You will surely have seen the video in which basketball star Kobe Bryant jumps over an Aston Martin (if not, check out the video on Youtube). Not only has this viral ad for Nike sparked heated discussions about its being a fake or not (which of course it is), it has also inspired our colleagues at Vanksen agency in Paris to test their own jumping talent. Here is Nicolas, showing the world that a common-or-garden office chair can come in just as handy as an Aston Martin sometimes:

Tada! We have really good news today! And they look like this:

Allow us to proudly present the blog of our mother company Vanksen | Culture-Buzz in its new, beautiful design. After having faithfully served us for several years and having been translated into two other languages (now it’s available in English, French and German), it was time to revamp our site and put it into a new costume. After long deliberations and creative sessions, our designers came up with this stunningly simple and elegant solution. Although we know straight from the horse’s mouth that there are some people who will miss its limegreen predecessor, we all agree that the new design is just beautiful. Check out the content now at www.culture-buzz.com!

PS: Our creative team also thought of a funny animation to make waiting for the new site to load less tiresome:

Vanksen|Culture-Buzz and BeFilm Underground Film festival introduce the first First Viral Film Festival.

Do you remember your last viral experience? And we are not talking about the one that led you to go see your doctor! We mean the kind of viral experience you had to tell your friends about after you experienced it!

More specifically, what we are talking about are kinds of short movies that circulate around the Web on dedicated sites like YouTube and Dailymotion.

These videos are actually more than a mere trend; they are getting more and more important and influential amongst web/communication agencies. At Vanksen Group (our mother company), we think that viral videos are a large part of the future of advertising. That’s why our colleagues at Vanksen|Culture-Buzz, the buzz & viral marketing agency, are joining hands with BEFILM The Underground Film Festival in order to launch the very first viral film festival in the world!

What is a viral video by the way? In a few words: a short, creative, original and catchy video.

Consumers are bored with traditional advertising; they have nonetheless become accustomed to it and sometimes even enjoy it. The viral video picks up on a recent trend that shows consumer desire to find entertainment within advertising (modern advertising has to be innovative in order to seduce). In the end, if it has achieved the latter, a subtle commercial message can be successfully communicated. To recap, advertising in its modern form has to entertain as well as generate discussion (Word of Mouth).

The number of viral video makers has dramatically increased within the last few years leading to steady growth in viral video quality and impact.

Soon, competing viral videos from all around the world will be shown to a jury for the opening of the 5th BEFILM Underground Film Festival. The motto of the night has been set: “the shorter, the better!”.

As the events existence sprung from the Web, it will count on emblematic figures of the Web, like Dailymotion (the video sharing platform) and the VBMA (Viral and Buzz Marketing Association) to reinforce its power. By creating the first festival of its genre, the Vanksen|Culture-Buzz agency is asserting itself as one of the main actors in this market, and underlines its interest in some of the most ambitious projects on the Web.

To attend this unique event, please visit the website www.viralfilmfestival.com and fill out the inscription form. There are limited numbers of available seats: be quick if you don’t want to miss out on one of the biggest Web 2.0. events of the year!
Read on

What on earth has happened to the office of our colleagues at Vanksen? To promote the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg they had the goodidea.lu to prepare a campaign that is bright pink and very “polite” at the same time.

To be polite, the first thing you have to do is say “Hello” in the local language. In Luxembourg you say “Moien”.

Good intentions everywhere. Our friends at Vanksen have been preaching Luxemburgish politeness for more than a week now, to everyone who wanted to hear it and especially ON everything that would stand still long enough.

It’s not only our colleagues who have started to greet everyone with “Moien”, but every corner of our office has gone polite: computer screens, elevators, cupboards…

Event the lavatory doors say hello now!

You can find more polite pictures on our BuzzParadise Flickr .

So, the next time someone talks to you in the street, you know what to answer…

A few weeks ago, Moovement, the French search engine for jobs 2.0, in cooperation with the Vanksen teams, has launched the competition “Executive of the year”. This competition is about hoodwinking your friends by putting their photo on the cover of a magazine.

At BuzzParadise, we thought that Guillaume ought to be elected executive of the year. As an outstanding buzzer, blogger, twitterer, facebooker, he unites all the qualities of modern man. Congratulations, Guillaume!