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Belgian artist Luc Tuymans has been the talk of Europe for at least the last 5 years and has been described as Europe's greatest living artist after Gerhard Richter.

Now, thanks to the efforts of SFMOMA and others a retrospective of his work can be seen in the US.

It's work that on the surface challenges the conventions of painting, but more than that, uses art to provoke discussion about history and culture.

At first glance, it's hard to take in the work. The color palette is muted and depressed, there seems to be an artificial barrier between the canvas and the viewer, it's like he doesn't want you to get close.

There's one series of paintings of banal objects that are out of focus, blurred so that they look like fragments of our memories, but many of these have deeper stories behind them (that's Tuymans style); a body lying innocently on a couch turns out to be a murder victim, the portrait of a man that seems very ordinary, is in fact, a a cancer sufferer.

At its core, Tuymans best work deals with politics and history. There are two series that deal with World War 2; one with concentration camps and the other the broader theme of Nazism.

While many of these WW 2 paintings here are difficult to view, often being minimal and sparse, they all have deeper stories to tell,  but when viewed as a series, complete an arc.

In his architect series about Nazi Germany, there's a painting from a photo of Albert Speer on skis and a blurred out portrait of Himmler which render these key protagonists dangerously harmless and innocent. 

The work that explores the Belgian colonization of the Congo is perhaps the most impressive. It highlights the key motifs of the story by isolating the key players and covering the assassination of a leader and the exploitation of resources. It's also art that caused a political response, this series was first shown at the Venice Biennale in 2001 and caused ripples that forced the Belgian government to admit their role in assassination of the Congolese leader. 

American isn't spared as he explores the country post 9/11 with paintings that include a portrait of Condoleezza Rice and what appears to be a falling World Trade Center, but in reality is simply another demolition. Tuymans is telling us how we've all been manipulated by media repetition.

In a world where new, bright digital media is the "thing", Tuymans shows us that painting still has a potent role to play. He's using his art to challenge and warn us about the power of the diversity of media images that surround us. He's asking that   constantly question ourselves to find deeper meaning in these images.

Posted by Ed Cotton Green & Black's built its reputation by pioneering Fair Trade chocolate, it successfully managed to maintain this despite being acquired by Cadbury.

G&B managed to "infect" Cadbury and got it to incorporate a lot of their ethical smarts into their own brand. Now with Cadbury being purchased by Kraft, many are questioning if the American company has what it takes to maintain the progress made by these two brands.

In a recent article in The Guardian, one of the founder's of Green & Black's was somewhat optimistic about the prospects. On a side note, it's interesting, he points his finger at consumers for not demanding organic and Fair Trade from brands, of course, this is a little chicken and egg because it often takes a company to lead consumers, as we've seen with Wal-Mart.

"A brand is like a child. It is born into this world, fragile and in great need of parental care and attention. Eventually you send it off to school and university, entrusting it to the care of others. Then it embarks on its career. Green & Black's, to follow the analogy, was nurtured to maturity and eventually got a good job at a big multinational.

It's still our baby. The fact that it can now look forward to continuing its career development with another multinational with a different name (and most of the same shareholders) is not a great cause for concern.

If Kraft screwed up with Green & Black's it would damage their reputation and cast a shadow over their competence. But there is no reason to expect them to goof. They have converted US household names like Oreos and Ritz crackers to organic and even do an organic macaroni-and-cheese dinner.

Every successful organic product represents another welcome step forward in the vital process, whereby the GM dependent climate-destructive industrial farming model gives way to sustainable, organic and fair ways of producing food. Successful corporations identify and follow these deeper underlying trends and would be betraying their shareholders' interest in trying to reverse them.

Frankly, it's the consumers who don't buy organic and fair products that upset me the most. Consumers have a choice, companies don't, they only sell what customers buy. Kraft and Cadbury are on the right track and I am confident the new entity will continue to pursue this.

I have no idea if Kraft will ask me to stay on as president, but if they don't that could be your canary in the coal mine."

Kraft's indirect purchase of Green & Black's follows a familiar pattern of ethical companies falling into their hands of  giant corporations- Ben and Jerry's at Unilever, Howies at Timberland and The Body Shop at L'Oreal.

Many of the ethical companies start out with the belief that it's possible to change the world and when purchased may still harbor idealistic notions of this dream because of scale. However, for the acquring company to radically change it's operations, brands etc to all be in-line with the ethical company, is highly unlikely because it's just simply too hard to do.

What's more likely is a token response where the ethical brands sit in limbo and nothing really changes. They can grow because they can distribution muscle, but beyond that, they can't do much.

Posted by Ed Cotton Foursquare just announced a partnership with Bravo Television  for a few seconds it did not compute, but I went deeper to see what the deal was all about. It's really smart as it offers Bravo a chance for deeper engagement with its audience.

"Of course Bravo is going to put the full power of their network behind the partnership, promoting Bravo’s Foursquare hooks in TV spots. The NBC-owned cable network also plans to use Foursquare for sweepstakes, awards, and other viewer incentives. They’ll even offer Foursquare tie-ins to Bravo advertisers, which will likely come in the form of coupons for viewers to cash in at the advertisers’ venues."

Bravo is keen to be part of the next big thing to go mass, but the communication opportunities here are impressive. Fans of shows will have the chance to follow in the footsteps of their television heroes and get to participate in branded contests.

It's a great example where the virtual world is being unleashed out into our geography thanks to the mobile internet.

On the other side of the coin lies the physical screen and the opportunities that it offers for interaction. Here we've yet to scratch the surface with the possibilities that exist for layered communication on high tech out of home panels and the opportunity for play.

Last month I was fortunate enough to attend the Decode exhibit at London's Victoria and Albert where I saw artists experimenting with this technology. As you can see from this short video of Body Paint by Turkish designer Mehmet Akten, it shows how a very simple idea can be deeply engaging.



The growing physicality of technology and the merging of digital and physical spaces will be a key communication theme for 2010 and some of the best ideas this year will be in these spaces.


Posted by Ed Cotton While Apple's iPad has been the subject of a lot of attention ranging, from ridicule and mixed reviews. The spin suggested the iPad would usher in a new era for those in the publishing business by creating another medium for consumers to experience print.

However, the promise suggested by Apple's demos and a number of flashy publisher initiatives is that this new experience is going to be better than a web site, and more satisfying than reading a newspaper or a magazine.

The dream being sold is how our magazines are going to be turned into immersive multimedia experiences (see the Sports Illustrated demo below) where the user takes a joyride through a stream of beautifully designed content and can dig deeper on topics and experience multimedia to their hearts content. While all these seems technically feasible, the big question is who are the publishers who can afford to develop this content on a daily, weekly or even a monthly basis?



It's easy to imagine a scenario where excitement drives the creation of great first iPad editions that succeed in seducing new subscribers into magazine franchises at significant premiums to current subscription rates. However this will not be sustainable because the economics won't map out and the result will be falling quality standards and subscriber discontent. 

The other way of looking at this is through the application lens, where new entrants will come into the publishing space from a completely different direction.These new entrants might find better and more interesting ways of serving up content than the publishing incumbents.

It's likely magazines will never be able to afford to realize the "Sports Ilustrated" dream and instead be forced to fight it out in the App Store with hundreds of thousands of competitors.

The future for traditional publications on tablets has to be more "application like", than "issue like".

I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but I don't believe we are going to get the sizzle of the Sports Ilustrated demo, it's much more likely we will be looking at something like the latest GQ iPhone application.



Posted by Ed Cotton The BBC has decided the web is now worthy and has made it the subject of a detailed documentary series, The Virtual Revolution, that explores its origins, evolution and examines the implications of the technology for society.

It's a highly ambitious, well-researched and thoughtful look at what 20 years of the web means for humanity. This is the perfect time to take a look back and project forward because we are on the cusp of massive expansion as the developing world comes on board in leaps and bounds.

The series is narrated by Dr. Aleks Krotoski, who aside from studying the implications of the internet for the past 10 years, is also a member of The Guardian's crack team of technology journalists.

The first program in the series examines the idea of the web as the great leveler and leaves no stone unturned in it's quest for answers. Most of the program is filmed in the Bay Area and includes interviews with local luminaries-Stewart Brand, Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Keen, Chad Hurley and John Perry Barlow.

The big theme here is one of revolution and counter-revolution which is explained by the adoption of the internet by late 1960s and early 70s Bay Area radicals, fueled by hope from the Summer of Love and looking for a space where their ideals could be realized, a space that turned out to be The Well.

The program concludes that despite all the hippie driven hope for true openness and utopia, the reality today is very different with a handful of new media brands that have taken and co-opted control.

Krotoski finds an interesting contrast from the ideals of 60s radicals to 2010, where there is basically one online store, one social network, one search engine and one online video network.

Despite the potential doomsday scenario of limited control, Krotoski hopeful thesis is that the beauty of the internet is its state of constant flux, which simply put, means those who are in control today, are very likely not to be in control forever.



Posted by Ed Cotton BBH has a new campaign out in the UK for Barclaycard touting ease and convenience of payment, but what struck me most was the URL they use at the end of the spot, where instead of the corporate dot com address, there's a Facebook url.



This is a clear sign of the move away from corporate web destinations in favor of the locations where consumers are spending most of their time. This is a big shift and one that must be quite a challenge for companies to get their heads around, but it reflects the new reality.

This is just the start because it forces the agencies hand to work out how best to Facebook and looking at the Barclaycard example there are certainly some challenges.

Interestingly, the experience seems just like a corporate web site and not the organic, fluid experience you expect on Facebook.

While it's smart understand where your customers are, getting the experience right is critical .


Posted by Ed Cotton It takes decades to create a reputation and only a few days to destroy it, Toyota is the latest brand to be falling into the death spiral with a massive erosion in its equity.

Something that it's key competitors can only be extremely happy about, especially when a number of the players including- GM, Ford and the the emerging Korean brands have made such strides in this space.

The problem is especially acute for Toyota because quality has been such an integral part of the company, management books have been written about it and the whole DNA of the organization is structured around it.

It's been suggested that Toyota's push for growth has been the cause of all these problems. It was so fixated with overtaking GM to become the biggest automaker in the world, that corners were cut and compromises made.

Pushing hard for growth has been the undoing of many a great brand.

Toyota's problem seems to a show a lack of understanding of how to scale their production to achieve optimal quality and not thinking hard enough about the impact of potential failure on the brand.

Starbucks is another brand who expanded way to fast and ended up diluting their equity.

In both these cases, while it certainly true that they built amazingly powerful brands, they failed to treat them with respect and didn't use tools to help them to understand the resulting impact of over-expansion on their most valuable assets.

Quite simply, their brands were important, but not important enough to be front and center of the CFO and CEOs agenda.


Posted by Ed Cotton Twitter might be the brand with optimum buzz at the moment, but it's not enough to take the brand to the next level.

With Twittergate last July, a number of sensitive documents were "stolen" including one that defined the company's mission which is "to be the pulse of the planet".

Judging by some of the latest data, the brand is some ways away from this mission and from capitalizing on its potentially giant valuation-

40% of accounts have never sent a Tweet

80% of Twitter users have Tweeted fewer than 10 times

Only 17% of accounts sent a Tweet in December 2009

It's obvious that you don't need to send Tweets to be able to experience and enjoy Twitter, but it certainly adds another layer of engagement.

Perhaps developers can take the API and create dumbed down clients that encourage more participation, but I would suggest Twitter now needs to start communicating.

Given that Square has the same founder and this is a brand that's currently not just generating buzz, but it's also using web celebs/angel investors, like Kevin Rose to tell a deeper story (240k views on YouTube), it would be smart for Twitter to do the same.

I am not suggesting a multi-million dollar ad campaign, but some content that helps dimensionalize the power and fun of Twitter to a broader audience.


Posted by Ed Cotton Edelman has just released it's annual survey and to prove it seems to be measuring the right things, the data it uncovered on banks is astonishing- their trust rating has plummeted like a stone- from the 3rd ranked sector in the US to the 9th and a rating drop in excess of 30 points.

Looking at this data, it provides some insight as to why the President acted as he did.



However, there's more to this story than meets the eye and more questions to ask.

- What type of banks don't people trust?
- What is it about banks that they don't trust?

I am sure Edelman have this data and it would be great to see it if they do.

Banks clearly have a huge issue that is in crisis proportions and something they need to devote a lot of energy towards. Simply ignoring the issue and hoping it will go away, isn't going help. These institutions need a whole way of thinking about how they need to relate to and communicate with their customers and beyond this need ideas that prove they are to be trusted. 


Posted by Ed Cotton Good news coming out of London this week, Ogilvy has been inspired by the efforts of all the out of work architects and designers who've set-up pop-up stores and stands to sell their wares, now the giant ad agency is doing the same with a social twist.

The enlightened folks at Ogilvy decided that small, local businesses in the Brixton areas of London could benefit from some of company's strategic and creative thinking. It's a cool PR coop, but it's also a great idea and something more agencies should pay attention to.

Agencies exist in physical locations and probably should kind of responsibility to contribute to their neighborhoods and broader community. Obviously, many think that their pro-bono efforts are probably good enough, but perhaps these contributions need to be smaller, more focused, truly connected to their communities and less interested in the potential of creative awards. 


Posted by Ed Cotton