Insightful articles, opinion and commentary about mobile and web.

Xander Black, Creative Director at HotHouse, discusses why great work online is so much more than specific technologies or beautiful visual design

The internet is a breeding ground for ideas. New ones emerge every day. ‘Memes’ come and go on a daily basis and the good ones linger on… go viral and become part of the language of the internet itself.

Whether it’s Lolcats, the Star Wars Kid, or the history of dance, we’ve all seen them, laughed at them, and passed them on to others to enjoy. The internet has become the best vehicle the world has seen for the genesis of ideas and their proliferation. A single idea can spread across the world in a matter of hours.

These days, when you want your new campaign to be seen, you’re not just trying to stand out from a page of news content. You’re not even just competing against your competitors. Online, you’re competing against the very best that the internet has to offer.

read more

By Simon van Wyk

In How Brands Grow, Byron Sharp writes that “The marketing world is extraordinarily complex, but textbooks fail us when they suggest that this complexity can never be mastered.”

He argues, however, that it’s possible to “come up with some simple rules for ‘branded competition for sales’ (i.e. competition to build a sales base with considerable lasting capability).” Here are his rules, based on empirical evidence:

read more

By Simon van Wyk

I highly recommend all marketers to read Byron Sharp’s book How Brands Grow check out my podcast with Byron here. His research-based approach to marketing principles is refreshing and challenges a lot of our existing thinking on marketing.

To whet your appetite, here is a selection of the most salient quotes from the book:

read more

By Simon van Wyk

I have a background in marketing, but my understanding of branding seems at odds with the 2010 opinions I see from social media commentators, marketing and advertising agencies.

I read LoveMarks, but I don’t love brands. I read the definition which says: “Lovemarks reach your heart as well as your mind, creating an intimate, emotional connection that you just can’t live without. Ever.” I don’t actually feel this way about any brand. My life is busy and I reserve that level of investment for the important people in my life, not the stuff I buy. I assumed other people felt the same.

read more

By Simon van Wyk

Bob Garfield may be the most high-profile advertising sceptic at the moment, but he’s by no means the only one.

Guess who said this? “The advertising business is going down the drain. It’s being pulled down by the people who create it, who don’t know how to sell anything, who have never sold anything in their lives …. who despise selling, whose mission in life is to be clever show-offs and con clients into giving them money to display originality and genius.” read more

By Simon van Wyk

Following on from this month’s podcast, I decided to look at the arguments for and against the death of advertising. This week’s post looks at the evidence that advertising is not in its death throes.

read more

“The Chaos Scenario” had its genesis in a presentation Bob made to colleagues at an Ad Age editorial conference. Fuelled, he says, by a night of heavy drinking at the conference, he had an epiphany while preparing his presentation.

After years of observing the rise of the digital media and the reaction to it by traditional media and advertising, he realised that “If these trends continue, it’s not just a disruption, but the doom of the industry.

read more

Things are getting ugly for traditional advertising and marketing, but there’s a new order coming from the chaos, as Simon van Wyk writes.

People have been chronicling the disruptive influence of the digital media on traditional media and advertising ever since the World Wide Web first appeared. But no one has articulated the effect so comprehensively or so bluntly as Bob Garfield, ad critic and columnist for Ad Age.

read more

HotHouse founder Simon van Wyk talks to Bob Garfield, advertising critic for Ad Age and author of “The Chaos Scenario”. Bob delivers the last rites for the traditional advertising and media industries, declaring that “no one has ever clicked on a banner ad – ever – at least not on purpose.” He talks about both the end of times and also the re-birth of marketing in a “delicious new ecosystem.”

Listen to the podcast below.

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

HotHouse founder Simon van Wyk talks to Jonathan Salem Baskin, a branding consultant and author of “Branding Only Works on Cattle”, who has declared branding is dead, replaced by the “messy village of communication” of online marketing. He discusses his “heretical” views on where advertising and marketing have gone wrong over the past 40 years, and what companies can do to focus on important things like “selling more stuff”.

Listen to the podcast below.

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download