Sometimes I get everyday comments and sometimes I get smart and insightful ones (although I might not always agree). The later kind is not seldom served by Leon Phang – Account Planner over at Jung von Matt Sweden(one of the few agencies in Sweden that get it) and blogger on The Planning Lab.
Today I want to send you all over to Leons blog and his series of interviews with what he calls ’next-generation planners’. Leon asked 9 of these ‘next gen’ planners one simple question: What’s your best advice for the next-generation of young and ambitious planners? and as of today he has published all 9 interviews.
I personally don’t know them all but I do have the greatest respect for some of them, Russel Davies (visit his blog too) being the most interesting one in my book.
If anything you should be impressed by the fact that Leon has managed to interview them all. Great job!
One of my favorite graphical drive thru’s is FFFFound. It’s a never ending source of inspiration. Today I found this image above, originally posted by Today and Tomorrow. It’s been made by Peter Fischli & David Weiss, the same guys that made ‘The Way Things Go’ which was the inspiration for the classical Honda COG TVC by Weiden & Kennedy.
I don’t know about you, but I’ll try!
(I might have published this one earlier cause I had a print out of it in my office about a year ago)
Traveling at a 110 km per hour can be good for your brain or bad – you be the judge of that. I’m on my way home from Sälen and since I’m not behind the wheel I had some time over to get one of my thoughts out of my head. Thank god for 3G.
The other day as I was reading the morning paper it made me sad to see how many brands had gone from brand communication to price communication. The entire paper was filled with SALE, LOW PRICE, OFFER etc. Of course it is the global recession luring desperate brand owners away from making people love their brands and instead trying to buy customers. A strategy that is quite stupid and short term, especially in paid media channels like print.
As I continued reading the paper I came to think about Nigel – Nigel Hollis, Chief Global Analyst with Millward Brown writes one of the better strategy blogs online. In one of his latest posts ‘Less is not more’ he guided me to a report he wrote already last year about ‘Marketing During Recession’. In that reports he talks about hands-on survival tactics on how keep your brand alive during the recession. He writes about the established relationship between share of voice (SOV) and share of market (SOM).
“When a brand’s share of voice is greater than its share of market, it is likely to grow its market share in the coming year. (if you hadn’t heard about this it’s time you did). Therefore, companies that increase their marketing investment when others are cutting back have an opportunity to substantially improve the standing of their backs.”
Makes sense doesn’t it?
Still the most common reaction in a recession is that brands will cut down on their marketing activities and especially move from brand communication to price communication when in fact the opportunity to strengthen your brand and it’s share of voice is obviously the most effective as most other brands within your branch will probably do the opposite.
Nigel also writes:
“In any communication channel, the best way to leverage your spend is to put it behind high-quality creative. A meta-analysis of econometric sales modeling published in Admap (February 2006) found creative to be the biggest potential multiplier of profit (other than market size). Across a wide variety of categories, brands, and channels, Paul Dyson and Karl Weaver found that creative had five times as much impact on profit as did budget allocation.”
I am away skiing with my family so expect a ‘low frequency week’ when it comes to blog posts. The rule however is: If I’m having fun you should be having fun too! Here we go:
After Tweeting this @larsthomsen tipped me about another changeling in the end of a Ted speech. Check it out!
I personally love the little things that makes life more fun. This light switch from designer John Caswell would ad more fun to an otherwise dead object.
Whatever you do online, make sure you provide a value that is relevant to people who might want to use your service. By doing so you’ll generate more traffic, more buzz and finally a higher SEO ranking.
Box UK, a web consultancy agency, are living by this simple rule. The blog on their website is filled with ideas on how to succeed with your online presence. The old school marketing generation would say their giving their competence away. I beg to differ. One of the problem when it comes to digital communication is the competence on the buying side. Most brands won’t buy what they don’t understand. So either you lower yourselves to their level or educate them and thereby also provide a value.
One of Box latest post is an excellent one. It’s called ‘Monetizing your Web App: Business Model Options’.
Box has listed what they believe are the most successful ways to generate money from web applications. They’ve then taken their own list of possibilities and analyzed Webware 100 Top Web Apps for 2008. The conclusion then becomes a great check box model for monetizing your web apps.
The chart above shows the results of their survey: 34% use Advertising, 12% a Variable Subscription model, and 8% each for Virtual Products (typically digital downloads), Related Products (typically a large software company offering a free product to attract you to their platform) and Pay-Per-Use.
So, the question is. Do you wanna challenge the leaders within advertising financed sector or maybe penetrate the not yet so exploited areas?
Results?
They’ve provided their visitors with a great relevant value that will drive traffic, generate comments and create positive SEO effects.
Kevin Kelly, one of the worlds most respected digital gurus then picked it up.
Then it’s spread all over the world and I among many other will talk about it.
This morning I’m reading an article in Svenska Dagbladet about the mobile applications of tomorrow. It talks about the Swedish Mobile Life project supported by Sony Ericsson, Microsoft, Telia among others.
About the same time I’m watching this video below where The Mentalists play a cover on the song Kids by MGMT on their iPhones and iPod Touches, using only apps downloaded from the Apple App Store. Apps used Ocarina, Retro Synth, miniSynth, DigiDrummer Lite.
Isn’t there something familiar with the techno set up? Here’s the for ever cult band Kraftwerk performing The Model in German TV
So, the question is, should Mobile Life focus on building their own applications of the future or provide an open applications platform of the future? To me the answer is quite obvious.
ps. Isn’t this quite a good marketing gig for The Mentalists by the way. 474,271 viewings on this YouTube video in 3 weeks.
The new Apple iMedia? (isn’t it strange that Apples iTunes interface is made for exactly a 10″ screen) All over the net people are buzzing about what will come from Apple the next WWDC event in June. Reports says Apple has ordered a bunch of 10” displays that might be used to build a Tablet [...]
Everyone are going bananas over Twitter and the marketing potential with micro blogging. People who are into it are totally sold. People who are not doesn’t understand jack shit. The thing with Twitter is that you’ve gotta get yourself in there, start listening to the twitter and slowly adapt to a strange new culture. Once [...]
The other day I was happy to see that Per Torberger, former writer at Resume, one of Swedens leading media papers, had kick started his blog Pers Värld. Welcome back Per! One of Per’s first post highlighted the ongoing Swedish discussion about the new 2009 Swedish European Presidency logo made by Bacon. Both Resume and [...]
Me interacting with Mr Dolphin, his friends and family. I have spent the last 6 days on Lanai, Hawaii together with a good friend. We’ve been down here attending Tibco’s yearly conference. He as an employee and me as a guest. The optimum setup for me as I’ve focused more on exploring the island than [...]
This blog is written by Johan Ronnestam. He's widely regarded as one of Sweden’s leading speakers and authorities in the field of modern creative and conceptual thinking and skill of innovating brands and their communication. In 2010 the readers of Microsoft Indikat named Johan Swedens most influential authority within digital communication
