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The birth of my son Alexander Jack Bertozzi

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As most of you will know I normally reserve these pages for rambling about digital and media and occasionally some things outside of that. Today I want to write about the birth of my son.

Don’t worry not the details, those are impossible to impart, intensely private and in some cases X rated in terms of the experience. The feelings pre, during and post birth can only be understood by the two of you and so the idea of blogging about that is pointless.

No, today I wanted to just write down my appreciation of the NHS and in particular St George’s hospital in Tooting. Its a big hospital, its chaotic, sprawling and yet the service they have provided has been exceptional. I sometimes struggle to work out how all those moving parts work together, how can they keep track of everything, stay in the know when it comes to all the patients, but they do.

More than that they care, of course there are the odd ones who are less good but that goes for anywhere, but generally they were helpful, attentive and went beyond the call of duty and for that I am grateful, its all a pretty scary experience.

Not that long ago my Dad nearly died and the care he received was second to none, it was out of this world and the amount of attention was staggering, all to save my dad. A never more stressful situation have I been in than during that experience and now the birth of my son and in both cases they keep you sane and work in your best interests, constantly reassuring, explaining and making the experience as positive as it can be.

My only criticism is the level of arse covering they do now to not be sued but thats no their fault as ours. So yes I join the long list of people who say pay the nurses and doctors more and go shaft a couple of bankers.

Thanks St George’s.

Welcome Alexander Jack Bertozzi 3.29am 24/5/10

Ad exchange development mirrors that of paid search

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Marco Bertozzi: 08:03:2010
The battle for the ‘ad exchange’ dollar is hotting up. It reminds me of how things were with search. It crept up on people / media agencies and before they knew it the specialists were doing well and making good money and winning pitch after pitch in the specialist area.

As it went on we debated whether search was specialist or should be just another channel forming part of an everyday media plan and finally we ended up with a couple of serious search independent players and the main agency groups pretty much on top of things and integrating and coordinating search into wider marketing plans.

Here we go again! Anyone who went through that must be getting a sense of Deja Vu. Everyone is talking about Ad Exchanges and DSP’s, the specialists are springing up and making hay and claiming they are the only ones who know how to do it. The debates rage around best practice and who has the biggest and best capability, its an incredibly similar scenario – does anyone else feel it?

The big difference this time is the agency groups to a greater or lesser extent saw it coming and started to gear up for it, as you can imagine I am biased in that area as to who has done it best to date but in a way that’s irrelevant, the point is the people in the know in agencies are all working towards this revolution. It will be a revolution, it is the next phase in media communications and those that ignore this will be looking as silly as those that thought search was a fad. This transition is moving so quickly though and only the brave will really make the most of this wave.

I am enjoying being part of this new wave of communications and trading and have been so impressed by the work that has gone on, this is exciting stuff and it is just going to explode.

My new role at Vivaki Nerve Center , EMEA

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Marco Bertozzi:03.03.2010
After a break of three months I have very recently secured a new role at Vivaki Nerve Center. I set out to find a role that was at the heart of the world of digital and I am pleased to say this role 100% achieves that. I am also excited about the fact that we are still at the formative stages for the Vivaki Nerve Center and that I will be part of the definition and growth of the unit.

http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/994625/Marco-Bertozzi-hits-nerve-VivaKi/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

In the last three months I have spoken to many agency folk around the market and its been a fascinating view on the market. All the major agency groups are investing in their parent group offerings, seeing the benefits of aggregation of skills, knowledge, technology and of course media investment. I hope that as part of the VNC I will be working in what will be the future for Publicis Groupe and help lead the change.

As I have written about previously I believe that the one thing that is for certain is that technology and changing trading methods will alter the way agency groups structure around digital planning and buying. The role of the ‘media schedule’ will be less relevant when in fact we should be buying audiences regardless of their location or site they are visiting. Trading will be about buying at the best price to deliver the relevant ROI not about the fact you bought 10million impressions at a set price earlier in the month and that will combine search and display in all its formats.

On top of that we are of course dealing with the huge changes coming from mobile, social and video, three huge topics that we have to make a success of in our marketing solutions. I am constantly on my iPhone and Nexus one, I surf, blog, update and find information and there are many like me so our solutions need to be making the most of that audience. I believe we have a way to go in that arena as an industry, I look forward to working with Phonevalley and others in implementing these new strategies.

Whether it be social media, mobile or straight forward impression buying we also need cutting edge tracking and reporting solutions and I look forward to working with our partners and Groupe companies in helping us to deliver intuitive, useful and accurate reporting suites to help us across Search, display, video and social.

Having just spent a few days in San Francisco its clear there is an enormous amount to be getting on with, some tasks more straight forward than others but all equally exciting. Our strategic partnerships are going to really create some amazing opportunities for our clients and there will no doubt be more to come. I work in a group of amazingly talented companies including Razorfish, Digitas, Performics and many others so this should be an exciting times and I cant wait to start.

How does Apple manage to generate this much interest?

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OK so most people may not be interested so lets not get carried away. Those however that enjoy technology and innovation you cant help but notice the arrival of the Apple tablet or islate or ipad.

What is amazing is the hype, the expectation of the product. Having sat for many years in meetings where clients want to chase down that elusive extra sale or a bit more word of mouth, they could only dream of what Apple have managed. What other brand is capable of doing this? Why have they been so successful? The only other brand that has come close has been the Google Phone, strangely everyone was out to knock it rather than encourage it, Apple receives mostly encouragement to change the world.

I think at the heart of all this is quality, much time and money is poured into the Apple products and the result is mostly amazing products, great innovation and game changing technology, delivered in a fashion that raises the bar each time. Those products are then supported by simple but effective advertising and an army of people who lovce to build applications for them, in the vase of the iPhone. Every element of an Apple product is thought through, not least the packaging, anyone who has bought a product from Apple has to admit that even getting it out of the box makes the whole experience feel special. It is just not the same with any other computer manufacturer.

Bottom line is people have come to expect game changing technology from Apple. In any other sector manufacturers need to think long and hard about how to stand out from the crowd if they want to achieve the level of loyalty and interest. Many advertisers talk about wanting to get the most out of social media, if they worked harder on their products and delivery the social media would sort itself out..

Thank the lord, Google homepage now fades in.

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Marco Bertozzi: 08.12.09
Bing is out there telling the world that they are reinventing search and we must all Bing. I can’t put my finger on it but the ads somehow dont seem right to me, is it because I am used to finding a search engine without being told about it? I guess Ask did a lot of advertising, but then I never used that site either.

But thats not why I am writing, Bing actually does do some very interesting things and I think has moved things on a bit, so it seems a little irrelevant that Google is now touting its fading in homepage, it made me think when I first saw it that they were having problems loading the page! I dont see it, even from a design perspective it fades in as soon as you do anything which is normally immediately, not sure how many people sit back and admire the page for too long, so what’s the point? I want to see some major improvements at Google that really create some buzz, maybe real time search will do that, although I will be interested to see how much babble that pulls up.

That said, can I ever see myself defaulting to Bing, not really, thats one habit that I would need rehab to get over.

Microsoft Imagine..not sure I really dreamed

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Spent the day at the Microsoft Imagine day, these events are always filled with one over riding thought. Will I see something new and challenging? Today for me was dominated by one thing..concerts in a banner, a campaign for Axion, The Banner campaigns  http://www.bornoncloud9.be/mouseawards2009/axion/the-banner-concerts-banners/

I will not try and explain it, just take a look, it is the best thing I have seen since 2000. I loved this, it was new, it used imagination, it used what some of the other presenters talked about, dreamtelligence, that was from the MD of future labs. That said he did use too much geek buzz words, basically took any two words and combined them!

The rest of the day presented technology, some great ideas but I am still left with this feeling of scratching the surface, not in terms of capabilities, but how is this going to help an advertiser? How are Microsoft going to link up PC, Windows 7, mobile, touch screen in a manageable, executional way for the average client? I know they are working on it but I still want to see it, in practice without being touched up..

Good to be there but I still want to see more…

 

 

 

Universal charger – how long has that taken?

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Christ that is good news, how much cash has been wasted on endless different chargers for phones. I wonder if the iphone will suddenly become something less like a phone so Apple can continue to produce chargers that dont work on the their latest gadgets. Oh it works on a ipod, not on a 3Gs iphone though, that docking station will work on an old one but not the latest and on and on, I have a so many different chargers..that said, here comes Powermat – anyone seen it? Looks brilliant to start with, a very slim mat that is plugged in and all you do is lay your phone on it and it charges wirelessly!! Brilliant, and they did a good job of using Facebook to launch it as well.

Well actually no, first you have buy the mat, quite expensive. Then for every device you have to buy a sleeve to put your device in before putting on the mat! Bascially you are looking at £100 quid to charge your phone, but then of course if you have two phones, or two phones and ipod then get your wallet out, more buying of sleeves. I am sure down the line this will be common place technology without the sleeves, just lay them down but for now, who can be bothered with the expense and effort. As many people commented on facebook – why not just plug it in the wall? Good point, well made.

A final note on Powermat. They used Facebook well until they started to receive negative comments so they did what all clients are told not to do, they removed negative comments once they had dropped down the facebook news feed enough and then responded to the one positive comment out of 15 less so, wasted opportunity..