The joy of stats

Messages have a greater possibility of resonating when they are based on hard data and delivered with a touch of theater. Some people have that talent. I really enjoyed the video below “200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes” from the BBC 4 Series "The Joy of Stats" hosted by Swedish Professor Hans Rosling graphically illustrating global development over the past 200 years.

We're only scratching the surface of how new media has the power of transforming education and impacting millions of people around the world. Fascinating times.

Listening to Contagious in London

Spending an amazingly stimulating week in London. As part of the programming, we had a great opportunity to meet with Jessica Greenwood from Contagious - a fusion between magazine, think tank and consultancy - speak about a few of the trends that are shaping the fascinating and ever-changing marketing/advertising/digital landscape and how some brands are breaking through the clutter and connecting in different ways. An hour that blew me away. She was brilliant.

Challenger thinking in São Paulo

This week Adam Morgan - the creative thinker behind EatBigFish - is in Brazil as part of the Future Speaker Series. It's always a tremendous pleasure listening to him speak about challenger strategy. Fresh, thought-provoking and powerful concepts that can help anyone who needs inspiration to grow their business by changing the rules of the game.

I personally love one of the challenger credos: sacrifice and overcommit - the notion of clearly defining what you're willing to sacrifice to build a strong engaging brand story. Always easier said than done. We tend to believe that there's always opportunity for a product tweak here and there or adding another claim on the package or launching a new line extension or even expanding to another category, many times diluting what the brand stands for.

Adam and his team are also fabulous story tellers. Click here to explore some of their thinking.

Talking apps

Two days ago, I sat down to talk to a friend who I hadn't seen in a few months (something I need to do more of). This guy is the wired type that knows it all and is always a pleasure to talk to. It's funny how, a few years ago we would have talked about what's hot in São Paulo's restaurant scene or catch up on who is doing what, especially since we have some many friends in common.


What happened was, the conversation revolved pretty much around the latest apps we've downloaded and our opinion about the brands that we think are doing a good job taking advantage of new media. It was fun.


Sign of the times...

Time to open up

I finished reading "Open Innovation - How Social Technology Can Transform The Way You Lead" by Charlene Li (author of "Groundswell"). I wasn't unable to attend Charlene's speech here in São Paulo earlier this year, so I was happy when my friend Alexandre Peralta gave me her latest book. The book is a guide on how to manage, communicate and navgate in this new (and sometimes intimidating) socially networked world full of interesting stories of how some companies and leaders are getting it right.

For information on the openess journey, go to open-leadership.com.

I also found this short video of Charlene Li talking about her new book.

Brazil's little piece of chocolate heaven

France has truffles... Brazil has the brigadeiro.... a little chocolate sin served at birthday parties and as a dessert around the country. Nobody knows brigadeiros like Juliana Motter, founder of Maria Brigadeiro. Until recently, she would only take reservations by phone but now Juliana opened a storefront in one of São Paulo's cool neighborhoods. We went there last night to buy a gift box.

If you're ever in São Paulo and you get a craving for chocolate... here's the address:

Rua Capote Valente, 68

The Nothing Movement in Rhode Island

Jeanette Palmer and I worked on a few packaging graphic projects for 7UP and H2OH! a few years ago when she was with Raison Pure New York. She now lives in Providence, Rhode Island and works for a local agency called NAIL. She sent me a link with an amazing cultural movement called Nothing her agency has created for the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.

A beautiful example of how the power of creative can work for a greater cause. This is the type of campaign that would work very well in developing countries, like here in Brazil.

I love everything about it.

Click here to visit the movement's website

Learning from the Seda Co-Creation Project

Last week we invited Erik Galardi - Unilever Brazil's Marketing Director Haircare - to talk to our internal team on how he is carrying out a major brand transformation for Seda.  The presentation was absolutely awesome, one of the best marketing stories I heard recently.  Seda is Brazil`s leading shampoo but has been losing relevance to smaller high-end brands which led to the Seda Co-Creation Project.  They partnered with seven hair specialists from around the world to develop a new generation of products.  Another great case of collaboration, packaging design, content generation and experiential marketing.  

Turbocharging the home phone

The other day I was talking to Alessandro Germano, an innovation director at Telefonica Brazil, about how I thought the home phone needed some serious re-thinking incorporating a lot of the cool features found in the mobile world. That's when he told me about Orby.

Orby is a product that is being developed by Telefonica to become the ultimate home digital smartphone. The idea is to turbocharging the home phone with a hi-speed connection, the convenience of touch screen and cool design. The concept comes with unique features like the ability for the user to choose his phone number online. The phone screen can be used to access YouTube, online radios, use as a slideshow for family photos or to check your stock portfolio.

It seems like the type of innovation that has the potential of becoming the centerpiece of home automation (control lighting, turn on air conditioning, lock/unlock doors or activate security cameras). Telefonica is making Orby open source allowing anyone to develop aditional applications, similar to what happens today with IPhones or Android.

Launch is expected to happen later this month. Perfect time for me to update our old home phones.  Can't wait to try it out.

Listening to Andreas Weigend

Yesterday, I had the opportunity of listening to Andreas Weigend speak at an HSM event here in São Paulo. Andreas is a former Chief Scientist at Amazon.com. He now works as a consultant helping companies leverage the power of data to develop new business models.  He also teaches at Stanford and UC Berkeley.  Since I've always been a huge fan of Amazon - most likely the best e-commerce experience on the web - I was excited with the opportunity to listen to him.  Great speaker with thought-provoking concepts for any company wanting to take their digital strategies to the next level.  Among the examples of companies leveraging data to transform their business, I loved the case of Progressive which gives customers the option of using a wireless device in their car which tracks driving behavior.  The data collected generates a customized insurance rate based on how, how much and when the car is driven.

Click here to check out Andreas Weigend's blog.

I wish my schedule would allow me more time to spend time participating in events like the one I went to yesterday.  Time well spent.

Farewell to Le Paul (1915-2009)

This past week the world said farewell and paid tribute to Les Paul - the man who was the inventor of the solid body electric guitar and also pioneered a number of recording methods like the multitrack recording.  A true legend who influenced the world of rock in many ways.  In the 1950's, the legendary Gibson Les Paul was born, designed by Ted McCarty in collaboraton with Les Paul.  A guitar icon that is part of the fabric of modern rock.

Click here to see a photo gallery of Les Paul published by the Los Angeles Times.

Every Wednesday night, I have guitar lessons with Dante Castanho and the experience has been extremely rewarding.  Music has an amazing ability to take you away from your day-to-day and transport you to different places and times.  I'm having a great time.

Selling apartments through Twitter

This week Tecnisa - a local construction company - sold its first apartment through Twitter.  

This is not an ordinary construction company, Tecnisa has built an amazing reputation as a business that gets digital like no one else in the marketplace.  They were the first Brazilian company to launch a corporate blog, they send podcasts to buyers using engineers explaining each phase of the construction and they have a solid track record of online sales.  Many people who are in the market to buy condos have been following Tecnisa on Twitter.   The news this week is that a man took advantage of a promotion announced through Twitter and purchased a R$500,000 / US$250,000 apartment, the one you see below.

The mastermind behind Tecnisa's digital strategy is Romeo Bussarello, a charismatic high-intensity marketing talent I have known for years.  

He's always a step ahead of the competition and you never quite know what he's up to next.  While so many of us marketers are figuring out how to better connect through social networks, this guy is making it happen.  

Great story.

Giving new reasons for health-conscious Brazilian consumers to add more oats to their day-to-day lives

When asked what brand comes to mind when consumers think oats, Brazilians all over the country will immediately say Quaker.  Over the years, through the commissioning of Brazil's first clinical study on the heart-health benefits of oats and the consistent work of professional marketing, we have been teaching consumers and opinion leaders about how oats can help fight heart clogging cholesterol contributing to a balanced lifestyle.

Last year, we started working with agency StrawberryFrog which created a new campaign that is helping to accelerate growth with a message that combines both the functional benefits of oats with a more emotional tone.  The campaign is called 

Quaker - The Grain of Goodness.  

More and more people recognize the power of this little super grain but one of the barriers of consumption is that people don't always find oats very convenient.  Little time in the morning to prepare an oatmeal porridge or forgetting to sprinkle oats over fruits or yogurts are a few of the reasons why people don't consume more.  To provide oats in a more convenient format, a few years ago a line of oat bars were launched - our fastest-growing SKUs.  Proof that there is an opportunity to provide more convenient ways for people to eat oats.  

We're very excited that this week, we started test-marketing in Campinas (an hour drive from Sao Paulo) an entire line of convenient on-the-go oat-based products that will certainly create new reasons and occasions for health-conscious Brazilian consumers to add more oats to their day-to-day lives.   We're calling this line Quaker De Bolso  (which translates as Quaker In-Your-Pocket).

The line is made up of three nutritious products: 

Quaker Oatmeal cookies in three flavors:  Apple & Cinnamon, Granola, Raisins

Quaker Granola Express, a fun on-the-go drinkable format which allows people to have granola while they are driving, biking or working out.  These new granolas come in two flavors:  raisins, banana & honey

Quaker Minis - a completely new concept - bite size oat-based multi-grain mini cookies. One, is a mix of oats and cocoa and the other, a unique mix of 4 super grains: oats, quinoa, flax seed and wheat germ with a delicious touch of honey.  We designed this product to offer the convenience of portion control which we believe will become a hit especially among busy women who want a nutritious break but don't always have the time. I particularly love this concept.  

Well, here's our entire Quaker De Bolso line.  

Now consumers can have the goodness of oats anytime, anywhere.  

This launch was developed under the leadership of Adriana Ribeiro, Erika Salgado and Rodrigo Viselli, three marketing stars, as well as, Jose Oliveira and Maria Eugenia Cavenaghi on the Innovation team, who put their hearts and souls in the project.  We also counted on the inspiring support from Jesus Velasquez from the Mexican team who brought a wonderful perspective from a successful Quaker operation. On the technical side, Sergio Julio and his team added the R&D magic to bring the concepts to life. A fantastic team!  

Dinner with Tom Szaky

Last night, I had dinner with Tom Szaky, founder of TerraCycle - a business model created while he was in Princeton - that is completely redefining the concept of recycling. Cool guy with cool ideas. Tom is leading an amazing green revolution, enlisting consumer brigades all over America to collect used soda bottles, plastic bags and candy wrappers and transforming this garbage into amazing products, from fertilizers to messenger bags to backpacks.

Last year, Inc. Magazine called Terracyle
'The Coolest Little Start-Up in America'.












Tom Szaky's fascinating TerraCycle story is truly inspirational. Click below to see an overview I found on YouTube. It will certainly make you look at garbage in whole new way.

The Economist on 2009

The Economist has issued 'The World in 2009', a compilation of predictions for the year ahead. This edition carries an article from Brazil's President Lula da Silva entitled 'Building on the B in BRIC'.

Click here to read the article at economist.com

Jimmy Wales in Sao Paulo

Yesterday, I had the wonderful opportunity to listen to Jimmy Wales, the brilliant mind behind one of the most powerful forces in user-generated content. His Wikipedia (which I can't live without), and its vision of the 'sum of all human knowledge' is a non-profit movement that mobilizes hundreds of thousands of people around the globe who collaborate to create the library for the age of knowledge. The story of the movement he has created is inspiring and perfectly aligned with a time in which people are empowered, more than ever, to create like never before.

The speech took place in São Paulo as part of the HSM Expo Management week and sponsored by Telefonica.

Tim Brown from IDEO on the power of play

This month posted on TED, a deliciously inspiring speech with Tim Brown, CEO of innovation and design firm IDEO, called "The Powerful Link Between Creativity and Play" as part of the 2008 Serious Play Conference.

He talks about how certain behaviors we have learned as kids (exploration, building, role play) can be powerful tools in the process of creative thinking.

Click below to be inspired...

What's Next Event

Brazil's most influential advertising newspaper, Meio & Mensagem (which has a partnership with Advertising Age), celebrated its 30 years with a full-day event yesterday inviting speakers from the world's largest ad agencies to talk about the future. It was a great opportunity for me to listen to guys like Tom Bernardin (Leo Burnett), Laurence Boschetto (Draftfcb), Bob Greenberg (R/GA), Simon Sheerwood (BBH), Tom Carroll (TBWA) and Andrew Robertson (BBDO). The name of the event was What's Next, a rather ambitious name that is virtually impossible to properly answer. Even more so, if we take into account what the world has gone through in the past months. A lot was said on how consumers are becoming even more empowered, the impact of mobile and the prospects of an increasingly digital society. I didn't feel there was any particular wow in terms of what can potentially happen to the marketing/advertising landscape.

At the end of the day, what I personally enjoy at these types of events are real-life examples of how companies are finding new ways to interact, come out with innovative products and connect with people in ways that are remarkable. Bob Greenberg from R/GA took us through the interesting case study of how his interactive agency has helped create Nokia ViNe, a location-based content sharing service. A service where people can share routes, pictures, sounds and videos. Sounds like an exciting idea to record our traveling experiences and get tips on trips other people have made.

Read article on the Nokia ViNe initiative at MediaWeek.

StrawberryFrog NY

Yesterday, I had the opportunity of visiting StrawberryFrog here in NY and meeting Scott Goodson, the visionary guy who started the frog movement. I have been a fan of his blog and it was awesome to talk to him about some of the cultural movements the agency is engaged in, about how Brazil is becoming a hot emerging market and exchange ideas on the many changes going through in the marketplace.

This coming weekend, will be airing our first campaign created by Alexandre Peralta and the StrawberryFrog team in Sao Paulo for our Toddy chocolate milk brand. The campaign is called "Muuuuu!" A lot of excitement within our marketing team back home. More on the campaign next week.

Exame on PepsiCo

Out today Exame Magazine (my all-time favorite business publication in Brazil) with a cover story on PepsiCo's CEO Indra Nooyi.  Great article explaining how multinational corporations are adapting to a new world order where understanding the dynamics of emerging markets like China, India, Brazil, is key to any company that operates globally.