In case you haven't sent your last minute personalized Christmas cards - here's all you need.
A fun idea, takes some time to load but is well worth a laugh.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
European Advertising
I'm in Europe over the holidays and I've discovered many interesting ad executions, placements and statements that I will be sharing here shortly. So stay tuned.
If you'd like to learn something about what it takes to build the foundation for a great website or campaign before I start sharing my findings, check out Scott Weisbrod's blog and the heated discussions on experience planning. It's more than pretty pictures and a smart header. But you knew that.
His site is devoted to building and structuring great websites through IA. I'll let him explain what that means, exactly: "Experience Planner is devoted to exploring multi-channel customer experience insight, planning, design and management. "
If you'd like to learn something about what it takes to build the foundation for a great website or campaign before I start sharing my findings, check out Scott Weisbrod's blog and the heated discussions on experience planning. It's more than pretty pictures and a smart header. But you knew that.
His site is devoted to building and structuring great websites through IA. I'll let him explain what that means, exactly: "Experience Planner is devoted to exploring multi-channel customer experience insight, planning, design and management. "
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Weekly Highlights
I am hoping to make this a weekly 'best of', sharing what I came accross or what was sent to me. So if you don't have time to stop by all the time, here are my favorites and -hopefully- my ten minutes on your screen:
The Latest in German Advertising
The new 'Otto Katalog', one of the biggest catalogs Germans order from, offering anything from clothing to technology. I saw this new advertising campaign, executed by Kolle Rebbe Germany, over on Advertising/Design Goodness.
Le Web 3
It took place earlier this week and blog entries, articles, videos etc. can be found everywhere you go. I'm sure you have your favorites - so here it the official site.
Buddy Shopping
A new social shopping site where you can go shopping with your best friend. Very handy if he or she is far away. Potential downfall is the fact that you need to download software first. In times of spam, phishing and viruses you have to be very convincing to make people click that download button...
Design Town
Check out the latest designs from cute to crazy.
The Latest in German Advertising
The new 'Otto Katalog', one of the biggest catalogs Germans order from, offering anything from clothing to technology. I saw this new advertising campaign, executed by Kolle Rebbe Germany, over on Advertising/Design Goodness.
Le Web 3
It took place earlier this week and blog entries, articles, videos etc. can be found everywhere you go. I'm sure you have your favorites - so here it the official site.
Buddy Shopping
A new social shopping site where you can go shopping with your best friend. Very handy if he or she is far away. Potential downfall is the fact that you need to download software first. In times of spam, phishing and viruses you have to be very convincing to make people click that download button...
Design Town
Check out the latest designs from cute to crazy.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Monday, December 11, 2006
Word of the Year
The winner is truthiness and it already has two definitions:
1.: The quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true. (American Dialect Society)
2.: Truth that comes from the gut, not books. (Stephen Colbert, creator of the word)
See the top ten words of 2006 here.
1.: The quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true. (American Dialect Society)2.: Truth that comes from the gut, not books. (Stephen Colbert, creator of the word)
See the top ten words of 2006 here.
Friday, December 8, 2006
Life events impact buying behavior
I read a very interesting article today about the effects of major life-changing events on a person's online buying behavior and media consumption.
These are events that increase the purchase intent the most:
If you have a product that is relevant to one or more of these life events, market it accordingly. But Pampers should not be the only one marketing to expecting mothers. Some of the markets may not be an apparent target market for your product - an example would be furniture. But when you think about it, new, more or different furniture is needed or desired in every life-changing event.
Main takeaway for online advertising:
[Online marketers] can become the surrogate advisor to people during these life events. [...] They can build communities. Social networking now becomes a surrogate advisor to actually allow people to understand what they may need, or anticipate what they may need, during these transition periods.
Marketers could utilize this to help people through these life events. Help them anticipate what they need and in the price range they can afford. [...]
These are events that increase the purchase intent the most:
- Pregnancy
- Marriage
- Divorce
- Retirement
- Kids starting college
If you have a product that is relevant to one or more of these life events, market it accordingly. But Pampers should not be the only one marketing to expecting mothers. Some of the markets may not be an apparent target market for your product - an example would be furniture. But when you think about it, new, more or different furniture is needed or desired in every life-changing event.
Main takeaway for online advertising:
[Online marketers] can become the surrogate advisor to people during these life events. [...] They can build communities. Social networking now becomes a surrogate advisor to actually allow people to understand what they may need, or anticipate what they may need, during these transition periods.
Marketers could utilize this to help people through these life events. Help them anticipate what they need and in the price range they can afford. [...]
Thursday, December 7, 2006
Holiday Cheer
Here are some holiday site executions I've come across and used in brainstorms for different client sites and micro sites. It's a little bit of everything.. from eye-catching visuals and smart IA to a great tag line:
There is Puma's ninja take on the holidays. Great fluidity of the 'holiday heroes'.
Target's Gift Finder has some well thought-through categorization based on the selected category and brings ease to shopping for the not-so-creative. The copy reads a bit like the back of a Christmas CD though...
Nice effort on this slick and easy to navigate Christmas eCatalog by Neiman Marcus.
Glamorous and straight to the point from Mercedes Benz - want a shiny new toy? There's only one answer...
This one is from last year - but still a neat idea. It's one of those sites where you remember what you did but don't necessarily remember the brand..
Friday, December 1, 2006
Marketing to Men
The 'Marketing to Men Executive Summit' is happening today. Here's something I noticed when reading through the program:
Male consumers are a strong, yet diverse group, and reaching them through traditional advertising as well as new media is an ongoing challenge. Top agencies and marketers who have redefined the marketing rules present successful campaigns and sponsorships involving sports, fast food, cars, grooming and beverages.
A very successful recent campaign is this one by Philips - a great result of client and agency collaboration. I have no idea how hard it was to convince Philips to go with this humorous approach and take the embarassment out of body grooming. Great design, great content. It takes [bleep]s to do that.
Male consumers are a strong, yet diverse group, and reaching them through traditional advertising as well as new media is an ongoing challenge. Top agencies and marketers who have redefined the marketing rules present successful campaigns and sponsorships involving sports, fast food, cars, grooming and beverages.A very successful recent campaign is this one by Philips - a great result of client and agency collaboration. I have no idea how hard it was to convince Philips to go with this humorous approach and take the embarassment out of body grooming. Great design, great content. It takes [bleep]
Blogs are Influential (Different Angle)
Blogging is an increasingly important way for companies to engage consumers. It's also part of consumer engagement and one of the big trends for 2007, according to today's edition of MarketingDaily :
[...] blogging is a form of content Passikoff thinks will increase in importance next year. Expedia, Google and Wells Fargo are his examples of trendsetters in engaging consumers and moving toward creating what he calls "communities of ones" in the digital world. He also expects companies to use technology and engagement to better communicate with customer expectations.
But just because you start a company blog, doesn't mean you will increase interest, trust or sales. And if you start a blog that is bad (and bad can mean anything from poorly written to missing transparency), it will backfire and crush that little bit of whatever it was you wanted to build on. Right, Wal-Mart?
[...] blogging is a form of content Passikoff thinks will increase in importance next year. Expedia, Google and Wells Fargo are his examples of trendsetters in engaging consumers and moving toward creating what he calls "communities of ones" in the digital world. He also expects companies to use technology and engagement to better communicate with customer expectations.But just because you start a company blog, doesn't mean you will increase interest, trust or sales. And if you start a blog that is bad (and bad can mean anything from poorly written to missing transparency), it will backfire and crush that little bit of whatever it was you wanted to build on. Right, Wal-Mart?
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