Project Management : a communication challenge...

The future without media... but with EPIC?

In the year 2014 the New York times has gone offline, the Fourth Estate's fortunes have waned... What happened to the news? and what is EPIC. Thanks Joël for this really interesting (even if a bit grey) video that reminds us that technology can always be used for the best or the worse...

Source : http://epic.makingithappen.co.uk/ (thank you Joël for the link)

SecondLife? Get a first life!

Bored with Second Life, what about getting a first life? 5 billion members cannot be all wrong ;)

Cashback : from short film to big movie?

Cashback is a 2004 short film that received great reviews and was even nominated for the 2006 Academy Award for Live Action Short Film. Thanks to this first success, it has now been adapted as a full lenth movie directed by Sean Ellis... I just don't know if Gaumont will suceed to keep the poetry expressed in the short film...

The short film

The trailer of the full length movie

GAUMONT : CASHBACK
envoyé par GaumontWeb

More info on the official site or on myspace

Pschittt (2010 la fin des blogs)

La fin des blogs...
Vidéo envoyée par MicrofilmDansTaChambre

Pschittt (La blogosphère s'est dégonflée). Un nouveau Microfilm de 20 Minutes excellent...
En 2010, les blogs seraient plus ringards que les pin's ;) Kudos for this very funny video of an imaginary future where blogs will have collapsed...

Bagatelles Party : 26th of january

If you are looking for cool gift ideas, and do not know this site already, have a stop at Mathilde small online boutique "Bagatelles". If you want to discover her, have a look at her blog or even join her tonight and her friends (bloggers or not) in Paris...

Paris Blogue t'il VII & blog meeting in Lululand

If you were in Paris tuesday night, you have maybe attempted the 7th edition of Paris Blog t'il, a bloggers meeting that gather between 200 and 300 bloggers each time such as Greg, Rmen, Ariel, Miss Bagatelles, Petite Anglaise, Nawal, Gilles, Jacques, Mry, une parisienne, Prland,...   I think this is one of the rare social opportunity where a 55 years old artist will meet and discuss with a 16 years old student, a 35 high tech entrepreneur or a french politician... Its is fun to remember the first organizers meeting I participated in 2 years ago with the simple idea of inviting bloggers from Paris to meet together that started Paris Blog t'il First Edition. I am happy that Culture-Buzz helped promoted the event from day 1 and still do, contributing to its success thanks too one of our collaborator. This time PBT VII invited Nicolas Hulot (interviewed by Nicolas Voisin here) to talk about environment and its Pacte Ecologique initiative.

Hulot à l'Entrepot
envoyé par politicshow

Living in Luxembourg, I am now happy to announce that the same type of event will finally (after having waited too long for not finding enough time) take place here with Blogdelux, thanks to the initiative of some enthusiastic and motivated bloggers (Lola,..)and the support Culture-Buzz once again. The vast diversity of languages : portuguese, french, german, luxembourgish, italian,... is a real challenge. We will see how things are doing but looking at the bloggers feedback to us and media interest and despite few critics looking for attention (funny how some people who never organize a thing are always the first to say "it won't work", and always see evil) I am betting on interesting discussions. Join us saturday in Differdange (14pm, at bar l'AutrePart > pretty amazing place°.

On Off exhibition. Luxembourg

If you are living or stopping by in Luxembourg, don't hesitate to visit the latest art exhibition of Casino d'Art Contemporain : OnOff. As they mention it, "Throughout the year, the Casino Luxembourg - Forum d'art contemporain organises contemporary art exhibitions, focusing on the diversity and complexity of current artistic approaches and attitudes".

OnOff is an interesting exhibition around the concept of lighti illustrated by "fifteen works of light in movement, some of which have been designed specially for the occasion, works to transform the building into a bright jewel-case, a field of intense and yet somehow disturbing artistic radiation".

I sometimes do have hard time with "modern art" but this exhbition was original and surprising with some really innovative and smart use of "light".

Blogdelux.lu : Day-8

Only 8 more days before the first bloggers meeting in Luxembourg : http://www.blogdelux.lu.Thanks to all the media that already supported this event such as Radio Ara, Le Wort (the number one information daily newspaper in Luxembourg, in Luxembourgish):

Contacto (the portuguese community newspaper > Luxembourg has a huge portuguese community and few of its big bloggers are blogging in this language) :

La Voix : one the biggest newspaper (in French)

Paperjam (the biggest business, communication and finance magazine)

Les Frontaliers.lu : one of the biggest website in Luxembourg for the French and belgian citizens who travel everyday to come to work in Luxembourg. (the site is operated by the same team who run Jamendo, the web2.0 music community : Laurent Kratz > watch his interview on culture-buzz.c om...).

Station.lu : the information website of the english community in Luxembourg

Finally one of the challenge in the luxembourgish and Great Region blogosphere is one of the charm of the country : the number of used languages. Luxembourgish, french, german, english portuguese, italian,... wow so much languages for such a small country. But so nice to have the opportunity to exchange with people from so many countries and cultures... The world village is maybe finally... Luxembourg...

Vanksen is proud to launch ArcelorMittal WebTv

I am really proud to the launch of ArcelorMittal WebTV. ArcelorMittal is now one of the top 50 brands and firms in the world. The webtv (created by Vanksen) will cover during 6 months the challenge faced by 2 huge industrial brands and cultures mixing together to create the number one steel player. It is not that often that you may see such a big firm, especially in the industry field, using blog, videocasts (that you can blog!), RSS and open comments in a very Web2.0 approach. The challenge is huge and ArcelorMittal really decided to document the coming months by sharing the opinion of numerous workers, managers,... via this webtv...that is both targeted for internal and external use.

The website has just been launched and should evolve in the coming weeks thanks to the employee and visitors ideas, critics, and suggestions...  I am proud of the work of our team and happy to see company such as ArcelorMittal being bold enough to adopt such an innovative and a challenging communication. Feel free to discover the trailer of episod2 below :

Arcelor Mittal : The Americas
Uploaded by culturebuzz

Interviewed by the JournalDuNet about the BIC Comfort 3 Advance Campaign

Culture-Buzz (Vanksen Group) and BuzzParadise has been in charge of conceiving and launching the campaign for the new 3 blades shaver from BIC: BIC Comfort 3 Advance. BIC decide to invest 100% of their marketing budget online for this product. Vanksen has deployed an innovative approach mixing influencials seeding, banner purchase, viral banners, viral videos and game, blog,... Have a look at the article the Journal Du Net just wrote about us and the campaign to know more... (french)...

FRANCE24.COM attracts an amazing audience from its start!

Ok, it seems FRANCE24.com, the new international channel is realy doing good in terms of audience. I am happy to see that the channel attracted more than 1,248,000 unique visitors in France in its first month, putting it straight off in 8th place for "Current Events & Global News websites"(1)... I guess maybe the international word of mouth action we organized for the TV channel in december to generate buzz before its launch played a small part in it ;)

The total number of page views on www.france24.com is in excess of 15 million. In addition, according to the FRANCE 24 traffic measurement tool, visitors to the channel's website come from 200 countries throughout the world. The geographical breakdown is 35% France, 26% U.S.A, 8% U.K. and 5% Canada, followed by Belgium, Germany, Morocco and Spain.

(1) Source: Médiamétrie//NetRatings –Nielsen//NetRatings Service - NetView – all rights reserved by Médiamétrie//NetRatings – December 2006

The Magic World of Advertising /// Spot #13

The Magic World of Advertising /// Spot #11

The Magic World of Advertising /// Spot #12

Othertoys story generique
Envoyé par othertoys sur wat.tv

#6 client story
Envoyé par othertoys sur wat.tv

Casting lardon good
Envoyé par othertoys sur wat.tv

Goodies2_article42
Envoyé par othertoys sur wat.tv

Blogdelux.lu : Join the first Bloggers meeting in Luxembourg

If you are available on Saturday 27th of January in Luxembourg, join us at http://www.blogdelux.lu for the first bloggers meeting in the area. After a little study we have found more than 150 people blogging in Luxembourg and accross the borders in France, Belgium and Germany... If you have ideas or suggestions to improve or be involve in this event, do not hesitate to contact us...

The Magic World of Advertising /// Spot #10

The Magic World of Advertising /// Spot #9

The Magic World of Advertising /// Spot #8

BuzzCast#23 / Olivier Creiche / Sixapart

BuzzCast#23 / Olivier Creiche / Sixapart
Vidéo envoyée par culturebuzz

Interview of Olivier Creiche, General Director of SixApart (The firm behind Typepad, MovableType, Vox) and right arm of Loic Lemeur for many years (B2L, Marketo,...). This buzzcast was done during the latest LeWeb3 conference in Paris. Find more BuzzCasts at http://www.culture-buzz.com

The Magic World of Advertising /// Spot #7

The Magic World of Advertising /// Spot #6

The Magic World of Advertising /// Spot #5

The Magic World of Advertising /// Spot #4

The Magic World of Advertising /// Spot #3

Les Inconnus : Les Publicitaires
Uploaded by spiegel

The hughtain Marketing Manifesto (V2)

For the ones who don't already know the talented and unconventional british blogger Hugh MacLeod
and its now A-list blog Gapingvoid, I invite you to discover below its smart "Marketing Manifesto". Hugh has become one of the most influential blogger worldwide thanks to his smart marketing insights and his illustrated business cards (he design a different one for each of the person he gives one to!)

1. The market for something to believe in is infinite.

We are here to find meaning. We are here to help other people do the same. Everything else is secondary. We humans want to believe in our own species. And we want people, companies and products in our lives that make it easier to do so. That is human nature.

2. The most important word in marketing is “complicity”.

It's not enough for the customer to love your product. They have to love your process as well.

3. Your customers are becoming smarter about your market a lot faster than you are.

Thanks to the internet, your customers are able to talk to each other. They are able to find better information about your product than you are able of willing to give them, much quicker than you are capable of giving them. The conversation will happen with or without you, you’re better off joining in.

4. The primary job of an advertiser is not to communicate benefit, but to communicate conviction.

It’s not about what you have; it’s about why it matters.

5. A company's primary role is to function as an "idea amplifier".

A company's primary role is not to make or do stuff. Making and doing are mere subsets.

6. The future of advertising is internal.

The hardest part of a CEO's job is sharing his enthusiasm with his colleagues, especially when a lot of them are making one-fiftieth of what he is. Selling the company to the general public is a piece of cake compared to selling it to the actual people who work for it.

7. Your job is no longer about selling. Your job is about firing off as many synapses in your customer's brain as possible.

The more synapses that are fired off, the more dopamines are released. Dopamines are seriously addictive. The more dopamines you release, the more the customer will come back for more. Your customer thinks he is coming back to you for sane, rational, value-driven reasons. He is wrong. He is coming back to feed.

8. Good-bye, Messages. Hello, Social Gesture.

A well-executed marketing campaign is an act of love.

9. Control the conversation by improving the conversation.

Choosing to have a “smarter conversation” with the market is not a marketing decision; it’s a moral decision.

10. The more porous the membrane that separates your business from your market, the easier it is for both parties to be in alignment. And the more porous the membrane, the easier it is to fix non-alignment.

You can donwload an illustrated (with Hugh famous drawings) version of the original manifesto at changethis.com

Very Creative Happy New Year Video

The Magic World of Advertising /// Spot #2

Dans la publicite
Uploaded by yom_

The Magic World of Advertising /// Spot #1

Influential marketing : a brand new challenge...

Cnet France was keen enough to interview me as cofounder of BuzzParadise (an international platform to connect brands and influential consumers : bloggers, experts, buzzers...) regarding the challenging trend of influential marketing.

As mentioned in the article (in french), seeding and marketing to opinion leaders such as influential bloggers requires a very subtle approach. It is never easy and nobody can be sure he never will cross the thin line between offering bloggers to experience a product or a service and taking the risk to appear like bribing them. Microsoft is for example under the spotlights now for having been a bit too? generous with influentials... Maybe offering their latest Operating System (Windows Vista) without a brand new laptop would have been enough for them to make their opinion about it...

I personaly think that disclosure and respect of freedom of opinion (i.e. offering the product before the test and not only because a post is good) are key. Without it, audience won't be fooled and influentials will loose their reputation and therefore their influence. Credibility requires transparency, at the cost of accepting negative comments too (but if you are ready to listen, critics have a high value to improve your service or product). If you are not ready... you should maybe consider sticking with traditional mass advertising...

Click below to access the article :
- La crédibilité des blogueurs à l'épreuve du marketing (Cnet)
- La crédibilité des blogueurs à l'épreuve du marketing (Yahoo)
More info here:
- Costly gift from Microsoft becomes invite to blog

Bic is doing viral marketing again

The famous brand of shavers, Bic is lauching a new viral campaign with a serie of 8 viral videos...





The campaign includes a blog, a viral game,... organized around the following url : http://www.3fineslames.com (access available only to a selection of 200 influentials from BuzzParadise until the 4th of January, 6pm)

Disclaimer : Vanksen Group & BuzzParadise are in charge of the launch...