A culture of "eye to eye"

I have been spending these past couple of days trying to catch up with the books that have been piling up around my flat and lay there unread.

By coincidence most of the titles I had with me were by American authors, Levison, Underhill, Hopkins, so after a while, as I was starting to feel somewehat uneasy reading, I realized there is something particularly annoying/exciting about American marketing books: they are always addressed to YOU - YOU, the person reading them, you, the unadulterated holder of the book, the one whose eyes are facing the page right now. And they always, and I mean always, assume you bought the book because you want to make money.

This I find a disturbing/wonderful quality of American marketing: the directness and lack of any self rightous nuance about the goals of it all. Nobody writes to propose theories, everybody writes to make money or to let other people know that exact way to make money themselves. It is very much like telesales or advertorials and, come to think of it, it may be the reason this formerly great economy was doing so well: sheer, poignant drive to make money, by pig-headedly and without any doubts following a goal.

I read Levison's 50 reasons to do advertising and can find at least 10 which are exactly the same thing worded differently and this does not diminish the strength with which this person-to-person, eye-to-eye writing persuades that he knows what he's writing about.
I wish we had not lost this strength of conviction because I know this is what made great managers like the one we read about. Maybe, with the crisis, we'll see less dilly dally with "the perfect" brand propositions and more decisive money making attitudes :-)

picture via

Before the drive home...

Holiday drive

By general vote this was the heavy rotation tune of the drive to my parents' home for a snowy Xmas :-)

This is a website

it's no joke... it really is; Live here. Pointed out by Victor Kapra as part of a worst websites of 2008 :-)

"falling"

Last night, in between runs to the office to check on progress, I had a pretty nice round of drinks with some old friends. And I got clarity on something I had been wondering about for a while.
The backstory is this, I have been noticing people being very aggressive lately starting from taxi drivers who are completely rude and hysterical and finishing with bank clerks whose lack of politeness is abhorring. Now, this would not be out of the ordinary for Romania but it is getting clinically obvious.

Last night, these couple of friends told me about the "falling apart" syndrome, visible across the country in crisis-stricken Romanians. The poster boy for this new thingie is a man who, a couple of weeks back, walked into a Maseratti showroom on Romania's fanciest avenue, reached for a chair and smashed a Maseratti's front end without a word, then ran into a Honda dealership next door and smashed a bunch of Honda scooters and then ran into a neighbouring bank and tried to smash the windows before he was tackled by the combined bodyguards of the three locations. The guy looked completely normal and decent. Another case is that of a guy who tackled and beat up a bicycle rider and then broke into hysterical crying and apologized.

"falling apart" or "falling down" syndrome seems to affect the people who have naively taken on lots and lots of loans hoping for an ever increasing economy and now find themselves in straightened circumstances. The symptoms are increased aggressiveness, instant irritation, disdain for everything around, rudeness and paranoia.

still think the crisis is not affecting us? look around...

Romanians are Whopper Virgins

Just read this article, linked by Kit, and still have mixed feelings. So to promote the Whopper, CPB has traveled to lands where locals lips have never tasted the Whopper and made a documentary about Whopper virgins.



This is, for lack of a better description, do-advertising, the kind that sparks controversy and makes you go "wow, those guys are really smart", the kind that you wish you could do because it takes advertising from the realm of couches and "deep thinking" creatives and into the real world.



I loved their previous attempt (up), I thought it was wonderfully powerful but somehow, since we are the "virgins" in this one I feel kindof 'colonialized'... the feeling of being a "weirdo" being shown the ways of the modern world by cool advertising people from the states in their camper shoes and wielding their sharpie pens, makes me wanna...well, not eat a whopper.

....

LATER EDIT: just watched the whole doc on the website. whopper people, if you're reading this I hope you know the agency is pulling your leg. Never in a million years would Romanians on a normal day wear those outfits. not so clean and starched at least. So, while it may be an interesting piece of advertising, it's a shoddy piece of research :-) which kindof defeats the whole purpose, doesn't it?

Me public speaking

I got recorded at NetCamp and posted here. My first conclusion, EVERYONE is right: I do stand with a scary hunchback. Thanks, Zoso.

My 'public' week

Come by NetCamp and say hello. I am doing a talk with Alex Visa and Adrian Stanescu (Hyperactive and Eyeblaster respectively) sometime in the afternoon.
Since it should be all about efficiency online and Visa and Stanescu are gods of SEM and measuring, I thought I'd rock the boat and speak about the "emotional Internet"
Should be fun :)

Bucharest downtown on Second Life

For about a day, people cared about someone opening a virtual 'Bucharest downtown' in Second Life.
Not much involvement from people mentioning it - even Zoso casually copied and pasted press release I think (BTW to person wondering how pro bono could cost 30k, it means they only had to pay for the land in SL, and did the building pro bono).
Anyway, y'all know I was a bit of a SL fan a while back and, by virtue of that, I have been pondering this Bucharest in SL thingie. Truth be told my first gutt instinct was "what a rubbish, stupid ass idea". But then, I decided to act grown-up and ponder.
So far no conclusion, just some things:
1. Is this a PR stunt? Because it would make sense insofar as they simply wanted to get some exposure. BUT then, it's a bit late since SL is fading fast in Europe mainly because of its sheer lack of "detail+interaction" value which kindof supports no. 2...
2. Is this a branding initiative? In which case, they do not know what branding is and how it's done plus it's rubbish because SL does not allow you to beautify a lot but rather to schematize.
3. Were they trying to present this as a traveller's resource? If so, why SL again. What's wrong with photographs or movies? And if someone decided to visit Bucharest would they do it based on pixellated images of downtown Bucharest? which brings me to
4. Why now? SL has been old news for a while. Most relevant thingies happened about a year ago and since then a lot of people have withdrawn from it.
5. Is this meant to be a gathering place for Romanians in SL? Well, maybe i'm just getting the wrong vibes but not a lot of Romanians are enthralled with SL. Oh, Romanians from other countries, then. But why? It's so much easier to joint a forum and, beleive you me, forums tend not to freeze on you as fast as SL does.

Don't get me wrong, all in all, I think it's a decent idea, only a bit too late, a bit wrongly targeted, a bit with the wrong objectives (the release said something about events...okay, give me more details on that)

My two cents: don't make downtown Bucharest a visiting place (SL will NEVER beat a decent photograph, unless you are really interested in the angles at which streets bend University Circle) make it a place where stuff happens: like Romanian-driven lectures, concerts with Romanian bands, exhibitions, meetings with Romanian VIPs, virtual events, releases, and press stuff. This would maintain traffic and work as a "branding" tool.

Someone please help me reach a conclusion on this one. what do you think?

Things I like

You all know I like chairs and beagles. I also like watches... and this place is an awesome resource for some of the hottest designs and vintage stuff I have ever seen

watchismo.com + me = love :-) so if you plan to order something drop me a line so we can bundle the order :-)

LOL Axl Rose causes disruption in Dr. Pepper sales

Remember the wild rumor that Dr. Pepper was going to give out free cans to ALL Americans if Axl released Chinese Democracy? Well, he did and they did. Only you had to go online for a coupon. Here. Smart heh?
And if you cannot think of five reasons this is smart, then you don't understand marketing.
LATER: courtesy of Victor, this article surfaced. Axl is suing Dr. Pepper for only holding the promo for one day LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

More IDs to be put to death

A while back I was complaining about the financial crisis killing off some really cool identities. Now, rumor has it that GM is planning to kill these three also...
no more cool Hummer design, gone the stately SAAB logo and bye bye to the lovely sounding Pontiac

from here