Blog & Inspiration

Ginger-orange, elderberry, lychee and herbs – most people are familiar with Bionade’s various flavours. The mid-2000s saw the healthy soft drink skyrocket to become the zeitgeist drink par excellence. The bottle with the prominent red dot as its logo could be found in every aisle, and anyone who wanted to live the chic “LOHAS” lifestyle drank Bionade. It was synony­mous for the up-and-coming eco awareness and was officially the “beverage for a better world”. For the founder Peter Kowalsky it would turn out to be an unforesee­able success story that was well-deserved following many difficult years of tinkering and fine-tuning together with his stepfather, mother and brother.  The founding family surrounding Peter Kowalsky sold all shares at the height of Bionade, once it had entered the mainstream. These days, the master brewer and food engineer is brewing up a new drink in his Berlin production laboratory. “Inju”, a “natural cell tonic”, is a recipe for realising one’s own potential. It’s about a personal energy boost in a bottle that helps develop the special and unique things at a cellular level that lie dormant in every person.

With its comprehensive assortment of spraying and gardening tools, Gloria Haus und Gartengeräte GmbH – founded in 1947 and offering innovative solutions for plant care, weed removal and the treatment of the most diverse surfaces – helps turn gardens into soothing recreational oases. The constant further development of the product range and the expansion of company communication ultimately resulted in an urgent demand for a flexible solution for the management of its product data. We spoke to Alexander Kienborn, Head of Marketing at Gloria, about the implementation project and its challenges.

The death of print was predicted almost 15 years ago. The existential crisis of publishing houses and business models based on the production of major catalogues has confirmed this prophecy. But has it really? Few companies still refrain from printing altogether. In fact, the opposite is true: more printing is done today than ever before, but the focus has changed. Nowadays, print products are more individual, targeted and demand-based. Our series of articles in the Produktkulturmagazin therefore takes a closer look at the future of print and publishing in product communication.

Maintaining and managing company data in the long term is a challenging task for many companies. The IT infrastructure must be subjected to regular tests and reports must be evaluated while systems are tested for their efficiency and suitability. This alone is often enough to bring those responsible to the limits of their capacity. Yet fundamental challenges in data storage are the least of the problems when it comes to heavily-regulated industries such as the financial services sector or medical technology.

Ever more users are viewing video contents on their smartphones – and in portrait format. This development is slowly but surely heralding in a trend reversal for the moving picture industry. Meanwhile, even major platforms such as YouTube are responding.

What are the greatest obstacles businesses face on their digital transformation journeys? The answers to this question are as numerous as they are diverse. Insufficient financial resources, the wrong staff, lack of a consistent digital strategy, no time. This list continues ad infinitum. Ultimately, it depends on one thing above all – namely the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and this in an as resource-friendly a manner as possible.

The way we work has changed dramatically over the past few years. Mobile terminal devices are allowing work to be carried out anywhere and are highly attractive to many employees. However, despite all the flexibility, collaboration remains a fundamental factor – not only for the creative process. But technology is even entering this sphere: we spoke to Birgit Jackson, Commercial Director Europe at Sharp Visual Solutions, about the new Windows Collaboration Display and the role of technology in collaboration. 

Nicolas Feuillatte conveys with incomparable playfulness the lightness of being that is inherent to its champagne as well as the basic philosophy that true luxury is all about emotion and pleasure. The enchantingly elegant design and playful elements – such as the new augmented reality app that allows the owner of a bottle of Nicolas Feuillatte to also visually enter its world – do the rest in order to give the noble beverage a very special place in which people can enjoy this pleasure with all their senses.

Charcoal has been a hot commodity ever since top chefs such as Yotam Ottolenghi, Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver began cooking over open flame. “Live Fire” is the name of a trend that essentially elevates the classic BBQ in the privacy of a garden to the heights of an exclusive culinary experience. The London Log Company is the first to fuel the fire, and its founder Mark Parr built his entire empire on wood. Our London editor Nora Manthey spent a day in the woods with Parr to learn how to extract the black gold from the trees in the county of Kent.

Claims that technology has taken the helm, that marketing has outlived itself and that brands have lost their previous crucial role to corporate strategy can be heard all around. Technology providers say that brands have long since been a thing of the past. A number of companies are saying that marketing has been phased out in general, with its tasks having instead been taken over by new silos such as “social media marketing”, “influencer marketing” and other current buzzword constructions. Nevertheless, the brand continues to be crucial to the success of companies and their strategy, according to the majority of entrepreneurs and executives. 

Heute wächst alles zusammen, das gilt insbesondere in der Kommunikation. So müssen beispielsweise die Inhalte der Webseiten mit denen der Kataloge übereinstimmen, und damit das gelingen kann, werden Unternehmen, Verbände und Agenturen von Database Publishing-Systemen unterstützt. Wie man sich die Arbeit mit einer solchen Lösung vorstellen kann und mit welchen Herausforderungen Unternehmen dabei rechnen müssen, erzählte uns Michael Lutz, Geschäftsführer bei Codeware, in einem Gespräch über neues Denken und schwäbische Gründlichkeit. 

Caught between content-hungry consumers and the need for business efficiency, content management professionals of various disciplines and almost every industry vertical are unifying around a common best practice: single-source publishing. The following article explores this topic, its benefits and how organisations can realise the value of their content.

Design, innovation and groundbreaking technology. These terms are justified when thinking of the most recent collaboration between two British super brands. The joint project by the two top-performing brands is called Belstaff X McLaren, and with good reason, as we look forward to the latest masterpieces created through precision, engineering and authenticity. The collaboration not only incorporated McLaren’s motto “Everything for a Reason” by adapting the materials and design to the new 600LT, it also took many smaller details into consideration, leading to a unique collection through the added long-standing experience of Belstaff. Our editorial team was able to try out the new pieces during a test drive with the 600LT at the Hungaroring in Budapest.  

As a pioneer of foot care in Germany, Hellmut Ruck GmbH faces growing demands in the field of product information management. The company has set itself the particular task of meeting rising customer demands with regard to the visualisation of products through various channels and has brought apollon on board as a digitalisation partner. 

Knowledge and data management today has become an essential managerial process necessary for creating, sharing, storing, using and managing the knowledge and information of any organisation. It is a collection of systematic approaches used to facilitate the flow of information and knowledge between the right people at the right time in the right format at the right cost, so they can act more efficiently and effectively to create value for the organisation and achieve a competitive advantage. Needless to say, no one would argue that data management or knowledge management does not need to be made an organisational priority. But there are technical and organisational complexities to consider and hurdles to overcome that can make it very difficult to realise the potential. We sat down with Katie Fabiszak, CMO of Riversand Technologies and 20-year data management industry veteran, to talk about the critical need for and potential roadblocks of harnessing an organisation’s data with the aid of today’s data management technologies.

What makes a decision a good one? Can this be computed on a purely rational basis? What role does luck have to play in this? Stephan Kalhamer is a mathematician – and a professional poker player. He coaches top managers and teaches them what risk management means in very specific terms: He describes the optimal situation in the game of poker – and in everyday business life: ‘The mathematics have to be on my side; then there is no more luck, and my wager works for me’. He tells us what constitutes smart negotiating, and why poker is not a dubious gamble but rather a mental exercise for strategists.

Information is the be-all and end-all of a company’s process management. Information needs to be transferred at the right point in time in the appropriate quality and right format to the correct recipient, all while occurring in the right location. It is no wonder then that information logistics projects are challenging. They take longer when organised poorly, ending up more expensive than planned. Digitalisation in particular requires central, optimised and automated processes. Companies must now face this challenge and plan their PIM/MDM projects in a rational manner. We asked the specialists Marc Hölzle, Principal Technical Consultant, and Michael Mezger, Principal Business Consultant, from the consulting firm parsionate in Stuttgart about what advice they have for companies to successfully plan and implement a project. 

Er ist das älteste aller Kommunikationsmedien für Produktinformationen und trotz der unvergleichlichen Entwicklung des Internets und den damit einhergehenden disruptiven Veränderungen für Unternehmen noch immer putzmunter. Oft totgesagt, aber immer wieder auferstanden, findet der Katalog nach wie vor seinen Platz im Marketingmix unterschiedlichster Unternehmen. Jochen Janke beschäftigt sich seit 20 Jahren mit Katalogen und spricht mit uns über den Wandel und die Zukunft des Mediums.

Absolutely incredible: the overwhelming majority of lottery players still purchase lottery tickets at kiosks or convenience stores. And this despite the fact that the market potential for online lottery sales runs into the billions and the willingness among players to switch to online offerings is steadily growing. We talk to the Chair of the Board of Lotto24 AG, Petra von Strombeck, about this virtually untouched market, the pioneering role that the company is assuming and the blessings of money in general.  

One of the enterprises shaping the digital future is the Düsseldorf-based communications group Vodafone. The group has long expanded its efforts beyond the topic of mobile telephony; through strategic acquisitions, joint ventures and partnerships, in recent years Vodafone has become a solid 360° provider for digitalisation.