"What's the beef?"

Stake•hold•er noun a person who has an interest in the success...

Fri, 25 May 2012 01:00:00 +0400

Stake•hold•er

noun

a person who has an interest in the success of an organisation, product or service.

“Ticket designs for the London Olympics have been...

Thu, 24 May 2012 16:46:00 +0400

“Ticket designs for the London Olympics have been unveiled, as designed by the team @FutureBrand“ — Source: Creativity-Online.com

Scared? I think we should be. Before the global crisis, in order...

Thu, 24 May 2012 13:02:00 +0400

Scared? I think we should be.

Before the global crisis, in order to differentiate from overly saturated competitive markets, global corporations worked hard to identify their ‘unique positioning’ in the big-wide-world.

Focused on becoming category leaders, or ‘the next big thing’, many organisations invested heavily in trying to identify unique personality attributes (e.g. being bold, fun, dynamic, progressive, etc) but left little time, or consideration, towards maintaining focus on the necessary, basic fundamental principles needed to run a business ethically and responsibly.

These basics, or prerequisites if you will, e.g. trust, pride, honesty, transparency, ethics, prudence etc., appear to have been relegated to the lower tier of the sub-conscious — resulting in their being continually overlooked or massively taken for granted. For the majority of us we made a mistake too, assuming these basic values were inherent in all the brands we invested in.

As markets and countries around the world still recover, ‘brand prerequisites’ once again returned as an essential key message. ‘Ethical business practice’ was written back in to every CEO’s speech and contained within the boilerplate of almost every press release distributed.

For tomorrow’s company, being bold, fun and adventurous is meaningless without integrity, honesty and moral values being equally considered. Brand values — whether they belong to a product of an institution — are really no different to the values of a person. As such, should be respected accordingly.

Take yesterday for example: Were we really surprised to read about the lawsuits and actions following Facebook’s IPO? A young company, with an infamous 28 year old CEO, that has been the subject of multi-million dollar recriminations since its ‘dorm room days’.

Whilst Facebook is a benchmark, and an incredibly exciting and innovative product, let’s not forget this company has grown rapidly to become the custodian of more personal information than any other database held on the planet.

Facebook may have rewritten how we connect with our friends and family, and continues to reshape the advertising model but, our fascination with Facebook’s exciting but unknown future, shouldn’t let it’s ability to shrug its hoodie-clothed shoulders and ‘pay-off its past’, nor empower it in to thinking it can rewrite corporate governance.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Facebook. But as ‘convenience’ and ‘accessibility’ grow stronger, fast becoming the digital platform’s ‘qualifying attributes’, in the long-run, I am a little fearful that we may be giving up more than we may realise.

Unlike me, if you’re not scared by this, at least evolve to a much higher level of cautiousness, increase your diligence and prepare for whatever is around the next digital corner. [DD]

‘The Girl Epidemic’ - Behind the Scenes “The...

Wed, 23 May 2012 21:49:30 +0400

‘The Girl Epidemic’ - Behind the Scenes

“The well-known photographer Indrani has joined forces with Project Nanhi Kali and the innovative ad agency StrawberryFrog to create The Girl Epidemic. The trailer-style video uses jarring footage of a social reality in which girls are treated as an infectious disease. Sold into marriage or forced into child labor and sexual slavery, the video aims to raise awareness of the horrific conditions of girls” — The HuffPost, 17 May 2012

Fact or fiction? I received an out-of-the-blue tweet this morning from Scott Goodson, CEO of Strawberry Frog. It wasn’t until I returned home tonight that I clicked the link. Whoa!

Follow the HuffPost link above to find out more about the campaign.

(Thanks Scott).

"If you didn’t know how old you are how old do you think you would be?"

Wed, 23 May 2012 00:49:17 +0400

“If you didn’t know how old you are how old do you think you would be?”

- Sir Richard Branson

Ads Ask You to ‘Picture’ Philadelphia as an Art Destination #destination #branding

Mon, 21 May 2012 23:59:37 +0400

Ads Ask You to ‘Picture’ Philadelphia as an Art Destination #destination #branding :

http://withart.visitphilly.com/

Photo

Mon, 21 May 2012 19:58:26 +0400

"When people realize they’re being listened to, they tell you things."

Sun, 20 May 2012 23:51:31 +0400

“When people realize they’re being listened to, they tell you things.”

- Richard Ford, whose dyslexia forces him to listen more closely when people are talking (via austinkleon)

"But it is through those ambiguous, awkward moments that people truly get to know one another. It is..."

Sun, 20 May 2012 23:48:53 +0400

“But it is through those ambiguous, awkward moments that people truly get to know one another. It is by interpreting facial expressions, tones of voice, and half-finished sentences that we figure each other out, and become sympathetic to others’ points of view.”

- With friends like these… By April Dembosky http://on.ft.com/JChqh0

121-megapixel image of Earth is most detailed...

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:23:00 +0400

121-megapixel image of Earth is most detailed yet…

“A time-lapse of Planet Earth, created from images produced by the geostationary Electro-L Weather Satellite. The images were obtained beginning on May 14th, and end on May 20th. The images are the largest whole disk images of our planet, each image is 121 megapixels, and the resolution is 1 kilometer per pixel. They are taken every half hour, and have been interpolated (smoothed) to create this video. The images are taken in four different wavelengths of light, three visible, and one infrared. The infrared light is reflected by forests and vegetation, which appear orange in these images.”

Images Copyright NTs OMZ. Videos Copyright James Drake

See more Electro-L movies and full-size images at http://Planet—Earth.ca/

Zoom in here: http://gigapan.com/gigapans/103187

Removal of branded packaging = commoditisation of the product =...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:24:00 +0400

Removal of branded packaging = commoditisation of the product = a price war.

Why a cigarette brand ban on packaging may ultimately prove to be counterproductive in the UK’s long-term health warning campaign… (via @jonathangabay)

Reblogged fastcompany: Berg Explores The Future Of Touchable...

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 19:11:00 +0400

Reblogged fastcompany:

Berg Explores The Future Of Touchable Movies

We think of movies as linear progressions. It’s generally a story with a beginning, middle, and end—and it’s always something we consume from start to finish. Timo Arnall of Berg shows us all just how dated this view of video has become. In a project for Bonnier and Mag+, which I’ve dubbed “cinema glass,” he turns a movie into a swipeable, interactive entity on a tablet. And I don’t just mean that you can pause it or fast forward in some clever way. I mean, 2-D frames combine to become something that feels different than anything we’ve seen before.

See more->

"Advertising is the price companies pay for being unoriginal."

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:07:42 +0400

“Advertising is the price companies pay for being unoriginal.”

- Yves Behar (via gregmelander)

"To the man who only has a hammer in the toolkit, every problem looks like a nail."

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:55:04 +0400

“To the man who only has a hammer in the toolkit, every problem looks like a nail.”

- Abraham Maslow

Reblogged thedailywhat: Google Glasses Hack of the Day: Will...

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 23:29:00 +0400

Reblogged thedailywhat:

Google Glasses Hack of the Day:
Will Powell, an augmented reality developer in the U.K., has beat Google at the future. His version of Google’s glasses is hacked together from Vuzix glasses, HD webcams, and a mic headset powered by a custom-coded Adobe Air app and Dragon voice recognition software. Translation? He built them himself using existing technology and duct tape.

A statement at the end of the video silences naysayers: “All video is recorded in real time and is undoctored.”

[thenextweb]

"Our competitors aren’t taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with..."

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:11:37 +0400

“Our competitors aren’t taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we’re going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem. The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things.”

- Stephen Elop, Nokia’s CEO

"A logo derives its meaning and usefulness from the quality of that which it symbolizes"

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:13:58 +0400

“A logo derives its meaning and usefulness from the quality of that which it symbolizes”

- Paul Rand (via gregmelander)

Update: Google’s Project Glass Read: 4 Problems Google...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 18:08:00 +0400

Update: Google’s Project Glass

Read: 4 Problems Google Glasses Have To Solve Before Becoming A Hit / FastCoDesign.com:

1. GOOGLE NEEDS TO AVOID ‘THE SEGWAY PROBLEM’

2. GOOGLE NEEDS TO NAVIGATE ‘THE ALWAYS ON PROBLEM’

3. GOOGLE NEEDS TO FIND A KILLER USE-CASE

4. GOOGLE NEEDS TO ATTENUATE ‘THE TOO MUCH FEEDBACK PROBLEM’

Google Begins Testing Its Augmented-Reality Glasses

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 22:00:00 +0400

Google Begins Testing Its Augmented-Reality Glasses:

On Wednesday, Google gave people 20/20 vision about a secret augmented-reality project called Project Glass. The glasses are the company’s first foray into wearable computing.

A little place branding...

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:17:00 +0400

Liechtenstein, which is officially the ‘Principality of Liechtenstein’, is a small landlocked province (just 62 sq. miles) and sits between Austria and Switzerland. With an estimated population of 35,000 it has, according to Wikipedia, the ‘highest gross domestic product per person in the world when adjusted by purchasing power parity’ it has the world’s lowest external debt, and second lowest unemployment rate in the world (1.5%). Second to Monaco.

In 2004, Lichtenstein engaged with Wolff-Olins, the outcome of which worked to position the principality as a ‘sophisticated capital destination with an influx in tourism and a strong entrepreneurial spirit’.

Recently, and in the spirit of ‘crowd sourcing’, Lichtenstein launched an initiative for its citizens to select a new national logo, from a short-list of five (see below). For the winning design agency, US$25,000 awaits. The brief: to include the national colours (blue, red and gold) and focus on Lichtenstein’s principles (self-determination, security, humanism) or its values (independence, straightforwardness, humanity).

Never judge a book by its cover.

As a fan of ‘co-creation’, as well as meaningful stakeholder engagement, I do love the idea of uniting folk to achieve a common vision but, I must admit to growing tired of these ‘help us choose a logo’ competitions. I find them to be so one dimensional — losing the core essence behind creating a brand.

In any case, having been on an earlier positioning exercise with Wolff Olins, and clearly being able to articulate their principles and values, I do wonder whether this one is actually a ‘smoke-and-mirrors’ public relations led initiative. Perhaps under the guise of an open competition?