My Column. Now also featured in Adformatie.

April 27th, 2012 • News
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, adformatie, Amsterdam, Amsterdam Ad Blog, Column, Creativity, Listening, PR, Real time, Strategy

I am actually not a big fan of personal PR news flicks on my blog. But I was a bit proud of this one I have to admit: Adformatie – the biggest marketing/advertising/whatever magazine of the Netherlands has just published my column for Amsterdam Ad Blog for the first time.

It is just a short text and certainly not the reinvention of marketing. But hey: I am in adformatie. Thanks Amsterdam Ad Blog for the cooperation. Thanks Rindert for the scan.

Poll: How Real-Time do Agencies actually work?

April 16th, 2012 • 3 comments Allgemein
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, Insight, Poll, Real time, Survey

I will give a presentation next week that will revolve around working real-time in agencies. In order to add a bit of meat to that I would be super happy if all of you (and I mean all) who work for agencies would answer the following couple of questions for me. It is super easy. And would help me an awful lot for my presentation for which your data anonymously would be used. This is a presentation I give personally, there is no client or project by my employer involved.

If anything is unclear or if you have additional comments just leave it underneath this article. Please feel free to pass this poll on to friends.

My Column for Amsterdam Ad Blog: Strategy and Creatives still don’t listen – but they should.

April 12th, 2012 • 1 comment Columns, Social Business, Strategy
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, Amsterdam Ad Blog, Column, Creativity, Listening, Real time, Strategy

Every now and then I have the pleasure (or the duty) to write my column for Amsterdam Ad Blog. If you don’t know it: The platform is one of the best sources for anything marketing-related in Amsterdam. And the guys published my comment on why strategists and creatives should start listening more yesterday here. This is the article:

There is not one article on adaptive digital marketing that doesn’t start by saying that we need to listen to the consumer. If the industry only did!

Social media has generated an important technological opportunity for marketers – as billions of people worldwide constantly interact via social networks we have the great oppor
tunity to learn what they find relevant and what not. With tools like Radian 6, Viralheat, Lithium or Alterian we could exactly know what people share on Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus. But there’s still a great amount of brands that don’t like to listen.

In Spring 2011 60% of all CMO’s in a global KPMG-survey responded they would expand social listening efforts in the near future. Only 43% had already had positive experiences in this field. This is a bit astonishing considering the fact that Social Listening is the most insightful and least ’dangerous’ (read: least visible) brand activity in the social web. What’s more, social listening can support brands holistically. No matter whether it’s about measuring buzz, optimizing customer service, or co-create a new product with fans, listening tools should be the weapon of choice.

Imagine how many creative concepts could benefit from integrating sophisticated listening reports early on in the process. How much better and relevant would creative ideas become if they’d be conceived based on the end-consumer’s interests. Take for example the genius approach by EA Games 4 years ago which resulted in one of the greatest viral hits of that time: Tiger Woods, Walk on Water. The story is simple and beautiful. And the result of social listening.

The video is essentially a TV commercial – save the fact that it was exclusively shown on YouTube. A high-budget concept for a major brand. But the insight that led to it was based on simply listening to consumers. It was the glitch in an EA game, discovered by a consumer, that was used as the creative springboard.

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Adaptation Marketing. Miracle Whip on the fast lane.

November 13th, 2009 • 3 comments Ads, Brands, Experimental, Ideas, Media, We like
Tags: Adaptation Marketing, Brands, Colbert, Cool, Creativity, Experimental, Fast, Funny, Ideas, Media, Miracle Whip, Real time, We like

About a week ago I reviewed Forrester’s concept of Adaptive Marketing – a framework in which brands react fast on a given context using the means of microstrategies. This week Miracle Whip showed how this might look like. Background: On October 15 Comedy Central’s notorious Stephen Colbert made fun of Miracle Whip’s new ad campaign which stages urban, young hipsters doing fancy stuff with Miracle Whip (you know what I mean).

As a traditional brand you would not react on it. But now comes Adaptive Marketing into play: Miracle Whip’s declaration of war to Stephen Colbert ran as full-page ad in various American newspapers only a couple of weeks later, striking back at Colbert (see the full size ad)… “On Thursday, November 12, we will dominate the airspace on your show. With every commercial break, your viewers will be exposed to hardcore Miracle Whip attitude and revelry. You will see our legion of (as you call them) “mayo nay-sayers” snarfing sandwiches topped with our one-of-a-kind flavor in a very cool and totally hip way. They will be in your face and massively dope. It goes without saying, they WILL NOT TONE IT DOWN.”

And

“We’re on a mission.

We’re taking no prisoners. We’re raising Hell, Man.”

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