Not to worry: Check out what the fans just made over at hicksdesign. Kinda clever marketing-wise, no?

Until now.

I’m in a cafe drinking my coffe, checking emails. The guy next to me just asked if I made the site cause he had seen the sticker and taken the test, unfortunaly scoring low as he didn’t drive an old car or drink his coffee with milk.

Just to let you know that sticker marketing still works.

He suggested I made a price index for the book (that coined the term and that nobody read), as he’d noticed quite a difference in price in the book shops downtown. I suggest we continue to not read the book and just pretend we know what we’re talking about while being the wannabe-creatives that we are…

Semi-decent points on treating bloggers with respect; provide links, don’t just send the attachment-infested press releases etc. I’m sure the intentions are good, Jesper has a point: If you send press releases at all, if you send one to a blogger otherwise considered a ‘person’, aren’t you stiring it up a little too much?

I’m thinking: If you want to take blogging seriously — and not just want to harvest any benefits that might exist in that space — blog your stuff yourself. You’ll benefit tremendously if bloggers pick your story and add their twist and endorsement. But I’m sure they’ll want to do so as ‘fellow bloggers’, with the posibility to link to your blog and not your PDF press release. Being targeted as a cool kid / marketing machine seem old school evil to me. If I like your stuff, I’m sure I’ll find it myself. If you blog it…

Anyway. A lot of bloggers have written about Avistid (can’t be arsed to link to it all, just search for it — you won’t be bothered with any other hits ;-), most of it being about the cluelessness with regards to the reason the campaign is even launched. Which is, by the way, where it connects to my previous post about online marketing.

So just a few thoughts on the claims Jon is making:

Top-“dogme” directors: True. But this isn’t the same as their films are any good or support the aim of the campaign in any way. Actually, I’ve found them pretty boring so far, the first by Søren Kragh-Jakobsen definenately being the worst.

Web-only: Yup, all other media is trying to drive traffic to the (horrible) website, trying to get people to watch the films. For what reason I ask? Please keep in mind that the Danish newspapers aren’t trying to sell just any product, they are actually trying to sell newspapers — and could benefit a great deal if they would please explain us what they are good at.

Cutting-edge: Bullshit. Being cutting-edge for the reason of being cutting-edge.…is not cutting-edge.…

As BMW before them: Mmm..no! BMW’s films were semi-viral pieces being linked because of the quality of the films. Which I haven’t experienced with the films from Avistid. Also, Selling cars and selling newspapers isn’t the same. At all. It’s obvious, however, that they’re trying to get it to be the same; going ‘lifestyle’ on the consumers poor asses.

The link to my DIA06 comments is this: If you want to respect your customers and not stuff whatever down their throats, you should take a good, hard look at the context in which you’re ‘communicating’. Noone gets offended if people selling jeans, soft drinks or cars pull the ‘lifestyle’ card on them. After all, this is a lot of what you buy. When you are a newspaper, however, sell less newspapers due to — among other things — the internet with its user empowerment, conversations and free niche-content and then

decide to market your product as if nothing has happened and you just need some flashy advertising and some promises about ‘being cool when you take the time to read a paper’ — you are taking the piss.

I’m willing to talk shop anytime, focusing solely on craftmanship, techniques and what have we. But in cases like this where the message you’re trying to convey so clearly goes against everything what’s right while wasting a lot of money and treating your (former) customers like stupid sheep — especially when you’re in a business who should have no trouble managing communication and hightlight what’s good about the product (and not the lifestyle sorrounding it) — then I think it’s time to take a step back and look at what it is you’re trying to do. And admit you’ve failed miserably.

I totally agree; the people of the jury seems to be good people — and that’s not the point. Just as marketing on the web — and new and better ways of doing it — is definately a worthy cause. But not the point.

When we’re poking fun at DIA06 it’s not because all marketing is bad — and people working with online marketing therefore are bad people. It’s because the framing of the whole event is no where near the good thoughts Jon Lund is laying out in the comment to Jakob’s first post. And while I whole-heartedly support innovation in the area of online marketing, I also believe in practicing what you preach and treating your peers with respect. Flash-sites, award shows and poorly created sites doesn’t run along those lines…

So: 100% support in putting focus on better online marketing from me. However, I’m pretty convinced (as a comment to Jakob’s closing remark that maybe they the agencies do need an award show) that they don’t need an award show.