Long time silence for a reason

von | Aug 22, 2005 | Blog

If you wonder, why this has been so silent in the last couple of days – I am currently working on improvements to this site. One of which will be moving this on to WordPress and on to a dedicated URL. I have already migrated my other blog (German), to test everything. And now that I know (how) it works, I will soon migrate this blog, too.

This site was originally just a test to see whether or not I like and will pursue blogging. And it soon proved to be something I enjoy to do on a continuous basis (even though my posts are sometimes a bit unregular).

So I will now put this blog onto a platform, where I have the full scope of influence on everything, including all the back-end files and the directories of pages, etc.
Also, with wordpress being open source software, I look forward to find an abundance of plugins and updates, much more frequently than it will (probably) happen here.

(I am not unsatisfied with blogger.com – but it’s still a third party controlled software… and the interface on wordpress is better an leaves me many more options.)

Too much „viral“ stuff out there?

von | Aug 11, 2005 | Blog, Digital News

Test of character is something done by Renault. A video (yes, only one, but I assume there are more to follow), trying to be funny I guess. With a send to friend button.

Ugly Duck is a site with three clips that aren’t bad. But not send-on function.

Mitchell Brothers is an advergame that is aparently meant to go viral, Chemical Brothers, too. Funnily enough this seems to be a trend for releasing new albums or tours.

I am starting to wonder about the term viral. It’s being used inflationary these days, don’t you think? These 4 examples, plus my last two posts are all meant to be viral. But what makes an ad concept viral? Just by posting movies on the web, like the ugly duck? Or games like the two bands? Just putting something interesting on the web? There is lot’s of interesting ad stuff on the web, clips, audio, games and no one calls it viral.

I don’t think you can initially create something viral, nor should you try to sell to your client a „viral marketing campaign“. Whether or not something becomes (!) viral, you can never know. You can only try to enforce it, by, for example, adding send-to functionalities. Or seeding it in blogs. (But this is dangerous.)

I don’t have a solution. I just recommend not to call it „viral“, until it has somehow proven to be so.

(all examples via)

And again. Something viral. Or wanting to be…

von | Aug 11, 2005 | Blog, Digital News

There is a microsite for the new AIM Mail. They’re promoting the new mail service with fictional characters that are blogging. And movie clips of/about two of the characters you can find here and there. They obviously want it to go viral.
Just one thing I don’t understand. Clips are still fine these days. If they’re at least a little entertaining, you can be sure that they get send around. And blogs are trendy, yes they’re great and of course, they’re, well, sort of viral.
But what the hell has this got to do with AIM Mail? It says nothing in the clips or blogs about mail. It would be a much better campaign had it been about AIM Journals – which is how they did the blogs. And they don’t even reference mail anywhere. it just sits there, inbetween nice clips and, well, ok-blogs. Or maybe I just don’t get it.

Aparently, they haven’t registered the domains for the other „bloggers“ as Adland writes. How stupid can you be? But then again. The clips are not that great, so I won’t miss the sequels.

Just for whom is the Rover advergame really?

von | Aug 6, 2005 | Blog

There are posts here and here about a new advergame of Rover. You have to race against the clock, driving past famous landmarks and buildings, at the same time you need to take pictures of these. Nice, but I agree with Ernie Schenk who asks why they have done this, when the target group of Rover is really 47 years on average, high income, etc.
Possibility though: the game is in fact for Muffy and Dallas and Remy (as Ernie calls the imaginary kids of the Rover target group). So they can tell their dad to buy a rover…

Even though I love digital marketing tactics, I admit that I don’t think it is always suitable for all target groups. Some will in future allways be better reached talked to through the digitial media, but some will not, for a long time. This limitation of digital marketing will stay with us for quite some time.