Please Stop It: Five Things I Hope Not To See Again in 2012.

Dezember 13th, 2011 • 2 comments Allgemein
Tags: 2011, 2012, Future, List, personal, Prediction, Rant, Trends

My calendar reminds me that I still haven’t really proceeded with my Christmas shopping. And this usually is a clear indicator that another year goes by. Much has happened in 2011. And still – some of the most annoying stuff is still there. So before the year ends I would like to articulate my hope that I won’t see 5 things ever again after January 1. But probably I will anyway.

1. Social Media Infographics
Social Media Infographics are probably the most painful thing to witness while browsing through a whole lot of inspiring thoughts in blog feed every morning. Originally the idea was quite good: take dull information and turn it into something nice. By late 2011 social media infographics have unfortunately become a metaphor for reducing information to colorful shit. Many of them are simply wrong or misleading, many of them are even Spam. For the love of Baby Jesus. Stop that.

2. Social Media Boutique Agencies

Whenever I think about the artist formerly known as Social Media I also think about its maturity in 2011. And one sign that the social media evolution isn’t yet where it is supposed to be is quite evident: Social Media Boutique Agencies still exist. I have absolutely no idea why some major companies still let specialized ‘social media vendors’ pitch for isolated accounts. It is against the idea of tearing down the silos. It makes no sense from a management standpoint – and no: they are not necessarily more thoughtful, up-to-date or inspiring than more holistic vendors. Quite often the opposite is the case.

3. TV is Dead Bullshit
Even the Guardian still uses tabloid-style headlines like ‘TV is dead‘. Can we please clarify one thing: Claiming that TV is dead is simply not true. TV (and TV advertising) will definitely reinvent itself over the next couple of years. It will take over a new role in a more digitalized world. But one thing is for sure: My dad still will rather watch TV than tweet.

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Study. The World’s Top 100 Prestige and Luxury Brands on Facebook.

Juni 9th, 2011 • Brands, Strategy
Tags: Brands, Facebook, List, luxury, prestige, Reports, Social, Social Influence Marketing, Study

Prestige and Luxury brands used to have quite a hard time to deal with this phenomenon called social media. It seemed like a contradiction to what high value brands stood for. Being very exclusive simply did not seem to fit right into this new all connected world in which everyone is included.

Times are a changing and some of the planet’s really iconic (mainstream) brands are amongst the most successful players particularly on Facebook. L2 – a thinktank for luxury brands in New York – along with the guys from Buddy Media just published an extremely interesting piece of research: The L2 Prestige 100®: Facebook IQ measures the aptitude of 100 prestige brands from the Auto, Beauty, Fashion, Watches & Jewelry, and Spirits & Champagnes industries on the world’s fastest growing social media platform.

Key findings are:

• It is still not really about size: many of the brands that have been most effective at acquiring Facebook fans have fallen flat engaging them.
• Push only isn’t cool: Brands which allow their fans to post are more engaged Facebook brands than the 20% which don’t allow it
• Products are winning over promotions: Most engagement rates were achieved through product posts not promotions
• Facebook is still considered as an island: Too few brands integrate the social graph into their digital ecosystem
• F-Commerce? Nah! Only few brands are actively engaged in social commerce on Facebook

In short – if you deal with prestige and or luxury brands on Facebook this is the study to download. Get it here.

Agencies. The Industry’s Family Tree 2010 is out.

April 26th, 2010 • Brands, Business, Strategy
Tags: 2010, Agencies, Brands, Business, Diagram, List, Strategy, Trends, visual, visualization, World

You are working for a network agency? You were part of one or the other merger? Time to zoom out and locate you on ad age’s annual agency family tree. The statistical compendium lists the big players, specialized agencies, compares winners and losers. And just like last year it offers a perfect overview about the state of the marketing industry worldwide. To help you locate your agency you can download the whole tree as pdf or get into it as navigatable map. The 2010 issue was just published. So go check it out.

By the way. Congratulations to my employer. Razorfish has just become the largest digital agency in the U.S. by revenues.

Ideas. 450+ Out of Home Concepts to be amazed of.

Oktober 9th, 2009 • Ads, We like
Tags: Ads, Brands, Cases, Cool, Creativity, Funny, Ideas, List, Out of Home, visual, We like, World

Before I enter my weekend I would like to share this amazing collection of 450+ mostly great Out of Home ideas. It’s classic advertising and I think it’s mainly about filling Blogs and award shortlists. But there are quite a bunch of great ideas in it. Check out the list here.