Posts Tagged ‘Agencies’
Dutch Advertising FTW. Charlie Sheen goes 0% with Bavaria.
April 12th, 2012 • 1 comment Ads
Tags: Advertising, Agencies, Alcohol, Amsterdam, Brands, charlie sheen, commercial, Creativity, Food, Funny, Ideas, selmore, TV, We like
Just a couple of months after making Hugh Hefner drink Bavaria the Beer brand now promotes its alcohol-free range again…with known Alcoholics as testimonials.
First Don Johnson, then Mickey Rourke. And of course it is now Charlie Sheen to defend the freedom of drinking 0% beer. The campaign comes from Selmore Amsterdam.
Hooked. Alex Wipf: A Strategy of Flight.
Februar 1st, 2012 • Allgemein, Hooked, Interview
Tags: Agencies, Alex Wipf, Creativity, Hooked, Ideas, Interview, Leo Burnett, People, Strategy, Truth
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weren’t just simple tools or extensions of ourselves, but rather complex systems that makes human capacity look outdated and miniscule.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?
Agencies and Briefs. And here, Ladies and Gentlemen, you can see: The Problem.
Januar 6th, 2012 • Advice, Strategy
Tags: Agencies, creative briefs, Funny, Strategy, Truth, World
I cannot really figure out whether I am disgusted or fascinated. Clearly this fictional Creative Brief is a great example on why so many Creatives think these documents are useless.
via ibelieveinadv
Amsterdam DNA. City History Goes 3D.
Januar 5th, 2012 • Display, Events
Tags: 3D, Agencies, Amsterdam, Culture, Display, Events, history, museum, Netherlands, PlusOne, Presentation, World
As an Amsterdamer by choice I can hardly imagine anybody without a certain trace of local pride when it comes to this wonderful city. No matter if you live here for two weeks or your whole life: the citizens of Amsterdam know in what an exciting place rich in history they live.
Amsterdam DNA is a new exhibition in the Amsterdam Museum that takes the spectator on a three-dimensional 45-minute journey through the history of the City. The versatile story of the city is presented in seven intriguing films produced by PlusOne Amsterdam.
The first film is called Revolt. And it deals with the city’s struggle for freedom after the middle-ages. I am looking forward to the exhibition. Well done Guys.
Amsterdam DNA – Revolt from PlusOne on Vimeo.
Trends. 100 Things to Watch in 2012.
Dezember 30th, 2011 • Trends
Tags: 2012, Agencies, Future, jwt, Report, Reports, Study, Trends
JWT‘s PR department has – again – done a great job by creating this annual gallery of things to watch in 2012. Interesting (particularly from an American perspective): We definitely see more sustainable business concepts, travel and commuting models and there seems to be more focus on a more healthy lifestyle and your inner self. If we now even avoid nuking ourselves via Iran, North Korea or Pakistan then hey: This could be a good year.
Key trends according to this report:
- Navigation for cost-sensitive customers
- Food becomes the key eco-issue
- Screened interactions everywhere
- Physical objects get digital counterparts
Thanks to @jkleske for the link.
Rock Bottom. Droga 5 has possibly created the worst campaign ever.
Dezember 8th, 2011 • 3 comments Games
Tags: Ads, Agencies, Brands, Creativity, droga 5, Ethics, Gaming, Ideas, Industry, Politics, World
If the following video is no hoax it has the realistic chance to become one of the most disgusting, cyncical pieces of marketing I have ever seen. I thought the ‘concept campaign’ White Bull Army was pathetic. But the crap idea that Droga 5 is about to launch for gaming headset brand Turtle Beach is hard to bear.
Check out the video
Quote: “Gamers want the immersive feeling of being in a warzone. Turtle Beach takes you there.” Even if it is a hoax (it will be in the end): Putting a first person shooter into the same context as a war zone where thousands of people died and millions suffer every day makes me want to spit out.
And no, I disagree. Not any PR is good PR. This is shit. Cynical, pathetic shit. I am ashamed to work in the same industry as the guy who came up with this. (via adverblog)
Just a Question. Do you actually hate your Job?
Dezember 1st, 2011 • 1 comment Allgemein, People, Poll
Tags: Agencies, Business, careers, People, Truth, World
Working in an agency is a strange thing: Usually you work more hours per day than most of your friends who are employees of a Bank, an Insurance company or who may be Gardeners. Many in our industry earn less than what they could get paid if they would have gone to ‘the industry’ (a mystical word in agencies that describes an unknown Utopia, think: Xanadu). And few people really have a good plan what to do with their career once they crossed the 45 without being CCO. Long story short: Deciding to work for an agency is quite a stupid decision.
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)?
Catvertising. How a small Canadian Agency revolutionizes Marketing (again).
November 14th, 2011 • Experimental, Fake, We like
Tags: Agencies, Cats, Cool, Experimental, Funny, Pink Pony, Viral
Canadian agency John St does it again. After staging Pink Pony, the mother of all award videos, last year they are now ready for the next step: a Catvertising Agency. John St: The time is ripe.
APG Netherlands. Shaping a new Home for Strategists.
Oktober 18th, 2011 • Strategy
Tags: Agencies, Amsterdam, APG, apgdigital, Article, Netherlands, new biz, Strategy, World
Most of you know that I live in Amsterdam for a while now – a city with many agencies, some Strategists but almost without connecting links between them.
A couple of months ago I wrote about an idea that some of my fellow Strategists and I carried around with us for a while: Founding an Account Planning Group in the Netherlands. I don’t want to go too much into detail here but all of us sensed that the small but very international Planner community in the Netherlands needed more exchange, progress, representation and also standardization. The result was one of the most pragmatic professional processes I have ever been part of. Yesterday we simply founded the Dutch franchise of the British (and Global) Account Planning Group – as guild of Planners here.
Our plan: to create a professional community for strategists that serves as forum for knowledge exchange, inspiration and networking for our little group of Strategists. We haven’t got many resources right now. But we are happy to welcome any brand and communications strategists in the Netherlands who want to help us shape this platform for the Strategists in the Netherlands (be they Dutch or not)
If you are one of them…
- sign up for our Linked-in group and spread the news
- join us for our opening event on Nov 17 at Strawberry Frog Amsterdam
- help us shape this group
A couple of weeks ago I have written an article for German magazine New-Business (which is closely connected with the German APG) about this process. I am looking forward to see us make the new APG NL become part of Europe’s Planner guilds.
The article (in German). Please click it to see it full size.
China. Ogilvy’s ‘Social Media Equivalents’ in China 2011.
Oktober 17th, 2011 • 2 comments Social
Tags: Agencies, China, Media, Ogilvy, Social, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks, Tools, Touchpoints, visual, World
Ogilvy China has re-created the well-know Conversation Prism to show some of the Chinese local platforms thriving in place of major international equivalents. Practivally the diagram is actually as useless as the original Conversation Prism (‘Did anyone ever look at this diagram of 250 platforms to find the right one for his purpose?’) but it nevertheless gives you a good understanding of the vast Chinese digital landscape.
Do also check out Ogilvy China’s study ‘Connected’ on digital marketing in China.
via Penn Olson
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