Thanks to David Carr from The New York Times, this is the first article I have read in ages that talks about the future of our industry in a forward looking way. The media industry in the broadest sense has always been a melting pot for some of the most interesting individuals. Yes, I know with a lot of dinosaurs still around it felt sometimes like the end of the world, but it is not. After reading David’s article, I am more than confident, that there is an exciting future. A future for disrupters and a future for the ones who understand how audiences digest media today.
What David describes for Manhattan is probably true for the rest of the world as well.
“For every kid that I bump into who is wandering the media industry looking for an entrance that closed some time ago, I come across another who is a bundle of ideas, energy and technological mastery. The next wave is not just knocking on doors, but seeking to knock them down.
Somewhere down in the Flatiron, out in Brooklyn, over in Queens or up in Harlem, cabals of bright young things are watching all the disruption with more than an academic interest. Their tiny netbooks and iPhones, which serve as portals to the cloud, contain more informational firepower than entire newsrooms possessed just two decades ago. And they are ginning content from their audiences in the form of social media or finding ways of making ambient information more useful. They are jaded in the way youth requires, but have the confidence that is a gift of their age as well.”
Less than four weeks away from Christmas, the Kraft Food‘s brand Tassimo has launched a new TVC called „Gift“, executing another expression of the brand‘s big idea: Together is Better. And just like during the celebrations at the Brandenburg Gate earlier in November, this time the audience gets involved again.
Just days after the spot was launched in the UK and Germany, people approached Kraft Foods to look for the sweater used in the spot.
Do you like it too? If so, contact the Tassimo team at TBWA in Berlin.
Actually, if you think about ordering one, rethink. Remember: Together is Better. Get two.
If you have any comments or suggestions please email Richard Breaux.
TBWA has scored three film winners in the Epica Awards, the annual round up of the best advertising in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In the professional equipment & services category, TBWA\ PHS Helsinki won for a spot called “Dirty Laundry”, promoting the CFPE/Shots Young Directors Award. The spot was a hot contender for the Epica d’Or, the equivalent of a Grand Prix, but was pipped at the post by Saatchi & Saatchi London with its “Dance” spot for T-Mobile. It was a good year for TBWA in Amsterdam: 180 Amsterdam (180/TBWA) scored in the footwear & accessories category with a win for the Adidas spot “Every team needs the spark”. And finally, the production company Czar Amsterdam on behalf of TBWA\Neboko won the alcoholic drinks category for the films Walk-in Fridge and Walking Fridge.
The full list of Epica results will be announced within the coming days on the website www.epica-awards.com. A prize-giving ceremony will be held in Belgrade in January.
In July we reported the first time about the Eurostar campaign Londonpoly. Now we can share the results. They are phenomenal, check out the little case video and enjoy this highly entertaining campaign.
We started with mad-blog.com in February 2009 now, after a little more than nine month we are welcoming more than 6.100 subscribers to our RSS feed.
More than 50 percent of you return on a regular basis and the average time you spend browsing our content is almost 3 minutes per visit. Over 5.000 of you visited the blog more than 100 times. I think that is great. Thank you very much.
One more thing: Do you know who designed the RSS logo, a symbol that actually became an icon on the web and replaced the less appealing letters “RSS”? It is Steve Horlander, who once said about his logo: “Almost immediately it took on a life of its own. It had its own website, its own T-shirt, coffee mugs…” Obviously he managed to create something that entertained the audience.
If you want to help spreading the celebrations of Media Arts and Disruption, simply follow us on Twitter and RT if you like.
Nicolas Bordas, President and CEO, TBWA\FRANCE has published a book entitled “L’Idée qui tue” (The Idea That Kills: Politics, Business, Culture, The Secrets Of Perennial Ideas).
The book is not about the mysterious process by which one comes up with a new idea. It is a guide to recognizing ideas with potential and setting up the best conditions for them to propagate and replicate – a useful skill in the “communication society” we are living in. For Nicolas, ideas that kill are those that prove long lasting and demonstrate an ability to impose themselves almost naturally unto everyone who comes in contact with them. They are what we call “killer ideas”. But ideas that kill are so named also because they literally kill other ideas. Two opposite ideas cannot coexist in one’s mind.
You must kill the convention to install the vision. In that sense, a disruptive idea is by definition an idea that creates an unbeatable strategic advantage.
The book, in a step-by-step analysis, examines the common traits of such ideas in every aspects of human endeavor: philosophy, art, politics, business, pop culture… the goal being to isolate key factors of success and come up with practical rules to ensure the success of any idea, small or great.
“L’Idée qui tue” currently exists only in French, but rumor has it that a deal for a Spanish translation is under way. The book launch was celebrated as a special exhibition at the Maillol Museum in Paris, and sustained by a disruptive online PR push, centered around Nicolas’ blog: nicolasbordas.fr
On their website the California based company method describe themselves as “people against dirty”, they look at the world through bright-green colored glasses. The two founders Adam and and Eric have put together a humanifesto for method that basically gives direction to everything the brand does. In their most recent e-mail they invited the world to join a great movement and said the following: “if you’re like us, you’re feeling excited about the UN Climate Change Conference that’s happening in Copenhagen in a few weeks. excited, because it’s putting environmental legislation on a highly visible, global stage, where it belongs. so, like us, we hope you’ll join the Hopenhagen community and sign the Climate Petition before Dec. 7th. your signature will show world leaders that when all of us get behind something, there really is hope.”
That’s exactly how a brand like method must behave. Chapeau.
Almdudler, by origin an Austrian non-alcoholic beverage, has taken one of the smartest steps towards becoming next-seasons coolest drink in Berlin. By partnering up with an idea that by itself has turned into a marketing initiative for Berlin: The Berg.
The Berg was presented first in earlier this year, when prior the final closing of the Tempelhof Airport plans have been discussed how this phenomenal piece of real estate should be used in the future. The city revealed some of the suggestions from architects and urban planners.
The Boston Globe reported: “Most were banal, involving office towers and housing complexes — the specter of which sent the German architect Jakob Tigges in an entirely different direction. Tigges cannot be accused of thinking conventionally. Or small: He proposes adding a 3,000-foot mountain to the core of the site, with the airport’s famous curved terminal (among the largest structures in the world) providing a partial perimeter. His illustrations show a lush, cloud-ringed peak, complete with mountain goats.”
Today The Berg has turned into a symbol for Berlin’s unconventional thinking. Not the unconventional thinking of the the city officials, but of the creative power and willingness to move on in a disruptive way. Check out the website, become a fan on facebook and keep your fingers crossed that the Almdudler’s smart brand behavior will create a partnership between a brand and a cultural icon that brings us one step closer to The Berg.
The initiators of The Berg have even come up with a manifesto to nail the strategic basis for their idea:
While big and wealthy cities in many parts of the world challenge the limits of possibility by building gigantic hotels with fancy shapes, erecting sky-high office towers or constructing hovering philharmonic temples, Berlin sets up a decent mountain. Its peak exceeds 1000 metres and is covered with snow from September to March…
Hamburg, as stiff as flat, turns green with envy, rich and once proud Munich starts to feel ashamed of its distant Alp-panorama and planners of the Middle-East, experienced in taking the spell off any kind of architectural utopia immediately design authentic copies of the iconic Berlin-Mountain. Tempelhof no longer only is on Berliners’ minds: People come in flocks to – not to see the mountain. Thus,
“For every kid that I bump into who is wandering the media industry looking for an entrance that closed some time ago, I come across another who is a bundle of ideas, energy and technological mastery. The next wave is not just knocking on doors, but seeking to knock them down.
Less than four weeks away from Christmas, the Kraft Food‘s brand Tassimo has launched a new TVC called „Gift“, executing another expression of the brand‘s big idea: Together is Better. And just like during the celebrations at the 
One more thing: Do you know who designed the RSS logo, a symbol that actually became an icon on the web and replaced the less appealing letters “RSS”? It is Steve Horlander, who once said about his logo: “Almost immediately it took on a life of its own. It had its own website, its own T-shirt, coffee mugs…” Obviously he managed to create something that entertained the audience.
