DIGITAL. TRENDS. FUTURE.

22
Feb

Feel the Brand

Another productive day in New York passed. We have again received a lot of positive feedback about the program of manager tours in April 2008. And we have more confirmed speakers which we will announce on the official website soon.

Brand Experience Lab I met David Polinchock from the Brand Experience Lab and he showed me their latest project and innovative projects. It si just amazing what they are doing in their brand lab in Soho. They will role out a great project called “audience games” in pver 700 cinemas all over USA. You can use emerging technologies to turn brand messages into brand experiences.

David just quoted a attendee of one of the tests in a cinema to make clear how powerful the idea is: “Have you ever heard the audience scream “play the advertising again””.

Furthermore I met Gaby from Gawker Media, the leading blogging company, and Sam from Interference Inc, a guerilla marketing agency.

21
Feb

Bringing Corporate Social Responsibility to the next level

UnHCR manager tours The manager tours program will be exciting. Today I met Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, Senior Policy Adviser (Advocacy and Communications) at United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in New York.

At the upcoming tour in April we will do a short tour through the United Nations Headquarter and then talk about the “ninemillion” project. Mr. Vargas Llosa showed me a handmade UN helicopter build by children. He got it as a present during one of his projects.

It is great to see that Corporate Social Responsibility is not only an innovative marketing issue, it is also a possibility to really help people in third world countries.

20
Feb

Preparations for the manager tour in New York

We are currently working with full power on the preparations for the upcoming manager tours. It is really great to start a “conversation” with our attendees, speakers, experts and interested people who just follow our blog. During the whole preparation work we are integrating all ideas and feedback to create a really high-level program.

Ogilvy Worldwide Office Entrance in New YorkYesterday I met Mike Hemingway, Global Managing Director at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, in midtown Manhatten. Mike will talk about his innovative marketing activities for the beauty brand “Dove“. The viral video “Dove Evolution” was watched by millions of people (over 6 million on youtube alone). I think it is the most effective viral marketing campaign so far and Unilever is really setting new standards to start a conversation with its consumers.

Harvard Club New YorkToday I met Andrew Heyward, former CEO of CBS News, at the Harvard Club New York to talk about the manager tour in April 2008 in New York. Andrew will talk about the changing media landscape, his experiences at CBS News and how you can prepare your company for the future of media.

The manager tour in NY will offer a great program and I am really looking forward sharing it with you.

19
Feb

German Rock Band Tokio Hotel conquers USA

Tokio Hotel live in New York City Tokio Hotel did is first concert in New York City this evening.
Bill, Tom, Gustav and Georg presented their songs in front of over 1000 people. The line in front of the event location was going over three blocks. The main phenoma about the group is that the CD was not even published in the US, yet.

Note for all Marketeers: Everybody who does not understand until today that the teens and twens live in a global digital world, should visit a Tokio Hotel concert. There are even more digital cameras then people in the location. They film everything they can and put online as soon as they get a conncetion. They share the songs via social networking site worldwide or watch the clips on youtube.

Here is a live video of the song “Durch den Monsun” recorded today on Feb. 18th in NY:

Video from the Backdoor:

Video just before the start of the event in front of the concert-location:

18
Feb

Blogging Guidelines for the Olympic Games

Beijing Mascots 2008The IOC annouced the first “Blogging Guidelines” for the olympic games in Beijing. “The IOC considers blogging…as a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism,” the IOC said.

Here is the full news at ZDNet:
The International Olympic Committee on Friday gave the green light to allow blogging at the Olympics for the first time, issuing guidelines for this August’s Beijing Games.
Athletes have long demanded they be allowed to write their blogs–online journals of personal opinion or reflection–during the Games but the IOC was concerned these could potentially infringe on copyright agreements and private information.

In a series of guidelines, the IOC said blogging would be allowed during the Beijing 2008 Olympics as long as individuals writing the journals keep within the IOC format.
Continue Reading..

12
Feb

Mobile Media Trends in South Korea

Today I did an interesting Video-Interview with our TrendScout John Rajeski in Seoul, South Korea. We recorded it during the VDZ Asia Tour in February 2008.

He is taking about the major trends in mobile media in South Korea and gives a short overview.

11
Feb

Meconomy

Interview with our local Trend Scout from South Korea: Danny Kim. The Video was recorded in a big bookstore in Seoul.

11
Feb

Start of the VDZ Online Publishers Tour

Today is the first day of the VDZ Online Publishers Tour in Asia organized by CScout. The program starts in Seoul, South Korea. Here are just some notes about the morning.
VDZ Online Publisher's Tour, Asia 2008
Danny Kim did a great kick-off about the web 2.0 scene in South Korea. Danny is famous Korean Web 2.0 Blogger and is a TrendScout within the CScout Network. He has just finished his book “Meconomy” and talked about cool new services from openmaru. One service is called springnote. Springnote is a wiki-based online notebook platform first developed in korean and now rolled out in english. He used sprindnote to write his book in close cooperation with the editors. He said it was a really great working experience and made the wirting process very time efficient.

Our local TrendScout John Rajeski gave an introduction to the internet and mobile media market in South Korea. With roughly 10 Mio. inhabitant in Seoul, compared to 49 Mio. people in the country, the city plays a major role in digital media. John explained that you can get a 100MBits Internet connection at home for around 30 Euro per month. Via Wimax you have access to 3Mbits per second on the move within the City. GPS, 3G (UMTS) also play a big role for the korean market and is available since almost a decade.
The reason why South Korea has such a powerful infrastructure is due to the consistent development by the korean government. Another important factor is that the korean consumers are very early adopters, they just love to try new services and applications. Furthermore the mobile phone is the most important access to the internet for the consumers. Therefore it is not surprising that there are 9 million mobile TV subscribers in South Korea, that is 18,75% of the whole population.

S. Korea is the leader in Mobile Banking, Japan is a leader in Mobile Payments. Mobile banking in S. Korea has about 5 million active subscribers. The growth of the mobile banking market is very impressive.

Further meetings today are for example Cyworld, LindenLab Korea.

More pictures about the trend tour at my Flickr account.

11
Feb

Around the World in 14 days

On Friday, Feb. 9th 2008, I left for a trip around the world: Seoul – Korea, Tokyo – Japan, New York – USA and then back to Munich – all within 14 days. I am supporting our Team with the Trend Tour for german executives from european publishing companies, called the “VDZ Online Publishers Tour Asia 2008”.
World Map - Around the world in 14 days

The Trend Tour is focusing on emerging media trends in Asia with company meetings and expert presentations in Seoul and in Tokyo. The program includes visits to Cyworld, the leading korean virtual worlds platform and ohmynews, the first consumer generated online newspaper founded in Korea, just to mention two examples.

If you want to learn more about the VDZ Publishing Tour just visit the VDZ Website or contact our CScout team.

11
Feb

White Turf, St. Moritz

I enjoyed a great weekend with my family in switzerland. We had the chance to visit the famous “White Turf” Race in St. Moritz. The horse race takes place on the frozen lake close to the pictoresque city. We actually parked on the frozen lake with our car, which was really exciting driving with your car on snow and ice…. parking next to race track.

Here are some impressions from the famours horse race in switzerland.
White Turf Race, St. Moritz Switzerland

This foto was taken on a playground directly on a mountain close to St. Moritz on 2453m above sea level.

White Turf Race, St. Moritz Switzerland