A Source Of Inspiration

Shame on you Portuguese readers, for nominating this blog on the Internet category. I just can’t understand how 300 lazy posts managed to grab your attention. Is it the source ? Is it the inspiration ? Oh, i know, it’s those Shameless PromoTions and you feel like thanking me. No need, your projects are that good.

It’s been a hell of a ride since September 2006, talking to readers, deleting more than 30000 spam comments, digging some breaking news, becoming a screener, being listed at AdAge150, guest blogging, and the hardest part, writing regular content.

Thanks.

Well, i guess i’m on a re-blogging week, this time with a few words for Adverblog’s advent calendar.

Adverblog was one of my inspirations to start blogging last year, authored by Martina Zavagno, an Italian interactive marketer and one of the masterminds behind the Diesel Heidies campaign.

So, here’s my 2 cents on it:

1) Which is the digital project that impressed you more this year and why?
Orange Unlimited, for reminding us that simple is beautiful, and building a successful integrated campaign. Other notable projects include the Heidies by Diesel or the recent one by Rexona Power, Spain, “Quien Es Fermin“. As for agencies, Northkingdom and FarFar still amaze us with outstanding work, with some great work coming from Eastern Europe, like ParkStudio’s work for Fanta or Nokia.

2) In your job, which is the most important thing you learnt this year?
I’ve learned to quit looking at my own bellybutton, and start looking to what regular users are doing online. Call it interactive etnography or something like that, but the truth is that we professionals are so much self-absorbed that it all feels like a big echo chamber. For instance, it amazes me the tons of people that don’t have a clue what twitter is, but instead use regular email to keep their friends updated.

Great advertising is back, with the cream of the crop of social advertising, on a fantastic relaunch by Marc van Gurp and his new team (where i’m now proudly included).

Osocio features a new branding and a complete redesign, with several additions such as NGO’s profiles, latest news and agenda or a dictionary on social advertising terms, wraps the previous outstanding content, with advertising that inspires us all.

Whenever you find a great campaign, contact me or post a link to my del.icio.us (for:thedlab) so we could keep Outlust the best website on social advertising (not the Zuckerberg kind). Or join us on Twitter or at Facebook groups Social Advertising and Osocio.

So here’s what Osocio is all about:

Osocio is dedicated to social advertising and non-profit campaigns. It’s the place where marketing and activism collide. Formerly known as the Houtlust Blog, Osocio is the central online hub for advertisers, ad agencies, grassroots, activists, social entrepreneurs, and good Samaritans from around the globe.

Despite there being hundreds of other ad blogs on the web, Houtlust stood out by focusing exclusively on social advertising. Unlike commercial advertising, which only attempts to influence purchase decisions, non-profit ads seeks to connect us with other human beings. Social advertising has an uncanny power to make us stop, think and then take action to help a person, or a group of people, who we don’t even know, who might be from a foreign culture, living thousands of miles away. And for that reason we celebrate these ads, study them and discuss them at length. We hope you will too.

Created by Marc van Gurp in October 2005, Houtlust began as a personal collection of non-profit ads. Originally the site was only written in Dutch, with no thoughts of a wider audience. But the demand for an English version quickly grew. The tiny niche blog got bigger and bigger. And it wasn’t long before Houtlust became known as the authoritative reference of non-profit advertising for the ad industry and socially minded people everywhere.

In the spring of 2007 discussions started on how to take Houtlust to the next level. Interactive agency Onstuimig and branding agency Alef de Jong were quick to volunteer their services to help with the re-brand and re-launch of new website. The result of this cooperation is where you are now: Osocio.

Osocio is more then a blog. It’s a complete resource for all things in the world of non-profit and social messaging. It’s a platform for global and local social issues, both large and small. It’s a community of social thinkers and marketing do-gooders.

While Houtlust was curated by one person (Marc van Gurp), Osocio has several contributors, each of whom are specialists in a specific field of the diverse non-profit sector. We are glad to welcome these experts to the Osocio team (see below).

Of course, we have our own ideas on how to make the world a better place. However, Osocio promises to never push any political agenda of its own. The campaigns we publish in no way directly express our personal stance on a specific issue. Our focus is solely on the communication of social messages.

If you feel you can collaborate in any shape or form, please contact us. We’re always keen on new social campaigns. So please send us the non-profit marketing you’ve been working on, or the work of your agency, along with news, links or tips.

Lucky bastards these folks. Four groups of friends started a journey from Tarifa (Spain) to Murmansk (Russia) with no idea whatsoever of their track and only with 1.400Euros on their pockets.

The 12 spanish backpackers are documenting their journey of a lifetime on blogs (Group Uno, Dos, Tres, Quatro), sharing their experiences and allowing others to comment to help them along.

One of the journey videos, uploaded by Group One

With one of my friends doing the same kind of trip on his own (hope you’re doing well Pedro), i wish he could send updates so often as these groups. Blogs are becoming one of the favorite ways to keep connected, thanks to today’s easy publishing of video and text. Although this trip is co-sponsored by Bacardi, i believe that the tourism industry (in Portugal the most) would greatly benefit if they started to provide digital platforms so their clients could share their holiday memories.

URL: www.murmanskroutebacardi.com
Client: Bacardi
Agency: Seisgrados

Nice to know that portuguese brands are spreading some link love to from national bloggers. Rather than the usual top 100 blogs, the portuguese brewery, is awarding the best portuguese blog with €3000.

From the site:
“Super Bock Super Blog Awards are a tribute to you and all those who celebrate every day the portuguese language and the freedom of speech, helping to create a new Internet, a Web 2.0. Let’s make our own blog party in Portugal, awarding the importance of this (…) platform”.

“With this initiative, Super Bock intends to promote the best Blogs, and invite all portuguese to be part of our national online identity”

There’s not much of a chance for me to win, since they only allow portuguese written blogs. Go figure.
Anyway, if you’re a portuguese blogger, go ahead and register your blog.

My favourite blogging tool has shipped their latest release. Features include:

• Native tagging support (and imports UltimateTagWarrior)
• Plugin update notification (time saver!)
• Canonical URLs (SEO’s rejoice)
• Libraries updated: jQuery, TinyMCE, Prototype and script.aculo.us
• New taxonomy system (beware plugin authors)
• Improved Post and Draft Management
• Pending Review (great for multiauthor blogs)
• Unfiltered uploads (smells like security trouble)

Don’t forget to check plugin compatibility, if you’re planning to upgrade.
Looks like i’ll be having a busy weekend.

After having been scouted byBlogger’s Choice Awards for Best Marketing Blog, i’ve now been tagged by “The Marketer” and others, as part of the honorable mention list at Power 150, a global ranking of top English-language Marketing Blogs.

Another portuguese author is also there, the ever inspiring planner Sergio Santos of The Hidden Persuader, but way above me at #64. Hey, i’ve been around for less than a year, so i guess i’m doing fine for a rookie, don’t you think so? At least it’s been a hell of a ride so far, joining Feedurner’s Marketing and Advertising Network, becoming part of crew at Prt.sc, exchanging knowledge with peers and standing on the shoulder of some giants.

Having started more focused on digital marketing, this blog has gradually been expanding to broader themes, including the more mainstream “conversational marketing”, with some insights on traditional advertising and with special attention to what i like to call future marketing.

With online advertising playing an important role last year (specially the big deals by MS and Google), more eyes have been wondering around here. Except for those folks that keep bringing thousands of hits when searching for the “Heroes Soundtrack”. Well, no problem, i guess search engines are building their own long tail at this blog.

Back to the honorable mentions, Gordon Whitehead spreads some link love amongst the bloggers below #150. I’ve tried to do a bit more than that, and actually visited every single one of them (but skimming through the overcrowded PR ones), so here are my own honorable mentions:

• One of my favourite topics at Ageless Marketing
• If i was a agency planner, i would be reading this one
• but I’m more like David, with a little more restraining speaking about client work.
• Just in case any crisis comes along
• Novell’s CMO is blogging
• Poor template. Never mind. Great content
• A regular at my feed reader: Ogilivy PR
• Tasty marketing thoughts at eSoup
• Fine writing at BrandTarot
• Leo Burnett, blogging from Toronto
• Brand storms from the corporate blog of Durbin Media Group
• Well, that’s a fresh view:theclientsideblog.com
• Connecting the dots at Digital Influence Mapping
• Taking notes at the marketing community
• more hot-wiring ideas with mindblob
• Juicy posts at Influence 2.0
• Word-Of-Mouth turns academic with Walter Carl
• The movie of marketing or the marketing of movies?
• More free ebooks, Chip! (pardonthedisruption.com)
• More goodies from Canada
• More conversation
• Bryan know stuff
• Get your hands on these email marketing tips
• if i hadn’t a blog, i would be writing for you guys (specially with such a similar tag line)
• Ernie Schenck, calling advertising
• Adverlicio.us: a longtime favorite Online Advertising collection

I questioned Todd why some blogs sponsored by large media companies are included, and i have to agree with him when he says “every blog should be listed no matter who they’re sponsored by because all blogs benefit the reader”. But the real problem with this particular list is that it just ruined my feed reader, with a lot more blogs added and fewer sleeping hours.

So now I really have to THANK YOU, dear readers, for pushing me to keep writing and inspiring for almost one year. If this blog reaches the top 150 next year, then it’s because we both had fun at this humble place.

So don’t forget to visit the coolest blog from the list!
(Hey, sometimes we need to indulge ourselves a bit, right?)

Today’s marketers need to integrate crowdsourcing, co-creation and collaboration as part of their vocabulary, as Drew McLellan, Gavin Heaton and fellow co-authors seem to do, successfully releasing their book “The Age of The Conversation” yesterday, a 3 month collaboration between 100 bloggers.

The resulting book, The Age of Conversation, brings together over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators in a ground-breaking and unusual publication. And in the spirit of conversation, you can follow-up and extend your interest in the topics covered in the book at the Age of Conversation blog — www.ageofconversation.com.

With articles by personal favourites such as Greg Verdino, Cord Silverstein, David Polinchock, Richard Huntington, Tom Fishburne, Gareth Kay or Roger from Creative Think, the book has also some interesting contributions such as a google map with all the authors or the cover by the ever inspiring David Armano.

Over 100 of the world’s leading marketers contributed with a chapter, with part of the profits going to a children’s charity fund. As i’m inclined to save some trees (and it’s cheaper), i’ll get myself an electronic version at lulu.com/ageofconversation.

It’s not as big as Wikipedia, but it’s a damn fine example of “architecture of participation“.