Some minor issues

Last post almost a year ago. Last decent post over a year ago.
I guess .. we’re closed.

But not without saying a proper goodbye, eulogy and explanation.

Every goodbye post should start with "I started blogging in .." and so should this one. I started blogging in 2005, except I never stopped. I switched.

Never been a fast blogger on this particular blog. There’s a couple of reasons for that. First, I wanted to have a certain added value. That mainly means it took quite some time to write a proper post, and proper posts is all I wanted. Finding time was a challenge sometimes, and when I found some the relevance was gone. Or something else got priority. Second, although I started blogging in Dutch, I switched to English, amongst others to participate in some international projects. Although I believe I’m more or less fluent in English, it’s less automatic than writing in your mother tongue. Finally, there’s technology. I once loved WordPress, but it never made things easy for me. Blogging in WordPress takes effort, as I learned later.

So that’s 3 reasons that slowed me down. I killed them and started a new project may last year: more.minorissues.be. It’s going like a bomb!

How exactly did I kill these hurdles?

• I started blogging in Dutch, speaks for itself
• I switched platforms. I’m now using Tumblr like crazy! I discovered Tumblr when setting up a small project, a movieblog called in search of magnolia, and fell in love with the platform instantly. There’s no pain whatsoever, blogging is easy. It made me start more posts, and caused less frustrations while going. If only for look and feel: if I look back at this blog I see clutter. Tumblr is just so nice.
• Again, Tumblr helped me to blog more frequent because it encourage you to just post stuff. For example, if you want to blog a nice image you just do so. No title required or whatsoever. Obviously you can comment on it, but you don’t have to. Same goes for video, audio, text, .. Tumblr is all about sharing, so I started it as an extension to my twitter stream: giving things that deserve some stickyness a proper place. To find them back later, to offer a place for discussion, ..

It works for me. I’m now a far more active (and in my mind: better) blogger than I ever was. I try to bring a decent mixture of fast posts , and slow posts that still take me some time to finish. Still focussing on advertising and technology. Actually, trying to have a focus on digital strategy, and take it from there.

Yeah, I loved and still love blogging, but this blog is coming to an end. I decided to not pull the plug, because I do believe it does have some interesting content in the archives. As a matter of fact here are some personal highlights:

• Nespress is the new Gilette (2009)
• Honoring the original VW Beetle ads (2009)
• Thinking about a Twitter businessmodel (2009)
• Getting Alex Bogusky on twitter (2009)
• Mailing Steve Balmer (2008)
• New Marketing FAQ (2007)

Blogging in Dutch, I believe I’ve written some of my best stuff (very subjective I know, imHo) on more.minorissues.be. Here are some posts I believe are worth reading. All in Dutch:

• Over de nieuwe Bonux spotjes
• Introductie Digitale Marketing
• Waarom TV reclame goed werkt
• Context = Noodzaak
• Crossmedia met Jeroen Meus
• Open brief aan de politiek
• Facebook pagina, hebbeeeuuhhh
• Van Thillo – snippets
• De vijver en de verandering in de media in Belgi?
• Blow-up campagnes
• De Ronde
• Je zal maar een sociaal netwerk hebben (analyse over hyves, netlog .. vs Facebook)
• Content Marketing (met Jeroen Meus)
• Jan Callebaut
• Delhaize is zijn positionering kwijt (vind ik nog steeds, maar ze spelen het tegenwoordig iets minder hard)

Anyway, for the non Dutch speaking people: thanks for reading. Hope we’ll meet again one day. Those that speak Dutch: fee free to follow me on my new blog, or follow me on twitter.

This is it! Love,
Steven

Brilliant! Car calendar for Audi, without cars.

Hat Tip @DonFrodo

I’m organizing an event!

I’m organizing it because I jumped on an occasion. Just after the Haiti disaster, Joseph Jaffe, internationally famed new marketing author, speaker and consultant, auctioned himself for charity. I considered this a one-of-a-kind opportunity, and convinced the people of Nascom to jump on this, and we did. We ended up with a deal, how great is that!?

With Joseph coming over anyway, we quickly decided we should turn this into a full day event. And that’s what happened, and I’m organizing it (with much appreciated help of a number of people obviously). We looked for and found other interesting speakers, who just like Jaffe were willing to donate their fee to charity. This means, nobody will make any money on this. If we make any profit with the event, this goes entirely to charity. I like that a lot and I’m happy Nascom allows me to do this.

Other speakers we signed: Guillaume Van der Stighelen, Steven Van Belleghem, Douglas Smith, Christian Verschaeren, David Hachez, Evert-Jan de Kort, Dirk De Jongh and last but not least: Kenneth Cho, founder of Spredfast. They’re all great guys with a very relevant and interesting story, and I’m happy they engaged themselves.

We called the event “Marketing Innovation“, and it will happen at the end of this month, Wednesday April 28, at C-mine Genk where Nascom is located as well. We are aware this sounds far away for a lot of you, but trust me, it is very reachable because it’s traveling against traffic flows. Anyway, we’ll start a bit later to assure you even more. Traffic put aside, trust me, this line-up is worth some travel

Keep an eye on the website http://www.marketinginnovation.eu – we’ll publish the full schedule soon. Registration via Amiando, or if you want Nascom to send you an invoice, just let me know. Because the early bird registration is over, I’d like to offer you a discount trough this blog. If you use promocode “minorissues” you’ll get 50 euro off, setting the entrance fee at 200 euro instead of 250. The entrance fee is pretty low compared to regular conferences as far as I know, but remember it’s not our goal to make a lot of money. We do need to cover our expenses however, and if we make any money, charity will be happy.

I hope to see many of you there. Thanks.

No shit.

BTW, I’m no football fan, not even that. But this is everything you want to accomplish with your brand. Show you understand and respect your buyers. Reach out. Put a smile on their face, and sail on their emotions. Well done!

There’s something happening in Belgian ad world this week. The site of some major agencies are on a strike.

On a strike?

Yes, it’s a protest, organized by an organization called ACC, a self-regulating organ that tries to outline the way pitches should be organized here in Belgium. A noble goal, really. As you might know or not, a pitch is a process where an agency is in competition with other agencies, trying to win the account. As you can imagine, a pretty intense process that indeed can suck-up quite some resources, creativity, money even .. so yes, I do believe in some kind of regulation. Rules the ACC promote are for example: only 4 agencies, don’t steal creation, .. pretty straight-forward ideas to be honest, but as you can imagine, clients don’t always feel the same.

And this is what the strike is about. To bring a clear and simple message: don’t abuse.

That’s why you’ll find the websites of these agencies replaced with an open letter, that you can find after the break (screenshots, the text isn’t copy-paste friendly .. let’s not get started about share-ability)
(more…)

Really love this spot – Fucking good

By TBWA Paris.
Via Buzzing Bees

There’s a new BOB campaign in Belgium. These campaigns are designed to build awareness around drinking and driving, that it’s a bad idea. The campaign typically comes to live with the holidays around the corner, as in right now.

A BOB is a person who doesn’t drink, and safely drives his probably less sober passengers. The idea is to endorse this person, reward him even, symbolic.

However, I do believe this years campaign is pushing it.

This year, one of these BOB’s (when checked upon by the police) will win a car.

Don’t get me wrong, I a) am in favor of any anti-drinking and driving awareness campaign; b) I like the concept of BOB a lot. I do believe the introduction of this concept has in fact saved quite some lives.

But give a car away? I think this brings the wrong message, and might even be counter productive. How is that?

First, I’m very much in favor of the symbolic approach. I do believe in positive endorsement, in general, but when it comes to alcohol controls, the thing that probably works best (at least on the short term) is fear for penalty. What the BOB campaign has established very well is, in the first place create awareness around alcohol campaigns (hey kids, we’re checking, you don’t want to get caught) and at the same time (and this is important) offer a way out. The introduction of the BOB is a solution to a problem. It’s not telling: you can’t party. It’s telling: you can party, but find a solution for drunk driving (don’t let us catch you). Choosing a BOB is a solution: you don’t drink this week, I’ll be sober next time.

The win-a-car angle is kind of counter productive in my mind. The symbolic part is gone, it got turned into a contest. A car matters, right? The campaign is telling: be good, win a price. Then what? I don’t win, too bad, drink again? Got beaten in a non drinking contest?

This brings us to the counter productive part. When I see a alcohol control is happening, I’m sure to start driving as if I were intoxicated. I can win a car, so it would be stupid to not get a chance to compete! So if you see a cue of cars that want to be alcohol checked, ask yourself if the campaign worked?

The press and police will most likely think it’s working, because there it’s all about the numbers (which plays on the don’t get caught message as well, by the way). The more cars checked on, the better. Well, think again. It’s about quality, not quantity kids!

We just released our Nascom x-mas card.

Check it out, I think it’s big fun and quite original.

Can you spot me and my colleagues?

If you know of other fun digital x-mas cards, let me know!

(BTW: if you have a reddit account, support the card right here – well appreciated!)

King Gilette invented a new business approach. Disposable razors. He started making money with a non-durable good, something you need to renew on a regular basis. The containers .. he gave them away for free. Or practical free. An approach Gilette is still following today. Cheap containers, expensive blades. Their product innovation is based on that: new blades (mostly by adding an extra blade), new container. Get the brand new container in a promotion that’s practical free (or at least less expensive than a new package of blades) and be stuck to new and more expensive blades. This happens on a regular basis.

This post isn’t about Gilette. We know the new king in razor town is Raz*War – quality blades at an honest price. I’ll use them, check it out. Not much left to say here.

Let’s talk about Nespresso, they top this business model.

It’s been almost a year since I got my Nespresso machine. I got it as a farewell present when changing jobs. Still much appreciated, ex-colleagues! Together with the machine, I got some accessories and obviously coffee pads. Great gift!

Almost a year later, taking into account I had a decent stash to start with, this is what I spend on Nespresso products:

• 650 coffee capsules
• Extra cups
• Spoons (which I never use myself because I drink my Nespresso black)
• Some random capsules in a Nespresso store

The price of a normal Nespresso capsule is 0.33 euro, a lungo (larger cup) is 0.37 euro. I drink both, so if you take 0.35 euro as an average I spent > 227 euro on coffee capsules alone. Together with the extra accessories the sum total will be around 280 euro.

I’m telling this because this is substantially more than the actual price of the machine. Especially when you take the semi permanent 50 euro cashback promotion into account.

The great thing is I don’t feel ripped off. This is where Nespresso exceeds Gilette. I’m happy to pay. Every cup of coffee is worth it’s 35 cents.

What’s more, when I place an order of about 80 euros, the only thing I can think is: man, I wish it was already here. New flavors! When they actually deliver, I’m happy as a little child. This is a business model based on use and added value. Every cup adds value!

Seeing this numbers, Nespresso would do a good job giving their machines away.

Nespresso is everything you can wish for as a brand. Kevin Roberts would call this a love brand. It’s the whole atmosphere, the full experience. As a customer, I can only conclude they have a very effective CRM strategy. They possibly have to, since you can’t buy the capsules in a random store. You need to go to a Nespresso store (rare, but fun) or order by phone / internet / fax / whatever. But the program works, you don’t feel left behind. They give you the message to contact them for anything. When it’s supposed to be time to decalc your machine, you get a set for free. It’s in the details. It feels fun. It feels premium.

The best thing? Literally any client is a brand advocate! You can’t wish for this, but in case of Nespresso it’s true. I guess I’m personal responsible for at least 5 new clients, on 1 year time! And they all love it, and bring in friends themselves.

How can this happen? Most important, the product is good. It’s premium, and worth what you pay. You never feel ripped off. The coffee is good as well. There’s quite some flavors (They’re icons! They have facebook fan pages!) so chances are you easily find yourself a favorite. I personally believe it’s the best confection coffee out there. I can imagine some fresh roasted, carefully selected, home brewed coffee melange can be better .. but seriously, how realistic is this? How likely is it that you personally are able to mix something that’s better than a coffee specialist? I’m a coffee lover, no coffee technician .. And the Nespresso coffee is kept fresh in the closed capsules, pretty important.
So the product is good, and the communication is in line. It creates some expectations, expectations that are empowered by actual use. No bloody lies!

This said, there’s just one thing they can improve, and that’s the online experience. I firmly believe, putting this in line with the general promise of the brand, use the same quality, enforce it really .. could be a very good step in expanding the brand.

Yes I’m a fan .. and proud of it. BTW, a Nespresso machine would make the ultimate x-mas gift in my mind. Not for me though, I have my machine.

I was researching some advertising heritage, and for some reason I had to think about the classic VW Beetle ad, stating “Lemon”.

See it in large (“think small” as a bonus)

I was discussing it at the office today, and realized the term “lemon” isn’t commonly used here in Belgium. Maybe Europe? It might as well be a very American thing. I think I learned about it reading Gladwell.

Anyway, a lemon, in the (mostly second hand) car market, is a car that’s simply not good. It might seem ok, but when you end up buying it, you’re basically screwed. There’s a whole economic theory about this .. but that’s not the point here (just nice for you to know).

The ad is a classic one, made by DDB, to support the launch of the VW Beetle in the USA in the 1960′s. Tough market. German car with the Second World War right behind the corner. An American trend to get bigger and bigger cars, that the Beetle clearly didn’t follow, ..

Why on earth would they put LEMON on an ad for a car?

That’s where the copywriting kicks in! Read it, and smile! Basically, what the copy is telling: that particular car didn’t make it to the end selection, because it has a really minor issue (hey!). So if VW classifies this car as a lemon, can you imagine what their quality standards must be?

It’s still great, but back at the time it was trendsetting on Madison Avenue, the center point of the Ad industry then. DDB blew a new wind, bringing a focus to creativity. All big agencies followed easily.

This post is a homage to the profession of ad man back at the days, a real craftsman. The importance of copy. I won’t ignore the importance of copy nowadays, not at all, it’s still key. But things did change. For one thing, distinctive (long) copy is becoming a rare good, because in this over-mediated world, people don’t seem to read this anymore. What’s left is instant hit copy. Make your point, NOW. There is no other choice, the only way to stand out is yell harder, be more visual. A pity, but a reality so it seems.

Or .. do we need to realize, different times need a different approach? That being contemporary (or future ready) is not about using yesterdays techniques .. harder?