Making sens of these turbulent times

I prefer John Grant to Rupert Murdoch

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:16:18 +0200

So there is this emphatic and dramatic oracle of Rupert Murdoch at the World Media Summit :

“The Philistine phase of the digital age is almost over. The aggregators and the plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content. But if we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid-for content, it will be the content creators, the people in this hall, who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs will triumph”.

And there is this subtle and honnest feeling on the role of copying in the evolution of ideas and life by John Grant (the one of the Green Manifesto) :

“Postmodernism was the artistic and philosophical climax of a reaction to and against this mechanistic trend. It was fundamentally about recovering subjectivity, even within a world of mechanical reproduction. I say ‘was’ because it seems we may be moving past this. Towards something like a new folk culture. Partly through a dawning awareness of the damage done by our split with nature (and human nature and community). It’s not all about slow food and handiworks either. Folk culture is flourishing in web 2.0 where self made media and the ability to share good content bypass the old media pyramid schemes, that replicated content to make money. That is for me, as one subjective observer, the implication of No Ghost Just a Shell. It is actually about reanimation; a coming back to life”.

Via Simon Kemp and Neil Perkin.

Guardian Media Top 100 joins other studies of Dinosaurs...by Alan Patrick

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:21:52 +0200

Funnily enough, I know something of what I speak (for a change, I hear you cry ). The talk I gave at the Media Futures conference was directly on this topic, and how the Meedja is entering a 3-5 year “Creative Destruction” period which promises to shake it to its core. We have actually done quite a lot of research and scenario planning on this (that is an in-post plug for our services, by the way) but the diagram above illustrates the point. We are moving into Pirate World, where freebooters and cut-throats of every ilk will be busy dismembering these large cumbersome beasties. And I don’t just mean Olde Media - Web 1.0 companies are also under threat, as Google is finding with its core search market coming under attack.

Just as with the 15 year old Morgan Stanley analyst’s work, the data is all out there - you just have to look at it without due prejudice or undue preconceived opinion. It is, as they say, what it is.

Here’s a prediction - that over the next 3 years, the changes in this landscape will be the most momentous that the Media industry has ever seen, and that - let me put a number on it - about 2/3rds - of these people won’t be here in 2012 (more if the BBC loses its special funding streams). Inclusion in this list may well be akin to being featured as a Great Company in “In Search of Excellence” (most hit the skids within a few years of the book coming out)

For more insights, read Alan Patrick “The Future Of Online Video” .

Ethan Bauley at his best : Citing Wired, Great Wall of...

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:25:00 +0200

Ethan Bauley at his best :

Citing Wired, Great Wall of Facebook: The Social Network’s Plan to Dominate the Internet

“Zuckerberg doesn’t pull any punches, describing Google as “a top-down way” of organizing the Web that results in an impersonal experience that stifles online activity. “You have a bunch of machines and algorithms going out and crawling the Web and bringing information back,” he says. “That only gets stuff that is publicly available to everyone. And it doesn’t give people the control that they need to be really comfortable.” Instead, he says, Internet users will share more data when they are allowed to decide which information they make public and which they keep private. “No one wants to live in a surveillance society,” Zuckerberg adds, “which, if you take that to its extreme, could be where Google is going.”

—
Ethan comments:

“This is one of the most ironic thought patterns EVER” .

I couldn’t agree more :-)

Each time i read, hear, watch Mark Zuckerberg I can help but remember this extract of The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoyevsky :

Shigalov (Zuckerrov?) went on.

“Dedicating my energies to the study of the social organisation which is in the future to replace the present condition of things, I’ve come to the conviction that all makers of social systems from ancient times up to the present year, 187-, have been dreamers, tellers of fairy-tales, fools who contradicted themselves, who understood nothing of natural science and the strange animal called man. Plato, Rousseau, Fourier, columns of aluminium, are only fit for sparrows and not for human society. But, now that we are all at last preparing to act, a new form of social organisation is essential. In order to avoid further uncertainty, I propose my own system of world-organisation. Here it is.” He tapped the notebook. “I wanted to expound my views to the meeting in the most concise form possible, but I see that I should need to add a great many verbal explanations, and so the whole exposition would occupy at least ten evenings, one for each of my chapters.” (There was the sound of laughter.) “I must add, besides, that my system is not yet complete.” (Laughter again.) “I am perplexed by my own data and my conclusion is a direct contradiction of the original idea with which I start. Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism. I will add, however, that there can be no solution of the social problem but mine.”

The Possessed, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, originally posted as comment on Ethan Bauley’s blog.

Wired, Ethan Bauley, and Dostoyevsky are higly recommended !

Don’t believe the hype ! Rick Webb, co-founder and...

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:29:00 +0200

Don’t believe the hype !

Rick Webb, co-founder and COO of the Barbarian Group, has posted an interesting comment on the “YouTube is doomed Guy : YouTube is still doomed”, published on SAI. After giving some clues on the analytics, he concludes:

“So my guess is that Google definitely keeps Youtube expenses below $100 Million all included so far, and my estimate is that Google could quickly be making MANY Billions of dollars in revenue from Youtube as soon as Google decides to flip the monetization switch. Which basically means to allow all Youtube content providers to activate overlay advertising on all their videos, which will include referals for 1-click sales including digital content sales and shipped products (for example 1-click Amazon buy), including integrated sales of merchandizing and much much more. Youtube hasn’t even integrated very much full length full quality commercially produced contents such as being a Hulu and all-in-one VOD provider.

Anyways, in my points Youtube will quickly become Google’s biggest source of revenues and profits, and I think it probably is the biggest part of Google’s future and I actually think the growth of Youtube view-counts and bandwidth usage is only at the very early stages and that we are soon going to be talking about thousand and millions of times more views and bandwidth usage once all people transfer their 5-hour daily TV watching to be source from Youtube through set-top-boxes and other ways to watch Youtube on the TV and on mobile devices”

I agree.

On october 2006 (almost three years ago !), Umair Haque gave this POV :

“Revolutionizing branding is the real play at the heart of all this. Google thinks they are closer now, with YouTube in their back pocket - because they have a platform for experimenting with branded ads.

I think the reverse is likely true: Google has no idea what normal people want (or even are like, if you like), and so a YouTube acq might be just a nice way to geek out, possibly earn a nice marginal revenue stream (a la AdSense/Blogger), but never really redefine the value chain in the way it wants.

4) Deal math - yes, the deal is rich. Especially since YouTube is not as lightweight a business as most others - it is relatively capital intensive, and will stay that way for at least the medium term. Google can scale/scope many of these costs away, certainly.

But basically the math of the deal boils down to this: whether you believe tomorrow’s attention is worth 10-20x today’s revenues.

Yes, don’t believe the hype!

*UPDATE* Rick Webb has kindly pointed out that the original author of the comment is “Charbax” and his URL is : http://techvideoblog.com/. Sorry for the mistake.

Research Note: On Selling Out (The So-Called Fansumer) by Umair Haque

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:59:31 +0200

Quote from Umair Haque’s Research Note: On Selling Out (The So-Called Fansumer), posted on november 2007:

“The word consumer is nasty enough - with all the implications of helplessness and the assumption of stupidity it carries.

Fansumer, I think, is even worse - as this commenter points out.

It utterly - and completely - misses the point of connected consumption.

Consumers connect with each other - not with brands.

Which brings us to a set of deeper issues. There are foundational problems with the concepts execs are using to make sense of the next mediaconomy.

Here’s what happens when we think about “engagement”: we think consumers want to be fansumers, on the assumption that they wanna connect with brands. Here’s what happens when we think about “relevance”: we bombard consumers with ads on the assumption that it will be good for them.

Neither is true. There is, as I’ve pointed out before, an existence proof confirming this: if consumers loved brands, no one would have to advertise. If consumers loved ads, firms wouldn’t have to pay for them. If consumers trusted firms, brands wouldn’t exist.

What do those simple economic truths tell us?

There are no fansumers. There are people who love products. But very rarely will they want to be pimped out and put to work on Facebook’s (or anyone else’s) digital streetcorner.

And those who want to - well, those are exactly the guys you don’t want talking about you and your brands: classic adverse selection”.

Consumers connect with each other - not with brands

If consumers trusted firms, brands wouldn’t exist

(The hypothetical Fansumers) are exactly the guys you don’t want talking about you and your brands: classic adverse selection

Via Taylor Davidson.

Ethan Bauley did a killer tweet yesterday: $GOOG “already...

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:47:00 +0200

Ethan Bauley did a killer tweet yesterday:

$GOOG “already collecting clickstream data…viewers switching channels during commercial breaks.” http://bit.ly/154YZ9 (MASSIVE innovation)

And linked to Brian Morrissey’s post “The advertising feedback loop” where he explains that pure web players like Digg, Videoegg are trying to take a page out of Google’s playbook with its new ad system that will let users vote up and down ads…

The post also links to an Adweek’s article from 2008 “Can Google Crack the TV Ad Market?”: Saillant quotes:

“TV, for the most part, has been unmeasurable,” said Desai, program manager for Google’s TV ad efforts. “We’re making TV as accountable as the Internet is.”
Google’s foray into television advertising is an important test of whether the Internet giant can use its wildly successful system of search advertising in the biggest of media channels. While it is pursuing efforts in print and radio, TV represents the company’s biggest hurdle to achieving its goal of building a broad platform for advertisers to run targeted ad campaigns, continuously changed based on metrics, across all forms of media. Unlike online, however, Google faces a struggle in television to convince wary cable operators and networks that its vision is good for them.

Desai said Google is in negotiations to gain access to more inventory, saying the company will announce a significant deal in the next few weeks that will greatly expand its reach. Google’s pitch: It can allow networks to tap into Google’s enormous base of hundreds of thousands of small advertisers, most of whom have never run a TV campaign. As for the cable companies, Google sees an opportunity for them to aggregate demand on niche channels that fall off the radar on their own.

For now, Google is only using the data — it measures when people turn the channel during ads — in order to inform advertisers of ad performance. Ford, for example, could see how many people changed channels during its ad on ESPN compared with similar spots. It could also measure reaction over time to determine when creative is worn out. At some point, this “retained audience” metric will be used to determine which ads to show, much the same way that Google combines price and ad performance online in choosing ads.

“We have a feedback loop now,” Desai said. “The end goal is to show more relevant ads to users.”

A larger, mostly unspoken problem for Google: its size and outsized ambitions worry both agencies and networks. Desai chalks this “Googlephobia” up to inevitable wariness of a new entrant to an established business. When Google talks of eliminating “inefficiencies,” some players think they’re talking about them, whether it’s media buying shops or network sales forces. On the Web, many publishers have complained that ad networks have commoditized their inventory.

“It seems that the television establishment, both the buyers and sellers, are likely to want to buy it person to person,” said David Graves, an analyst with Forrester Research. “Changing the way TV is bought and sold is a not-insignificant task.”

I agree with Ethan : there is something huge here.

For the most part, TV advertising brings no value. Rien. Nicht. Nada. It’s an inefficient marketplace with adverse innovation players.

It was natural that Google tried to disrupte the dinosaurs. But till now the big guys have succeed in keeping the cake intact. Google guys know that in this erea, they have no bargaining power and need a roadmap to enter in this market. Some clues :

buy a major player in the video distribution : YouTube
understand that on YouTube content or UGC is the ad (Umair’s quote but haven’t been able to find it in the Bubblegeneration’s archive)
experiment with minor tv networks : find a feedback loop.
understand that you may apply this feedback loop to every content (and not only the ads).
keep in mind that hundreds of thousands of small advertisers have never run a TV campaign.
put YouTube on the big screen : YouTube XL.
Understand that web palyers like Twitter can dramatically improve the watching experience (and the feedback loop).

TV is no longer the exclusive property of the TV Networks, but is turning into another window to access to the NETWORK.

Suddenly, this “6699” video becomes hyper relevant to me, after watching the original BlowUp, and gives me the opportunity to buy a flight to London and find a shop to buy these incredible “Chelsea” boots. Ok, ok it’s not a perfect example, but you know the point, and this is one of my favortie movie ;-)

Is there a light for the publishing industry? Brian Morrissey...

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:02:00 +0200

Is there a light for the publishing industry?

Brian Morrissey has just written a nice post quoted Fred Wilson and his ideas to save the NYT. It’s radical (stop printing, kill the sports and business sections, concentrate on political and world affairs)

The underlying idea is to focus on core advantage and brings people undeniable good content. For Brian Morrissey this shift would involve with drastic cuts in the staff.

A recent success in the french press magazine brings some light in this futur graveyard. XXI (launched one year ago) decided to adopt a very simple strategy : do the opposite from what your competitors does.

Be different, (whereas your competitors only seek differenciation) create original content, be a singular and honest voice. Charge for this content.

Focus on the print edition

make a beautiful object

use the website to promote the printed edition and give visibilty to the different stakeholders (for example your distributors)

Choose an original distribution channel : the booksellers. And empower them to build the brand.

Control the costs, with a light organization.

The result is impressive : very good (aka thoughtful stuff and long articles) content, embedded in a beautiful design, with very talented and well-paid journalists.

Numbers of sold issues: 44.000 (jan. 08), 31.000 (apr. 08), 27.000 (jul. 08), 37.000 (oct. 2008) and 44 000 estimate for the last issue (jan. 09).

2 252 people have subscribed (60 euros) without neither e-mailing nor reduction and the subscription rythme has doubled since september 2008.

Gross sales for 2008 : 1, 98 millions euros with 800 000 euros in net incomes.

The breakthrough for an issue is 31 000 sold with 47 000 printed.

Unsold issues represent 18% of the total printed.

Press costs represent 28% of the fixed costs, organization costs 21%, reportage and coverage costs 34%, layout and illustration 13%, shipping costs 34%, marketing, 4%

They raised 450 000 euros and spend 250 000 for the prepartion til the launch of the first issue.

Big thank you to Alain Joannes for these informations.

Tyler Brûlé, with Monocle, has adopted a very similar strategy with an even more original business model. They set up a weekly podcast. Monocle is also becoming a lifestyle brand, selling products that match with the content of the magazine.

It can’t be THE solution for all the press industry (and newspapers have different challenges to face), but it shows that media brand with a very strong sens of purpose can emerge very quickcly and successfully.

Unmarketing And The Webful Brand by Stowe Boyd

Mon, 18 May 2009 18:41:00 +0200

“When people retreat from mass belonging to social belonging, their motivations are less oriented toward self-identity based on affiliation with mass markers in mass markets. They shift toward social identity, where its most important that those that ‘know me’ in my social networks ‘know me’ based on what I am doing, what I care about, what I am trying to accomplish, and who I affiliate with in those efforts.

In this world, a company’s name or product marks can’t be just an industrial warranty, or a feather in your hair. For brands to be social, they have to seem more like people and less like a corporate artifact. Specifically, real people will have to front for the brand or company, and they — and their actions — will define the relevance and influence of that product line or company. Like tags, the company or product will become defined by what it is associated with, and those that are involved in the activities that they are linked to.

So those companies that work to understand this tectonic shift — from mass markets to social unmarkets — will rethink their marketing, and after that headshift will approach their interaction with Edglings very, very differently.

I call this webfulness, based loosely on the idea of mindfulness”.

Unmarketing And The Webful Brand by Stowe Boyd.

Beyond the (un)marketing framework, it’s a stimulating counterpoint to some alarming critics.

In his post Twitter Link Page, Fred Wilson...

Wed, 13 May 2009 14:04:00 +0200

In his post Twitter Link Page, Fred Wilson explains :

“The fact is that twitter has become the best source of links for me and, at times, I am too busy to go through my entire feed and just want the links. Now I can do that. Thanks to everyone who hacked something together based on my tweet. If I’ve left anyone out, please leave a link to your app in the comments and I’ll revise this post to include it as well”.

I feel the same and i’ve opted for Tweetsip (better solution?) to build my own Techmeme.

Yes this is just part of the solution. And we need a one stop shop to aggregate all our links, adding value with social tags. And yes it won’t be enough.

In his post, A Personal API could be a modularized, standardized interface for collaboration, Taylor Davidson explains,

…when I talk about “personal APIs” I’m not only talking about accessing or receiving content, I’m also talking about delivering content and context to people; using the term API is a conceptual approach to thinking about how we can “scale” our time, thoughts and value stored inside ourselves to deliver more (quantity) and deeper (quality) interactions to other people; how can we reduce inter-personal transaction costs of interactions to deliver more value?

I see that like a city, where i could find for example, the “social net” block, stop at “the game theory corner”, and climb to “the marketing floor”. Here, i could find all the compelling content relative to my problematic and might help to design the building adding my thoughts. This “work in progress” architecture would need rules to help the building growing straight.

It seems that consumers evolve faster than "big guns" executives....

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:54:00 +0200

So we know that the web has dramatically affected the way communication must operate and crate new (old?) values for consumers (who are no longeur passive zombies, but rather “creative” prosumers)

We know that to some degrees, dumb consumption confiscated part of the libido (life intinct), at the expense of creative, life-producing drives.

We know that new media, social capital, social media etc. help to recover this creative part.

What we don’t kow is the time it will take to see change become mainstream.

An article in the FT, “New’ US shopper to emerge from crisis”, may help and give some hope ;-)

A Citigroup report, for example, argues that US consumers are shifting towards “conscientious consumption”, embracing a “thriftiness” focused on value and quality, not quantity.

Euro RSCG, the global advertising group, says a recent survey of 500 people in the US, the UK and France pointed to a shift to “value” combined with a desire for “voluntary simplicity”. And consumer anthropologists suggest Americans will seek to “un-stuff” their lives, and focus more on the community.

Andrew Benett, of Euro RSCG Worldwide, says the changes are likely to be long-lasting. “I don’t think we are going to go back to the behaviours of the past, which were about excess and not thinking things through…we have moved on as consumers.”

(…)

The behavioural changes have included cutting back on “aspirational” luxury shopping. People are using cash and debit cards more than credit, while favouring lower-cost stores such as Wal-Mart and Costco. At supermarkets, well-known national brands have lost ground to retailers’ lower-cost own-brand products.

Joan Lewis, head of consumer and market research at Procter & Gamble, the world’s largest consumer products company, says there is a remarkable consistency in these shifts, in both developed and developing markets. “We think that many of these changes we have seen will remain for a long time,” she says.

(…)

Ed Kerschner, chief investment strategist at Citi Global Wealth Management, says the US has passed an “inflection” point, marking the end of an acceptance of conspicuous consumption that he traces back to the Reagan presidency of the early 1980s. The end of easy access to consumer credit will, he argues, lead to “thriftiness” focused on “value”, rather than “frugality” focused on low prices.

It seems that consumers evolve faster than “big guns” executives….

Sustainability and Luxury

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:52:00 +0200

A not very interesting article on a subject though very interesting, at Havas Media Lab’s blog today.

Nevertheless, something deserves to be highlighted.

Kavita Maharaj, back from the IHT’s “Sustainable Luxury” conference held at New Delhi on March 24th and 25th 2009, explains.

“In addition to high levels of engagement with traditional luxury brand drivers like heritage and quality, consumers in emerging markets are increasingly showing extremely high levels of engagement with other issues, for example, the area of sustainability. Retailers that move quickly to capitalise on this, will be more adept at building greater brand equity and thus greater commercial succcess, both in the medium and long term”.

Ok, it’s not a scoop. But around one year ago, i read this article by Dana Thomas (author of “Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster”), in The New York Times.

“For more than a century, the luxury fashion business was made up of small family companies that produced beautiful items of the finest materials. It was a niche business for a niche clientele. But in the late 1980s, business tycoons began to buy up these companies and turn them into billion-dollar global brands producing millions of logo-covered items for the middle market. The executives labeled this rollout the “democratization” of luxury, which is now a $157-billion-a-year industry.

To help these newly titanic brands retain an air of old-world luxury, marketing executives played up the companies’ heritage and claimed that the items were still made in Europe by hand — like Geppetto hammering in his workshop by candlelight. But this sort of labor is wildly expensive, the executives routinely explain, which is why the retail prices for luxury goods keep going up and up.

In fact, many luxury-brand items today are made on assembly lines in developing nations, where labor is vastly cheaper. I saw this firsthand when I visited a leather-goods factory in China, where women 18 to 26 years old earn $120 a month sewing and gluing together luxury-brand leather handbags, knapsacks, wallets and toiletry cases. One bag I watched them put together — for a brand whose owners insist is manufactured only in Italy — cost $120 apiece to produce. That evening, I saw the same bag at a Hong Kong department store with a price tag of $1,200 — a typical markup”.

It would be very cool if some luxury brands could be a little bit more coherent (fortunately some does).

By the way, if you want good thoughts on this topic, visit the excellent John Grant’s blog, Green Normal.

A little late to the game but i’ve just discovered that...

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:58:07 +0200

A little late to the game but i’ve just discovered that Filippa K opened last year their secondhand own shop.
The idea is that fashion fans will bring in their old Filippa K pieces and sell them on a commission basis. It make sens for the brand which positions itself as the opposite of H&M (fast fashion and constant change).

Filippa Knutsson, founder and head designer, explains:

“The idea came out of an environmental brainstorming session. Like any company that’s concerned about these things, we’ve spent a lot of energy thinking about how we source, how we produce, how we distribute … but it struck us that we had given almost no thought to what happens to the Filippa K clothes once they have been sold. Creating our own secondhand market seemed like a good way to do something green. We don’t worry about losing sales in our stores. We believe that the secondhand store reinforces the customer’s relationship with Filippa K and shows that we take our responsibility seriously”.

Smart moove.

New Order : Ceremony @ NYC 1981 I really like the...

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:12:00 +0100

New Order : Ceremony @ NYC 1981

I really like the imperfections of this version. Radiohead made a perfect cover but something has been lost in the tribute.

And some stats ;-)

posted two years ago
229 504 views
356 comments, almost all interesting
comments in four languages
last comment three weeks ago

I’d like to highlight two comments :

schitt4brains

I think you are correct. I was there as well, and judging by the camera angle, the cam must have been set up directly behind me. I don’t recall seeing any cams when we went in, but we did get there early AND I was probably very buzzed.

nesplayer94

Ah, that’s really cool you have really good tastes. I just turned 15 and most of my classmates think I’m weird for not liking music from this generation. There’s some good stuff out there but its kinda hard to find. Joy Division and The Smiths are great. The Chameleons are another Post-Punk band I really enjoy. They did great stuff.

Yes a 15 years old fan can meet a guy who saw the concert !(Ok i cheated, the last comment comes from this Ceremony’s video, but you know what i mean…)

Mike Arauz on "If It Doesn't Spread, It's Dead", by Henry Jenkins

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:53:25 +0100

Mike Arauz on “If It Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead”, by Henry Jenkins and his team at MIT’s Convergence Culture Consortium.

“In order to start designing spreadable media, we need to start understanding the new social structures in which it spreads.

“The question now becomes, not how to reach the influencers [as defined by Malcom Gladwell], but how do individuals choose to behave in a networked society and what kinds of social structures best support the spread of content”.

Spreadable media is made possible by the new landscape for social interaction and group collaboration. As Yochai Benkler describes in The Wealth of Networks, digital technology has improved what people can do for themselves, what people can do in collaboration with others, and what people can do within independent organizations outside of commercial industry. And, as I’ve written about before, this even affects how we perceive ourselves.

Here, again, the idea of individual agency, the active role that people play in spreadable media, echoes through the discussion.

Once we welcome this role that people play, we can begin to address the important questions of what people choose to share and why?

And this last point, can’t be stressed enough:

“Although we’ve used the concept brand communities a couple of times, it’s important to reiterate that communities aren’t created, they are courted”.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: People’s lives don’t revolve around your brand, they revolve around life. This point has come up several times in discussions around Desire Path Branding. Brands do not have the ability to dictate the cultural context in which they are experienced or the ability to define their meaning in the minds of consumers. Those roles have been turned over to the networks of individuals pursuing shared interests and passions on their own terms. The sooner you accept this new reality, the sooner you can start succeeding in this new landscape”.

Two authors highly recommanded.

Social Media Experts on the rise ;-)

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:01:00 +0100

Social Media Experts on the rise ;-)

Fakesumption, a very nice presentation by Jörg Jelden , trends...

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:54:00 +0100

Fakesumption, a very nice presentation by Jörg Jelden , trends analyst at Trendbuero , at LIFT 09 in Geneva.

The main point is that companies may consider fakes as an opportunity rather than a threat to their core business.

The idea is rather provocative : if fakers are so succesful (despite the risk of prosecution for the buyers), they must have done something right : Fakes are the best “good enough “solutions for a fake buyers who are also brand customers, who love the brand but are not willing to pay the band premium (some interestings thoughts on brand as a service too)

We could argue that for a long time, price was the main source of information for a customer of a luxury/premium brand. And there was a huge information asymmetry (fore more explanations, i do recommend Ethan Bauley’s slides). In a networked world, brands stories (aka we build a social stratification in a democratic world) can no longer hide the real nature or the product (made in Italy, when only light finishes are made there, etc.). Luxury is losing its luster (see for example, Net-a-Porter (profits by 300% ) who will launch its dedicated discount retail venture theOutnet.com next month with more than 200 luxury fashion brands. A step forward to commoditize luxury barnds… Thanks to The Cool Hunter).

I really think some big brands will suffer a cruel backlash and that true luxury/premium brands (made in respect of a tradition of quality) and products handmade by craftsmen (aka Esty) or custom-made products will meet a larger and larger demand. Finaly a move towards more sustainable and smart consumption.

Renny Gleeson, Wieden + Kennedy's global director of interactive strategies, on Branding

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:42:00 +0100

There are some intersting things in this interview of Renny Gleeson, Wieden + Kennedy’s global director of interactive strategies:

“One of the interesting things to think about with brands in interactive media is not just how you use these media to express your brand or to talk about your brand, but to redefine what it is, and I think that’s an important distinction,” Gleeson said at the iMedia Brand Summit in Coconut Point, Fla. “Social media projects who we are, but to a lot of the folks we’re trying to market to, they look at social media as a way to create who they are.”

“When you get people holding a device up, they don’t see themselves as not participating, they see themselves as sharing. They’re creating their identity”

“Reality has become less appealing than the stories consumers can tell via social media, and the medium has greatly increased that storytelling ability and the volume of consumer opinion — taking control of the conversation out of the brand’s hands. But while brands can no longer control the conversation, they still have the ability to choose who they want to focus their efforts on, which is how brands can become part of the story being told”.

Yeah, that’s pretty cool.

But what’s bred in the bone….

“According to Gleeson, centering an online campaign on an existing demographic or built-in fan base is hardly anything new, but what brands need to do is grow the campaign out of an existing community, rather than simply drop it on top of a community. This keeps the conversation going, even after the campaign is over. That way, the brand continues to earn media share even after the portion they’ve paid for is gone.

“You build and launch a campaign, but then the conversation doesn’t stop,” Gleeson said. “The next time you’re seeding a campaign, you’re doing it with folks you already know, and you might be able to do it directly. Now you can maintain the conversation.”

The way brands can move beyond this is by focusing on critical skill sets: Your staff should understand community management, be fluent in social media, and grasp the importance of making it easy to find a campaign”

I’m sure that Renny Glesson is a very smart guy.

But i’m not sure this is the best way to redefine what is a brand..

Broadcasted in 1969 on french TV. A w e s o m e ! Here is...

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:00:00 +0100

Broadcasted in 1969 on french TV.

A w e s o m e !

Here is the translation from around 1’30:

“Actually the question is to know if the word « Television » really makes sense for this new extraordinary free circulation of images and sounds that is to occur in the future.

« Television » means to us radiotransmission, broadcasting ; « televison » also includes an obvious passivity, on the contrary, all that you see through this cable implies an active envolvement from everyone.

To be honnest, there’s no proper word yet : « audiovisual », « audiovisual equipments » don’t fit, I’m waiting for linguists to find the appropriate word. As for me, this new word will define these extraordinary possibilities for the circulation of images and sounds.

This cable which brings you home 40 different choices is, for me, the main revolution for the future. The optimum use of it would be to offer people the choice of the images and sounds they want to recieve. Not only for entertainement, not only for education, but also for all everyday life activites”.

Last but not least the soundtrack : the Pink Floyd (with Syd Barrett) Interstellar Overdrive

There was a time when TV was cool…

Thanks Pauline

A User's Guide to 21st Century Economics by Umair Haque

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:36:00 +0100

“What is the role of marketing in a world where consumption must slow?

In the 20th century, marketing was the pusher of a consumption addiction: Madison Ave’s game was to create perceived value by “differentiating” the same razors, blades, and toothpaste. At the Lab, we’ve found that companies who create perceived value are significantly less profitable and more vulnerable than companies who are rethinking marketing to create real value. Think (the awesome) Nike Plus.

What is the role of distribution in a world where consumption, savings, and investment will accelerate in volatility?

In the 20th century, advantage was attained by seizing or building distribution channels. At the Lab, we’ve found that value chains built on inert channels are significantly less profitable than value chains built on circuits - two-way channels, where context flows in one direction, and goods in the other. Think (the totally radical) Threadless”.

No excuses now ;-)

Acne describes itself : “Acne was created in 1996 by four...

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:35:00 +0100

Acne describes itself :

“Acne was created in 1996 by four creatives and the initial idea was to build brands, their own as well as others’, within the fields of fashion, entertainment and technology. Although all members of the collective are independent entities acting in their own right in various fields of creativity, they all share the same vision and culture. This vision combines art and industry in equal measures, whether this is through clothing, film, printed matter or a global advertising campaign”.

Influx explains :

“The “Factory-like” collective is best known for its Acne Jeans brand, was founded in 1996 by four friends, Jesper Kouthoofd, Thomas Skun Skoging, Mats Johansson and Jonny Johansson. Acne’s empire now spans a film company, an ad agency, a web design company, a toy company and even a magazine.

The jeans brand is the beacon of the group. It sets to the tone, the mood and the trends and helps build the connections and relationships for the rest of the company, but it also reacts and responds to what the other units are doing. Think of it as a dynamic feedback loop”.

Kitsune and April 77, two french brands have followed the same path.

I’m sure there are other examples of these kind of collective/company/startup/association/partnership who try to break the old boundaries with a new sens of purpose.

It’s fascinating. It’s hypercreative. And it might be the future ;-)