Robert's PlayGround

Why social media are the future of branding

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?

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

Street wisdom (2)

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.

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.

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.

Friendly virus

Dance4Life is a movement that engages youth in the fight against HIV/AIDS by addressing them in a language they all understand: dance. The song performed by the youth in this film is based on the song written and performed by DJ Tiësto and sung by Maxi Jazz. In a way Dance4Life intends to counter HIV/AIDS with an 'equal weapon'- by spreading its message from person to person... indeed: like a virus, but then a friendly one.

Build your virtual self @ H&M

Are you tired of fighting for parkings, the right clothes and fitting cabins at overcrowded and messy clothing shops? Then build your own virtual self at H&M and fit as many combinations as you like without even taking your shoes off. Warning: filling out your personal body specs in order to create your virtual model may come as a bit of a confrontation ;-O.

When she's hot...

No, it's not the Axe effect by far. Though nicely tried. Try your own editing qualities at

www.whensheshot.com