Nobody can get angry at the waitress for not having your favorite dish on the menu anymore after seeing this much love instead. Sweet like sweet chili sauce!

Millions of dollars are being spent on finding the right brand and product names every year. That's a fact. So this morning, at breakfast, it struck me how the English language decided to use some of the most childish logic to name a product known by pretty much every person in this world....an 'orange'. Aaaah, simplicity!

Sometimes people wonder why I travel and live in other places so much. Well, AskMen.com will answer that question instead of me in their Top 29 Best Cities to Live in for Men:

Hamburg (28).........check
Copenhagen (9)......check
New York City (6)....check
Sydney (5)............check
San Francisco (3)....check

Chicago (1)............Let's go!

A pretty funny but intriguing thought on why account planners use social media like Facebook and blogging so much @ Adliterate.

"I have a very cruel, but accurate, joke about why planners have adopted social media with more enthusiasm than others in the advertising business. In advertising only planners blog, account handlers have nothing to say and creatives have better places to say it."

There is a reason why this blog is going so slow these days. That reason is Australia. I left Europe for this great sunny and friendly place about two weeks ago with Maxime. In the meantime we have been exploring Sydney, looking for an apartment and hunting for a job. You can find my daily aussie adventures on my kangaroo blog. This means there is less time/brain food to write for this blog. But when the adventures get a bit less and my days a bit more structured I am sure I'll get this thing running again 'mate'. In the meantime I am getting my aussie perspective on things...great fun!

I am a sucker for simple but brilliant 'top topical' ads. But then again they had 8 long years to come up with this.

via: Marijn

Strategic planners do strategy. What's in a word? But apparently we are not the only ones who like to think we can change the outcome of the game by planning in advance.

In an interview with the Dutch cyclocross world champion of 2008, Lars Boom, the camera shows a strategy book laying in Boom's living room. To give you a situation overview: Boom is one Dutch cyclocross talent in a sport dominated by the Belgians. Cyclocross is a very individual sport with internal struggles between riders and teams. Of the 7 Belgian boys appearing at the start for their country at the world championship, 7 can become worldchampion. So how do you get these 7 top riders, who fight each other every single race during the year, to form one solid block against the talented Lars Boom for one day? In cycling only one person can go home with the world title and wear that beautiful jersey for one full year.

The past 10 years there hasn't been a real Belgian team at the start of a world championship. Instead there were 7 individual riders who only wanted to get that title for themselves. Not to mention Belgium is probably the least patriotic country in the world. But this time things had to be different to get a Belgian on the top stage, the strong Dutch rider could beat every individual Belgian rider on a good day. It happened in 2008 and it shouldn't happen again. Our Belgian top riders sat together a couple of times to get everyone on the same line for once. The press jumped on it with disbelief: 'Belgium has never worked as a team, so why would they do it this year. The riders can say what they want, but when racing day is there...'.

Now back to that strategy book on Lars Boom's coffee table. Of course Lars picked up the debate in the press about how the Belgians were trying to get a real team together. Boom reacted on this the same way as the press did: disbelief. From a strategic point of view he probably thought it was a good thing to show he wasn't scared at all, that he was untouchable. He pushed it a little bit with some 'dirty' interviews and telling everyone who wanted to hear that a real Belgian team was an utopia. Good thinking one would say. Until racing day came and the Belgian team was a Belgian team for once and Boom didn't even finish in the top 10...

Apparently Lars had forgotten about one simple strategy rule that overrules most of the others: when you give a group of people a mutual enemy, they can and will rise above their individual goals. Smart brands have used this strategy many times in the past. One example is Apple Computer against IBM. Lars had been profiling himself as the untouchable Dutch giant who would learn the Belgians a lesson for the second year in a row. He wanted to play the card of intimidation, but that card just doesn't work with a group. It cost him his world championship jersey...

Wrong strategy for the wrong goal this year Lars, but I'm sure we'll see you again next year.

Congratulations to the blue Belgian armada!

I have to admit...I have a crush on an older woman. Her name is Axelle Red (40), she's one of Belgium's musical export products and I think she looks smoking hot with her red hair. Rock on Axelle!