Some minor issues

Here it is

Made by @crusty

If you want to read the explanation, see his post. But that’s a bit unnecessary, cause the slides says it all. Nuff said.

This blog post is mainly in Dutch, but I’ll do an English intro. After the read more, I’ll continue in Dutch with .. a recipe!

What’s a recipe doing here. Well first of all I really enjoy cooking, and I’m asked to participate in a cooking contest, so how could I say no? Second, it’s actually a good campaign, so apart from the recipe, the case fits this blog anyway.

The brief: can you come up with a recipe using brown shrimps, post about it on your blog and link to http://blog.grijzegarnaal.be – in it for me: they pay the shrimps and I can win a trip to the Wadden sea and do all shrimp related things.

Euh yeah, I love this idea. It’s a great and engaging campaign, build around the product (the shrimp), involving people, let them be creative. You know, the brown shrimp (we call it grey actually) is a very tasteful shrimp, nothing like this pink crap they serve all around the world. It’s a local here product, and it’s been fished in the North sea, mostly in the Netherlands, and Germany, but also in Belgium. So Belgians know this shrimp, and they like it! For us, it’s the default shrimp.

Anyway, the campaign is set-up or supported by the great adhese folks.

The rest of the entry will be Dutch, but I’ll show you a picture of the end result. It was very good if I might say so

(more…)

If you like movies, like I do, I’m glad to present you a new project I started a week ago. A movie blog titled “In search of Magnolia” http://www.insearchofmagnolia.com

Basically I will review the movies I see and write about some other movie stuff.

The name of the blog means that I’m looking for the thrill I experienced when I first saw the movie Magnolia by PT Anderson.

You know, we always tell our clients that if they want to do something on social networks, it’s critical to follow the dynamics of that network. If you reach out, reach out. Don’t try to force people into doing stuff they don’t know, have to learn, doesn’t make sense for them, .. they probably won’t do it anyway.

It’s not always easy to properly translate these network dynamics into a proper campaign. Something that feels perfect for the brand. Ideally renewing.

Today, I saw the perfect example of this philosophy. It’s a campaign for IKEA, apparently done by the agency Forsman & Bodenfors, Gothenburg. I love it.

(hat tip Patrice Fleurquin)

Here’s a tip that could come in handy if you ever do email communication. It’s rather obvious, but I see so many emails fail against it.

>> MAKE SURE YOUR EMAIL IS FINDABLE!

As on the web, search is becoming big on email. The reason is obvious: storage is getting cheaper, more mails are coming in and search functionalities are getting better.

How many of you get emails on a regular basis that you want to follow-up not just right now, but a bit later? Then forget about it, till suddenly you remember it, having a hard time finding back that particular email .. I know I do!
(Yeah, there are tricks, but they stopped working for me years ago. + it’s not about me/you. If I fail in finding emails back, you can be sure your audience does even worse ..)

How can an email be non findable? There are 3 ways I see now (might be more).

1. You use only images, or have the core of your message in images.
2. Although you use text, somehow the text doesn’t contain the keywords people might search on. Think about the message of your email, what search terms might people use to find it back? Maybe you can just add some tags at the bottom of the email?
3. Gmail, Google’s email service, which is quite popular nowadays, for some reason only finds whole words, at least default. If you for example search for “poker”, gmail won’t return emails with the term “pokertable”. Microsoft Outlook is doing better here. Not sure about other popular clients.

I believe in the not too distant future it will pay off to apply some SEO insights on emails as well.

This is a Belgian only post I’m afraid. But at least it’s a post, and that’s been a while right

I want to pitch a little advert I saw on the internet at the beginning of the week, that was removed swiftly due to a court order. It’s a viral / online only commercial for Scarlet, a company that offers internet here in Belgium.

The commercial is a parody on a Telenet ad, where they show leopards to demonstrate how fast their service is. Telenet is a true 3-tier player, offering next to internet also (digital) television and telephone services.

The point the Scarlet commercial wants to make, is that there’s a hidden cable cost in Telenet’s offering. They promote their services in packs .. this amount of money for digital TV + internet for example, but what they forget to mention is that you as a consumer still have to pay for the analogue TV signal.
On the other hand, would you go for a IP only solution (DSL basically) and you subscribe to TV over IP, you wouldn’t have to pay these costs.

The commercial demonstrates this in a rather funny way, the leopards are tied to their cable, so basically they’re limited in movement.

I’ll embed the movie here below, well knowing it might be taken off pretty soon. If so, too bad, but it won’t change my point / view on this.

I must say, I’m a happy Telenet Digital TV (and internet) customer. I think they have a great product, and I use it on a daily basis (not saying it couldn’t be improved though). At the other hand I wasn’t as pleased with Belgacom TV (the IP-tv solution in Belgium, that Scarlet is pitching) in the beginning, but it might be better now, just don’t know.

But I do think Scarlet has a huge point. There IS a hidden cable cost, and it pisses me off. I’m the kind of guy who might actually pay for this, because I still have a DVR next to the integrated digital TV recorder, and I might even switch to the analogue signal if my box is recording 2 things and I want to see a 3th one . But I want to know about this. When I signed up for Telenet at the beginning of the year, I was misleaded. I didn’t knew what I would be ending up paying, till I had my first invoice (and still). There’s hidden cable costs, hidden copyrights, .. stuff I couldn’t find searching the website.

In my mind there’s one of 2 things that should happen:
1. Communicate honestly about the prices people end up paying
2. Make the the analogue cable signal optional in the package

I’d like to open up the debate about this. Sure, the Scarlet commercial might be out of place due to copyright issues (they’re reusing a Telenet spot), but the message is very valid! Anybody an idea how we might get this for example in the consumer tv show VOLT?

And let’s not get started about the insanely high internet cost here in Belgium!

<end of rant />

A social media addict that is. That probably why I don’t blog that much lately. Not that I don’t want too .. and I do have as many bad ideas as before .. but I just waste all my free time on twitter and facebook.

Luckily I’m not alone. If I was, it would be very lonely online, and it never is
Recently, some guy named Jerry started a self help group. If your even close to using social media, I recommend viewing this video of a meeting. It is truly inspiring, and .. yes, recognizable.

(more…)

Mapping massive amounts of information into understandable structures, that’s what information architects do. There is a Japanese firm that does this very well: iA. They just released the 4th version of their Web Trend Map, and it’s (again) a pleasure to look at!

 
See full size on Flickr. This time they were smart enough not to host it on own servers

The map maps all kinds of firms, services, social networks, .. that live on the web in a subway like structure. You have different lines, representing different focus domains. These focus areas may overlap in specific fields. Add to that the stability and the use, combined with some trend setters, and you know how complex this information is.

Learn more about it on webtrendsmap.com or even order a print. I’m sure some services are missing, and that’s why it’s kind of pity there is no interactive version of this. I would love to search, sort, highlight, filter, ..

For instance, I can’t find Netlog on the map (quite huge in Europe) and I’m pretty sure it was there on the previous version .. However I do find Skyrock, which is quite big but only in France. So probably Netlog is there, but I just can’t find it .. Who helps me out?

To finalize a little video they made to promote the map.

Enjoy!

So there’s this thing called crisis. Like a filthy disease it’s creeping into our lives, immobilizes us, and spread to our loved ones. Oh yes, talking about viral, here is viral redefined.

To be honest, till a month ago or something, the crisis was something that didn’t affect me at all, not in theory nor in thinking. I figured out it was something that would pass, at least pass me and the people I work for/with/ .. And sure, I still have my job, and luckily Nascom isn’t doing bad at all (keep fingers crossed), but I did hit on quite some people I respect and consider to be good at what they’re doing. In fact the whole advertising industry in Belgium has taken a hit, largely international controlled, but still. And it’s not only the advertising industry, I do know that ..

What’s happening in the ad industry however, is a sign what’s happening in the society as a whole, and is supporting the thesis I’m bringing here.

(more…)

See it here:

Yes, this embed is the site. Just go to www.BooneOakley.com to see how serious they are. I mailed them to say I’m in love with this, curious to see if they’ll get back to me.

BTW: views are adding up swiftly. Great marketing, guys!