Bring the love back

It’s incredible! Since I started this blog I keep finding great quotes that summarize the message of this project. Another gem I found on Advertising Age:

“Jim Stengel, told the 4A’s Media Conference this month, “What we really need is a mind-set shift, a mind-set shift that will make us relevant to today’s consumers, a mind-set shift from ‘telling and selling’ to building relationships.” And he did not specify media advertising as a way to do so. In fact, his examples — from word-of-mouth to social networking — mainly had nothing to do with advertising. And why should they have?”

This article is fantastic. Not only observing what’s happening but also giving directions. I especially like this one:

“The huge thing for our industry is that, actually, what we have been great at for the last 50 years, and what we will be great at for the next 50 years, is developing and delivering entertaining, engaging, short-format content. And in a world where your screens get smaller and attention spans get kind of shorter and shorter … is where we need to focus. The fundamental thing that our industry is focused on is delivering brilliant ideas, and if we do, people will engage with them.”

The article closes bizarely relevant!

Advertisinge Age: “Do you buy the Chaos Scenario?”

Bill Gates: “No. … You’ll see a little bit more turmoil, in terms of who succeeds and who doesn’t, but it’s not some overnight cataclysm.”

Ad Age: “Is it fair to assume that the advertising people are exposed to, that they actually permit into their lives, will be more informational and less, let’s just say, entertaining and creative and whimsical than advertising we’ve seen in the past?”

Mr. Gates: “I wouldn’t say that.”

On the other hand, of the $500 million Microsoft allocated to the introduction of its Vista operating system, 30% went online. If every national advertiser did the same tomorrow, Madison Avenue and Hollywood wouldn’t be chaotic. They would be Pluto, relegated to some barren, subordinate outer orbit of the economy. And a lot of people would be singing a different tune.

And now we meet in an abandoned studio
We hear the playback and it seems so long ago
And you remember the jingles used to go
Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star
In my mind and in my car
We can’t rewind; we’ve gone
too far
– The Buggles, 1979

One word: Wauw!

Another great quote on Online Media Daily which comes down to the essence of this project: “The big part of what agencies do is to empower consumers to make a purchase decision, foster relationships, enable transactions and deliver information,” added Sean Gold, senior vice president marketing, MySpace. “Traditionally, they’ve been great at delivering information, but the fostering relationships/enabling transactions needs to improve.”

Excellent posting on Crossthebreeze that really captures the spirit of what we want to tell in the movie we are making here. Just an example:

“For me the whole power around new media is that it allows brands to spend more time with their consumers than ever before, in a much easier fashion. It allows consumers to be a lot more vocal which makes it easier to listen and to learn - if you care (which you should obviously). Every day more companies start using new media and this way experiencing a totally new consumer engagement.”

I would encourage you to read the whole post!

I’m waiting to get the final planning and details so that I can get buy-in from my colleagues in EMEA. I hope this goes well. You know how difficult it is to get a concept or an idea approved by many people. The risk of dilution is huge. Anyway, after the first meeting, with the EMEA Trade Lead and Trade marketeers from the Netherlands and France, I was convinced that we were on the right track and we have even added some excellent ideas. Now I have to get buy in from the other Trade marketeers. One of the powerful arguments I’ve got is the director of the movie, Ben Zlotucha. With his movie:” A little light” he won 2 awards. I found a nice interview with him here.

Why have I used ‘My last days as a Marketing Manager’ at Microsoft as the title for this blog? Is this project soo risky? I don’t think so, but we are going to try and show how we see the existing relationship between an advertiser and a consumer. In doing so, we will probably not put the advertiser in a good spotlight ad that’s where the risk is. If we advertisers would react that we hae painted a very negative picture of them, then I think we failed.  

It’s also a catchy title, isn’t it?

I just heard from our agency (www.openhere.be) that the casting director we are going to work with is the one who did the casting for the series of Lost. Waauw

We want to try and tell that digital media is not about technology but about quality of communication, about the interaction between 2 people. There is no better medium than a movie to symbolize the one-to-one communication between people, in this case between an advertiser and a consumer.

Tomorrow we’ll have the first meeting with all parties involved to make a short movie for Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions. As from that day I’ll try to give you a peek behind the scenes. After this meeting we’ll go over locations, casting, shooting and then finally the movie itself.