. That is my south. That is my west. That is my east. That is what I have at my centre.

Now if this was the USA you know there will be whole industries popping up for other sports fans to claim money for poor performances they have had to endure.

Some of the claims I think that would appear include:

Eye Torture, for just poor play on the pitch.

Repetitive Stress Injuries – as a Boro fan i know this one as the pain never seems to go away, no matter what we do.

TWOCing – touching without due care. Henry watch out!

Any more suggestions?

I visited the prison,  S-21, also known as Tuol Sleng, in 2003 and it was a harrowing experience. Pictures of many of the victims are displayed in rooms where they were once tortured. A documentation of how evil humans can be.

The problem is that many people were forced to become the guards and made to torture the inmates. Many were just children!

It is very easy to sit here in our world and say you would not do it, but with a knife to your neck, or your parents, maybe you would succumb and think it better to torture others and not yourself or your own family.

Does that make you innocent? I doubt the court will see it that way as you have to set a precedent to what is right and wrong so future generations dont make the same mistake – they will!

Would i treat him as an innocent? Of course not. I would hope i would prefer to take my own life than the life of others but who am i kidding?

A book is broken down in to chapters as we just dont have the time to read it all in one go – the idea is to also savour, nourish and digest the information for a much more enriching experience.

A movie is a 2 hour narrative and spectacle, written and designed to be consumed in one exciting batch.

O but not anymore.  I sit on the tube and watch people viewing movies in bite size chunks. So so wrong.

So i have this bloke who sits opposite me at work and his view is that technology allows you to do such nonsense. Ok technology may have changed but that movie has not been created for that technology or how you use it. You have to draw the line between tech, modernity and physicality, and passion, spirit and creativity – for gods sake please dont forget the toil people have gone through to create such a masterpiece (or slab of rubbish!)

So this bloke and I went to the cinema last night. 2012 (dont bother). We got 30 minutes in, about the length of our normal nightly tube journey home, and I just wanted to stop the movie then. To say, ah well will come back to this tomorrow. How do you think he would have re–acted?

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Interestingly, saw this iphone app magazine from an agency which is pretty good as they have re-created a media form to a new medium.

Done something similar myself when we, I mean my agency Cowan Group,  created digital online magazine Decibel for Ricall.

Check out the video on the BBC website and witness the cable as it lands in Kenya, from under the sea, and attached to India.

Well they say it is the internet but it looks more like a collection of those sticks you used to get in dentists for rubbing your teeth.

So is the internet in our mouth?

Now I am sure there are adults out there whose youth was all about killing zombies or watching plumbers wrestle gorillas – and still do today – but, for most adults, gaming seems to have become about a test of our senility and to prove that Alzheimers is not kicking in yet.

Look at the Wii for example. It has been marketed for women – thank Germaine Gwiier for that one – and is all about people interacting or showing off their mental skills. It says ‘look at me i am not getting old, i am down with the kids’.

The Nintendo DS has brain games. I see adults on the tube trying to show that they can still do basic arithmetic and put a square peg in a square hold – when they have spent their days with clients trying to get it in to a round one.

My current fave is Ninja Glove on Miniclip.com. It is infuriating and basic but makes you think quick and show off that your brain does have cells remaining. However it also requires some speed with a mouse.

So my brain may be working but my body is no longer adept at clicking fast enough. It’s like old people getting run over! Think about it!

An old person stands at side of road and sees no cars coming. So they wait. They are saying to themselves they can go but the body has not reacted yet. Eventually the body catches up and they set off across the road. To them it has been a millionth of a second but to the world it has been about 2 minutes, so they step in to road and run in to an articulated lorry. Harsh but true.

So what am i saying? Hey who said this blog has to make sense. Hope to take something from it.

Now i am not one to shove politics down people’s throats (although i am all for a Free Tibet and if we said religion i would be over you like a rash) but what i think this campaign shows is a real throw back to what social media was created for. Passion!

Forums, blogs and groups were created by people, most angry or hoping to take the piss out of others, but which have been overthrown by babychino 30 somethings who think it is just so dinner table cool – which is why the media industry has latched on to it. To market to those with money. Again, that’s great, but let’s not forget the passion!

People are not fooled by that most over-used of words, viral. They know when they are being marketed too. But what a lot of advertisers do is lose the soul that is at the heart of social media.

Allow people to interact. If they hate what you are doing, stop being glass jawed and take it.

Don’t try and fool people. If you are purely selling then use social media wisely or it will damage your brand.

People use social media to get away from the sale, they want to communicate with each other. They want to communicate with people they like, for a reason they want, and in a way that suits them. Do not stifle this freedom.

Sounds easy doesn’t it. Of course it does which is why you can see that all the ‘above the line’ agencies, who for years have sat on their high horses looking down as us ‘below the line’ now realise that their arses are on the line and they need to do digital. Well if they can do it, we are far more creative, so can we. No comment.

Their is no real trick. It’s just understanding the media. Understanding how people use it. And then….what next? Ah, always the missing link in any campaign!

The issue i have is much more social. Why does it seem the only way we believe we can exist as society is to make stuff and sell it? If you actually sat down, properly, and thought how much if the stuff you have do you really need? Is this all we have as a means to move forward as a race? Judging by the strife the World is in at the moment, is there not a better solution?

In a way, the high street seems to have taken the same stand point. We have to get people spending, regardless of how they do it and what we offer them. Case in point is the plethora of vouchers floating around at the moment. 2 for 1 knee jerk reactions to a business issue abound wherever i look – including my own home where my wife has already downloaded a rainforest of March offers!!

But what then? I walk in to your restaurant, eat my food, spend my money and leave. Do you know me? Am i coming back? Did you create any form of dialogue between me and your brand? I am guessing not! If you did that a year ago you would not have to give me these vouchers now as you would be my best mate and i would come and see you regardless – even if your illness was infectious!!

The parallel between the third world and the retail/brand world is that the buying mentality will only exist if a relationship is planted and then is consistently massaged. You always buy from people who know who you are, welcome you by name, let you know when they have offers on that are relevant, and just treat you like a human being – and not just a pocket with cash!

My tip: Talk! Converse! Interact! Don’t treat customers like a 5 pound note.

We are now in a different age. One of search. One where people have to know who you are, but they now also need to find you.

In the current economic meltdown, search is booming. For many it is the most cost effective way to get the message to the people and sell them your wares.

This is all well and good – for now! But you can already said bad practice set in.

Ok so you have spent thousands every month to get people to your site, but are you capturing data (no, i just need them to buy something), have you enhanced the brand experience online (no, i just need them to buy something), have you worked out that if you do get them to communicate with your site directly, you don’t have to pay so much for PPC (sorry, can’t talk now as need someone to buy something!)

What people tend to do is just spend more on more on Mr Google, and hope that the traffic comes in (and hopefully then doesn’t merrily bounce away). But without a plan for what you do with your customers when they get to the site, you just end up spending more and more, and having to compete with other people in the same market place. It’s a battle for eyeballs when, in fact, you need the rest of the person too.

And to be honest, you can’t keep spending as there is no money out there. No more venture capitalists thrusting bucket loads of cash at you. No, you have to find other solutions to building your business and getting customers to come back again and again.

My tip: Imagine it is the 1950s and you wanted to get your customer excited about the product. So you got to know them. You knew them by name. You talked to them when it was good for them. You gave them a product that wow-ed them. You loved them for loving you.

It’s gone bananas with websites popping up that will lead you to the best restaurant, hotel and travel deals money has to buy.

But where does this lead us? Well not us! I mean where does this lead the companies who are constantly churning these offers, when the good times come again?

Will your brand always be associated with a deal and therefore lose the love you wanted to build with your customer? Will the customer only come because you have a deal and not because you do a mean tomato sauce?

I think there are two schools of thought.

One is the ‘who cares about later as if we dont discount now there will be no later’.

Second is the ‘i believe there are people out there who enjoy our brand as it is, and a discount for a competitive brand will make no difference to them.’

Now i can see both sides of the heavily discounted fence and it raises an interesting conundrum. How much value do customers place in brand?

We may be an advocate for Pizza Hut, but if Pizza Express offer 2 for 1, would we turn our backs for a cheaper alternative or will our allegiance, hand to heart, to our favourite brand, hold us steady?

I think those who will come out of this unscathed are those who have engaged with their customer.

The brands that have previously built close relationships, on a one to one basis, with their buyers.

Those who will come unstuck are the ones that have been swept along on the promise of easy money from the punter, without truly having a conversation with the customer – just opened their wallets and taken their cash!

The customer is king (or queen), long live the king (or queen!)