Robert's PlayGround

Brands playing outside; dingdong!

I think today's real challenge in branding can be found in the street. Public Space as the next frontier. Even though Tom Himpe ("Advertising is dead..." and "Advertising next" - get these books!)and others made great inventories as to how brands and people can engage outdoors in a useful and inspiring way - these documented examples are still rare best practice. Dutch creative agency Indie (former S-W-H) just added a fantastic example of creative use of public space by inventing special delivery points for Domino Pizza delivery. When the sun invites us to spend most of our time outside on beaches and in parcs, Domino just brings the front door out there for us. So: Man Hungry? Dingdong! What a truly great idea. It's sympathetic and makes life easier. It's surprising. It generates word of mouth and media attention. It's not just a communication idea but involves en extends the actual service of delivering pizza with (temporary) augmented distribution. This is creative marketing and communication 2009. Well done!

Should I volunteer for split personality?

Driven by curiosity I just recently joined Twitter. Probably right before the butcher 'round the corner will ;-) Never mind. As with blogging, getting to grips with Twitter is an educational experience. It's an experiment and a joy at the same time. Today I got aware of an interesting dilemma. When I first started sending my tweets into oblivion these messages were pure ego fart as I heard Tweets being called. I was working on a story about myself in chunks of 140 characters max. About me. As a private person. I took a while before I started to realize that these sheer private tweets got mixed in my 'timeline' with other people's tweets that were entirely business oriented and less about them. Mmmmmm. Important question. What is my goal with Twitter? Is it a social experiment in personal life and do I share rather intimate trivia about my life? Or should I treat Twitter as a stage for my persona 'the self employed professional'? Will friends get bored with business talk? Or do I embarrass myself or business contacts with 'too much information'? Of course: I could go for split personality and create two separate Twitter accounts. But that just feels as an easy escape. It appears to me as a challenge to just present @Essenstamtam as one persona that is both a professional and a father/husband/friend/bon vivant/book collector etc. Let's just see where that leads. Maybe there's a better way to approach this: what would other people find interesting enough to hit the 'follow' button with my profile? That requires a little think work. What do you think? Should I twitter private? Shoud I twitter professional? Or should I tweet as myself and mix business with pleasure?

What we talk about...

This morning at breakfast my eye was caught by NRC Next's daily page 2 header "Next question" (a must read for curious types like me). A reader tossed the question what nouns are most popular in Dutch language. And of course someone had an answer - The Dutch Institure for Lexicology can tell us that in writing the Dutch most frequently use the words 

- year <jaar>

- human <mens>, 

- subject <onderwerp>

- time <tijd>

- day <dag>

- municipality <gemeente>

- place <plaats>

- hour <uur>

- country <land>

- Netherlands <Nederland> 

And when we speak, we most often use the words:

- people <mensen>

- year <jaar>

- day <dag>

- things <dingen>

- time <tijd>

- man <man>

- moment <moment>

- children <kinderen>

- a bit <beetje>

I think the latter list is the more interesting one. The list on written language was based on news paper articles and magazines which might be the reason that the typical words of news reporting score so many hits - e.g. municipality. When looking at spoken language, it strikes me how preoccupied we are with 'time': time, moment, year, day... Maybe that's a reflection and a confirmation of what is in today's western world most valuable to us: time. And what to think about the word 'things'? Can we be more vague in expressing what we mean that by using this word 'thing'?

Beautiful truth

It has been a while since my last post. Way too busy enjoying my freedom as a selfemployed worker ;-)
But sometimes you just run across a piece of advertising that hooks up to your brain or belly. The below commercial did both. A commercial... yes, sorry. I can't help it: this message strikes a chord with me. And I guess its not so much the aesthetic way of filming - I feel it's a bit too polished. No, it's the true insight that formed the foundation for this campaign: "we used to find the journey half the fun, but now we got so stressed out and hurried up that we don't mind anymore how we get to the destination". I like that appeal. Probably because for me it's true. I wonder how KLM is taking this further. How they cultivate the thought even more in their services. What else they will do to make us realize that we should enjoy getting somewhere as much as we appreciate the destination. I am 100% sure that this kind of advertising does a lot more than the previous "Reliable" campaign. An airline that can make me feel as comfortable as KLM does with it's new advertising can do without explicit promises of reliability. Again, notice how important the music is. Well done DDB and KLM!

Branding by disappointment

With the European Championship Soccer 2008 going on, we are being confronted day in, day out with  brands trying to benefit from the excitement around the event. The theme is either the heroism of the players, the excitement of the fans or flat out sales promotion. And where the first theme can lead to great advertising and goose bums, the promotional route often leads to tear jerking bad communications. One of my personal favorite topical ads made exceptional use of the event. A couple of years ago Amstel Beer ran the  well appreciated  "three friends" campaign. And for the occassion of a big international soccer tournament Willem van Hanegem joined the three friends in the Amstel ads. The most brilliant commercial - at least, that's my opinion - was the one broadcast directly after the lost match that sent the Dutch team home. It opened on the outside of a common family home and the only thing the viewer saw was a TV set being kicked through and out of the window on the first floor. Twenty seconds later the three friends and Willem van Hanegem leave the front door. When we see them from the back Willem is showing a very clear limp when he walks away. Even the negative emotion of a lost tournament can be used to bond brands and people. I think it was as strong as it was unexpected. Most brands pull out when the positive excitement is gone. Amstel proved that with sponsoring and advertising you can even build on negative emotion. Unfortunately I couldn't find a copy of the commercial. If you have one or know where it can be found, let me know.

The difference between a brand and a politician

Is it a coincidence? Or is it Will-I-Am's music video tribute that boosted Barack Obama's race for the Oval Office so that he overtook Hilary in the past few days with one victory after another? I think this case is another compelling illustration of the difference between a product and a brand. Where Hilary is trying to convince her fellow Americans by repeating rational arguments for the fact that she will make a better president, Barack Obama addresses the heart. John F Kennedy meets Martin Luther King - I guess there's no better proposition for a wounded nation. See the music video. It's scored over 7 million views so far... Hilary eat your heart out.

One song is worth 1,000 words

Apart from the fact that the enchanting sound of this commercial commands my attention every single time I hear it, it makes me wonder. Would this commercial be as strong with different music?

Brand magic - the power of rituals

This is the Haka. A ritual Maori dance. Performed by the New Zealand rugby team the All Blacks. You don't need to speak maori to get the point of it. As a player puts it in an explanatory piece of film footage: it really gets your blood boiling. You just try to remain stoic when a bunch of warriors practice this sophisticated piece of psychologic warfare right in front of you. This comes quite close to magic? I know a couple of sports teams who could use this. Haah!!!

Navigating by brands

People use brands to navigate in various ways. Brands help them to find their way in shops, Dutch women magazine Libelle just added another application: a branded car navigation system. Together with CosmicNavigation they developed a special navigation system for women. Offering a quite female design and a 'woman friendly' touch screen interface. Above that, the Libelle car navigation system leads its users to addresses of shops, restaurants, museums and other cultural places selected by Libelle readers. After introducing the Netherlands first branded event - Libelle Zomerweken <Libelle Summer Weeks>   - this magazine has proven to be a true innovator again. And again an excellent example of how customer/brand relationships can be fueled and enriched by adding an experiential touch point . This litterally brings brands to life and feels so much smarter than creating another printed spin-off magazine, which seems to be the obvious thing to do for a magazine publisher.

Small is better

This Summer, as usual, I took a large pile of books with me on my holidays. However, I chose to spend my nights sleeping this time so i finished only three books in two weeks. Eckart's Notes was one of them and I raced through it. Eckart Wintzen is the man who turned a small ICT company BSO into a big multinational one. Wintzen found that if you want to grow fast, you have to stay small. This thought lead to a management filosophy later known as 'cell division'. A company should never exceed a size of 50 - 60 co-workers. By the time a BSO company employed 50 people, its management had to find and prepare a new management team. And when the company reached 60 people, it was divided in two new companies - each about thirty people in size. Both new cells split up the business according to strict agreements. One of the big merits of this management filosophy is the transplantation of the comporate DNA (culture , knowledge) into ambitious, coherent cells. Along with it goes a style of management that is at least as interesting as the principle of cell division on itself. It comprises such things as sharing and trusting. On the go Wintzen gives a great explanation of the the true meaning of assigning work to others (Dutch: 'delegeren'). I recommend this book to anyone involved in management (as an entrepreneur, a 'manager' or a consultant). And not just for its contents - Eckart Wintzen is a gifted storyteller and writer.

Shake up your brand!

Strong and established brands often inspire creative people to play with them a bit. And every time that happens, there are influential people who jump the barricades. "Don't play with my brand. NEVER mess with the logo!" That thinking probably stems from times when advertising was largely built on the principles of repetition and painstaking consistency. I agree that brands can be religious, close to 'holy' stuff. I don't share the opinion that brand and its features should remain untouched at all times. If a brand represents something that's strong enough for us to play with, then it's probably about time that we did. A bit of change might just be the thing to revive, rejuvenate or refresh something that is about to be ignored for the fact that people are getting to familiar with it. When a brand is being taken for granted, it's time to shake things up. I applaud Mars for their guts to be playful with their logo. I can imagine the debates that the mere suggestion of changing the pack has raised in meeting rooms. Well done! You've just proven that Mars can do something many brands can only dream of. And I'll probably hand out the bars that I've bought as a present to people in need of some positive energy.

The touchpoint is the message

Mobile telecom provider Telfort demonstrates a perfect example of smart context planning. Telfort is a cost leader and price fighter in the Dutch market for mobile communications. What better opportunity to both meet bargain & discount hunting people and tell a significant story about your brand than presenting yourself at... markets! I haven't found any pictures yet of how they attend markets, but I guess it is with some sort of mobile shop/info stand among all other traders with their commerce.

The Break Up

A one way film to bring a message about dialogue. Mmmmm... Funny format. Though I wonder what happens if this story is brought in a more dynamic, interactive way.

The Break Up
Uploaded by geertdesager

Illusions

The question remains: is this real or set up? I can't tell - This Derren Brown seems to have a reputation that he might lose so I guess the experiment was done for real (and it's not an acted piece of film). As such I don't find this shocking. After all, ad makers use popular culture and real life to steal their ideas from. But the outcome was quite accurately predicted. In particular the music instrument was hinted just very vaguely and out of context. Thanks Martin for bringing this to my attention!

Top 5 most nicked

Department store HEMA demonstrates it has a good sense of humor. They have promoted their top 5 most stolen articles in a special display. Food supplements, rechargeable batteries, lip gloss, CD-R's and Bicycle LED lights are temporarily on offer with a 25% discount. To top it off, they treated the 10,000th shop lifter in the Amstelveen shop on a little celebration. No wonder Holland loves HEMA.

We are the web

Web 2.0 explained brilliantly.

Why looks matter

We all experience life through our five senses. One out of three people has a natural preference for visual stimulus. Another one out of three tends to prefer auditive input. And the remaining person is said to be a 'touch-taste-smell-type of person'. This says much about the extent to which we are sending out optimally effective messages to a wide audience with our traditional audiovisual advertising - statistically a potential third of the people we communicate with isn't reached deeply. Nevertheless, last weekend I read (from a trusted source) that some 70% of all stimulus that we process comes to us via our eyes. And it is true: often does what we (think we) see influence what we (think we) hear, smell or touch. Intuitively I feel that design is getting ever more important to commercial communication. In a world where products, services and brands are increasingly similar, the looks of things can become a decisive factor. In attracting people. In affecting people. In creating a bond. Why pay attention of buy something dull or ugly when you can have something beautiful instead? Though, don't misunderstand me: I still believe too, that brands should strive to engage all five senses. And to make sure together they make up a coherent experience. Getting the looks of your brand right is a first serious step. That's your entry ticket. Designing just the perfect sound, touch, taste and scent for your brand is stuff for brand olympics. However, for some reason there's still a lot of ugly stuff produced. Products, corporate designs, interiors, advertising. Whilst making them beautiful probably is not more expensive. Perhaps things end up being ugly because they need to appeal to everyone. And if you try to do that, you often end up painstakingly avoiding being offensive to everyone. It ends up grey and void.

Har har har!!!

1.2 million people can't be wrong

Last week no less than 1.2 million Dutch people have been watching the broadcast of the 2006 Gouden Loeki, the Dutch audience award for TV advertising. I'm not much of a fan of statistics and figures for the sake of figures, but 1.2 million is an awfull lot on a total population of let's say 10 million adults. These people were watching commercials for over an hour... They did not go and get coffee. They did not leave for taking a leak. They did not zap away. They deliberately tuned in to a programme that was all about and celebrating TV commercials. Is advertising really dead? I don't think so. Yes, crap advertising lies six feet under and old school advertising is its neighbour. But well crafted great ads can still steal the hearts of the audience. (No, the length of my nose remains unchanged...)

Street wisdom (3)

When business is just business, I think that is a poor condition to be in. And therefore a sad proposition to others. If you just work for the money that'll probably show. You might even get good at what you do. But never great. I truly believe that passion is business. And that Business should be passionate. Things brought with passion sell as hell. Because people smell that passion produces the purest, sincerest and most authentic. Passion is truth on fire.

Branding by books

Reading Tom Himpe's book on alternative advertising got me thinking a lot about exciting and engaging ways of making brands connect with people. Much of the stuff he has collected, acts in some sort of public space. But there is even more to be found in more intimate settings. I rediscovered an interesting example on our cook book shelf tonight. It is a book about soup made by Only - a Dutch ad agency that can be easily insulted by calling them just that. I admire them for their very original approach to brand communications. The soup book is made for the Salvation Army and its title reads "Soup for sharing". Its not so difficult to imagine why. Some time ago Only developed a brand for the Salvation Army,  based on the thought of sharing. This brand is called '50/50'. In Holland the Salvation Army is well known for collecting old clothes and other household textile. Only got the brilliant idea to reuse these second hand clothes and let fashion stylists take them apart and put them back together into fascinating combinations. Much alike Dance4Life, who succeed in bringing a remote issue to the attention of youth by addressing them in their own language, Only helps the Salvation Army get noticed again by a young and upper class audience. They make the Salvation Army contemporary - cool if you like. The soup book was originally a Danish concept I believe. But Only executed the idea quite nice. The book comes in a cover made from recycled woolen blankets. And they got a set of successful young angry chefs to deliver recipes for soup. Equally talented photographers made the pictures. It's subtly infused with a message too. The Soup is great. The book looks great. And the Salvation Army gets my sympathy and support. Just before updating my Blog I found a pocket book among our toilet reading stuff (sorry): it was issued by a social organisation that protects nature in the Netherlands.  In stead of printing some dull magazine or just sending me a request for money, we got an educative book about landscapes, plants and animals just around the corner and various routes for talking a walk or a hike in nature. Very inspiring. Dutch people can get Soup book here and obtain the nature book by Stichting Natuurmonumenten here. I can recommend both books as a gift. To yourself if you like. 

So long, old school advertising

It seems that old school advertising is rapidly dying now. And with old school advertising I mean the kind that tries to capture attention and then imposes some kind of claim or bold promise. Most of the time something that makes the people behind the brand or product feel good or proud rather than tapping into the lives and minds of its prospective users. In my opinion the on-line company Spotzer.com has started digging the grave. They now make it possible for potential advertisers to buy a commercial at € 500.-. Yes, you got it right: € 500. Actually, you rent the ad. You just select a ready produced video clip that in some way has a connection to your product, brand or what you like to say. Then add your claim and company name and logo. And off you go. In thirty minutes time. You just entered the magic world of advertising brands. Getting a decent logo will probably cost more time and money ;-) Old school advertising is now on sale. I couldn't have thought of a better way to kiss it goodbye.

Bad is good

Maybe it's because I'm a guy. But I can't help feeling sympathy for brands that try and seduce women to get in touch with their own dark side. Such as Magnum Ice cream did with its Seven Sins campaign. Probably that works because it is built on the easily embraceable truth "Forbidden fruit tastes better". For we all have a little devil inside that needs a bit of a wake-up call every now and then.

Communication that shakes the foundation...

I'm very impressed by this message. Both it's contents and the way it is designed. At Saatchi we say "great SiSoMo". Be the judge yourself, watch and listen to this message here.

Disarmingly bold

I consider it an art if you can be so disarmingly honest and yet so brutally bold at the same time. The truth is always the best strategy. As long as it is interesting.

 

Stories worth telling

It seems as if we have become quite poor in elevating products to premium status. By adding a simple strapline 'New York - Milan - Paris - Rome' to a beauty shot of the product. By placing the product in a setting that represents a slice of happy few life. Or by simply showing off obscure award show logo's as a sign of distinctive quality. Premium positioning by association. A rather shallow approach. Perhaps it is because of my preference for hand crafted things. I really like ads like these ones for Parker. As Bob Isherwood comments them: such ads don't come from the head but from a factory visit. To me they mark an era when products still differed in quality. When you had poor, good and better products. And when service wasn't an intangible product that comes at a certain price, but instead as a little extra that came as a pleasant surprise. To exceed your expectations; an act of sympathy. Of course we tell each other that people cannot be bothered with long copy because of the information overload. However, I tend to believe that if you have something interesting and simply convincing to tell about the superior quality of a product, people do want to know. I want to know. If a product is truly better than others, the story deserves to be told. Because what you buy is a story, not the product itself nor some vague reference to another product category like fashion or perfume if the ad is about a pencil. Excuse me: for writing instrument.

Street wisdom (2)

Typography rules (another demo ad)

I found this classic in The Art Direction Book. The typography is the idea. Reading it comes quite close to a bit of an experience. The demonstration of a point. I love this simplicity. Art: Paul Arden.

It's in your hands

Demo ads (3)

It's this easy. More about demo ads here and here.

Charitainment to charivolvement

If you wanted to recruit supporters for your charity, you would try and make the good cause urgent and personally relevant to your audience. The latter still holds true. However, if your audience are young people, there is a fair chance that beating the drum of urgency and drama will scare them away. It’s a bit like Richard Huntingdon’s better advice to young planners: be interesting first and right second. It works in two steps. Offer a strong piece of magnetic content first (charitainment), then try and engage them in whatever it is that you do (charivolvement). You will only succeed if the bait is well intertwined with food for thought and calls for activism. As a charity you need to be cool as a license to connect. Dance4Life understood that quite well and I’ve spotted a prominent follower: Amnesty International. Yoko Ono gave them the rights to John Lennon Music (activism beyond the grave…) And 180 smartly simple turned that into a contemporary concept by inviting cool bands to cover Lennon songs and offer them for download on a microsite.

Live long enough...

I think strategic planning is much about finding a convincing, compelling or at least interesting truth. Something the people you are trying to connect with will embrace. Some notion, vision or thought that could elicit a response like "...and THAT's exactly how it is!" The fresher the thought, the better. Yet the quest for freshness of thought often ends with far fetched and constructed ideas. This French AIDS prevention commercial (TBWA/Paris) is, in my opinion, a good example of great strategic thinking - i.e Truth finding. For it isn't particularly easy to convince youth of the clear and present danger of AIDS/HIV. If you talk to youngsters you will find out that they all aspire to have an exciting active sex life (inspired to search at the fringes; just look at MTV...). And at the same time they share a quite oldfashioned hope to get married, have kids and start a family life. "Live long enough to find the right one." That's the clever truth of this commercial - clever because it unites two different and seemingly contradictory worldviews (I want lots of sex AND I want to settle in the end). Great execution, too!

Update: This commercial is a sequel; find the (first) girl version here. (thanks Yves)

Pimp my fashion brand

They sell instant fashion copied straight from the catwalk. If you wear the stuff a couple of times is gets out of shape. Color washes out straight away. Yet, everybody loves H&M. And with reason. After flings with superstar Madonna and couturier Karl Lagerfelt, H&M entered a new love affair with the successful Dutch designer duo Viktor & Rolf. This is how you make a brand cool. Bravo!
See Dutch women loot the Amsterdam H&M store, this afternoon. Or shop on-line.

Safe Happens

Saw a presentation yesterday. Chuck Porter (Crispin Porter + Bogusky) put on a show. We were all impressed. Big time. He showed lots of good work. And talked about it in an engaging way. Look at this commercial (I think it was spread viral as well as broadcast). And take a look at the website afterwards. Configure a Jetta and see what happens...

Find the website here. FIRST: Select a Jetta model, THEN: click on "watch safe to happen".
Go... experience (!) for yourself.

Demo ads (2)

I think this will become my favorite post title. For this kind of communications concepts are my very favorite. Look here for my first post about demo ads. This Lufthansa commercial (Springer & Jacoby) is a classic. I was happy as a child when I managed to get a digital copy. Besides an arresting and clever idea, I love this for its smart strategic insight. The people behind this idea succeeded in making a valid, very true point about the use of airline service. *****

Who's got the biggest?

Not only buying and talking cars is boy business. Marketing and advertising them is a boy thing too. Who's next? Or did Bentley close the 'discussion' in style? (Courtesy Koen Verhagen)

Time for a new beauty myth

I think Dove perfectly understood how to build an icon brand. They recognized that Northern European women deep down don't agree with the beauty myth they've been brought up with. Dove started a revolution. By telling the story of true, and thus imperfect, beauty. One that will be happily picked up by modern women and girls to cement their identities as strong and independent personalities.

Cuckoo!

Last Friday my wife and I were doing some casual shopping in Amsterdam. In particular  "de negen straatjes" and de Rozengracht are profoundly attractive when we are hunting for interior stuff, gifts, books and the unexpected gadgets that can make a day of shopping so rewarding. This time we ran into a peculiar thing for our interior. We were both electrified by a  white cuckoo clock   crossed our path at De Kasstoor. When the shop lady confirmed our hopefull question "whether the clock truly produced a cuckoo sound" we were sold. Now it sits on the chimney in our kitchen, flanked by two white cupboards. And every sixty minutes, the cuckoo sings to tell us that another hour of time passed. Yet we praise the designer of our clock that this cuckoo is equiped with a volume button ;-) We still have to get used to the extraordinary sound that probably will soon be part of the familiar humms, clicks, squeeks, cracks and buzz sounds that make up the natural soundscape of our home. The cuckoo acts as a sort of electronic replacement for the doves that leave the pear tree in our garden in order to head for warmer places during winter.

Demo ads (1)

Most of the ads that we encounter in daily life tell us something by claiming or stating something. I think those ads are a matter of either laziness of the ad maker or a lack of substance behind the brand or product. I get impressed by ads that demonstrate their point. The ones that make their point by getting people through some sort of experience. These Wonderbra ads do exactly that.