We blend insight, creativity and expertise to solve business problems. LBi provides the full range of digital capabilities, including digital strategy, building believable brands, service design, media, CRM, technology, managed hosting and support services. As the largest European web agency in Belgium, you can count on the expertise from 1,500 professionals located primarily in the major European, American and Asian business centers; such as Amsterdam, Atlanta, Berlin, Brussels, Dubai, London, Milan, Mumbai, New York, Paris and Stockholm.

LBi Lost Boys and FBTO, a Dutch insurance company, have launched the iPhone app ‘Vakantiehulp’ (Vacation assistant).

This Dutch application makes a digital checklist based on a number of travelling data (how, when, where) and assists the traveller at packing. The user can also add personal things he wants to take with him and share the list with his fellow travellers.

In case an unpleasantness happens during the holidays, the application advices on what to do when you suffer a loss.

The FBTO iPhone app is availabe in the iTunes Store and can be downloaded for free.

You can read the full article (in Dutch) and download the app via the site of LBi Lost Boys.

GHENT 15/07 (BELGA) = Groen! politicians are the most frequent users of social media. LDD politicians are the least familiar with web 2.0 applications. This is the conclusion of the Master’s thesis of Sam De Vos executed at LBi for his Master in Communications Studies at Ghent University, Belgium.

Sam De Vos studied 278 politicians in Flanders on their presence on and use of six web 2.0 applications: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs and personal websites. “Most politicians, with exception of Vlaams Belang, have an active presence on Facebook and have their own website”, according to De Vos. “The majority of politicians is not active on social business network LinkedIn and does not have a personal blog. On YouTube, however, more politicians have a social presence, but there is a lack of frequent usage. Only a handful of politicians have a Twitter account.”

sp.a, CD&V and Groen! score best on party level and make use of all studied social applications. Groen! politicians are frequent users of Facebook and are most active on YouTube and personal websites. CD&V politicians make less frequent use of these applications. Socialist party s.pa scores below average on Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs, but are active on Facebook, YouTube and websites. sp.a is followed by Vlaams Belang, N-VA and Open Vld. LDD closes ranks with a presence on only three of the studied social media applications.

Politicians use web 2.0 applications to “be closer to the people, publicize their activities, for electoral reasons, and a minority to see what lives among citizens”. Some also use social media “to not fall by the wayside”.
Politicians not using social media mainly did this for reasons of lack of time, knowledge and insight, but also indifference.

LBi Lost Boys in the Netherlands (”LBi”) has been awarded the number one position in the yearly digital agencies league by ITCommercie, the Dutch publisher with the world’s largest online community of digital experts. The league is an independent ranking chosen by other agencies and WCM suppliers and not based on billings or company size.

Marcel Houtman, MD of LBi says “We are very proud of being voted the number one agency by this well respected league. This first place reinforces LBi’s position as the leading marketing and technology agency in the Netherlands and in Europe, with a uniquely integrated platform, capable of building believable brands and with a strong technology background”.

For LBi, the year 2010 has been sparked by a number of new blue chip client wins, including Tommy Hilfiger Europe, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Reed Business Global, Wataniya, ANWB, Maandag and CBi. Also, LBi built the 3D Anne Frank’s Secret Annex, which was voted Site of the Day by FWA, web pick of the week for Commarts and the week’s best interactive site on BestAdsonTV. They also won the SAN Accent award for their integrated Dutch Police campaign.

You can also read this press release on our lbi.com site.

LBi has put online in less than one month the e-Commerce site of iPictu.com, the first international site accessible for all photographers who want to manage themselves the sales process of their pictures. The site aims at professional and amateur photographers and had to be user-friendly, reliable, multi-lingual and supporting the various monetary units.

Taking into account these requirements and the extremely short deadline, the “e-SWAT team” came into operation and applied creative and technoloigic elements, an e-Commerce solution, cloud computing hosting, web analytics, search optimization, …

The “e-SWAT team” was perfect for this kind of project and was created at the beginning of this year to meet the demand of small sized customer projects requiring a high reaction time and flexible technologies and all this within an extreme short deadline.

Read the full press release in Dutch and French.

Isabelle Botos and Benoit Lips are bringing their knowledge and support for the projects selected during the Microsoft Innovation Center call for multitouch projects. They will provide guidance on usability, ergonomy and overall product development for several projects using multitouch technologies (touch screens, surface table, windows 7 phone, …)

More : Call for projects

LBi Iven & Hillmann promotes digital Interior-Design-Shop.

It’s a matter of fact: More and more “do-it-yourselfers“ and hobby-interior-decorators are using the Internet to gather information on trends and innovations in the area of wall design and wallpapers. With the new online-shop from “wall and image“ is now possible to obtain not only inspiration and ideas for your own four walls, but also to directly order the required materials to make it happen for your ideas. And with the Search Marketing Concept of the full-service Agency for Marketing and Technology, LBi Iven & Hillmann, the right offer for the online wallpaper store is quick and easy to find on the Internet.

A new wallpaper can do wonders – whether with photos, different design patterns, graphics or by wall-tattoos. It changes the feeling of space and gives a fresh edge to an old apartment. The question: Which wallpaper fits the best? What can rejuvenate and modernize the current room interior? The creators and founder of the wall and image GmbH had many various and innovative ideas and by developing their shop, have made use of modern and up-to-date techniques to present the offer of their products. The prospective customer can look at their favorite wallpaper by means of a virtual showroom and has the opportunity to view the results from varying perspectives to get a good feeling about the fitting. Such details as gradients and patterns can also be reproduced very well on the screen. It´s extremely easy for the customer to reach the decision to purchase, customer satisfaction after the delivery remains high, safe in the knowledge they got exactly what they wanted.

“With LBi Iven & Hillmann, we rely on a team of specialists with years of experience in all areas of digital communications” comments Dieter Maubach, product manager at Wall and image. „The agencies range of service offerings is a lot more extensive than we would normally expect. For example, the comprehensive advice in terms of landing page optimization helps us to present the products in a clearer and easier to understand format. Thus we are able improve our Conversion rate notably.”

“The success potential of this new shop concept was immediately clear,” said Arend Lars Iven, CEO of LBi Iven & Hillmann. “We are particularly pleased that we could expand our SEM campaign strategy together with wall and image, to further areas we offer in our service portfolio. In addition to landing page optimization, we´re already in discussions about building a social media and affiliate marketing strategy.”

Read this also on the site of LBi Iven & Hillmann.

It’s been only 4 days since the Summer Camp Team joined LBi Belgium. And the less we can say: they woooork a loooot!

Already 6 briefs, 212 ideas, 355 drawings, 2 shocking presentations, and so much exciting challenges done!
On top of all this heavy but fun and exciting work, they attended LBi’s hot Summer Party… A combination of Mojito’s, Corona’s, BBQ topped over with at least 33 degrees of sunshine led to a far too early wake up call on friday… and they still look SO FRESH!

What kind of Super Hero Material are they? Where do they come from? Hopefully we’ll discover and hear more from them in the next few weeks…

Monday 5th July, five lost boys landed in our Brussels offices. They are here to think, play, create, co-work on briefings and creative pitches. They will meet national and international creatives but above all, they are here to share their passion while having fun. As images say more than many words, here’s their story:

Get ready to hear their stories in the next few days, feel some of the vibes and get inspired!

LBi and MoneyGram International present this best in class work at Forrester Customer Experience Forum.

Premier Marketing and Technology Agency and Global Leader in Money Transfer Redesign and Transform Digital Platform

LBi the world’s largest independent marketing and technology agency is excited to announce the launch of a redesigned digital experience for MoneyGram International (NYSE: MGI), a leading global money transfer company. Working hand-in-hand, LBi and MoneyGram re-invented how the global company utilizes the online space as a marketing vehicle. LBi worked with MoneyGram on several digital initiatives; ranging from strategy and creative, media buying and planning, to social media, analytics and performance measurement.

MoneyGram VP Product Management, Rich Meszaros and LBi Co-President, Judith Carr will be presenting the brand case study at the Forrester Customer Experience Forum on June 29, 2010. The client/agency team will talk through the entire engagement from initial research and findings to build and execution and results thus far.

The largest piece of the engagement was development of the robust money transfer website. LBi has helped to improve and develop a world-class user-experience for online money transfer. In addition, the site acts as a vehicle to drive customers to the over 200,000 physical agent locations around the world.

“LBi’s understanding of our business helped us create an online solution with a look and feel that is integrated with our global brand as well as a technical platform that can be adapted to any region of the world in any language,” said Rich Meszaros of MoneyGram. “We look forward to continuing to partner with LBi to build our interactive presence both online and at retail locations.”

In support of the website launch, LBi pushed out a robust online marketing campaign to drive traffic and help build brand loyalty. The campaign was created to generate awareness around the new site and help develop and extend customer relationships with the brand. It includes branded banners across a specifically targeted media buy and a social media program inclusive of a “greeting card” application that extends to Facebook.

“LBi’s unique combination of creative and technological expertise coupled with industry-leading media buying and planning and social media knowledge makes them a great fit for our brand. We are pleased with the work and look forward to building the partnership,” said Meszaros.

“The breadth of the work we have been engaged to accomplish by MoneyGram is a testament to LBi’s wide-ranging digital capabilities,” said Judith Carr, LBi’s Co-President. “We look forward to growing our partnership in producing ground-breaking work that helps evolve MoneyGram’s global digital strategy and existing online presence.”

Visit http://www.moneygram.com for the full experience.
www.lbi.com

You can also read this press release on the LBi.com site.

2 AM. The first social media day in Belgium is over. Is it really over? And do we need a day to celebrate social media? Or a day for us, the people that use social media to try to make a difference. In business, for a good cause, to connect, to be creative, to engage, whatever.

What this social media day has proven is that people enjoyed meeting in real life. Beyond the tweets, the Facebook updates etc.

Social media are great. You can do a lot with them. What you do with them is your choice.

Just get social, wherever, whenever. That’s what made the Belgian social media day a success.

No geek party, no expensive words, even few tweets, but a lot of socializing. Taste that atmosphere by watching the great video the folks of LBi posted below.

Is there more? Sure: there is more coming soon. Why waste relationships and a bond?

It ain’t over until the fat lady sings. And I didn’t hear her yet. Watch the video below and remember.

Stay tuned. Express yourself, risk, don’t follow, create. Be you.

We would like to thank @conversionation for this superb organisation!

And here follow a reaction from our Danish friends: Linklove from the #smdaybe social marketing meetup to Denmark
and World Without Torture