Thursday, February 28, 2008

Mr. Publicitarescu at the Digital Marketing Forum

Few days ago I went to the Digital Marketing Forum in Bucharest. I saw Mr. Publicitarescu in the crowd. Well, everybody was talking about already known things: viral, SEO, analytics etc. But one of the most interesting seminars was the one about the most efficient campaigns in new media sustained by Wim Vermeulen, Director of Digital Innovation, Ogilvy Central & Eastern Europe and Adrian Alexandrescu, One-to-One Communications Director OgilvyOne Romania. What was so interesting is that they have busted, according to all audience, all the myths regarding online marketing today. For sustaining their ideas they have put face to face the online knowledge and habits of two characters: a guy born 30 years ago and a guy born after the Romanian revolution. Finally they put a small beautiful laptop as a prize for the person in the public who can give an idea to promote a revolutionary product in the year 2023, an ACME corporation magic powder. The ad should target the guy who is now 15 years old an in 2023 will have 30. I saw Mr. Publicitarescu giving a paper to a young lady who immediately passed it to the jury. Few moments later, Mr. Publicitarescu left the room, probably he went to piss or to smoke a cigarette, I suppose.
Well, the jury deliberated. The wining idea was to publish a print in... the only printed magazine of the time. I know Jules Verne is alive, but who is so mad to think that Gutenberg will be so dead in 2023 and just one newspaper will be printed? On the back of the wining paper was a drawing - a junk advertisement: the product big and that big fucking new yellow star with a big NEW inside.
Come on! We are at an online forum!
But... the jury had a surprise: no one from the audience claimed the prize. Wim Vermeulen asked several times who was the author. No one wanted to assume such a stupid idea. Probably I was the only one who knew that the guy who went to piss or to have a cigarette was the author. So I went outside, in the hall. I saw Mr. Publicitarescu smoking. I took a deep breath and, encouraged by the idea that an interview with Mr. Publicitarescu will raise the traffic on my blog, I went to him and exposed the fact that he won the contest. He answered: "I am glad that Ogilvy Group got my idea. They probably understood the fact that what was conventional yesterday is unconventional today. And what is conventional today will be unconventional tomorrow. And what is unconventional is very attractive. Most of all, my idea is very conventional. But between so many unconventional, futuristic ideas who competed, it was so different, so unconventional by difference."
I've told Mr. Publicitarescu to go inside to get his prize. His answer certified me he is a stupid jerk: "I don't give a fuck for that prize. That prize was given for a worthless idea. The only idea that deserves a prize is the idea that gets to be implemented and then enjoyed by the final consumer. Also, the prize is not the prize of a single person. The prize must be shared by the team who beautified it, by the team who implemented it, by the team who sold it and by the final consumer. I refuse that prize because is not mine."

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