Brandweek heeft een verstorend stuk bij het greenwashing.

De zevende Generatie, de Methode en andere belangrijke persoonlijke zorg en schoonmakende merken kunnen processen spoedig onder ogen zien als zij niet het woord „organisch“ uit hun etikettering en marketing tegen Sept. verwijderen. 1. Ultimatum komt na een recent onderzoek door Organische Consumenten Assn., wat een potentieel carcinogene verontreinigende stof in diverse producten aan het licht bracht.

OCA onderzocht organische kosmetische, persoonlijke zorg bijna 100 en huishouden het schoonmaken formules, en vond dat bijna 50% van hen opspoorbare niveaus van dioxane 1.4 bevatten, die gekend is om kanker in laboratoriumdieren te veroorzaken. Niemand van de fabrikanten onthulde deze informatie over hun etiketten, alhoewel velen niveaus grotere dan 1.000 keer het aanvaardbare niveau hadden.

De grootste overtreders waren de „natuurlijke“ detergentia van de schotel, met inbegrip van Vloeistof van de Schotel van de Citrusvrucht de Magische 100% Natuurlijke, de Vriendschappelijke Producten UltraDishmate van de Aarde, Concentraat van de Schotel van de Methode het Afgeleide Ultra natuurlijk, UltraDishwashing van de Planeet Vloeistof en Vloeistof van de Schotel van de Zevende Generatie de Natuurlijke.

Merken die niet worden gevonden om te bevatten dioxane 1.4 omvat de Bijen van Burt, de Groen Werken Clorox, Natuurlijke producten Avalon en Dr. Bronner' s.

Commentaren weg
Filed onder: Syndicated

De vrouwen die melk drinken zullen niet ongeveer één keer per maand dergelijke heksen zijn. Nr, werkelijk: Dat is het openlijk cinematic bericht van „Bruja“ (het Spaans voor heks), een vlek van de Raad van de Bewerker van de Melk van Californië die vandaag van Grupo Gallegos breekt. In de advertentie, die… richt

Commentaren weg
Filed onder: Syndicated

Adweek is running an article by Alex Bogusky, wherein he reflects on his welcome to the lovely hamlet of Boulderado.

When we decided to move a portion of the agency to Boulder, Colo., a very surprising thing happened: The mayor’s office asked to take a meeting.

I was excited and a bit nervous. Boulder has done an amazing job managing its growth.

Well, these people I admired so much opened the meeting with a great line — one that made me gulp. “Boulder isn’t looking for any new businesses,” they said. “We have enough and as a city we only allow 1 percent growth per year.”

Oh shit, I thought. Boulder is a closed game and they’re not going to let us play.

Then something amazing happened: They said, “But.” My heart soared like an eagle. There was still a chance. And then what they said after the “but” blew me away.

“But yours is a creative company working in the field of creativity and employing creative individuals, and that is exactly what we want to invite more of into our community.”

Oh, baby. I was home.

Comments Off
Filed under: Syndicated

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, here’s a look back at one of the great Guinness commercials of all time: 1999’s “Surfer” from AMV BBDO in London. In crafting the spot, art director Walter Campbell and copywriter Tom Carty were…

Comments Off
Filed under: Syndicated

This week’s Advertising Age is nearly entirely devoted to issues surrounding digital marketing and web advertising. I highly recommend it. There’s a lot of good stuff to read, and the Ad Age staff did a great job covering as much of it as they could. It’s both a high-level look at the state of digital as well as a dive into specific topics.

Here’s a bit of one article, written by Matthew Creamer:

What you’re about to read is not an argument for making over web marketing as a factory for destination websites or for making every brand a content player. This, however, is a call to give some thought to a question that’s not asked enough about the Internet: Should it even be viewed as an ad medium? After all, in some quarters of the broader marketing world, the habit of looking at advertising as the most important tool in the marketers’ toolbox is undergoing intense interrogation. Consider the growth of the word-of-mouth marketing business, premised on the notion that people not corporations who help other people make consumer decisions. Or look at the growing importance put on public relations and customer-relationship management both in marketing circles and even in the c-suite.

The same conversation should be going on around the Internet. Trends like those listed suggest the possibility of a post-advertising age, a not-too-distant future where consumers will no longer be treated as subjects to be brainwashed with endless repetitions of whatever messaging some focus group liked. That world isn’t about hidden persuasion, but about transparency and dialogue and at its center is that supreme force of consumer empowerment, the Internet. But when you look at how the media and marketing business packages the Internet — as just more space to be bought and sold — you have to worry that the history of mass media is just trying to repeat itself. Rarely a fortnight goes by without some new bullish forecast for ad growth that works to stoke digital exuberance within media owners that often drowns out critical thinking about the medium itself.

(David adds): Yeah, that critical thinking stuff sometimes gets lost when there are mountains of money changing hands.

Comments Off
Filed under: Syndicated

The auto engineers at Volkswagen U.K. become software engineers in this promo for the new Volkswagen.co.uk site. But old habits die hard. Spot by digital agency Outside Line. UPDATE: Here’s a sort-of similar thing that Saatchi Moscow did to promote…

Comments Off
Filed under: Syndicated

How many feeds are you currently subscribed to on your RSS reader of choice?

50, 100, 150……. Do you have more than Scoble?

What was your breaking point?

That moment when Greader alerts you that you currently have 1000+ unread articles, and you click “mark all as read,” all the while cringing as you know you are missing out on some diamond in the ruff that could have altered your perception on some esoteric theory you are mulling over.

I don’t know about you folks, but it has been happening to me ever more frequently.

I recently started a new job and my reader has been overflowing, not to mention my mind, as I haven’t vented my ideas in a while (I’m relaunching my blog today, link is at the bottom if your interested). Thus, in an effort to maximize feed consumption I subscribed to TechMeme, instead of reading 58 technology related feeds. It was a dark day for someone like myself who considers themselves a power-reader; akin to the day I had to shelve my PS2 to devote more time to the “important” things in life (That one still hurts).

Why am I so distressed about having to use a news aggregation site?

Because the Wisdom of Crowds is a flawed model for long tail information aggregation. It works for data predictions and guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar, but the ‘Crowd’ is nontransparent, it is sterile, and most importantly, it doesn’t know who I am.

In addition, Digg is controlled by the select elite, and TechMeme favors large sites like TechCrunch and non-blog content like The Register, because they have more traffic (equaling more overall links) and it lets the gems fall through the cracks.

The Crowd will never understand my eclectic tastes, the nuances of my passions, and the tonality that puts a smirk on my face.

So who or what does know all these aspects of Seni Thomas?

My friends and my communities, of course……. MY CROWDS.

The most relevant information in my content channels (I have currently channels for Tech, Marketing, Friends, Design, Trends, General News, New York, Venture News/Entrepreneurship, and Fun Stuff) comes from people sharing articles through Greader, del.icio.us feeds, or archaically emailing articles to me. However, I get many duplicated articles, and it is hard to judge how many “votes” my friends are giving to content around the web.

As a quick solution I have threaded together a number of existing tools to attempt to harness the power of MY CROWD. It is not terribly elegant, but I mean this article to be a conversational catalyst as this community has always impressed me with your ingenuity.

The Components of a Crowd Aggregation System (Needs a better name):

1. Content Input System - RSS output-able information

2. Voting system

3. Contextual Conversation - Friend’s comments, meme threading to group various related articles, tagging, etc.

4. Aggregator - Like an RSS reader

5. Archive - A searchable personalized database

My not so elegant first pass:

1. People add content by sharing on Google reader, del.icio.us bookmarking, Google shared items, or anything that exports data through RSS. By using Google shared items you can see how many people you know have shared/bookmarked each piece of content, which in a way works as a basic voting system.

2. A conversation feed can also be added by RSS exporting out from google group forums. Still needs to be attached to content and travel with the content

3. Yahoo pipes is used to filter data into whatever channels you want

4. It is all fed into Greader which catalogues all the info and acts as a depository that can be searched

Now since Google already launched the mini-social network within Greader it’s only one step away (Contextual Conversation) from having an all-inclusive platform. There you have it. In addition, community feeds can also be developed in this manner such as a MarketingProfs feed that all of you contribute to, or a LikeMind community feed.

I’m sure there are a number of you that could devise a more effective system, so lets work all work together to explore this topic. For some inspiration check out Fav.or.it.

The Ad-Vocate is relaunching today if you want to check it out. Apologies for the shameless plug.

Comments Off
Filed under: Syndicated

Apparently marketers aren’t cutting it, according to a recent study. Marketers aren’t making a mark with consumers when they launch new products. An intriguing article in MediaPost on March 6th, New Product Messages Aren’t Making Intended Impressions points to data collected by Information Resources, Inc, New Products magazine, comScore and Schneider Associates.

The upshot? More than a whopping 3/4 out of 1000 consumers surveyed said they couldn’t recall a new product launched over the past year. Only 23% could do so.

That’s pretty amazing when you think about it. Then again, maybe not, when you consider the plethora of products hitting the stores non-stop these days. Still, the onus is on marketers to come up with hot new products consumers will actually want to buy, and then to make their marketing message a memorable one. Apparently, given the data, marketers just aren’t cutting the mustard.

In the article, New Product magazine editor Joan Holleran is quoted: “The (new product) message isn’t getting through.” Who was successful in getting through? When presented with a list of new product intros for 2007, Apple’s iPhone topped the list with a recall rate of 37%. The rest of the top 10 products consumers remembered: Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system, Febreze-branded candles, Domino’s Oreo Dessert Pizza, diet aid Alli, Oreo Cakesters, Diet Coke Plus, Subway Fresh Fit Meals, Motorola’s RAZR2 and Listerine White Strips.

The most memorable new products in 2007 were line extensions. Top new product sellers last year: Campbell’s Reduced Sodium Soup, General Mills Fiber One Chewy Bars, Dannon’s DanActive Probiotic Dairy Drinks and Activia Light Yogurt, Sara Lee’s Heart Hearty & Delicious breads.

Takeaways from the research:
• Top impression making products used an experimental marketing mix: blogs, WOM and PR-generated media to get the word out. This trend is expected to continue, even though traditional channels will still be used.
• Look for more line extensions in 2008 and for success with products that multitask like the iPhone.
• Health and wellness trends will continue to strengthen and the demand for functional food and beverages will “explode”, according to IRI EVP Business/Consumer Insights, Anne Berlack. “Retailers and manufacturers that marry functional benefits with effective consumer education, as Dannon did last year with DanActive immunity-boosting beverages will win big”, she added. Agreed.
• Products that constitute more indulgent purchases will continue to trend. No explanation needed, I think. Upscale, luxury and self-pampering products continue to be well-received by consumers.
• Non-food products that create a pleasant experience for consumers as they conduct everyday chores will also continue to score well. Current new product intros that have been successful in this regard: Tide Simple Pleasures and Gain Joyful Expressions Detergents, Febreze Noticeable Air Fresheners.

What does all of this point to? If new products are going to meet with success in the marketplace, better consumer insights will have to be gained via research. These insights will have to meet consumers where they are, or they are doomed to fail.

Questions:
• Which new products can you recall from 2007?
• Were you motivated to purchase a new product last year?
• What should marketers do to make new products more memorable when there are so many new items hitting the retail stores?

I’d love to hear from you.

Comments Off
Filed under: Syndicated

TOKYO (BRANDFlash) — Micro-targeting is becoming as much a phenomenon offline as it is online, and Japan offers a good bricks-and-mortar example of that with its new variety of Lawson store. Lawson is this country's second-largest convenience store chain. As an experiment in 2006, it redesigned and restocked one of its facilities especially for senior citizens. With calming colors and wheelchair-friendly aisles, that outlet's shelves were heavily laced with staples such as hearing-aid batteries, false-teeth supplies and wigs. It's not really surprising that the Lawson experiment has proved wildly popular in a Japan that now has a huge and growing population of citizens in their 60s or older.

Comments Off
Filed under: Syndicated

I’ve never heard of Nomis before, but they did a great job to start getting noticed. Have a look at the video below, it’s a lovely piece of work by Johannes Leonardo directed by Woof Wan-Bau (no, it’s not his…

Comments Off
Filed under: Syndicated

Farfar is behind a new weird initiative launched by Nokia to promote its new N82 model. The concept is based on “position art”, which consists in creating works of art, by physically walking them, and then transferring it on to…

Comments Off
Filed under: Syndicated

A nice timewaster if you feel lazy on a Sunday morning like this… Photoshop Disasters a new, original blog collecting Photoshop errors from around the world. For example, I’m sure you will appreciate this great work of cloning coming from…

Comments Off
Filed under: Syndicated

BL Ochman has been running an interesting series of interviews with “top bloggers” at her place recently, including Doc Searls, Mack Collier, and this week, me. She asked us to identify the top tools we use to keep from drowning in the “information tsunami” that is the internet, spefically: What tools do you use to manage boatloads of information every day?

BL originally produced a series of these interviews in 2006, and it’s interesting to see how tools are trending and sources of information change. In 2006, some of the bloggers mentioned newspaper and magazines for source material. While I still read magazines, I rarely pick up a newspaper – the actual paper kind – any more. In 2006, Twitter wasn’t but a twinkle in anyone’s eye, but it’s definitely on the radar now.

One thing with staying power: email. Although I felt a little old school mentioning my reliance on it (at least, to BL’s progressive audience), email is nonetheless both ubiquitous and enduring. As Paul Chaney commented on BL’s blog, “It still works.”

Check out the interviews at BL’s blog.

Comments Off
Filed under: Syndicated

“It’s a bit rich for a man who got famously stonkered at a lap-dancing club in New York five years ago to be lecturing the rest of us on binge drinking,” columnist Miranda Devine writes in the Sydney Morning Herald…

Comments Off
Filed under: Syndicated

Chimpanzees are not exactly the unsung heroes of advertising; in fact, they’re quite sung, having starred in splashy, successful Super Bowl campaigns from E*Trade to CareerBuilder. (Pictured is Jonah the E*Trade chimp, photographed during a long-ago visit to Adweek.) But…

Comments Off
Filed under: Syndicated