This was again one of my favourite seminars. They have cool shit going on. They presented 3 cases that they were and had been working on lately. NIKEiD – Nike’s custom shop on the Net and in their NikeTowns. Nothing new but very cool and excellently executed – a service that not only sells high priced sneakers, but also creates WOM, goodwill, etc. I actually heard that they were also doing a photo version og ID, where you upload a picture and have that put on the shoe. Next was Baller’s Network – basically a game scheduler for people who play basketball. In here you can find out where the games are, you can challenge friends, find out who’s the best and the worst. Many of the same functions as Nike+, a bit more niche, but very cool. They integrated an application for FaceBook, so that you can have challenges and challenge directly on your profile. Again everyone talks about it but Nike just does it – no pun intended. Other cool stuff – The Human Race is a happening where they hope to get 1 million runners out to run 10k’s on August 31. 2008. Stefan Olander, Global Comms Director for Nike, announced it almost as 9/11. Very American…for a Swede that is. Every one who docks their Nike+ are a part of it. But they will do Run London’ish stuff in something like 10 cities. Basically this is a Nike+ event. Finally, of smaller stuff, they presented an other cool little application called My Nike+ Mini, which is a little avatar for your FaceBook profile, which reacts according to your runs and activity – so it links up with Nike+ and does fun stuff. The basic concept of Nike revolves around 3 pillars – Customization, mobility and personal data. They create stuff that drives use of product and creates loyalty and WOM. Yes indeed.

/Baek

I liked this seminar. Everyone talks about the same thing. It is quite interesting though when someone does it from a different perspective. The message from Wunderman was that the consumers are in charge and we need to create valuable content…jadajadajada. But in stead of talking from a media or content perspective, Wunderman talked about PR and conversations, which was fresh. The hook of the presentation was that we need to start conversations. And as such goes we need to release control, because it is impossible to control both sides of the conversation. 5 new rules were presented. 1) Active listening; 2) Join and lead the conversation; 3) Be the topic of the conversation; 4) Set your brand free; 5) Create many conversations. I think they are pretty self explanatory, so I won’t go into detail. Wunderman also presented a few interesting statistics. For instance that Automotiv industry  business is 1/3 driven by WOM. That more and more people are skipping the official test drive because they talk to friends and test drive their cars. And finally Wunderman pointed to the Internet as the future of PR or conversations. Places such as ePinions and Gizmodo are where it will all be happening. Good stuff in a new perspective.

/Baek

Isobar gave a terrible presentation on Tuesday – the ugliest I have seen down here. Come on, make an effort. But I will very shortly refer to the 4 trends they gave that are changing the world forever. 1) Digital Technologies 2) Consumer Activism 3) Sustainability 4) Globalisation. Duh. They also presented their 3 rooms connotation. Basically modern communications should be like a dinner party. Hmm. I seem to remember them as better last year. But I could be mistaking cuz this years presentation sucked.

/Baek

Ogilvy presented four mega trends which are shaping the communications world right now and in the (near) future. Dada – Dadaism of course is/was a collaborative art movement, based on mash-up and playing/customizing existing art. Sort of the grand father of graffiti art. The implication of course is that the modern social consumer is like this. They are the communicators that take the marketers traditional comms and reworks them thereby making it cool and relevant.  Data – everything is and should be measurable. Technology is changing possibilities, rfid tags eg. Makes consumers extremely addressable. Alpha – focus on the alpha males or top dawgs. This is an old notion of focussing on the 20% that will sell the message to the remaining 80%. Focus on the Super Connectors. Beta – always in Beta is the fact that time to markets are getting and need to be very short, because the attention span of the consumers is very short and technology is evolving at crazy paces so we need to be in perpetual development and keep learning and correcting and creating…so not a lot of new stuff in the presentation, but they did it well and its always nice to have focussed people giving focussed presentations – 4 trends, four implications. Done.

/Baek

Proximity held a very nice seminar on the lost generation – The X’ers, stuffed between the two bigger generations – The Baby Boomers and Generation Y. Generation X of course is characterized as those people born between 66-76. The ironic self-loathing Kurt Cobain, grunge-lite teens and twenties of the 90’s. How do they look today? Well Proximity painted an interesting picture of the Y’ers, as the ones where only fame, fortune and success matters. The Baby Boomers are the conservative, traditional, nationalistic “old farts”. And the X’ers today, actually turned into the still reflective and questioning, but now optimistic guys. Who’da thought? 3 categories were presented. The Cruisers – urban, music lovers, eclectic taste, always seeking originality and basic form – a bit anarchistic and keeps people at a distance. The Nesters are high on design. They lead insular lives but love to entertain in the privacy of their very nice looking home. They love cooking freedom and are generally a liberal explorative lot. Finally we have the Super Breeders. They are the ones with all the kids. The Nesters had a few but these guys are living through their kids…sort of as the Baby Boomers. They are very protective of their lives, slightly losing identity, but happy and content.

/Baek

Hey all

I just wanted to share the latest progress on our work for the Danish Technical Schools – the campaign called ACT OUT AWARDS, which was all about injecting creativity directly into the technical school kids school day. See a description of the campaign at a previous blog entry from November 22nd, 2007.

Anyways a few days a go the campaign earned a Mediaedge:cia Global Ideas commendation, which we are very proud off – out of hundreds of global entries only 13 were honored. This brings the total to a WPPED Cream Award, two Rambuk Awards (including the Grand Prix) and this. Thank you very much.

Here is a little video of the first time we hosted ACT OUT AWARDS – it explains the whole thing pretty nicely. Enjoy.

/Baek

Google just launched a new tool called YouTube Insight.It’s a free tool which makes it possible to record where, when, what time etc. the films on YouTube are being watched. This offers new insights into geographic factors and peaks thus enabling greater insights into behavioral patterns. 

/ iben

Watch Product Manager Tracey Chan introducing YouTube Insight here:

Hello world

I know this is probably totally laggard news. But I just read that the TV-show, Mythbusters on Discovery Channel, took up the Dynamite Surfing myth, created by Saatchi and Saatchi in Copenhagen for Quicksilver and tried to disproof in on their show. How cool is that? And what a great example of new world media communication making it into programming and ATL. After approx. 30 million views of the clip itself that’s just fantastic.

It seems that the Dynamite Surfing viral effect just never stops. This must be the best case of viral comms the world has seen so far. It really dominates many of the viral drivers…action, true or false, production values, handheld, etc. making it a fantastic viral clip. (The music is annoying though) And getting picked up by Mythbusters is really a testament to tis. Good work to the creative team in Esplananden. If any one has any equally good viral cases and clips, please share.

/Baek

The Danish fashion designer Mads Nørgaard’s done a trilogy called the Copenhagen Experience replacing the traditional runway shows during fashion week with short fashion films taking place on the streets and in cool spots in the city of Copenhagen.

The third is yet to be shot but the others display Danish supermodel Freja Beha hanging out in the streets with her good-looking fashionista crowd and going to cool sub-parties in Kødbyen (the Meatpacking District). The legendary Copenhagen punkband Sods’ song “Copenhagen” goes along with the films in different versions with my favorite DJ Djuna Barnes and Anders Trentemøller mixing the recordings.

It’s a new and refreshing take on presenting a collection while capturing the crowd of the usual suspects on the fashion/party/clubkids scene – really, the stuff and people that create the energy in Copenhagen.

/ iben

Hello all

Hope all is well. There has been a severe draught of digitalvinyl blog entries lately. I appologise for that. Two of our foremost bloggers up and quit on us – that would be Annette and Stine. That consequently left the rest of us somewhat…busy.

That is why I would like to use this opportunity to say that if you’re a Communications Planner and you live or would like to live in the Copenhagen, Denmark area, please send me your resume and any other relevant documents to job.dk@mecglobal.com. That is if you’re interested in a job at MEC Communication. I’d love to hear from you.

I’ll just add a small Danish plee for applications also…

Hvis Bernbach og Bowie fik et barn…

Nordens skarpeste strategiske planlægningsteam skal være endnu skarpere. Kreativitet og vildskab er lige så vigtigt som viden og struktur i jobbet som MEC Communications nye kreative Communications Planner.

Søger du opgaver, der fusionerer kommunikationsstrategi og kreativitet? Har du opdaget, at morgendagens kommunikation kræver mere end tv-spots og annoncer? Er du drevet af at finde nye vinkler og udvikle og anvende indsigt i mærker og målgrupper? Som en del af MEC Communication skal du brænde for idébaseret planning. Du skal have en unik evne til at se og planlægge kommunikation på tværs af media og udvikle kreative kommunikationsstrategiske løsninger baseret på intuition og magi. Alt imens du træffer rationelle beslutninger baseret på indsigt og logik.

En akademisk baggrund er et godt fundament, men ikke en forudsætning i jobbet. Hvis du sidder på et reklamebureau, er du måske strategisk planner med kreativt blod i årene. Eller måske er du en del af den kreative afdeling med en planner i maven? Sidder du på et mediabureau, er du måske mediaplanner med mod på nye udfordringer. Eller er du produktudvikler eller marketingansvarlig? For os kan det rigtige CV se ud på mange måder.

MEC Communication er Mediaedge:cia’s afdeling for strategisk kommunikation. Vores mission er, at udvikle enestående og målbare strategiske kommunikationsidéer, som driver kunders forretningsmålsætninger og salg. Vores løsninger er baseret på ægte indsigt og unik viden om mulighederne i nye og traditionelle medier.

Vi er en del af Mediaedge:cia, som er blandt Danmarks største Mediabureauer. Det betyder, at du til hver en tid kan trække på et bredt spektrum af kvantitative og kvalitative værktøjer til at støtte dine koncepter. Du kommer til at indgå i et velfungerende netværk af plannere og får opgaver i hele Norden. Vi arbejder med kunder som Sony Ericsson, Nestlé, Nykredit, Illum, SAB Miller, de tekniske skoler og mange andre.

Hvis du er interesseret i jobbet som Communications Planner hos MEC Communication, så send din ansøgning, CV og andre relevante papirer til: job.dk@mecglobal.com. Ansøgningsfrist er fredag den 15. februar, 2008. Har du spørgsmål er du velkommen til at kontakte Kristian Baek-Mikkelsen på tlf.: 33 38 18 67.