Archive for Allgemein
Toxic Avenger. N’importe comment.
August 27th, 2010 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Music, Prediction, Social, Tech, Trends, visual, World
Toxic Avenger‘s new video ‘N’importe comment’ carries the social graph to the extreme. It’s an almost scary vision what you can see in the video below…but I think we are not so far away from it. Thanks to thestrategyweb for the video.
Marketing. You know the Rules, don’t you?
August 3rd, 2010 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Funny, signs, Truth
Thanks to @eranium for the link. How true.
Maslow Revisited. The Hierarchy of Internet Needs.
Juli 23rd, 2010 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Diagram, Funny, Truth, visual, World
In his 1943 paper ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’ Abraham Maslow presented the hierarchy of needs for the first time. His hierarchy of needs describes the most basic requirements of a human being, commonly shaped as a pyramid. It was finally featured in his 1954 book ‘Motivation and Personality’. Thanks to Pleated Jeans we have now a contemporary definition of Maslow’s concept – Maslow’s hierarchy of internet needs.
Thanks so much, Pleated Jeans. No really. Thanks.
Amsterdam. Triple X City Branding Deluxe.
Juni 21st, 2010 • View Comments Allgemein, Brands, Underway, We like
Tags: Amsterdam, Branding, Brands, Cool, Underway, visual, World
My new hometown Amsterdam is a unique city in many different ways. Its liberal laws, its multicultural approach, its channels and of course its beauty stuns me and millions of tourists every other day. One thing I like in particular is the city’s strong sense for branding. Amsterdam does not only know about its brand values, it also stages its corporate design consistently wherever you go.
Amsterdam’s branding is based on the city’s coat of arms. It consists of a red shield and a black pale with three silver Saint Andrew’s Crosses, the Imperial Crown of Austria, two golden lions, and the motto of Amsterdam. And as usual, such complex Coats of arms do not come with a simple story. Of course, there are different theories, especially where the three crosses came from. Sure, Wikipedia knows more…
Some people say the three saltires represent the three dangers of ancient Amsterdam: fire, floods, and the Black Death. That theory however has no historical basis. The crosses probably have their origin in the shield of the noble family Persijn. The knight Jan Persijn was ‘lord’ of Amstelledamme (Amsterdam) from 1280 to 1282.[1]In the escutcheons of Dordrecht and Delft, two other cities in Holland, the pale refers to water. In analogy with this, the black pale in the escutcheon of Amsterdam would refer to the river Amstel.
By the way, I learned one funny fact about Amsterdam’s Coat of Arms.
The city symbol for Amsterdam is “XXX”, although no one really knows why. During the 60’s and 70’s, pornography was only legally available in the Netherlands, and when people would receive packages of this nature, it would have the symbol of XXX on it to note where it came from. This is how “XXX” or “X-rated” became associated with erotica.
Back to the branding topic. I have never walked the streets of any city and witnessed such a high sense about branding. The coat of arms and especially the three X’s are everwhere. Check out just some of these examples of Amsterdam’s city corporate design.
Awesome. I am about to become European.
Juni 12th, 2010 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Europe, Experimental, Germany, Underway, World
Over the last couple of weeks I once again found out why it is cool to be European.
As you might know I have moved from Frankfurt, Germany, to Amsterdam, the Netherlands to start my new job at Blast Radius. One week before my move I travelled to Madrid to hold a lecture at IED – Istituto Europeo di Design about the social revolution that is still in progress.
Yes, I am both, pretty excited and exhausted. But no matter what is going to happen, it is a privilege to get to know so many new people and find out about different cultural perspectives that I did not have by now. Becoming an expat in a city such as Amsterdam is a great thing. And my new agency offers a lot to ease the repatriation pain. But unfortunately too few Dutch colleagues. I will have to practice Dutch on the streets of Amsterdam. Since pretty much everyone around me comes from a different part of the world.
So why am I happy to be European?
Simply because right at the moment my own knowledge is challenged culturally as a European. Living in a more culturally open environment such as Amsterdam made me realize that the rest of Europe really is more into that web-thing than Germany (sorry, that is the truth). A trip to Spain made me understand that young Spaniards are some of the most social savvy people I have met so far. Nevertheless their generation struggles with the state’s high debts, unemployment and a painful depression. Something my country of origin, Germany, did not have to suffer from in that intensity.
Europe is a continent with many similar countries. But they are far from being identical. And that indeed is something which is nothing but a strength. I am now learning a similar language to Dutch and interact continuously with Europeans and non-Europeans who part of the new worldwide nation that is Expatria.
Hello Madrid. And Sorry to my Readers.
Mai 20th, 2010 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Underway
This is going to be an interesting week. Sorry to be a little bit lazy with posting new stuff. But I am in the middle of moving to Amsterdam as I mentioned in an earlier post. The process will not be finalized but will reach its first waypoint around June 1st, 2010 when I’ll hit my new hometown.
To not get bored by that point I was invited to hold a workshop about Social Influence Marketing. I will be there in Madrid’s Instituto Europea di Design on saturday morning and I am sure this will be fun. As it is around 0° Celsius here in Germany and about 30° Celsius in Madrid right now I probably won’t be coming back. I will keep you posted about my new life at the beach.
Zombie Campaigns. The old Award Show Problem revisited.
Mai 16th, 2010 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: ADC, Agencies, Awards, Business, Creativity, Experimental, Germany, Ideas, Strategy, Truth, visual
Once upon a time there was a man named David Ogilvy who said something very true about advertising – ‘We sell or else’. We all think that this is the mission of advertising agencies (however you define them). No matter whether we talk about selling in a sense of branding, customer services, hard sales – we need to help solving our client’s business problem. Form follows function. Advertising does not end in itself.
We all know pretty often this is not the case. Not always but often advertising ends in itself. Especially when it comes to ad awards. Many of you know the rules of the game – the more awards you collect as an agency the more creative you are allowed to call yourself. That’s the currency of the advertising industry. But this currency follows a bizarre distribution logic – the most important awards worldwide do not reward effective campaigns and ideas. They reward funny concepts designed for awards shows without an effect on clients, markets and brands. Most often nobody has seen these ‘campaigns’ at all simply because they do not exist except on award shows. Zombie campaigns.
No, not every piece of marketing communication which has won a gold, silver or bronze nail at last weekend’s ADC (Art Director’s Club Germany) congress in Frankfurt and other award shows falls into this category. But some do. Zombie campaigns can easily be identified by doing a campaign reality check. Just ask yourself these questions.
The Zombie Creation Checklist
- Does the awarded campaign look like a fancy idea as trigger for a good marketing effect? Or just like a good idea?
- Does it look like something driven by an agency or by the client?
- Is the client an unusual small brand in comparison to the remaining client list of the agency?
- Is it technically feasible (if interactive) at all?
- Was there any real audience? Or were the only platforms to stage the concept ‘blogs’?
Copywriting FTW. “I am now on a Cake”.
Mai 7th, 2010 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Brands, Cake, Cool, Creativity, Funny, Old Spice, World
I would not have bet a dime on this success 6 months ago. Old Spice has obviously reached its Iconic peak thanks to good old advertising. Reminder: Wieden & Kennedy staged this commercial 3 months ago (and a couple of less funny ones afterwards), triggering tons of parodies and a stunning remix . The hookline ‘I’m on a boat’ has now officially entered the Copywriter Hall of Fame – it works on cakes without additional explanation…
Via Paul Isakson
Re:publica 2010. Going NowHere Fast.
April 14th, 2010 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Berlin, Re-publica 10, RP10, Underway, World
After returning from Berlin yesterday I was asked by my father if I had been to this blogger conference which he had seen in the news the day before.
‘Kind of’, daddy. Even though you’ll find a lot of bloggers there, Re-publica 2010 was again an event that focused on anything that influences us as citizens of this continent called internet. A good chance to step back and find a broader perspective. Well, and maybe to get to know some of your twitter friends live.
This year’s subtitle was ‘NowHere’. A term for the multiple facets of living real time – Now, Here and Nowhere. And Re-publica has grown big since it has started four years ago with 165 differerent events and more than 260 speakers, taking us though many many intellectual ups and downs from April 14-16 in Berlin.
It was the most disputatious Re-publica so far. No doubt, times are a changing and as we explore more and more of this continent, we, its inhabitants, got to one thing in the first place, an intense debate. Its key question – Is the glass half full or half empty?
- Privacy vs Public?
- Chance vs Threat?
- Playing vs Misuse?
- Transparency vs Exhibitionism
Position 1 is playful and concentrates on the chances of the web – maybe a little naive sometimes. Position 2 wants to defend the user from unethical and illegal mistreatment while the web supports him in his life. A not so very progressive position once in a while.
And we debated…we debated a lot.
Media. The Anatomy of Digital Platforms.
April 11th, 2010 • View Comments Allgemein
Tags: Brainfood, Cool, david armano, Diagram, edelman, Media, Microsoft, Philosophy, Presentation, Strategy, visual, World
David Armano seems to stay true to his roots as the social web’s best info visualizer. His endless stream of useful sketches about the web has explained the terms paid, owned and earned media earlier. But I really like this graphic from his new employer Edelman Digital…simply because it’s very easily understandable and I will now use it in my own decks.
Via Visual Loop
Latest Comments