Ideas. Hyper Island Kids Hack the Post Office Queue.

Mai 15th, 2012 • 1 comment Experimental, Mobile, Tools, We like
Tags: Cool, Creativity, Experimental, Hyper Island, Ideas, Mobile, Tech, Tool, We like

Many of you have probably heard about Hyper Island. The Swedish educational concept essentially promotes life long learning and has “produced” some of the most talented creative young talents I ever worked with. Hyper Island was always much more than a school. It is an attitude, a network, a way to see the world. And beyond  the original school in Karlskrona they now also offer Master Classes in Stockholm, London, Manchester and New York.

Hyper Kids like to play with things and experiment a lot. And most of the solutions they develop is a lot more than just aesthetically creative but a creative solution for a problem.

I just stumbled upon this little gem – a rather smart mobile way to hack the queue (link). It was developed by students from Hyper Island Manchestere and I thought you will like it…

Ray Ban’s Bright Light. For Once a Branded App That Makes Sense.

Mai 10th, 2012 • Brands, Ideas, Mobile, Tools
Tags: Brands, Bright Light, Cool, Ideas, Lifestyle, Mobile, Nike Plus, Ray Ban, Sun, Tools, We like

Oooooh brands and mobile apps. Yes, all of them want ‘something mobile’. No, just few of them should actually develop an app. The formula is simple: Nobody is interested in commercials and even fewer people are interested in branded apps. Except if they have a purpose.

Bright Light by Ray Ban may be such a rare case of a purposeful mobile application that even has a brand value. Check out the video below and tell me what you think. By the way: Ray Ban is my brand of the day anyway because of this fantastic print ad.

Awkward Badges. I want Foursquare to use these!

April 19th, 2012 • Fake
Tags: Cool, Creativity, Fake, Foursquare, Funny, Ideas, Location, People, Truth, We like, World

Tastefully Offensive has just posted a set of potential future Foursquare badges that might breathe in new life to the…kind of…stagnating platform. Also easier to get them.

The Jig Is Up: Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future.

April 19th, 2012 • Allgemein
Tags: Experimental, Facebook, Future, Ideas, People, Prediction, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks, Tech, Tools, Trends, Truth, World

From the great article ‘The Jig is Up: Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future‘ (The Atlantic)

‘It slipped into parody late last year with the hypothetical app, Jotly, which allowed you to “rate everything” from the ice cubes in your drink to the fire hydrant you saw on the street. The fake promo video perfectly nailed everything about the herd mentality among startups. Its creator told me to watch for “the color blue, rounded corners, SoLoMo [SocialLocalMobile], ratings, points, free iPads, ridiculous name (complete with random adverbing via ‘ly’), overpromising, private beta, giant buttons, ‘friction-less’ sign up, no clear purpose, and of course a promo video.”

And then, the hilarious parody ate itself and my tears of laughter turned to sadness when the people behind the joke actually released Jotly as a real, live app.’

Here is the original video. Isn’t it ironic? Revolutions always eat their own children. Did anyone say google Glass?

Jotly, the Ultimate App for Sharing Everything with Everyone (Psych!)

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.

Via Amsterdam Ad Blog

How to Stage B2B. Scania – The Best Driver in the World.

März 1st, 2012 • Ads, Ideas
Tags: B2B, Cool, CPB, Creativity, Ideas, Scania, We like

I just stumbled upon this (a bit longish) video by Crispin Porter at the site of my friends from Creative Criminals. The film shows how exciting B2B can be if you let it. The task is simple: Swedish truck manufacturer Scania created a competition for truck drivers. The goal is to find the most skilled driver in the world. And this is how it looks like…

Poets and Quants. How Brand People Can Learn to Love Big Data.

Februar 22nd, 2012 • 1 comment Brands, Data, Strategy
Tags: data, euro rscg, Ideas, Insights, Presentation, Strategy, Truth

Okay, I have seen a lot of bla bla on Slideshare. “Poets and Quants” is a great exception. Euro RSCG Chief Strategy Officer Tom Morton has created this extremely smart deck that tries to answer the question how Brand People Can Learn to Love Big Data. Thanks to Ben Malbon for the link.

“Big data is shifting the balance of power between the creative ’poets’ of the communications industry and the more analytical ’quants’. Yet there is still a big role for creative minded people in a Big Data world. A lateral, humanistic view on Big Data yields better, more insightful truths, and data can be fuel for creative development. Here’s how.”

Before you start: Slide 17 is officially the truest slide on the Planet.

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?

Read more »

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.

LEGO Occupy Wallstreet? Shut up and take my money!

Dezember 22nd, 2011 • Brands, Fake
Tags: 2011, Ads, Creativity, Fake, Funny, Ideas, Lego, Occupywallstreet, Politics, Toys, Truth

After months of demonstrations by the Occupy Wall Street movement, Slate V imagines a special edition Lego set just in time for the holidays. And with the Arab Spring upgrade soon…or North Korea.

via Laughing Squid