we sell, or else

Again, I like “We Sell, Or Else” so much.

This is a nice article from Georgr Parker, my favourite fucking blogger on advertising ; )

He has an article at PSFK “Please don’t tell my mother I work in advertising”

“Lee Clow is no longer the Creative Director of Chiat Day. He is now something called the “Global Director of Media Arts”… Whatever the fuck that is? Or, in his own words… “I don’t call what we do advertising any more. I call what we do “Media Arts.” I believe everything a brand does is media and the art of telling stories using everything from the Internet to painting on walls is the broad definition of our future. Advertising has always been about ideas.”

Oh yes, dead right Lee, except you’ve got it arse about face… Advertising has always been about selling, and it usually takes a great idea to execute it well…”

Another piece about “We sell, or else”

Report card for Interactive Marketing Agencies

The Forrester Wave research should be the real report card of the interactive marketing agencies, I have been waiting so long for their updated report since Q4 2007 where OgilvyOne tops the table.

Their latest one is

The Forrester Wave™: Interactive Marketing Agencies — Web Design Capabilities, Q2 2009

You can download the full report at Razorfish website. That means Razorfish is among the top ranking table, no surprise. Sapient, imc2, Razorfish, and IconNicholson lead with IBM Interactive close behind.

But this report focus on design capabilities for transaction-led project, instead of an overall evaluation of the capabilities of the interactive marketing agencies did in Q407, so I still look forward to reading the overall evaluation.

McCann HK won a Cannes Lion Grand Prix

what a great news to the advertising industry in HK

it’s like the HK team winning the world cup, maybe a bit exaggerated but that’s quite true.

I don’t know any of the team member, and I don’t know anyone from McCann

but I would like to express my gratitude to them and I think the people in HK should be proud of them.

http://adage.com/cannes09/article?article_id=137548

http://work.canneslions.com/design/

sadly they didn’t attend the award

Maurice Levy meets Eric Schmidt @ Cannes 2009

We know Publicis has a special relationship with Google

but working at Publicis Modem I don’t really feel any mysterious relationship between the two.

This year Maurice Levy invited Eric Schmidt to a sharing session @ Cannes Lion award, I would like to find the full clip but can’t, share with me if anyone of you have it.

http://www.canneslions.com/lions/videos.cfm

More on augmented reality + GPS + compass

as I believe this will be developed into a ‘real’ virtual world

it’s just a matter of time

iPhone 3Gs has compass function already

augmented reality is not new, GPS is not new

everything is ready

Layar, it claims itself as the “world’s first mobile augmented reality browser”, which I don’t think they have coined a nice word, it’s way too clumsy isn’t it?

http://layar.eu/

the website, the product looks like an unfinished one, not even up to a beta testing mode, anyway, I believe we’ll see 100 more similar applications in the coming half year

Go Green in Twitter

It’s not the environmental green, it’s the Iran green.

How smart is it, by 1 click to turn your avatar in twitter to green, that’s truly viral.

http://helpiranelection.com/

the next Google?

BusinessWeek and YouNoodle’s list of 50 tech startups includes young companies like Cloudera, Project Better Place, and Scribd that are poised for growth

Fifty Best Tech Startups

here’s my picks which are more related to digital/advertising

- Admob (MUST become a hit, but I think Google won’t let it grow)

- Daylife (this is interesting, but i dun think it will grow, too fancy)

- Evernote (getting popular)

- Huddle (it works, but i think there’re plenty of competitors, i think Google Doc will finally replace it, PBWORKS as well)

- Justin.tv (Live TV must be the trend, however I think YouTube will finally replace it)

- Komli (basically I see a great potential in this ad-targeting, audience measuring company, admob is for mobile, Komli is…in India!)

- Loopt (this is cool, but isn’t it done (copied) by Google already? bye)

- Mochi mdeia (“we make games profitable”, again ad-targeting company)

- Monitise (mobile banking?! ….well…more bank will need their service)

- Scribd (I think it’s not new isn’t it, and slideshare is doing better)

- Slide (or sliderocket, these online application has potential, let’s hope it can survive under Google, it’s difficult, if it makes profit, Google will develop their own (or buy them if they’re lucky enough).

Business week and YouNoodle has done a great job, however I think they’ve missed the real startup in China, (yes they have Tudou, but it’s not really new…), though most of the starups in China are just copycat of those in western countries, but they’ve included lots of ‘copy idea’ firm in South America or India or even Russia, how can they miss China? perhaps they are not familar with it? Like the KaiXin net, http://www.kaixin001.com/, have your heard of it?

Apart from Admob and perhaps Justin.tv, I don’t think any of the list above will become an sizable web company. I think great business idea is easy to spot, you can almost tell it works or not  in just a few sentences, you can smell the succcess immediately if the idea is great. Yet, those don’t seem to work apparently doesn’t mean it must fail, otherwise I will be a millionaire today.

Is baby the winning formula?

Like boobs? is baby the winning formula?

I think this is something universal, it hits everyone’s mind, almost everyone likes to watch a funny baby video, more influencing than pets and perhaps boobs? I’m not sure, but whatever, check out this Evian’s baby viral video, I can’t see a link to Evian, it can almost apply to every brand in the world, so I would say ETRADE does it better.

Evian: http://evianliveyoung.com/

ETRADE: http://etrade.com/baby

June is advertising

I’m back!

June is a great month for advertising industry, yes it’s the Cannes Lions 2009, though the award seems far away from me, or from us in Hong Kong, but they have very exciting programmes, almost the best from the industry comes together, they come from everywhere, everywhere, everyone of them are expertise, the best from the industry.

I just hope 1 day I can join the programmes, I’m particular interested in the talk by Maurice & Eric Schmidt…

http://www.canneslions.com/

and here’s a cannes cast from Raap Collins, let’s see what it is

http://www.cannes-cast.com/

ah, the D&AD awards too, the winners are there, take a look

http://awards.dandad.org/2009/