Virtual goods: big business like FarmVille

When speaking about Virtual goods, we immediately think about FarmVille on Facebook. But some others exist as well. If you ask your family if somebody can make money with virtual goods, than chances are that they would declare you nuts and would say "no". Well, think again, as this multi-million industry is here to stay...

Augmented reality in e-commerce: real-time virtual trying out of clothes

e-commerce of the future (or today for some)... the H&M case

Hediye Evsan shares a presentation regrading an H&M case (the retail brand that uses regularly Madonna or famous designers to promote the brand) . The presentation goes beyond what H&M is doing and gives first some best practises for existing platforms, but also a view on what is coming:

Social media for a ski resort

Found this presentation on the blog of Woodhouse (www.woodhouseblog.com) and shows the advantages of social media, even for the winter sports world and as a winter sports lover, I couldn't pass by it ;-)

E-mail marketing tools: the cheaper, the better?

A new independent report from Software Shortlist, performed on 19 leading (US focused) tools suggest we should go for the cheapest tools, as the more expensive ones don't immediately get higher scores. Of course, this only speaks about tools being able to send out emails, so if you want to just do e-mail marketing and nothing more, this could be an interesting report.

Free e-report: The Razorfish 5 - 5 Technologies that will change your business

Let's talk about technology for a minute. We as marketers we only have eye most of the time for the outer shelf, the fancy graphics and the reporting, so let's talk about what's inside the box, the technology that drives our social brands, our reporting, our dynamic profiling etc.

User generated content: another splendid post-it video

Bart Becks & Maurice Engelen announce a new social media & music initiative

Yesterday, Bart Becks (ex-CEO Skynet) and Maurice Engelen (Praga Khan & Lords of Acid) announced during the television show "Phara" at the Belgian television a new initiative that would rock the music industry (Dutch version):

Facebook in real life (video The Wall BBC)

How far do you realise you go on Facebook?

Look, laugh and how far do you go? ;-)

iStrategy Berlin: Nicole Yershon from Ogilvy about "Advertising in 2010: Changing the Process, Not Just the Product"

The proliferation of technology has fundamentally changed how consumers and brands interact, and not only through digital channels.

The digital consumer is just a fallacy, they are just consumers, and they are digital.

Consequently interactive thinking needs to be at the heart of marketing strategy..

This session will look at how technology is changing the relationship between brands and their audience. Through a series of examples, discover how the global audience is responding to the new wave of brand presence. Learn the steps necessary for advertising agencies and marketing departments today to connect brands and customers to drive business growth and not only survive, but thrive in the new age of marketing.

Key take-aways:

• everything is constantly in flux: adapt
• hierarchies are not vanishing, but organisations will have to change
• consumer is in control, creates, collaborates and challenges
• no more 4 P's, here are the 4 E's: everywhere / experience / exchange / evangelism
• focus!
• Marketing now is about "always on", collaboration, organic influencer, WWW, sharing and exploratory measurements
• Unilever (Persil)/Mofilm case: user generated videos
• •  a lot of brands use crowdsourcing, but brands don't know what to do with the feedback
  • same with Persil: movies that were sent in weren't used
  • winner turned into an OMO reporter (like the Coca-cola 260 campaign)
• be quick!
• beat the P&L battle
• there is not a finalised product: it evolves!
• measure it

iStrategy Berlin: Rikke Wivel from Monster Worldwide about "Driving organizational value through online media marketing"

With online media the measuring of marketing campaigns is possible to a degree we marketers have not been able to do in traditional media. This creates opportunities but also challenges. Opportunities: because the marketing and media activities can be economically justified, but also challenges: because some media opportunities do not create direct metric value. Finding your organisations value drivers and mediamix becomes increasingly difficult as the media landscape diversifies.

Key take-aways: