Adgistics Digest #1(13): The world in January
So, what did we learn in January? Apparently, French society is the most harmonious in the world with a passion for voyeurism and exhibitionism whilst Americans can go miles protecting online liberties. YouTube now boasts 4 billion views a day; Twitter was promised 83% ad revenue growth this year and Polaroid has conspired to reverse technological evolution by developing a photo camera that can make phone calls. In the meantime, Adgistics acquired a new Chief Technical Officer and was referenced as an expert in the influential Gartner report on Enterprise Content Management. The paper predicts that the market share of cloud solutions, not unlike those offered by Adgistics, to almost double within the next four years; good news.
Story of the Month
Adgistics has a new Chief Technical Officer
As of late January, all the watches at Adgistics are perfectly in sync and the Hefeweizen in the fridge is chilled to the recommended 6°C. Wolfgang von Enckevort brings an extraordinary breadth of experience: the founder and director of numerous international companies, he spent the last 11 years at the top of the marketing software sector shuttling between international marketing hotspots. At Adgistics, Wolfgang will be taking a close look at research and development, making an already successful technology company über-successful. Taking advantage of his good mood and generally cheerful disposition, I spent over an hour quizzing Wolfgang on a number of topics, from the more general industry trends to the role of customer expectations in the R&D planning process. The interview will be posted later this month.
Marketing
Let there be light
London is not known for its marvellous weather. As a matter of fact, the combined miseries of high humidity, low temperatures and grey skies have contributed to the capital’s rather gloomy global image . That’s why the idea Greyworld had for Tropicana is nothing short of ingenious. An artificial sun, 200 square meters large, 60,000 light bulbs strong gave Londoners, and probably the even more excited visitors of the city, an additional 3 hours of daylight. I do not know what will make people swop a builders‘ cuppa for a glass of orange juice but if a 2.5 tonne installation so powerful that it can be seen from space doesn’t do the trick, the gifted people at Tropicana can at least console themselves with the fact that they gave it their best.
http://goo.gl/mmCyf
Is sarcasm the new creativity?
There is something dull about the latest advertising trend: brands promoting themselves by making fun of other brands. At least the Zubrowka ad is well done. Although aired in the middle of December, it took the Lynx Effect parody a good month to get noticed. Well, better late than never.
Samsung, on the other hand, is trying to capitalise on the unexpected success of its hilarious “Dude, you are a barista” ad we covered back in November. The latest addition to the series follows the same spirit, comparing various features of the powerful Galaxy handset to the allegedly technically inferior iPhone 4S. All three are as mildly funny as a single joke repeated four times usually is. In addition to that, the ads backfire on three levels: firstly, they position Samsung as a follower, fighting the brand that created the market. Secondly, the ads admit that Samsung have lost all hope of converting the current iPhone users. Thirdly, the ads do not attack Apple gadgets as much as they attack caricatures of Apple users. Bullying rarely inspires true love.
Technology
The future is here
Few people would expect Microsoft to come up with a great ad. Although it is the technology that really matters here, the commercial unveils the potential few would otherwise recognise. Who would have thought that a gadget created for better gaming experience can truly revolutionise so many aspects of our lives in one go? If Microsoft was looking for its iPod, it has certainly hit the jackpot with Kinect. I only hope that should a neurosurgeon ever use the device on someone I like, the operating system is not going to freeze.
http://goo.gl/JmpVY
Last chance for RIM
Back in August we wrote that in spite of the 47% rise in earnings in 2010, RIM was deep in trouble. As unfortunate as it is, we were right. Thorsten Heins, the new President and CEO who took control of the Blackberry maker at the end of January, has big plans for the company. Whether it involves licencing its software to competitors or the long-rumoured sale of the company, the plans better be good. According to the industry, the chances of Blackberry getting out of the void unharmed are diminishing by the day and the new marketing ideas like using cartoons to promote the gadgets, do not help. On a positive note, the German-born ex CTO of Siemens who spent the last five years rising through the ranks of RIM, Heins does look as conservative as they come. Unfortunately, according to the latest reports, Apple has already surpassed RIM in popularity among the corporate users and winning those back will be a truly Herculean task.
http://goo.gl/Um0J4
Googlean Stables
Google is brilliant in many respects. I was an early adopter of the search engine itself, Gmail and Chrome and I have to say, it is going to take something extraordinary to make me consider alternatives. However, the trouble with a company that has grown from Frodo to Sauron in just over a decade is that, very much like its fantasy alter-ego, it tried to conquer the whole Middle-earth in one go. Instead of mastering their core services (that are good but by no means perfect) Google launched and acquired a few dozen additional ones, most of which are feeble to say the least. It seems, someone at the top finally looked at the portfolio and said: “… Erm, folks? Do we really need a sky map when our blog hosting service is second rate and the new interfaces of both Google Analytics and Gmail have transitioned stoic to tragic?”
Zeitgeist
Between piracy and tyranny
Not unlike the Occupy movement, the events surrounding the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) crafted by the US House of Representatives and the US Senate’s Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) originated in the United States but quickly went viral. The global nature of the Internet and the dominating role America plays in it makes the argument as relevant in London as it may be in Washington, Buenos Aires or Canberra. On one hand, the proposed legislation would be a highly efficient weapon in support of the intellectual property owners; on the other hand, the number of ways the power could be abused should be obvious to even its most fervent supporters. In the words of Mikko Hypponen, the international cyber-security expert, “while we might trust our governments right now, right here, in 2011, any right we give away will be given away for good.” The events of January 2012 are really nothing more than a battle in a modern Hundred Years’ War, the next one is in Europe and there will be plenty more after that. The global 24-hour blackout of 18th January is a testimonial to the virtual society: under the pressure of social activists, the bill in its present form was shelved. The only apparent victim of the standoff seems to be president Obama, who may have lost the support of Hollywood for publicly opposing the bill. The New York Times offers a decent overview of the most efficient act of peaceful crowd politics thus far.
http://goo.gl/RBiPF
The US Department of Homeland Security monitors Twitter but doesn’t speak English
The story would be quite funny if it wasn’t deadly serious. Two British tourists were stopped at LAX, detained in a cell with some colourful characters for 12 hours and packed off back to their home-towns with a stamp in the passports saying they have been refused entry to the US; something that will without doubt make future trips to the New World both exciting and adventurous. So, what did the guys do and why do I bother writing about it? The answers are interconnected. I bother writing about the story because, sadly, the incident seems to be symptomatic of this day and age. The reason The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) went ballistic on a skinny 26 year old and his girlfriend was that the gentleman used the words ‘destroy America’ in a tweet to friends. Now, if the sentence were provocative, the issue would be less straightforward. The tweet, however read: ‘Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America?’ Not only did it become obvious that American special services monitor all Social Media, it also became apparent that their analysts do not speak the language. I do not know what is scarier, the fact that DHS could miss a real terrorist or shoot someone for ‘killing time in NY’.
http://goo.gl/BxLgM
Gravity
Gravity
Unless you are from a planet with a red sun, gravity is a fixed parameter that we all have to accept. What comes up must come down. There is nothing we can do about this.
At times we may try to bend gravity, for example getting an aeroplane in the air, but this comes at a cost. Even after this cost, there is the inevitability of gravity’s effect – what comes up must come down.
In which case, it would be fair to assume that there is no sense in fighting gravity. You learn to embrace it, and evolve accordingly.
Change
“Change” is a bit like gravity in the sense that it exists and will continue to do so in the future. In the web industry, it is a necessary constant that is accepted by web professionals.
It can take many forms, from software and code specifications to working methodologies and organisation structure. It allows the industry to grow and solutions to become more effective.
Here at Adgistics, we’re committed to embracing change. To this end, we regularly hold “lab” and “brown bag” sessions to keep abreast with industry changes so that we can be sure we’re always offering the best possible solution.
Our commitment
As an example of our commitment to change, a while back we decided to evaluate WebSockets which are a modern web standard, currently residing under the HTML5 umbrella. One of the results of this was an overhaul of our file upload mechanism which, at the time, was solely reliant on the proprietary Flash plugin.
We concluded that WebSockets were mature enough for our use and so set about creating a multi-tiered upload mechanism which utilised WebSockets in supporting browsers, with either Flash or HTML4 to support graceful degradation in older browsers.
This means we support the very latest technologies for users with the latest browsers, whilst still catering for those using older versions.
Gartner Positions Adgistics for Steady Growth
According to the Gartner’s new Emerging Technology Analysis report on Enterprise Content Management (ECM) technologies published last week, the popularity of the cloud-based solutions will continue to grow in comparison to the on-premises ones. With over a decade of experience in delivering highly popular configured solutions, Adgistics is referenced as a Cloud Services Digital Asset Management expert.
Responsible for 6% of the $4.3 billion global ECM market in 2011, cloud-based solutions are expected to almost double their share bringing it to 11% by 2015 with the predicted annual revenue growth of over 30%: way ahead of the 11.3% for the ECM software market in general. Fast and easy content sharing is mentioned as one of the factors responsible for high adoption of the off-premises solutions that have seen significant uptake since 2009.
The report also provides an expansive overview of the advantages of SaaS and cloud-based offerings, touching upon computer elasticity, disaster recovery, stronger security and higher availability to name a few. Finally, as our lives become ever more mobile, the accessibility of the off-premises systems plays an important part in their success. Marketeers, photographers and account handlers all around the world use Adgistics’ Brand Centres to manage brands in and out of the office. Adgistics is proud to support some of world’s most popular ones, including adidas, Cirque du Soleil, Ford and Vodafone.
Please contact Gartner for the full report (subscription required).
Mobile and Tablet Web Development – One Site Fits All
When the “World Wide Web” was introduced in 1990, it was only accessible via personal computers. Today, the web can be accessed thought a range of devices – laptops, tablets, mobile phones and even smart fridges and windows as demonstrated at CES 2012 in Las Vegas. Contemporary websites come in different shapes and sizes and provide a vast amount of information on practically anything one can think of.
With Internet surfing becoming a natural part of life and considering the ever growing number of browsers, web developers and designers have had to tackle a number of issues, for instance getting sites to render perfectly in different browsers, and supporting mobile browsing. Mobile Internet consumption has increased dramatically, with half of the current UK Internet users accessing the web via mobile devices. Following the trend, web designers and developers have adopted a ‘Responsive Web Design’ approach with the use of CSS3. In short, it makes websites automatically adapt to the elements of the users’ viewing environment: be it screen size, Operating System or device orientation in space.
Let’s take a look at the Earth Hour website as an example. If opened on a laptop, the users will see the full website. Accessed through a smartphone or tablet, however, the site gets resized while keeping all the relevant information in place. You may also notice that while the main navigation has reduced to a drop-down to save space, it still complements the site perfectly.
A quick note: if using media queries, the website may not fit all mobile devices unless developed with a fluid layout (which should become a standard when creating responsive websites), since they differ in screen sizes and platforms. Although not yet finalised by W3C, the international consortium on web standards, CSS3 has been used by developers on live projects as the technique supported by “modern” browsers (e.g. Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, and Safari – all with the use of prefixes).
An alternative to media queries are Touch Optimised / Web App frameworks such as jQuery Mobile and Sencha. These frameworks are built specifically for touchscreen devices and bring back some user interaction. The framework is cross-platform compatible, so there’s no concern about styling the website for individual devices. The only downsides – this would be a separate development from the standard HTML CSS site to which users would have to be redirected, and the result may not look as slick as the desktop version: the design capability of the framework is quite limited. It would, however, work flawlessly across a galaxy of touchscreen devices.
Overall, due to the popularity of mobile browsing, the need for responsive web design (mobile design) is a must for a customer-facing site: not only does it help market the company, it also shows the company is meeting the needs of its browsing customers.
Why the browser vendor -prefix- saved the web
The following post is written by and reflects personal opinion of Ben Fowler, UX Engineer at Adgistics.
In a world where new CSS specifications are constantly evolving, the existence of browser prefixes has never been more important. Despite the flexibility we now have, some developers are complaining of having to repeat themselves in their code to achieve the same effect in several browsers, and that there should be just one ‘development’ prefix for all browsers. So why wouldn’t this work? Surely we shouldn’t have duplicate code?
A brief history
Back in the late ‘90s, the varying browser implementation of certain CSS properties was such that a site could render perfectly in one browser, but completely fail in another; hence the classic “This site works best in….” plaques found on many landing pages back then. Out of this and several other problems, the ‘standards’ and ‘non-standards’ (quirks) DOCTYPE implementation was born, which arguably saved the use of CSS on the web.
The generic ‘development’ prefix
If browser vendors were forced to use the same development prefix for a property i.e. dev-border-radius, developers would be forced to accept each browser’s interpretation of the property.
But if one browser implementation is different from another browser and breaks a site layout, the only options available are either to sniff out (not nice) the offending browser(s) and hide the property or abandon the use of the property altogether in all browsers, until the browser(s) changes its implementation.
Of course there’s every chance it won’t ever change and developers decide to abandon the use of the property altogether thus securing its journey into obscurity, never to be seen again.
The browser specific prefix
Browser-specific prefixes allow browser vendors to develop and potentially fix bad implementations, with the ability to leave any flawed behaviour behind in the prefixed version of the property.
During a property’s specification development, it allows developers to serve the property only to browsers which implement the behaviour correctly, preserving graceful degradation in other browsers. Whilst this might seem like an unnecessary duplication of code, it ensures the best possible development of the property implementation in all browsers.
Conclusion
Generic prefixes stifle property specification development, they offer developers limited flexibility, and potentially create more work in cross browser support.
Browser-specific prefixes save developers time and effort, and ensure healthy development of new property specifications which have seen the dramatic rise of CSS3 and its cross-browser support. Now there are even solutions that automatically add the relevant browser prefixes, allowing developers to code prefix free, without duplication of code.
How we use version control at Adgistics
The following post is written by and reflects personal opinions of Stephen Binns, senior developer at Adgistics.
In my time as a developer I’ve had the arguable pleasure of using a number of version control systems, from SourceSafe to Subversion. Most of these tools generally got in the way of what I was trying to do and resolving problems with them was less than carefree. After switching to Mercurial here at Adgistics, I haven’t looked back.
First of all, branching with Mercurial is dramatically simpler, meaning you’re more likely to use branches and therefore can isolate your commits from the main development stream as well as being able to merge changes from it into your branch. This really works for our agile approach as each story / unit of work has a branch associated to it. By having these branches we can identify issues quicker since it is much easier for our code review process to look at an individual branch.
Merges are simpler as well; I used to get the fear inside me when faced with a svn merge. With Mercurial you merge so often and (mostly) smoothly, it makes you realize how much the other tools were getting in the way.
Cloning is much quicker. If I want to get started on a new project I don’t want to wait for a good 20 minutes to pull the changes on my machine; that’s just wasting my time.
Mercurial is distributed. If I’m on my laptop I want to be able to commit things as I go along, not wait till I have a network connection to the office. With Mercurial I can commit all changes to my local repository and push them up when I get in.
I embraced the command line much more. With svn I tended to use the, admittedly very good, TortoiseSvn rather than the command line version. With Mercurial, the commands are so simple it’s often quicker and easier to type them. I still use a GUI for some of the actions I need and thankfully TortoiseHg is more than enough for my needs.
A few more ‘fluffy’ reasons why I like Mercurial include the web interface for the repositories. It allows me to view a repository without checking it out. The Visual Studio 2010 plugin VisualHg works great. It informs me of what I’ve changed and keeps track of file moves and renames, which used to be an utter pain in svn.
Overall, Mercurial has been a fantastic addition to our development process and works great with our build system which is built upon Hudson and also our code review tool – ReviewBoard.
Adgistics Digest #12: What you should have read in December
Although December is traditionally a month of retrospectives and forecasts, I have decided, not least because of the advancing season, to resist the temptation of presenting either and make the last edition of last year as packed with fresh news as the previous eleven. December is a month we expect to be filled with positive, pleasant and non-earth-shattering news. Like the public launch of the BBC’s Your Paintings project. Admittedly, the month also saw the collapse of one of the most anticipated mergers in recent times but who pays attention to such trifles when Santa is abseiling down the chimney?
Story of the Month
New Horizon
I could write a few pages on Adgistics’ quantum leap of 2011 – huge clients wins, new verticals, new market segments, and so on and so forth. However, since we have agreed not to look back and instead concentrate on things to come, I am very pleased to pre-release the news that Adgisitcs will be establishing an Australian presence some time in the next few months. Australia is a young and growing market and from working with our first client from the “land abound in nature’s gifts”, Kubota, serviced in collaboration with the creative agency: redhanded, we came into touch with local businesses and were overwhelmed by their extraordinary interest in Adgistics’ technology as well as our business approach. We are extremely excited and look forward to enlarging our footprint with great anticipation.
Marketing
Silly little claims
Good marketeers are expected to be creative. At the end of the day, it is in the job description – we create stuff. Usually a piece of copy or an image, should the muses be gracious – a new product perception. On a very rare occasion the best of us get to think of something that consumers pick up and actively promote themselves. December celebrates two great teams: Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, who seem to have developed a working photoblocker for South American beer brand Cerveza Norte, and Air New Zealand, who showed us that great promotion is not about global media campaigns with exorbitant budgets.
https://byebyerico.com/
Sore losers
Sometimes it takes more than an average amount of restraint to stop us from jumping up, hands lifted in dismay, shouting something along the lines of “come on! Really..?!” The industry is full of examples of bitter rivalries – Pepsi vs. Coke, Mac vs. PC, not to mention the legendary BMW-Audi-Subaru-Bentley standoff; picking on the competition comes with the territory. Instead of embarrassing itself by publicly accusing MacDonald’s of “breaking the rules of comparative advertising by degrading the Burger King brand” the chaps from sunny Florida should have learned from the ad and fought bullying with a touch of creativity.
http://goo.gl/y4TeB
Come on! Really..?!
Remember the humiliating Facebook-Google scandal of May 2011? Burson-Marsteller, the crisis management PR experts hired by the Social Media giant were caught trying to pay journalists to criticise Google’s Social Circle. Well, guess what? Now the PR gurus have someone to discuss their woes with. Unbelievable as it seems, Bell Pottinger, the legendary spin masters whose list of patrons includes such gems as the government of Belarus, Augusto Pinochet and Ali Abdullah Saleh, were caught being very creative on Wikipedia. To do something so blunt is shockingly unprofessional on its own, but to be caught boasting about it? Hilarious.
http://goo.gl/6WtH6
Technology
Blue Chip Facebook
A possible IPO for Facebook, the company that has long become the symbol of the Social Media economy, has been discussed for ages. A year ago we rather sarcastically commented on the company’s $50 billion valuation. Twelve turbulent months later that number has doubled. In a way, investing in Social Media makes sense: with new wars looming in the Middle East, the European economy slipping in and out of comas, Japan in ruins and the United States losing its top-tier credit rating, people certainly will not be short of subjects to discuss. In that context and considering the company is allegedly responsible for a remarkable third of UK divorces, investing in suicidal post reporting tool will not be a waste either. In preparation for the IPO, Facebook will start incorporating sponsored stories into the main news feed of the site. Considering the woes IPOs brought tech firms in 2011, going public is a brave decision for a company whose valuation surpasses its current annual revenue 25 fold. On the other hand, who wouldn’t want to grow a blue chip company in 8 years?
http://goo.gl/vV0YF
Sick of Apple
I am often (deservedly) criticised for writing too much about Apple. Whereas I totally agree that there are plenty of other important players in the industry, and trying not to give in to the hype and not treat every newsbite tagged “Apple” as if it announced the discovery of life on Mars, the Californians do provide an unrivalled amount of stories. Just for a laugh, I have counted the main ones from December; you may decide whether they are newsworthy for yourself.
- December 1st: Apple: stopped supporting Carrier IQ with iOS 5.
- December 3rd: Apple licensed iOS scrolling patent to Nokia and IBM, offered license to Samsung.
- December 9th: Motorola Mobility wins German patent suit against Apple. How often does that happen?
- December 12th: Amazon.com announces Steve Jobs’ biography to be the best-selling book of 2011. It hit the shelves in October.
- December 13th: Federal Aviation Administration approves the use of iPads as electronic chart and digital flight manual readers in the cockpit.
- Another one for December 13th: Apple is rumoured to be discussing buying Anobit, an Israel-based flash memory manufacturers. For Californians it would be a rare acquisition of a non-software company.
- Yet another one for the day: a three-page contract that established Apple Computer Co. is sold for $1.59 million at Sotheby’s, soaring past the presale estimate of $100,000 to $150,000.
- December 14th: Steve Jobs becomes the hero of a graphic novella.
- December 16th: it is reported that the Samsung A5 processors used in iPads and iPhones are manufactured in Austin, Texas. Samsung builds microchips in the States. How often does that happen? Seriously…
- December 22nd: Apple is investigating fuel-cell-powered MacBooks.
- December 22nd: Apple posts a document detailing the international availability of iTunes Match and iTunes in the Cloud.
- December 23rd: It is announced that Steve Jobs will be awarded a Special Merit Grammy. Steve Jobs. A Grammy.
- Another one for the same day: the Vatican Library’s collection of writings and drawings by Michelangelo is available on iPad.
- December 29th: The US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that offers a possible glimpse at next generation device security: Face & Presence Detection.
Oh, there is one more thing… On December 28th it was reported that the next generation of Windows Phone is going to come with a cloud backup tool. Now, I could say that the description sounds a little like iCloud but hey, 14 stories are enough.
Zeitgeist
The Times are A-Changin’
Even in the (generally alien to most people) world of luxury goods, few brands attract as much spite as Vertu. Founded 14 years ago, the British-based division of Nokia became the unrivalled symbol of status toys. Its concierge service may indeed be very good but then there are professionals one can hire just for that. Vertu phones are hand-made and the simpler models indeed look very “solid”. For as long as the differences between the mobile handsets were determined by differences in manufacturing quality, Vertu had a reasonably solid stream of clients. Simply put, one could pay £400 for a piece of plastic or £4,000 for a piece of polished steel (£40,000 for white gold etc.). Provided money was not a factor, the purchase made sense. Unfortunately for Vertu, the unprecedented technologic progress of the last decade changed the conversation. Suddenly, the company found itself in a corner: the market for technically outdated handsets that cost tens of thousands of Pounds is small. It certainly still exists but it relies on people who are either very conservative when it comes to technology or status hungry nouveau riche. The more conservative clientele would not buy a touchscreen, those younger in spirit would prefer something cool, the upper middle class – something a touch cheaper, while the elitists (and it is safe to assume a considerable number of Vertu’s clients like the idea of belonging to a small private club) would abandon the brand altogether if it dropped the price. In good times Nokia could afford an eccentric aristocratic uncle who shuns the plebs. In days of global recession that see both Nokia and many of its customers bleeding cash, the kooky relative has become a nuisance. Ironically, financially, he is not a liability, but there are two aspects more important than money, both casting a shadow on the core Nokia brand that doesn’t seem to need any assistance sliding into the cold abyss as it is. The social aspect aside, it is the technology. Combining the concept of Vertu with cutting edge specs is impossible – these handsets are not bought for 18 months; keeping the status quo is embarrassing, the phones are archaic. The sale is unlikely to be the end of the brand though. It has fans in China, the Middle East and Russia, countries less finicky when it comes to social stratification. Very much like Maybach, Vertu cannot stay in the West, not in this day and age.
http://goo.gl/zHLKk
Festive Season Announcement
Dear colleagues,
It is hard to believe but the winter holidays are already upon us. Should you plan to visit us, please be aware that Adgistics’ offices will be closed between 25th December and 2nd January.
Naturally, this will not disrupt any of our services. In case of an emergency please get in touch with your respective account managers or email helpdesk@adgistics.com.
All of us at Adgistics wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year!
Yours,
Team Adgistics
How Adgistics could help Unilever cut carbon footprint
Unilever is having trouble calculating the carbon impact of digital media. Although the major carbon impacts of print are reasonably transparent- cutting trees, making paper, printing pages and shipping products around the globe, many agree that the digital path is also far from perfect. According to Greenpeace, by 2020 the world’s server farms will consume more electricity than France, Brazil, Canada and Germany combined.
So, how could Adgistics help Unilever make the world a greener place?
Our Brand Centres provide a single point of reference for tens of thousands of users worldwide. Adgistics’clients and partners do not need to keep copies of the marketing materials on their machines because they know they have access to the most up-to-date versions anytime anywhere. Should creative collaboration be required, there is no need to throw images or videos around – any number of users can work on a single version of the file in the cloud. By not storing redundant copies of an asset on personal machines, the use of outdated versions is prevented and server space is saved. Fewer server farms require less energy. Consuming less energy is a pretty efficient way of cutting your carbon footprint.
Mr Di Como, we are happy to elaborate.
Adgistics Digest #11: What you should have read in November
Turbulent times: while the media discuss various scenarios of
the allegedly looming economic apocalypse, Apple gets in trouble over poisoning a village in China and Daimler kills the legendary Maybach brand. Vigilant advertising watchdog ASA has noticed that Lynx ads are a touch too frivolous and may even be inappropriate for children. Lynx retaliated with a video apology, which will probably secure more customers than the original campaign would have. If you are still reading, chances are, you are into advertising; the fine people at Adweek have put together what they believe to be the top 10 commercials of 2011.
Story of the month
Adgistics comes to North America
For the last year and a half we have been exceptionally busy, running in- and out of meetings, scoping businesses, consulting partners and designing solutions. As a result of all the hard work, our client portfolio has doubled in the 14 months up to November 2011. In addition to a number of big wins in Europe, Adgistics’ Brand Centres have attracted a lot of interest in the New World. Our remote personal assistance centre may be legendary but nothing beats a face-to-face chat. With a new office opening its doors in Toronto, we are able to provide even better service to the world’s busiest market. With pride and fanfare, we announce the launch of Adgistics’ first operational company outside of the UK, Adgistics North America.
http://goo.gl/0RYqv
Marketing
Dude, you are a barista
The Samsung ad enjoyed impressive viral success before even hitting TV partly due to a good and honest script, partly because few people expected anything of quality from Samsung. While the witty ad will without any doubt recruit quite a few customers, it fails to comprehensively attack the iPhone. The main points of the video, that the new iPhone looks very much like the previous model and that it could have had a larger screen just support the opinion that many of those who criticise Apple just “don’t get it.” In the words of John Gruber, “Bigger is not necessarily better.”
http://goo.gl/TkuPV
Tesco “gets it”
Tesco, on the other hand, clearly understands technology. The virtual store project developed for Homeplus, their South Korean arm (ironically, co-owned by Samsung), won a Grand Prix in Cannes and is currently running a full-time trial in Seoul. The Cannes festival even added a new category, mobile Lions, to next year’s list, but that may just be a coincidence. At home, Tesco experimented with embedding augmented reality into the online shopping experience. A simple plugin allows customers to get a full 3D view of the item they are interested in. Although it is hard to evaluate the process without testing, the concept seems clever, practical and easy to use.
http://goo.gl/cEBw9
Naughty colors
United Colors of Benetton are professional provocateurs. Their ads have been challenging (offending) people of all social, racial and religious groups since 1980s. This time the unhate campaign has depicted world leaders passionately kissing their political nemeses for world peace. Admittedly one of the least appropriate images caused a predictable media storm, successfully (and affordably) promoting the campaign around the world. The White House and the Vatican took the ads very seriously and were not amused. Not as seriously as Fox News but considering the shots feature homosexual kisses, it could have been worse. It is yet unclear whether the ads will help the troubled company regain some of its former glory but as last chance shock therapies go, Benetton clearly knows the trade. For some reason, people seem to find kissing politicians more offensive and inappropriate than the ad making fun of Robert Mugabe and the late Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and Idi Amin.
http://goo.gl/Fzmo6
Technology
Waking up
When one looks at recent valuations of the popular Social Media platforms, it becomes evident that contrary to the famous saying, stepping into the same river twice is quite possible if one is in a good company. The market value of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Groupon and the more exotic Russian Yandex grew for some time, culminating in a number of successful IPOs earlier this year. LinkedIn shares went up over 109% on the first day of trading, those of Yandex and Groupon – 55% and 31% respectively. The sobering November saw Groupon shares lose 16% in a day and those of LinkedIn – 23% in a few weeks. The reason? Rising concerns that shares are traded at an unrealistic valuation. This shocking revelation doesn’t seem to have stopped Facebook, whose IPO, one of the largest in the history of the market, is expected in the very near future. Considering the conjuncture of the global economy, even supported by the rumours that the Social Media giant is due to release its own handset, the $100bn valuation looks a touch surreal. For those who do not follow the news on daily basis, The Street offers an overview of the top tech IPOs of 2011.
http://goo.gl/Uz3yp
Google challenges iTunes
Google got serious about cloud music. The new service, imaginatively dubbed Google Music, will provide infrastructure to access and purchase 13 million tracks and enough space to store 20 thousand of them. Following the deal-rich May, it was only a matter of time before Google would launch something big. The further development of the project followed a rather predictable route: if Facebook uses Spotify to stream music through its social network and Apple sells tracks online, what could Google do? The new music service combines both approaches inviting users to download tracks as well as share them through Google+. With the second direct challenge to Apple, first being the launch of Android phones in 2008, Google tries to take advantage of the breadth of its business empire. Considering Apple are pioneers in the market with an 8 year head start, PC user support and a solid fan club, the fight is easier started than won. On the other hand, Google Music may be the best alternative for those who, for whatever reason, don’t use iTunes. I guess, the success of the project depends on its usability that has so far, unfortunately, not been Google’s forte.
http://goo.gl/uhEje
Zeitgeist
The rebellious 99%
No matter what one thinks of the movement, Occupy Wall St is in many ways reflective of the mood and energy of 2011. Effective form of peaceful protest or pointless ramblings of hipsters who have too much time on their hands, what started as one of many similar left wing splashes, has grown into a wave that has lasted for months and covered hundreds of cities on both sides of the Atlantic. Today, it is almost hard to believe that a single man could have started something as rebellious, rude and spontaneous. New Yorker talks to Kalle Lasn and takes a peek behind the shabby curtains.
http://goo.gl/XzDP8
Holidays are coming
Christmas time is both magical and controversial, the height of compassionate idealism and mind-numbing hypocrisy. It is an emotional time, whether genuine or fake. The cards we send and receive, the presents we seek and expect, the parties we dream of or avoid, the family dinners, the TV specials – whichever way you look, Christmas is an emotional tornado.
Every time I hear the coke jingle I instantly remember the time I saw the ad for the very first time. I remember what my room looked like and what book I was holding; the snow behind the large rectangular window and the computer game I bought myself that day. Once the backdrop of the lazy holidays, Christmas commercials have grown to dictate the mood. Over 3,000,000 people have watched the John Lewis Christmas ad in just over two weeks. That’s as many as those who visit the Natural History Museum in a year. It has been reported that the clip has moved adult people to tears. It is an old song, but every Christmas seems to make us simpler. In 2011 we consumed more than expected and got sentimental over the corniest of clichés.
http://goo.gl/QuZL5
