‘Cross The Breeze

It seems ages since I last opened up Live Writer last time. This is not because I stopped loving it, but because the blogging rhythm on this blog (and on I Blog Mustang) have been very slow lately. It seems like the only times I get to do some writing lately is when traveling. The last posts were all (or almost all) written on trains and planes.

While I see people writing about how Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, … or whatever other service has taken over from their blogging, that is actually not the case with me. I am indeed more active on Twitter than on this blog, but that is because of the short and instant nature of the service vs the time you need to spend writing blogposts. I do still dedicate the time I need to reading my RSS, luckily enough as I’m addicted to news - couldn’t do without.

In the meantime we’re working hard on releasing some new campaigns for Windows Live and MSN in Europe (more on these at Live In Europe) and we’re also gearing up in the planning for next year as our fiscal year starts at July 1st and not January 1st like with most companies.

For now, I’ll just try and write some more posts about things that I’ve been meaning to write now that I am on my way to Stockholm. Share your travel via Dopplr if you want ;)

A bit more than 3 weeks to go to Blogger Social in NYC, a unique gathering of mainly (but not only) marketing & advertising bloggers from across the globe. With just over 80 attendees and a fun agenda of events this is really something a lot of us are looking forward to for many months.

There’s one downside to it though, and that is that it takes place the exact same weekend as the Tour of Flanders, the classic of all classics in road cycle racing if you ask me. The race, first organized in 1913, is an experience of its own and (trust me) appeals to everyone who is up for a heroic day of sports. With many steep hills, often paved with cobblestones over a distance of approx. 260 kilometers… it sure isn’t just a race like any other.

I’ve watched the race on television for as long as I can remember, most of the time with a bunch of friends, and for the last few years we’ve been going to the ‘Muur van Geraardsbergen’ (or ‘wall’ of Geraardsbergen) to watch it live, courtesy of Lotto. With several thousands of people at the key positions of the race and close to a million people over the whole length, the ambiance is incredible.

So not this year, and the Social will rock for sure, but a part in my heart will miss this raceday a lot. I’m sure Tim ‘Masiguy’ Jackson understands ;)

Here’s a great ad from Het Nieuwsblad (newspaper) for their upcoming coverage of the Tour of Flanders.

Lovely day here in London today, big difference with last week when I planned on flying here but didn’t make it because of the fog at LCY. I can tell you, spending like 5 hours at the Antwerp Airport for nothing is really no fun at all. Meeting up with the zerofinfluencer this evening, so it’s going to be a good day today.

Video found via The Kaiser (who doesn’t seem to have such a good day today).

Luckily for me, if I go online, it’s free. You have no idea what I’m talking about? Then take a look at this brilliant campaign from Emakinafor ING online banking. It’s really at it’s best in Dutch I think, but there’s an English subtitled version as well for most of my readers. You just miss a bit of the juicy dialect in case you’re viewing with the English subtitles. Still, very neat idea and good execution. Kudos to Emakina and ING.

Technorati Tags: ineedtogo, advertising, ing, emakina, internet, free

Soo little time, soo much work to do… and so much more stuff to write about. Therefore I’m writing this post to wrap up the week.

It was a busy week with many events. On Wednesday I was Bea’s guest at the first Brussels Girl Geek Dinner, kudos to Clo for organizing this. Some familiar faces and some new ones and a little goodie bag for everyone. And yes Sarah, I’m bringing one of those for you on Wednesday ;)

On Thursday & Friday I was present at the second Customer First event in Brussels, and of course to the MIXX awards on Thursday night. Again these events are mainly interesting to network and to hook up with some people you haven’t seen for a while. The Belgian internet advertising industry is rather small, so it’s fair to say that everybody was pretty much there :) Great results at the MIXX awards by the way since Geert and Openhere won the Gold Award in the category Brand Awareness for Bring The Love Back. I recently started a group on Facebook for Bring The Love Back by the way, 163 members in the first week, join us here.

I also did a presentation on Microsoft and Social Media at Customer First, which I’ll post here in a separate post. Feedback was quite ok so that’s always nice.

I received an email from Belisol today and I couldn’t believe what I was reading. A few months ago (in April or so) I was looking for solutions like sunscreens for my children’s bedrooms. These rooms have windows directed to the south and there’s only a curtain to block the sun which obviously is not the best solutions during hot summer days. Belisol is a company in Belgium that sells sunscreens so I wanted to find out what that would cost. Just like on many other customer unfriendly websites, there’s only one way to get in touch for this and that is to fill in a form. No telephone numbers or anything, just the form. So I filled in this form. By doing so you have to provide all kinds of data that is only of use for the company like ‘how did you get to know Belisol?’ but by then again, if they help me out I don’t have too much of a problem with that.

So what happens? Nothing at all. A week, a month, 2 months pass and until today I didn’t receive the quote I asked for. That obviously upsets me and at a certain point in time I was even wondering that the reason for that maybe is the fact that it’s not a really big job. In the form you have to fill in the number of windows etc you want a solution for so maybe there wasn’t enough business for them in my request. Anyway, they aren’t the only solution out there and we just looked further for other solutions. Luckily also the summer in Belgium was crap so we didn’t really need it this year. The search is still on by the way :)

And then today in my inbox: “jobs at Belisol”! Are they kidding me? I’m so totally fed up with companies that deal with personal data this way. Basically they figured out how to store my information, how to do some research on their most efficient promotion channels, … but actually providing me with the information I need is too much too ask. And then they start spamming me?! As I said, I couldn’t believe what I saw. Sigh. It shows again that we have to stop blaming the technology as the technolgy works most of the time, it’s our attitude that needs a fix.

Update: Some might have noticed that I’ve deleted a few comments on this post. Initially someone working at Belisol shop contacted me saying that it would never have happened at their outlet. Today this person requested these comments to be taken away. After some thought, I decided to follow the request and canceled the comments made here. There are 2 reasons why I decided to do so:

1. The person that made the comments did track the Belisol brand (unlike their HQ) and did come back to me on the issue I talked about for which she might get into trouble, which is the last thing I want
2. Although I agree that this person could have been smarter in the comment itself (saying they each operate separately), being asked to delete it sort of proves my point about that it still is one brand umbrella so that I don’t really care as a consumer if they did operate as separate businesses or not

Anyway, in the end, we’re 2 months after I wrote this and many more months after trying to get in touch with Belisol and I didn’t get what I asked (no need to bother anymore by the way), so still pretty ‘customer last’ if you ask me.

Technorati Tags: customerfirst, customer, belisol, sunscreen, service

Last Saturday it was ‘Dag van de klant‘ again in Belgium, literally translated that means ‘Day of the customer’. This day is an initiative from Unizo (Organization for the Self-Employed and SMEs) and is a yearly recurring event and this year was the 20th edition. On this day, the small business thank their customers for their loyalty. Most of the time, that means you’ll get some chocolates, a rose, … when you buy stuff at the shop that day.

So what happened? On Saturday I went to the car-wash and received some car refresher (like a sample) when I paid. And on Monday I got some free chocolates thrown at me while visiting my bank to pick up my new Visa card. And that’s indeed the experience. Did I feel like being thanked for my loyalty Not really, I even had to ask why I got it in the first place. It was just that day where shops offer you a little gift, when you visit them… because it’s that day of the year again.

I think Unizo needs the rethink their concept as I get the feeling it’s a ‘little’ worn out. I can see how this idea made sense many years ago, but today it looks like many businesses are just part of this because that’s what everyone else does…. I remember how Lou Carbone said during his presentation at MIX07: “You cannot NOT have an experience”, and it’s clear that just organizing something called ‘Day of the Customer’ doesn’t make that customer experience a good one just like that.

Technorati Tags: unizo, dag van de klant, customer, loyalty, experience

Although it seems to be something mainly email marketers are focusing on, but it’s important for all marketing efforts. You need to have a link between the subject line and the message, between how you attract people to your message and the message itself. Especially in the times of viral marketing, you often see examples where the link is totally lost.

Here’s such a random example I got in my mailbox last week - that is traditional mail ;)

This is a postcard I received and it did draw my attention. I couldn’t remember one of my friends had gone to Rio on holiday or anything so I was curious to find out who this came from.

Big was my disappointment when I turned the postcard and saw it was an advertising for the Nearly New Car centers. I’ll translate the beginning, that’ll explain enough:

“We have arrived well in Rio. The weather is great but that is definitely not good enough to forget that the the July conditions at Nearly New Car still count this month. ….”

I gave up after reading that first line and threw it away (ok I made the scan first). This really doesn’t make sense to me, who ever came up with this?

I’m pretty sure that before the week is over, this other blog of mine will have passed this one in traffic. The graph you see here is from the last 15 or so weeks, and shows this blog in blue and I Blog Mustang in red. I would never have thought this would happen, believe me.

The Mustang blog is more of a fun side project, on which I post only once a week maybe and with long periodes of no updates at all. But it’s been growing steady almost since day one. There are also a few curious differences between the 2 blogs. See the dip in the blue line for instance? That was a 2 week no-blogging holiday, which clearly impacts this blog but doesn’t change a thing on the other.

Some differences are maybe a bit more obvious, looking at browsers and operating systems for instance. On this blog 57% use IE and 33% use FF versus 73% for IE and 20% for FF on the Mustang blog. And I see 6% using a OSX on the Mustang blog versus 12% here. Windows Vista is around 10% on both.

Last but not least, although traffic is quite similar now, Technorati authority is way different. This blog has around 246 as I write this and the other one’s authority has a mere 10. It’s fine though, I do tend to believe I know something about marketing but I can assure you I know nothing about cars :)

Clearly a different audience on both, still I’m surprised of the growth over the last few weeks. Hopefully that 3rd little project will do the same (or even better). But more on that later.

Technorati Tags: mustang, blogs, traffic, blogging, audience, brower, firefox, internet explorer, osx, vista, windows

You didn’t expect me not to talk about this one right? Enjoy the ad and given the start of a new weekend, I would say enjoy a Stella as well. Or another one of the gazillion different Belgian beers ;)

Sadly enough, the world just lost one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) beer expert this week. Read more about Michael Jackson (not that one) at the Beer Hunter or on Wikipedia.

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