As an illustration of "Starting the conversation from within" we launched The Sweetest Cook for our client Tiense Suiker earlier this week. Built on the product truth that a commodity product like sugar can actually become high involving in a social context, we urge people to nominate their favorite desert and its author. Herman De Croo, Joël Smets and Dirk De Smet already nominated their Sweetest Cook. Who will you choose?
Tom Himpe's is thinking exactly the same thing we're saying to our clients when we talk about "Building brand beyond the promise" so we thought we'd share his brilliant presentation here.
Yesterday InBev announced that their takeover of the American brewer Anheuser-Busch was complete. The new company would continue to operate as Anhauser-Busch InBev, the largest brewer in the world and one of the five largest consumer product groups in the world.
When it was announced, this takeover was very controversial in the US. Budweiser, A-B's flagship product, is widely recognised as a real American product, and popular sentiment had it that this pearl to the crown would be lost when the company ended up in foreign hands. No more "Watching the game, having a Bud". True.
Popular sentiment is a headstrong horse, and riding it can be very tricky. A-B decided not to try and change opinions with a large-scale advertising campaign, but chose to confront it head to head. It launched Budweiser American Ale, a beer that couldn't be more distant from InBev's Stella-Artois lager, and stressed it's American qualities :
"Brewed with caramel-malted barley from America's Heartland for a rich, amber color, and sweet malt character, and dry-hopped with Cascade hops from the Pacific Northwest for a noticeable citrus aroma, it's more than a new taste... it's a whole new tradition".
A-B continued to support this by advertising in Americana magazines and media, and by supporting media that also ranked high on the real-American scale, such as WBEZ-Chicago's popular radio show, This American Life, with presenter Ira Glass. Initial reactions were predominantly positive.
It's a great example of turning the tides, and launching a new product in the process.
Apparently vintage rockers AC/DC know their demographic : for their new single, Rock'n' Roll Train, they launched a new video full of guitar rock cliches. Sadly, however, most of their fans have grown up, have jobs and spend their days at desks, staring at computer screens that quite often are behind extensive firewalls. Not to worry, Australia's loudest come to the rescue with a special version of the video, rendered completely in Microsoft Excel. Talk about surfing the information highway to hell !
Two years ago advertising agency BBH set up a brand invention arm called 'Zag', meant to spot market opportunities, invent new brands and team up with partners to bring them to market. Yesterday the first two product were announced.
As you might have noticed through our blog, flickr and twitter-feeds, we were with quite a lot at the Cannes Lions festival last week. Vinne -as a member of the cyber jury- already gave his favourites last week, so now I guess it's my turn to give my overview of last week overload of creativity.
For starters, last year a high rank media executive told the memorable worlds : "2007 will become known as the year where digital has finally left the computer". This quote really struck a chord with me as it echoes the vision we had when we launched Boondoggle. Without giving the whole story away, 2008 confirmed the trend : most of the interesting work at this year's Cannes festival was digital, whether it was online or not.
Wow, this is one of those campaigns that wouldn't have been half as effective if there wasn't digital.
In cooperation with Digibewust.nl we started the blog www.workhacks.nl. Workhacks.nl has the ambition to grow into an inspiring blog about/regarding work hacks. Work hacking is about hacking the workplace. We are currently looking for tips, examples of smart tools to make life in the office more fun, efficient and easier.
We are working on a series of blog posts in which we describe the 3-5 favourite work hacks of Dutch and Flamish top bloggers. For this purpose we would like to ask Flamish and Dutch bloggers reading the Boonbloggle to share their smart work hacks with us. In short, do you have a special, smart way of working of which you are very proud? Do you use a tool that saves you much time? Let us know by sending us an email to workhacksblog@gmail.com with below mentioned information and we will put it in a blog post. A short description is enough; we will take it from there. If you prefer to write about it in your own blog, that’s great too. Just let us know and we will set up a link to your blog.
Name:
Link blog:
Tool 1. (name tool) & wat does it do?
Tool 2. (name tool) & wat does it do?
Tool 3. (name tool) & wat does it do?
Tool 4. (name tool) & wat does it do?
Tool 5. (name tool) & wat does it do?
Check out the workhacks of webexperts Bart De Waele and Hendrik De Backer on www.workhacks.nl.
For the people that have invented their own work hack and use it in their company we have set up the Jo Aerts award (http://www.joaertsaward.nl/). Please let us know if you (or someone in your network) knows remarkable persons that should be nominated for this award. Let us know by sending us an email to workhacksblog@gmail.com. Any hint or tip is much appreciated.
Thanks in advance for your cooperation!
It's that time of the year again, the "overviews of 2007" are cluttering the blogosphere again. But this one from Contagious is a classic : delivering a round up of all the marketing and technology news from 2007 in only 33 pages.
Hat tip to Vinne.
- evaluative conditioning: the McDonalds brand is associated with a positive event (at least if the rapport is good) Mc Donald's newest strategy: sponsoring report cards - Consumer Science.
