You may remember Webvan, probably the most spectacular flame-out in during the tech boom in the late 90s. If you don’t, Nicole Perlroth describes their blowup for Forbes:
Of Web 1.0’s most memorable implosions, Webvan still takes the cake. The online grocer raised $375 million in an IPO, descended upon eight major U.S. cities, peddled a 26-city expansion plan and somehow warranted a $1.2 billion market cap—all with the burn rate of a ticking time bomb. Eighteen surreal months later, the company closed down shop, laid off 2,000 and had nothing to show for itself except 30,000 Webvan-branded cup holders at San Francisco’s Giant’s ballpark.
The key takeaway—for venture capitalists, grocery chains and well, everyone else—was that carting small-ticket, low-margin items to people’s front doors from billion dollar warehouses did not a sound business model make.
The right client/agency fit can make all the difference in marketing. Yet the typical RFP cattle call used to make that match is broken. The hoops clients give agencies to jump through in a pitch don’t really mimic the working relationship. Agencies are also often asked to create actual campaigns for free that may never be used, all the while ignoring their real clients.
Our latest Wirtschaftswoche, German Business Weekly, online column:
"Werbung ist tumb - und das hat seinen Grund: Warum sollte Werbung intelligent sein, wenn Marketing und Produkt einfältig sind? Warum sollte Werbung intelligent sein, wenn der Rezipient naiv ist? Warum sollte Werbung intelligent sein, wenn das Medium sich töricht zu immer neuen intellektuellen Tiefen herablässt?"
Tumbe Reklame ist nicht mehr und nicht weniger als der vorläufige Höhepunkt kommunikativer Evolution:
1. Tumbe Reklame konzentriert sich auf das Wesentliche. ... 2. Tumbe Reklame ist wahrhaftig und klar. ... 3. Tumbe Reklame stellt den Menschen nicht in Frage. ... 4. Tumbe Reklame minimiert potentiellen Frust. ... 5. Tumbe Reklame schmeichelt dem Rezipienten-Ego. ...
...
Tumbe Reklame stellt ihre eigenen Bedürfnisse zum Zwecke des Abverkaufes hintan. Sie opfert sich. Klaglos. Rückgratlos. Mutlos. Tumbe Reklame ist der wahre Held unserer Tage."
In einem Interview ist der von mir geschätzte Jürgen Blomenkamp so verdammt nah an The Third Club, dass ich ihn direkteinmal gegenüberstellend zitieren muss (womit ich nicht sagen möchte, er habe sich bei uns bedient, sondern mich vielmehr freue, dass unsere Situationsbeschreibung geteilt wird):
"Originality depends on new and striking combinations of ideas. It is obvious therefore that the more a man knows the greater scope he has for arriving at striking combinations.
And not only the more he knows about his own subject but the more he knows beyond it of other subjects.
It is a fact that has not yet been sufficiently stressed that those persons who have risen to eminence in arts, letters or sciences have frequently possessed considerable knowledge of subjects outside their own sphere of activity."
...
"Success depends on adequate knowledge: that is, it depends on sufficient knowledge of the special subject, and a variety of extraneous knowledge to produce new and original combinations of ideas."
Quotes from Anatomy of Inspiration - via brainpickings.
Vor 75 Jahren prophezeite Harvard Professor Pitirim Sorokin ua. das Aussterben der Kreativität. Verdammt nah dran!
Ich zitiere hier nur den Part zu Kreativität:
"Real creativity will die out.
Instead, we shall get a multitude of mediocre pseudo-thinkers and vulgar groups and organizations.
Our belief systems will turn into a strange chaotic stew of science, philosophy, and magical beliefs.
“Quantitative colossalism will substitute for qualitative refinement.”
What is biggest will be regarded as best.
Instead of classics, we shall have best-sellers.
Instead of genius, technique.
Instead of real thought, Information.
Instead of inner value, glittering externality.
Instead of sages, smart alecs.
The great cultural values of the past will be degraded; “Michelangelos and Rembrandts will be decorating soap and razor blades, washing machines and whiskey bottles.”
Na super, was denkt Ihr? Auf den Punkt, oder?
Da kann man sich jeden Satz auf der Zunge zergehen lassen.
Irgendwelche Ideen, wie man dies wieder ändern kann?
The 140 Characters conference is a downright hugfest, as founder Jeff Pulver insists on giving physical hugs to the speakers and virtual hugs to the audience. The virtual hugs come in the form of carefully chosen speakers whose unique stories inspire, cajole and even move the audience to tears. Here is a recap of day one excluding five stories I included in my MediaPost article today.
I heard recently that the average click-through-rate of a banner ad is less than the average failure rate of birth control.
I stumbled across this eye tracking study showing how people look at web content. Whether a quick scanning, partial reading, or thorough reading, the eyes rarely took in the ads. The study calls this “banner blindness”. The banner blindness phenomenon extends beyond banner ads to advertising in general. Even though ads are more pervasive than ever, it is easier than ever to ignore them.
Banner blindness raises the importance of evolving beyond paid media alone. Here’s a handy chart from Forrester on the different complementary roles of paid media, owned media, and earned media. Forrester goes on to say:
“Your paid media is not dead, but it is evolving into a catalyst. Many people are predicting the end of paid media. However that prediction may be premature as no other type of media can guarantee the immediacy and scale that paid media can. However, paid media is shifting away from the foundation and evolving into a catalyst that is needed at key periods to drive more engagement”.
When we think of paid media as a catalyst rather than as the foundation, it forces us to raise our game. There is no longer a captive audience. Our communication can’t afford to be “blah blah blah”. As marketers our goal in everything should be to create marketing worth sharing at the start.
(ralf says: Paid media ARE dead, if they (or marketing or agencies) do not evolve. Marketers should face the fact. They should not look at reach, but at response, click thru, slaes. They must wake up. Does it make sense to negotiate a 60-80% banner rebate, if you get literally NOTHING for it!?)
Tom is cartoonist and founder of Marketoonist, helping organizations communicate with cartoons. He draws from 16yrs of marketing, most recently as Marketing VP at method. He speaks about innovation, creativity, and marketing, using cartoons to visualize. @tomfishburne
"Die Welt wird immer komplexer, denken wir, und immer weniger vorhersehbar. Dabei werden nur die Zyklen, in denen wir denken und handeln, immer kürzer, unser Blick immer fokussierter. Wir reagieren immer schneller, immer taktischer, immer punktgenauer.
Und genau das ist das Problem. Wir selbst sind die Krankheit, gegen die wir eine Heilung suchen, aber - wie schon Einstein wusste: Man kann die Probleme nicht mit dem Denken lösen, das diese erst geschaffen hat!
1. Teufelskreis: "Adaption ist die neue Innovation!"
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2. Teufelskreis: "Einfalt ist die neue Vielfalt!"
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3. Teufelskreis: "Quantitäten sind die neue Qualität!"
Here are a few questions you should ask yourself, in case you think about engaging in Pinterest - by Becky Lang from Zeus Jones.
"The point is, sometimes forcing your brand onto Pinterest can backfire. Pinterest is a place for creativity and idealism, not necessarily for all products everywhere. Here are a couple questions to ask yourself before going there with your marketing.
1. Does your product fit with the mood of Pinterest? ...
2. Do you respect Pinterest and its users? ...
3. Do you create media that might otherwise end up on Pinterest? ...
4. Is this just another house for your TV campaign? ..."
While there’s a bunch of things that I could cover, I think the most interesting thing about our evolution is how little resemblance the company of today bears to the company we imagined right up to the day we opened our doors. We weren’t just a bit wrong about things, we were dramatically wrong. In almost all circumstances, our imagination around the specifics of our business was simply more naive and (thankfully) much less interesting than the reality has turned out to be.
Do we fail to see the extent of what communication is / has become?
Here are 10 projects that should / hopefully would change / broaden our idea of what communication is:
1. The Copenhagen wheel The Copenhagen wheel is a perfectly designed combination of a lot of separate ideas, that collectively demonstrates the potential in modern communication. It offers both immediate interest and value through personal benefits in the context where it is used, but also ads a layer of communal value – and taking us one step further in creating the connected cities of the future. It’s an exceptionally complicated idea made into something people could understand and want immediately.
2. Life of George LoG is a small initiative exploring the interface between technology and reality. It has been extremely well concepted and designed. This might not be an eye-opening revolution, but it is a very well thought through commercial mass-produced product. It has been through all the barriers and ended up as something that could easily, and hopefully, be adopted by the mass (iPhone-owning) market.
3. Sniff Sniff is only a prototype, but demonstrates with beauty the life an inanimate object can have as soon as it takes on some form of well designed behavior. There has been digital technology inside toys for tens and tens of years, but Sniff approaches the idea of what technology is, not what it outputs.
4. Nokia Push Snowboarding The way the technology has been implemented into the culture of the sport it is trying to augment is the most impressive feet. Nokia and Burton have pushed the snowboarding culture first – and then designed itself to it – which could not be said for a lot of other commercial technology…
5. Nest the learning thermostat The objects learns by recording our behavior – and calculating something on top of that recording. Objects are still dumb, but in a very intelligent way. The Nest is an example of everyday appliances becoming a second brain, and a demonstration of how digital objects have gone from furniture you hide away in small offices upstairs to objects you display and want to talk about.
6. Up by Jawbone How does a wristband with no screen and no sound communicate with its carrier? A vibration in itself says nothing, the interesting thing is how we learn what the vibration means in different contexts. This is a perfect example of the rich unexpectedness of communication – the one without the spoken/written language – and how quickly we adopt and learn new forms of communication.
7. Zeebox Zeebox is one of several new products being launched to augment the TV experience. Behind it lies the concept of increasing the value of something local by connecting it to the rest of the world – through a parallel system. In this case the linear TV experience. Now any idiot could do that, but it is the tools by which they try to achieve the connection which is brilliant. Zeebox is a first generation concept in this arena, but demonstrates the potential of what is to come.
8. Waterpebble Ideas don’t have to be big and shiny, they can be small and solve minute problems. It’s the aesthetic of the idea that is the important thing: How does the mechanic of such a small thing change the dynamic of something bigger… Now, if they only could connect it to the Internet…
9. The Wattson The Wattson gives us access to things that previously where invisible and not present in our consciousness. Just because we can’t see things and talk about them doesn’t mean they aren’t important. The Wattson gives us access to a layer of reality that we haven’t been able to see before but which is highly real and important.
10. Nokia kinect Now the first nine examples have been impressive, most of them include sensors and things which gives us access to a part of reality that we haven’t explored before. But it doesn’t stop with the invisible data… The next generation handsets gives us access to the layer of communication that emerges as objects becomes haptic and kinetic, opening a whole new world of interaction and behavior, through the sensitivity and richness of touch and force.
In conclusion:
“in the future we will communicate with identities, if these are people or objects doesn’t really matter” – 180360720.no
“Our goal is to first connect all the rabbits, and then connect everything else” – Rafi Haladjian
(ralf says: This just tells me in its own way and means, that we still do not understand the true scope of the web. We still do not understand what we would sacrifice, if we choke the web with obsolete rules and laws and stuff.)
Helge works as a Planner for SDG, helping brands and organizations discover WHY they are valuable in consumers lives, and HOW they can create deliberate value on the arenas and inside the interfaces where they connect with them. Twitter: @congbo
