Happy f... 70th Birthday Captain Haddock!

From Bashi-Bazouks to Visigoths and Zapotecs, his famous curses and exclamations entered the legend. Anyone who's fan of the comic book series Tintin knows about his best friend and 'partner in crime' Captain Archibald Haddock. It turns out that today he celebrates his 70th birthday.


Captain Haddock was introduced in The Crab with the Golden Claws. Until Haddock's introduction, supporting characters would only appear irregularly, and mainly in the background. Apart from loyal Snowy, the canine companion of Tintin. 


With the introduction of Haddock, author Hergé realised the captain's potential to ventilate cynical side-commentary in a very unique way. This was at the expense of Snowy, whose role was somewhat reduced to accommodate Haddock.

Written Portraits

Nice ad(s) to promote "The week of books 2011" in the Netherlands (16th March - 26th March). Featuring books in the shape of faces. Spotted on Creative Criminals:

For other examples, go to Creative Criminals. It's worth a visit!

An old recipe for new media

Paginated Media? Never heard of it until today. My colleague at the ARC, who's doing a great job of international knowledge sharing between "Sanoma countries", drew my attention to it.

According to a mediaIDEAS paper Paginated Media has 3 key properties (excerpt):

1. metered: the media is divided into defined pages of content that are presented together (as in magazines, books, newspapers, article, section,... ) or individually;
2. edited: the role of the editor - he or she selects the articles, media, images and rich media that fill each page;
3. designed: the included content is arranged and formatted to enhance the reading (e.g. columns and typography) and visual experience (e.g. white spaces and positioning of elements).

Do any of these characteristics seem familiar to you? This list summarizes the main reasons why I think print editors have the best armed forces to win the battle in media land. And let it be clear: the media debate is no longer about which devices consumers use. A 'healthy debate' must be about the emotional relationship between (a) media brand(s) and it's consumers. When it comes to passion printed media brands have a huge asset.

App Store Stats

Sometimes I wonder how many apps are submitted per day to the iTunes App Store... If you struggle with the same question or if you're curious about the average app price, take a look at the App Store Metrics Page. This page was originally created to celebrate the App Store reaching 10,000 apps.

By the way, the editorial team of 148Apps.biz seems eager to hear our feedback.

Magazines are sales tools: Flair pumps case

One of the main complaints of advertisers is "the effect of magazines on sales can't be measured". Together with: "Magazines are slow in building traffic". Well, thanks to the Flemish Flair readers I have recent proof that these statements are not true. If done in a good way. (Knowing your audience).

Flair pumps

Flair is a weekly aimed at young women (15-35 y.o.) who like getting fun out of life. The typical Flair-reader likes: affordable luxury. So yes, she can combine luxury brands with cheaper (fashion and beauty) brands. Today there was a special offer in the magazine with a coupon for Flair-branded pumps for 15€. It's the second time that retailer Torfs chose Flair as a favored partner (as a kind of seasonal launch for the new collections?). 

The results? Some sales points were out of stock this afternoon. According to some tweets I have read, there was (is?) a stock of at least 20,000 pairs.

On the 'twitterprofile' of Wouter Torfs, CEO of Schoenen Torfs, you can read that this CEO is passionate about rebuilding his company as a community. And he's using communities, in this case, the community of the Flair-lovers, to make the match on a commercial level. Well done! 

I surrendered for the @flair @torfs Mkt Campaign