High Five FirstBank. Great Super Bowl Commercial.

Januar 28th, 2012 • Ads, We like
Tags: Advertising, Cool, Funny, Ideas, Super Bowl, Truth, TV, We like

Yes, that Creative Director had balls to present this concept to the client. Love it.

FirstBank – Super Bowl Commercial from TDA_Boulder on Vimeo.

The Truth. Face It.

Dezember 5th, 2011 • Allgemein
Tags: Advertising, cartoon, Funny, Ideas, Truth

Thanks to Sell! Sell!

Fake of the Day. The GranataPet Snack Check Billboard.

März 30th, 2011 • 5 comments Ads, Experimental, Fake
Tags: Ads, Advertising, Fake, Foursquare, Germany, Ideas, Out of Home, Social Influence Marketing, Tech, World

Time for a new category on davaidavai – the fake of the day.

More and more I get sick of unapplicable fake campaigns that get retweeted over and over again to generate PR for the phantasies of an agency. The beauty of (tech) creativity is to work under certain limitations. And is absolutely legitimate to play and experiment with prototypes. But to mark an unapplicable prototype with a reach of 3 persons in your bathroom and a Youtube video to promote it as a campaign is strictly unethical.

The fake of the day came via geekosystem, Creativity Online, and mashable and is currently getting retweeted all over the web. The idea goes like this: ‘GranataPet brand dog food figured out a clever way to beat the problem with food ads: In most forms of media, consumers generally can’t taste or smell the food being advertised. When one checks in at the billboard via Foursquare, some of the dog food slides out of a dispenser and into a bowl, ready for dogs sample.’

Yeah, right. On one billboard?

Questions:

• I am German. Has any German ever heard of this dog food brand?
• Has any German ever seen one of these billboards?
• How should this billboard work if (in 2010) only ~20,000 Germans were actual Foursquare users

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The Truth. How TV (Advertising) Ruined Your Life.

März 8th, 2011 • 1 comment We like
Tags: Advertising, bbc, Funny, Industry, People, Truth, TV, UK, World

If there is one thing about the UK that I am really, really jealous of, then it is Charlie Brooker. This is his episode 3 of his latest BBC2 six-part series ‘How TV ruined your life’ (along with advertising). This time it’s about aspiration. And even though it is 29 minutes long – every minute is worth it.

Convergence. Why talking about Social Media bores me to death.

Dezember 19th, 2010 • Allgemein
Tags: 2010, 2011, Advertising, Agencies, Future, Industry, Social Media, Trends

As 2010 ends it’s time for new year’s resolutions once again. I should stop smoking but it would be kind of dumb to initiate my new healthy lifestyle on new year’s eve. So my professional resolution is this – I try to avoid the use of the term ‘Social Media’ once and for all.

I feel kind of estranged nowadays when I stumble upon one of the many, many social media presentations that we keep on quoting over and over again. Or to put it more precise – I get sick of them. I cannot flip through these decks anymore that try to teach the industry about the ethics and mechanisms of Social. I simply think we’re past that point.

2010 has taught me that the focus on customer interactions and conversations simply must be part of any piece of marketing that you come up with. No matter if you are talking about e-retail, a Facebook page or a classic microsite – if you still don’t listen, if you still don’t enable users to share or talk about your brand you will soon have a problem. The crucial element here – to understand the distinction between earned and owned assets. Your client’s Facebook page is NOT earned media. Earned media is what this platform can initiate. But the platform can be a trigger, while brand-user interaction (hopefully) is the result. We simply cannot produce social interaction. But we can lower access barriers, invite and give reasons to interact on our behalf. This is our task. It is not our task to build platforms in the first place.

Doubtlessly the campaign of the year was Wieden’s Old Spice guy. And while I engaged in debates about whether this campaign was a Social Media campaign or not (and whether social media campaigns exist at all), I now have to admit that my position at that time was wrong. The strength of this campaign was that it added a conversational layer to a traditional advertising campaign. It built upon a traditional ad campaign and made it dynamic. But it turned a traditional piece of marketing into something relevant and real time. Something that turned a TV ad into something that was fun to talk about and to share. And that’s what made it both successful and trendsetting.

By now most agencies struggled with integrating traditional and digital marketing concepts. Wieden’s Old Spice campaign may not have been deep-digital. But it tried to bridge the gap between traditional advertising and customer conversations. My respect to the team around W+K’s Ian Tait to bring this risky concept to live.

In 2011 I hope, both digital and traditional agencies are intelligent enough to stop talking about isolated marketing concepts that almost always lack real sustainability. As a customer I want to print ads that makes me want to start a conversation with or about a brand. I want to get invited to an online store through a TV ad and I want to get a discount if I make my friends buy there as well. And here we are not talking about just driving to a campaign site – I think about integrated marketing models that truly deliver added value when it comes to interaction. Value exchange that is. And this is not just an agency challenge.

One of the best articles about this topic comes from my former colleague at Razorfish, Shiv Singh, who is now responsible for digital at Pepsi Co. In his article ‘From the other side‘ he has summarized his experiences as an ex agency guy who is now on the client side. Shiv’s advice to agencies is simple – stop telling your clients stories about how special you are, start understanding and managing the complexity of nowaday’s marketing.

In the digital space, digital agencies don’t like that the fact that they’re at a significant relationship disadvantage. Brands don’t like the fact that they’re sometimes kept at arms length from consumers (agencies and publishers are in the middle). Digital agencies feel traditional agencies don’t get it and traditional agencies can’t understand why brands don’t completely appreciate their digital chops. In a sense, everyone is unhappy. That’s not good. It has to change and probably only will when truly a new form of an agency rises (yes, I know there have been lots of false starts!).

It would be a blessing if the industry began to realize that concept convergence would help all of us – to make marketing more engaging, interesting and fun to interact with. If agencies found a way not just to promote themselves and their isolated view of the world and if marketers finally understood that it is not about communication but about integrated business models. Talking about social media simply bores me to death…

Sad Truth. Everybody could make ads.

November 8th, 2010 • Ads
Tags: Ads, Advertising, Agencies, Creativity, Funny, Ideas, Mccann, We like

Simple, funny and true. ‘Everybody could make ads’ by McCann Erickson. Unfortunately not everyone could make digital marketing. Check out McCann’s funny little animals/kids/porn slider – good to finally know how McCann generates its ideas.

Nope. I still won’t upload a video to your campaign site.

September 7th, 2010 • 2 comments We like
Tags: Advertising, Cool, Diagram, Fans, Funny, Ideas, Incentives, Strategy, Trends, Truth, visual, We like, World

Here we go again with a chart. But a good one.

You know the rules – you are sitting in a meeting with a bunch of other marketing blokes (and possibly the client) and all of you pretend the pork meat/washing powder/light bulb/whatever thay you are trying to sell is interesting in regards to the campaign/viral superhit/Facebook page you want to come up with. Bad news, it almost never is.

Just in case any of your colleagues starts to promote his fantastic idea to engage urban hipsters to record this video and upload it to your light bulb website using an Augmented Reality app, simply point to the chart below. It actually says one thing – few people are really interested in marketing. Well…almost no one. Some of your target group might really be deep into sneakers. But honestly…almost no one will become a fan of the sausage you are trying to sell – except if you have a really great idea or bribe them. Your choice.

This simple truth is closely related to this ‘letter to all of advertising and marketing.’ Genius that is. And as I just found out, it both comes from a London-based agency called SellSell. I like them.

Digital Creative. The Anatomy of Persuasiveness.

April 20th, 2010 • Display
Tags: Ads, Advertising, Agencies, Banner, Creativity, Display, Ideas, Philosophy, Presentation, Trends, Truth, visual

Even though I don’t agree with the premise of this deck by Soap (“display rocks”), it contains a couple of very true thoughts about digital. Or, to be more precise, six foundations of what turns digital superior to more than a challenger of traditional advertising.

Online Advertising. Humans bow down to google.

Oktober 27th, 2009 • Brands, Business, Media
Tags: Advertising, Brands, Business, Diagram, google, Media, Strategy, Trends, World

O….kay, google, way to go. (All figures in 1,000$)

Found on Silicon Alley Insider

Friends. Get to know Creativecriminals.com.

Oktober 27th, 2009 • Friends
Tags: Advertising, Blogs, Campaign, Cool, Friends, Funny, Ideas, Links

Every once in a while I will introduce you to blogs that I simply like to read. Today’s feature is Creativecriminals.com from Belgium.

Creativecriminals.com was founded in March 2009 by the three Belgian students Rindert, Bert and Sander. The team collects and publishes some of the best ad campaign ideas I have seen in a while and updates on a daily basis. What I really like about the platform is the mixture of campaigns they come up with. From very small ideas with the certain touch of creative genius to big campaigns which stage a brand in the most appropriate way, find them all at Creativecriminals.com.

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