Claudius M. Gramse

The birthday photo session

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:43:11 +0000

Just in time for Georgia’s 30th birthday we managed to organise a small photo shoot back home. We used a one-light setup with a couple of reflectors. A large part of the photos were shot without flash, but with big white foamcore boards used as reflectors.

Enjoy…!

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Aurora Borealis

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 19:54:31 +0000

Just been stumbling upon the following video while researching for an upcoming article on my marketing blog. Absolutely fantastic display of an Aurora Borealis with music of The Gladiator, a must see!

[readon href="http://www.gramse.net/blogs/photography/2011/04/aurora-borealis"][/readon]

Ballet Calendar of Deutsche Oper am Rhein

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 11:54:39 +0000

Klaus Kampert, a German photographer residing in Düsseldorf has published a range of his very beautiful nude and dance photos on the Behance network. His work is truly inspiring and is oriented towards the American “straight photography” of Weston, Adams and Strand. His interest is for people photography with focus on beauty, nude, portrait and dance. He’s been working with some leading advertising agencies together, but is most known for his nude and dance motives which are collected in fine-art circles.

In any case Klaus has an amazing eye for esthetics and light. Have a look at his gallery here.

Google's fashion portal: boutiques.com

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 08:51:14 +0000

A while back I stumbled upon an article on Google’s latest addition to its portfolio, boutique.com – I saved the article and today had some time to check out the site myself. Here’s my take on it.
[readon href="http://www.gramse.net/blogs/marketing/2011/04/googles-fashion-portal-boutiques-com/"][/readon]

Megatrends explained

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:20:01 +0000

Within my blog I have already touched upon the importance and relevancy of trends for businesses and organisations, but haven’t actually given any overview of the most important megatrends that shape our societies and impact our lives. I would like to change this by introducing you briefly to these megatrends. Of course this descriptions are based on my interpretation of these trends, the avid reader (or rather surfer) will come across different names and definitions, which however will describe more or less the same sort of phenomena.

[readon href="http://www.gramse.net/blogs/marketing/2011/04/megatrends-explained-2/"][/readon]

One Light Beauty set-up

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 10:24:58 +0000

Sean Armenta has published a couple of really nice tutorial videos onVimeo - Sean Armenta as part of an Fstoppers contest last year. I was meant to mention them earlier, but never got around to write a note about them until now.

[readon href="http://www.gramse.net/blogs/photography/2011/03/one-light-beauty-set-up/"][/readon]

Fashionstake - social fashion with a twist

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 21:16:29 +0000

Today I have discovered an interesting site for the fashion concious among us: FashionStake. The site presents clothing of smaller, independent fashion designers. The visitors can vote on the different fashion pieces which they think will become the most popular in the store and thus determine the crowd favourite. The pieces with the most votes will make it into the store to favourable prices, skipping in this process intermediaries, wholesalers and outlets. The voting participants who got it right will get some rewards for making the effort and thus are motivated to vote again.

[readon href="http://www.gramse.net/blogs/marketing/2011/03/fashionstake-social-fashion-with-a-twist/"][/readon]

Interesting infographics over social media

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:53:05 +0000

: via mindjumpers.com

As weird as it might sound, I love data and statistics - but let's face it: with the upcoming of the internet and the abundant availability of sources, the understanding and useful representation of it has become a challenge. Often my the enthusiastic tackling of large data sources ends up with me being totally confused and overloaded by what I am trying to understand. This is a problem of the times and luckily other people have realised this and have begun to cleverly visualise data in formation graphics.

These graphics make complicated topics and data relationships easily understandable - it has become a bit of an art and a trend in itself in the past couple o years. Anyhow, today I have collected a couple of these information graphics on social media and I would like to share these with you.

[readon href="http://www.gramse.net/blogs/marketing/2011/03/interesting-infographics-over-social-media/"][/readon]

10 Steps to Great SEO

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 12:26:03 +0000

SEO-Guru Rand Fiskin of SEOmoz explains in below presentation the most effective steps in SEO. The presentation was held during the InfusionCon 2011.

10 Steps to Great SEO: InfusionCon 2011

View more presentations from randfish

[readon href="http://www.gramse.net/blogs/marketing/2011/03/10-steps-to-great-seo/"][/readon]

Destination-shopping: short breaks for consumers

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 16:18:52 +0000

For a lot of people entering an IKEA store is like a brief escape from the realities of every-day life, a Scandinavian holiday-moment amidst the daily grind. The family excursion to Ikea has become a valid substitute for a day out if the weather is mediocre or there is a strong chance of rain. Not for nothing the Ikea subsidiary in Norway is checking weather updates and is planning its staffing according to the local weather prognoses.

: Flickr: Ichome Shoutengai; by Andrea Williams

The time that consumers wanted merely to overcome a distress has long gone. Nowadays consumers want to be entertained and seduced. Shopping has become an event, the experience has become more important than the actual sales object and like in the case of Ikea the shopping event represents a brief escape from the daily life.

[readon href="http://www.gramse.net/blogs/marketing/2011/03/destination-shopping-short-breaks-from-every-day-life/"][/readon]

The Conversation Prism V3.0

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Have you been coming across new Internet services lately and wondered how they actually fit into the social media landscape? The offer has become huge and fragmented and it is increasingly difficult to make sense of it all, at least to the average mortals among us. Problem is that as marketers one needs to be aware of what’s out there and also understand how all pieces fit together and in a second step understand what they can potentially mean to the business and how they can be applied to current business circumstances.

This is relevant for all players in the field, for the big, multinational organisations, to the small and mediums sized companies right down to the individuals who have a need for self-marketing (think of local/ regional politicians or freelancers). So how can one get an oversight of what’s out there?

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Whitepapers & free ebooks on Marketing

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 23:00:00 +0000

I have been browsing myself for some free reading material on (digital) marketing, social media and related topics the last couple of days and thought I might as well share this with the world. All books or presentations are freely downloadable, but sometimes combined with a registration. A couple of my links are referring to German sources, the rest is English – might be a good opportunity for you to brush up on your German skills...

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Making of "The Force"

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Here are some more outtakes and bloopers of the VW commercial...
I really like that sort of stuff....

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Darth Vader junior – the trials..

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 23:00:00 +0000

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Trends matter

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:00:00 +0000

In my job as brand development manager I have been following trends almost religiously. Partly out of pure interest in the topic, but also because of their immediate relevancy to business and market developments, but also to customer behaviour and product innovation cycles. I intend to discuss and share my views of trends from time to time in my blog drawing on the expertise of renown trend watchers or “Futurists” and looking at their implications across different sectors.

But before doing this, it might actually be a good idea to start with the question why one should actually bother with such topics and what the heck this is all about.

[readon href="http://www.gramse.net/blogs/marketing/2011/03/trends-matter/"][/readon]

What are the components of Web Marketing?

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Web marketing is like a toolbox filled with different tools. In order to use your toolbox efficiently you need to understand each of its tools and their application! However unlike with traditional Marketing the current online theories and taxonomies are still in flux and so it can become a daunting task to get an overview of this field of activity. In the following article I try to give a brief introduction to the different components of web marketing and explain their uses and relations to each other.

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Success factors of web marketing (part 2)

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 23:45:00 +0000

In the first part of our series on success factors of web marketing we have looked at web and content structure and how to optimise them in the most efficient way. The following article will give a brief introduction to web analytics and its practical use!

Success factors of web marketing (Part 1)

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:00:00 +0000

In this series of articles I will touch upon practical tips of web marketing ranging from content creation over web design to web analytics. The articles will serve more as ‘appetizers’ than whole-out meals, as the topics in themselves are quite complex, but I will try to give here and there reading lists and blog referrals. If you have any comments and questions don’t hesitate to drop me a line.

Pimp-up my web content

Successful websites can do many things: they inspire and engage users to interact, build up trust, entertain, inform and stimulate emotions, but above all they are consistent with the brand proposition and its products and services.

Psychology of advertising - the strength of a distinctive brand

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Today I came across an interesting article in Die Zeit referring to the power of advertising and more specifically to the strength of brands.

Lara Croft & the temples of Chichen Itza

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 01:33:31 +0000

What a sight – fantastic! We are well into our 4th day of holidays and have really pushed ourselves hard to be where we are right now at this time of the day... 10:40 at the foot of the temple of doom – our adventure at the archaeological site of Chichen Itza begins.

Sun, beach and cerveza!

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 23:00:00 +0000

First night sleeping in a new environment has never been easy for me. Sounds, squeeks and strange beddings make for turbulent first nights! Even though I had been totally exhausted, I still woke up several times that night to the sounds of cars, people and music.

Holidays– here we come!!!

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 23:00:00 +0000

It took us a long, long time – but here we are, finally – Playa del Carmen, Mexico! After a 15 hour flight which took us from Amsterdam across the Atlantic to Newfoundland along the United States to Varadero, Cuba and finally onwards to Cancun, Mexico we arrived at our holiday destination at around 18:00.

Barbie photoshoot

claudius@gramse.net (Claudius) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:00:00 +0000

fSTOPPERS has published today an amazing behind the scenes video of a Mattel "Barbie" photoshoot. It is pretty amazing to see to what extend these toy shots are actually choreographed and detailed. Lighting and background sets, models all this tediously placed into the shots. Maybe this shouldn't really be a suprise from a marketing perspective, as there is still (in or digital age) a lot of money to be made with Barbie there is a dolls!