crayon

crayon launched yesterday.

From the press release:

"crayon, the world's first dedicated New Marketing company, is open for business from today in the real world and, simultaneously, in Second Life, the three-dimensional online digital world.

crayon is a different kind of company that integrates the best of the consulting, agency, advisory, thought leadership and education worlds - a mash-up, in new marketing terms.

"The world has changed, but marketing, advertising, and public relations have not," said Joseph Jaffe, author of the bestselling book Life After the 30-Second Spot (Wiley) and crayon's President and Founder. "There is no question that the influence organizations can achieve through traditional marketing, advertising and PR is fading fast."

crayon will help marketers, advertisers and public relations professionals better understand the tremendous changes, challenges and opportunities in today's dynamic and complex world of fragmented attention, increasing consumer control and hardening attitudes towards marketing communication.

"We're not interested in reams of data that says the world has changed. We get it," said Maarten Albarda, Director Media & Communication Innovation, The Coca-Cola Company. "crayon is not only focused on talking about what comes next, but moreover putting the ideas and promises of new marketing into action."

The launch party: CC Chapman

"Have you ever been in a stage production? The rush of energy that fills backstage just before you start. Little things go wrong. Last minute fixes. Mayhem. Crazy times that no one will ever see because they are behind the curtain?

That is what makes any live event special in my eyes. The stuff that is never seen. Sure, we had some of that today at the crayon launch, but I would of had it any other way."

Adrants:

"The riff is just typical early adopters versus late entry capitalists bent on following the eyeballs wherever they may be. It's happening with MySpace right now and people are leaving. It will happen with Second Life too. It's just too easy in this digital world to move somewhere else where marketers aren't. It's your typical game of cat and mouse.

If marketers don't tread carefully, fully understand what they are getting into, converse with and understand clearly the mindset of the people who live in the world they are entering, a disasterous backlash will occur and all parties will lose."

From the comments: Shel Holtz

"We are NOT a Second Life marketing company. We are a marketing company that has its headquarters in Second Life. It makes sense to us, since I'm in San Francisco, Joseph's in Connecticut, C.C. is in Boston, Neville's outside of London, and Chris is in New York. Should we meet via teleconference? Second Life is simply the best solution for us to function virtually yet still be able to meet face-to...er...avatar-to-avatar."

Mish:

"Jaffe said this at last week's conference and reiterated it at the launch, "What’s the next big thing? It is here today, it was here yesterday. Do it now while you can." Oh, how he is sooo right."