I have launched a new blog: CREATE BUSINESS, this new destination is to celebrate the role of creativity in business success and to showcase the big ideas that help companies and brands secure a bigger share of the future.

TBWA, the agency behind Disruption and Media Arts believes great business stories rarely happen by accident. Sheer size can no longer guarantee business success; at the same time, brilliant ideas are useless without the skills and the people to bring them to life.

Creativity has never been more important in the world of business than it is today. It has always been part of our DNA to combine creativity and strategy to make a brand prosper. The purpose of the blog is to publicly share our success stories, start conversations and inspire the business and the creative communities.

The agency’s Disruption philosophy, described by author Tom Peters as “one of the most powerful ideas in business today”, will underpin many of the projects featured on the blog. It will highlight how creativity leads to prosperity, helping individuals, brands, companies and society. It will also demonstrate the evolving role of an agency in a world where ideas spread faster than ever before, audiences are playing a part in the innovation process and an intuitive understanding of networks is crucial.

For any comments or suggestions, send an Email to Ulrich Proeschel or connect on LinkedIn.

Info: mad-blog.com will not be updated from now on.

Instead they start with plain yogurt and stir in wünderful ingredients
to make wünderful stuff that makes you feel, well… Wünderful.

So we took a dull, grey city, mixed in some wünderful characters and
beat the forces of plain and mundane into submission one raspberry at
a time.

After all stirring in a little wünder can make the world of difference.

Sometimes a piece of advertising transcends this thing called Advertising. In honor of Steve Jobs, Apple’s “The Crazy Ones.”

Full disclosure, this film was made by TBWA\CHIAT\DAY, Los Angeles.

Source: Rob Schwartz, Chief Creative Officer, TBWA CHIAT DAY, LA on forbes.com.

There was a period when the music industry despaired that the digital era was eroding its economic model. Since then, however, solutions have emerged – notably a rich partnership between musicians and brands.

 Now brand activation agency TBWA\BEC and music company Universal Music have joined forces to celebrate this new economy. From sponsored festivals and concerts to online activations and even celebrity-endorsed in-car sound systems, Musicacitvation.com is a veritable showcase of cool collaborations.

It will grow into a collection of compelling case studies and, in the words of its founders, become “a digital bookmark for marketing and music professionals”, as well as inspiring musicians and marketers who’ve not yet joined forces. Music fans, too, will find plenty of evidence to convince them that teaming with a brand is a route to creativity.

TBWA\BEC’s Music Manager Luc van Stiphout says: “Being one of the most consumed passions globally, music offers brands unique ways to connect with their consumers…Musicactivation.com offers marketers an overview of some of the best work and music cases out there.”

Director Digital at Universal Music, Thierry van Engelen adds: “It’s vital that we are creative and open to new ways to promote music acts and new paths to create revenues other than record sales. Collaborations with brands offer these new opportunities to our artists.”

https://www.facebook.com/musicactivation

McCafé Germany has launched their new brand belief “everything good begins with a good cup of coffee” in the beginning of the year. Part of the brand’s new communication were also new to-go cups in the brand’s recognizable colours and featuring conversation starters. These proved to be especially popular, so much so, that McCafé Germany is bringing the second edition of the cups to their restaurants in September.

For this purpose, McCafé Germany has just started an activation on its facebook page, inviting its fans to create their own McCafé To-go cup with their own smart, funny and intriguing texts. Among all applied, the best ones will be put to the public vote on the 5th of July.

The one with the most votes will be produced as a part of the new edition of the McCafé to-go cups.

Jean-Marie Dru, Chairman of TBWA\Worldwide, is the Jury President for the first ever Creative Effectiveness Lion at Cannes this month. Here he talks about his role.

You’ve attended Cannes a few times now. How much has it changed?

I’ve only missed one Festival since first attending back in 1973. At that time, it was not as prestigious and impactful as it is today. The Americans participated with only a few entries and the Festival was primarily European. Only creatives used to attend. “Creativity” was not really a popular subject among clients, who saw it as a means for agencies to talk among themselves, in their own self-indulgent language. Today it’s very different. Last year at Cannes, there were more people attending from some of the big multinational clients than there were delegates from our network, TBWA. In forty years, Cannes has become everyone’s business.

Now you’re Jury President for the first ever Creative Effectiveness Lion. Is this proof that the debate about creativity and effectiveness has been settled at last?

Creativity sells. But from now on, with the Effectiveness Lions, advertising will be judged on tangible evidence. Our panel will evaluate campaign results in a factual way. ROI will enter into the language of Cannes.

Surely there’s more to effectiveness than numbers?

Don’t forget we’re talking here about “creative effectiveness”. A message that sells, but that is not based on a fresh or breakthrough idea is unlikely to attract our interest. Because Cannes aims first and foremost to reward efficiency achieved through creativity. It should make for some lively debates with my fellow jury members.

How has the digital era changed notions of effectiveness?

Younger generations show interest only in messages that engage them. Otherwise, they just ignore them, or zap. Creativity is no longer optional, it has become recognised as being essential.

If anybody out there is hesitating about coming to Cannes, what would you say to convince them?

It took years for the idea of creativity to become accepted as a source of effectiveness. Cannes has participated in raising that awareness. This is the place where we can see the things that will pave the way forward for our industry; it’s where we can keep ourselves on top of the emerging creative trends, and it’s where we feel the pulse of our industry.

As the tragedy in Japan disappears off newsstands, the daunting task of reconstruction is just beginning. With this in mind, TBWA\Group Singapore decided to launch a fundraising initiative called “Jam with Japan.” When you visit the site, jamwithjapan.com, a music video for the song, “Choose,” plays. The song, written and arranged by Australian-Japanese punk band The Dirt Radicals, is a collaborative work of 15 musicians from Singapore, Thailand, Australia, Taiwan, Canada, UK, Israel and Japan. As the video plays, people are able to own a frame of the music video by writing a personal message of hope. And, of course, donate funds to the relief in Japan. A great collaborative initiative that shows our ideas are no longer held hostage to a media schedule.

Go to the site here.

A conversation between the CEO of TBWA Germany Dr. Sven H. Becker and William C. Taylor, Co-Founder and Founding Editor of Fast Company on Disruption and its role in a booming economy.

Practically Radical: Manifest für Erfolg durch Wandel (engl.) from TBWA Germany on Vimeo.

For any comments or suggestions, send an Email to Ulrich Proeschel.