Bennassar´s Blog

iPhone, u Phone, we Phone for an iPhone

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

This is not a photograph of an iPhone, or an illustration, or anything like it. It’s an image made entirely out of CSS3 (¿?). I’m not sure to know what that is (I thought all digital images were ones and zeros) and certainly don’t know how to explain it but, so you get an idea of ​​what it means, you can try to enlarge the image by pressing “cmd” and “+” several times (“ctrl” and “+” on PC). You can enlarge it all you want it will continue to have…read more

Thank you Mum

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

Funny enough, in my last 3 presentations I have talked about the things that have changed in brand communication and the ones that have not and never will: “Relations. That’s what it’s all about. In fact, that’s what it’s always been about. Although many behaviours might have changed in that new world, the hearts of the people are still the same. Because the people are still the same. There’s a new environment with new rules but where the actors remain the same.” One difference, for example, is that now we…read more

A true ReBrief for the advertising industry

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

Some years ago I was honored to give a short class on briefings, although I am far from being a master in this subject. But a few things stayed over the years from being briefed so many times. And I can say for sure, the new Google experiment is a real lesson in humility for the advertising industry. To celebrate the 18th anniversary of the digital advertising, ReBrief rethinks some of the most iconic cases in advertising history (Coca-Cola, Avis, Volvo and Alka-Seltzer) and offers solutions to them with the…read more

Barcode or QR code?

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

Of course, barcodes have been among us for sometime now, sticking in each and every one of all market products. But in the recent battle for including these codes in the brand communication work (which is what drives this blog), there were some good application examples for one and the other. Nevertheless, it seams none of them will do. And it was kind of predictable (if I may say so) that between augmented reality and smartphone apps someone was going to come up with interaction between a object (an ad…read more

Brands and www (what, when and where)

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

Just a couple of days ago I read a post by César García and José Manuel Ruiz de Clavijo on BOB raising once again an interesting matter: “What happens online with the brand’s timeline?” In other words, what about the need of a brand to reach certain people on a certain time to get a certain message trough? Next week I’m flying to Brasil to meet with a few advertising creatives in Sao Paulo and somehow I think I will have to answer this question many times. So I thought…read more

Who cares about politics?

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

Truth being told, politicians themselves are working hard to make people hate politics. By action or omission. However in July 2010 I had the pleasure to meet Juan Ignacio Zoido, now brand new Mayor of Seville. The pleasure to meet him because after our first meeting I realized he was a serious professional concerned about trying to do things the right way. Not a bad start. Our profiles were certainly different, but he had the patience to listen at least until I told him that wether he knew it or…read more

What to do while waiting for the subway

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

I’ve been pointing at the wonders and possibilities of social networks like Stickybits for some time now, and presenting them, among other things, to clients like Sony or Pepe Jeans London. Now it’s the time to share a wonderful example of a brand that has used it and in a great way: Tesco, Home Plus in South Corea. It would have probably been much easier to do it with conventional barcodes, but however… congratulations.
 Que hacer mientras llega el metro Llevo tiempo apuntando las posibilidades de redes sociales como Stickybits,…read more

This is about.me, and you and all of us.

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

2011/05/11. Since 4 or 5 years ago what appears on the signature of my emails or on the last business cards I had is something like this: “more contact details at: lorenzobennassar.com/contact.” In fact, it’s been a while that I insist in trying, with those companies that I collaborate with, to avoid those endless email signatures that are often larger in size than the message you want to convey. It is a kind of personal crusade to also avoid those unbearable emails with a copy of a copy of a…read more

How smart is Google’s algorithm?

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

Once again, a TED conference in Long Beach, California, comes to remind us that we should never stop questioning things. Even Google or Facebook’s brilliant algorithm. During the Technology Entertainment and Design conference, Eli Pariser, former executive director of moveon.org called our attention on how these mathematic functions are based on our usage habits, our tastes and other information from our behaviour standards… to give answers to our questions. The Google algorithm, for example, considers 57 different elements in catering the information he believes that we seek. That’s why there…read more

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The banner ad is dead, and I’ve been the one to kill it.

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

A few days ago I read from the very respected César García, founder of BOB, a post about banner ads as advertising media, with which I agree on the expectations. He was sharing his lack of trust in this form of communication that he considers totally out of date because of many reasons that I think we all agree with (even many of those that still use it). And he brought with joy (that I also share) research conclusions like the fact that in 2009 only 16% of users clicked…read more

To be continued

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

On November 2nd 2010 I was invited to participate in a nice initiative to benefit several organ transplant associations: “To be continued“. An poster expo which briefing was “to use the communication power of posters as an instrument to fight for life, conveying to society a message of life, hope and solidarity in relation to organ transplants…”. As always, one doesn’t finish something like this, you abandon it when you reach the mechanicals deadline. For those of you who will have to walk by the Avenida de la Constitución in…read more

We transfer, yes we do.

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

That’s a good starting point, wetransfer.com. Already the name sounds pretty good. It’s not me, or you, it’s us. And indeed we do transfer now adays. Until now we were able to do it for free via services like yousendit, but… we were asked to sign up or use a pay-per-use mode which wasn´t that great anyway, and no matter what we were forced to sufer banners and/or a horrible design. Until now. A dutch company (and we know dutch have always been good at transportating things) has made it…read more

Goodbye Telefónica

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

Aproximately 7 years ago, Bassat/Ogilvy asked me to design the worldwide television closing for Telefónica. The last 5 seconds of all the audiovisual comunication for their 8 brands (Telefónica, Telefónica CTC, Telefónica Unifon, Telefónica Data, Telefónica Moviles, Telefónica Móvil, Telefónica MoviStar y Telefónica Celular) in all the 11 countries where the spanish company was operating (España, Argentina, Brasil, Guatemala, El Salvador, Perú, México, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay y USA). During these 7 years, all the spectators of all these countries have seen it every time this telecommunication giant decided to expose…read more

Adidas is the media.

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

Eric Bailey is the artist. Drea Cooper & Zachary Canepari the filmmakers. And WOOD RICH is the result. A video (a little too weird in my opinion) that in fact presents something about the world of communication, contents and brands deeper than what it apparently seems. In the post before, I also talked about Adidas and how recovering their “original” brand was a great move, but it seems that they’re really aware of the fact that media (tv, press, etc.) as we knew it, has disappeared (or is about to,…read more

Adidas vs. Nike

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

Still inebriated by sunday’s happiness because of our national soccer team heroic victory (and we are not talking about Casilla’s kiss), it’s also interesting to look at the World Cup from a brand perspective. After working in advertising for 20 years, I can only be an unconditional Nike fan. I was professionally born in Chiat/Day, the agency that made out of Randy Newman’s “I love LA” the official’s city anthem for Nike in the 80’s and for the last 20 years I have admired how W+K and their many and…read more

Doing things right also helps (Apple 12 / Endesa 0)

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

A lot of people wonders why Apple is so deeply inside people’s hearts. I have written a few post about it myself, but yesterday I run into another aster class of how to build a brand. Right the day before yesterday I was talking to Endesa’s customer service (my electric company), because I had a problem with 12 mistaken invoices they had sent me (with the 12 apologies letters that came with them. I’ll skip the details but the story is quite surreal). Anyway, after writing my complain and giving…read more

Mi name is Dive, UrbanDive.

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

2010/06/25. As if it was the new James Bond movie, the french group Pages Jaunes will introduce UrbanDive at the end of 2010 (yes, this year). A new urban virtual visit service that will allow to travel through the streets of a city with a 360º vision, just like in Google Street View but with “a few more interactive options”: go inside businesses, find interesting information in real time (in an augmented reality way) like network friend comments, Wikipedia articles and a whole lot of commercial information that for sure…read more

Preguntas Hermosas by Süperfad

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

Impressive! What a great sample of how there’s nothing wrong with copying as long as you take further what you’ve picked up. It’s not about starting from the beginning every time, but about profiting of what has already been travelled to get further every time. Up there, Neruda and Sandburg must be as fascinated with Süperfad as the world is with them. Impresionante! Una perfecta muestra de porque el secreto no está en no copiar, sino en recoger el testigo donde lo encontraste y llevarlo un poquito más allá. No…read more

The dumb box in my living room is not dumb anymore.

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

The other day I installed “Plex Media Center” in the Mac Mini that’s actually connected to my TV. An OS X software based on the impresive code of XBMC open source software, the brain behind the creature (thanks Miguel Guillen for the info). And suddenly my TV has turned into a more than interesting appliance. Now it tells me the weather forecast and shows me all the multimedia content from my hard drive in a pretty atractive interface by the way (nothing Apple’s Front Row didn´t really do so far),…read more

Martin Luther King had a dream. Not a plan.

Posted by in Brand Communication / Creativity and R&D

2010/05/17. What should come first? Why, how or when? Well, it all depends on what part of the brain do we want reach. If we’re talking about brand communication, “why” is the answer. Because, brand communication is all about feelings, trust and loyalty. And to first access that part of the brain, a brand needs to talk about its “why”. Why does that brand exist, and why should anybody care about it. As Simon Sinek brilliantly explains in this fascinating TED talk, the good news is that this is not…read more