Advent calendar: Vincent Thome

We’re back in Europe today, visiting London to meet Vincent Thome, strategic planner at Tribal DDB London and blogger.
1) Which is the digital project that impressed you more this year and why?
Nike Plus was in 2006, right? Then, even if it hard to choose one, I think it will be “Spot the Bull” for Orange. I like how the game created links between the two worlds using GPS technology. I think that it also demonstrates that, in digital projects, creative use of technology is as important as creative concepts.
2) In your job, which is the most important thing you learnt this year?
When people pay attention to or ignore something, attention data can be created. It reflects their interests, activities and values, and it serves as a proxy for their attention. These data are an incredible valuable source of insights. We should continue to educate clients on the value of good measurements and data mining to transform sheets of numbers into powerful insights. I don’t want agencies to become Google or Facebook but we can definitely be better at using data.

3) As a digital marketer/creative person what’s on top of your agenda for 2008?
I want to expand digital experiences beyond the computer and demonstrate how this is essential to the clients business. To achieve that, we need to understand the customer journey beyond the online world and involve creative technologists not just traditional communication based creative teams. It may also mean that we will have to work in a more collaborative way through partnerships or ventures with complementary industries. The “Festival of Air” experience at NikeTown London or the Adidas “mi Innovation Center” in Paris are good examples of the outcome this expansion can generate.
4) What, in your opinion, will be a killer application / key trend in interactive marketing in 2008?
Thinking of websites as web services is, for me, an important challenge for agencies. How can we use platforms (social, search, mobile, gaming) to expand experience and touch points with consumers without traditional media buying? Finetune is, for me, a good example of this thinking with an experience available on the web, desktop, Facebook, Wii and hopefully soon on the iPhone and the Android platform.
5) Which book would you give as a Christmas present to Adverblog’s readers?
In a word where consumer attention is increasingly difficult to capture, I would recommend the book “Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do“. Dr. B.J. Fogg, director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University, has coined the phrase “Captology” to capture the domain of research, design, and applications of persuasive computers. In this thought-provoking book, based on nine years of research in captology, Dr. Fogg reveals how Web sites, software applications, and mobile devices can be used to change people’s attitudes and behaviour.
I guess it is what we are all trying to do, right?