March 2012
32 posts
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February 2012
36 posts
4 tags
The energy of your energy drink
By Emily Segal
iAura is an app that uses your smartphone camera to capture the energy fields and true colors of those around you.
The app is the 2012 version of Kirlian photography, which captures electric currents on film.
The word aura comes from the ancient Greek for “breeze” or “breath,” and came to stand for the...
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Minimal Mac: TV Is Broken →
This is enlightening. Patrick Rhone’s daughter watches traditional TV for the first time and can’t comprehend commercials.
minimalmac:
Recently, while on vacation in New Orleans for Mardi Gras and visiting family, we stayed at my sister’s house. She was kind enough to let us have her place while she found accommodations elsewhere. She moved in to this place herself not too long...
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Designing the news
By Lisa Smith and Kate Nielsen
The “Future of News” panel at NYC Advertising Week last Fall was polarized by blind optimism and Grinch-like misery and gloom. Spokespersons from CNN and Flipboard were ebullient – There has never been a better time to be in this business! Look at all the new and exciting things we are doing! Those from USA Today and AdWeek pointed out that until...
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Do You Own Your Name, in Chinese?
By Sam Liebeskind
The Jordan brand is absolutely massive. Led by a 71% share of the US basketball shoe market (according to SportsOneSource), the label brings in over $1 billion each year. In fact, the brand built around 14x all-star Michael Jordan is so huge that other NBA players like Dwayne Wade and Carmelo Anthony have actually signed deals to directly promote Jordan.
Think about how...
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Love & music (on an iPad)
By Melissa Andrada
Earlier this week I went to a Creators Project talk by the developers and designers behind Bjork’s Biophilia.
During the presentation, media artist Scott Snibbe spoke about the “casual relationship” people now have with music. Digital technology has revolutionized the way we experience music, giving us access to an unbelievable breadth and depth of songs – with just one click....
WatchOur friends SUPERBIEN for Adidas at Pharo Palace in Marseille.
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Share: SUPERBIEN and Capsule Circus
Thomas Chosson and Alex Mestrot Share at Wolff Olins NY
WONY was joined last night by a troupe of young creatives from the Paris collectives SUPERBIEN and Capsule Circus.
SUPERBIEN’s Thomas Chosson and Alex Mestrot create wildly immersive environments of animation, photography, light and space, with every piece specifically tailored to its location. Their breathtaking perfectionism came...
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What's a Bill of Rights For a Digital Age?
By Rachel Blatt
The White House just formally unveiled a new consumer bill of rights and report, which seek a balance between personal privacy and business interests on the Internet. It’s goal being to “protect all Americans from having their information misused by giving users new legal and technical tools to safeguard their privacy.”
The bill doesn’t forget the interests of web...
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India: a tale of mobiles and motorbikes, ports and...
By Charles Wright
India’s economy is growing at 6% a year. Some way behind China but still mind-boggling by the standards of the developed world.
GDP growth figures are a bit abstract. So let’s make this concrete.
In 1985 there were 8 million middle class Indians. Think London. Now there are 200 million. Think UK, France and Germany. In ten years, there might be more than 500 million. Think the...
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Telling a story of growth
By Sebastian Klein
Recently we sat together to get briefed on a project for a huge Indian conglomerate by the name of Adani.
A business that has grown rapidly in the last twenty years and acquired an impressive portfolio of assets like mines, ports, ships and power plants. Whilst delving deeper into the world of Mega Tons, power generation and big machines I was not only stunned but also...
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(This is the second Future Patrol, a monthly series of macrotrend posts by WONY Strategist Emily Segal. You’ll see Wolff Olins’ established macrotrends called out with a hashtag.)
#Funny Money
Every time you pay for a magazine subscription with Hilton loyalty points, or exchange a foursquare checkin for a shot of tequila, or donate your time as a volunteer, you’re using an alternative (or...
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Game changers: the back story
It’s great to see the Game Changers report spreading its way through the world. But where did the thinking come from?
In mid 2000s, people here at Wolff Olins were working on two almost impossible projects: a brand for the London 2012 Olympic Games, and a brand for the city of New York. Almost impossible because public expectations were so high, and the cities in question so multi-dimensional,...
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A Font For Their City
By JP Chirdon
A group of designers and strategists in Chattanooga, TN have embarked on a project to translate their city’s artistic and entrepreneurial spirit into a typeface called Chatype. They’ve just hit their $10,000 Kickstarter goal, with 8 days to go. If all goes as planned, Chattanoogans will soon start seeing Chatype on signs, business cards, emails, and city...
Collaborative Fund: Values Will Drive the Next... →
collaborativefund:
Wolff Olins released a report this week identifying five traits driving game-changing companies. We love data. So we pulled some to tumble.
The report highlighted big companies like Apple, LEGO, Nike and Paypal to illustrate these traits.
Collaborative looks for particular values when…
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Opening: Executive Assistant to the Global CEO @...
What’s the role?
Provide day-to-day admin support to the CEO and CMO:
· Manage calendars and schedule appointments with an eye on all long and short term goals, priorities & deadlines
· Arrange complex travel plans and itineraries; compile documents & briefing packs for all travel-related meetings
· Ensure the timely flow of meetings & take care that meeting rooms...
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Share: The Nile Project
Mina and Meklit Share at Wolff Olins NY
We couldn’t be more excited to kick off our collaboration with The Nile Project, a cross-cultural initiative that brings together musicians from the Nile countries to perform along the river and around the world. It’s the brainchild of Meklit Hadero, an Ethiopian-American singer-songwriter, and Mina Girgis, an Egyptian ethnomusicologist. The...
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What separates the best brands from the rest?
For the last couple years, we’ve been traveling the globe talking to leaders at some of the world’s best companies and trying to learn exactly what separates the best from the merely good. Today, we’ve published our analysis of what we’ve learned, in a report called Game Changers.
A key takeaway was that even though companies today recognize the important factors required to...
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Watch Out Gilt
The MO of MO
By Marissa Vosper
This idea has the potential to put fashion flash sale sites to shame. And updates the business model.
More benefits to the customer. More benefits to the designer.
And still has the whole “buy now” urgency appeal.
Really differentiated in the fashion space.
It’s a win-win-win if you ask me.
via Moda Operandi
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Lovely Lunch at WOLO
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Brand, Be Mine?
At Wolff Olins we’re enmeshed in the business of brand – consistently surprised, delighted, and challenged by what we see. While you can’t quite hold a brand or put one in your pocket, a strong brand – from chocolates to cleaning products – has the power to move you, sometimes to love.
This Valentine’s day we thought it right to express our love for our favorite ones and explain why it is they...
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The Bottom Line, The Social Way
By Melissa Andrada
How successful is social media’s impact on a socially responsible company’s bottom line?
This is the leading question framing a Social Media Week panel I’ll be speaking at this Thursday.
We know that social media has had a tremendous impact on society, but to what extent does it translate into real dollars? There are many metrics we can use to track engagement: number of...
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2012 Spring Internship in Marketing/New Business @...
About the internship:
We’re looking for a New Business & Marketing intern to work with our team in New York City.
You’ll get to:
Help us build the right perception of Wolff Olins for what we do and what we believe
Develop and manage new internal tools and systems
Research and coordinate thought leadership and content creation
Develop award submissions for top creative competitions
Manage...
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Doing Well By Doing Good @ Social Media Week
Social media is a powerful booster for brand authenticity and personality, but how successful is it in converting a good cause to sustainable dollars? In an atmosphere where customers’ trust and loyalty is increasingly earned through transparency and engagement there are new paths to the bottom line.
As part of Social Media Week, on February 16, WONY strategist Melissa Andrada...
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Ethics In Fashion
By Danielle Horanieh
I’d like to think I’m a pretty socially aware gal. I recycle. I volunteer. I buy organic, sustainable products and use a reusable bag whenever and as often as I can. But I’ve always had a weakness for clothing—lots of it.
Once a year, I perform a ritual “closet cleanse” and donate all the clothing I haven’t worn in the past year to the Salvation Army. It’s helped me realize...
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To Fly. To Serve?
By Rose Bentley
It wasn’t British Airways fault that the snow fell last Saturday. And they weren’t solely to blame for the anaphylactic chaos at Heathrow. But for those of us who were caught up in it all, it was a ringside opportunity to experience a brand totally out of kilter with its promise.
Let’s start with that BA promise: To Fly To Serve. What does that mean to its people?
Not much...
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Brand Shouldn't Be a Dirty Word for Startups
By Melissa Andrada and Amaris Singer
A few months ago, we attended a class called “Making Something People Love” taught by Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit and director of marketing at Hipmunk. In his intro, Alexis admitted that the class was like a Branding 101 class, but he didn’t want to use the word “brand.”
Brand is a dirty word to many entrepreneurs, but their skepticism comes from...
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2012 Spring & Summer Account Management...
About the internship: We’re looking for an energetic account management intern to work with our team in New York City. You’ll work on a range of client projects; gaining a real perspective on the many ways we help clients achieve their business and brand goals.
You’ll get to: Creatively problem solve a diverse range of challenges
Collaborate closely with an eclectic group of experts in design,...
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2012 Summer Strategy Internship at Wolff Olins,...
About the internship: We’re looking for a kick-ass strategy intern to work with our team in New York City. You’ll work on a range of internal and client projects, experiencing firsthand how brands are created and evolved. You’ll get to: Contribute to the development of brand strategies Research and analyze markets, technologies and trends Develop new business pitches and proposals We’re...
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WatchMichael Wolff: Don’t Trust Your Experience
At Design Indaba, Michael Wolff spoke about how to exercise your idea-creating capacity by first getting rid of your ideas. He also told great stories from his time with Wolff Olins and after, about the importance of language in design and some of the “little creatures” that have made their way into much of his work. Here are some of our...
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Advertisers: How To Win The Super Bowl
By Sam Leibeskind
Between all the strategic pre-game leaks, Twitter’s Ad Scrimmage, and the NBC/YouTube partnership that created the Ad Blitz channel, the actual 30-second Super Bowl on-air spot is now the center of a more prolonged, immersive advertising experience. Often these experiences are so focused on the spectacle or story of a campaign that the real merit of the brand gets...
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Off the Grid: Why I’m on a Facebook Cleanse
By Melissa Andrada
Last weekend, I did the unthinkable: I got off the world’s largest social network.
My sister changed my Facebook password, so for at least 30 days, I’ll be off the grid. This means no status updates, no news feeds or even Instagram integration.
It’s a social experiment I’m conducting to understand the value that Facebook brings to the way people connect with each other.
As...
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