Posts Tagged ‘Underway’
The Awesome Slideshow. 20 Deeper Truths on Twitter.
April 28th, 2012 • Twitter, Underway
Tags: Amsterdam, Funny, Gerald, PR, Presentation, theass, Twitter, Underway
Two days ago I had the pleasure to present during The Awesome Slideshow at Amsterdam’s Boom Chicago. Tom De Bruyne, co-founder of Sue Amsterdam, was so kind to ask me to present ‘something connected to twitter’. And the following little deck was the result.
The starting point for this presentation was a simple thought: Twitter is far more than a digital tool. It is a philosophy machine – a thing that creates realities. And the following selection of some of my 20 most favorite tweets proved that.
Rolling with the Gnomies. One Week with Amsterdam’s Marketing Peeps.
November 21st, 2011 • Allgemein, Underway
Tags: Amsterdam, Events, Gerald, Underway, World
I don’t particularly like marketing events. But my last week was full of these wonderful happenings with my favorite ad peeps in my hometown Amsterdam. And in the end I have to admit: It was actually rather great.
Monday – Event 1: Meeting John Hegarty
John Hegarty is a legend. He is one of the three founders of Bartle Bogle Hegarty and you 
can compare him with David Ogilvy or Leo Burnett – apart from the fact that he is still alive, lived a couple of years later then the two other guys, and his ideas are still really relevant for today’s business. Anyway: Mister Hegarty has written a book. Basically his advertising legacy. Hegarty on Advertising contains over ‘four decades of wisdom and insight from the man who put Nick Kamen into a laundrette for Levi Strauss and gave Audi the immortal Vorsprung durch Technik, amongst many, many other highly successful campaigns for major brands‘.
Hegarty came to Amsterdam last week as guest of the wonderful American Book Center here and presented himself as the cool, silverbacked Madmen that he is and (of course) presented his book. I haven’t started reading it yet – but if you are quick you can get your own copy here and that I have no clue what I am talking about.
Tuesday – Event 2: The Tomorrow Awards
Believe me: I passionately hate the concept of awards. Why? Because I reject them as a fair measure for creativity. Most awards are money-producing client-service tools for agencies (the Webbys have just founded the Lovie awards to generate more revenue). And no, I don’t really see the point why Amsterdam needs its own award show. But apparently since last week exactly this is the case. We now learn that: The Tomorrow Awards is the first international award show dedicated to discovering, showcasing and awarding advertising creativity that pushes new technological boundaries. Since the very best examples of such work are those that defy standard award show categories, the Tomorrow Awards is category-neutral; all entries are judged together, and only the very best ideas shine brightest.
Okay: Whatever this is. I had a brilliant evening with the marketing peeps from Amsterdam, watching people like Taxi’s Paul Lavoie, AKQA’s Nick Bailey, or Sid Lee’s JF Bouchard giving brilliant speeches. And I am truly, wholeheartedly a fan of Anomaly’s Carl Johnson. His blunt, bold and direct speech about what he perceives as creative made me constantly nod happily. Good that anomaly is in town now. Welcome guys.
Thursday – Event 3: Founding the APG Netherlands
We were planning it for a while already: The inauguration event of the Account Planning Group Netherlands.
So after a couple of months of preparing, me and my six colleagues Heather (Strawberry Frog), Laura (FHV/BBDO), Boris (THEY), Wouter (Boon Strategy) Laurence (AKQA) Simon (Blast Radius) launched our first for the new home for Marketing Strategists in the Netherlands: Inside Insights.
You Know What? I am Offline for a Week.
Juli 8th, 2011 • Underway
Tags: personal, Underway
…Most of the time at least…
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Packaging. Can I buy all of this please?
Juni 4th, 2011 • 1 comment Underway
Tags: Copenhagen, Packaging, personal, Underway
I spent my last weekend in Copenhagen with Marta. Just a quick trip to explore a city that both of us did not know at all. Even though I grew up less than 500 miles away. I found it very beautiful even though it is hard for any city to really compete with my hometown Amsterdam. What really impressed me though was the service level and the quality of restaurants. Copenhagen really is a great places for Foodies and if you decide to travel there make sure you have the great Unlike Copenhagen app with you.
I always complain about Amsterdam’s service quality in Restaurants. Copenhagen was quite the opposite. Wherever you decided to eat or buy food – the staff was competent, friendly and there whenever you needed them. Also the presentation of Danish food in supermarkets reminded me once again of how important good packaging is.
Sometimes design really makes a difference whether I want to buy a product or not. The funniest thing is – good consistent product design is not much more expensive than really bad design. Even though the food (and all the other stuff in Copenhagen) is indeed much more expensive…
These are just a couple of quick snapshots from a Danish supermarket. Would you rather buy products that are packaged nicely. I did buy all of them sure would.
Cognitive Cities. Now they go local.
Mai 17th, 2011 • 2 comments Allgemein
Tags: Amsterdam, Berlin, cities, city, CoCities, conference, Conferences, Cool, experiment, Germany, Lifestyle, People, Underway, World
Three months ago my friends from Third Wave and Your Neighbours in Berlin staged CoCities – a conference focused on the future of the city and how technology can transform the way people interact. I actually bought a ticket but eventually did not make it (don’t ask why). I know the guys were extremely nervous about the outcome of this experiment. Putting urban planners, designers, technology geeks, environmental experts, public officials, and others into one room in quite a new conference format isn’t exactly what you do every day. And I know the guys did not just want to stage just another conference.
Great that the conference was considered as very enlightening novely particularly in Germany. And even better – CoCities goes local and might soon be in a city near you. The so-called Cognitive Cities Salon comes to Amsterdam on June 30 to De Verdieping (Wibautstraat 127, Amsterdam).
The general idea behind the salons is simple: create an local event, from locals, for locals – curated by CoCities. Those will be small events, not larger than 100 people. A major part of those events is to find the appropriate partners. Luckily, in Amsterdam we are very well served.
With VURB, Visible Cities and Volume Magazine, we have a great lineup of partners to create an exciting event for Amsterdam. There will be an entry fee, but we will try to keep that as low as possible.
So. I am definitely going to join this time (it’s in my hometown so I cannot mix up the flights). And if you happen to be in Amsterdam, join in.
Do also check out the conference recap…
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…
Good Morning. The Return of ‘The Media Award Tram Station’.
April 29th, 2011 • Media, Underway
Tags: Ads, Agencies, Amsterdam, Awards, Funny, Ideas, Media, Outdoor, Truth, Underway, visual, World, WTF
It’s not always easy to work in the center of Amsterdam. Well, most of the time it is. But then there are days when you step out of your tram at the central Leidseplein square and the first thing you think is WTF?
Quite often this has got something to do with my particular tram station which I call ‘The Media Award Tram Station’. Simply because it serves as award entry for pretty much any Media angency in the world. You know…when they spend EUR 1 million on media…and EUR 995,000 run just into this installation there to make the campaign look great in Cannes?
I have seen everything being built on top, attached to or dug underneath the tram station. But I haven’t seen what I have seen this morning. It looked a little something like this…
Cultural Crisis. Germany’s Digital Elites fail to Innovate.
April 18th, 2011 • 2 comments Underway
Tags: Germany, republica, RP11, Underway, World
After a couple of days in Germany I finally returned to Amsterdam. Apart from a day off with my family the key purpose of this trip was to attend the annual Re:publica conference in Berlin. I go there pretty much every year in April as it was one of the best major grassroot events about social media and digital culture in general. And beyond its professional scope every year anew it was a great networking event. A place where you had the chance to actually talk to your friends and followers on twitter and get to know the humans behind the twitter streams.
This year’s Re:publica at least delivered on the latter experience. I had the pleasure to get to know a couple of people personally that I interacted with for some time now virtually. Unfortunately Re:publica XI revealed the misery of Germany’s “digital elite” – it considers itself to be a digital elite but it struggles with reinventing itself and get out of its ‘Grandad talks a bit about the war’ corner. Key drivers of Re:publica XI were the usual suspects from Berlin. Spreeblick, Lobo, and Netzpolitik among many others – a group of people that German media likes to call ‘Alpha bloggers’. And here we get to the first problem. Because Re:publica’s claim to be the forum for a new digital society is in Germany defined by a small group of people from the capital. Nothing new here. And apparently not much interest to open that up.
After attending a couple of sessions I felt reminded of the early years of Germany’s Green Party. At that time many Germans perceived the Green party as trapped in its own conservativism regarding an actually new and very enlightening topic in Germany’s political system – Ecology. Anyway the Green party was able to reinvent itself over the years and is currently extremely close to designate the next German chancellor. Unfortunately Germany’s digital elite hasn’t made it even close to this point. They don’t want to be part of an evolution. They prefer to stay among themselves and tell the same old stories over and over again.
Cognitive Cities. Join the Conference about the Smart City of the Future.
Januar 29th, 2011 • Knowledge, People, Tech
Tags: Berlin, CoCities, Conferences, Creativity, Experimental, Future, Predicition, Smart Cities, Third Wave, Underway, World
It was a bit like a Deja vu. But a good one. For the first time in a year I worked with my old partner in crime Johannes Kleske in my office at Blast Radius Amsterdam. Professionally the two of us spent the lion’s share of our last couple of years together. We share a similar perspective on how marketing should be done and I consider Johannes as one of the smarter guys that I have met so far. In short – I am happy to work a couple of weeks with an old friend.
Many of you know Johannes and his friends Peter and Igor who together form the Berlin-based strategy thinktank Third Wave. And now that their young consultancy is fully operational they are launching their first major initiative in collaboration with YourNeighbours. The Cognitive Cities conference on Feb 26/27 in Berlin.
‘Cognitive Cities’ is about how our cities (and our lifes) become smarter, more liveable, more joyful and efficient through the use of technology. As far as I know it is one of the first conferences about this topic in Europe and the guys at Third Wave have convened an impressive group of digital and cultural thought leaders who will share their perspectives with the audience. As far as I know the conference itself is going to be more than just theory with a very urban and mobile conference concept that understands Berlin not just as the frame but also as the playground for understanding Cognitive Cities.
Hello. And Fuck you Nissan.
August 24th, 2010 • 3 comments Ads
Tags: Ads, Campaign, Fail, Germany, Nissan, Underway
I just stumbled upon this pic of the current Nissan campaign by TBWA London. It is not only a boring headline, it also shows a lot of disrespect and lack of any kind of cultural sensitivity no taste at all. The headline alters the first stanza of Germany’s national anthem – ‘Deutschland, Deutschland ueber alles’ (‘Germany, Germany above all’).
I am not so sure if Nissan and TBWA know that this part of Germany’s anthem is (not prohibited but) officially banned in Germany due to its function in the Third Reich. We sing the third strophe now for about 65 years…apart from a couple of skinheads. And yes, coming up with this headline in 2010 is highly offensive for a German. But what I feel sorry about most, TBWA – your lack of knowledge in combination with bad copywriting.
Does Nissan actually sell cars in Germany too? I think so.
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