Brandopia

The Safer Internet EU programme includes a campaign in Belgium for CelBel, which boasts a free telephony subscription for any youngster under 21. It seems to good to be true, and it is, as shown by the fake operator campaign which aims to raise awareness of the dangers of the Internet. Within a week 1,200 young people were fooled by the offer. The operation ends with an email warning subscribers that they have been tricked, and gives the address of a website about Internet scams. I’m curious to see if those fooled kids will have liked this one. Nevertheless a nice campaign, if you ask me.

The original site can be found here: Celbel

French article in La Libre

Dutch article in De Standaard

Crossposted on Cross the Breeze

Another excellent presentation from Seth Godin at Gel 2006. This time the concept of the speech is: “if I think it’s broken, it’s broken”.

Found thanks to Coolzor and cross posted on Cross the Breeze

Brilliant videos with Ricky Gervais at Microsoft UK. Found thanks to Coolz0r.

You can download them here as well: Video 1 & Video 2

When I combine a few of the last posts from Loic Lemeurs’s blog an interesting vision of the future emerges. Today he posted: Teens spend 600% more time online than on TV, more than 70% of 2007 cars will have iPod support and The future of televison: rss. In other words (or my vision of this added with some other ideas):

• Tv’s are convering into PC’s (otherwise we couldn’t use content aggregators),
• PC’s are connected to Ipods (or Zune, if you have patience till November of this year),
• Teens (or the future generation) already use those media 600% more than TV,
• On top of that, cars will be connected soon (which was the only place where we were still mono-channel, radio),
• Mobile phones are turning into media players.

In other words, online content (delivered on whatever platform) rules! Personalization and online services are needed to find the content you like (since we will see an explosion of content) and this is where RSS, search, social networking and UGC comes in. You will look into the content your peers like and subscribe to that. This is the end of media networks as we know it. It’s not the end of the 30 sec. spot but the end of the media network and the start of the personal network. This network will help you find your tunes, tv programs, reading, your next job, your next girlfriend, your next everything.

We have a great future ahead of us, if you ask me.

Nice loyalty campaign for mini (or should I say up-sell campaign): PSFK: Mini runs ads only Mini owners can read. I might be mistaken but you don’t often see campaigns directed solely to previous carowners. I’ve had 3 Audi’s and never in those years have I ever received any mailing, emailing, ad or whatever to thank me for my loyalty or have they ever tried to convince me to buy another one.

This is maybe the reason I’m now changing brand. I’m buying a Saab now. Let’s see if they do a better job at this. 

Interesting article in Agenda Inc: Agenda Inc. Live Feed - Who owns the brand - when consumers seize control, do brands profit?

This ties in really well with the whole controversy on the Agency.com pitch for Subway. According to this article companies should let customers hijack their brands. Although I believe this to be true, not a lot of marketeers are willing to let go. For me, it’s another point that Agency.com didn’t do anything to harm Subway’s brand and I remain convinced that the pitch was not a bad idea (I’m not talking about the execution, which could have been much better, I admit).

Interesting article in Adage today:Half of your advertsing isn’t wasted, just 37%. Apparently the figure of 37% comes from a book that is going to come out next month. The book: “What Sticks: Why Most Advertising Fails and How to Guarantee Yours Succeeds” by Rex Briggs is the result of 5 years of study and campaigns from 36 advertisers.

I can hardly wait to get my hand on that book!

Moleskine , from the famous notebooks, was sold to a french investment group (The story in the French newspaper Le Figaro is here). Ben from Church of the Customer Blog has written a great story on the company and the brand, or how he puts it:”how a brand that was once considered dead was given new life by a 13-person company that focused on the notebook’s magical past and the evangelism of its current fans.”

Using online videos to promote books! Convergence is the “mot du jour”. Many publishers are doing it according to MediaBuyerPlanner. And The New York Times wrote a whole piece on it. I found a nice example of it for this book: Shadow Man
Specifically for what I am doing (check out my profile if you don’t know), I found a marvellous quote:“It’s so affordable that publishers are trying it for all different kinds of books,’’ said Skye Van Raalte-Herzog, a producer at Expanded Books.”

If all our prospects / clients would think like that I’d have an easy job.

Thanks to I-wisdom, I found this great video for the promotion of the new Reservoir Dogs videogame. Incredibly funny
The website for the game is very nice as well and ooh boy, the music is so addictive (Little green bag from George Baker).