After visiting cities such as Amsterdam, Berlin, Taipei, London and Paris, the IAM1 Journey continues with a tour thru Buenos Aires, Argentina. The IAM1 Journey promoting the classic Nike Air Max and the new Air Maxim introduces you to creative types of Buenos Aires such as Drum N’ Bass DJ Bad Boy Orange, tattoo artist Pirahna, filmmaker Andy Fogwill, designers Coty Larguia and Cecilia Glik and art gallerist Ana Torrejon. The videos are presented by Tuti Gianakis of Revista Remix and distributed by VisionInvisible (an Argentinean blog worth checking out). Great initiative.
Today a new Starbucks outlet is opening at Utrecht Central Station. For Dutch Starbucks fans an important day because it will be the first easy accessible Starbucks in The Netherlands. Till now you had to go to Schiphol Airport or Nike HQ Hilversum (only for employees) to enjoy a fresh cup of Starbucks coffee.
Personally I have mixed feelings towards the coffee company from Seattle. Drinking Starbucks I remember my great first trip to New York, where drinking coffee while walking and talking on the phone seemed to be the coolest thing ever. At the other hand Starbucks is called the ‘McDonald’s of the coffee-industry’. It is an important player in the globalized world where every commercial street in the world starts to look the same.
An interesting change in (or addition to) this strategy of world domination is the new 15th Avenue E Coffee and Tea store in Seattle. It is a new concept store based on the local neighbourhood. The shop is an authentic looking local café serving coffee made by manual machines and local food. Moreover 15th Avenue E Coffee and Tea will be opened only during hours according to the lifestyle of the area and will be hosting cultural evenings promoting local musical talent. It is a strategy of un-branding since the big Starbucks logo is absent. The only link to the company is the window saying ‘inspired by Starbucks’.
Is this glocal strategy the way to go for international companies? Again those mixed feelings. Critics (see comments) say that the new store is not inspired by Starbucks, but by next door café Smiths since it looks very similar. Confronted by these opinions director of global concept designLiz Muller states that the design is based on the first Starbucks store ever on Pike Place Market in Seattle. Is Starbucks going back to its roots or is this concept a troy horse taking even more local cafes? Something to keep the eye on. The store does look great!
This is the second version of this post. The topic turned out to be more complicated than intended. Ready? Go!
After all those positive messages about Nike on this blog I wanted to write a more critical one this time. Nike is one of the companies adjusting itself to the new media era very well with examples like Nike+ and recently the Chalkbot. When I ran into this article after reading something about it on Twitter I thought I needed to write a critical article on the way Nike apparently tried to control social media. But just on time I found out I needed to be critical towards myself first. The story the article tells and I wanted to re-tell for my own audience is the following:
Nike is known for sponsoring the finest athletes and basketball player LeBron James is one of the Nike’s biggest stars. During a training camp earlier this month James was ‘dunked-on’ by 20-year-old nobody Jordan Crawford. It is seen as an ultimate disgrace for a player and it’s something that does not fit an image of a super star. With this reason Nike demanded CBS immediately to erase the video tapes of the dunk. End of the story? Actually this created the story. Unsurprisingly the ‘hidden’ images found their way to YouTube . The dunk is hardly noticeble, but because of Nike’s attempt to censorship became a hit on internet (and now I am writing about it).
Social media are really difficult to control and the best reaction of companies would be to acknowledge this. Nike’s fail to control social media and the puclicity it generated, is known as the Streisand Effect:
“The Streisand effect is an internet phenomenon where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized.” (Wikipedia)
When discussing the article with a friend he asked me how I could be so sure of the story. I got the article from the website BrandRepublic which is a website I trust, but after checking again it was part of the forum section. The article does not have any link to a source and after ‘googling’ the story once more I did not find any really trustworthy source at all. Moreover the video supposed to be the ‘evidence’ is not showing very clear images of LeBron James being ‘dunked-on’.
Where I wanted to criticize Nike for a wrong approach to social media, I could be doing exactly the same! Since I was not completely sure the whole story actually happened I did not have the right to write about it so easily. It could be even a false story attempting to harm Nike. How many times do we read something on the internet and take it for granted without thinking twice about the source?
If Nike did what the article says it did, it would have been pretty stupid. Social media have big advantages for companies, but can create bad publicity too. It’s all about the reaction of the brand. Nike could give a contract and an advertisement to the young basketball player who gave LeBron James a human face. Turning a bad moment into something good. But the final conclusion of this post is that nobody really can control new media and take them for granted. We should not even try! Stay critical!
The International Society for Human Rights is celebrating its 60th birthday. And what is a party without cake and the ones who made the organisation so important? Original work of Berlin based agency Scholz & Friends.
The last weeks Argentina has been talking about ‘the curious case of Javier Mascherano’. Mascherano is a famous Argentinean football player playing for Liverpool FC, captain of the national team and known for his mental and fysical strength. The buzz occurred when Argentinean journalist Luis Dapelo began to release material of an extensive research on Mascherano.
Dapelo started his research when he received a note saying ‘tell them the truth’. The note came with a file containing Mascherano’s medical records revealing some strange results. Check out pictures of the document here. The medical results showed that Mascherano had such a great fysical condition there were doubts whether this could be natural. After receiving more secret information about a suspicious looking hospital the journalist found this picture of Mascherano with a big scar on his chest.
It turned out to be one of the few pictures of Mascherano showing his chest. Together with this draw by a doctor showing the incridible distances Mascherano runs during a match the main question was ‘How is it possible Mascherano runs that much?!’
Journalist Luis Dapelo made movies during his research and released those movies on his blog ‘El Caso Mascherano’. The videos found their way to YouTube and to the national media which invited Dapelo to tell his story in many different television programs.
The reactions of the audience were strong. Basically Dapelo accused their beloved player of being a phony. Those reactions got even stronger (and funnier) when Dapelo revealed the results of his research after receiving more information: Mascherano got his incredible fysical condition from the latest technology Multijet engine by Fiat!
The curious case of Javier Mascherano is a very succesful viral campaign using different media to tell an original story. The journalist Luis Dapelo does not exist, but was given an identity by creating a LinkedIn-profile, a Facebook-page, a Flickr-account and a Twitter-account (which could have been used better). In a televisionized country like Argentina where football is one of the favorite topics this viral campaign was highly successful. A part of the time on television was paid for, but the biggest part was based on free publicity.
Funny thing is that even after it got really obvious it was a campaign for Fiat, people still believed Dapelo was a real journalist. They asked how Mascherano could pass the metal detectors at airports and if the Gatorade power drink contained petrol in Mascherano’s case to keep his engine running. People also started to make very entertaining spoofs of the campaign.
Great work by Fiat and agency Leo Burnett lead by Sebastián Olivieri and Pablo Capara. Check the official campaign blog on the Caso Mascherano here.
After the celebration of 60 Years of Soles & StripesAdidas Originals Argentina decided it was time for a fresh layer of paint in their store in Palermo, Buenos Aires. Instead of doing it the traditional way they asked local artists Gualicho and Pum Pum to decorate the shop. Pum Pum painted his characteristic rebellious and naieve figures in the fantasy world created by Gualicho. The result is a balanced combination of art and marketing which should inspire more companies. In a globalized world were most shopping streets look the same the collaboration of brands with local artists is the way to go. Both from an ethical, design and commercial point of view.
Developed in partnership with DeepLocal and StandardRobot, the Chalkbot sprayed messages of hope and inspiration on the French roads during one of the Tour de France stages. It was part of the campaign supporting the Livestrong Foundation of Lance Armstrong. People could send their messages by phone of tweet them. An original way of remixing tradition (the classic chalk messages on the roads during the Tour de France), new media, technoloy and inspiration. An example of what I call ‘digital thinking in an analog world’. The results are amazing.
…crime, everything is out of control. It’s Anarchy!
According to blond Republican strategists, apparently. In the Fox News show of Bill O’Reilly two very world wise ladies got the chance to scare the poor viewers. I’m closing my doors tonight!
This is the response of a citizen of Amsterdam giving his opinion using… facts!
It is a good habit to have a positive attitude in a bad situation and make the best of it. This is exactly what Israelian phone company Israel Cellcom tried to reflect. They made a television spot in which they applied the concept on the conflict between Isreal and Palestina.
In the commercial a group of soldiers are patrolling the West Bank Barrier when suddenly a football appears from the other side of the wall. After shooting it back, the same happens and before they know a whole group of soldiers is having fun with a ball and an invisible enemy.
Unsurprisingly the ad has been heavily critized for not taking serious the Palestinean suffering in the conflict. This lead to ‘parodies’.
When a Palestinean YouTuber had the courage to see what happened in real his pass to the other side of the wall was answered by a salvo of tear gass granades. I did not see this video yet btw. Probably a more realistic reaction.
Not sure what to think of the intentions of the phone company and less of the results of the spot. The conflict is too serious to almost compare it with a game of football. And who shot the ball first?
