If advertising was a brand we been in trouble. And indeed we are in trouble.
Stephan Loerke, Managing Director, World Federation of Advertisers

I did hold a lecture today in Oslo, at the Store Annonsørdagen, for the ANFO Advertising organization. The topic for the day was change. My topic for my lecture was “Power to the people.” Short version of the lecture: Adopt and change (fast). Making consumer power work for your brand. How smart marketers benefit from the energy of the consumer.

There were a lot of good speakers, one from Google. He had a lot of good points but I can’t understand why Google needs to sell their message? We are buying it anyway. Speaker Mirage Islam, Contributing editor, Contagious Magazine. Did show cool cases ups.com/widget, and a lot of good points to the picture of what’s happening online.

Christophe Cauvy, Regional Digital Director, EMEA McCann Worldgroup gave us an advertising perspective on consumer focusing. Good cases and an intellectual view on where communication can be develop into.

Have you heard about the economic boom we’re in? Sales and business activity are rapidly increasing. The best thing about the boom is that it will last as long as you want it to last – a positive ripple effect for colleagues, clients, and the stock market itself. 

Far back in our history – ever since the world of sports gave us the first winner and loser – we learned to value the importance of a good mindset. To that end, the recession that everyone is talking about was in essence, self-generated. What would have happened if the media reported only GOOD news? Surely there would have been more investments made, because just as in the sports world, winners in business win because of their mindset.We were recently called by a CEO who wanted to know if we could “come over for an hour and question everything they do.” Occasionally, history repeats itself; Detective Marketing’s own Stefan Engeseth was nearly fired for questioning everything his former employer did at that time – and now he is in demand for it as a consultant. To question current ways of working is not a new thing – except that nowadays it’s called “workshop”. More than ever before, there is a greater demand for the knowledge of how to change. That is why we have created a recipe for economic/business success that will inspire without getting anyone fired.

The recipe for an economic boom:

1. Many companies have a visible history. Create a visible future so that we all can walk in the same direction. Create visibility by putting all of those things that you call Economic Boom on a billboard or wall.

2. Create your own magazine covers, mirroring your success, at Magmypic.com just like the cover above.

3. Create a tolerant culture.  Give away prizes to reward employees that work with change or are committed to change. For example the best “bragger” of the month, the most courageous, the biggest failure, the best vision of the month, the craziest idea, and so on. Companies like IKEA and Dell were created on a platform of trial and error viewed with an entrepreneurial mind-set.

4. Ask stupid questions every hour. Award a prize to the person that one who managed to ask the stupidest question, like “If we were an ATM machine, what would clients withdraw?”.

5. Separate clients and non-clients.  Then remove the borders and limits so that everyone becomes a client.

6. Arrange a theme breakfasts with your co-workers focusing on the Economic Boom. Describe the scenario of your dreams. Make it real and tangible. Remember its only together you can achieve it!

7. Always do more than what is expected.

Source www.DetectiveMarketing.com 

Apple is one of the best in the world in building brands. I really like that they show that the competition zero, when they moved into making mobile phones the rest look like antic products. That is also the reason for why they can get a way with not being loyal to there loyal fans. Apple is more than a brand; it is strong as a religion. But for the iPhone it has become even stronger, it is more like a drug that the heavy users most have more of like a drug.

Apple is not in anyway an open source corporation it more an one man show, but a good show. To tap into the success of consumer power they open the iPhone for different software’s and even at the level of letting consumers making software and sell them throw Appel. But here it al starts to go wrong. If you like Apple are one of the best you always risk becoming your biggest competitors. They are not alone, a lot of brands don’t understand that they compete with there own brand; big brands are like cannibals eating there own fans.

The iPhone conspiracy: Many of my friends are iPone addicts. Now they are complaining that they are getting hacked. When they update their software in the phone, different software takes away software’s they don’t like or even destroy their function. This means that big corporation is now hackers. More and more consumers are getting suspicious about updating there computer software because it seems like corporations are doing a lot more than updating computers when they have the chance to get into consumers computers. This is not brand building this is brand cannibalism.

I hope that Apple is sorting out how to work with their fans, or I hope they get more competition.

The demand for green products today is nothing else than extreme. It is like selling life jackets on Titanic when it was on its way down. It is like selling green life jacket on Titanic, no body would care if they are green ore not – they want to float in a world that’s sinking.
 

Millions of American citizens live outside the United States of America. More than I realize live in Sweden, they all come together now and vote for change in their motherland, on Democratsabroad.se. In bars, restaurants are we now seeing Barack Obamas grassroots come together now when it’s spreading and growing in any climate, wherever Americans live.

My friend Jonas is that kind of person how ask question that you can think about for a long time. Last week he did ask: 

What will the future think about today’s Business cycle? Will they think we were silly and not modern 2008? Will they think that we were non develop? Why did we 2008 have a system so vulnerable?

This kind of question is an excellent way of judge if we are modern ore not in our presents 2008. I agree with Jonas that we in the future are going to think that we where having a silly system 2008. What do you think about today 2100?

Yesterday did I send out our newsletter (in Swedish). The topic this time was basically how to motivate business to perform better. One point of it was to make your own Wallpaper.

Download me for free as Wallpaper, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050. I did it to inspire everyone to do there own Wallpaper.

Did get this photo from Anna how is a subscriber of the newsletter.

This will be classical clip forever, when David Letterman are dissing John McCain. David is delivering this sharp one-liner:

The road to the Whitehouse has always run through me.
David Letterman

It is a must see tv clip.

Download Michael Moore new movie Slacker Uprising for free at Slackeruprising.com.

This is being done entirely as a gift to my fans. The only return any of us are hoping for is the largest turnout of young voters ever at the polls in November.
Michael Moore

Here is the trailer (see how he pinpoint his message). I wonder what should happen if Michael Moore moved into the Whitehouse? I to think that the creative potential that America has would once again rise.