Storytelling. A Day in New York and an Insight about Marketing.

März 16th, 2010 • Comments Ideas
Tags: Creativity, Funny, Germany, Ideas, NYC, Underway, USA, World

If you are a regular reader of my blog or if you follow me on twitter you might know that I spend this week in New York City. I am not working or attending a conference. I am just here on vacations, meeting friends and having a good time. While I spent the day exploring Manhattan (once again) I was run over by the same impressions that most foreigners are faced with when they return to the Big Apple for the first time in a while – it’s an inspirational overkill.

Of course, you cannot compare NYC to, let’s say, my hometown Frankfurt. But on the other hand – why not? Let’s just focus on something you can compare, even though both cities vary in size, culture and history drastically. Let’s just compare products and how they are presented. And when I thought about how NYC markets its goods I instantly found out what’s missing in Germany – heart and soul in selling products. That’s the result of 5 hours of just walking south from Greenwich to Chinatown.

Kiosk – 95 Spring Street, Soho

Kiosk is a highly unusual but very, very cool mixture of a folk museum and a cross-cultural retail-venture of everyday-items. Encounter helpful stuff in use in Portugese kitchens, Chinese kindergardens or German Scout Camps. Every item is presented with a short heritage about its sense, function and why it’s so special.
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Andes Teletransporter. The liberation of Men has begun.

Januar 22nd, 2010 • Comments Ads, Ideas, We like
Tags: Ads, Beer, Brands, Cool, Creativity, Food, Funny, Ideas, Insights, We like

Davaidavai is not so much into blogging about stuff that you will read anywhere else…as long as you can operate twitter. No iSlate, no Coke Happiness Machine, no google buys XYZ here.

But this little campaign here is surprisingly still pretty unknown and it will surely run for a couple of Lions. The Andes Teletransporter Idea is based on a more than simple insight and translates it into a cool, funny mechanism for the Argentinian beer brand.

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Digital Magazines. Another future for print.

Dezember 18th, 2009 • Comments Ideas, Tech
Tags: Cool, Creativity, Experimental, Future, Ideas, Prediction, Presentation, Print, Tech, Trends, UX, visual, We like, World

Is print dead? If you read my own headlines you will find out that I am undecided as well. I am sure that the majority of mainstream print media nowadays is doomed. But, I think that some traditional print media products might reinvent themselves. Lately Outsider Magazine and Esquire came up with remarkable experiments in this sector.

Publishing thinktank Bonnier plus its partner Berg London have come up with this cool vision of how magazine UX might evolve. It’s a concept video and does not exist yet. But the concept convincingly uses digital media to create a rich and meaningful experience, while maintaining the relaxed and curated features of printed magazines. It illustrates one possible vision for digital magazines in the near future.

Ideas. An illustrated 7 step guide on how to kill them.

November 13th, 2009 • Comments Ideas, We like
Tags: Cool, Diagram, Funny, Ideas, Truth, visual, We like, World

How true and well illustrated. Scott C has created this fantastic seven step illustrated guide on how to kill an idea. Do also check out this guy’s other illustrations (via adland). For the large version please follow this link…

Adaptation Marketing. Miracle Whip on the fast lane.

November 13th, 2009 • Comments Ads, Brands, Experimental, Ideas, Media, We like
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, Brands, Colbert, Cool, Creativity, Experimental, Fast, Funny, Ideas, Media, Miracle Whip, Real time, We like

About a week ago I reviewed Forrester’s concept of Adaptive Marketing – a framework in which brands react fast on a given context using the means of microstrategies. This week Miracle Whip showed how this might look like. Background: On October 15 Comedy Central’s notorious Stephen Colbert made fun of Miracle Whip’s new ad campaign which stages urban, young hipsters doing fancy stuff with Miracle Whip (you know what I mean).

As a traditional brand you would not react on it. But now comes Adaptive Marketing into play: Miracle Whip’s declaration of war to Stephen Colbert ran as full-page ad in various American newspapers only a couple of weeks later, striking back at Colbert (see the full size ad)… “On Thursday, November 12, we will dominate the airspace on your show. With every commercial break, your viewers will be exposed to hardcore Miracle Whip attitude and revelry. You will see our legion of (as you call them) “mayo nay-sayers” snarfing sandwiches topped with our one-of-a-kind flavor in a very cool and totally hip way. They will be in your face and massively dope. It goes without saying, they WILL NOT TONE IT DOWN.”

And

“We’re on a mission.

We’re taking no prisoners. We’re raising Hell, Man.”

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Dear Brands. Please learn to say I am not sorry.

Oktober 18th, 2009 • Comments Brands, Ideas, Social Business, Strategy
Tags: Ads, Brands, Fail, Ideas, Motrin, Pepsi, pepsifail, PR, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, World

This article is a rant. A classic one.

Lately (I have to admit) I more and more get sick of the keepers of the holy grail of Political Correctness whenever a brand launches some kind of ironical, stereotype-laden communication tool in the social space. But wait, it’s not that simple! Actually I am more hacked off by brands who bow down to these people and beg for forgiveness whenever a group of these people start mocking around on twitter.

Pepsi and the score advisor app
Probably you have heard about the so-called Pepsi AMP fail. Early in October Pepsi has launched an iPhone application for its AMP range of energy drinks. The idea of the app is simple and (more or less) funny. After downloading the tool the user may choose between 24 different stereotypical female characters, ranging from “athlete” to “cougar” to “punk girl”. The app will then support your nightly challenge at the bar with helpful tips, pickup lines and conversation snippets to spice up your ‘pre score’ conversation with the respective woman of your choice.

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Slideshare. The best deck in the world.

Oktober 13th, 2009 • Comments Ideas, We like
Tags: Award, Cool, Creativity, Ideas, Presentation, Slideshare, visual, We like, World

I have to admit, it is not the latest news but I wanted to share this great deck anyway. Each year my favourite presentation sharing platform slideshare holds a contest to find the best deck of all. The 2009 contest ended in late september 2009 and the winner is Dan Roam’s presentation about the challenges of U.S. healthcare. In fact, that’s not very surprising since Mr Roam is the author of the bestselling book ‘The back of the napkin‘ which deals with visualizing and solving problems. This definitely is a benchmark in staging ideas.

Your theory seems to be true, Mr Roam.

Crazy. Meet a Belarusian Media Mix.

Oktober 12th, 2009 • Comments Experimental, Ideas, Media, We like
Tags: Belarus, Cool, Creativity, Eggs, Experimental, Funny, Ideas, Media, Music, visual, We like, World

And now for something completely different: Advertising in the post-Soviet world (for the kids: the Soviet Union was…okay, forget that). The Prodigy just toured Belarus. Their gig at the Dinamo stadium in Minsk was advertised for, beyond other media, on eggs, which were sold in local stores. Ummm…I guess, you got to target your customers where they are, right? (via Englishrussia)

Hirngespinster. Giving life to a story.

Oktober 12th, 2009 • Comments Experimental, Ideas, Surface, Tech
Tags: Art, Cool, Creativity, Experimental, Hirngespinster, Media, Motion, Print, Surface, Tech, Tools, visual, We like, World

Hirngespinster is the final project of Tristan Hohne to graduate from University of Applied Sciences Dortmund in Germany. Tristan describes it as a tangible user interface which combines the analogue book with the digital world. Hirngespinst is one of those German words which might make it into an English dictionary one day. I would roughly translate it as phantasy-driven fixation.

And as Tristan’s Hirngespinste find their way into your head, he shows a nice way to make print and digital interact – whenever Hirngespinster are seen on a book page, the viewer can interact by catching them. Once caught, an animation lets you get an inside look from the affected point of view.

Nice one, Tristan (thx Helge for the link).

Hirngespinster from Tristan Hohne on Vimeo.

Lufthansa. Getting jiggy with social inflight data.

Oktober 7th, 2009 • Comments Business, Ideas, Social Business
Tags: Airlines, Facebook, Ideas, live data, Lufthansa, Social Business Design, Social Influence Marketing, Tools, Trends, Twitter, World

Social Media and Airlines share a long tradition (if you can talk about tradition in this field). The reasons seem obvious: Travelling is about people, about service and quite often about the good sides of life. JetBlue just broke a million followers on twitter. And Virgin America replaces advertising with Social Media pretty often with a focus on micro Communities in flight.

Apart from many other aspects, onboard Wifi seems to be the magic word. It can turn customers into a small social network and makes them spread the word from inside a 747. Southwest Airlines, Delta, Lufthansa Virgin…everybody seems to work on his own respective inflight Wifi Solution.

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