medium.rare

Unfollow. Why following each other won’t get us nowhere new

Posted by Maximilian in Communication, Innovation, Strategy

Over the past weeks I tried to get back a bit more into my old “reading interesting stuff the industry is talking about” routine. Staying up to date on strategy, planning challenges, the industry and their thought leaders is, after all, part of what enables a strategist do to their job. Or at least that’s what I thought. What a mistake. Too much of the same? After clicking a couple of links on Twitter that all led me to the same WARC articles and after skimming through a bunch of newsletters…read more

Sep.22

The Risk of the Customized Agency

Posted by Maximilian in Advertising, Workstyle

And here it is: another ‘customized agency‘ It’s been in the press for a while, but today it got some more exposure. ThyssenKrupp and Thjnk (where I’ve worked before moving to Amsterdam) are launching a new agency, a customized agency. Which seems to be the latest rage among bigger brands, not only in Germany (McDonald’s, Seat, to name a few.) I do get that it’s an interesting concept and I’m curious to see how it works out long-term. There’s some obvious risks. One of them pointed out by Marc Recker…read more

Nov.30

The Sciamachy between Big Data And Big Ideas

Posted by Maximilian in Advertising, Brand Experience, Communication, Strategy

Much to my surprise, the last couple of weeks saw an increase in conversations I had about a topic that apparently does neither get old nor boring. It’s been around for a while but still creates a natural tension – which is, in a way, exciting for strategists: the sciamachy between the Big Idea and Big Data. It is a debate about good versus evil, the pure versus the inauthentic, the real versus the fake. It is one versus the other, an either-or-argument. A debate where non of the contestants seem to be able to see…read more

Okt.12

How Creativity Benefits From Noise. Or: Jump in the Pool

Posted by Maximilian in Advertising, Workstyle

The past months have brought some changes in my life. Nothing dramatic, but still significant enough to allow some of these finding their way onto this blog in the next couple of weeks, because in a way #everythingisnieuw. About three months ago, I moved from Hamburg to Amsterdam, from a German agency to an international one: from thjnk to 72andSunny. I moved from a comfortable position into an uncertain situation. I moved from a small office that was only populated by me and my own rollicking ideas, to a more open, more generous shared office space. Instead…read more

Feb.21

What Advertising Can Learn From BuzzFeed

Posted by Maximilian in Advertising, Communication, Consumer, Strategy

A few days ago I attended a panel discussion/interview with Juliane Leopold, founding editor of BuzzFeed Germany, at betahaus Hamburg. She talked about how everything started, how she set up the team, how BuzzFeed wants to be political and opinionated, etc. All of this wasn’t really surprising until the moment when she opened the site on her computer and referred to one of the post as „identity post“. An identity post is content that aims to appeal to a user’s identity rather than his hunger for news. It’s related to his…read more

Dez.31

2014 In Review

Posted by Maximilian in Miscellaneous

These are the last hours of 2014. Time for a very short review: 2014 was a year almost like any other. A lot of work. A lot of learning. A lot of torn ligaments in my knee. A lot of burgers. And a lot of champagne. Agency of the year. #effie #euroeffie #thjnk #thjnkhamburg #thjnkberlin Ein von Maximilian (@mbhw) gepostetes Foto am Sep 9, 2014 at 2:15 PDT Happy new year.

JWT's The Future 100 Marketing Trends for 2015

Dez.21

JWT’s Take On Marketing Trends 2015

Posted by Maximilian in Advertising, Consumer, Innovation, Technology

With the new year right in front of our noses, it’s time to look at what 2015 marketing trends might hold. Thankfully, many agencies are happy to provide their predictions. One of the more extensive looks into the future (110 pages) is served by JWT Intelligence: The Future 100 offers a glimpse into trends in food, beauty, retail and more. And obviously, it is mostly about our favorite target audience – the Millennials. It makes for a good (holiday) read and will probably give you at least one idea for 2015….read more

Dez.04

3 Reasons to Favor Direct Over Indirect

Posted by Maximilian in Communication

Last night there was a party in one of the apartments facing my backyard. The music was playing annoyingly loudly – or so I thought. Suddenly another neighbor started to play his electronic guitar at an even higher volume. His plan was to get the other party’s guests to stop the noise. The lesson here? My loud was not their loud was not his loud. Yesterday, one of my planning colleagues made himself a cup of tea and offered to bring one to another colleague. When he returned five minutes later, he…read more

Nov.27

Rotting teeth and immediate communication

Posted by Maximilian in Communication, Consumer, Technology

I stumbled upon an interesting fact in this Youtube video by Erik Qualman: It seems that more people own a mobile device than a toothbrush. Despite the fact that there’s not a source for this fact, I don’t have a problem believing it. It just proves what all of us somehow knew already: people are more concerned with their virtual illusion of an appearance than with their actual appearance. It seems as if we look after our Social Media profiles more carefully than after our actual selves. It could also be another…read more