McCann Worldgroup CEO Andreas Trautmann and German president Christian Wulff
Two unrelated events unfolded between the years, one in politics and one in marketing. It took me a little time to discern it, although they immediately appear to be interconnected:
Berlin — A narrow majority of Germans believe the country’s embattled president should keep his job, according to two new polls, and Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled Friday that she still backs the man she helped install (read the entire Washington Post article here).
Berlin — Newly appointed McCann CEO Andreas Trautmann sends the embattled IPG worldgroup off on a tabula rasa by which three locations get shut down, Munich, Hamburg and Frankfurt, the former headquarters.
Berlin and Düsseldorf are now to bring back the magic and reinstate creative leadership in (and for) the German design nation.
Both men have something to reinstate and both men can perfectly succeed at one and the same option, that of becoming transformative.
A worldgroup for the new world
Development is a friend and while a clean slate may well prove as way to go for McCann’s Trautmann and the German language worldgroup, a new business model for the worldgroup will likely evolve and present itself along the way.
Much to the liking of Gustavo Martinez, the European chief officer in London.
I picture it to be an insanely powerful new model, so successful to become an export article adopted by other worldgroup locations and Interpublic agencies around the world.
Little by little reinstating the branding and positioning prowess that made McCann a world player in the old world but with a difference, the McCann Worldgroup now plays a great game in the new world.
I was wrong
On the other hand, the office of the federal president is of little interest to the public. President Wulff has apologized, he did not ask for forgiveness.
An old world character, in my opinion, who bets his term on public forgetfulness, yet there is a better way.
The German president will now want to back his apology with continuous activities that will resonate with the press and the public. A profitable disposition centered around transparency and pressing transformative topics as the suggested theme (read this post from Seth Godin from 2 days ago).
Say goodbye to McCann Worldgroup in München, Frankfurt and Hamburg. Berlin und Düsseldorf are the chosen locations to innitiate the comeback of the wordgroup in the German design nation.
MRM Worldwide, UM, Weber Shandwick, Futurebrand und Momentum are excluded from the decision of newly appointed CEO Andreas Trautmann, their offices will remain at their locations and are doing rather well (find German language reports here and here).
Merry Erich Reuter who I have long been friends with and Frank Riedel aim to bring back the workgroup’s magic to the Berlin hub.
For the Düsseldorf hub, it’s the no lesser merry Philippe Royer, a charming French man, I often had the pleasure to congregate with (oh my!)and Richard Delphin.
I wish you merry men and all involved, a rapid take off, good fun and goosebumps.
Steve Jobs Biography and the learning thermostat from Nest
Now that everyone in the industry has studied Steve Jobs biography over the course of the holidays, which part didn’t you understand?
It’s the product, that holds all answers to the near future’s hits and misses. If any good, it offers a direction for everything else needed for its proper market launch. Be it packaging, marketing, distribution or what have you.
If your product doesn’t hold all the answers, don’t bring it to market.
Move on to the next idea.
We don’t need more, we need better products.
The Nest thermostat demonstrates best practice on what to make of Steve Jobs legacy
Former Apple iPad manager Tony Fadell and former iPad developer Matt Rogers have caused a stir and vowed us all with a new business model of their own, the nest thermostat.
An early comment noted, someone wanted to join nest and develop a self-learning sprinkler system.
Way to go, now think of all the crap devices you have in your home. So yes people are long at it with ideas or extensions of their own (technically inclined have a look here).
One of the worst products I can think of are our landline telephones.
Hello?
Is there anyone out there? Can one of the big brand names please stand up and transform our landline telephone into something useful, something helpful?
When we get to watch Leslie Feist perform or when we get to read anything about our favorite artist, she is long done with it and has moved on to the next project.
Dido likes the courage it took Kate Bush to perform her crap dance in the woods and it took Leslie Feist as little as elongated hair to make my Christmas day.
People just love to watch people be done
Doing is good and being done is as good as it gets.
These are Erich's pair of shoes. He's got a delicate, small footprint.
Trumpeter swan, creative officer Offizier, gentleman with brains. Please welcome Erich Reuter
Erich is the executive creative director of McCann Munich, who has managed to have himself moved to Berlin, even before McCann would shut down its Munich business after only six years.
Erich knows to sell himself brilliantly. Now he will want to go pee with the big dogs.
A likeable rascal and lucky at that, hence he’ll likely get lucky with his latest move as well.
It can’t be terribly difficult to get away as brilliant in a country in which most agencies and their clients had no better idea for the christmas season then to put up Advent calendars online.
Big problems don’t need big solutions
He knows, Erich is no naive creative, but a skillful politician.
He will not want to google nor will he want to follow anyone around on facebook or elsewhere.
Nobody is still seriously expecting McCann to transform even one brand or that McCann has the people to increase sales in the new world.
Erich Reuter’s contribution may be enabling the ad industry to bring back the magic.
Tommorow I will want to hand him a sheet of paper with a proposition of what McCann is perhaps better equipped to achieve than any agency. Something that Andreas Trautmann, Bill Biancoli and Erich Reuter can make a decision on prior to their US colleagues and begin with doing some good for the industry.
#chronicle Written by John Landis and his son, Max, Chronicle takes the audience on a rollercoaster ride of adventure as we watch three teenaged boys who learn they are developing superpowers after exposure to some mysterious substances.
The timing for chronicle may just be right, now that concerns are stacking up, if we are at all super powered enough for being capable of doing, what we were meant to do in the first place.
What are you capable of, the film’s advertisement asks. Personally I find it hard to even claim to be walking in my own footsteps rather than placing my feet into the footprints of a predecessor. What about you?
Get to think of it:
Chronicle is also a killer app for marketing. Here is how:
Today brands can avoid advertising altogether. Build your brand in conjunction with your early adopters simply by sharing the brand’s history from the very beginning on and keeping at it in chronological order.
Involve your loyal following in your brand activities and grow the following by sharing and staying transparent along the way, continuously adding new meaning to the brand.
Chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order, as in a time line.
How to continuously add meaning to your brand?
Improve your product instead of investing in advertising, then improve the product even further. Think up ways how your product improves the lives of your customers.
Keep wrapping your mind around improving the shopping-buying-owning cycle. Every little helps.
Innovative industry design is measured by its social good.
Social movement drives innovation. Innovation drives design and design offers a passage to social good.
Dyson’s vacuum cleaners make household chores easier to handle and handles them more intelligently. The nest thermostat is by default a contribution to sustainability with energy resources. 20 Mio. people in Germany are using an Oral B power toothbrush for cleaning their teeth. A social movement and contribution to the nation’s health.
Today design is measured by how it contributes to social good.
A new beginning for design
Every product on the market is being measured by how efficiently and effectively it contributes to social good simply by improving the user’s life and becoming meaningful to her, or help with accomplishing a task more efficiently.
Designers play an important role in making life easier, so please girls and boys, feel encouraged to taking on your role in social betterment as it lends meaning to doing work bottom up.
Make it mandatory even or especially when the brief does not list it as a requirement.
Data under glass. IPG Media Lab opening on Madison Avenue.
Data under glass
IPG Media Lab recently opened on Madison Avenue. “It’s where marketers and our agencies go to discover and learn about their future” – it says on their rather reserved credentials site with an adventurous navigation. Their future under glass, I’d like to ad.
The Aquarium provides a picture under glass we are accustomed to.
Pictures under glass, a popular view of the future
via worrydream.com: "It's a lot of this sort of thing".
Future under glass
For Bret Victor, claiming that Pictures Under Glass is the future of interaction is like claiming that black-and-white is the future of photography. It’s obviously a transitional technology. And the sooner we transition, the better.
Thank you, now please go read Bret Victor’s excellent post on the future of interaction design here.
one from the road by digitas for buick featuring hello goodbye
Buick and Harman Kardon recently challenged indie band Hellogoodbye to create a new song inspired by a Las Vegas road trip taken in a Buick Regal Turbo. Now that song, “Killing Time,” is available as a free download right here on Buick’s Facebook page. You can read all about it here: billboard.
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About me
I am Mark Sargent, I don't have ideas for advertising, I am advertising ideas. Much like Nicolas Roope, I do things, not advertise things. Your support is welcome:
I am Mark Sargent, I don't have ideas for advertising, I am advertising ideas. Much like 
