Social Hallucinations

Moreing is The New Trend

A chocolate bar. An artist. Someone puts 27 pairs of underwear on. A culture. A commercial. A new trend is born. Lovely idea from Droga5. Culture eats strategy for breafast, lunch and dinner. Enjoy Boosted inspirations by Cadbury. 

 

http://bit.ly/KuqWkY

 

The Key to Success in Business

"Businesses operate in a world where so much is possible.

The successful ones are those which identify what is necessary."

John Dodds

Be Different or Disappear in the Crowd

What does it mean to be different today?

Differentiation used to be about standing out, about creating a product that is significantly different and there are no other products like it. Just to be noticed and valued.

But is seems like today, there is more focus on illusory differentiation driven by more choices, brand extensions, improved ingredients, more washing power, higher performance....you name it...supermarkets shelves groan under those "different products" that are all the same and use the same tactics to attract users. 

“Today we have more of everything. More brands. More products. More choices. But it all just feels like more of the same. A great big blur of similarity. And most companies are stuck on a competitive treadmill, competing like crazy trying to keep up with each other. But this only makes them just like everyone else.” (Youngme Moon)

What is the solution? Maybe look at the differentiation from different perspective. Start with quitting adjectives. Seeing "differentiation as deviance, permutation, commitment to unprecedented and letting go."

It's getting back to basics, putting the right meaning into the word different and creating great products, no one else does and connecting consumers in the meaningful way instead of creating more clutter. Challenging the ways we see competition. It is good to know what they do but they shouldn't necessary be the point of reference. Look outside, get inspired by different categories and think from time to time that your brand is not saint...

A good start is to read this book...

via www.youtube.com

QR codes Can Be Great When Done Right

QR codes are the new IT thing to have. Wherever you look there are posters, products, ads with QR code on. Looks nice and so tempting. You wonder what hides behind, you scan....and there is the disappointmend. Because what you discover are bad mobile sites, where apprently on one bother to think about what experience to offer once you bothered to scan. QR codes are cheap way to pretend the business is going digital, mobile, whatever.

But there are more and more exciting campaigns seeing the light showing how the simple technolgy can extend brand experience, enhance the campaign and make people have fun.

There are particularly two I like a lot:

Guiness and their QR cup. QR cup gets visible and readable only when filled with the right beer - Guiness. Once you scan, you can tweet, you get coupons and special promotions and Guiness content. Sounds like fun. After a few hours in the pub, any kind of enterteinment is needed ;)

 

This QR code campaign comes from South Korea and it is genius. QR codes get activiated by sun, from 12 to 1 p.m. and its goal is to drive sales in a E-mart store while there is normally a significant drop in sales. Scanning QR code within this period of time gives people access to Sunny Promotions and make them shop, smile and delivers results! This case shows that relevant, easy accessible solution that creates value for people always works!

 

 

 

Blinded by Technology

We are going digital. Indeed, digital is a place where many want to go these days. The destination is set but the ways of getting there aren't always clear. Forgetting what's it is all about, we chase the new shiny technologies and miss on connecting with people.

"Sometimes marketers forget that media platforms are enablers to big ideas. They aren’t the big ideas themselves."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

via tomfishburne.com

What Happens in Media Planning

It is not long ago I said goodbye to working at media agency after almost 13 years of service. Now I am getting used to being on the other side of table and it is an awesome journey. I still though miss the media agency spirit, discussions with clients and the thrills of pitches. And today I stumbled upoon this Tumble: What Happen in Media Planning - a take on everyday situations at media agency. Hilarous. This one is my favorite:

When money gets reallocated from my digital budget and is given to TV instead

 

 

Customer experience online is very important. There is no doubt about it. However, it doesn't always work in ways that make people purchase journey easy and quick. Here is the hilarious story of online user experience replayed in the real life. Enjoy and learn.

TV Role in the Digital World

People are no longer engaging with content on just a single screen. Interactivity plays larger role in the communication than ever. We live in a highly digitalized world, but it doesn't make TV dead. TV is still an important communication channel but only if we see it as the part of the whole communication experience brands create.

TV is the springboard for the greater and deeper experience. TV lets people know your brand is available by providing reach. It conveys stories and is a great conversations starter...if fed with the relevant content people can relate to. TV is where people's relationship with your brand can begin.

We live in a complex ecosystem of screens. We tend to favor one type of screens over the others, depreciting the value of TV as the one way communication channel and prizing digital. But the truth is that if the content sucks, digital is not a magic wand that will turn it into gold. 

The key challenge is to create while worthy pieces of content that work across various screens and connect them into an experience that is worth spending time on. The holy grain of media is integration of channels and experiences into a long-term journey we take on with our customers.

I've never been fond of killing the old technologies. They can be worthy if "recycled" and used in a new ways. Everything is remix today. So split, mix and mash-up the new and old technologies to create awesome. This is what you can do right here and right now.

Here more on the future of TV by the wise man Dan Wieden from Wieden+Kennedy

and remember "Half the time people who think they know what the future is, they're just making shit up"

 

The Timeline into Future

Future isn't easy to predict. Probably because we use what's known to create the future. Results can be somewhat entertaining. 

1920s,

1930s

1950s

1985

1993

2008

Enjoy!

hattip

How Do Clothes Impact Your Image?

What to wear? A serious challenge. Who hasn't faced the closet full of clothes and who hasn't after minutes of browsing concluded with disappontment that there is nothing to wear. The time spent by women picking clothes is often the subjects of jokes but this is a serious challenge as clothes impact the way you are perceived as this fascinating project "Switcheroo" by Hana Pesut shows. 

 

 

Museum of Broken Relationships

Amazing concept for the museum - Museum of Broken Relationships that exibits the remains of the failed relationships. The stories of love and broken hearts and people dealing with pain and disappointment. Beatiful and poetic.

"Every passion, ultimately, has its spectator... (there is) no amorous oblation without a final theater." (Barthes)

 

The Most Astounding Fact About the Universe

Something to remember and be grateful for. The key to everything we experience and do. The universe is amazingly beautiful. And it is inside you.

"When I look up at the night sky and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than most of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up — many people feel small, because they’re small, the Universe is big — but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. There’s a level of connectivity — that’s really what you want in life. You want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant. You want to feel like you’re a participant in the goings on and activities and events around you. That’s precisely what we are, just by being alive.” (Neil deGrasse Tyson)

Hattip

They Keep on Coming

Everyone has at some point been in the hell of incoming messages, notifications and emails...never ending flow that gets you paralyzed.

Here is an awesome video illustrating how does it feel. Excellent editing, btw.

 

Digitals from Chris Crutchfield on Vimeo.

 

"Meditation is a waste of good shopping time"

The next Spring of Nations will be lead by jesters, those who still manage to maintain the common sense and have valuable insights and views on the society. 

 

a few loose thoughts on the results of election in Denmark

Do social democrats know what's their goal? Do they have the vision of the society that is worth fighting for? I doubt it. The many last years social democrats' key rule is "whatever you (the centre-right) do, we (the centre-left) can do better’. But better will never see the light as for the social democrats, the society is more important than an individual. They diminish the role of humans, treating them as helpless beings that need to be supported at the cost of others, those who refuse to be dependant on the state. It leads to the perversion of the system, where it is expected the wealthy are obliged to take care for those who don't have so much (and I am not talking about the really poor and needy people, as they stay poor whichever system has the power), where the work is not respected. People are disgusted with the rich, thanks to whom they don't have to work...simply because they don't respect the work. The work is not needed to survive. The state is needed to survive. Redistribution of goods. Moving money from one box to the other. Growing bureaucracy and complex systems, that diminish the individual even further. 

The social - democrats = the couch socialists, who sometimes get awaken from their consumption trance and in order to calm the pangs of conscience, they preach how we need to do something for "those who need it most", how we need to show more compassion and increase taxes...of course only if they are sure such statements will bring the popularity among the voters...in the name of collective...

but today, we live in times where there it's rather absurd talking about capitalistic or socialistic econony. there is only a good or bad economy...

well, that's enough for me when it goes for politics