Hasta La Creative!

Le photographe et artiste français William K basé à Paris, a imaginé cette excellente série « Body Connexion » avec Berna et Bertan. Un travail dans lequel un duo de danseurs (frère et sœur dans la vie) se déplace et prend la pose pour donner des clichés de grande qualité. Plus d’images dans la suite.

The Wall Street Journal has reported Facebook is testing a program that would enable users to click on a hashtag, bringing the social network inline with Twitter. The hashtag would lead people to all conversations that used the hashtag.

While this will allow Facebook to better its ad targeting capabilities, Ad Age posits it’s a play for improving its graph search since users of hashtags are more likely than those who Like to be true fans of a topic. They theorize by saying a person could Like something, view it and then never come back whereas a hashtag user may be more likely to be a fan because of continuous use of a hashtag.

Well, at least now maybe all those hashtags Instagram users apply to their pictures when posting to Facebook will now have a purpose.

While we knew this was the case for several years now, SXSW Interactive has become a huge event generating conversation the world over. This year’s event generated 1.1 million tweets in 5 five days across 200 countries and 19 languages.

Social media monitoring company Synthesio created an infographic summarizing global social media conversation about the Austin, Texas event. Without surprise, the U.S generated the most (71%) conversation followed by the UK (4.6%) and Canada (4.4%).

Some say SXSW is the new Cannes. In some respects, it is. As the advertising industry moves more towards technology and content solutions versus Super Bowl-style creative solutions, this shift in mentality may make sense. But it will be a very long while before the advertising industry gives up its Rose-filled afternoons on the Carlton Terrace or the massive beach parties that occur every night which, by the way, put even the best parties at SXSW to shame.

But parties are not the primary reason to attend a conference or festival. It’s to connect with people, ideas and technologies that fuel a different sort of creativity. A creativity that results in conception of technologies and content that are of use to consumers who have certain needs and have gone looking for solutions to address those needs.

Of course, that’s not to say “regular” advertising doesn’t attempt to address people’s needs. It does. It’s just far less efficient than technology or content-based solutions.

Everyone has heard of Nike Fuelband. It’s the classic example of technology put to use to create a product that serves the specific needs of a certain set of people. But it’s not an ad. It’s a product. It’s also a product that does a pretty good job advertising the Nike brand name without beating one over the head with an interruptive-style commercial.

Everyone has heard of content marketing marketing. Ever since the original Yahoo was born (and probably before), people have been able to turn to the internet when they have a need. If a brand has well-SEO’d content available to that information seeker, that brand is far more likely to draw that person into its acquisition funnel than a brand that doesn’t.

That, of course, is one of the pillars of inbound marketing; the creation of content that educates, informs and satiates the needs and wants of consumers. It also includes SEO, social media, lead management, lead nurturing, email marketing, marketing automation and more.

The days of Cannes-style industry celebration may be limited. While some slam SXSW for getting too big and promise they won’t be back next year, we think they will. Other wise, they may be stuck alone on the Carlton Terrace drinking Rose and watching the tumbleweeds roll down the Croisette.

However, for SXSW to become the new Cannes, it simply must improve programming. With hundreds of over overlapping panels chosen, mostly, by popular vote resulting in a very high percentage of lame ass flops, the event comes nowhere near the high quality, highly curated content of Cannes. At Cannes, there are far fewer panels but they are of the highest quality and well worth attending either to educate or to inspire.

And inspiration is a powerful thing. Inspiration can lead to the creation of amazing things. And amazing things have a far better chance of influencing people than a better way to get a Highlight of where your friends are.

That said, Cannes places a lot of emphasis on creativity for creativity’s sake. In one sense, that’s not bad. After all, creativity fuels the development of wonderful things that can result in the development of killer products and services. On the other hand, winning a Gold Cannes Lion, in some respects, just means your work was prettier and more “creative” than everyone else’s.

But as we said before, Cannes has killer content that can truly inspire. It’s not just about the awards. In a nutshell, Cannes is a well-oiled machine with a highly specific agenda. SXSW, conversely, is looser, more egalitarian and frenetic. Both styles have their advantages. And disadvantages.

What are your thoughts? Is SXSW the new Cannes?

Backed by Interpublic Group of Cos. and opening its doors this week in Chicago’s West Loop is a rare startup in a land of agency giants: O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul.

Yes, that Reinhard. One of the partners is Matt Reinard, son of ad legend and DDB Worldwide Chairman Emeritus Keith Reinhard. He joins Interpublic’s former chief growth officer Nick Paul and ex-U.S. creative chief Tom O’Keefe, reuniting three execs who once worked together at DraftFCB.

Not only is the younger Mr. Reinhard’s new shop backed by a rival holding company to Omnicom, where he worked from 2009 to 2011 as an executive creative director, his new agency will have close connections with Taco Bell, a fast-feeder nipping at the heels of key DDB client McDonald’s. The story of how his dad succesfully campaigned to return the Golden Arches to the agency’s roster after it was lost to Leo Burnett is the stuff of agency lore.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

From what we’ve gathered over the last, oh, 15 months or so, it hasn’t been the smoothest ride for Atlanta’s Moxie Interactive. But rather than dwell on the seemingly constant supply of negative news about the agency (defections, cuts, etc.) dating back to late 2011 (you have our search engine for that), let’s try to just focus on the now for at least a minute. Moxie has announced that it’s rounded out what it’s dubbed its “dream team”–aka senior leadership team–with the hiring of 22squared alum Jane Matthews as SVP, new business, which we’ve been told is a new position at the agency.

In a statement, Moxie president Suzy Deering says, “Jane is the final piece of the puzzle for the senior team at Moxie. With the leadership team now in place, she will be instrumental in catapulting the Moxie brand in the marketplace sharing our data and insight driven approach and securing new brands and partners to collaborate with in the digital space.”

As for the rest of the pieces of the puzzle, they include the likes of CTO Matthew Fleischman and EVP, creative Anthony Reeves, who joined last fall, Sharon Boddie, SVP of strategy and media and John Rich, VP of digital strategy. As for Moxie’s latest hire, Matthews (pictured) joins after spending the last seven years at fellow Atlanta-based agency, 22squared, where she founded the agency’s new business practice.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.