At the website of beer brand Amstel men are the boss. In a 3D bar world you can order a beer, listen to the friends of Amstel, or just look around. You can say something anonymously or, after registering, start a dialogue with other visitors. It can never get too crowded: once the amount of visitors goes over 50, a new bar is opened (see am, Dutch).

Brands with a symbolic function, brands that add to our identity, can build virtual worlds in which they invite consumers, and have them meet each other. Through registration Amstel can recognize his customers and slowly start building profiles. We then will happily come back. Today's 3D world is only child's play compared with tomorrow - when the whole Amstel world will be projected in 3D holographic images - but it is definitely a step in that direction.

From today under the header 'keep on track' in the top right corner it no longer reads 'trendupdate' but 'newsletter'. This because I came across the word 'newsletter' a lot in the site's search function. A learning point. The newsletter itself will still be called 'brandupdate' and the email address will remain 'TrendUpdate'. The word 'brand Update' is already in the graphic design and I can't get it changed today. All in all I call my newsletters TrendUpdates, with a specialisation in brands, so a 'Brand Update'.

The moral of this story: always use the terms your customers use. I always say that, but I hadn't implemented it completely right yet. And make sure there are synonyms. That's too much work right now, but still it's also solved through a simple workaround. This post can later be found in the search function through just about any term, with or without spaces. Go ahead and check. Enfin, click here to sign up for the Trend Update (almost 1800 subscribers).

uitzendbureau.nl has an animated logo. First the spanners are seen, then slowly character is added to the logo. Thus the connection between work (the hammer and sickle) and people's work is quickly made. The logo animates once, when first arriving at the homepage, and then stays the way it is. Only when you come back to the homepage you get to see the animation again. Very nice, and functional (ub, Dutch).

Brands will more and more often animate their logos. Marketers will realize that the rule 'the logo has to stand still' is a rule from the mass communication era. An animated logo gets more attention and is easier remembered, it can help the brand communicate functional features (like in this example), and it can furthermore help establish the emotional associations. If well executed, an animated logo can even show brand personality. The only good example I have seen so far is the two year old example of Jetix. In the end the logo will be moving, 3D and interactive by default. The color logo is then demoted to use in static media, like we now still know a black-and-white logo. However there are lots of steps to take. This is a good example of another brand that dares to animate its logo. But it doesn't go very fast at all. Maybe because of a lack of scientific research? What brand dares to experiment? Or are we waiting for examples from other countries?

Related trends

• Brand visualization

Nokia shows what the future of mobile phones looks like. Bendable, flexible, color-changing, shape-changing displays which furthermore also work as extra senses for us. For example by being able to smell special substances. All as a result of nano technology which makes it possible to assemble products at a molecular level. Interesting video!

Eurail, the organization of cooperating European railways with products for international tourists, has recruited a new employee: a virtual employee named Gina. She answers questions about Eurail's products (cb). Brands thus take the dialogue further, and speak with you far beyond their own borders. Soon Gina will speak all languages. If you then say 'Gutentag', Gina will talk back in German. In the long run she will also be able to take care of your transactions, or anything else you would want to get from the brand. It all starts with these simple dialogues.

Indipenda helps women get through a divorce. With advice, inspiration, relaxation, talking and even dating, the life of a divorced woman is filled in a little better (mf, Dutch). In tomorrow's new economy a new type of brands evolves. A type of brands functioning as coaches. They stand beside us and help us make choices. This service is to be included in the portfolio of social coaching brands. These types of brands get to know someone very well from a very young age, and they can connect people, help them maintain the connection, and if necessary also terminate the contact. Independia contributes to this development.

Google gets better at understanding what you mean if you type in a search word, and has advertisers react to this. Using the so-called Expanded Broad Matching, queries are changed in variations. For example: Chogogo Beach Resort -> Vacation Curacao, Holiday park Netherlands-> Holiday park and Vacation -> Turkey (mf, Dutch).

Brands thus start to better understand what we mean. Now through lose words, but soon they will be placed in a personal context: where are you, what are you doing, and what have you asked earlier? In the end it is all about answering the consumer's question. After all, the consumer is not interested in the search but more in the answer to a question. The purchase of the query 'vacation' by a Turkey specialist might be relevant for the advertiser, but not always for the consumer. The consumer soon will rather go to a vacation specialist, a travel coaching brand, and gets a better answer to his or her question there. Even if it's just because this type of brands know if you are on vacation right now or have just come back, and where you have been before. For that to happen the technology for smart interpreting of questions has to develop further first, and that is what we see happening here.

Philips had an internal worldwide CRM database built (mb, Dutch). Nowadays it is harder for brands to reach consumers (send their messages) through today's media. It becomes more profitable to invest in existing customers, with whom a dialogue can be started, accompanied by their detailed profile. This move of Philips points to that direction.

Dutch professional marketing magazine MarketingTribune and leading Dutch marketing community MarketingFacts (of which I am one of the contributers) have signed a strategic partnership (mf). Publishers transform to be community managers. The community becomes leading, and paper is just a copy for background and entertainment. In the long run MarketingFacts can grow to be a career coaching brand for marketers. By bringin together all the news, showing all jobs and all events, and making these relevant for the individual marketer, the personal development of the marketer can be carefully coached. A server the marketer will be willing to pay for (and not so much for the paper he gets in his mailbox at home). I wonder what the new title of the magazine will be (MarketingTribune, Facts from the daily marketing practice?).

Navigation devices supplier TomTom has its users upload and share content. Routes, icons, voices, colors (for a specific country for example) or warning signs can be shared without a problem (tt). We thus don't just map the world all together, but also what we think about it. By facilitating this, TomTom turns users into employees. In the long run, TomTom won't even be able to survive without the help of all these people. Brands thus become more and more clubs, bringing people together. No brand without people.

Dutch mail order company Wehkamp doesn't just offer the possibility to write a review on any product at their site: they now actively ask people to write a review two weeks after they have bought a product. (mf, Dutch). Reviews become relevant when you know for sure that someone did buy the product. In a next step, Wehkamp will connect to social networks. You then don't only see reviews, but also what your friends thought of it. Then brands get better at understanding their customers. If Wehkamp then can also advise us if a product goes well with a product we bought earlier (like the style or color for fashion, or compatibility for computer devices), then they will take the dialogue to a next level. As long as Wehkamp keeps striving to have a complete range of products, consumers won't have any reason to go somewhere else.

British broadcaster BBC personalizes the homepage for the national and international editions. You can choose categories, colors, and the number of items per category. No commercials are shown (mf, Dutch). Thus brands more and more start to provide consumers the information the way they want it. Now by actively make changes, soon BBC will look at what we watch, what colors we like, what reaction we give, and then automatically will adapt the content selection, the colors and the dynamics. This is a small step in that direction. And in the long run the information becomes so personal and relevant, that we are more than willing to pay for it.

Northwestern University School of Law's Lawyer Anthony D'Amato (US) shows a correlation between a huge decrease in rapes and an increase in watching porn. In countries (or states) with a high internet connectivity the rape rate is lower. So the more porn, the fewer rapes (pt). You could simply conclude that it is all about satisfying needs. Once a need has been satisfied, the 'tension' is gone, and the need seems to have decreased for a certain time. The insight that the virtual world (in which porn can be seen) can satisfy all kinds of needs might very well reduce the amount of violent crimes in the future. After all, the physical human being will have plenty of opportunities to work out his angers in a virtual environment. I wonder what the experts think of this.

At Vinoo.nl, if you click on a wine review, you can directly click through to a special page of wine shops, where you can order that wine. Vinoo earns money per click-through (mf, Dutch). In a next step Vinoo won't earn money on click-throughs, but on actual bottles of wine sold. Vinoo then can ask buyers to write a review. And if you drink a good wine in a restaurant, you take a picture of the label, and Vinoo will publish this review too. If you buy a couple of bottles at the market and put them in your wine cellar, they are automatically recognized as new stock, and Vinoo can make use of that knowledge. Food coaching brands then will be able to advise you what wine of your taste goes best with the food you are planning to eat today. Everything will soon click together. And the world (especially the world of wines) with that becomes less complicated.

Electronic Arts will soon publish BoomBlox a Steven Spielberg game (dc, Dutch). The game industry has been bigger than the movie industry for years, but movies are still more visible. Soon movies will only be free trailers for games, for which we will pay even more. Talents from the movie world becoming active in the game world is an example of this.

Thanks to a built-in compass the map in the Nokia 6210 now automatically turns when a pedestrian turns the phone (see the video). (mc, Dutch). Reading maps is a problem for lots of people, so this will solve lots of problems. In the future we won't have to read a map at all. Then we just say where we want to go, get instructions through our ear plugs, and even see a street view projected in our glasses, with arrows pointing at what we should look at. This makes today's complex world a little easier for everyone.