The number of plagiarists at CEBIT? Let’s count. (Update: Embarrassingly, the answer is, um, zero…)
On Friday Mumbrella sent out a note to its email subscribers, presenting next month’s Mumbrella360 conference in numbers.
A couple of people were even kind enough to flick us a note congratulating us on the simplicity of the sales message.
Based on the marketing email from the CEBIT technology conference that just reached Dr Mumbo, there may have been other admirers too…
CEBIT's email today
Mumbrella's email of last week
2.05pm update: Somewhat awkwardly for Dr Mumbo’s hypothesis, we’ve just been sent the link to the following email, sent out by CEBIT before Mumbrella’s:
Apologies to the good folk of CEBIT… it would seem that there are indeed times when great minds do think alike.
*yawns* Another example of Mumbrella making itself the story. Does it ever end? So it looks like Cebit copied your idea. And? LIke thats never happened in this industry before.
Meanwhile, there are at least 2 or 3 big agency stories going on that would be much more interesting to read about, easily picked up via Social Media etc. and you’re missing the boat.
Copy of digital marketing copies is common these days and its not stoppable too…but I would say both Mumbrella and CeBIT have got the idea but one implemeted before or may be after. But its good to see that how quickly ideas keep moving from one end to other
I think you are wrong – I got similar email Tuesday last week from them….before your email came out. It was slightly different than the one presented here but similar idea.
Hi Gil,
Based on the previous email I’ve got, I think you may be mistaken.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
I agree Tim, I think you’re being a little precious over this one. I’d imagine this was signed off to send before yours came out..
Mumbrella claims to have invented numbers??? 🙂
But really this “by-the-numbers” thing is used everywhere these days for an audience suffering short attention spans. Look in a newspaper, the biggest stories are reduced to “by-the-number” statistics so the audience doesn’t have to exert itself by actually reading. It’s nothing really new.
Hi Andrew,
It all could be an amazing coincidence. But nonetheless, it’s amusing that a conference that takes place days before ours should use precisely the same marketing approach three days after our email went out.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Tim, I forward you the email from the 17 of May from CeBIT, including a link to the online version of it.
I would say you are at risk to be in the amazing coincidence side. I sent it over to CeBIT, so you sure generated a conversation in your blog.
Tim, I’d suggest your defiition of “amusing” differs considerably to mine.
You’re joking right? that style of message is a ten ear old meme at least. You might say you both copied it from Vanity Fair circa 1998…
Nothing like another Mumbrella troll-bait story, well done Tim et al.
BTW, Tim, has CeBit not been around longer than Bumbrella360? If so, you should be saying “our conference is days after CeBit’s”, not the other way ’round, as they have precedence in the calendar.
Thanks for sending me that Gil.
I’ve updated the peice and my head is duly hanging…
There are 667 million facebook users. Based on their ‘500 million’ comment, thats enought to not want to go.
Now, carry on….
I’ve seen this type of message far before the last fortnight. It’s effective, but diluted when seen too often. Infographics are usually made entirely of these kind of statements, with the difference that they have pretty pictures on the side as a visual representation.
What’s happening with the numbers? CeBIT is 100% correct.
@Madison: this is from Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics)
As for today (23 May 2011)
* More than 500 million active users
* 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
* Average user has 130 friends
* People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook
How can Mumbrella accuse someone of ripping off a well known commonly concept for a sales flyer when it frequently takes content from rival websites and the wider web and re-purposes those stories without credit to the originators? It’s called bottom feeding.
Don’t worry Tim, you can’t always be right. I’d like to see any of these ‘haters’ write a blog anywhere near as good as yours! Keep up the great work
Tim stop looking for opportunities you have a business to run…… oh wait…. that’s the fucking point. Keep up the good work.
The kid from Lassie used to say, “Anyone can make a mistake, but it takes a big man to admit it.”