Written by Mihai Dragan on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 ( 2 responses )
Tags: merry christmas, online video, short clip
The team made a nice little movie so we can say Merry Christmas to everyone. Here is the short version. It’s a Romanian Christmas Carol, which we sing as best as we can 
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It’s shot in our attic, a place we all like.
Enjoy:
MB Dragan Colind 2008 – pe scurt
Written by Mihai Dragan on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 ( 3 responses )
Tags: future, interactive, predictions
I remember the story of a roman general that declared war machines can go no further than catapultes. 2000 years later and a few nuclear bombs after, some people might disagree.
As the interactive world keeps changing by the hour here are some of the things that I am sure will make it mainstream, with the help of Internet:
Ever felt like some show is just awesome and you should share it with your buddies? Well, interactive television is only the first step in letting viewers gain ever more control on what they watch, how and when they watch it.
Enter the social television, powered by your friends’ preferences. You will be able to see shows recommended by your friends, watch and comment live TV shows and many others.
You like reading the New York Times but you would also read the new Esquire without paying extra? You gonna do it.
By mixing media brands, sites and others you will soon be able to create your very own newspaper, featuring stories in the matter you would read your Feed Reader.
Will this paper be displayed on interactive paper or will it be printed on demand? Will it be based on a subscription or will it be free, advertising based ? Future will tell.
The world is changing and fast. The virtual market is here for the taking. Challenger economies have a lot to offer and developed countries have a lot to gain by tapping in this global pool of talent.
I know companies based in UK, marketed from Germany, researching and doing development in India, having their creative advertising in Tokio, delivering products all over the world.
This is globalization but I am sure something else will emerge. An economy completly free from distinction based on place of birth, color of skin and others.
We will have global broadband access to Internet. Underdeveloped countries will be able to access global informational resources leading a global change on a scale never seen before.
Sure, it sounds weird but I am sure at some point we will be able to communicate telepathically and reach new depths in human interaction.
This will break-down cultural and language barriers that kept people appart for so many thousands of years. Imagine an westerner being able to understand the depths of eastern culture, free from misconceptions, misunderstandings and others.
Will it be a chip we’ll use to help us communicate? Will it be a mind scanner we’ll use just as the laptop’s built-in camera ? I don’t know but what I do know is this is something that will lead human kind to new means of interacting and thinking. Which brings us to…
At the moment we are all gathering information in the largest library the Earth had ever had: the Internet. But is that all we can together?
What if we could argue and settle argues between thousands, millions of people in less than a fraction of a second?
What if we could not just work together, live together but also think together?
This is something the world has been waiting for such a long time. We want something that would work, think and act for us. Aren’t we lazy?
Google is working on this. Others are too. Will we live to see this happening? I think so.
A new way of doing commerce will develop. We will have shops that exist both online and offline and you can have the same experience and benefits on each.
You will be able to try on clothes online and save your basket for later purchase offline. You will be able to spend a great afternoon shopping online with your friends and in the same time shop offline with home delivery jumping from one product category to another.
People crammed in huge buildings and campuses will become a thing of the past as many jobs are getting less and less location dependent.
New devices as the iPhone or Blackberry are proof that corporate office will shrink ever more untill they will be devices you’ll carry around and use to complete the daily tasks.
Advertising will evolve to Informative Advertising, targeted, permission based, totally interactive and only on demand.
In the end – I don’t know for sure what the future holds but I know that we live interesting times. And some people will take advantage of this.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Monday, December 15th, 2008 ( One response )
Tags: infomercials, Interactive Advertising, outdoorinteractive
One of the ideas that keep bugging me is interactive advertising outside the “computer room”. I believe there is real potential of interacting with people on the streets, in their favorite environment, while shopping, out walking etc.
If you’re thinking privacy this is my concern too. When is “Interactive” too much? When does it turn “Stalking”? I am concerned with these questions too but I believe the current means of advertising, mass messaging outdoor commercials, mass delivered TV ads are way more intrusive and disturbing than Interactive Advertising – powered “info-mercials”.
How far should we go?
Written by Mihai Dragan on Monday, December 15th, 2008 ( Start discussion )
Tags: agency news, Interactive Advertising, news
I’ve been busy with some of the things going on in the agency.
We’re getting ready to launch a big website, the Sono campaign is doing great (the sales have doubled and the registered users are almost there too).
We have finished working on a big project, the first of it’s kind in Romania and we can’t wait to launch it in a private (I’d say exclusive) beta. We started working with a great brand as their interactive agency for strategy, creative and online media.
We will have some interesting things we’re planning, business wise, for 2009 Q1 and Q2, that will surely bring us closer to all you english speakers and iphone lovers 
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We’re getting ready to start a new agency project, a new concept for online, entertaining and helpful. Stay tuned.
PS: Have I mentioned that my friend and MB Dragan’s Creative Director Alex Buga has just relaunched his blog/portfolio with a kick ass new design and layout?
Written by Mihai Dragan on Monday, December 8th, 2008 ( 2 responses )
Tags: advergaming, blogvertising, online shop
We have just launched a viral game for one of our clients. It’s called “Sono Music Arena” and it features three musical styles fighting with sound waves. You register to the website through the flash interface and start playing.
We’ll offer two home systems for the best players after a month of heavy gaming. Now, start gaming (yes, it’s embeddable):
Written by Mihai Dragan on Saturday, December 6th, 2008 ( One response )
Tags: no influence, no money, no team, presentation, startup, startups
For anyone who missed it, see the slides below. Maybe they’ll upload the video too.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 ( 6 responses )
Tags: netcamp, Running the business, startups
Tomorrow at Netcamp I will be speaking about online startups and how to start one with no money, no influence and no team.
Be there.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Monday, December 1st, 2008 ( One response )
Tags: blogvertising, Interactive Advertising, real estate, recession, results, seo, web development
“You don’t make silk purses out of saw’s ears” says an old proverb. That goes very well with interactive advertising too.
While searching for new clients look for more than financial stats. Search for a deeper understanding of the services you are providing, a good management, a professional approach to your business relationship, chemistry and others.
True story: at some point we gained a new account, a very influent company in a fast growing domain. We made an one year deal and started working. We’ve implemented a new website, with some never-before features like an intelligent search engine that would register user’s preferences and recommend offers that would match these preferences, an easy to use layout and state of the art newsletter engine and many others.
We’ve done such a good SEO job that in less than four months the main categories would rank among the first three search results.
We’ve run a successful blogvertising and rich media campaign that helped the website gain exposure. The AdWords campaign was as efficient as it gets and users would spend more than 7 minutes on the websites, looking for offers and contacting sales representatives.
Overall the new business brought in by the website had grown from less than 5% to almost 50%. The traffic grew by more than 1000% and the newsletter registrants doubled. I would call this good interactive advertising.
But…The principal was a man that didn’t quite understand this “internet mumbo jumbo”. So, when the recession stroke he decided to cut the internet spending, although he was warned that this move would cut new deals by almost half. He did it anyway.
Among other great decisions was the layoff of other important members of the company that dared to disagree with him. As we were asked to do things that would harm their company we disagreed and closed the account.
We had one last invoice to collect and as I phoned the CEO last week he too resigned his position and was now currently with another company.
So you see…you can’t make silk purses out of saw’s ears. Focus on working for people that have the business ability to distinguish between personal choices and professional ones.
