Tampa Bay Rays to the World Series

The doubts have smothered the Tampa Bay Rays all season. From arduous games to demanding tests, the Rays were expected to fade away. Sooner or later, the inspirational Rays would go home. But the Rays are not going home after all. They are going to the World Series.

By advancing to the World Series, the Rays are engineering one of the best worst-to-first stories in baseball history. Only the 1991 Braves lost more games in the season before they shockingly rushed into the World Series. The Braves lost 97 games in 1990, one more than the Rays lost a year ago.

If the Rays had lost Game 7, the number seven would have haunted them in the off-season. The Rays had a 7-0 lead in Game 5 and were seven outs away from clinching the ALCS But the Red Sox scored eight runs to win, then won Game 6, too. Since the Rays avoided a collapse and prevailed in Game 7, it is a lucky number for them now.

Playing Philadelphia Phillies, this could be an epic World Series, two teams playing good baseball. First game tonight folks. This is the way it’s done:Rays goes to the World Series

The Norwegian Fortune-Teller

It’s amazing, one of the more profiled representatives in the Norwegian congress, Ms Saera Kahn, has decided to resign because of the calling to some fortune tellers, to a cost of approx. 40 000 NOK the last quarter.
Since she is representing Arbeiderpartiet and the Government – and since they are doing a lot of strange this, I really could understand why she wants to know about the future! Here is a link in Norwegian from todays paper.

No Olympics in Tromsø 2018

Well, what can you expect. Blowing it completely out of porposions regarding money, and then hpoing for a miracle, it shouldn’t happen and it didn’t.
Despite I would love to go to the Olympics in Norway again, I think sports in Norway could use the 20 billions in a much better way. There is several areas to put the money in ; swimming, places to play hockey, gymnastics are just some who could benefit from the money.
And, again, it’s funny in a way to see how the Government was lobbying for a lost cause. (and I’m one of the few who think Bjørge Stensbøl did a great job as a consultant!)
Let’s go for the European Championships in football in 2016!

What on earth is happening ?

I start to wonder, The Belgian government bailed out Dexia bank with more than 9 billion dollars, The Icelandic government bailed out Glitnir with 600 million dollars, a couple of investment banks in the US went into bankruptcy, AIG of course, The Representative House is the US yesterday defeated the 700-billion-dollar emergency rescue for the nation’s financial system that had been put together by the Bush administration and congressional leaders and the colossal financial chaos all around the world, the massive psychosis is spreading way too fast.
All these loans to people buying houses in the US, could that really made all this ??

Should Ads In Adult Magazines Feature Naked People?

Reading some articles about advertising in different segments, I stated to wonder why ads in adult publications don’t feature naked people since contextually that would seem appropriate. Reading such a magazine, at least in part, is a goal-oriented activity — you buy a Playboy to look at nude women and skip whatever content doesn’t have them. If you ad features the desired content, it gets looked at. Kind of makes sense, no?
On the other hand, do those brands, and we’re talking about worldwide brands like Volkswagen, Seagrams and so on, why are the taking this risk? Or is it? I’m curious….

Is YouTube a parasite ?

According to a report in the Guardian, the former BBC executive Michael Grade, now the Executive Chairman of Britain’s Independent Television, openly attacked Google-owned YouTube at the recent IBC convention in Amsterdam, for stealing and living off the television content created by the UK’s founding commercial network.

Grade also stated that despite the parasitic nature of the video-sharing site that he did not think that these types of companies represented a major threat to TV broadcasting in general because for the most part, they didn’t create their own content.

“They’re all parasites, they just live off our content is what they do. As long as we can create the content, the content is the keys to the castle for us going forward.”

You have to agree that Grade has a point about YouTube being parasites, but it seems that it’s virtually impossible for the video-sharing site to police and remove all the millions of posts containing content that has a as copyright. I suppose the one piece of good news for ITV is that at least the US network executives still value good, or shall we say marketable, content and compensate the many British writers and producers thus allowing American interpretations to be translated, repackaged and sold to a wider audience.

Still, who was it said that imitation was the highest form of flattery? When will there be any discussion in Norway regarding this matter? Or, are we just so into the discussion about Pirate Bay, sharing music, torrents and so on, that this isn’t a matter at all?

Shame on Jens Stoltenberg, Arbeiderpartiet and Senterpartiet!

Faced with record numbers of refugees seeking asylum in Norway, the government on Wednesday announced moves to make it harder for them to stay in the country.
Running away from it’s responsibilities in this very delicate and emotional matter I really don’t know how this Government will face it’s voters. I’m very curious to see Jonas Gahr Støre defending this
on the international arena…
The reason for this is, I think, a very desperate way on staggering the FRP increase in the polls, and somehow still stay in power at the next election 2009.
To more points; there are today something like 4 millions refugees in the world, and 15000 comes to Norway. Well, shouldn’t the richest country in the world have the financial means to taking care of people in need?
And the second one which is more on the side: the political differences in Norway is no longer between the Government and the opposition, it’s within the Government itself!

About the fast food industry

The food business is ready for a transformation. According to WHO, 1.6 billion adults are overweight with 400 million clinically obese. In the last week, in Dagens Næringsliv Dagens Næringsliv 27. aughas written articles about it. It is estimated that more than 155 million school age children are overweight. This is a global problem and the industry is not doing enough to deal with this.
According to Patrick Cescau , CEO of Unilever,” it is puzzling – with the benefit of hindsight –why a large part of the food industry took its eye off the’ nutritional’ ball during the 1990’s. Unfortunately, while we were focused on issues of taste, convenience and value, consumers were getting fat, unfit and progressively unhealthier…It is important to acknowledge that the issues we face as a European food industry are partly an outcome of our own success.

In current economic markets, food makers are quietly changing their recipes on candy, dairy products and other top-selling lines, adding fillers and substituting cheaper ingredients to cut costs amid the commodities boom. They are putting their energy in squeezing cost out of these already low priced products. This is going the opposite direction the industry should be going. Hershey Co. is substituting vegetable oil for a portion of the cocoa butter traditionally used in some of its chocolates. Spice maker McCormick & Co. is now supplying food companies with cheaper spices and new flavor blends, such as Mexican oregano instead of pricier Mediterranean oregano, and garlic concentrate instead of heavier (and costlier to ship) garlic cloves. General Mills is also trying to reduce the number of spice and ingredient pouches in boxes of Hamburger Helper — and by halving the number of pasta shapes used in the product line — the company has trimmed manufacturing costs 10%. Don’t expect these savings will be passed on to consumers.
Expect prices of these products to go up. Even McDonald’s is testing less expensive ways to make its $1 double cheeseburger; already, some restaurants are selling the burger with one slice of cheese instead of two. Ketchup giant H.J. Heinz Co. has been breeding sweeter tomatoes in an effort to reduce the amount of high-cost corn syrup in its ketchup. The sweeter tomatoes aren’t yet being used in its product lines. What does this all mean?

Are we getting healthier food or better tasting food? Or we need to adjust our expectation to take what they offer us. Food companies have a moral obligation in additional to maximizing shareholder return. They need to have integrated concern about obesity and other health issues into their core business strategy. Every one of these food giants needs a radical transformation by revisiting its whole portfolio and market only products that are in line with FDA/EU nutrition standards. There is a third bottom line for these companies. Fast food is part of many everyday’s life. Norwegians consumes hamburgers and French fries every week and many of those Norwegians consuming fast food are children. This much consumption of such unhealthy food causes health problems. Fast food is not proper nutrition in any sense. I hope to see a radical transformation of the fast food industry.

Social medias and the Olympics

Here is something I read about the Olympics and would like to share with you;

The 2008 Beijing Olympics should be the perfect area for social media coverage of the event itself Social media is also being used by many big brands to capitalise upon the Games.

The very reasons we identified for social media coverage of the Games, are being capitalized upon by some big brands, whether or not they are official sponsors.

The very reasons we identified for social media coverage of the Games, are being capitalized upon by some big brands, whether or not they are official sponsors.

Here is a couple:

* McDonald’s has built a viral game called The Lost Ring, where the player uncovers the history of the Olympics (adventures in Ancient Greece and all). It’s a subtle marketing tool for McDonald’s. Their branding is not present in the game and they are pitched more as a sponsor. The terms of the game state: “McDonald’s is proud to sponsor The Lost Ring and bring the spirit of the Olympic Games to people around the world.”
* Lenovo is the more obvious backer of Voices of the Olympic Games. Their site contains blogs from some 100 athletes at this year’s Games and the branding is prominent. The product is also heavily positioned – the site stating that the athletes were provided “new [Lenovo] Ideapad laptops and video cameras to capture their experiences.”

These examples contrast very different approaches. McDonald’s are creating an experience that people will enjoy and will no doubt ensure that people know who it is that is behind the game. This is a subtle way of marketing. They capitalize upon the enthusiasm for both the Olympic Games and for social media to create and experience people will buy into and enjoy. That they may later associate it with McDonald’s is part of the strategy, but this shows social media fitting into a total marketing strategy for the brand during the Games.

Lenovo on the other hand is really branding social media activities. It has given product and a platform to some athletes and is branding their output. This approach is more overt and although it will raise awareness of the product and the brand it is not really doing anything different to it’s other sponsorship of the Games. Lenovo’s branding is all over the Games and is on the blogs too. This is less of strategic social media marketing and more a branding exercise across all media.

Both approaches will be successful. The Olympic Games are a marketers dream – the audiences are huge and the passion is great. Using social media to enhance the experience of the Games (either by providing entertainment and games, or by providing branded content) can only be a positive thing.

Here is the link to the original post

New cases to work with

I’m so fortunate that I have to work with a great bunch of people and some very interesting customers. It’s always fun to use your brain in a creative way and in the forthcoming month of so, I will tell you something about what I and we at Confetti are doing. Something to look forward to is something I will do about politics and communities, especially since the politicians in Norway is using (correct me: not using it at all) it – and next year there is a election for the Parliament coming up.
There are some interesting facts coming up around it all around the world, stay tuned!

Selling Torstein Helstad to France

Ok, this will be my last summer (agurk..) comment, but I feel strongly about it.
Torstein Helstad, topscorer in Brann (my team) and the Norwegian Tippeliga, has been sold to France, and almost everybody is furious. Except me, I think it was the absoulte right thing do – the season is anyway lost, Helstad is at his prime and will most certainly see a decline in performance in a year og two, get his top market value and buy some new younger coming-star-players like Ighalo (but he’s on his way to Italy I read, but I think it was a very smart move and is already looking forward to the next season.

Now it’s hot

Just a weekend left, before getting back to work. And I havn’t commented anything despite a lot of things happened this last couple of weeks… Blame it (or rather – it’s summer and vacation) on laziness… but there is a lot of questions who needs an answer during the next couple of months,
– will wold economy stay put, or will it drop further
– will FRP stay around 30 percent in the Norwegian polls
– what will the Olympics in China be – a success as in Australia 2000, or a political disaster as in Berlin 36/Moscow 80
– how successful will we be in Confetti 😉

Enjoy the last days of July folks!

Continuing the summer

Still, the weather is off and on, but this weekend it’s time to play golf. I have joined something I’m not sure what it is, but it will be a lot of golfing the upcoming days.
But, I have sent a big offer to a potential customers and is already thinking about the forthcoming projects, so having the enough time to think – I like.
Enjoy your summer folks!

The beginning of summer

So the calendar says, it’s the last day of June, and I’m stilling waiting for the vacation feeling.. but I’ll guess it will occur in a day or to, it’s always the transition from a lot of work, ’til, in theory, doing nothing who complicates it.
Anyway, the vacation starts out with a comment in Kampanje, and the autumn looks exciting with a lot of interesting projects. Furthermore, I was completely out when it came to the winner of the European championship in football, well deserved Spain won! I know, I know, I didn’t put my money on them – but they played just great! No it’s time for Brannto step up!
Have a great summer folks, let see what will happen.

I think Russia will win the European Championship in football

And it’s not because I have put my money on them (and on Italy, but the failed me….). Playing great football, kinda’ reminds me about the Netherlands in the late 70’s and 80’s – and for me as a football fan when it’s played the right way – it’s just so fun to watch.
But, Spain will be a though one in the semifinals, but I do think the Russians will come on top – and will beat Germany most probably in the finals, score 3-1.
Just a couple of days to go – it will be fun to watch.

Amazing users and numbers!

Today, at a workshop we held in Confetti, I got actual figures that said that their users/visitors (this is a big quite portal with a huge international brand) visited approx. fifty (yes, 50!!) pages during their sessions. They are reading the site as they read the magazine!
If there is anybody who knows something similar to this, please let me know, ’cause this is numbers I have never ever been close to hear before!