Chat Roulette. If you turn your head I win.

Februar 28th, 2010 • Comments Experimental
Tags: Chat Roulette, Cool, Creativity, Experimental, Funny, Social Networking, World

Flyfire. The next beautiful and probably extremely annoying Media Idea.

Februar 24th, 2010 • Comments Experimental
Tags: 3D, Cool, Creativity, Experimental, Firefly, Ideas, Media, MIT, Out of Home

If there is one thing I am pretty sure of then it’s a future stuffed with ads of all kinds at places you would not even think about nowadays. One aspect of it will be based on anything even losely connected to Augmented Reality. Stuff like Layar will finally enable us to wallpaper every freakin’ inch of this planet with virtual billboards. The second way to Open-Space-Advertising could be kicked of by this concept called Firefly. Firefly Flyfire. Flyfire makes little helicopter-like machines fly in formations which can be used to stage 3D information. Thank you M.I.T. for a future that might look great but might well be pretty annoying (via Bewegungsmelder).

Wired. Ready to go iPad.

Februar 17th, 2010 • Comments Media
Tags: Apple, Brands, Cool, Creativity, Experimental, iPad, Media, Print, Strategy, Tech, Trends

Wired Magazine has just launched its video preview for its iPad application. And yes it looks yummy! In fact it is very logical for Wired to be among the first to take this step. I think the iPad will be a piece of hardware to make print publisher’s wet dreams come true and offer a digital platform to buy and consume print media.

As a commenter explained: This visual demo is very likely an Adobe Air demo…which does not work on the iPad yet.

Coke. Let Fans Be First.

Februar 16th, 2010 • Comments Brands, Social, Strategy
Tags: Brands, coke, Experimental, Fans, Lifestyle, Presentation, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, Trends, visual

As my everyday work revolves around modelling a brand’s reaction to the social revolution it’s particularly interesting to watch big established companies opening up. It’s simple to socialize threadless or Zappos (well they are social from the start) but how about the big players? How about Coke – the stereotype of a modern brand. How do they react on the active user after having spent zillions of ad dollars for more than 100 years.

This deck describes Coke’s approach to social. ‘Fans first’ is a deck by Coke’s Group Director of Interactive Marketing Michael Donnelly – a man who is well known for trying out new things. Even though I do not agree with Culture Buzz’ claim “this deck tells all“, it at least defines a new, broad social ecosystem for Coke. An ecosystem in which a brand has to follow its users instead of the other way around. Personally that’s my key takeway from these slides.

And here is the deck – Coke. ‘Fans First’

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Agency Strike. Belgian Agencies show the Finger.

Februar 9th, 2010 • Comments We like
Tags: Agencies, Business, Cool, Experimental, Funny, Ideas, Pitch, Truth, We like, World

Basically it’s an update to my post from yesterday which reacts on Bud’s article about the future of agencies. Today the agencies of Belgium went on strike to protest against the erosion of pitch norms. They synchronized their websites to display one message which you can click through one after another and jump from website to website – an impressive act of resistance against what seems to be the sad truth in the industry nowadays.

I have posted the screenshots of all 14 pages below. The virtual strike will only last for a week.

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Let’s call it reality. Why agencies will pretty likely stick around.

Februar 8th, 2010 • Comments Allgemein
Tags: Agencies, Brands, Business, Debate, Experimental, Future, Prediction, Strategy, Trends

Bud Caddell from NYC’s Undercurrent has published a great rant about the question on how the agency of the future looks like. As usual it is a great text to read but it ends with a plea to share our opinion. And that is what I do now.

Hi Bud.

I would like to share my opinion with you and I appreciate the time and effort it took to write such a long article about the agency of the future. First up, it’s a good perspective to start a discussion. But before we talk about the question what the agency of the future might look like, let’s begin with the essential question what an agency actually is. At this point we encounter the first logical problem. You won’t find a global definition of “Agency” on Wikipedia. But you will find a definition of “Advertising agency”.

An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising (and sometimes other forms of promotion) for its clients.

If you scroll down a little bit further you will find the chapter “Types of advertising agencies”. It separates different types of agencies – such as Inhouse, Interactive, Search Engine etc.

Simply stunning!!! This little chapter alone demonstrates the disadvantage of 99% of the world’s agency models. It is not at all focused on the core business needs of their clients but on the output the agency founder once planned to generate – SEO, Social…you name it. But do we still have a clear understanding about what we are supposed to produce? In a small poll on my blog last week I asked if there is still such a big line between traditional and new jobs in the industry. The answers ranged from ‘Absolutely. Traditional agencies haven’t got anything to do with digital ones’ to ‘Not at all. The future model is integrated’. Or, to put it another way, there is no average ad guy who has got a precise understanding about what he is supposed to produce anymore. Pure confusion, no matter where you look.

The problem

Agencies are just normal companies in the first place. And then there was the web, this fantastic engine that made all these fantastic concepts of crowdsourced products, E-Learning, brand fandom and LOLcats possible. But, the web is half as old as I am. And 7% as old as the Top 3 ad networks nowadays. Companies such as Ogilvy, JWT, or McCann have been around for decades. They produced innovation at a certain point in time. But unfortunately they cannibalized their own concept. Customers drowned in messages and meaningless awareness campaigns while more and more products hit the markets.

It may sound a little bit cheesy, but my dad told me about his childhood days in Germany last weekend. There was not too much choice when you were a kid in Frankfurt in 1960 – there were only a handful of products, few toys and most of the time you played soccer outside with your friends. According to a study from earlier this month modern kids spend enough time with screens of all kinds to make it a full-time job – 53 hours per week!

What I say is, the crisis of the agency business is the crisis of our society. We just have anything we could dream of. And it’s not a question of traditional versus ‘new’ agencies. It’s not a question whether I drown in traditional or digital messages. It’s just a problem that we possess anything and nothing seems special enough to us anymore. We are not not thrilled by brand campaigns anymore. We aren’t thrilled by anything anymore. We just struggle to stay alive in a sea of stuff.

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adidas. Preparing the Social Push for NBA All–Star Weekend.

Februar 5th, 2010 • Comments Brands, Experimental, Social
Tags: 180, Adaptation Marketing, adidas, Agencies, Brands, Cool, Creativity, Dwight Howard, Experimental, Ideas, Riot, Sharing, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, TBWA, Tools, We like

For about three years I worked on various adidas accounts here at my employer, Neue Digitale / Razorfish. That’s why I’m pretty interested to watch what the brand is up to when it comes to new digital (mainly social) concepts. In fact, the days of big digital presentations are over are getting reinterpreted at adidas HQ, Amsterdam.

On NBA’s All-Star Weekend Orlando Magic Center Dwight Howard takes the lead in a push by 180/TBWA Riot and adidas to socialize….umm…..big shiny ad productions. They will air a 30-second spot starring the basketball god which unlocks more Howard-related content the more it is shared. Additionally it will be intertwined with the website and a Youtube channel.

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2010. What’s going to happen in 140 characters or less.

Dezember 23rd, 2009 • Comments Business, Reports, Strategy, Twitter
Tags: Brands, Business, Cool, Diagram, Experimental, Ideas, Prediction, Presentation, Reports, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, Trends, Truth, Twitter, World

As the year ends it’s time to think of the next big…year. 2010 is coming closer and while the Mayan Calendar seems to save us from the rapture for two more years, it is still time to think about next year’s trends. Okay…we get drown in trend predictions lately, but I liked this one – Trendspotting’s third annual prediction report following major trends in six categories. This time with trend predictions by the industry’s rock stars in 140 characters or less. Good to go?

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.

Trends. Most Contagious 2009 is live…and kicking.

Dezember 17th, 2009 • Comments Allgemein
Tags: Business, Contagious, Cool, Creativity, Experimental, Future, Ideas, Prediction, Presentation, Reports, Strategy, Trends, visual, We like, World

Contagious Magazine is one of the really good providers of quality content about global trends in marketing (do also check out trendwatching.com and PSFK among zillions of others). Apart from the magazine and DVD, Contagious also provides a pretty cool online resource, weekly newsletter, events & consultancy service, in-depth media reports and intelligence ‘Feeds’ for advertisers and agencies.

Now they have published their annual review for Global trends in Marketing last year, Most Contagious 2009.  It contains quite a pile of more or less known trends from design, technology, and real time media, summarized in a more than nicely designed document. A great compendium of everything that’s dynamic nowadays in our business.

They asked their readers to share the link to the PDF. So here it is – the link to Most Contagious 2009.