Nightshift

Might be useful and not only for me. Whenever you’re being asked what’s hot or what’s the future of Social Media - believe me it happens, and it sometimes gets registered too (cf Revolution podcast) - take a moment and thoughtfully throw away a couple of the following urls. Of course if really needed you can mention the slide is coming from Power to the people Wave 4. Be aware: If you’re part of one of those, chances are you’ll definitely been seen as a geek. Yek.

I have had another amazing week. After spending couple of days in the London office I flew over to Naples & hopped on a speedboat to Capri. It was my first time to Capri but it impressed me a lot. The sun was high up and the island looked sparking. I cannot imagine going there in summer. The little streets must be bursting out like London underground in traffic rush as it was already very crowded for a week in May. Our Italian team organised a great customer event – so I had the opportunity to engage with and solicit feedback from 60 or so agency people. Planners, Strategy, CEOs – the whole package. The Italian market is exploding in digital for sure with a growth rate of over 50%. What an amazing difference with a couple of years before, when digital was not even a topic of conversation. Some of the accounts I spoke to now go up to 60% of their budgets online. There is also great eagerness to learn, absorb what other markets are doing, moving things forward even more quickly. I left earlier to be home with my family over the weekend – so missed a great boat trip around the isle and I even missed out on the splendid swimming pool because of interviews and meetings. But how can I complain about that when I was fortunate to wake up and get a wonderful sea view out of your window. When I got so much energy out of the team, the customers, the sun… & the fantastic Italian dinner. It’s not a dirty job – and not anyone’s got to do it but me … And had a fantastic weekend. What else needed ?

It’s been a lovely weekend. It could have been summer. No reading, no mail, just gardening and a family gathering. What a relief.

But this afternoon I felt guilty already of infrequent postings on Nightshift lately - so a quick one now on Search & Social media. My short answer would be that they are the two sides of the same coin as one is per se embedded in and impacted by the other and vice versa. Social search - and the proliferation of its social bookmarking sites- is the best illustration of it. Now (the easy bit for me) for a longer and more significant answer I point you to the webcast Revolution developed on these two hot topics and posted a couple of days ago on their website (registration needed to access the recording… sorry).

One of the experts invited to debate on the question is Mel Carson, our - own & famous - Adcenter Community Manager for Europe. ( Mel is also managing our official support community for the users of our Adcenter, the Adcenter Community blog where API developers, people interested in analytics and search advertisers can find and participate to posts and forums on those specific topics.)

This panel shared with Neil McCarthy, CMO for Latitude, worldwide search marketing agency, discussed the reality and potential of universal and blended search, the threats and opportunities linked to social media platforms vs search sites and the importance of analyzing both the content provided to consumers (relevancy, engagement, correlation with search terms and brand identity perception) and monitoring the content provided by consumers (monitoring buzz, tonality of the conversation on brands and products).

For an even longer answer, or discussion, contact the expert.

I thought the mail was spam. It referred to www.penisbook.be and I certainly was not gonna click on that link. But actually it made it already thru the spam filter as it came from a friend. To be correct: from probably the most charming ‘media & connections director’ in the Belgium agency landscape - and certainly not the type that would refer you to dodgy sites. So I clicked and got to www.penisbook.be.  I cannot describe it better than Facebook for the euh… that male organ down under. And an in your face message. I am told that more than 1 single out of two has already had a sexual relation with a person they met on the net. And for 28% of them, sex happened on the first date. The non profit organisation Aide Info Sida wanted to draw the attention to the fact that in Belgium 3 three persons are contaminated with HIV every day. More than ever, wearing a condom is the way to stop aids. And a viral campaign in true social networking style. Neat & cool. I love it.

An easy post true but an essential one. The IAB has just released the “User-Generated Content and Social Media Advertising Overview,” a milestone document that helps marketers, agencies and publishers better understand how these platforms have fundamentally altered the digital experience for consumers and advertisers. The report defines UGC and social media, provides a detailed overview of the latest advertising opportunities, and details case studies of campaigns that have successfully utilized UGC and social media.

Bless them. Might answer a couple of skeptic marketers’ questions and open their eyes. What I value most is not the content really (this first document would be an honorable piece of the ‘…for Dummies’ collection - no offense, education on basics has always been a big part of my professional life).

The most valuable aspect is in the status and recognition this document gives to this new media. Kind of remind me the first online advertising guidelines..Kind of switching from hype effect to high potential reality. Kind of getting there, really.

The IAB will also organise a forum on the topic on Madison Avenue and the topic will probably be a hot one at the European Congress in June too. In the meantime, for those who still need to understand whats all about, download is here

* Media, Telecoms&Entertainement

• Award: Silver
• Campaign Name: ‘Telia Safety’
• Client: Telia Sonera
• Agency: Swedish Daddy

• Award: Gold + Best Use of Microsoft Advertising Network award
• Campaign Name: ‘Big Brother’
• Client: Virgin Games Virgin Bets
• Agency: Uk Lean Mean Fighting Machine

* FMCG/Consumer Goods

• Award: Gold
• Campaign Name: ‘ImpossiBLOG is nothing’
• Client: Adidas
• Agency: Spanish Netthink

*Transport&Travel

• Award: Bronze
• Campaign Name: ‘Upsidedown’
• Client:Trentino Spa
• Agency: Italian agency RMG Connect

• Award: Silver
• Campaign Name: ‘Mid-Life Crisis’
• Client: VW Passat
• Agency: Tribal DDB London

• Award: Silver
• Campaign Name: ‘Keep discovering’
• Client: Emirates
• Agency : UK Lean Mean Fighting Machine

• Award: Gold
• Campaign Name: ‘Non Stop Fernando’
• Client: Emirates
• Agency : UK Lean Mean Fighting Machine

*Charity&NG

• Award: Bronze
• Campaign Name: ‘Cannabis’
• Client: UK Government department COI
• Agency: UK Profero

*Category Financial Services:

• Award: Bronze
• Campaign Name: ‘No Difference’
• Client: Swedish Bank SBAB
• Agency: Akestam.Holst

Unfortunately I missed the creative debate on the entries, so dont expect too much anecdotes from me this time, but from what I heard from the juries it was hot and stiff competition. I’ll make it up with LMFM and Netthink in Cannes in a couple of weeks.

In meantime, all winning campaigns can be found here.

Correlations between consumers’ age and their attitudes and behavior about new viewing options have been once more demonstrated by an other study - this time from Accenture Media and Entertainment group ( full report to be downloaded here- hat tip to FutureLab ;-).

If the message is not new new it certainly helps to emphasize the generation gap as it considers technology - no kids are not the only ones being heavily impacted by new technologies but they clearly stand as the leading metric . Obviously the - 25 generation is “more likely to watch content on alternative devices”.

This study timely echoes our recent “3 Screens research” revealing today cross-generations new media consumptions patterns. Technology does have a clear impact on the way people share and consume content. When Accenture focuses on the content driving the choice of devices with consumers selecting ” each (…) on the basis of which one will best suit the specific content they want to consume“, our research highlights the emotional bond lying behind that choice: while TV viewing tends to be a shared experience, watching video on the PC or mobile is likely to be done alone whilst undertaking other activity. Due to the connected nature of the internet, consumers are also indeed more proned to ‘network sociability’ i.e. using community-connecting technologies to share their video experience with their social networks.
Content without Contact and Context is a king without realm and queen.

If you don’t know what to do over the week-end and/or look for great inspiration for further online campaigns/websites/videos/etc. I recommend you spend a couple of hours on the Webby Awards site just like I did. For those who would be new to the industry or rather really not into awards, Webbies are known as the Web Oscar or as the organisators put it themselves as nothing less than the “leading international award honoring excellence in interactive design, creativity, usability and functionality on the Internet“. And they did, for the 12th times this year. With a little controversy from time to time.

Still, the competition is a tough one: last year, the 11th Annual Webby Awards received more than 8,000 entries from over 60 countries and all 50 states and generated over 750 million media impressions worldwide. Impressive. What I find even more impressive this year is to find 2 entries from my home country: one for the Jealous computer campaign developed by the famous web agency These Days for Nokia - which already won an awards a couple of months ago at the MIXX Awards. The other one - to be found in the ‘Best Business Blog’ category is a blog I’m very faithful and not only out of respect for one of the FutureLab founders, storyteller Alain Thys. Well deserved. Fair enough. Now you know two of my own personal votes. A third one went for this stunning site on my favorite painter, Hopper. No brainer really.

Winners will be announced on May, 6th. Leaves you a couple of days to make your voice count. 

There’re days when I feel even prouder than others to work for Microsoft. Bear with me because this has nothing to do with blatant promotion for one of our services but sheer wonder for one of the greatest projects the Next Media Research team leading by Curtis Wong has been working on with the Harvard Center for Astrophysics researcher and astronomer Roy Gould. (And its not only me saying so ) I have used and showed the examples in a couple of presentations lately - but suddenly realized I had not mentioned it here.

The WorldWide Telescope is an unprecedented, powerful and collaborative tool to help everyone of us understand the universe in our own way , enabling us to

1. experience the universe- picture a magic carpet navigating each of us to where we want to go
2. tour the universe with a passionate astronomer as our guide
3. create our own tours and share them with friends
4. zoom the universe- big times!

Its basically going to change the way we see ourselves as part of this universe. And also how we’re going to talk about the universe, sharing stories about our personal universe. A new community of universe storytellers is much likely to evolve indeed, creating a new dialogue with the universe (to quote Roy).

Check it out by yourself:

The WorldWide Telescope project is dedicated to Microsoft researcher Jim Gray, who’s achieved many of our prodigious technological projects like Virtual Earth to name but one.

For all kids at heart, there’s a preview site to make us impatiently wait till the free demo to be released in a couple of weeks.

Excited to relay the news about a new production from our Branded Entertainment and Experiences Team (BEET) greatly integrating brand content strategy to our platform while powerfully engaging with women.
Leveraging the success of the Real Beauty campaign Dove has embarked on a unprecedented online community project. The brand new Dove Digital Channel aims to grow a vibrant and active community of real women discussing real beauty. Women are able to interact and challenge a notable board of editors leading the community sections, share their experiences within forums, comment articles, blog their thoughts and watch videos on the Real Beauty topic . And of course learn more about Dove products and philosophy while being on the platform. In the coming months, the channel will be localised in Canada, UK, Brasil, Spain.

Definitely a meaningful step for Dove in thinking more broadly about how the brand presents itself differently based on consumer interest (product vs. community), age group (older, younger or core target), and point of entry (headline vs. media vs. product promotion).

For more, read Wall Street Journal Online article (subscription only) .