Community Focusing on the people behind the headlines

About this blog

M&M’s Blog goes behind the headlines to offer a running commentary on the business dynamics within the international media and marketing industry. The M&M editorial team joins forces with industry experts and local market heroes to balance a bird’s eye view of global trends with the importance of local insight.

• Why do people follow brands?

  30 June 2011

  Well apparently most consumers who follow brands online are only in it for the perks! Social CRM specialists Get Satisfaction conducted a survey which revealed that around 40% of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter users follow brands to get access to discounts and special deals.

  Check out this nifty infographic - it explains a little more...

  

  Comments (0) | Permalink

  Posted by: Jenni Baker

• Diana at 50: What if?

  29 June 2011

  With what would have been Princess Diana’s 50th birthday coming up at the end of this week, Newsweek has taken the controversial step of imagining what her life would have been like if she were still alive today.

  The July cover issue features a startling computer-generated image of what would have been a 50 year-old Diana, walking alongside [her daughter-in-law] Kate Middleton. British journalist and Newsweek’s editor-in-chief, Tina Brown, is the brains behind the article which has been widely criticised as ‘just plain bad taste’. Agreed!

  

  So how would the Princess’ life have panned out, had she not died in the fatal car crash of 1997? Well according to Brown, she would be “still great-looking: that’s a given” – but a regular client at the botox clinic. Diana would be living in the Big Apple – having dumped Dodi Fayed, her boyfriend who also died in the crash – and have been through numerous nuptials. And she would have made peace with Prince Charles and her arch-nemesis Camilla Parker-Bowles, so much so that they became Facebook friends.

  The article goes to the trouble of showing a mock-up of what would be the deceased Princess’ Facebook page (well of course she would be a regular Facebooker!) Apparently she would have 107,625 friends including a host of celebrities such as U2 singer Bono, Chelsea Clinton, footballer David Beckham, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and tennis champ Rafael Nadal, topped off with wall posts from Sarah Ferguson and regular ‘pokes’ from French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Oh and she has 10 million Twitter followers too...

  The tactless article has a lot of people talking and has easily raised Newsweek’s fledging profile. I know they say that there is no such thing as bad publicity but what value does this story attribute to the Newsweek brand? Is it seen as the place to tackle the big global, economic issues of the day or the place where you fantasise about dead icons as a cheap way to get some attention?

  I wonder what will feature on Newsweek’s cover next week, perhaps the newly named International Monetary Fund chief or Greece’s bailout. Actually, it will probably be a story about Marilyn Monroe, JFK and Heath Ledger all walking into a bar...

  Comments (1) | Permalink

  Posted by: Jenni Baker

  Tags: Twitter, Reputation, Facebook

• Don’t tell me ... show me

  29 June 2011

  Believe it or not there is more to the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity than late night beach parties, yachts and having drinks on the Carlton Terrace.

  There are meetings. There are plenty of meetings, and everyone showing you the latest thing they have created and why it is better than the competition on the creative, media agency and media owner side.

  By far my winner for the “look at what we have got” category was Google. It was not that they had anything new to show – in fact I had seen it all before but it was the way in which it was delivered that made it stand out from the crowd.

  While it could have been tempting to trot out some execs to tell us how good Google is instead they decided to show us and they succeeded with the Google Creative Sandbox.

  Google partnered with brand experience agency Flourish Creative to create an area at the Festival where not only could you take part in some early morning yoga or have a complimentary smoothie but you could play and engage with Google’s products and offerings.

  Instead of telling us how great Google Voice Search is we were encouraged to play Chubby Bunny, the game where you have to cram as many giant marshmallows in your mouth as possible and see if Google Voice Search can still understand what you are saying. My partner in crime @creamglobal Mark St. Andrew got a record number of five in his mouth before he was incomprehensible!

  

  If you wanted to know where all the cool kids in Cannes were the info was a QR code away, thanks to Google’s heat map which told you which places and parties were the hottest.  

  And the back to search, the photo (below) of me inserted into an iconic Benetton ad was still recognisable on Google Search as being a Benetton ad despite my beautiful face being in the middle.

  

  Let’s not forget about Google’s latest offering, +1 – entry into the Sandbox was granted after you placed your +1 on a giant map, when I first visited the lounge I was proudly the only person with a +1 in Beijing.

  It can be hard to achieve standout in Cannes in amongst the mass of delegates and vendors touting for business but in my opinion Google stood out from the pack by following my favourite acronym: KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)!

  Comments (0) | Permalink

  Posted by: Martina Lacey

  Tags: Google

• NFC: "Payment is just the tip of the iceberg"

  28 June 2011

  By Carsten Kraus

  The powerful combination of mobiles and geo location technology is the latest thing to be getting marketers hot under the collar, as they focus on delivering location-based activity to boost sales. But to my mind there is a bigger story here.

  Currently we are heavily focused on Near Field Communication (NFC) technology as the key to delivering the dream of the cashless society. While this looks increasingly likely to happen sooner rather than later, payment is just the tip of the iceberg for how NFC is likely to impact on our lives.

  By allowing people to interact directly with products or shops we will transform the way we do business. Imagine being in a bar and being able to simply press your phone against your glass to order another drink or pay your bill, and then even having relevant, third-party offers based on your personal preferences delivered directly to you.

  You may think this doesn’t sound much different to what is available already, however there are two crucial ways that NFC will differ from existing location-based technologies. Firstly, by interacting with an NFC point you are giving a much more accurate indication of where you are – geo-location apps can be inaccurate to 30 metres. Secondly, by holding your phone against something you are willingly interacting in the stages of the purchasing process, effectively saying: “I want this information”.

  From a marketer’s perspective this means that targeting can be much more effective. Instead of delivering unsolicited random messages to people when they are in the vague vicinity of something, marketers can hit the consumer when they are actively in shopper mode and they know exactly were they are. This removes the spam element prevalent in other location-based marketing activities.

  Crucially, this also allows the physical stores to share some of the advantages of their online counterparts. Maybe 10 or 15 years ago, if you went into a store regularly the owners would get to know you and more often than not, be able to recommend items that you would like based on your previous purchases. Today that is not the case in 99% of stores. Yet online, this information is readily available. Go to Amazon and you will get a raft of recommendations based on your previous purchases. By sharing your profile and history with retailers through NFC, physical stores would be able to replicate this and recommend items to their customers in much the same way.

  Yes, cashless payment is likely to be the driving force behind NFC, but the reality is that it can – and will – be so much more.

  Carsten Kraus is CEO and founder of Omikron Data Quality and FACT-Finder.com

  This post was spotted on Right Brain, Left Brain on Cream.

  Comments (0) | Permalink

  Posted by: Juliet P. d'Arguesse

• Cannes: Special Award Winners

  27 June 2011

  So that’s it – Cannes International Festival of Creativity is over for another year. If you missed anything, fear not: M&M has set up a dedicated page on our website with everything you need to know from the festival – from the shortlists to the winners, seminar clips and the best of the tweets.

  But before we draw the curtain on this year’s festival, let us reveal this year’s Special Award winners...

  Direct Agency of the Year

  1. Ogilvy Argentina, Buenos Aires, 2. Åkestam Holst, Stockholm, 3. Ogilvy Brasil, São Paolo

  Media Agency of the Year

  1. Jung von Matt, Hamburg, 2. Cheil Worldwide, Seoul, 3. Ogilvy Argentina, Buenos Aires 

  Independent Agency of the Year

  1. WIEDEN+KENNEDY, Portland, 2. DROGA5, New York, 3. JUNG von MATT, Hamburg

  Agency of the Year

  1. AlmapBBDO Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2. Wieden+Kennedy Portland, USA, 3. BBDO New York, USA 

  Network of the Year

  1. BBDO, 2. OGILVY & MATHER, 3. DDB 

  Holding Company of the Year

  1. WPP, 2. Omnicom, 3. Publicis Groupe

  

  Advertiser of the Year

  IKEA

  Media Person of the Year

  Eric Schmidt, executive chairman, Google

  

  Lion of St Mark

  Sir John Hegarty, worldwide creative director and founder, Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH)

  

  Comments (0) | Permalink

  Posted by: Jenni Baker

• Cannes: Friday round-up

  24 June 2011

  How embarrassing - Ad agency flies spelling error across Cannes skyline

  

  @the_mediablog: PR firm creates a banner to tow behind a plane above Cannes-spells key word wrong: http://twitpic.com/5g1ofs #canneslions

  @tim Unilever CEO on consumer power. “If they can bring Egypt government down in six weeks they can bring us down in nanoseconds.” #canneslions

  @BBHLabs Strong use of "dishabituation" in #Hegarty's #canneslions speech - difference wakes us up.

  @zachrodgers Patti Smith: "the internet is based on advertising, and you can feel almost like you're being devoured." #canneslions

  @badbanana Patti Smith to the ad industry (cont.): "Give us less and find a way to speak with us with less volume." #CannesLions

  @tim James Murdoch: tablets not a way to “carry the web around” but “for the newspaper business it’s an incredible new paper stock.” #CannesLions

  @thebrandbuilder By the way, fear isn't the enemy of creativity. Creativity and fear coexist just fine. Fear is the enemy of execution. #CannesLions

  @JasonXenopoulos Sir Martin Sorrell - "Agencies can only produce seamless solutions if the client is organized in a seamless way" #CannesLions

  @babs26 "Increasingly we have to shift our focus from NY to New Delhi" - Unilever CEO Paul Polman on stage at #canneslions

  @alexjcampbell Unilever CEO: "In the digital age, agencies must organise around the needs of consumers rather than the needs of clients" #canneslions

  @Cannes_Lions Yesterday's Saatchi Showcase is online in full www.canneslions.com/saatchinewdirectors  #CannesLions

  Comments (0) | Permalink

  Posted by: Jenni Baker

• Would you share as much if Facebook were offline?

  24 June 2011

  Everytime Facebook comes up with my grandparents, they always reiterate how scary it is that people share such personal information online. Publishing personal information--such as relationship status, favourite movies and the like--on the social media platform has become the norm for most people these days, but are they really ok with it?

   

  This video is a hiliarious reminder that maybe oversharing is not all that cool:

  Comments (0) | Permalink

  Posted by: Juliet P. d'Arguesse

  Tags: Social Media

• CannesAlso Exhibition: The Big Book

  24 June 2011

  The people behind Cannes Lions have launched a brand new initiative at this year’s 58^th International Festival of Creativity called CannesAlso, which comes in the shape of a big book.

  

  The idea behind CannesAlso is to showcase the work of those people in the creative marketing industry who produce art in their spare time. The inaugural exhibition, which focuses on photography, has been displayed all week outside the Palais des Festivals.

  Aptly named ‘The Big Book’, it’s pretty self-explanatory – it’s a giant book! But one that features 1,200 photographs inside.

  

  Eleven images have been specially chosen by acclaimed photographer Rankin to be displayed prominently on the installation. The ‘top11’ photographs will also have a QR code, so delegates and visitors looking at the work can scan and download high-res versions of their favourite selections.

  The winning photographers are:
  Roberto Muñoz - Pindaro / Dominican Republic
  Fouad Abdel Malak - Impact BBDO / UAE
  Karl Gillebert - Karl Xéna / France
  Nayef Zacca - Strategies / Egypt      
  Reginald Van de Velde - These Days / Belgium
  Harald Benz - squarehead / Canada
  Ewa Zakrzewska - Starcom MediaVest Group / Poland
  Keith Melder - The Campaign Palace / Australia
  Ana Oliveira Rovati - Ana Oliveira Rovati / Brazil
  Jerald Packiasamy - Still Waters Films Private Limited / India
  Benjamin Kaufman - 7Films / South Africa

  The installation was designed and created by The Brand Union and Lambi Nairn and is supported by Clear Channel and Getty Images.

  You can check out a special making of ‘The Big Book’ video below...

  Comments (0) | Permalink

  Posted by: Jenni Baker

  Tags: Creativity, Photography

• Cannes: The Grand Prix winners so far...

  23 June 2011

  Design Lions

  THE COSMOPOLITAN DIGITAL EXPERIENCE

  Advertiser: The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas

  Agency: DIGITAL KITCHEN Chicago, USA 

  Cyber Lions

  THE WILDERNESS DOWNTOWN

  Advertiser: Google

  Agency: CHRIS MILK SANTA MONICA, USA

  RESPONSE CAMPAIGN

  Advertiser: P&G

  Agency: WIEDEN+KENNEDY Portland, USA

  PAY WITH A TWEET

  Advertiser: Innovative Thunder

  Agency: R/GA New York, USA

  Media Lions

  HOMEPLUS SUBWAY VIRTUAL STORE

  Advertiser: Tesco

  Agency: CHEIL WORLDWIDE Seoul, KOREA

  Radio Lions

  1. BUD

  2. LOVE

  3. TOBY

  Advertiser: Mercedes-Benz

  Agency: NET#WORK BBDO Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA

  Outdoor Lions

  DECODE JAY-Z WITH BING

  Advertiser: Bing/Jay-Z

  Agency: DROGA5 New York, USA

  PR Lions

  BREAK UP

  Advertiser: National Australia Bank

  Agency: CLEMENGER BBDO MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

  Direct Lions, Promo & Activiation Lions

  AMERICAN ROM

  Advertiser: Kandia Dulce

  Agency: BV MCCANN ERICKSON Bucharest, ROMANIA

  Comments (0) | Permalink

  Posted by: Jenni Baker

• Cannes: Thursday tweets

  23 June 2011

  Beer ads take Aussie work onto the Film Lions shortlist

  
  

  
  

  @mumbrella In the end it's beer ads that get Australia on award shortlists... Not that there's anything wrong with that #CannesLions. See more
  

  @BrandDNA "Great leaders know their job is to create the right conditions. Not command and control' -Sir Ken Robinson #CannesLions

  @MPG_Global: Behind the Scenes with Jury President Maria Luisa Francoli #canneslions #gomlf  Watch the video here

  @wgsn Doing something you love = energy. At the end of the week you might be physically tired but you'll be spiritually buoyant #canneslions

  @badbanana "Real innovation and creativity often happens within tight constraints." -Sir Ken Robinson #CannesLions

  @CreativeSocial Five for Five from Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Secret to their success is apparently delusional positivity #canneslions

  @dannydevriendt Will.I.am and Redford say same: if you're passionate, do not wait, do not think... Go for it! #canneslions #PNID

  @Cannes_Lions We chatted to @ariannahuff about the future of content, following her session at #CannesLions 2011. Watch below...

  Comments (0) | Permalink

  Posted by: Jenni Baker

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