Hello Viking is extremely proud to announce Alan Pafenbach joined us as partner and Chief Creative Officer.

For those of you keeping score at home, Alan helped pitch, win and then lead the Volkswagen “Drivers wanted” campaign at Arnold Worldwide for 10 years. Most recently, Alan was the global creative leader on the Yahoo! business at Ogilvy. He also contributed to Goodby’s “The Computer is Personal” campaign for HP.

Even more important—Alan’s got us thinking about the digital base. (Not that we haven’t been thinking about it, we just never had the right handle to describe it.)

The digital base is what underscores any relationship today between any brand and its customers.

It’s the data, technology and functionality that dictate corporate leadership, product design, manufacturing, pricing strategy, distribution and customer service are, by default, elements of marketing and advertising.

Left to Right: Alan Pafenbach, Tim Brunelle and Jennifer Iwanicki

The digital base is reassuringly analytical, yet stubbornly radical. It’s the deep foundation of measurement and metrics balanced by a freedom and insistence to challenge everything—be it financial models, production methodology, art direction, you name it.

It’s definitely not business as usual.

And that’s the way we like it. That’s the way Alan likes it.

It even reflects in how we’ll continue to operate. We’ve had great success employing a “Hollywood” virtual team model over the past 13 months. Looking through our Basecamp logs, we’ve employed 38 extremely talented people all over the country. That’s just the beginning.

So, Alan will work out of his office in Boston. And Jennifer and I will work in Minneapolis. We’ll succeed as we have been, using technology to collaborate across distance.

Hey, maybe we should be working with you, too?

Send Alan or I a line.

We’re always looking to connect with great talent and inventive clients eager to exploit the digital base.

Welcome to Hello Viking, Alan!

Our good pals Dion and Mark at Persuasion Arts & Sciences suggested we get together and offer up a panel for SXSW next year. So we did. Our theme is “Manners for the Modern Brand.” As Dion puts it, “Brands have to start behaving themselves, just like the rest of us. Now that the relationship between brand and customer has been turned inside out, there’s no other choice. But what is the new social contract? This panel argues the options.”

PLEASE VOTE FOR OUR PANEL! We very much need your help to get on the official SXSW scorecard.

(Of course, to vote, you need to register).
 
We’re working on assembling an awesome team for this discussion, including a variety of professionals for whom etiquette and manners equals money, equals sales. We’re also thinking about bringing in someone for whom etiquette is the devil. If customer service is indeed the “new” marketing, how best should brands interact with the rest of us to be more successful?

Please pass the word. We appreciate any enthusiasm you can muster for this idea.

[Photo ©2006 all rights reserved  by Valentinian.]