A good example of the commercial use of vanity plates. Blue, an exclusive shoe shop in the Belgian coastal town of Knokke, is showing off with this Smart car with vanity plate BLU-001.

While the Belgian media is figuring out who is going to win this war, I think their asking the wrong questions. It’s not about who’s winning this war, it’s about who loses the least.

- Delhaize will lose customers because a lot of the consumers are loyal to the brands, especially when it’s about products you use every day to fulfill basic needs (hygiene, hunger, thirst, …) and we’re not talking about 1 brand but about +250 brands. People who have been eating Zwan sausages for many years want to keep eating Zwan sausages. For products like toothpaste, deodorant of laundry detergent you don’t switch easily when you’re satisfied. People who drink Lipton every day don’t feel like switching over to the Delhaize house brand. When it comes to products you use on a daily basis, you want to use a brand that you know, trust and that you’re satisfied of.

- Unilever will lose customers because some people are loyal to Delhaize, because of its good reputation of high quality and diversity. Or maybe they just shop at Delhaize because it’s closer than other stores. Delhaize offers other brands for all the products they’ve banned from the shelves and in the business of Fast Moving Consumer Goods people who aren’t loyal to the brands will take the chance to try another brand. Simply because it’s not a big risk, it’s not like your buying an expensive car that you hope to drive for 10 years. When you take the risk of switching brands and after you using it you notice that you don’t like it, you only lost a few coins and you can go back to the brand you were using before.

The last few years shopping at two different supermarkets every week has become common: people buy half a shopping cart at Delhaize or Carrefour and continue their spending at Colruyt, Lidl or Aldi supermarkets. I think this is going to become even more common if Delhaize continues to ban the +250 Unilever brands from their stores.

I’m quit curious on how this is going to evolve: which side is going to give in? Delhaize? Unilever? Neither?

I think it was a daring decision of Delhaize, whether it was a smart decision time will tell. One thing I’m sure of is that Unilever’s ads in the newspaper must have stung a bit. In these ads Unilever shows pictures of all their top products and brands and states that Delhaize shoppers can better switch over to other supermarkets if they want to keep buying their favorite brands.

Sol Sender from Mode explains the design process of the Obama campaign logo.

Magic-i’s floating bags:

With the Beer bags I had some serious doubts about the way they would look in real life. I was sure that the optical illusion looked better in the pictures than the real bags would look. With these floating bags I don’t have any doubts about the way it looks in the streets. As far as I’m concerned this is a great campain. The only point of critisism I can think of is that these bags might not be friendly for the hands when there is a lot of weight in them.

Agency: Grey, Kuala Lumpur.

Amazing cycling safety campaign for Transport for London.

His own Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano on the other hand seems to be a car he can’t control: this morning he crashed it in a tunnel near Manchester Airport. Amazingly Ronaldo stepped out of the wreckage without a scratch. The car didn’t survive the blow though. I guess Ronaldo knows what he will be working for the next 3 days.

Previous movies of Hustwit include Helvetica which is all about typeface and fonts.

Have a look at some other creations by the same artist at his Flickr photostream or this profile page.

Belgian fashion store Deleye’s new underwear campaign on the other hand doesn’t leave you with any questions:

Just like this one for example:

Although I like this example, I seriously doubt that the optical illusion is as good in real life as it is in these pictures. If the optical illusion is any good you can be sure of two things:

a) this bag will turn some heads when an old lady walking down the street is carrying it.

b) a lot of people are going to want one of these bags.

Agency: Noble Graphics Creative Studio, Bulgaria

I like this campaign for the Vancouver Police Museum. Especially because I recognize myself in it and recognition is always a guarantee for success: in music, in movies and also in advertising.

When I drive home from the movie theatre, after seeing a movie with lots of fast car chases, you can bet on it I’ll put my pedal to the metal: full throttle all the way home! That feeling is just what advertising agency Cossette West tries to put in these ads and in my opinion they surely succeed in it.

This second one from a series of 3 print ads is less powerful I think; It doesn’t look natural and it’s not spontaneous enough.

And here’s number 3. This one suffers a bit from the same disease:

source: adsoftheworld
web: http://www.vancouverpolicemuseum.ca

The viral that got the most views and the most buzz was this clip of Liverpool icon Steven Gerrard shooting at clay pigeons with his teammate Xabi Alonso at the Liverpool training pitch. Advertising agency 180\TBWA Amsterdam claims that they didn’t use any kind of computer manipulation for this clip. For some people that’s good enough to believe Gerrard actually hit the pigeon. But I’m not some people, I don’t believe it!

The camera phone effect should contribute to the credibility of the clip but for me it does exactly the opposite. The effect should make us believe that this video isn’t staged by Adidas (or it’s advertising agency), that Gerrard and Alonso are just kicking footballs at clay pigeons for a few hours and that a fan was filming this the entire time with his cellular phone. For me it would be more convincing if they dropped the amateur look. It would be more credible if Adidas just came clean and admitted that it’s partly staged: that they asked Gerrard to shoot at clay pigeons for a commercial, just hoping he would hit one after a few tries and that he actually did it eventually.

In France Adidas gave us some better stuff: they put French goalkeeper Steve Mandanda in the showroom of the Marseille Adidas store. Actually it wasn’t the real Mandanda, it was a holographic clone of the goalie. The ad agency also put a Making Of clip online, which is pretty smart because the holographic goalkeeper now leads a second life on the internet. As far as I’m concerned, this trick is way better than the 4 other virals combined.

By the way, did you know that Secretary’s Day was created by a marketeer? Harry F. Klemfuss of Young & Rubicam launched the idea in 1952. In the US the concept is now known as “Administrative Professionals’ Day“. This year it falls on 23 April. In Europa it’s still called “Secretary’s Day” and it’s celebrated on 17 April.

Campaign website: http://www.debestemanagementassistent.be
Agency: Proximity BBDO Belgium.

What makes this billboard at Leipziger Platz in Berlin so special is not so much its panoramic format nor the 50 kilowatts of lighting. No, it’s the giant size, 5,000 square meters, and what you see behind the poster. The building-under-construction supporting the billboard was covered with lots of synthetic turf.

Here’s how they did it:

Why the turf? Because the ad is not only about trains, but also about football. Filip Vojtech from Bliss explains:

“Primarily the synthetic turf was used to get more attention for the poster. Secondary to promote the European Football Championship and to connect this event with the German Railways.”

Source: Bliss Blog.
Client: German railways.
Agency: Bliss Out-of-Home Communication, AF-FIX, Ogilvy & Mather.

The ad shows a map of North America as it was in 1830, when the Southwestern United States was still part of Mexico. The ad was created by a Mexican subsidiary of TBWA. When news of the campaign reached the US, reactions varied from “they shot themselves in the foot” to “an ethnic supremacy/nation-erasing campaign“. This poll from the Los Angeles Times which drew more than 50,000 responses, shows how the isssue has stirred emotions:

At first, Absolut stood by its decision to go ahead with the campaign, stressing the fact that the ad stimulates the fantasy of the Mexican public. In a post on the corporate blog, VP of Corporate Communications Paula Eriksson wrote:

The In An Absolut World advertising campaign invites consumers to visualize a world that appeals to them — one they feel may be more idealized or one that may be a bit “fantastic.” As such, the campaign will elicit varying opinions and points of view. We have a variety of executions running in countries worldwide, and each is germane to that country and that population.

This particular ad, which ran in Mexico, was based upon historical perspectives and was created with a Mexican sensibility. In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues. Instead, it hearkens to a time which the population of Mexico may feel was more ideal.

As a global company, we recognize that people in different parts of the world may lend different perspectives or interpret our ads in a different way than was intended in that market. Obviously, this ad was run in Mexico, and not the US — that ad might have been very different.

But yesterday, apparently when noticing that the storm hadn’t stopped, Paula Eriksson offered her apologies and announced that the ad had been withdrawn:

During the weekend we have received several comments on the ad published in Mexico. We acknowledge the reactions and debate and want to apologize for the concerns this ad caused. We are truly sorry and understand that the ad has offended several persons. This was not our intention. The ad has been withdrawn as of Friday April 4th and will not be used in the future.

In no way was the ad meant to offend or disparage, or advocate an altering of borders, lend support to any anti-American sentiment, or to reflect immigration issues.

To ensure that we avoid future similar mistakes, we are adjusting our internal advertising approval process for ads that are developed in local markets.

This is a genuine and sincere apology.

What can we learn from all this? Even when most agencies are part of international groups, they know their local markets very well and they understand what makes the local target audiences tick. But this has drawbacks too. Today, information can’t be stopped at borders. A marketing message that fits one market can offend people in other markets, even when that message was not intended for them. This is a potential risk factor that should be taken into account. Act locally, but don’t forget to think globally.

I was at Barcamp Ghent with a lot of other Belgian bloggers when I read the news on Twitter of the crashing death of Coolz0r’s blog. We were shocked. In the week that followed, I offered Miel my help in trying to recover the database and restore his blog. But Miel is a busy man and his job at Microsoft takes a lot of time and mental energy. Finally, over the last weekend we had some phone calls, we exchanged logins and passwords and some essential files, and after some analysis and some tweaking and hacking I was able to bring the blog back online.

Miel, however, had already said goodbye and for him there was no turning back. He will focus his blogging efforts on one blog only: micromiel.com. I thought it was very important that the 1800+ articles that Miel has written in the last three years on “Marketing Thoughts” remain available online. A lot of these articles have no expiration date, they remain interesting and valuable even when the campaigns they describe are long gone. Keeping these articles available is not only a tribute to Miel’s talent but also a service to the marketing community.

So, we agreed that I would host the blog under a new name, “Cool Marketing Thoughts“, which is only a small difference from “Coolz0r – Marketing Thoughts”, that I would clearly identify Miel as the author of all the articles that he has written, and that I can keep the blog alive by adding new content.

From now on, this blog will be a group blog. I am looking for contributors willing to write articles from time to time in the spirit, scope and focus of Coolz0r. If you’re interested, write to luc.van.braekel@gmail.com with a short bio and some pointers to previous work.

The ads are displayed this week on blogs like BVLG, Bnox, Past is Prologue and others. You can read more about this campaign on the Adhese blog.

Work is getting pretty busy too, with the TechDays coming up this week where I need to present 3 days in a row for 6 hours a day. Took me a little preparation time as well to get it all worked out.

Sorry for any delays. I’ve got a few posts nearly done, like the book reviews and a few cool marketing stunts, but I lack the time to style them in a way I feel comfortable with.

I’ll get to it as soon as I can. :)

Take care everyone and have a splendid day!

Video: FIFA3 Street

Click the image to go to the site:

It must be the child within me that admires these supernatural skills and probably the long forgotten dream to run around with 21 other morons on a football field, chasing a round leather rabbit, but somewhere… I’ve always wanted to be a super pro footballer. Just like almost every sane man, I think. The thing is, I dug up my soccer ball again and actually started to try out the moves to make me feel better. And it helps.

Stats: 48 cm large, 3 kilos heavy and the cutest face in the universe!
Yey!

(For John: 105.82 ounces and 18.89 inches)