iMedia Connection Blog

Nope, Nike's not changing its tagline, but maybe it is time we flip over our online engagement plans to the next level.
In 2012, Coke, a century old brand championing its belief 'pause that refreshes,' launched its most ambitious digital project till date, 'Refreshing its website for the digital century.' A rather visionary move to turn its Business Portal into a Consumer Magazine called Coca Cola Journey.

Envisioned to be a truly 'Immersive Brand Experience' this new refreshed Online Consumer Magazine with a steady base of 1.2 million unique visitors monthly promises users interactivity ranging from subjects of entertainment, environment, health and sports, interviews, blogs, videos, and much more.
The internet is personal again!
No pun intended, but the truth be told, when all brands were busy going social, the consumers were slowly turning anti-social, returning back to the good old-fashioned way of flipping through information, entertainment, and more only this time on their tablets and smartphones.
So, whilst Coke was the first mainstream visionary to buck-up this trend of 'Immersive Engagement,' it was initially evangelized by offline mainstream publications and other content immersive brands.
Oprah for Flipboard

Time Magazine iPad edition

IKEA Interactive Catalogue

Niche businesses like Madrid Swing Cats going the flip way

The Flipboard effect

From the times... Read more

[Appeared first in Marketing Magazine Malaysia]
The Mayan ‘World coming to an end on 21/12/12’ prophecy kept the doomsday theorists, scholars, meta-physicists, astronomers and scientists from across the world both divided, and in debates in the year of dragon. Interestingly enough, the Tourism department of Mexico had a rather ‘Bold, Unusual & Super Spirited’ take on the prophecy.

‘End of the World’ Tourism
They decided to both celebrate and market the apocalypse instead.
A first of its kind marketing initiative that expects to clock about 52 million international visitors to the Mayan heartland in Mexico. The campaign kicked off with the installation of a gigantic digital clock to help everyone count down to the end of the world day 21/12/12. The campaign offered visitors a cultural immersion based experience into the ancient Mayan way of life. Besides bringing on-board some of the most acclaimed international artists to perform in the ancient Mayan historical sites. The neighbouring countries of Honduras, Belize, Guatemala and El Salvador added momentum to this global campaign.

An Opportunistic Point of View, or a Pragmatic way of life

The puritans might argue that campaigns such as ‘End of the World Tourism’ borrows its inspiration from the conventional marketing school of... Read more

[First appeared in Marketing-Interactive.com]
A thought that keeps nagging me now and then serves as an inspiration for this think piece. So what has fundamentally changed in our industry since the times ofMad Men?
Nope, it is not the ‘advent of digitisation' or ‘Social Media' I'm referring to here. But something even more radical and concerning: advertising agencies have not been into the corporate boardrooms for a while now.
Whatever happened to the ‘trusted advisor'?
Once seen as a ‘confidant' on critical business decisions, the agencies seem to be slipping regularly on the business value chain. A recent global CMO survey on client-agency relationships echoes this sentiment where most senior marketers felt that today agencies lack ‘depth of knowledge on their business and category'.
However, they agree that the advertising industry has fast-forwarded their growth on the learning curve in terms of embracing science, technology and measurements in the business, but in process somehow have lost sight of the good old business acumen that once created legends like Ogilvy, Burnett & Bernbach.
Business beyond campaigns, awards and champagne
Failing economies, business lockouts, recurring apocalypses are truths of our times. And one more ‘Goodvertising' (feel good) campaign possibly cannot be our way of getting back into serious strategic... Read more

Who would you rather hire today: A Creative Strategist or Strategic Creative Director?
Juxtaposition as intriguing as quizzing a die-hard detective genre fan on whether he thinks if icons like the Pink Panther & Sherlock Holmes were more right brained than, their modern day avtaars in CSI & NCIS gangs.
Call it as our industry’s ‘Twilight moment’ where lines are blurring, not just between Real & Virtual worlds, or the role of Specialists and Generalists, but also between the Art & the Science of our business. Never before this, have we felt an eminent need for the left and the right brains in our business to fire in tandem.
Can’t just be purely Creative, or simply Effective anymore.
Judging by what and who is winning at premier award shows be it Creative, Effectiveness or Strategic pure play, juries across shows seem to be unanimously applauding cases that demonstrate perfect harmony of yin and yang in our business. And it’s not just the award shows but even client boardrooms are giving thumbs-up to work that demonstrate sparkling creative work backed by razor edge strategic point of view.
The rise of Creative Effectiveness
What started as a mere introduction of ‘Creative Effectiveness’ category at the Cannes Lions Festival... Read more