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Posted on 21 March 2018 in 2 - Sustainability 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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UK rapper Professor Green's recent documentary on the scourge of male suicide made the headlines for lots of reasons. First and foremost, it shone a light on the shocking statistics: in the UK, suicide is the biggest killer of men under 45. And it got people thinking, let’s hope in a long-term way, about stereotypical forms of masculinity – stiff upper lips and the demands of "laddishness" – and the potential harm they can do.
In fact, Pro Green himself came under the spotlight for crying on a Newsnight appearance to promote the show. He used the opportunity to tell people, including men of course, not to be ashamed of showing emotion like this.
It’s not too much to say that the cultural expectations that our society places on men, and that are strongly self-policed, are literally killing them. Men are far less likely than women to admit to or seek help for depression. And even when they do, they risk not being taken seriously, told to get over it, to ‘man up’.
The hope is that seeing mainstream role models like Professor Green speaking out will gradually start to chip away at these stereotypical expectations. Because what’s going on in culture isn’t just an interesting tangent to this debate – it’s a key driver of the appalling facts. In-culture prevention is therefore just as critical as targeted intervention, especially as cuts to mental heath services start to bite.
All of us have a responsibility to reconsider our view of what it means to be a ‘real man’. And this includes brands, which, as we know, can be very powerful forces for shifting the cultural discourse. We’ve seen lots of female-focused brands, from Always to Sport England, taking on stereotypes of femininity. What about products and services targeted at men?
Dove Men Care has taken the lead with its #realstrength campaign, which launched at this year’s Super Bowl. Even the famously laddy Lynx is partnering with CALM, a charity dedicated to preventing male suicide, encouraging men to talk about the #biggerissues. Let’s hope this is just the start of a new wave of stereotype bashing.
Posted on 13 March 2018 in 1 Strategic planning 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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After leaving Adaptive Path in 2012, Todd Wilkens has been focused on one of the biggest issues in Service Design: building a Service Design practice on a massive scale. In the past four years, Todd has been a pivotal part of design initiatives at Mayo Clinic, the enormous design transformation initiative at IBM, Atlassian the enterprise software developer, and is now starting a new position as the head of WooCommerce. Todd is speaking at Adaptive Path’s upcoming Service Experience Conference in San Francisco, and is bringing his hard-won expertise to explain why we need to sacrifice Service Design as a unique discipline in order to build great services.
Scott Sullivan (SS): So looking over your recent work history, it seems like it’s focused on building a design practice within massive, massive places.
Todd Wilkens (TW): In the last few years, that’s for sure. I’ve been going to places, trying to help build design practice in big organizations.
SS: The scale of what you were doing at IBM is just — is insane, right? I mean, everybody was just like, “I can’t believe they’re actually attempting to do that there,” but it seems to be working out really well.
TW: Yeah, that was why I originally went to go take that job was because it just, it was crazy. It was crazy what Phil Gilbert and the team he was putting together were trying to do, and it just seemed like, you can’t just not — if you have a chance to try that, you gotta give it a shot, right?
SS: Absolutely! And IBM is doing great now. They’re getting stuff done, consistently publishing really great insights and tools, really useful stuff. Would you consider that, from your current perspective, mission accomplished? Or well on the way?
TW: Yeah, you know, it’s funny. Something that I learned from working at Adaptive Path in the past was, people used to come to Adaptive Path for help transforming their organizations a lot of times. They’re trying to understand how to do design or Service Design or planned thinking or whatever phrase they use — trying to bring that in, make it strategically impactful. How do we do it?
We’ve talked to lots of large organizations about that, and the one thing you always realize is that this is a task that is never completed. You start working on that, but it’s never like “it’s done, okay, we can hang up our hats and it’s going to be fine for the next 10 years.” Transformation almost never just “happens” — it’s always moving in the right direction.
IBM is one of the places where the basic idea for my talk was cemented, which is that you have to stop focusing on being a designer and owning design. You have to recognize that, in order to make great products and services around the world, designers don’t do that by themselves, right? It’s these whole multidisciplinary teams that actually get things out into the world to have impact. That was one of the first places where I realized I had to kind of give up the ownership of design. It couldn’t be this precious thing and this precious identity to myself and the people on our team. We had to prioritize getting good things shipped out the door over ourselves as design people. The output, the impact in the world and the impact on the world was much more important than us continuing to own or even get credit for everything.
SS: So would designers be seen as more of a gatekeeper? When you’re working with multiple lines of businesses on multiple touchpoints, what’s the service designer’s responsibility?
TW: It’s interesting that you say, “the gatekeeper,” that’s a conversation that we had at Atlassian, sometimes people use the word gatekeeper, sometimes they say “Is this some kind of stage-gate that everybody has to get approval before we build a thing?” Sometimes the word ownership gets used in those kinds of conversations as well, asking “Who is the owner that has to make the decisions and has to be consulted before a decision is made.” And, what’s interesting is that, this happened at IBM, and this is one of the lessons I’ve learned at Atlassian, the sort of trite thing to say is that software products and services are never done, right? They’re just in their current state, and you’re trying to make each state of their release better than the last, but they’re never done, and they’re also never perfect. And even if you got something that was “perfect”, the world would change enough that it would stop being perfect as a match for that world within three to six months.
So we’re always evolving everything that we release, whether software or service. I say that because it’s actually an interesting thing when it comes to design, in my experience, and the role of design. If you ask most designers “should we be iterating on things?” they will say, “Of course you’re iterating on things! It’s never perfect, you’re always iterating, always improving, you’re always duh-duh-duh-duh-duh.” But most designers talk about that within the studio, “as long as I’m ‘in the prototyping phase’ — yes, of course, it’s iterating. But then there’s a point where I have to feel like it’s done and I’m releasing something to the world. They tend to choose their criteria for success when something is released out into the world. It needs to be better, more perfect. And then there’s this kind of real hesitance, I’ve found, around how you handle iteration once something is out in the world. Designers are really comfortable with that iteration idea, but I find that they get more uncomfortable once it’s released into the world.
I want to change the conversation and start saying, “Well, yes, there are some things we can learn and improve on when it’s kind of in our control in the studio,” and I use the word studio in a sort of generic sense, not out in the world. But there’s this sense that we aren’t really learning if it’s working until we’ve made it and gotten it out in the hands of people that use it. Yes, we can do generative research. Yes, we can do evaluative research before it’s out. But oftentimes, especially with services, which tend to have complex touchpoints — you know, it’s one of those things that we can’t actually completely understand all the implications before it’s out and being used. The sooner you get it out into the world, and the better you are at quickly iterating it once it’s out in the world, it’s actually a better way of reducing risk and getting to success than spending time up front. One of the things I’ve learned is that, in some cases, that skill set is actually more important than all the design thinking that goes on.
So what that means is, designers need to stop seeing themselves as a gatekeeper and more as a conductor. You could say it like a train conductor, or like a music conductor. Both cases are actually accurate in some sense as a metaphor. It’s like being a conductor or a jazz musician with improvisational jazz. You don’t know what the next thing that is going to happen is, and you need to empower your people to respond to things, even when you’re not there telling them what to do.
Join Todd to learn more about Service Design as a unique discipline within organizations at the Service Experience Conference on November 3 & 4 in San Francisco. Todd will be joined by a line-up of premier leaders in Service Design and workshop teachers with practical take-home tools and know-how.
source : https://medium.com/@adaptivepath/service-design-as-a-unique-discipline-97330039d806
Posted on 12 March 2018 in 1 Strategic planning 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Posted on 12 December 2017 in 2 - Sustainability 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Here are four ways brands can win when taking a political stance on an issue:
1. Encourage participation
Part of being involved in the political cultural conversation is also asking consumers to get involved too. Encouraging wider voter participation has been done for many years (see every Rock The Vote campaign ever) but we’re starting to see brands leverage this in interesting ways. For the most recent UK general election Brewdog encouraged voter participation by offering a free pint of Punk IPA to those who could prove they had voted.
Brands should recognise that they can use their unique personalities and capabilities to encourage consumer participation in political issues.
2. Inspire a community
By taking a strong political stance brands can reflect the opinions and beliefs of the people they serve and work to make their lives better. In the last US election gay dating app Grindr not only encouraged its users to register to vote through in-app notifications, but also presented each candidates LGBT+ policies clearly. They have also encouraged users in specific states to vote against Anti-LGBT issues, inspiring a community of politically engaged users.
To truly inspire a community brands must ensure that they reflect the opinions and politics of their target consumers when taking on a political issue.
3. Be authentic
The strongest political stances ring true when they connect to your brand truth and feel organic and authentic. During the EU referendum in the UK last year we saw Lush come out in favour of the remain campaign, but rather than just taking a pro-EU stance, they aligned it with their other activist efforts by encouraging people to ‘Vote remain for animals’. By staying true to the history of their brand they garnered more respect from consumers, whilst also encouraging them to stand for something and champion their political views.
When brands take a political stance they should ensure that it feels connected to their brand’s personality to ensure that it rings true for consumers and doesn’t feel like they are jumping onto a bandwagon.
4. Think global
In an increasingly globalised world it is important to look at global political issues as well as those on a smaller scale. After President Trump decided to take the US out of the Paris Climate Change Agreement 25 companies bought full page ads in various US media outlets to make public their disagreements with Trump and his policy. Elon Musk of Tesla also publicly said he would leave an advisory council for Mr Trump, whilst other companies made clear that they would continue their efforts to fight climate change in spite of the new US policy.
Brands must recognise that they have a wide ranging, global reach, and that they can tackle global issues.
This article was written Hannah Robbins, Project Executive, Kantar Added Value, with support from our Cultural Insight team in the UK.
... Read MoreAs the political climate continues to grow more divisive, brands are getting thrust into the middle of debates many would prefer to avoid. In January, Toyota was attacked for expanding in Mexico to sell more vehicles to Americans. More recently, Nordstrom experienced whiplash for dropping Ivanka Trump’s clothing line. Corporations and brands typically like to remain apolitical. But in this highly polarized, culturally-charged and social-mediatized moment, where people expect their brands to represent them and their values, can brands sidestep politics entirely? Saying and doing nothing can unintentionally send a message to stakeholders, employees and consumers that the company or brand is indifferent to the issue at hand. And many of the issues being raised have direct implications for businesses. Brands and their CEOs, often the most concrete manifestations of a brand, are having their actions, announcements and affiliations put under the microscope like never before.
The recent executive order regarding the immigrant travel ban and the rhetoric around it is a case in point. The ban, which took place a week prior to the Super Bowl, resulted in brands wading deeply into political waters on both sides of the aisle. From celebration of Mexican avocados to a rerun of Coke’s ‘it’s beautiful’ campaign, immigration was all the rage… literally. Take Anheuser-Busch: Although the American immigrant story of the founder Adolphus Busch was apparently in the works for months prior to the travel ban, its airing led to a call for boycott by those who felt the ad was overtly political. 84 Lumber, a relatively unknown building supply company, ran ‘the Journey’, an ad considered so political by FOX that they refused to air the long version. The edited teaser, which suggested that viewers check out the full story on their website, crashed their site as 6 million attempts were made during the first hour to view the entire ad. The ensuing debate pitted the company’s intention to ‘symbolize the grit, dedication and sacrifice’ of their employees with anger at the promotion of illegal immigration.
With so much contestation on both sides, it can seem like there is no right way for brands to take part in the conversation without fear of reprisal. We at Kantar Added Value don’t believe things are quite that black and white. A brand’s decision on whether to take a bold stand, try to reconcile opposing points of view or stay entirely out of the fray will quite naturally depend on who that brand is. It’s not about politics. It’s about Purpose.
Airbnb’s campaign #weaccept, which explicitly promoted diversity and acceptance, aired during the same Super Bowl as the controversial ads mentioned above. Yet it, along with their initiative to provide short-term housing for displaced people in need, was mostly met with praise. Sure, a few Twitter trolls expressed outrage at what they deemed a ‘politically charged’ message. But all in all, Airbnb got off relatively unscathed. Why?
For one, this pioneer in the sharing economy has built its entire brand around the idea of belonging and community. It therefore was perfectly coherent, to see them take a stand against an order that runs counter to everything they stand for. And Airbnb’s young urban cosmopolitan target would expect no less.
Of course, in any situation, brand owners will want to measure the risks and rewards of speaking up. But risk mitigation isn’t as simple as it used to be. With the rise of social media and real-time communications, brands are expected to behave more like humans. And humans don’t just do what they think will maximize their ROI in the short term. Their behaviors are rooted in values and personality and so should any brand worth its EPS be. Brands, like humans, need to know what they stand for. The clearer a brand is about its raison d’être, the easier it will be to align quickly and convincingly on a course of action.
A brands’ position on a given issue should weigh four key considerations:
1. The brand’s core/most loyal consumers: who are they and what matters to them? If you are Hobby Lobby, your right-leaning consumers will be expecting you to stand up for family values, just as a Ben & Jerry’s core consumer will be sensitive to climate change issues. Some brands don’t know where their consumers stand until they find out the hard way. When Uber chose not to hold up the one-hour taxi strike at JFK airport during the height of the airport protests, their users were enraged. When it then came to light that Uber CEO, Travis Kalanick, was also a member of President Trump’s economic advisory committee, the #deleteUber movement on Twitter was born. Uber, a brand that has successfully positioned themselves as ‘your private driver’ is increasingly out of sync with the cultural moment- evoking elitism and selfishness vs. Lyft whose purpose is to be ‘your friend with a car’. Both drivers and passengers appear to increasingly prefer the latter mindset. Brands must also be forward thinking about their consumer base. Earlier this year, a Fox News radio host dubbed Chick-fil-A “the official chicken of Jesus“. The company’s CEO, who previously took a strong stand against same sex marriage, now seeks to expand northward to NY and other left leaning cities. Consumers and employees in these zipcodes have different attitudes and affiliations, thus requiring a rethink on brand targeting.
2. The brand’s values: what is most important to the brand? What does it stand for and what would it be willing to fight for? There was a time when brands didn’t need to know the answer to these questions. No longer. CVS, the pharmacy brand that took the first strong stand against tobacco, logically stood up for affordable care. Patagonia and Black Diamond, long-time supporters of environmental protection, are publicly appealing to the entire outdoors industry to move their trade show out of Utah State, if its leaders continue to support Republican efforts in Congress to transfer or sell federal lands to states. For brands with strong values, doing nothing, or even taking a tepid position, is not an option.
3. The brand’s competencies: Where does the brand have expertise that might be applied to or provide perspective on the issue at hand? A recent report by Weber Shandwick, entitled “The Dawn of CEO Activism,” found that people saw CEOs more favorably if they took a public stance on current issues — as long as the topic was related to the company’s business. (If it wasn’t, the numbers reversed.). In this vein, Mark Weinberger, CEO of EY has offered his company’s expertise to ‘educate’ President Trump on all things related to job creation in the US. Nike, a brand that has promoted women’s participation in sports for two decades, is addressing the Muslim issue from a different angle: their recent launch of a lightweight, highly wearable hijab that doesn’t come untucked when working out or during competitions, is intended to reach a growing market of Muslim shoppers. Another global brand, IKEA, working through its foundation, has developed refugee shelters made from recycled plastic that can be easily assembled in just a few hours (see innovation section for details). Interestingly, IKEA’s DIY expertise has been hijacked by designers seeking to make an anti-Muslim ban statement via a tongue-in-cheek ad for a “Börder Wåll“, offering a fake flat-pack wall, sold with 5,659,344 screws, and a single allen wrench, for a bargain price of : $9,999,999,999.99.
4. The brand’s personality: Finally, the way a brand chooses to address an issue must be coherent with that brand’s personality. A brand’s willingness to get out in front on contentious topics should reflect its placement on the spectrum of boldness. Is the brand an Innocent or a Nurturer, in which case it will likely avoid direct conflict? Or is it a Hero, willing to fight for what is right? Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, was one of the first to speak out against the immigrant travel ban with zeal, announcing a decision to employ 10,000 refugees in protest. While the press has suggested that Starbucks is risking business, Kantar Millward Brown (full disclosure – sister Kantar company) reported last week that there has been no substantive impact on any key performance metrics. Jeep, more of an Explorer brand, decided to straddle the fence with their ‘Free to Be,’ campaign, launched around the final presidential debate last year. The campaign featured a split screen showing their latest models half in red, half in blue, delivering a message of unification that cut across party lines. To showcase the parallel park assist, one ad proposed to help you “position yourself between two sides.” Lane departure warning ads reminded you that “The left and the right are closer than you think.”
It could be argued that such an attempt to rise above the divisive rhetoric and avoid taking sides is too safe…that such an approach isn’t bold enough to stand out. But the real question is whether the brand is acting in a way that is coherent with what you know, love and expect from it. And whether it is aligning with the core values of its target. Because the only thing worse for a brand today than being invisible is to be inauthentic or irrelevant.
Written by Leslie Pascaud, Executive Vice President Branding and Sustainable Innovation, and Teiko Uyekawa, Brand, Kantar Added Value.
Headline image credit: Kantar Added Value
... Read MoreIt has been a cataclysmic year. From shake-ups in the world of brand marketing and advertising, to unimaginable political outcomes in the US and the UK, to continuing devastation in war-torn cities like Aleppo, the shock of the year’s events have reverberated around the globe in real-time.
Here are 5 emerging themes shaped by the events of 2016, and questions every brand should consider in relationship to them, as our organizations seek to play a role in supporting human flourishing:
OUR OLD ORGANIZING PRINCIPLES ARE BROKEN
Traditional dividing lines are blurring and no longer have the predictive power they once did. In a world where news travels at the speed of the internet, geography, age, race, sex, gender, religion, income, education have all become less salient as indicators. We see this playing out in the use of psychographic profiling to micro-target news consumers in both the Brexit vote and the US presidential election, and we see it in the reimagining of masculine gender roles, as exemplified by America’s first CoverBoy. The organizing principles we’ve relied on in the past and have come to accept as fact can no longer reliably guide us in understanding a person’s experiences, preferences and assumed choices.
Question for your brand: How might you need to understand and conceptualize your targets differently, both today and in the future?
IF EVERYONE IS THE MEDIA, NO ONE IS THE MEDIA
The monolith of the fourth estate no longer speaks with a singular voice. “Traditional” media outlets still exist, but they now compete with start-ups, independent outlets, brands and individuals to tell the story of what’s happening in the world and why. Issues of roles, rights, and responsibilities, truth and propaganda have come into play as everyone jockeys to deliver “content” and drive the 24/7 news cycle and the ad dollars attached to it. Increasingly, we’re coming to see that media sources are aimed at not just page views but also the power to shape world views, and thus drive the cultural narrative that frames reality.
Question for your brand: How can your brand best shape influencers, and what unified message can your brand deliver that speaks into a fragmented media landscape?
POLARIZATION IS THE NEW NORMAL
From heated exchanges between strangers on social media, to families divided down political lines, polarization can start to feel like the only thing we all share in common. When it’s easy to surround yourself with only opinions that confirm your own biases, this polarization can seem even more pronounced. In the US, not since the first Civil Rights movement has the country seen such a groundswell of efforts in the direction of furthering racial equality, while simultaneously we see extremist, nationalist groups also come to the forefront. We are all being forced to take a hard look at who we are as a people and a culture, and there are no easy answers. Some take this as a sign of hope, believing that this self-examination, though painful, is necessary for us to move forward as a society. But we are surely at a cultural precipice, with many wondering which forces will prevail.
Question for your brand: In a polarized climate, what can your brand truly stand for that allows your brand’s voice to be heard above the fray and connect with universal human truths?
RECKONING WITH TECH
The promise of technology as an elegant solution to the age-old problem of human error, pride and greed, hasn’t quite worked out that way. Yes, technology has made our lives dramatically easier in many ways but this has not come without cost. Indeed we are just beginning to recognize that the fruits of technology’s labors have far-reaching consequences that must be grappled with. Just this week, news of a massive cyber-forgery ring that fraudulently costs advertisers up to $5M a day to pay for fake video views serves as yet another reminder that technology can hurt as much as it can help. The industry and the world at large will have to reckon with how technology can be shaped toward its most humane, ethical ends while protecting us from own our worst impulses to exploit others through it.
Question for your brand: How can your brand leverage the power of technology, while working to mitigate its potential negative impacts for all?
BALANCING SECURITY AND LIBERTY
As the global world is more connected, the tenuous relationship between security and liberty becomes more fraught. In many democratic countries, enshrined individual rights are strained in the face of efforts to ensure safety of the collective. How much oversight is too much? At what point can we opt out of a “Big Brother” existence that often we know nothing about? Add to that the vulnerability inherent in increasing amounts of data – personal and corporate — stored online and in the cloud, and what seem like endless hacks into what we were told are secure systems. Distrust of all entities meant to secure our safety, both virtual and physical, grows deeper, even as we need these entities more and more.
Question for your brand: How might your brand provide consumers with a sense of security amidst tumult, in both traditional and creative ways?
Written by Joanna Franchini, Kantar Added Value US.
... Read MorePosted on 06 July 2017 in 4- Communication 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (1)
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(From left to right, Patrick Lara, Valérie Hénaff, Jean-Guy Saulou)
If you’re going to meet the leading lights of Publicis Conseil, it might as well be on the roof terrace of their iconic building at 133 Avenue des Champs-Élysées. The Publicis story has been unfolding at this address since 1958. Now, as we gather around a table on an unexpectedly sunny spring day, the agency has embarked on its next chapter.
With me on the rooftop are Valérie Henaff, president of Publicis Conseil, along with director generals Patrick Lara and Jean-Guy Saulou (who was the former DG of Nurun). The agency’s transformation was sparked by the merging of Publicis Conseil with Nurun Paris. In other words, the integration of 250 digital and tech experts with existing Publicis Conseil staff, bringing the total number up to 650.
“Our philosophy for some time now has been ‘lead the change’,” says Valérie Henaff. “Our clients are constantly confronted by change, so rather than being intimidated by that, our view is that in order to grow one should embrace it and be inspired by it.”
This philosophy has driven the agency’s international presence (“We are the most international of French agencies,” remarks Valérie) as well as its widely reported digital transformation. In that respect, the latest evolution is a logical one.
Publicis Conseil refers to its new incarnation as “the first full brand experience agency”. So what exactly does that mean? Valérie explains: “What Nurun brought to us specifically was its expertise in the realm of the customer experience. Along with our clients we have become aware that one can no longer separate what a brand says – the communication – from the way the customer actually experiences that brand. A bad customer experience can undermine all the brand’s communications investment.”
In other words, Publicis Conseil must now be able to oversee the customer journey from A to Z, whether that means the website user experience, its social media presence, or even the store interior. Because as we all know, there’s nothing more disappointing than a brand that fails to live up to its promises.
Practically speaking, the agency will be organised around nine business units – almost mini-agencies – of around 80 people, each dedicated to one or several clients. As everyone in French adland knows, Publicis Conseil works for some the country’s most emblematic brands, including AccorHotels, BNP Paribas, Carrefour, AXA, Engie, L’Oréal, Nestlé, Orange, Renault, Sanofi, Groupe Seb... Each of the nine entities will be headed by a duo, one from Publicis Conseil and one from the former Nurun.
“We’ve always put clients at the core of our business, but now our internal organization reflects that approach,” says Valérie.
TRANSVERSAL TALENTS
If it sounds as though Publicis might be creating silos while other agencies are breaking them, Valérie assures us that all its clients will be able to benefit from “transversal talents” who can intervene whenever and wherever required. These include data scientists, UX specialists, social media coordinators and many more.
Jean-Guy Saulou says: “We’ll ensure that digital skills are available to all our clients. The advantage of being 650 people is that we’re capable of bringing together the equivalent of a specialist agency for every circumstance. With the difference that we can combine our long-term client vision with these often very niche skills.”
There’s also a further transversal unit called The Strategic Studio, which incorporates strategic planners, channel planners, engagement planners and data analysts, among others. One of the most compelling elements of the new structure is the Social Media News Desk that sits at the heart of the agency. Publicis Conseil also has its own digital production studio so that it can match output with the rate of demand for content.
The agency’s creative output will be overseen by four “creative poles” headed respectively by Olivier Desmettre and Fabrice Delacourt, Marcelo Vergara, Elie Trotignon (former executive creative director of Nurun Paris).
A LAB CALLED “LE LOFT”
Another symbol of the agency’s evolution is Le Loft, a combination of mobile brand content lab and workshop which brings together experts from within Publicis and external talents – for instance YouTube stars and social influencers.
Le Loft is described as “multidisciplinary, open, agile and data-driven”. The teams assemble around a specific client, for one month, each time in a different location. During that time they’re given one brief every day.
The entire team works on the brief at the same time, “a collective discipline that allows the hatching of dozens of creative ideas a day”, according to the agency’s official literature.
Less officially, director general Patrick Lara says: “It’s astonishing to observe this mixture of different talents in the same space for a defined period. The client is deeply integrated in the process and regularly comes to work alongside us. Sometimes they discover hidden talents!”
The content is actually produced within the Loft, Patrick stresses: “It’s not just a space for ideation and conception. We have animators, illustrators and other craftspeople who can bring the ideas to life, there and then.”
It must be one of the rare times an advertising creative gets to work with a YouTuber on a brief for electric vehicles. Valérie Henaff adds: “We sought outside talents not to hire them, but to work with them and most importantly to learn from them.”
Initially created for Renault, Le Loft has also worked with BNP Paribas, Garnier, Nestlé and Groupe Seb. “The experience was supposed to be a one-off, but the results were so rich that we decided to continue.”
DRIVING CREATIVITY
An agency is still paid for its ideas, and Patrick Lara insists that the new organization will enhance their delivery. “What’s interesting is that the full brand experience, because it involves truly listening to and engaging with the consumer, brings us unexpected insights that generate creativity in their wake.”
The more the agency listens to customers, he says, the more it enables brands to respond to their needs. “Providing solutions is also part of the brand experience.”
One concrete example was the insight that new parents often drive their babies around in the car in order to send them off to sleep. But driving around town at three in the morning has obvious inconveniences – not least when you have to stop and the little one starts crying again.
“So we created the first static baby seat that recreates the sensation of being in a car,” Patrick smiles. The Baby Seat was a joint project by Publicis in Paris, Argentina and Italy for Renault and is now available all over the world. “That’s not an ad, but a product, based on our knowledge of the consumer – something we would perhaps never have done ten years ago.”
Valérie Henaff concludes: “In a way, everything we’ve been talking about this afternoon is inherently linked to creativity. Today we can say that we’ve invented a new way of working, collaborating and thinking.”
Perhaps not so much a new chapter, then, as the start of an entirely new story.
source : https://fr.adforum.com/interviews/the-new-publicis-conseil
Posted on 08 June 2017 in 4- Communication 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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French strategic planners will meet may 31 in paris #planneur https://www.facebook.com/events/127458287799642/
Photos : Baudouin
Posted on 03 May 2017 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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As spotted through D&AD's 2016 Spatial and Experiential Lenses
While futurist and socio-economists are militating for the ethic use of technology designers are all about its meaningful use.
Author: Andreea Hirica
“We can’t keep up with technology, so we need to be mindful of its use: only because we can, it doesn't mean we have to” Hannah Carter Owers, Jury Spatial and Experiential Design, D&AD 2016.
“As we move from the fantasy world of advertising through a science-fiction world of technology, we have the imagination and the tools to shape a new world” says Andy Sandoz, D&AD President 2015-2016. A world where technology is a platform for ideas. A world in which we are passengers as well as drivers (creators). For “technology not only changes what you can do with ideas, it also changes the kind of ideas you can have.” Technology cultured ideas, as Andy puts it: “ideas that understand connection, interaction and iteration.”
And which category could have been more powerfully challenged to showcase technology cultured ideas other than the human touch of Spatial and Experiential Design?
“I wanted the physical experience to be so jaw-dropping that people simply forget about their phones” Christian Davies, Spatial and Experiential Design Jury President, 2016. “Today spaces are filled with people spending so much of their time in the digital world that they are having a hard time immersing themselves into the physical one.” (Christian Davies).
We all got used with spaces filled with a sea of moving bodies attached to their cell phones, so here are some of the best in class examples of tech cultured ideas: technology used in simple yet powerful ways to “take your breath away. Literally stop you in your tracks.” (Christian Davies).
A Black Screen and Words Only
Assembly of Youth, for UNICEF, by Google Creative Lab
To bring the voices of young people to the attention of world leaders, Assembly of Youth was a unique installation that delivered real-time personal messages from children and young people around the world directly at the 2015 General Assembly.
With a black screen and words so that even those sms enabled only can speak, Assembly of Youth is a beautiful case of technology use in limited, wise doses, for powerful impact: to change perception, trigger action and raise solutions for global challenges. An example of what can be done, for all of us out there, when trying to avoid the first hand temptation of glossing things over with technology, just because we can.
Skeuomorphic Design, the Other Way Around
Live Vines, for Lowe
3D, mechanical, fully automated dioramas, running in continuous 6 second loops; they brought into the physical world Lowe’s loved short home improvement video tips, from Vine. With the characters designed in the style of Lowe’s digital Vines and brought to life using Motors and pistons, the physical Vines showcased tips tailored for NYC living and operated live, right inside the new store windows.
From the phone into the street, Lowe’s live Vines are just one of the many examples of tech cultured ideas, Andy’s way: with technology changing the type of ideas that you can have.
Crafted Simplicity
National Aquarium Denmark, The Blue Planet
With technology used to de-clutter the meaningless and enhance the meaningful, Den Blå Planet is a beautiful example of technology in the service of education: where the museum visit experience flows, together with the oceans that it showcases.
“We are conscious as judges that what we picked sent a signal. But we saw a trend of lightness of touch: a simplicity away from the visual noise; a rarity of simple, pure design, this year. We're on the cusp of a change." Christian Davies.
In the light of tech-cultured ideas, the 2016 spatial and experiential design saw a return to: craft, aesthetics, thoughtfulness, simplicity, and mindfulness. Great ideas made big through the appropriate use of technology.
Win One, Teach One
To take the insights and discoveries further, the 2016 D&AD Annual became a Work and Learn Manual. It incites the mind to think about what the work can teach us. And more importantly, shows strategic models and creative exercises to work with and light up your imaginative power all year long, if ever your creative juices run dry.
Posted on 08 February 2017 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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According to Global Web Index (GWI), more than 50% of internet users today spend more than three hours a day connected, while more than 90% own a smartphone. Businesses need to battle with the onslaught of real-time information and distractions over what’s real and what’s not to reach, engage, and win over customers. The ability to capture and retain a customer’s shortening attention span is now more important than ever. Here is our trends guide on how businesses should navigate the complex marketing landscape in 2017.
Twitter’s Managing Director for South East Asia and India, Maya Hari, shares the company’s insights on the trends guide on how businesses should navigate the complex marketing landscape in 2017.
1. Does your brand speak data?
Although many brands and businesses have adopted social media as part of their marketing strategy, the majority have neglected to leverage real-time social data analytics. In 2017, brands should leverage the full archive of public Twitter data, which has 10 years of conversations around almost any topic you can imagine. By analysing this rich data set, businesses can uncover key insights to make better decisions. Businesses can also better expect the unexpected and quantify outcomes through data patterns.
Twitter Tip: Want to harness the power of historical Twitter data? Visit our Twitter data blog post to understand the ways that we see businesses capture the power of this data.
2. Is your brand mobile first?
Mobile is now — but brands are not ready. In APAC, 51% of internet users found mobile phones the most important vs. 26% who chose laptop (Source: GWI). Most people are viewing websites, reading email, and perusing social media on their mobile devices. In 2017, if you’re not catering your content, ads, and online experience to a mobile user, then you are missing a massive opportunity. Everything from your business website to email campaigns needs to be mobile-friendly.
3. What are people watching today?
Social video is experiencing massive popularity as a content marketing creative, and this growth is expected to continue in 2017. A June 2016 HubSpot survey shows that global internet users consume video thoroughly, versus simply skimming it, and that it’s the number one form of online content. Live video emerges as a next-level opportunity for exclusive, interactive content, turning social platforms into broadcast media. Platforms are making it easier to broadcast live through any smartphone. In 2017, be associated with the trendsetting brands experimenting with live video. This format tends to work best for content that is exclusive, newsworthy, or happening live at events such as CES or the Golden Globes, or content such as Q&A sessions that require live audience involvement. Visit our live video playbook to learn more about Twitter products and get advice for going live.
4. How can you humanise your brand?
In a world of too much content and not enough time, personalisation will be a huge win for brands looking to earn the attention of their consumers in 2017. Personalisation means segmenting your content to reach different types of audience members based on their preferences, interests, habits, etc. The most common form of this strategy is through lists, where certain content gets sent to certain types of users based on which lists they’ve opted into. A great example of personalisation took place during the 2016 India Premier League (IPL) by Kingfisher (@kingfisherworld).
5. Are you reaching your customers at all touch points?
Increased personalisation goes hand in hand with cross-device marketing. Marketing efforts in 2017 need to address device preferences and cut across desktop, laptop, mobile, and TV. However, the multiple devices that people use on their path to purchase can make measuring the impact of a mobile ad campaign difficult. Businesses can leverage conversion lift reports to better understand the ROI on mobile campaigns. In beta, we saw that people who were exposed to ads driving website conversions on both mobile and desktop devices were 52% more likely to make purchases than people who were only exposed on desktop.
Recent research from social TV analytics company Canvs shows TV viewers who engage on Twitter have higher rates of ad recall. Canvs identifies the instances when a high percentage of Tweets about a TV program contain emotional reactions. During such programs, viewers are 48% more likely to recall an ad than those who watched programs that have a lower reaction rate.
6. Is social the next marketplace?
We are moving into an age where purchasing does not need to happen on a third-party site. Users are on a social platform, so why should they have to leave in order to buy something? In 2017, we expect social platforms will not be bound just to company-consumer conversation or attracting new prospects; instead, they will provide opportunities to improve conversion rates. Social platforms will work as new conversion channels and offer tools to convert prospects directly into buyers. The challenge for established brands is responding to these new models with digital transformation.
7. Call me @ maybe?
Anyone who’s spent 30 minutes on hold while trying to reach a company for customer service has thought “there must be a better way.” We have seen an increasing number of people who shared this sentiment turn to Twitter for a faster, more direct experience. According to McKinsey & Company (@McKinsey), the volume of Tweets targeted at brands and their Twitter service handles has grown 2.5 times in the past two years. Direct Messages on Twitter have enabled brands like Apple to have a dialogue with customers, resolving their issues while demonstrating their brand voice. In 2017 we expect more businesses to benefit from thecombination of simple automation and human service in Direct Messages, which will make it easier to guide people to better customer service outcomes.
8. Does your brand aspire to be an innovation leader?
As brands continue to innovate on audience engagement, immersive experiences will grow in 2017. Expect content filmed at events to be taken to the next immersive level with 360-degree video thanks to consumer camera products becoming readily available and platforms like Periscope launching 360 video players. Live 360 video is not just about taking you to places you’ve never been; it’s about connecting you with people and letting you experience something new with them. With these videos, the broadcaster anchors the experience so you can be present with them from whatever environment they’re sharing from.
Source: ADOBO Magazine
Posted on 06 February 2017 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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In an insightful interview, Amanda explains her vision for a customer-centric organisation and the concerns she has that marketing is getting lost in an increasingly technological world.
“I’m really worried about marketing at the moment.” says Amanda.
“Marketing is at a really difficult time as it risks being narrowed to just the ‘colouring in department’ of brand marketing, unless it steps up to the challenges that technology brings.
“I know it can’t be left to function as it is, or it’ll become smaller and diminished. If we’re not careful marketing itself could become disintermediated.”
Amanda has gone as far as to ban the word ‘digital’ to encourage her team to think beyond organisational silos.
“We need to go back to what marketing is, and the product is marketing. More people need to remember that, get off the drug of digital being something separate and get back to what we do best.
“Look at an organisation like Apple. They don’t do masses of marketing; it’s a great product and a clean brand. I think that their marketing department is tiny, but then it is a marketing-led organisation.”
As more and more of HSBC’s interactions take place through digital interfaces, Amanda believes that marketing plays an important role in shaping the design of the online value proposition.
“In many organisations where they are behind on digital what happens is they hire in someone to be a head of digital or ecommerce as separate functions.”
“All of a sudden, that person hires a load of marketer/customer experience champions, so you end up with two marketing departments. For any organisation it’s huge waste of resource to have two teams doing the same thing. That’s the real danger. Brand is not only about what you say, it’s also about what you do”
“In the past we thought about international and local marketing being quite separate and woke up one day to realise it’s the same thing. I think it’s the same thing with digital. Everybody talks about it, setting up innovation teams, but if marketers don’t own that space, marketing becomes very skinny and just about creative, and the digital function expands.”
Amanda believes that marketing should be the ‘soul and conscience’ of the customer.
“If you put the customer at the heart of what you do, then you should be thinking about the full customer journey, and how marketing can improve that – which is different to being the people who just do the ads.”
“Marketers have got to remember what they are there to do – that they are the voice of the customer – but they need to become more technology savvy.”
“The problem I’m observing is that a lot of marketers are reverting to focusing on the creative solution alone– a great advert – and don’t understand that a creative should be technology-driven as well. By not striking the balance between the two, marketers risk ending up with no substance behind the creative.”
Amanda gives the example of HSBC’s critically acclaimed TV ad as an example of what could have been achieved with a different approach.
“I believe that marketing teams can be transformative if they learn how to take a great creative idea and take it all the way through into all parts of the customer journey. We are working on this now. We have a great creative idea and our challenge is how you amplify through content/sales experience.
“I am convinced that getting the right balance of talent can turn a fantastic creative idea into the cornerstone of everything we would do for the next six months. This needs technology-savvy as well as a creative team to come up with a different solution.”
Technology changes impact the entire organisation, not soley the marketing department.
“One of our main learnings has been the extent to which we require the business to get involved with the implementation of new marketing technologies. If the data inputted isn’t right then the whole system fails.
The technology that HSBC currently uses to power its online customer interfaces includes:
Source: Datanyze
Finding talent to shape the future of marketing is proving increasingly hard to find.
“We have to learn new technical skills and hire a different mix of people.
“There are two different areas of expertise developing in marketing. There is the ‘left brain’ of data, insights, marketing operations and automation, and I need to hire really good analysts to interrogate our data and make sense to produce valuable insights.
“Then there is the ‘right brain’ of content and creative.
“But what we are missing are the leaders of the future who are capable to straddling both to see the overall strategy, how we use digital and social channels. We need to train our talent to fuse the two.”
Amanda is open about not having all the answers as her department evolves to new ways of working.
“Like everyone, I am learning to catchup. I’m not a technologist, but I did grow up as direct marketer which helps. A lot of CMOs developed through a more creative route which makes it harder to adapt to a data-driven environment.
“I’m not sure where the talent is going to come from to help me do all these things. Possibly from people sitting in Google and other technology companies.”
It is not only marketing departments which need to embrace change – the traditional agency model also has to adapt to the changes that technology brings.
“In my experience, most agencies are unable to fuse technology and creative. They still treat social as a campaign tool rather than customer opportunity. It’s because they don’t understand the full customer journey and I think it’s becoming real problem.”
“If agencies don’t come to us with wider solutions to encompass the whole customer journey, you will see advertising agencies scope become narrower.”
“There are some interesting agencies who are responding to clients’ briefs in a different way – who are putting a brief out to 150 technolgy-savvy individuals around the world to come back with a solution. But for the most part I just don’t think a lot of them have got it YET, and even those who are embracing it have yet to master it, transformation takes time.”
Amanda’s team regularly speak directly to technology companies about how to get the most from their platforms.
“Why wouldn’t I? I pilot products for LinkedIn, they come to me and we try new ideas. “As a media agency’s revenue model is under threat as they aren’t going to get a load of revenue from Google PPC ads. The way we start to pay our agencies will need to evolve.
“Agencies have an important role to play in understanding your brief and coming back with the optimum solution using all channels. But they can’t be just media planners anymore – they need to become media strategists.
“They need to understand the technology, programmatic advertising etc, and become segmentation analysts, different groups respond in different ways.”
An organisation like HSBC has many touch-points with a customer, including in branch, online and customer service, email, social media, in person meetings and live events.
“My biggest frustration is how we are measuring effectiveness at all parts of the funnel and working to improve performance. I am sure it is for many Marketing Heads. Marketing has a huge role to play in the full customer experience, from awareness all the way through to conversion.”
Amanda is working on creating a team whose sole job is to improve brand experience for customers, across all the touch points that they have.
“This team might pick five issues a month and try to hot-house ideas to solve those issues, bringing in various insight sources together, including external data, to build a complete picture of our customers and to continually test and improve it.”
Looking at the complete customer journey involves teams which aren’t part of marketing, of course. Collaboration is key to working across all the functions:
“We work closely with these teams, but ultimately journey mapping needs to be by people who understand the full customer experience. Having a clear customer propositions is key. ”
Further reading: 11 Takeaways from HSBC’s Content Marketing Strategy
Posted on 05 January 2017 in 1 Strategic planning 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (2)
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What Is Science
Supplemental
Is Marketing a Science?
Markets and the Marketing Concept
Exchange: The Central Notion of Marketing?
Supplemental
Production of Marketing Knowledge
Marketing Journals (Mostly Ranking)
Bibliometric Studies in Marketing
Commodification of Marketing Knowledge
Research Productivity (mostly in Marketing)
Replication Studies in Marketing
Supplemental
History of Marketing
Schools of Marketing Thought
Periodization of Marketing History
'4 Eras' Article and Commentary
Marketing Journals
Wroe Alderson
Biography
Literary Lessons
Supplemental
Three Recent Theories of Marketing
Relationship Marketing
R-A Theory: Point and Counterpoint
Service-Dominant Logic
Explanation
Supplemental
Induction and Deduction
Supplemental
Scientific Laws
Supplemental
Theory
Theory Building
Classification
Definition
Supplemental
Historical Relativism
Supplemental
Post-Relativistic Philosophy of Science
General
Marketing Literature
Reification Debate
Consumer Behavior
Supplemental
Critical Marketing
Introduction
Anti-consumption
O'Shaughnessy, John and Nicholas Jackson O'Shaughnessy (2007), "Commentary: Reply to Criticisms of Marketing, the Consumer Society and Hedonism," European Journal of Marketing, 41 (1/2), 7-16. (pdf)
Social Marketing
Societal Marketing
Sustainability
Hunt, Shelby D. (2012), "Toward the Institutionalization of Macromarketing: Sustainable Enterprise, Sustainable Marketing Sustainable Development, and the Sustainable Society," Journal of Macromarketing, 32 (4), 404-411. (pdf)
End of Marketing
Supplemental
Sociology of Science
Science and Values
Fraud in Science
Supplemental
Psychology of Science
Supplemental
Discovery
Supplemental
SUPPLEMENTAL TOPICS
Concepts and Propositions
Mind-Body Problem
Plato to Hegel
SUPPLEMENTAL BOOKS
Worthwhile Biographies
http://business.nmsu.edu/~mhyman/M670_Articles/
Posted on 11 December 2016 in 3 - Marketing 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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If a couple of years ago the European elite at the leading edge of innovation was all about the disruption: of established, antiquated patterns, of outdated perceptions, labels and beliefs. The first edition of TEDxBrusselsWomen, sets a new tone:
Author: Andreea Hirica
It’s about time,
… to start what?
To reconstruct definitions and make different choices. To build new grounds, lead the change and be the transformation.
“To abandon simple solutions and slogans and grapple the nuances” invites Rosie Spinks introducing her Mounty Women project.
To rebuild definitions inspires Michele LeVoy sharing her own Irish ancestry and emigration story. “Definition is a powerful thing”, she explains; "in times of fear and anxiety negative definitions are more likely to appear. We study history so that we can learn to think critically about the present. History tells us that this is the only way in which labels can and will change“. It’s time for people to “feel empowered to change definitions and labels that are outdated and inaccurate”. To replace them with the holistic lenses of complexity, diversity and inclusion.
And maybe the most wonderful change management case to a TEDx Women event comes from a man: Lode Dewlf .
Starting from the current fact that “a pregnancy without any problems is quite rare", Lode makes one of the most powerful perception shift cases. And shares simple steps that each of us can take in order to:
Reconstruct new definitions
“We need to renormalize and update the definition of 'normal'. There is a tremendous amount of tension on how a normal pregnancy 'should' be, how we 'should' view it and how people 'should' interact with the concept", Lode explains.
So how do we reassemble new definitions? “By changing the tensions into attention: as long as I moralize the women who have pregnancy problems, I will fail them. If, however, I focus on supporting and encouraging them, I manage to create a move”. We should always remember the healing power of feeling normal (accepted, included, OK). However, "morals never move by themselves. It's people that have to transform the tension into attention and move them.”
For this, Knowledge is a powerful change ally
And Lode takes on the challenge to demystify the commonly spread fertility belief that chances to easily conceive for women over 30 years old dramatically decrease. The study was done, he enlightens the audience, in the 18th century by scholars who researched the church archives and statistically measured the age of women when giving birth. Recent studies, however, show that 82% of women had naturally conceived between the age of 34 - 39 and that mark was only 4% lower than what has been observed in the 20 - 29 age group.
Knowledge about facts triggers the necessarily actions, framing the right mindsets and approaches. Once society focuses on the facts, beyond supporting the old fashion “Madam Should”, solutions to enable the new reality automatically emerge.
On the chair: "Madam Should", Lode's faithful live demo assistant. Credit @TEDxBrussels Women
How can each and every one of us help changing perceptions and find modern definitions of what is “normal”, based on facts? “Imagine a future where every pregnancy is accepted the way it is. And no woman is judged for the age at which she's expecting, the conditions of her pregnancy or how she measures up against ‘Madam Should’ ” Lode inspires.
Or as Katie Hinde, Lactation Researcher puts it: “Just because something is evolutionary ancient, doesn’t mean it’s easy or that we are supposed to be good at from the start”.
Whether you agree with this statement or not, you are right. And there are lots which rightfully so believe that nursing is easy and it is supposed to be easy. Same as there are those who believe they can and those who believe they can’t and, according to Henry Ford, they are all right. Diversity and making allowance for divergent, contrasting and paradoxical opinions to exist at the same time and space is what will take us through the timelines shift. As:
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the capacity to function”. F. Scott Fitzgerald
And as Professor Albert Rothenberg identified: “if you hold opposites together, then you suspend your thought and your mind moves to a new level. The suspension of thought allows intelligence beyond thought to act and create a new form. The swirling of opposites creates the conditions for a new point of view to bubble free from your mind”. Source: The Creativity Post
It’s about time
To redefine definitions, labels and beliefs through the Janusian thinking of holding opposite concepts together and elasticising our minds to new heights.
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Like any piece of art, a TEDxBrussels event is what the public makes of it. Share your thoughts @TEDxBrusselsWom
Posted on 12 November 2016 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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In an era defined by the digitization of everything and liquid expectations from everyone, gaining competitive advantage seems ever more elusive. Thomas Müller makes the case why investing in a purpose-driven Living Brand platform is the most important strategic decision organizations can make to see their digital products and services breakaway from the competition.
Posted on 03 November 2016 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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We talk about case studies, books, personal experiences and opinions. If you have something interesting you'd like to share, please get in touch with us on Linkedin. http://theplanningsalon.com/about/
Posted on 13 May 2016 in 1 Strategic planning 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Dao Nguyen, BuzzFeed's publisher
To understand what makes BuzzFeed tick, you need to know how Dao Nguyen thinks about data.
Read article : http://www.fastcompany.com/3055894/most-innovative-companies/what-buzzfeeds-dao-nguyen-knows-about-data-intuition-and-the-futur?
Posted on 22 February 2016 in 6- Media 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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