Posts Tagged ‘Business’
OMFG. Brands and Social Media in China.
August 11th, 2010 • View Comments Brands, Social, Underway
Tags: Brands, Business, China, Prediction, Presentation, Report, Social, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, Trends, Truth, We like, World
Sometimes when you do research on tech adaption worldwide you get the impression it is completely enough to look at figures from the U.S. Take for example the excellent ‘State of the Blogosphere 2009‘ report by technorati. It presents all the charts and 
diagrams you need if you research statistics on blog usage….but if you dig a little bit deeper you find out that it’s actually nothing but a study about the American blogosphere.
This is particularly interesting if you take a serious look at the figures. China for example has surpassed the U.S. in social media usage last year. According to Netpop almost every Chinese online user is part of a social network. There are three times more bloggers per online user in China compared to the U.S. No major study will explain an average European or American strategist what these people do, what they talk about and how to engage them. By the way, we are talking about 1.6 billion Chinese and billions of Asians that I did not even consider in this calculation.
Check out this deck by Ogilvy One Shanghai (via Giles) about the connected Chinese digital landscape which is absolutely stunning. And afterwards do me a favor and answer one question: Is it actually possible to understand and lead the complexity of this world from a desk in Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam or London and to make the right decisions? How can we build cross cultural knowledge which is so important to get away from our subjective western perspective?
google. A not so evil look back on its History.
August 9th, 2010 • View Comments Brands
Tags: Business, google, history, net neutrality, Presentation, Truth, visual, World
google sure does combine many elements of a modern tech fairy tale. It is extremely successful (please, don’t mention social networks now), it did not exist 15 years ago and started with a very philanthropic vision…at least they tried. While the company still pretends to stick to its ‘Don’t be evil‘ mantra, others call it ‘a company on steroids with fingers in every industry’. The glass is always half full or half empty, right?
Google UK has now staged a (very) quick look back at the its history over the last 11 years. From Stanford to Mountain View and around the world, featuring many different products, starting with BackRub (Search) up to Google Wave, StreetView and Chrome. Enjoy the cute little animations and in case you are keener on a more critical view of the brand, try the Beast File. (via)
Great Tools. What the Fuck is my Social Media Strategy?
August 2nd, 2010 • View Comments Tools
Tags: Business, Buzzwords, Diy, Funny, Presentation, Social Media, Strategy, Tools, Truth, World
Thanks Sean. My colleague pointed me to the wonderful What-the-fuck-is-my-social-media-strategy-generator that generates pretty realistic buzzword creations ready to be used in your next deck. It’s like the web bullshit generator…only closer to what we call reality. I think I can go home now, can I?
Social Monitoring. Sorry, we do only speak English.
Juli 26th, 2010 • View Comments Social, Tools
Tags: Analytics, Business, Monitoring, Radian 6, Semantic, Social Influence Marketing, Tools, Truth, World
The other week I attended a presentation by a major social analytics vendor from the U.S. If you have ever attended a telephone presentation of one of the many social-related tools you know how shiny and well applicable these tools seem to be when they get presented to you.
During the presentation the sales representative highlighted how easy and simple it is for his tool to identify and validate social leads according to the brand’s needs. I asked how the tool does it. He pointed at the tool’s sophisticated semantical algorithms. I answered ‘Fine, so it’s only applicable in the U.S., right?’ I am German, working in a Canadian agency in the Netherlands. This tool does only speak English. It is neither prepared to cluster German, Dutch, Italian, Polish nor French conversations. He replied ‘Well, that’s the problem with any analytics tool’.
I think that’s kind of funny. Among the hundreds of social media monitoring solutions there is almost none which is polylingual. Rather simple solutions such as Viralheat or Radian 6 are able to add transparency based on keywords. But mostly every ‘semantic’ tool does fail once we are talking about all non-English places on earth. And there are countries which are not the U.S. – I am quite convinced of that.
google Me. Or: How I stopped worrying and learned to love Privacy.
Juli 12th, 2010 • View Comments Business, Social, Strategy
Tags: Business, Facebook, google, google me, Prediction, Presentation, privacy, Reports, Social Networks, Strategy, World
Most of you may have heard about the so called Facebook killer ‘Google Me‘ that supposedly binds half of google’s resources currently. And as most of you know, google has not exactly been successful with social networking by now. Especially after google Buzz also failed as a platform that is able to compete with Facebook. google knows they need to get their hands on social. Why? Steve Rubel explains it quite well…
google will ‘continue to dominate “pull.” But Facebook will aggregate content, make it social and rule “push.” Using our social circle it will surface content that we care about just when we want it – and allow us to comment on it all. As more people use Facebook to connect, share and create, a network effect takes over – and the system get even smarter.’ And that is exactly what google needs to do to stay alive in the long term.
No matter how successful Facebook is with its social strategy – they need to conquer Planet Push asap or become Facebook’s junior partner. In the middle of all the buzz about google Me we have to read the deck embedded below as a first rationale for google’s new platform – not as the ‘designing social networks’ deck that it wants to be. It was created by one of google’s lead User Experience architects Paul Adams and it criticizes Facebook existing social networks and the way they make people interact with a clear focus on privacy. What a surprise!
Even beyond the google Me hype – definitely a deck worth to take a look at (even though it is looooong).
Big question: Do you think google might make it this time? Do you believe privacy will be an USP strong enough to differentiate google Me from Facebook? Leave a reply.
Social Activation. An Overview about U.S. Grocery Chains.
Juli 8th, 2010 • View Comments Brands, Business, Social
Tags: Brands, Business, Diagram, Facebook, Groceries, Social Media, Twitter, US, USA, visual
First up, I hate info visual wallpapers. They just seem to pop up everywhere and there is nothing which has not yet been transferred into an info visual of some sort. But there also are the good ones.
The following diagram by Pace Communications gives a good, brief overview about fans and followers of U.S. grocery chains. No doubt, this is quite a specialized market. Nevertheless you can spot the relevance of Facebook and Twitter (in comparison to Youtube and Flickr) for these major companies – with Walmart and Wholefood being frontrunners here. At least as long as you accept fans and followers as indicators of social activation.
I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC. And both of us have a dirty secret.
Juni 28th, 2010 • View Comments Business
Tags: Business, Charity, Minerals, NGO, Politics, Supply lines, Truth, War, We like, World
There are not only Diamonds from Sierra Leone that fuel conflicts and add millions of dollars to the pockets of warlords. Crucial components of both, PCs and Macs, are made of minerals from areas that suffer from grim civil wars. Or to put it another way – with every MacBook we buy we spill money into the wallets of some of the worst war criminals of our age. Especially the horrible civil war in Congo is fueled by the profits of tech minerals such as tin, tantalum and tin – 183 million dollars last year alone.
NGO Raise hope for Congo asks tech companies, institutions and end consumers to avoid using or buying products that are built with conflict minerals. I hope they will make their voice heard and generate an impact that really makes a change.
PSFK. The Future of Retail.
Juni 3rd, 2010 • View Comments Retail, Social Business, Tech, Trends
Tags: Business, Creativity, Experimental, Future, Ideas, Prediction, PSFK, Report, Retail, Social Business Design, Strategy, Trends, World
As the world intertwines the web and reality, retail becomes one of the most crucial sectors to stage new marketing experiences for customers. Notorious PSFK has just staged its deck about ‘The future of Retail‘. The free 80 page analysis highlights how new technologies and senses play a crucial role in shaping shopping experiences. The trends identified within this document and the examples used to bring them to life are inspired by innovation from around the globe. And as usual it comes with a handy guide what is going to be hot in tomorrow’s retail experiences. PSFK, I love your decks.
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’?
Mobile Browsers. Worldwide Market Share.
Mai 3rd, 2010 • View Comments Business, Mobile, Trends
Tags: Browser, Business, Diagram, Mobile, Trends, World
Thank the guys from icrossing.co.uk and Visual Loop for this handy, little overview chart about the mobile browser market share. Personally I would have enjoyed more detailed information about the browser market share in North Korea right now. But you cannot get anything you want at once…
Check out the big map here.
Latest Comments