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

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…

The recent French law called Hadopi bill is a total nonsense. The law is supposed to resolve piracy by canceling the users Internet access after three illegal downloads. Have a read at this article from the Guardian if you want to have a better understanding of the law.

The law is wrong on many levels but mainly because it doesn’t take into consideration the reality of things, it is only made to solve problems on a short-term basis. It is focused on the causes and isn’t answering the real issue: the business models used by the music and film industries aren’t working anymore.

And as Philippe Maltere wrote, P2P may well disappear in France, however illegal downloads will still exit with Rapidshare, Megaupload and likes.

This law is just smoke and mirrors and meant to please a few people in the French media industry. After all the next presidential elections is just happening in 3 years time.

(Source via Transnet | pic via)

Being in Paris this week I’ve discovered this great sculpture done by the French artist Fabien Chalon. In a way it summarize quite nicely what I have been talking about on the blog, the whole movement / inertia thing.

Located in the middle of Gare du Nord, the biggest train station in Europe, the sculpture called ‘Le monde en marche’ (the world in movement) gets to work every 30 minutes with a black and white film, a travelling ball and the sculpture in movement. You can watch the video below to see it working. The rest of the time, the sculpture doesn’t move but a massive video screen displays people passing by it.

I love the contrast between busy people walking in the station and the ones that take the time to stop and look at the world moving around them.

[Pic via]

The French government has submitted a new law to tax for the Internet. A few weeks ago, a meeting about the future of digital was held in Paris where Eric Besson, “secrétaire d’Etat chargé de la prospective, de l’évaluation des politiques publiques et du développement de l’économie numérique” (love his job title), claimed his willingness to see France as one of the major country digital wise.

However after this meeting, the French assembly is actually debating whether or not they should tax the Internet, including collaborative sites.

Two main reasons for this: the tax would replace lost revenue from the new ban on commercials on prime-time television and would also solve piracy problems in their eyes.

This law shows that the French government doesn’t make any distinction between TV and the Internet. They only see the Internet as a multiple channels medium. By doing so they totally miss the point about business models. The Internet is much more than a ‘medium’ for entertainment and this tax will dissuade digital entrepreneurs from creating businesses in France.

I am now curious to see what the next steps are going to be. Let’s hope that the French assembly hasn’t lost its common sense.

[Source Le Monde - Pic via]

On top of the usual entertainment devices and tools for travel such as podcasts, PSPs, DVDs… they have developed a service that enable people to find out who is going to be in their train. A kind of modern and legal version of toothing really! Users can create a profile, fill in some basic information and catch up with like-minded people during their journey.  I know that sites like Dopplr offer a similar service to people, however when you know how popular and convenient train is in France it definitely makes sense for the SNCF to develop their own platform.

After a successful launch of these new kinds of trains, the SNCF have launched idNight (night trains). Built around the idea that travel is a crucial part of the holidays, idNight enable people to relax at a proper lounge bar or to party with some well known Djs and bands. It is such a great idea re-energizing a dusty brand. You can have a look at the first gig in a SNCF train below, the band is Hocus Pocus.

This phenomenon has actually gone way beyond a new form of dance and could be analysed from a cultural, sociological, digital, herdy and marketing points of view.

This is very interesting indeed to obverse how this movement have gone from a bunch of persons inventing a new kind of dance to one of the most discussed and debated subject in French pop culture.

One of the first reasons for this success is the importance of digital. To become famous through social media, la Tecktonik has started what Nancy White calls a blog centric community. (Read the full article here)

The blog Dance Generation has been organically used as a hub. As this blog has been created on Skyblog, (considered as a French MySpace) it has enable the community to grow and structure itself more easily.
Secondly, the main Tecktonik dancers have uploaded their videos to sites like YouTube and Dailymotion. (Have a look to the videos below)

Not only has it allowed la Tecktonik to spread virally by its spectacular nature but it has also enabled wannabe Tecktonik dancers to learn the basic steps before going to the main Tecktonik clubs. A kind of Tecktonik school of the web really!

Then the next stage has been to organise events in the main French cities. Again the Internet played an essential role to regulate and organise these events.

In terms of marketing, the real name of the dance isn’t actually Tecktonik but Electro-dance. Tecktonik being only the brand that sells clothes, CD’s and organises parties. They have the exclusivity for the management of the Tecktonik brand. Anyway only very few people will understand you if you mention Electro-Dance instead of Tecktonik… the role of marketing as been well crafted here.

Another interesting thing to analyse is people’s reaction outside the Tecktonik community. A hater community has been growing rapidly on Facebook. (Examples here, here and here)
There is I think, a sociological answer to these distinctions as Facebook audience is mainly Upper and Upper-middle class in France VS Middle class for the Tecktonik dancers.
Well this is just an assumption, as I don’t have any valid figures to prove this point. The only thing I am sure of however is that la Tecktonik is actually dividing France and that the haters are just reinforcing the community!

[Pic via]
]]> http://organic-frog.com/2007/11/14/tecktonik/feed/ 10 organicfrog http://organic-frog.com/2007/05/17/tube-innovations/ http://organic-frog.com/2007/05/17/tube-innovations/#comments Thu, 17 May 2007 16:48:00 +0000 organicfrog http://organicfrog.wordpress.com/2007/05/17/tube-innovations/ ]]> I recently came across two interesting way of using both Twitter and QR code.

The first example has been created by Tom Morris for the London Tube and is using twitter.

This is what he has to say about it: “A while back I thought it would be a neat idea to have Tube status information delivered over Twitter. That way people who have the dubious honour of using the most expensive metropolitan transit system in the world can keep track of what’s wrong with it.”

And this is how it works: “Every fifteen minutes, my server will check the Tube status and send any delays to the relevant Twitter accounts. You can then quite easily subscribe to individual Tube lines and get updates via whatever means you deem appropriate as you would as a Twitter user.”

Read the full article and get your relevant feed here.

The second one is using QR code for the tube in Paris. This time it is directly done by the RATP (Paris equivalent for TFL). You can actually take a picture of a QR code from your mobile and it will give you the time for the next bus/train to come.

Have a look at their website (In French)

These two examples are quite representative to realize how both brands and people are dealing with the same problem. On one hand you have someone only trying to find a useful way to deliver some content. On the other hand the thinking is pretty much the same, however, when you know the QR code penetration in France/Europe this is maybe not the best way to offer useful information…

[Pic via]