Asking IAB Europe about it, they confirm that IAB Europe is in conversation with a group of people about opening an IAB here. They hope to make a formal announcement about it before June. That is in about 10 days!
Mission of IAB is accelerating the growth of e-commerce, interactive advertising and online marketing.
When you look at the structure of digital companies you often see something like a ‘labs’. Nice thing about these labs is that you create a platform for innovation and that you share this process with the outside world. If done properly it is a great tool in product development and it also has growing involvement as a side effect.
A good ‘lab’ is more than just asking people to send in ideas. It is about sharing information and asking for feedback from experts or consumers.
10 examples of labs:
TBWA has a Media Arts Lab, you can find it on TheBigWhatAdventure.com. Besides that the website is a sleep (last update from 24 January 2007) I do not really consider this a Lab. It seems more a ’send in an idea’-thing like openad.net. Unfortunately it has nothing to do with product/advertising innovation. Sharing the process of innovation in advertising could give TBWA (or any other traditional agency) some valuable feedback and involvement from digital experts.
The famous Google labs now has a sister called Google creative lab. It is all about Google trying to serve the Branding market. And, as you can read, it is looking for collaboration with advertising agencies. Interesting project, curious when we get more insights.
Advertising Lab. More like a blog about The future of advertising. But the blogger is working for an ad agency which gives it a lab function.
American express is doing nice things within their Labs. They are even transparent in their discontinued experiments.
Nokia Trends Lab. Typically a consumer lab. Inspiring project. Urges creative thinkers to use mobile technology.
BBC Innovation labs. Series of creative workshops for interdisciplinary teams of professional creative technologists, application designers, software developers and interactive media designers, working across both Future Media & Vision platforms.
I have just created a Google custom search for Switzerland, CH Social Search. Searching within major social networks and websites used by Swiss people. If you need it, use it.
This custom search is open for contribution. So if you have any suggestions to make it better just send it in.
Custom search is vertical search made easy for everybody. I suggest companies should make their own custom searches serving or exploring their target audiences.
Mobile marketing is getting serious. Admobs.com launches a Google Adwords-like service for easy mobile banner advertising. Including a mobile landing page, if you need one. Google offers Mobile image ads since April 23.
This is just a first step. Bannering on mobile is nice but not really intelligent and engaging, unless you target very well. And also then you tend to forget about the specific value of a mobile device for the consumer.
More on this in the following presentation from Mobile Monday Amsterdam
April 18th there was the Innovative advertising awards 2008 gala in New York City. Formerly known as the Interactive and New Media Awards.
In their own worlds:
New York Festivals was the first to create an international competition recognizing the importance and marketing value of innovative media.
Some of the categories in this competition include: Advergames and Viral Advertising for products or services; Online Advertising, including integrated campaigns that include online elements; a wide selection of categories for Guerrilla Marketing and Alternative Media, such as ambient, event and mobile marketing, blogs, short message systems, and street teams; and CD-ROM applications.
To be honest the New York Festivals website is a bit user unfriendly with all the winners info in pdf-format. But I understand that Stella Artois is the big winner.
There where three Swiss winners. DRAFTFCB got a Silver Worldmedal for their viral campaign (see picture above).
