Nightshift

I just returned from 3 days Vienna. In a very unusual way I did ‘tick some tourist boxes’: drinking on an old tram touring around ringstrasse, seeing the Stephan Dom by night (136.7 meters high and Mozart married there with his Konstanze), saw some interested buildings (category ‘other’) and even spent 47 minutes in the Leopold museum before dashing to the airport to have a glimpse of the Schiele and Klimt collection. I have been impressed by Vienna - it has this relaxing & nice atmosphere and breathes calm in a historical context. Have to go back. 

However, the stuff that topped it was a customer event that the Austrian Microsoft Advertising people had set up. I have been doing presentations in little old auditoriums, in 2000 people supermodern locations, in the back of pubs and restaurants, in an underground station, on a boat, in a Norvegian loft but this one I’ll remember for sure. It was in the Vienna zoo - the oldest baroque zoo in the wold - in the “Elephant house”. As the label on the box eloquently indicates this building houses the zoo’s elephants - and on first floor you can organise your event, having a drink and chat looking at the 3 elephants down there. It’s pretty overwhelming - and so is the smell. Too many details would spoil the broth but let me just say the interesting smell took posession of my suit and followed me all day thru on the plane back home. No use telling the flight crew of Austrian Airlines I am not in the Zoo business.

Austrian market: I felt vibes but a lot has still to happen though. It also made me a bit melancholic in restrospect because this is where a lot of countries were a couple of years ago in terms of maturity and market development. It will blossow as soon as there is more clarity on ad spend numbers (real numbers that is - not fantasy gross that does not reflect true spend), on audience metrics (where we can position us better within the local players) - as soon as media planners will understand the reach, engagement & power of online consumers (we are very willing to help with that)

For the fantastic Austrian audience - I promised some pointers:

- the Context Matters research

- Social Strategy in 4 steps - not Microsoft

- Social Recommendation and the ‘Word of the Web’ Advertising Guidelines - Microsoft.

- Direct link to the whole white paper

Susanne and team : thanks for your hospitality ! Keep growing the market…  Marketing dollars will have to follow the consumer after all. (And keep feeding those elephants..)