sparking curious mind

Branding was on everyone's lips in the first day at Mad Days (ro). Marius surprised me with a creative presentation. He made a t-shirt with the title of each slide, wear 'em and as the presentation went along he took one t-shirt off to unveil the next slide. Brilliant!

The audience was participating, asking questions, challenging Marius. Great atmosphere! Surprisingly, there were lots of people in the audience. Somehow I knew that here in Iasi the interest for branding was high, but I didn't imagine that the turn out would be so great.

Later on, there was the opening of a very interesting photography exhibition. The author, Otilia Andrei, showcased photos of Asian "street talk". Photos taken on the streets of some Asian cities, illustrating commercial signage. Very refreshing.

Congrats to the organizers! Advero and Twin Arts. Good start, looking forward to the next workshops.

Good ideas can be drowned out by a flood of bad ones, says Laurent Florès. His New York-based company, called crmmetrix, developed a worthy new solution called Delphi. The Delphi system combines customer creativity with marketing department knowledge, and tests both with instant feedback from the Internet.

The system uses an Internet-based panel of consumers, provided by the client or crmmetrix, of whom the first 100 are asked for their best idea for a slogan to sell a particular product. Those consumer ideas are mixed in with the marketing department ideas and put to a vote by the next level of panelists.

"The beauty of this system is that consumers both generate ideas and sort through them," says Olivier Toubia, assistant professor of marketing at Columbia Business School in New York, who is co-authoring an article with Florès on the methodology of the Delphi system for the peer-reviewed Marketing Science magazine.

The clients range from consumer products companies like P&G, Unilever to Accor Hotels and the tire company Michelin. No doubt something is worth it about this method giving the names of the companies which use the system.

via stefan via IHT

This advert for Volkswagen was withdrawn from broadcast by the car maker following complaints from a number of mental health charities, including the Suicide Prevention Action Network, the American Psychiatric Association and Mental Health America. According to the complaints, the advert was guilty of mocking and exploiting the serious subject of suicide.

Title:"Jumper"
Brand: Volkswagen
Agebcy:Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, Miami

I like the "I'm feeling lucky" button ;)
Of course, this is just a joke :)

Dear planners, the 3rd annual planner survey is online. Heather LeFevre conducts an informal survey that is designed to let us all see what planners at different agencies think about their jobs, understand what drives salaries, and hopefully learn more about how our discipline is changing.

The survey is designed for planners only, from agency or freelance. Those outside US are welcome to participate. The answers will be anonymous and this link will capture your email if you want to receive the results.

Spread the word!

found at fallon

Alin created a love letter to Renault 12, Romanians' favorite car. The book is a "a compendium of architectures, designs, fashions and lifestyles."
You can download it here

To start of your week, here are some really sexy prints for Lavazza Coffee. From now one my morning coffee will be a much more intense experience :)





The photograph is Eryk Fitkau, an Australian who thinks that ""A photograph does not speak, it does not smell, it makes no sound, it does not move, it is just a two dimensional piece of paper, but a good photograph can do at least one if not all of the above!" At the end of the day that is exactly what Eryk's images are all about.

via cup of java

This is a great tools! Free online file conversion. Just the kind of thing lots of us was looking for. Zamzar supports conversion between a wide variety of different file formats: text, image, music, video. You can even convert YouTube videos. This is the epitome of web 2.0.

Some friends of mine put together a interesting event. Mad Days is a mix of advertising, music and film. It will take place in Iasi between 22 and 24 March.
I look forward to the workshops held by Marius (on branding) Costin and Elena (planning) and the guys from Violet. Also there will be a fine selection of Romanian short movies and a concert with Al Jawala, a German band with an eclectic sound, mixing Balkan rhythms, drum'n'bass, jazz and funk.

Looks like fun. Come join the fun!

via iasi nights (ro)

I love this visual. It reminds me on the times I learned to ride a bicycle and the liberating sensation of my first meters on two wheels.

In an Adage interview, Bob Iger, CEO, Walt Disney Co. commented:

According to Mr. Kent Oldham, associate director and GBS consumer view solutions manager at P&G, “now more than ever, consumers are owning our brands, and we not only have to understand that they are owning our brands. But we also have to embrace that idea and understand the implications of it.”

Finally P&G admits it. The change in consumer's attitudes towards brands is irreversible. Consumers have the need to be in control, people are becoming more self-expressive on a scale not possible before -- with family, friends and even strangers on the Internet, thanks to new technology. “They have ways of networking with each other that they have never been able to before,” Mr. Oldham said.

Marketers don’t control all touch points, and those touch points, as a result, have a great impact on the way consumers view brands. The implication of not learning from every touch point a consumer has with your company or product or service can be costly. “No matter how much great brand-building work you do, and how much equity your brands have, all it takes is one negative consumer experience to destroy all of it."

After a long wait, I've got my blog back. Unfortunately, everything posted on the new blogger platform is lost :(
Now, I don't know what to do. Should I try to rebuild the blog as it was, or should I continue posting from here on? What do you think? Any suggestions?

Copy: "Because your brain is faster than DSL"

The tagline says "Discover the importance of reading"
Don't know the agency. Anyone?

In his new book, Grant McCracken deploys "complex adaptive theory" to track the movement of trends and new groupings of consumers. It applies complexity theory to the turbulence of contemporary cultures and markets.

He says, "Complexity has a theory. Commotion has a pattern. Dynamism has a system. We can continue to live by damage control, or we can change the way we play the game." To survive our own world of collision and speed, marketers need to see the world as "flocks and flows."

Brand: Happydent
Product: Chewing Gum
Client: Equinox (Ram Madhwani)
Agency: McCann Erickson

Great ad! Creativity personified!

A study by Winterberry Group examines how market and industry trends are driving systemic
change across the agency landscape, further transforming the agency/client dynamic.

Compiled in more than 70 interviews with senior-level executives, the study demonstrates that the traditional agency model is dying.

• - The complex demands of the multichannel selling environment require that agencies provide clients with a unified offering spanning both "“above-the-line"” and "“below-the-line"” marketing channels
- Compressed margin availability, expanded client scrutiny and the
emergence of alternative service providers are raising the competitive
pressure for agencies of all sizes
- Integrated service providers are seeking to command a greater
presence in the agency environment, but struggle to sell their strategic
and creative offerings to marketers who associate their brand with
other services
- Clients are increasingly leaning on internal strategy and creative
capabilities-—as well as procurement departments-—to support
marketing initiatives and generate leverage in negotiations with
external agencies
- The prevalent "“agency holding company"” model is poorly equipped to
provide the organizational agility and cross-channel service offering
that today'’s marketers demand.

The study sparked a lot of discussions around the blogosphere. The change is irreversible and those unable to switch will parish.

As Noelle Weaver says, the way forward is getting past the medium and get to know the consumer. Intimately.
Also, Blue Flavor'’s Director of Strategy, Brian Fling, in his post The Agency Model is Dead, says there are five reasons why the old model doesn't work anymore:

1. Segmentation (Too many choices, pervasive media weakened)
2. Big Ideas: They don'’t always reap big rewards
3. The Cost of Trial and Error
4. The Growth of In-House Resources
5. The Talent Pool

The study concludes that "Forward-thinking shops-—those that embrace media-agnostic planning and employ integrated "“across-the-line"” methods-—represent a model to which
many others are likely to convert in the years ahead. Merger and acquisition
activity may well drive this hybridization. Already prime acquisition targets, for
example, interactive agencies will continue to be incorporated into general and
direct agencies as they are likely too "“siloed"” to survive as standalone entities.

Despite the seismic shifts that have occurred on the agency landscape, the
results from this study confirm that agencies are adapting to the new rules of
engagement and even flourishing beneath them. It is impossible to state with
certainty how the terrain will change in the future, but these findings suggest
that agencies with accountable, innovative marketing programs will always be
in demand."

via experience planner

"Temporary means learning to care for things (and people) that are precious, and when it’s time, to freely let them go. As Gary Thorp says in his book Sweeping Changes: "the joy comes not from trying to keep things forever, but from keeping them well."

"Permanency breeds a state of fear. If you own something, there’s always the potential to lose it, while if you own next to nothing, you won’t worry about ending up with nothing."

From an excellent report on a new trend, cleverly named, temporariness.

You can download it here

Collaboration of W+K and Nexus Production with a GTA twist, and you get an unusually cool Coke ad.

via brand new

I've travelled 400 km to see Placebo in concert in Bucharest. I didn't like it. They are not very good playing live, and what was even worse, they delivered the playlist at a very fast pace, without any interaction/connection with the crowd.
I had high expectations and I left dissapointed. I will stick to the dvd and the cd's. This way I will avoid seeing Mr. Brain Molko's arrogance and platitude. Too much hype for too little.
They didn't played with the heart. It was professional and aseptic. Easily forgetful.