If there is a company that can be seen as a true innovator in the field of online advertising, it will definitely be Uniqlo. Uniqlo is Japan’s, and in the mean time Asia’s, main clothing retailer. Best to be compared with Zara or H&M.

It seems that out of the box, out of room and even out of the building thinking is the starting point for each Uniqlo online campaign. A couple of years ago they drew attention with Uniqlock a widget streaming images of Chinese dancers. At the end of 2009 they brought a new campaign again challenging competition and innovating the field of online advertising.

To support its end of the year promotion where they gave away lucky tickets in store, Uniqlo created a banner campaign that distributed lucky tickets literally everywhere. They created a blog widget containing a button, when consumers pushed the button the images on every website changed into lucky tickets. The winning tickets received a price. Despite this, bloggers were given incentives to put the widget on their website. When a winning ticket would be obtained through their blogs they received a present as well. This resulted in a lot of bloggers putting up the banner for free.

You can already imagine the great results this yielded.

Again this comes to show that online advertising and banners are still in a premature phase. Nothing should be taken for granted and everything should be challenged. Or how in this field creativity can be seen as a strategy. Plus it seems to become a golden rule that you can’t expect to get any benefits from online advertising if you don’t give anything back in return. Uniqlo understood this by offering presents to both consumers and bloggers. That is why marketing has to evolve into a service and why the Internet is so well equipped to support this.

Last Thursday I attended the Seth Godin talk organized by Flanders DC in Antwerp. Whenever you have the change to listen to someone that important I think that it is crucial to blog about it. or to say in the words of Mister Godin himself: “everyone should blog, maybe no one will read it but just the act of writing is important.”

On this blog we usually try to do something different. We try to find new content or look deeper into a phenomenon. OK point taken we don’t always manage to succeed in doin that but it is our core belief anyway. This post however is going to be different. I am just going to be giving my opinion on what I heard and saw tonight. You could see it as rather roughly pouring out my brain in order to give you my impression of the evening.

I think I went to the venue on Thursday with moderate expectations. I mean we all follow mister Godin his blog, read his books or catch up on him true secondary articles. So what could he possibly add to all those things we already know about him and his vision? I wasn’t at all expecting that I  hear something mind blowing that would change the face of marketing for decades to come. I mean those people expecting that from a mere presentation might rather try sitting at home waiting for lightning to strike in order to get enlightened. However what I did expect was mister Godin taking a closer look at marketing and what the true implications are of the newly shaped environment we find ourselves in today. Maybe something on how a truly innovative supply chain can look like or how push advertising can become more of marketing as a service pulling consumers in.

That was basically the mindset I was in. You could call it open but expecting.

Seth Godin started off by immediately warning all of us that we wouldn’t be getting a practical map that would lead us to the road to success. Pretty normal I guess. I mean the guy is just coming to talk to us not inventing the next best thing after the Internet. However it kind of shaped the atmosphere of him being able to say everything he sees adequate without thinking about some practical issues. Next the standard talk started on how the world is changing, consumers aren’t listening, we have been shouting at consumers, … . In order to get those who have been sleeping under a rock for the last decade up to speed. Once that was done mister Godin continued on how we have to rethink our businesses and on how we should focus on the extraordinary. He calls it the fact that we are all geniuses. To quote mister Godin:

“A Genius is someone who does things differently.”

Ok fair enough but it is here that the talk started to shift towards a motivational speech. We should pursue every idea because that one good idea will eventually make up for the hundreds of bad ones. While doing so we have to try to not give in to our “lizard brain”. Or to clarify the caveman piece in our brains that controls our most basic functions. It is this part that controls fear and in being a genius we should overcome the fear in that small part of our brain. by doing so we can come to the next part in our evolution, a new revolution. After starting off as hunters, farmers, workers it is now time for us to become artists.

This was roughly the scope of mister Godin his presenation. Afterwards some highly appreciated time for Q&A. I must admit that mister Godin  took his time in answering several questions. Although no truly critical in depth questions were brought to the stage and so Seth could often cut it with some good one liners.

Women: “What if I only have 10 minutes in a job interview to convince them I am an artist?”

Seth: “don’t apply for that job!”

After leaving the room a colleague of mine was still thinking, feeling a bit disappointed that the real content behind the subject wasn’t touch. He decided to approach mister Godin to ask the more in depth question whether there is still a place for market research within his framework.

The Godin answer was simple: “None existing. Only trust gut feel.”

I just had to include this little quote because it shows the lack of a deeper reasoning on the subject. Writing off market research as bollocks doesn’t really fit with my view of the marketing landscape we are confronted with today. If any I personally feel that market research is getting more relevant because of all the changes we are going through.This was more or less the tone of voice of the entire evening in Antwerp.

 Seth Godin is a very clever marketer with insightful ideas. I think that anyone who has never had to opportunity to be introduced into the world of marketing the last 5 years was truly amazed and felt the urge to stand up and really be that artist. Those however knowing a bit more and taking into consideration the multitude of aspects that come into play when talking about marketing didn’t walk away with a lot of new insights.

Truth be told mister Godin wasn’t really challenged and was served a very easy crowd. Most of them happy to see the legend in the flesh.

I had a good night, I was entertained, my expectations weren’t really met none the less I still believe Seth Godin is an intelligent and remarkable marketer that has a vision he wants to share. That is a good and valuable thing!

I was just browsing through the book "Consumer Behavior; 2010" by Washington and Miller. The book gives a forcast on how future gerenations will look like. Plus they give a funny overview of the top future jobs. So if you are planning to enrole in college you might first want to take the following in consideration:

Top jobs by 2020

• Artists, writers, poets

• Global headhunters

• Knowledge management advisors

• Nano-bio entrepreneurs

• On-demand supply-chain designers

Top jobs by 2025

• Anti-hacker specialists 

• Gene engineers 

• Personal identity finders 

• Personal privacy advisors

• Reality interactive TV producers

• Robotic psychotherapists

Top jobs by 2030

• Anti-terrorism technicians

• Climate change forecasters

• Customer knowledge mining specialists

• Health performance enhancers

• Holographic game developers

• Hydrogen marketing managers

• Nano-manufacturing agents

• Poets

• Renewable energy entrepreneurs

• Solar fuel developers

• Space market planners

Great to see that poets will survive 2025 to flourish again in 2030. Bummer though that being a marketer will never be a top job!

How to make guys bond with your brand ? Let a loved one take away one of their pleasures and then come to the rescue by giving it back ! Heineken first took away the most sacred thing men had left: watching football with friends. However they didn't take it away themselves. No, they asked girlfriends, bosses and journalists to ask men to skip their match of the year: AC Milan vs Real Madrid for a classical concert of the Schnuren. Many men craved. But after 15 minutes they were given the following message "how could you have even thought of missing the big match? Real Madrid and Milan are now on the pitch. Lets watch the match together ". The result ? More than 5 million online visitors, a viral story and a bonding experience for 1136 men they will never forget. Cheers !

Since yesterday the Belgian consumers can taste a new low-calorie Cola. No, it’s not another line-extension of the Coca-Cola Company. In fact the company, producer or brand behind the new Cola is still a mystery.

For now the stunt exists out of handing out free samples of this new mystery Cola and convincing the consumers to cast their vote. They can express their opinion by sending “yes” or “no” to the free number 8955 or visiting their website www.likeitornot.be.

The mystery Cola is being distributed and promoted with a black truck and promo teams a cross Belgium.  The plan is to handout 75.000 off these mystery Cola’s. Yesterday the promo tour started in Antwerp, today it’s in Ghent. Hasselt and Brussels are the next stops for tomorrow. From there on the truck will visit Mechelen on Monday, Leuven on Tuesday and finally Kortrijk on Wednesday.

It’s stated by the law that every food fabricant is obliged to identify itself and to put a customerservicenumber on the packaging. But even this information didn’t help the journalists to figure out who is behind the stunt.

It seems we will have to wait at least till Wednesday to solve the mystery….or let the mystery solve itself.  Well, the stunt got me curious… let’s hope the unraveling will be as interesting as their stunt.

ps: I didn't got the chance to taste this new mystery Cola, but if you did...share your taste experience with us!

source: standaard.be

I came across a nice TEDtalk by John Gerzema, the Chief Insights Officer at Young & Rubicam and author of The Brand Bubble.

(If you are unable to watch this video go to the TED website)

Ok I know there are a lot of familiar things in there. But the key takeaway of this TEDtalk is of course the renewed focus on consumers. Not in the old meaning of buying machines but in the post-web2.0-revolution-credit-crunch meaning of the word consumer. What that meaning today is? Well we’re not completely sure. Those who say they know are just talking about one piece of the puzzle. Truth is that as marketers we have to rely more and more on our anthropological skills. Because that is basically the only way that we are going to find an answer to the question “who are today’s consumers”. John Gerzema brings one piece of the puzzle to the table in this TEDtalk. But there are so many people, marketing guru’s, semi-marketing guru’s, social media preachers, community experts and a dozen of other fancy titles contributing to the dialogue that it is becoming harder and harder to see which pieces fit and which don’t. What I remember from John Gerzema is that he believes consumers will lead us out of the crisis. Ok fair enough but isn’t that the only way an economy can come out of a crisis. More important however is the point that John Gerzema makes by saying that business not only have to provide value but VALUES. Something I like to call marketing as a service. Give consumers something in order for them to give you something. It sounds so simple and it’s one of the cornerstones of inter-human relations. However marketers often forget that a company-consumer relation or a brand-consumer relation isn’t actually that different from inter-human relations.

So to conclude, nice TEDtalk and definitely something to think about. Thanks for a piece of the puzzle!     

If you surf today or the coming days to the website of many Flemish advertising agencies, you might get surprised. They all shot down their website for one week, because they are on a virtual strike! It’s an initiative of the ACC (Association of Communication Advertising Companies) and participants among the striking advertising agencies are Saatchi & Saatchi, VVL-BBDO, Famous, LDV, Boondoggle and Ogilvy. The agencies replaced their website with a letter, which leads you from one participating agency’s website to the other. In the letter the agencies state their dissatisfaction about the way the industry works today.

The agencies refer to the charter developed between the UBA (Unie van Belgische Adverteerders) en the ACC in the ‘90s, which defines the rules for agencies' pitches. The agencies say that the advertisers aren’t living up to the rules stated in the charter. One of the rules stated that no more than three agencies (plus the incumbent) should be invited and participating in a pitch, but agencies argue that advertisers sometimes let even more than 10 agencies compete for one assignment.

The agencies compare the battle for an assignment with stepping into a boxing ring. Round after round competitors fall of and the last man standing wins. But according to the agencies the participants punch themselves in the head. Each agency competing invests a lot of money, energy and resources without even knowing if their effort will be rewarded.  

The agencies emphasize that in the long run the advertisers are victimizing themselves.  The day might come when advertisers will be paying their agency for creative and strategic energy, while the agency is forced by the system to put all of that energy into someone else’s pitch. It’s a world up-side-down in which the agencies are pleading for a world in which they put their energy in clients they do have and not in the ones they don’t have. The agencies suggest going back to the rules of the charter, in the interest of the whole advertising industry. Time will tell if their joined effort will pay off.

Yes we have the first ever social drink! And who else than Vitamin Water would be the brand to create a drink socially. The new drink is called connect and is the result of a competition run on Vitaminwater’s Facebook page. Consumers were invited to design their own flavors. They could do this by voting on the most talked about flavors or make a flavor themselves by combining several others and putting that one up for votes. The new flavor is a black cherry-lime combination. The packaging of the connect vitamin water is also a tribute to facebook. It carries the Facebook logo ad descriptive text, using references to untagging, friend requests and photo stalking. One of the people who helped in creating the connected flavor was also granted a grant price of $5.000.

              The new connected Vitamin water flavor

So basically a good sample of marketing as a service. You can create you very own flavor. But the other side is much clearer of course. Using the consumer as a resource. Coca-Cola, who bought Vitamin water from Glaceau in 2007, not only gets free market research but also directions on the implementation of that research in combination with loads of exposure. So you see R&D, marketing and advertising is getting very closely related today. As it should be of course. Although I don’t think any R&D department would be very happy with this job of monkey see monkey do.

Steve Nash as the Vitamin water endorser

BBC reporter Dan Simmons breaks a Sonim mobile phone 5 minutes after CEO Bob Plaschke called it the unbreakable mobile phone.

If you say it's unbreakable it better be unbreakable.