Last year I started to conduct a series of interviews with some of the most interesting Marketing peeps I met so far.

I somehow wanted to take this concept one step further.My new series of interviews is called ‘Hooked’. Hooked is about leading Strategists and their hobby or a side-project. Hooked is about what people can learn for Strategy while they actually love to fly, cook, swim or whatever they do to become the interesting people that most of them are.

The first Person to be part of Hooked is Alexander Wipf – my long-time friend and all-round awesome guy. Alex is Head of Strategy at Leo Burnett, Frankfurt. And besides being one of the few truly digital Marketing Pioneers in Germany, besides being an awesome Photographer, young dad and many other things, he is in possession of a Private Pilot License. In other words: He is a passionate flier.

Irrelevant for his thinking as a Strategy Dude? I don’t think so. Get to know Mister Wipf.

You have a pilot license and you are Head of Strategy at Leo Burnett and started off as a user experience designer. I know you have an interesting theory about flying and UX. Tell me about it.

As machinery and technology get more and more complex, our susceptibility to allow technology or its interfaces to control us increases as well. As Günther Anders already noted in the 1950s (in “The Outdatedness of Human Beings 1. On the Soul in the Era of the Second Industrial Revolution,” 1956) at some point after WWII human technology had reached a tipping point when technologies weren’t just simple tools or extensions of ourselves, but rather complex systems that makes human capacity look outdated and miniscule. Being a thinker during the atomic age, his example for this was the invention of nuclear energy, which has a hazardous waste-product that has a half-life that will last longer than our species will be on this planet.

Trying to wrap your head around this fact is just mind-boggling. Essentially, we have created things that are simply bigger than ourselves and the consequences of which we aren’t really in control of anymore. Of course this is an extreme example, and it’s not a matter of us necessarily wanting to be controlled or hindered by the technology we create, but we implicitly accept it as necessary evil.

So, in order to cope with this, we create more technology that, in turn, controls the other technology we have. And we accept this largely because there is no way back.

As we have moved from the industrial (and atomic) age to the information age, the same forces are at play, only that the context is no longer the industrial and physical realm, but rather the informational and virtual.

Due to digital technologies, we have more information at our fingertips than ever before, and, again, we are unable to deal with it all, so, again, after a few decades of information technologies being created to create, disseminate and store information, we are now inventing technologies to filter this information. The question is, are our interfaces designed with us in mind?

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Read the rest of Hooked. Alex Wipf: A Strategy of Flight. (1,710 words)

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Post tags: Agencies, Alex Wipf, Creativity, Hooked, Ideas, Interview, Leo Burnett, People, Strategy, Truth

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Thanks to Andrew Dallos for the Photo

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Post tags: photo, PIPA, Politics, SOPA, Truth, World

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Post tags: Cartoons, Funny, Politics, Truth

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Chances are high you have heard of the Stop Online Piracy Act aka SOPA, particularly if you are reading this Blog regularly. SOPA is a bill that some consider as the single biggest threat to the freedom of the web right now. Others just call it: This horrible thing in Congress.

Allegedly designed to help copyright owners protect their intellectual property (who wants to fight that, hmm?) SOPA gives the US government the power to ‘turn off’ future Wikileaks Occupy Wallstreet Pirate Bay pretty much anything it does not like.

SOPA is legalized censorship. It’s a direct reaction to the US inability to deal with Wikileaks, dressed up as a tool to protect intellectual properties. What makes it even more embarrassing for the US: It is a tool that is so fundamentally anti-democratic that you should start getting really concernced…if you weren’t already.

Let’s remember Foreign Secretary Clinton comments on China’s Great Firewall in 2010 where she stated the US would start “supporting the development of new tools that enable citizens to exercise their right of free expression by circumventing politically motivated censorship”. It would be almost funny if it wasn’t so sad.

How to stop SOPA
SOPA may become official part of the US jurisdiction in 2012. But it would also have worldwide impact because it gives the US government the power to shut down parts of the web – no matter where.
In order to save our web as the free place that it is, we have to act now. I understand that SOPA sounds like the cryptic web stuff that usually only affects the Nerd elite. Only this time is different. SOPA would change the web fundamentally. And this means everyone is affected.

As the bill currently makes its path through the legislative process in Washington D.C. it needs support/ers. Call it Lobbyism. But the American Political system expects certain signs of support for a new bill. Helpful are the 1% companies spending money on presidential candidatesbig corporate tax payers publicly supporting a bill.

One of these companies was GoDaddy – the world’s largest domain register that has had direct involvement in shaping legislation. And you probably know that GoDaddy had a bit of a challenging last fortnight in 2011:

Go Daddy was ‘targeted by online activists in response to its enthusiasm for a pair of Hollywood-backed copyright bills, has finally denounced the legislation in response to a boycott scheduled for today. (…)

The idea of boycotting GoDaddy began with a protest thread on Reddit and was aided by Jimmy Wales’ announcement last week that “Wikipedia domain names will move away from GoDaddy.” It inspired GoDaddyBoycott.org, which urged Internet users and companies to “boycott GoDaddy until they send a letter to Congress taking back any and all support of the House and Senate versions of the Internet censorship bill, both SOPA and PIPA.” (CNET)

GoDaddy may have lost between 37,000 up to 1 million domains in December when hacktivists announced LeaveGoDaddyDay for Dec 29th 2011. This is great. Deafeating the GoDaddy scumbags is a big win for the web’s civil society. But seriously: It was rather easy. Godaddy is a company that is embedded in the web community and which depends on it. It wasn’t really smart of them to underestimate the wrath of their own customers. But GoDaddy is not one of the major consumer packaged good companies or entertainment brands that stand behind SOPA. And we should take the anger of the web’s civil societies to these brands. The cool hipster lifestyle brands that support an immoral and cynical tool of censorship.

Let’s talk about L’Oreal. Let’s talk about Apple.
Right at the moment SOPA is supported by an awful lot of major companies (as mentioned: who would want to fight Piracy, hmmm?). As usual Wikipedia knows (which potentially would have to go out of business because of SOPA) more.

The legislation has broad support from organizations that rely on copyright, including the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, Macmillan Publishers, Viacom, and various other companies and unions in the cable, movie, and music industries. Supporters also include trademark-dependent companies such as Nike, L’Oréal, and Acushnet Company.

Nike? L’Oréal? Yes. SOPA is supported by some of your favorite brands. While some of the Swooshs or ‘Crazy ones’ may not be explicitly listed as individual supporters on this list, they may well be organized in one of the many lobbying foundations supporting the bill. And that makes it quite complicated.

Example? Two days ago Nintendo, Sony Electronics, and EA Games pretended to drop SOPA support (at least if you ask their PR agencies). Geekosystem clarifies:

Sony, for instance, their music and video companies still remain firmly on the SOPA support list. Only the game-making division, Sony Electronics, pulled its name. For Nintendo and EA, while their names are gone from the list, they are still members of the Entertainment Software Association, which is also still on the list. Sony is also a member of the ESA.

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Read the rest of SOPA. Let’s Talk About the Brands Supporting It. (500 words)

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Post tags: Censorship, Ethics, legal, poltics, SOPA, USA

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1. Social Media Infographics
Social Media Infographics are probably the most painful thing to witness while browsing through a whole lot of inspiring thoughts in blog feed every morning. Originally the idea was quite good: take dull information and turn it into something nice. By late 2011 social media infographics have unfortunately become a metaphor for reducing information to colorful shit. Many of them are simply wrong or misleading, many of them are even Spam. For the love of Baby Jesus. Stop that.

2. Social Media Boutique Agencies

Whenever I think about the artist formerly known as Social Media I also think about its maturity in 2011. And one sign that the social media evolution isn’t yet where it is supposed to be is quite evident: Social Media Boutique Agencies still exist. I have absolutely no idea why some major companies still let specialized ‘social media vendors’ pitch for isolated accounts. It is against the idea of tearing down the silos. It makes no sense from a management standpoint – and no: they are not necessarily more thoughtful, up-to-date or inspiring than more holistic vendors. Quite often the opposite is the case.

3. TV is Dead Bullshit
Even the Guardian still uses tabloid-style headlines like ‘TV is dead‘. Can we please clarify one thing: Claiming that TV is dead is simply not true. TV (and TV advertising) will definitely reinvent itself over the next couple of years. It will take over a new role in a more digitalized world. But one thing is for sure: My dad still will rather watch TV than tweet.

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Read the rest of Please Stop It: Five Things I Hope Not To See Again in 2012. (272 words)

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Post tags: 2011, 2012, Future, List, personal, Prediction, Rant, Trends

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Post tags: Advertising, cartoon, Funny, Ideas, Truth

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But then: You love the fact that it’s a dynamic and young environment. Sure, the typical agency has changed over time. But the places I worked at employed some of the most interesting, gentle and even some of the smartest people I ever met. It would be unfair to attach the term Playground to it – at least that’s not how I experienced it – but it was a good time wherever I worked. Agencies may be run sometimes by stressed, professional lifetime teenagers. But generally we are talking about very interesting places where people like each other and a kind of a community forms.

I guess there is not one agency person who at some point in his life raved about changing into ‘the industry’ (where everything will be good) or to be self-employed (where also everything will be good). So actually only few of the marketing peeps I got to know in my life would get up and fight to death if the concept of ad/marketing/whatever agency would be endangered. But isn’t that strange? Isn’t there a reason why we actually like to work for agencies as improvable as it is as a concept?

A couple of days ago I posted the following Dilbert cartoon on the Facebook page of this blog.

My Facebook page has about 520 members and an average post gets 5 to 10 likes. This particular one received 366 likes as it was apparently shared 280 times since I posted it (and I just stole it and re-posted it either). Oh…and that’s just my starting point. In the summer 2010 a hilarious Tumblr concept went viral: ‘Things real people don’t say in advertising‘…

The title says it all: It is a concept that makes fun of the idealistic way agencies and clients describe their clients. Because to be perfectly honest: Few of us really believe that the ordinary customer is interested in more branded messages. And yes, that is a conflict in what many of us must say professionally.

Did I mention ‘Women alone laughing with Salad?‘, another site dedicated to take the piss out of brand marketing. This time out of stock photos which pretty much look the same.

And I don’t even want to mention the brilliant video pisstakes John St did to ridicule award shows and narrow-minded agency concepts, Adverbatims – the most horrific client quotes and a lot more.

At the same time there is still this fascination for advertising, marketing and agencies. But: While digital marketing has more than obviously started (and won) the revolution against the ad agencies we seem to downgrade this in our relationship to the marketing industry.  Mad Men? This is a series about the dark ages of advertising, about BUY, BUY, BUY. And still agencies dress up as Draper’s agency Sterling & Cooper while their community manager simultaneously tweets about the dawn of a new agency era.

Seriously: Have agency peeps become a bit romantic? You know: Miserably living in the present while silently wishing back the past (when everything was clear, sexy and being an Art Director was exotic and very well paid)?

(...)
Read the rest of Just a Question. Do you actually hate your Job? (163 words)

© Gerald for davaidavai.com, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Agencies, Business, careers, People, Truth, World

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Via Sell! Sell!

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Post tags: 2011, cartoon, Funny, Truth

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I don’t particularly like marketing events. But my last week was full of these wonderful happenings with my favorite ad peeps in my hometown Amsterdam. And in the end I have to admit: It was actually rather great.

Monday – Event 1: Meeting John Hegarty
John Hegarty is a legend. He is one of the three founders of Bartle Bogle Hegarty and you can compare him with David Ogilvy or Leo Burnett – apart from the fact that he is still alive, lived a couple of years later then the two other guys, and his ideas are still really relevant for today’s business. Anyway: Mister Hegarty has written a book. Basically his advertising legacy. Hegarty on Advertising contains over ‘four decades of wisdom and insight from the man who put Nick Kamen into a laundrette for Levi Strauss and gave Audi the immortal Vorsprung durch Technik, amongst many, many other highly successful campaigns for major brands‘.
Hegarty came to Amsterdam last week as guest of the wonderful American Book Center here and presented himself as the cool, silverbacked Madmen that he is and (of course) presented his book. I haven’t started reading it yet – but if you are quick you can get your own copy here and that I have no clue what I am talking about.

Tuesday – Event 2: The Tomorrow Awards
Believe me: I passionately hate the concept of awards. Why? Because I reject them as a fair measure for creativity. Most awards are money-producing client-service tools for agencies (the Webbys have just founded the Lovie awards to generate more revenue). And no, I don’t really see the point why Amsterdam needs its own award show. But apparently since last week exactly this is the case. We now learn that: The Tomorrow Awards is the first international award show dedicated to discovering, showcasing and awarding advertising creativity that pushes new technological boundaries. Since the very best examples of such work are those that defy standard award show categories, the Tomorrow Awards is category-neutral; all entries are judged together, and only the very best ideas shine brightest.

Okay: Whatever this is. I had a brilliant evening with the marketing peeps from Amsterdam, watching people like Taxi’s Paul Lavoie, AKQA’s Nick Bailey, or Sid Lee’s JF Bouchard giving brilliant speeches. And I am truly, wholeheartedly a fan of Anomaly’s Carl Johnson. His blunt, bold and direct speech about what he perceives as creative made me constantly nod happily. Good that anomaly is in town now. Welcome guys.

Thursday – Event 3: Founding the APG Netherlands
We were planning it for a while already: The inauguration event of the Account Planning Group Netherlands.

So after a couple of months of preparing, me and my six colleagues Heather (Strawberry Frog), Laura (FHV/BBDO), Boris (THEY), Wouter (Boon Strategy) Laurence (AKQA) Simon (Blast Radius) launched our first for the new home for Marketing Strategists in the Netherlands: Inside Insights.

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Read the rest of Rolling with the Gnomies. One Week with Amsterdam’s Marketing Peeps. (198 words)

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Post tags: Amsterdam, Events, Gerald, Underway, World

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Auf Deutsch: Die Dachdeckerinnung Oberschwaben hat jetzt auch ein Viral Video. Strategisch ist alles falsch daran. Aber wenn es sowas wie Viral Video gäbe, wäre es auch schon wieder so schlecht, dass es recht gut ist. Ach, ich bin verwirrt.

(via W&V)

© Gerald for davaidavai.com, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Funny, Shit, Viral

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