I’ve recently spoken at Trends Event in Brussels. Here’s the gist of what I spoke about.
The title of my contribution was ‘The Conversation Starts From Within’, which refers to an evolution within marketing from message-centric (trying to flog average products & services through flashy and entertaining messages) to product-centric (trying to actually improve products & services, and make them more remarkable, interesting, beautiful or valuable). In other words, an evolution from creating ‘talk value’ despite the average nature of products & services, towards creating ‘talk value’ that is embedded in the products & services.
In search of the 5 innovators in the comms industry, i.e. the generation of makers and thinkers who will shape the future, I’ve also posted the question on LinkedIn. This spawned some interesting and overlapping answers. It seems like there are two distinct kinds of answers: the ones that point towards some of the most innovative agencies (recurring names are CP+B, Anomaly, Naked, r/ga, droga5, etc) and the ones that point towards media companies or owners (usual suspects here are Google, Apple, Nokia, Facebook, MySpace, Second Life, etc). The same trend occurs in the many emails I’ve received.
So the question arises: where does the current and future innovation in the industry truly come from? Is it driven by the most innovative agencies around the world, or by the players who are actually transforming and building the future communication platforms?
In essence, agencies are merely thriving on whatever is developed in terms of media & technology. They are essentially followers, rather then initiators. So there’s a strong argument that the likes of Google, Facebook and Apple have a more fundamental and long-lasting impact on the future of the advertising industry then any agency on the face of the planet, however forward-thinking or innovative they might be. Strangely enough, there’s only one non-agency person in The Guardian’s top 10 advertising list, and it’s the founder of Google, Eric Schmidt. But there’s a big difference between ‘power’ (what The Guardian’s list is about), and ‘innovation’ (what Thames & Hudson’s list is about). Also, much depends on how narrow or broad you define ‘advertising’. The Guardian’s list already looks much different if you look at the total Top 100 or even the New Media section.
I’ll keep you updated about the final list. In the mean time, further suggestions & names are more than welcome.
For its 60th anniversary in 2009, book publisher Thames &Hudson will publish a landmark publication that “will celebrate a new generation of makers and thinkers who will shape the future. Artists, photographers, architects, fashion designers, product designers, street artists, curators, editors, social observers and academics who are redefining our aesthetics, values and daily lives and pointing the way forward will all be brought together in a single stupendous volume.”
The book will contain 12 sections:
Advertising
Applied Arts and Materials
Art
Building (architecture,engineering,landscape,urban design)
Fashion and Style
Graphics
Green World
Interior and Exterior Environments
New Media
Photography
Street Life
Three-dimensional Design
I’ve been asked to suggest and write about 5 acknowledged innovators for the advertising section. So before I start randomly picking anyone, here’s my question:
Which people do you consider to be the most influential/important innovators in the advertising industry (in broadest sense of the word)?
Would love to hear any suggestions. Let the namedropping begin.
When brands deliver on promise -whether it’s being the cheapest, quickest or healthiest, they tend to make a big deal out of it, reminding customers about their commitment and reliance. But when brands don’t deliver, they tend to remain silent.
Case in point: I took a London-Rome return flight with RyanAir last week. When I arrived in Rome with a delay of about 30 minutes, there was no mention whatsoever of their longstanding brand promise, i.e. being the nr 1 on-time airline. But when I landed on time upon return, there was a rather tacky yet quite amusing trumpet jingle, with a reminder message that they remain the nr 1 on-time airline. I was too late to record the message, but found it here.
Although I think the tacky trumpet is a brilliant and simple device to remind RyanAir passengers about the brand’s commitment to deliver on their promise, they should have an equally simple device when they don’t deliver on promise. It’s an act of humbleness to admit you’re not perfect, and that you’re doing the best you can. And I would have forgiven RyanAir for their delay much more easily.
(stats on the slide above do not show the most recent data, but RyanAir still is the nr. 1 on-time airline)
If there were as many brilliant cases as there were presentations on social media, online advertising would be a whole lot more enjoyable. But once in a while, a campaign comes along that just puts all the buzz words brilliantly into practice. And The World’s First Internet Balloon Race for Orange is such a campaign.
First of all, there’s a dead simple and truly original idea: the world’s first online balloon race. The concept of a balloon race is so inherently connected to a real-life, social experience in our minds, that the creation of an online version is truly remarkable.
I attended a lecture last week by double Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas Friedman at the British Museum about his upcoming book “Hot, Flat and Crowded, Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America”. Being involved in environmental strategy for a global brand myself, I was amazed by both the clarity and boldness of the argumentation he laid out. Again, Friedman showed himself brilliant at connecting all the dots. He also showed himself a master of language. Some of the new terms in the book will no doubt become common language. His description of the current state of things as a “Green Party” and his call for a “Green Revolution” is spot on. His renaming of “Global Warming” as “Global Weirding” brilliantly reflects the current reality (see further below).
I would like to share the structure of Friedman’s book as he laid it out, as well as some of the highlights.
I had the honour of being a judge at the D&AD Awards recently, in the ambient category (one of the categories where no awards were handed out, sorry for that). Every morning of the judging period, there was a short presentation on the what, how, why and who of judging. On the ‘who’ slide, D&AD recognised there was a “growing army of freelancers” out there, which they increasingly wanted to involve in the judging process. It got me thinking about the growth of the freelance army in ad/marketing country. Continue reading The Growth Of The Freelance Army
If there were as many brilliant cases as there were presentations on social media, online advertising would be a whole lot more enjoyable. But once in a while, a campaign comes along that just puts all the buzz words brilliantly into practice. And 
