Insights. TNS Launches Largest Global Study on Digital Behaviour.

November 30th, 2011 • Reports, Strategy
Tags: 2011, Business, Insights, Lifestyle, Media, People, Planning, Presentation, Report, Reports, Research, Social Influence Marketing, Study, target group, TNS, Trends, World

Research company TNS has launched its 2011 version of TNS Digital Life. Based on conversations with over 72,000 people in 60 countries this is the world’s largest global study into people’s attitudes and behaviours online.

I particularly like how they underline the necessity to think (before yelling Facebook or iPad or Flashmob):

‘Digital waste’ pollutes the online world as brands fail to listen to what people want.

It [the study] found that 57 per cent of people*** in developed markets* do not want to engage with brands via
social media – rising to 60 per cent in the US and 61 per cent in the UK. Instead, misguided digital
strategies are generating mountains of digital waste, from friendless Facebook accounts to blogs no
one reads. This is being combined with ever-increasing content produced by consumers – the study
shows 47 per cent of digital consumers now comment about brands online.

The result is huge volumes of noise, which is polluting the digital world and making it harder for
brands to be heard.’

Of course: This study does not at all say brands shouldn’t be digital. The opposite is true. But it repeats the one thing that I never get tired of to repeat: People are not interested in a brand’s content. And they are not interested in brand experiences. They are interested in stuff that is relevant for them – and sometimes this is a brand.

Check out TNS Digital Life here .

Thanks to Rubbish Corp for the link.

Planner Survey 2011. The State of Marketing-Strategy Worldwide.

September 18th, 2011 • 1 comment Strategy
Tags: Agencies, Jobs, Money, Planning, Report, Salary, Strategy, Study, Survey, Truth, World

I have to admit I am a bit late with this post. But I have been travelling so please forgive me if you know about the ‘Planner Survey 2011‘ already. Many of you know this survey which my colleague Heather LeFevre conducts annually. Heather is Head of Planning at Strawberry Frog Amsterdam and for the seventh time she has tried to shed some light on the state of Marketing-Strategy worldwide – a remarkable effort for such a niche ‘industry’ within a ‘niche industry’.

I don’t want to say anything about her research. Just check out the 2011 document below. But I really want to thank Heather for her continuous curiosity in this topic. Great insights. I particularly the more localized character of this year’s survey compared with 2010′s data.

By the way: If you want to follow Heather on twitter, do it here.

Good Morning. Just a quick Saturday Morning Update.

Mai 7th, 2011 • Underway
Tags: Amsterdam, Blast Radius, Boss, Gerald, News, Planning, Strategy, Underway

Just a quick update on a couple of things…

• Awards! The ones who know me personally know that I passionately hate marketing awards. How cool that my team actually won one of the few really cool digital awards – a Webby goes out to Boss Bottled Night. I won’t even start to pretend I personally had anything to do with it. The proud creators know who they are. Check out the website or take a sneak peek at the embedded video at the bottom of this article.
• Drinks! My agency Blast Radius is constantly launching something these days. One of the really interesting projects is Bacardi’s new bartender community True Originals (Facebook here) that went live a week ago. It is not just a community for bartenders but a place where they can improve their really, really, really (and I mean really) important professional skills collaboratively. On August 22nd Bacardi will start challenging the community. So you better make sure the bartender of your choice is part of it.
• Amsterdam Strategists! Next week, on May 12th 2011, Amsterdam’s marketing and advertising strategists (whatever that is) will meet again. There is a joke about Germans that claims wherever a German goes the first thing he will do is to start a club. I am no exception which is why I started bringing Amsterdam’s strategists together. Actually all I did was to start a Facebook group while Heather Le Fevre actually contacted every Planner in town to turn it into an inspiring monthly event. So if you are in Amsterdam next Thursday and if you are a Planner (however you define that) or would like to become one – please contact me. I am glad to invite you.
• And more strategists! While we are talking about my colleague Heather…a while ago she had the great idea to create something that was really missing in general – a socio demographical census of the planner guild worldwide. Her planner survey 2010 was already extremely insightful and she has invested quite a bit of work to set up a new online survey for 2011. So if you are a Planner/Strategist (again: however you define that) make sure you take part in this year’s planner survey 2011. The more colleagues answer, the better the results. Here is the link to the survey…
• Something completely different! Beyond my blog davaidavai.com I am running quite a number of specific niche blogs/channels that I like to feed – simply because I think the world is quite an interesting place. So I want to highlight two little communities that I built and that I love. Feel free to join: Number 1 is the Facebook page for davaidavai which features some of the articles I publish here. But actually it’s more than that – it’s my platform for stuff that I want to share without necessarily blogging about it. So like davaidavai on Facebook please. Number 2 is PlanetWTF – a Facebook page where I share interesting useless knowledge with a focus on history, geography and politics. It’s simple, fun, and it is here.

Well…that’s all for the moment. And here goes the award video for BOSS Bottled Night…

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Survey. How much can you actually earn as a Planner?

August 18th, 2010 • 1 comment Work
Tags: Agencies, Jobs, Money, Planning, Report, Salary, Strategy, Study, Survey, Truth, World

Finally! An interesting analytical paper about the status quo of planning salaries in planning. My colleague Heather LeFevre from the colleagues at Strawberry Frog here in Amsterdam has just published her Planner Survey 2010. It tries to compare salaries of strategists worldwide to bring some light into the dark. The data was collected via an online survey with 1570+ participants from all over the world.

The effort definitely was worth it. You get a pretty good understanding about what you can expect to earn in NYC in comparison to London. But as usual – salaries don’t say much as long as you don’t integrate real costs of living. Earning and spending 100$ in Frankfurt is a very different thing to earning and spending 100$ in Amsterdam or London.

Anyway, great work, Heather. Thanks a lot.

Big Ideal. Ogilvy’s Brand Platform Revisited.

März 30th, 2010 • Strategy
Tags: Agencies, Big Ideal, Cool, Ogilvy, Philosophy, Planning, Prediction, Presentation, Strategy, Tools, We like

On my way to explore the best of both worlds (traditional vs digital) I have – once again – come across Ogilvy’s ‘Big Ideals’ concept. And I think it’s a philosophy worth taking a look at, if you’re a (non-Ogilvy) Planner.

It is a planning platform defining an overarching aspirational thought. The objective is obvious – to provide consistency in brand positioning and tone by defining what a brand strives for. Basically in how it wants to make the world a better place. This is a meta objective which is pretty free for all concepts and ideas supporting the Big Ideal. And indeed it may be even a good planning platform to build upon in a more stressful, social, 24/7 marketing environment. Simply because it is free, even though it stages a clearly defined, hypothetical, final condition for a brand.

Thanks to Giles for the video link.

Connections Planning. What is it actually?

Oktober 20th, 2009 • 13 comments Allgemein
Tags: Agencies, Analytics, Connections Planning, CRM, Definition, Ideas, Media, Planning, Presentation, Social Influence Marketing, Strategy, Tools, Trends

Since the beginning of 2009 my employer Neue Digitale / Razorfish has integrated all strategic disciplines in one Connections Planning team. As Social Influence Strategist I am part of it together with with different strategic backgrounds. I admit, I did not always feel comfortable in properly defining the different Planning Concepts. And the rather ‘new’ Connections Planning idea adds just one more label to the different strategic disciplines which can exist in an agency.

Our concept of Connections Planning integrates the work of Account and Brand Planners as well as Media and Analytics, and Social Media. Its core idea is to engage customers where they are and not by putting the customer’s media use into the center of attention. Its goal is to use the strength of data-driven marketing activities and integrate all other disciplines to strategically interact with the user and maximize value for all stakeholders.

Connections Planning is a young term. And there are some definitions around and some agencies might find different approaches for the same term. The reason for this post is, I found two interesting decks lately which revolve around the term ‘Connections Planning’. And both are pretty insightful and definitely worth to take a look at.

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Digital Strategy. Let’s start the discourse.

August 14th, 2009 • 3 comments Underway
Tags: apgdigital, Planning, Presentation, Strategy, Underway, Workshop

You know how these things start.

You discuss with friends, you drink wine and finally you’re convinced you got a ‘really good idea the world definitely is waiting for’…

About 6 months ago, the people on this picture asked themselves what digital strategy is. Is there a digital planning? If yes, what makes it different to what we did since the 1970s? There were a lot of question marks.

The only thing which was clear was, none of knew if there is a real genuine digital planning approach. We knew we did something different…but we didn’t exactly know what. And I believe this open question made us structure a workshop for traditional account planners which took place last friday and saturday: An open discourse in which we asked

As I said earlier: This workshop wasn’t only about ‘teaching’ digital to traditional planners. It was about defining something for us. About understanding challenges in nowaday’s traditional agencies. Simply because we don’t believe digital planning (if there is one) is ‘winning’. But because we think traditional planning simply evolves and turns into Planning +, 2.0, XP, Vista or iPlanning (you get the idea) as digital turns into mainstream.

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