Unfinished Business

During a visit to the Florence some years ago my wife took me to see the statue of David. Although I am not an arty sort of guy, I must say that seeing the statue of David was profound and left me in awe. It stimulated my creativity, challenged me to do more with and of my work and life, and I was truly humbled by the beauty of Michaelangelo's work. Recently I came across a blog about the French artist Bruno Catalano who is known as much for what is left out of his sculptures as what is there in front of us. It reminded me of a story about the artwork surrounding the statue of David. As you walk in to the room housing the statue of David there is a large amount of unfinished art by Michaelangelo. The story is that he left them incompleted so that you and I can finish them off in our own imagination the way that we see fit. This is such a great metaphor for creativity, particularly for mums and dads out there. As parents I believe that we are often too quick to jump in and help our kids finish off their artwork, tell them what is not right with their picture or to correct their spelling, maths, their drawings or their concepts. Sometimes I believe that things are better left unfinished so that you can inspire others to use their imagination to fill in the gaps. Great lessons for entrepenuers, parents, business leaders and marketers, let alone the artist in us all.

Twitter and the World Cup

Only a matter of months ago a reader of the Espresso sent in a note saying that Twitter was no longer relevant and was finished. Well the Espresso is pleased to report that the Twitter head of media partnerships, Robin Sloan has said that this World Cup in South Africa will eclipse everything we have seen so far on Twitter including the US election, The Oscars or the Superbowl simply because it is so international. The balance of power has now shifted from the brands to the fans and how fans are interacting in and around the game in the World Cup, marketing in the social media arena.

Matt Stone, head of new media at FIFA, said this is the first social media World Cup where fans can become instant pundits from their own living rooms. It is scary to think that during the last World Cup in 2006 social media was still a spark of an idea with MySpace still growing and Facebook had fewer than 10 million users. Today Facebook has past 500,000,000 users and social media is part of our everyday media and life landscape. Whilst we are at it, Nike's latest "Write The Future" ad was uploaded to You Tube on May 20 and has been viewed more that 14 million times already. Gatorade, Nike, Coke, Budweiser,Visa and many other massive world wide brands are all concentrating their campaigns not on traditional media but on social media. Their emphasis is on producing TVC and communications via Facebook, Twitter, i-Google, Bebo and Hi5. It certainly is the next bookmark in the progression of marketing, brand, social media interactions, sport and the everyday sports fan.

Buy a Home, Get a Home

Every bank the world over is looking for a point of difference but this one The Espresso thinks is great. If you take out a mortgage with ING Dutch, borrowers can now help families in Bangladesh and India build homes of their own. Through it's new Huis voor eenh huis (home for a home program) ING's boworrowers are given the option of donating euro's when they sign up to their mortgage, an amount which the bank doubles before giving it to needy homes in Bangladesh and India. Instead of just handing the money across, the foundation ING have set up provides micro financing where boworrowers who have previously taken out business loans and have shown that they are finacially responsible are eligble for a loan which can be used for their home. Micro financing has been a revolution a world over and this is another step in the right direction to helping those who need it the most. This is certainly a demonstration of something we talked about in my book The Vibe, reinforcing that ING is more than just a brand and exibiting serious generousity.

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Nice Park

There is no doubt that the usual car park is dull, grey, lifeless and most probably expensive. Now someone has taken the car park and looked at it differently. CarSpaze has created a new advertising platform for parking garage walls centred on the ability to digitally print photo quality images onto special material that looks great. Retailers love the concept as CarSpaze creates branded zones of 10- 20 parking spaces where advertising on the walls is done directly in front of parked cars. Using only sustainable materials for the advertising space and recycled panels and frames this idea is sure to add another element of colour, messaging, brand and marketing clutter to an already over-cluttered world, however we think it is a nice idea to add some life to dull car parks. The concept is currently being rolled out in different parts of Europe and the United States, but we think it's only a matter of time before it hits our shores here in Australia.