If you have one ad to remember from the Superbowl XLIV, it has to be the Google one. This ad stands out from the crowd for two obvious reasons, they have a great product and they have matched it with an interesting storytelling. You can enjoy the ad below.
Only a few moments after the ad was aired, it has already its parody. Now this is what I call success!
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You can’t force an idea to spread but you can influence its diffusion. This sentence is basic common sense to me, however as Voltaire once said “common sense is not so common”. So many times I have seen people debating for the wrong reasons because they are only trying to force it to happen rather than provoking constructive discussions.
It you have a look at what recently happened in France with the so called “national identity” debate, it is very representative of a non discussion.
If you don’t have a clear point of view, you cannot generate any debate and worst, you are only giving more room for personal subjectivity.
What has been done here reminds me of what large corporations are doing when they have lost their purpose in life, they write corporate documents using meaningless empty words trying to fill the void.
We must fight for a genuine point of view on things not necessarily the right one, but the one that seems worth fight for. When you have done this work you have solid foundations for a constructive debate.
Pic via
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Here is one for all the French readers of this blog. I have always been looking for in-depth thinkers of the Internet. I have been reading Francis Pisani’s blog for a few years now but I’ve came across Paul Mathias’ blog just recently.
His work is very interesting, you can find his thoughts on ‘What is the Internet?‘, Google and the cultural issues and the future of mobile here.
I particularly like the fact that unlike many academic thinkers he isn’t all negative about the evolution of the Internet but he underlines how this ‘global phenomenon’ grows beyond the technology to create its own reality. According to Paul Mathias the Internet isn’t only a semantic place, it an extension of our lives.
By growing beyond the technology he means that the Internet is changing many aspects of our life: juridical (downloading), social and anthropological (love and sex), moral, the border between private and public…
“When we think about the the Internet, we need to think beyond the Internet, we need to think about us, what we think we are and the world we want to create.”
Have a look at his book for more informations.
Pic via
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First of all I would like to apologise for the lack of content on the blog over the last few months. I have always said that being busy is not an excuse but hopefully the lack of motivation could be one?
If they are a few people that haven’t deleted my feed on their RSS aggregator, I wish you all the best for the New Year.
Today I want to talk about a campaign that I don’t get. I’ve seen the creative below in London last November I think and it reinforced what I thought about Pierre Cardin: What a weird brand this is.
Pierre Cardin is for me the typical example of a brand without a position and therefore not being able to think about long terms perspectives.
Here is the problem on one hand you can’t pretend to be a luxury brand and on the other hand being sold at Lillywhites. It shows us how crucial the need for a solid distribution strategy is. No brand campaign will fix the harm made to them. When you have a look at their website it shows how hard it is for some brands to keep innovating in the way they communicate. Please Pierre Cardin, you have to react; you are a part of the French heritage!
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I have been asked by Carlos Henrique Vilela, Brazilian planner, what my favourite campaign is. You can find my answer below.
My favourite campaign it is a French one from the mid 90’s for Kiss Cool (Cadbury).
You can read about the campaign and see some ads here. (In French)
I have tried very hard to look for the best campaign with a great strategy and a great execution and then I though it maybe wasn’t a perfect way to find one. I digged in my personal memories and remembered this campaign I loved as a teenager. I may be trusting my guts than my brain here but it feels like the right thing to do!
Although the brand just died this year, this is the typical example of a brand built mainly by communication. No only the ads were funny but they entered popular culture in a very deep way in a time where the Internet wasn’t really developed. Some people are still using the tag line from the campaign: “Kisscool, c’est frais mais c’est pas grave”.
This is for me what good advertising should tend to be: a brilliant piece of content tapping into common references.
I guess they will have the opportunity to relaunch the brand in a little while a la Wispa, an other Cadbury brand…
Posted in France, branding, campaign, planning | 1 Comment »
Here is a rant I’ve been wanting to write for quite a while and today I’ve decided to stick it on the blog and see if it makes any sense.
We may have much more digital tools available to our fingertips these days but are we more knowledgeable? I am not talking about the whole ‘Google making us stupid’ thing here, I am talking about finding genuine and interesting content that could make us more knowledgeable.
The more the Internet is growing the more difficulties we have to find new and interesting content. Google ranking works in such ways that it is now very hard to look for information beyond Wikipedia for instance. I have nothing against Wikipedia, it is an amazing and very reliable way to look for information however it is only one way to look for knowledge.
By creating hubs like Wikipedia and RSS feeds, we are easing the process of looking for information but we are to a certain extend creating an illusion of knowledge. Looking for a Wikipedia entry isn’t enough, it is only giving you some surface knowledge.
This is quite paradoxical for a planner but I am now operating in a vacuum online. I have spent so much time building my Netvibes page over the years that I am now doing 80% of my browsing on it. It is becoming increasingly difficult to fight against laziness and browse beyond the RSS feed.
To fight against my digital routine I try to post one interesting link/idea a day on my Twitter. Most of the time I try not to use any content from my Netvibes to post these links and it hasn’t been an easy task so far.
Balance between efficiency and discovery, that’s what it is all about!
[Pic via]
Posted in digital, planning, thoughts | 2 Comments »
A while ago I wrote a post called French Planning. As I have been interviewed, together with a few other French planners working in London to give our perspectives on British planning by Stratégies magazine, I have decided to write a second one.
Overall I am pretty happy with the article, as the major points I wanted to make have been landed properly, however I just have one small concern about the title of the article.
“La recette du (vrai) planning a l’anglaise” could be translated like this ‘The (true) recipe of English planning’. The problem I have with this title is that planning can’t be summarised by right or wrong as every planner will have his very own definition of the discipline. And the truth is, there is no magical recipe as every briefs and contexts are different. It is even truer for the digital environment as sometimes you will have to lead and sometimes you will have to work on a very small piece of the business.
Anyway, sorry to be picky but I thought I had to precise this last point!
You can have a read of the article here (in French) and make up your own mind.
Posted in me me me, planning, thoughts | Leave a Comment »
You properly understand things when you get stuck into them. This is one of the most important things to understand when it comes to digital. I’ve been using Twitter for about two years now, however I am only using it as a link provider tool to look at other people and inspirations.
I have truly experienced Twitter as an alternative way to look for information during Le tour de France this year. Although I knew the immediacy of the site allows you get a snapshot of the news quite swiftly, following professional riders has been a very interesting experience.
The Herd and Tipping Point effects are interesting to follow. A famous rider starts twitting: Lance Armstrong and then you can follow half of the peloton and a few team manager.
But the most interesting thing to look at is the way they are using Twitter. Digital blurs the borders between virtual and real and by reading some of the twitts I was wondering if the riders realise they are talking in a public environment. Have a look at some of the samples below; we are miles away from the traditional, consensual post effort interviews.
Following Le tour on Twitter has been far more exciting than on the press. Even sport newspapers were using Twitter as a source for information anyway! I am obviously not saying media are dead or something like that. There is of course a role for media in the future. As they can’t compete for the immediacy of the news anymore they should focus on the quality, taking the time to go one step back and having a look at the bigger picture in order to add value.
[Pic via]
Posted in digital, media, thoughts | 2 Comments »
Very clever use of YouTube.
Who needs a website these days!
Posted in advertising, digital | 1 Comment »
Seeding is increasingly important in today’s digital world. However, seeding isn’t working. Good seeding is rare and most of time treated like media buying.
If things aren’t done in a right way from a seeders perspective, it is the same from a bloggers perspective as some saw here the opportunity to participate in a vicious business model. As Paul Boutin from Wired puts it, “The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge.”
Of course you could argue that good content will always spread, the reality of things is that you will need some solid seeding thoughts beyond the send to a friend button.
Here is the main issue: ‘Industrial seeding’ isn’t talking to the real actors of the web anymore. It is talking to people that transformed their blogs into magazines. These aren’t the genuine actors of the blogosphere, all they are interested in are financial deals not content. By doing so these bloggers have lost their only real power: credibility. The problem isn’t therefore about the blogosphere not being right to spread new ideas but more about finding the genuine actors of the web.
Indeed finding the right persons or groups take a lot of time and often require people with connections within these communities not a media buying agency. Moving forward, seeding should be considered earlier in the process to allow enough time for research, making the right connections. If you are short on time anyway, sources like the Social Media Library (for the UK) are interesting and will give you an idea of the persons to contact.
Of course the two main things to remember are: great content is paramount and be transparent and collaborative when contacting bloggers.
[Pic Via]
Posted in advertising, digital, planning, thoughts | 2 Comments »
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