MIDEM 2010 campaign image
In 7 years of creating the campaigns for Midem, we have seen the world of trade fairs transform at an unbelievable rate. It’s not unfair to say that many trade fairs until recently had been seen by their organisers pretty much a way of renting space to companies. Yet Midem, part of the Reed MIDEM group, has blazed a trail and is re-inventing the way trade fairs see themselves and engage with their audiences. (more…)
When the going gets tough, the tough get out and meet each other – or they should do. I’m a firm believer in working trade fairs, having seen ones such as MIDEM and the Film Market from the inside, as well as writing for MIPIM, MIPIM Asia and the MIPCOM fairs. Although many of these have seen falling figures since January of this year, one has seen a substantial growth of 10% in sales: EAS. With the Belgian agency Tagora, I wrote the website, brochure and collateral for the 2008 and 2009 editions.
Their business is attractions and theme parks, a sector that is growing. The explanation for this growth seems to be that people are travelling less far on holidays and will therefore be spending more time at theme parks, museums, attractions and attractions. Check the EAS 2009 site.
The EU’s DG Health & Consumers have come up with a viral campaign produced by the Mostra agency to increase awareness about online rights for younger shoppers. They just needed a wrap up line and did we have any ideas for a suitable URL?
Finding URLs is a bit like finding a brand name. Of course there is a perfect one that sums everything up in between 5-7 letters and is funny, witty and a guaranteed magnet for visitors in itself. Problem is, it’s been taken. There are also a good number of almost-perfect URLs that are very close to your best choice. But as this is a public service type of information, you can’t risk taking a name that might be hijacked by your close neighbour to peddle porn or something (a fate that befell the Festival de Cannes a few years back). So you have to dig a little deeper. With French-speaking copywriter Chantal Debauche we put together a few ideas and then wrote the list of do’s and don’ts to the client’s brief. The URL? Quite simply Gimme the info.
I came across a very interesting poll on the ProZ translators’ site recently. The question was “What are the words that you dread hearing most when a client rings?” “Urgent”, topped the list. But you might like to know that other words such as “easy”, “straightforward” and “short” also set their alarm bells ringing. How come?
Over the past the past few years, I have worked extensively with the Belgian agency Consorcom. They recently updated their site, featuring their work with Midem, MIPIM Asia and others. I also wrote a few words for the site itself.
Most recently, I’ve worked with them on finding a name and developing marketing material for Amazia (left), which will be Asia’s foremost entertainment content market from next year.
For more about the agency, visit Consorcom.
Anyone involved with the audiovisual sectors probably knows MIPCOM, which is billed as “the global content event for co-producing, buying, selling, financing and distributing entertainment content across all platforms”. It’s one of Cannes’ most senior trade fairs and will attract some 12,500 people between October 8 and 12. This year’s communications were again produced by Consorcom, with The Write Stuff handling all the original copywriting. Given the extraordinary rate of change in entertainment content and the fact that a lot of it involves mobile and digital platforms, the slogan this year is quite simple: “Content is on the move”.
I’ve worked for a number of hotels over the years, including an interesting spell doing lots of behind-the-scenes writing for the Sheraton group. So it was nice to get called by the former Royal Crown Hotel in Brussels for the development of Hotel Bloom! The hotel has been totally revamped top to bottom, with the owners creating a very specific tone. We worked on a whole range of communications for them, right down to the flavour text on the toiletries (never been asked for that before). One of the funkier ideas they had was to let a number of artists create frescoes in the rooms with the theme of “blooming”. The baseline of the hotel sums up the experience pretty well: “Stay away from the ordinary”. Check the Hotel Bloom! website.
“Cooperation – Innovation – Results”. That’s quite a claim, of course. What does it mean? Serge Pegoff (right) is an executive coach that firmly believes in the power of cooperation, or collaboration. On his blog, he talks about what this means in real terms, when dealing with people in the office. I helped brush up one of the latest blog entries, entitled “Trust: The Delegation Jitter Syndrome”. It’s for people that have a hard time delegating. Ring any bells? If so, check it out on Opposites-Meet.com.
Incidentally, The Write Stuff also found the site’s name, an illustration of the principle of resolving issues.