Journalists In China…
It’s great reading Dan’s blogs from China. I recently spent a couple of weeks there with customers, media, and analysts. The comments here are really worth a read – especially those from his students.
Couple of observations from my last trip.
1. plenty of women tech journalists – much more than I encounter in the US. And, much like here, no discernible difference in aggressiveness or style. They all want a story and they want it before their competitors.
2. all the journalists are savvy to the big issues and don’t shy from the tough questions.
3. they have a keen sense of history – much more so than in the US. It feels like they are doing much deeper research – and they constantly refer back to notes from the last interview…
4. they’re quick to give competitors a call prior to any interview… a couple were armed with the same set of questions from the same competitor.
Like Dan I found the broadband in China a tad slow – but free, as it is in most places, is great. Moreover, wireless coverage is fantastic and high-quality. Much better than in Silicon Valley. Was also cool to step off the plane and have email flooding into my Blackberry. So, we’re one-all in this respect.
Juvenile…
Now sometimes we’re accused of being a tad juvenile over here in Sun PR (it wasn’t me that tried to stick the “HP UX, Rest In Peace” tombstone in front of HP HQ this Halloween!)…
I’m glad to see others engage in similarly witty behavior – seems O&M let their domain ogilvymather.co.uk expire last week. Viral agency Asa Bailey nabbed it and then posted this little gem in place of the usual, incredibly stimulating and illuminating, corporate Ogilvy 360 degree brand management stuff. Pepper has the full story.
As Tim pointed out to me, not the first time this has happened. One monday…
A quick aside, it was O&M that apparently created these ads for Ka – they deny doing so. The cat ad is just plain mean while the pigeon is an all time classic… scroll to the bottom of the page for links…
Ford’s European operation and Ogilvy & Mather, its advertising agency, began an investigation into how a proposed ad — which both insisted had been rejected — had begun circulating on the Internet.
The car maker said the advert was conceived as part of a “viral” campaign, where short videos are released on to the Internet and redistributed by e-mail, as people find them funny. But it insisted it was not meant to be developed. As an alternative, a clip showing a comedy pigeon being thwacked by the bonnet, had been chosen.
“It was done as a proposal somewhere deep down in the bowels of the agency,” Ford said. “As soon as we saw it we said absolutely not. We are appalled — this is not something we want to be associated with.”
Not the first time this happened either. Nokia headed down an equally sick but amusing track with this little number. What do European ad agencies have against cats?
My point here is that a) no agency or comms team is infallible (and that we’re mostly sick); b) too much great work gets lost in the bowels of an agency and c) marketing can be fun afterall…
Better go renew those domain names folks. Have a great weekend!
(btw… while you’re wasting time, take a look at the latest episode of Inside Jack...)
Tiring….
All this nonsense it getting to be too much. Advertising is dead. Branding Is Dead. Everything is dead… Oh my goodness… Give me a break. Seems all you need to score a page in a prominent magazine is to declare something dead. The blogs are entertaining though…
Proclamations such as these cloud what is really happening. We’re going through one of the most challenging, energizing periods of change marketing has ever seen. eMarketing is redefining the cost structure. Citizen journalists, blogs and the web are altering the information landscape. Buyers are becoming active recommenders and reviewers. New brands are being created at a faster and faster pace, and being made to a broader and broader audience. And the Long Tail is changing the way we think about our inventory, distribution and product mix.
Nothing is dying. It’s all changing. It’s all alive and well. It will all be very different. Sleep easy.
I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t read a blog…
Foot in mouth, another media outlet mouths off about how blogs aren’t important… And TV is? Who watched CBS this week? Tell me, honestly… About 11% of the country watches broadcast TV right?
What’s really interesting is that I wouldn’t have known that blogs wern’t important but TV was if I hadn’t read a blog. Sigh!
The Future Of Media…
Corante kicks off an interesting series on the future of digital media this week…
The Future of Digital Media is a two-month series, sponsored by Orb, that explores how the empowerment of the consumer over his or her media experience, coupled with technological innovation that’s broadly democratizing media creation, is leading to a revolution in the way people access, consume, share and remake content.
