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Microsoft Advertising
Just say this nice video at cross the breeze.
The convergence happening in media nowadays is thrilling!
Some minor issues
new marketing blog
Brand competition
Last week I was asked to participate in a Belgian initiative called Merkencompetitie/Competition des Marques, translated brand competition. It’s an annual research, by the ad agency LDV United and their IT partner Made4IT. The idea is to research national brands, and see how they compete to each other.
It’s an open research and you can participate here: http://www.merkencompetitie.be/ (only Dutch and French). The list is quite long, so you have to reserve some time. I know there is some hassle about the usability, but I have to say in the end it worked for me. It’s just a long list, and there simply is no way to make this work faster/better/stronger I guess.
So obviously the more people attending, the better the competition will be, so go ahead 
If you finish the competition, you can compare yourself with some Belgian bloggers, and see who’s most in line with you. For me that would be Imke Dielen and Sideburns.
Here’s the complete list of bloggers in there at this point:
- Houbi
- Right Half Chow
- Janso (he’s involved in the organization)
- Frederiek Pascal of SevenEdge
- Clo Willaerts
- Minor Issues (yep, that’s me
) - Brand Coach
- Sideburns
- Imke Dielen
- Lamazone
- MouseOver
- Broodkast
- Pur Sang
- Karel Titeca
- Communicatiemannen
- Goedles
- Shapish
- Piet of Germaine
- Appelogen
If you’re a blogger yourself and want to be listed, just contact Janso.
Pretty curious about the results!
Happy Christmas from AKQA
Best whishes from AKQA.
AKQA is the agency that impressed me the most with there Fiat eco:Drive project at Adobe’s MAX Europe at the beginning of this month. Really nice work guys, keep up the good work.
Facebook Social Ads
In the search for relevance, I’m really pleased with Facebook’s social ads principle. It wisely uses the context and makes your friends ambassadors of the product that’s advertised for.
Click image for larger view .
Gift idea
Not sure what to buy your loved ones for Christmas? Why not buy them a book!? I think age of conversation 2 would make a perfect gift!
As you might remember, this is a book writing project in which 239 bloggers participated, including me. All profit goes to charity. So far 550 books have sold, generating a profit $3,500 .. this should be improved A LOT.
It’s a really good book, I totally recommend it! So if you know someone in communication, advertising, marketing .. this would be the perfect gift. I’m sure it will be an eye opener for lot’s of professionals and a more than a nice read for people interested in the subject.
You can order your copy at lulu.com – print on demand baby!
Check out the official site at www.ageofconversation.com
Beware of the Doghouse
What gift to buy your girlfriend.
A vacuum cleaner would be nice .. or wouldn’t it? It seems more man have troubles finding the perfect gift, check out this video!
In my mind an excellent campaign of JC Penny, a post order jewelry store. It’s a funny store, made on a good way. This way the message kind of sticks. You’ll get the idea (not that there was anything to get in my case :p)
Also check the doghouse site. You can put people into the doghouse yourself. I can’t think of a better way to point out what exactly you’d like for Christmas!
I think it’s a brilliant campaign. Hits us in the right spots, timing is great, funny .. I’m pretty sure this leads to extra sales, let alone awareness.
Just remember folks: diamonds are a girl’s best friend!
(m)Apple in the Simpsons
Look and laugh with this apple spoof in the Simpsons. I think it’s quite funny. It satirize the "I must have too" attitude many apple customers show
I especially enjoyed the spoof of the 1984 spot. This spot announced the Macintosh and was only broadcaster once (in daytime) during the 1984 superbowl. The spot was directed by Ridley Scott and was a clear revelation at the time. Enjoy it once more!
Minor Issues is a commercial whore!!
Click and stick: $5
So what’s the thing with monetization? For starters: this blog is my playground and my hobby. It’s not my work. I don’t need it to make money here. It hardly cost me anything (hosting is provided by my buddy Serge .. and I guess I still need to pay him some domain name fees ) except a decent amount of time. The things I learn is what I earn and so are the people I connect to. My reputation, I guess ..
On the other hand, I don’t feel dirty if I make some bucks with blogging. Working in advertising myself I’m quite interested in how blogs can spread your message. And there are many models to that. Paying bloggers is only one way of doing things, and then there’s a difference between display ads or commercial content creation.
As far as I’m concerned, I don’t say no to anything .. by default. This means you can knock on my door as much as you like. I’ll listen. But I don’t guarantee I accept your offer anyway. There’s a big chance I might not.
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I live to code
My attention was drawn to this little video
I was asked to post this, more about that here.
It shows a Microsoft Surface developer explaining some stuff he’s done, not too technical but quite passionate and understandable.
Well I absolutely love Surface and I’m quite fascinated every time I see it working on roadshows and stuff (last time on FOWA). I think it’s a truly innovative product, taking into account what technology can do for the user, and not for the sake of technology, so that’s great. In my mind, one of the best ways to innovate is this road: think about how good something could be, and then take little steps to make it happen, until it’s there.
At the end of the video you’ll find a link to www.ilivetocode.com. It’s a quite, well, dry website containing a bunch of links to similar video’s on youTube, and other project pages. It’s a Microsoft driven .. campaign (I guess I shall call it a campaign). They’re not trying to hide their identity, it’s there. You can participate yourself by mailing to a Microsoft email address and yes they even pay me indirectly to post the video.
I kind of like the approach, and see where this is going. They try to gain credibility to have developers explain in their words what they are doing and what it means for them. Microsoft is the company providing the tools, and yes they get criticized a lot, but on the other hand you have all these developers who just do what they love. And in the end that’s what its’ about. I try to avoid holy “what technology is better” wars myself. If you use what you love you’ll end up doing cooler things.
Here’s something from the ethos
“It’s about solving problems, not cutting corners. It’s about finishing what you started. It’s the reason you’re not the only one working until 2 a.m. It’s the common bonds and universal truths shared by developers, regardless of their platform. This is Live to Code.”
Nuff said.
The only thing I’d like to see now is someone new, applying to the program with his/her project, and getting picked up. Al though it feels genuine to me this would prove the case it’s not clearly selected marketing talk, but an idea opened up (although initiated by Microsoft). Case 1 might be just good thinking, case 2 is definitely smart!
So if you got something, or know someone .. let me know.
Why don’t people get it!?
That question is kind of the glue of this project I participated in: the age of conversation #2. The idea is to involve bloggers around the globe and write a book together. Yes it’s possible, this is the second edition. Last year about 100 bloggers wrote along, this year the counter stopped at 237. And this year I shared a page as well, titled "Bottom-up marketing".
Well first, this book couldn’t have happened without the excellent effort Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton have put in the project. Kudo’s guys and thank you so much!
I just ordered my copy at lulu, printing on demand baby! And of course I would be gratefull if you ordered a copy yourself. Not for making me any money, none of the writers earn a single dollar. We even pay out own copy. All profit is donated to a good cause: Variety, the international children’s charity. Last year the project raised nearly $15,000!
So obviously the book is about conversation, and it’s a pretty grassroot aproach so in my mind a very good way to learn about insights breeding inside de minds of people really deep into blogging, community .. organic conversations. But I can’t say to much about it since I haven’t received my copy yet. I’m very curious and excited and let you know what I think about it as soon as I’ve got it. You might want to follow me on twitter to pick my brain
Piet Wulleman spotted 5 Belgian participators so far: Piet Wulleman, Geert Desager, Luc Debaisieux, Yves van Landeghem and me. I think we should do a press release together, but I didn’t came to it so far ..