Second Life

by | Apr 6, 2007 | Marketing

Yes … Second Life … The NextBigThing. Everyone’s been writing about it frantically. Except for me. Because I’m not a believer. I have seen hypes come and go, I have seen companies rise to fame and disappear into oblivion. And I am not convinced by SL. Sure, it has the majority of they hype now, but there are others out there, working diligently to take its place, biding their time.

People tend to forget that online communities have been around in one form or another over the years. BBS, IRC chat, ASL pages, online communities … SL is just another 3D virtual world that builds on the desire of humans to form communities and interact with one another. And there are others out there. Some have even been along longer, like ActiveWorlds. Look also at There, whose engine is being used by MTV to create their own virtual world. Even the owners of gaming consoles will now get their own virtual world, with Sony’s Home coming to the PlayStation.

As for me, I simply don’t go into SL because I can’t even get all the things done in my First Life, including the online part of it like IM, games, keeping up with all the mails, RSS feeds, blogging and more. No reason for me to spend even more time in my Second Life. Personally, if I had some time I’d play World Of Warcraft because I’m more into adventures than just building myself another “second” life.

For those interested in more, have a read at Björn Joos‘ vision here (sorry, it’s in Dutch only).

And if you do want to hang out in virtual worlds, take your pick from the list on Virtual World Review.

All this made me think of The Matrix again, the biggest virtual world of them all… a red pill, anyone?

by | Mar 20, 2007 | Marketing

Two interesting articles in the Smart Business Strategies (SBS) this month.

One about getting Belgium to the 10% online ad spend level by 2010. The IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) in Belgium has recently launched a campaign to get the online ad spend up to 10% by 2010. Good job from Alain Heureux, but … only 10?

Another article a bit further on talks about the declining impact of commercials, namely TV-commercials. SBS quotes research from the UK that more and more consumers try to avoid commercials, namely television commercials. Other research indicates that 65% of americans males use their digital tv recoders specifically to zap through ads.

Isn’t it time someone woke up and smelled the coffee?

Benelux Event Awards: and the winner is

by | Feb 4, 2007 | Marketing

The Benelux Event Awards (BEA) are given to the best campaigns by a jury of event marketing professionals. I was lucky enough to sit in that jury, where we judged over 30 cases to end up with the below list. We looked for events that had that something extra, that went beyond merely executing a customer briefing. It was good to see to see there were so many agencies participating, and to see the level of creativity in them.

An overview of the nominees and winners who got their prizes at the BEA event in the Zaventem SkyHall:

Field Marketing
Nominee – New World with Fruitella
BEA Award – Promo Sapiens with Dodge

Incentives
BEA Award – Guava with Centea

Product Launches
Nominee – Minotaur with Peugeot
BEA Award – Quest with Niko

Press Events
BEA Award – B-art with SN Brussels Airlines

Customer Events
Nominee – XSaga with Robeco
Nominee – Guava with Nokia
BEA Award – Minotaur with Schneider

Personnel events
Nominee – Event Masters with Fortis
BEA Award – Event Masters with GB

Commercial events
Nominee – Bananas with Gouden Gids

Cultural and public events
Nominee – Navajo with Masterfoods
BEA Award – UC Belgium with JAGA (Burning Man)

Price of the Jury
Eventives with Mastercard

Price for Event with the highest ROI
Guava with Opel