McLocation Location

'So and so would like to use your location' popping up every time you download an app is a little annoying, especially when you cannot conceive as to why your location would be relevant. For the main (GPS maps excluded) location function based applications have only really served to let people know that you are at a really cool party, somewhere very exotic or unspeakably trendy. It is a miserable status tool. Notice that 'Beth has checked into the Welcome Break in Reading' doesn't come up as often as '16 people have checked into Soho House.'

But McDonald's McCafes (with some help from TBWA) in Germany have come up with a delightful way to use this technology to spread Christmas cheer by using a location activated advent calendar. By using applications like Facebook and Foursquare, customers can prove that they are in a particular 'McCafe' by checking in, and when they do, they will be entitled to a free gift.  Every day throughout December McDonald's McCafes are offering a different gift to their customers that they can download, whether it be game, song, or film. What a nice, easy to deliver way of rewarding custom.

 Lovely Christmas times.

'Chris has checked into Ernest G's electronica emporium, herbal  tea wholesaler, and yoga retreat.'

That's right, I was thinking of meatballs.

Folksam insurance have created a wonderful microsite game. The Swedish provider of peace of mind has created the emometer, which rather than measuring your propensity for straightening hair and listening to the Lost Prophets, actually stands for emotional meter and measures what the people of Sweden care about by playing twenty questions with them.


It is perfectly engaging, your mind against the machine, half wanting to win, half wanting to be impressed by the site. Moreover, it is executed in a very charming way.


Perhaps most interesting is the fact that the results are aggregated and mapped out across Sweden showing the user what it is that people are thinking of in their collective consciousness (and then telling them to insure it). 

I buy my car from you because I trust that you make cars well.

A lovely Contagious post about the Brazilian Fiat Mio, a concept car built on the suggestions of regular folk, quickly reminded me of the Simpsons episode 'Oh brother, where art thou?'Homer discovers his long lost brother is an automobile tycoon. He then goes onto to entrust Homer with the responsibility of designing a car, eventually seeing him bring the company down.



Now, whilst I would buy a car on the assumption that highly educated engineers know better than I do, I think it is entirely that which makes this project appealing. For the first time, ordinary consumers have the opportunity to pitch to a highly specialised industry. The website has received over 10,000 suggestions from across the globe, because, rather than coming up with an idea for the new flavour for Vitamin Water, your idea could make it in front of top designers and engineers, potentially even into the car itself.



The Fiat Mio is still just a concept, and isn't yet widely available. However, in a world where crowd-sourcing as a strategy covers all manner of sins, and many degrees of weak engagement, Fiat have put their money where their mouth is by actually creating the Homer Simpson car.

Technically Lynn, your life isn't worth insuring.

The Arts Council have had their funding cut by a third. Post budget, there will be fewer plays, poorer prospects for new talent, an absence of funding for exhibitions. Research for books and community arts projects will struggle to find supporters. The UK Film Council is dead.

Is it then possible that the saviours of the UK arts scene could be advertisers? I am not referring to heavily branded scripts with enough product placement to sink a submarine and I don't really mean work like BMW films, using glossy directors and their ex-wives.

I am talking about using brands as platforms for newer work, for producing and creating content that in the tactile manner of social media, reaches out and touches consumers with a collective appreciation of something cultural and entertaining. Brands can provide us with the material we put our thumbs up to, and they no longer need a broadcaster to manage it. There is a lot of talk of 'curating content' but what is stopping brands for producing it?

The following example is a pertinent but flawed one. Foster's have commissioned (or at least distributed) the latest series of Alan Partridge (12 x 11 minute episodes) which is to be broadcast exclusively via Fostersfunny.co.uk. The problem as it relates to my point about the arts is that the show is a tried and tested success story with a large and loyal fanbase. Alan Partridge has not just finished his first summer in Edinburgh and is not looking for a grant to take his show to some crappy theatre in Winchester. But the site itself does help to serve my argument. Foster's Funny is an online broadcaster of new comedy, and if successful will see Foster's as synonymous with good comedy taste, as a hub for new entertainment. Something that could have a hugely positive impact on their brand image.



Clawing back towards brevity, trying times could see some symbiosis between advertising and the arts. The next Alan Partridge could come to you via your favourite brew instead of Auntie.

Effortlessly Cool

Nike have done another cool piece of work. Here they have taken a real piece of their company's history, one of determination, grit, innovation and hunger and mythologized it through animation. The Defiant Dozen tells the tale of Athletics West, a team who were to reinvigorate the world of US track and field. 

The protagonists are converted into Watchmen-like vigilantes, doing what they need to succeed, and it is super awesome.

A youtube teaser directs you to the short animated story of the Defiant Dozen on a microsite linking to the Athletics West sportswear range. There is also the option explore the room in which the story begins with your mouse, clicking on the fixtures to explore the catalogue, learn more, and to post via facebook or twitter.

Advertising showcasing real talent, and telling a ripping yarn. 

Snazzbags.

Green for Interactivity

Doritos have teamed up with Hackney rapper Professor Green (I am doubtful as to his academic credentials) to help launch their 'Late Night Snacks' range.

Normally I equate Doritos ads to silly, tongue-in-cheek smiles times, but things have got all grimey up in here. After all, they are late night snacks, and it all be happnin' on the mean streets late at night wiv all those late night Doritos eaterz and der bitches and dat.  I digress. The point is that they have made a music video, promoted through a heavily branded youtube page. http://www.youtube.com/doritosuk

But isn't that a bit boring you say? Sure, but there is a technological twist. The video is interactive, and as you drag around the video you can see a full 360 degree perspective of the night club that Green be rhyming in, which is jolly fun to do.

Online, no offline, i mean online....no offline

Right this moment there is a man in a cubicle that is rapidly filling with Skittles. If you join the Facebook page you will contribute some skittles to the cubicle and you can watch them being dumped on this silly man via live video.

If there has been a better way to recruit and engage Facebook fans, I haven't seen it.



http://www.facebook.com/skittles.uk?v=app_155126671189144#!/profile.php?fbhref=content.php&id=109219143258&app_page=1&v=app_155126671189144

Print this Slideshow.

Here is a presentation I gave a while ago on the blurring of the online and offline worlds. There has been a lot written on it recently and here are my couple of disconnected thoughts on the subject, with examples.Feel free to read it on or offline- the notes are available on the Slideshare site.

Everything is Digital. Nothing is Digital.

View more presentations from Tom Callard.

It helps to 'like'

Who knows how to use facebook? Does Zuckerberg know? I'm not convinced. Up and down the country people are pulling their hair out trying to think of the best way to communicate their brand through Facebook.

Enter Kit Kat, who in a nice piece of corporate social responsibility have used Facebook's 'like' function to drive traffic from their consumers to their Facebook page. If you have bought one the promotional Kit Kats, go to the Facebook group, enter the promotional code, click 'like' and Kit Kat will donate another 10p to Breast Cancer. Nicely Done.

I fancy a break, maybe i'll have a....

http://www.facebook.com/kitkatuk?v=app_7146470109

Reality Invaders

Recently there has been a lot of chatter about the "gameification" of the real world, the "gamepocalypse", and other made up words. Below is a slideshow going through some of the trends we have seen in gaming (from an advertisers perspective mind), and an overview of the ways gaming is influencing real life.

FreeForm: Reality Invaders

Chroma Gawd!

As cuts consume publicly funded art projects, there is great scope for advertisers to become patrons of the arts during the age of austerity.

Canon (for their 'Bring Colour to Life' campaign) employed the biochemist cum photographer Linden Gledhill to create a series of his sound sculptures, which are high definition 3D videos of paint dancing to sound vibrations. The results are truly beautiful.

Canon Pixma: Bringing colour to life from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

Canon Pixma Sound Sculptures from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

Scare About Participation

The following ball of friendly fun is an ad (albeit jolly well hidden) for Swisscom tv. As my predecessor remarked after watching it, we've seen some similar stuff before, but this is a much classier effort.

Feed a photo of 10 friends into the website, and it casts them in a personalised horror movie trailer. Then of course you publish it on your social networking site and round the merry-go-round it goes. It takes just the right period of time to do, with a satisfying payoff. In terms of participation, this is an intimate way of encouraging groups of friends to take part in what you are doing.

I did one with some people from my book club. Check it out.

HTTP://WWW.LOST-IN-VAL-SINESTRA.COM/021854CA1E0DA67A99

Comment

Before web 2.0 the world of anonymous scrawlings was reserved for the men's lavatory. Now there is barely a page online that can't support some sort of anonymous comment; some funny, some banal, some abusive. But does this online platform for opinion encourage people to carry that online right into the real world? As far as I'm concerned, this piece of graffiti is as brilliant as any viral video I've seen for a long time.

Renault Way To Live Your Life

'This car has an enormous engine', 'now with super navigation system that will help you locate your self esteem', 'airbags to stop you dying!'. What luck that none of these tired tropes fought their way in to the new Megane campaign. Using a now popular documentary style narrative for their advert, Renault build upon their fond telling of crosschannel cultural divides. It is an endearing and cheeky way of maintaining the entente cordiale.
 
Meet Claude, a diminutive Cote D'Azurian who travels to Gisburn, Lancashire to inject some joie de vivre into the abject tedium of the locale.
 
Interestingly they are one of the only car manufacturers at the moment doing integrated brand advertising, rather than plunging money into tactical press; with a wonderful microsite that amongst other things provides psychometric testing to see how much joy you have compared to the sickeningly gleeful Claude. 

www.themeganeexperiment.com

Lens Me Your Ears

This is my first post on this blog as the pretender to to Tom's role as Saatchi's arbiter elegantiarum, and in an effort to create a seamless transition I refer to one of the short films recently mentioned on his Nokia post.

'Dot' is a 1''37' film produced for Nokia by Nick Park's Aardman Films and uses a Nokia N8 phone with a microscope lens attached. It is billed as the world's smallest ever stop motion film, and the results are impressive. Stop motion is the Lazarus of film making making a comeback every couple of years, but with such advanced technology available, why do we keep coming back to this old method of animation? Firstly, it is precisely because of the new opportunities opened up by advances in the peripheral technology that keep the style coming, with digital cameras significantly easing the load of the stop motion animator. But to me this is secondary to the fact that stop motion is a genre fraught with restrictions, and that it is these limitations that give it its power to create truly original work. Sometimes the seemingly limitless options afforded by digital effects actually stifle creativity instead of stimulating it. It is the restriction of the technique that gives the film life, and makes it this example as impressive and original as it is. What you inevitably are left with is innovative and displays real craftmanship, like in this ad for Kindle from earlier this year.

Our new Insight Manager

We now have an exciting new insight manager who, despite resolutely failing to be called Tom like his predecessors, is nonetheless an interesting chap who will be taking on the majority of the blogging from now on. His name is Chris.
Make him feel welcome.

Nokia hacks itself

This new work from Nokia and Wiedens is an example of niche DIY/hacking culture becoming mainstream. "Hacking" products from furniture to Google has been on the up the last couple of years, but it tends to remain unsupported or discouraged by the brands themselves. It is arguably a dangerous move to suggest the best thing about your product is that people can improve themselves, but nonetheless interesting to see from such a global brand. Clearly Nokia know they need to do something interesting to regain the momentum from Apple and Google.

There are a series of short films on their site.

Brands who Stalk

There are a lot of brands out there attempting to reflect back values at their target audience (Koppaberg, Converse, Nokia?). This presentation asks why brands have become obsessed with stalking their audience and collecting information on their likes and dislikes, rather than taking time to discover something about themselves. Interesting thoughts; plus there is a bonus slide featuring Xzibit!

View more presentations from Alexander Chung.

Mullets or Nutters? How do things go viral

This is a great presentation on why things go viral. We particularly like the insight that a lot of content passing is by bored workers, and the targetting of maniacs. Give it a read.

Jonah Peretti Viral Meetup Talk

Oh the irony

Brands used to be confident and ballsy; shouting their slogans from the rooftops. They had jingles and proclaimed they were the best you could get. Recently though many seem to be almost embarrassed to be centre stage, and there are a host of example of brands hiding behind either irony or invisibility.

One way to attract savvy consumers who reject outright marketing, is to step out of the frame completely. "Branded Content" is becoming more popular, and it also seems to be getting less "branded"- such as Gatorade Replay, Orbit or Pepsi Refresh Everything. In these examples the brand is very much a minor player in a larger show. By not intruding the brand becomes part of something genuinely engaging.

The alternative though seems to be irony. Old Spice is in many ways a very traditional campaign where pack shots and product benefits are spoken directly into the camera, but the large dose of post-modern irony heaped on top makes the whole thing seem more knowing and wise. The caption under the original youtube video was "We're not saying this body wash will make your man into a romantic millionaire jet fighter pilot, but we are insinuating it." Similarly we came across this (on the 3 Billion blog), where a collaboration between music and a brand is prefaced by a self-depreciating warning that they are trying to sell you something. This is not something we would have seen even just a year ago.

It is early days, but it is certainly a trend to look out for, as many brands are forced to question what their role is in a world which is increasingly cynical of marketing messages.

Awesome Youtube stuff from...Tippex?

Tippex, the product we all forgot existing, just popped back onto the radar with this excellent piece of Youtube content. It is a great use of annotations but is so much more. I will leave it at that and invite you to give it a go. Enjoy your weekends!

Original Link

Innovative Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire have been consistently innovative in the way they have approached marketing. They had a Terry Gilliam directed live show, succesfully promoted the 'Suburbs' on Twitter and for their previous album had this great website. Their latest offering, as if you and everyone else in the world hadn't already seen it, is a personalised online video. It is not only great to see a band trying something new, but it is also a fantastic piece of advertising for Chrome, which I have resisted downloading for months... until now.

Go to the site for the full experience.

The Unplug Challenge

This interactive piece from the New York Times tells the stories of readers who volunteered to unplug themselves from technology. Along with the continuing debate over whether connection makes us stupid, and the questioning of Facebook's future, this is a hot topic at the moment. For more links check our last article on the subject.

What the F**K is Social Media Now?

There are no shortage of videos, presentations and the latest bandwagon, "infographics", showing how massive the internet is. The "What the..." series was one of the first though, and is still the best. Here is the latest installment, including such unbelievable numbers as:
- 500bn minutres spent on Facebook per month (150bn last year)
- 24 hours of video uploaded per minute to youtube (double last year)
- 1/3 women aged 18-34 check Facebook immediately upon waking up

View more presentations from Marta Kagan.

Microsoft all the way

Its been a while since our last post but holidays are over and we are back to it. First off we have been noticing a lot of niche web cultures leaking into the mainstream. Alongside a slew of recent articles digging into the online message board 4chan, we noticed this recent video from Microsoft, featuring Yosemitebear of Double-Rainbow fame. Although there's a risk that a big brand involving itself will be viewed with cynicism, so far the response seems to have been good. Microsoft have certainly come a long way since their last unintentional viral hit.

Constant Creation- Friday Memes

Two internet memes have spring up this week, and they are both great examples of how rapidly the internet will jump onto an idea and start changing it and remixing it. First there was this brilliant news clip, which has not only been given the obligatory autotune treatment but has also been played by an orchester, all within 2 weeks.

Second is the slew of Youtube, Twitter, Ebay movies parodying the forthcoming "The Social Network". Remixes happen for any movie, but the combination of it being both a movie and about an online site seems to have captured the online communities imagination. It is a timely reminder of the speed and creativity of the online community.
Enjoy the videos- good Friday afternoon viewing.

The Original


Youtube came next


Twitter


And my favourite- Ebay


And if I have piqued your interest in memes then have a look at Know Your Meme, and go to the excellent Kitten Camp.

Converse Paper Head

This idea from Converse allows you to create a paper head of yourself. Why? Who the hell cares. I was hoping it would as good as this though, which it seems to be a copy of. It is part of their summer campaign which also included this video.

Best of the week

Here is some of the coolest stuff we have seen this week.

Yogi Bear - A lesson in the need for pretesting?
New Yorker Mashups- A lesson that anything can be mashed up. NewYorker cartoons with Kanye west Tweets. (we still like this too)
Chalkbot 2?- Cycling across America to "beat the biggest douche of all, Cancer"
Parkour plus Ladders- Need I say more?
Old Spice- Not as new as it looks- A history of old spice advertising
Remember Me- Using RFID chips to tell the story of charity products
Ritalin- Music video + Fire + slo mo = awesome
Weeplaces - Map your Foursquare check-ins

Movies go social

Twitter was once a mystery to almost everyone, and contained little but inane updates and "overshare". However it is now used for any number of things, though most seem to revolve around Justin Bieber. One unpredictable use has been reviews. #MusicMonday, #Followfriday and also movies. And it is for that reason that Fflick is such a great idea. It scans tweets from all your Twitter friends and finds any mentions of films. You can then browse through by movie (Inception). It works because it is grabbing reviews which people were already writing, and organising them in a more logical way. This seems to make a lot more sense than taking people away from their social network to write reviews on a different platform.

The after-hours Athlete

Love this new work from Droga5 for Puma. The creative is pretty good, and the strategy is spot on too. The reframing of "athletes" as everyday people who train at night, eat kebabs but are just as passionate as traditional sportsmen is great. Sports brands have appealed to amateurs before of course, but there is something nice about the articulation, and the move away from traditional sports. Watch the video.

Real Life Gaming

RACER DEMO 0.1 - video game mashup from sputnic
The real world is a great place to play, and this home-made and distinctly lo-fi creation from Malte Jehmlich is a great example. He has taken a webcam, cardboard and an RC car and created something awesome. Here are a few more real life games we like- feel free to add your own in the comments.

Virtusphere - Huge hamster balls let you run around as you play virtual reality games
Roombas - Real Life Pac Man
Conspiracy for Good - Espionage, chase and surveillance in East London
Human Avatar - Transforming an unlucky man into a tattooed Avatar

Digital Graffiti

A cool little idea found over on the Digital Buzz Blog. Type in your SMS message and slingshot it onto a wall. The world is a canvas...

The things we keep

the things we keep from svanes
It has been a few days since our last post, but there are loads coming your way shortly. This short video is unbranded but is a great articulation of the value of objects in the real world, which I have been harping on about for a while now. It is a space which is just waiting for a brand to jump in.

Burn your way to Money

To continue the theme of 'fire' and Publicis Mojo work, this is a cool little idea to encourage charity donations. On the site, you can pay $3, choose steam or fire, and see your chosen method of destruction blast away a block of ice. There is $40,000 dollars trapped inside, which all goes to the support the Auckland City Mission. Apparently it is a metaphor for the city's poor families during winter, but to be honest it is interesting because it is an innovative way to get small donations. More charities should be embracing these short-term, awareness raising campaigns alongside their long-term cause driven communications (see the TCT events). It's also another great example of people wanted things to happen in the real world when they are clicking around online.

Burn Films

We just came across this new work from Publicis Mojo in Sydney for Burn, Coca cola's new energy drink. Unlike the hyped, high-octane approach taken by most energy drinks, Coke has chosen communities where "energy" plays a real role. There are three films, all shot documentary style to preserve the realism of these communities. The skate one in particular is very reminiscent of Spike Jonze's Lakai Intro. They can all be found on the Mojo website (in much better quality), and are pretty awesome. It is a big shift for Coca-Cola, in the way they approach communications.
"The crux of our approach was to involve pre-existing communities in the creation and distribution of the key campaign assets, rather than the brand launching it on its own," said Micah Walker, ECD Mojo Sydney.

Marketing Water

This great idea from UNICEF is the latest in a series of creative ideas for water, of all things. One of the most ubiquitous and boring substances on earth (deep sea creatures excluded) has been inspiring some brilliant work. This example saw dirty water vending machines being installed in New York (more in the video). Previously there was also the interesting stuff from Droga5 Tap Project where diners paid for their tap water, with their money going to charity. Lastly there has been some good work from Tappening, such as the "Start a Lie" campaign.

The Week's cool stuff

As a challenge to our current Saatchi and Saatchi interns, they have been sending me cool things they see on the internet. If I've seen them I get a point, and if I haven't they do- the winner buys the drinks (the challenge shamelessly stolen from @on_jay). Here are some of the ones I hadn't seen. The winner will be announced at the end of the week.
Paintball painting - The new 3D projection?
Red Bull - Great use of Youtube annotations adding interactivity
SyFy - Very cool zooming website for Tin Man (following on from their amazing Alice in Wonderland work)
Double Rainbow song - Fantastic meme. For the original video see above, and for an explanation of what the hell this is, go here.

Perrier Teases us

It is only July, and 2010 has already given us more immersive online experiences than you can shake a stick at. There were the Adidas streetview and Fight Club mashups at the start of the year, Lexus Dark Ride which raised the bar again, and now this, from Perrier of all people. It is mildly NSFW, which you could have guessed from the inclusion of Dita Von Teese, but it is worth a look. You follow Dita through the Perrier mansion, playing games and eventually watching her shower in Perrier. Though not including any of the Facebook integration of other examples, it holds the attention (of men), and is exactly the sort of interactive content which we will begin to see more and more of.

Touch screens and the Ipad teach us to expect interactivity from everything; books and ads to videos. The question is what happens when the novelty inevitably wears off.

Perrier by Dita

Old Spice win again

Now this is good. The Old Spice ads, though perfect examples of content which spreads well online, are still just bits of video which broadcast to an audience. The latest bit of genius from W+K changes the model though, responding to a tweet asking for an interview. Suddenly we are not just watching a broadcast but taking part in a conversation. When the brand starts engaging with its audience to this extent (or this), things start to get pretty exciting.
UPDATE: There are more of them. They have also promoted "old spice" as a trending topic on Twitter.

The Mad Men School of Seduction

It is Friday afternoon, its hot, and so its time for a video. Marvel at the subtle and charming seduction of the Mad Men.

Augmented Reality Mario

This video is part of a Bachelor thesis, but shows what can be done with augmented reality. Technology allows us to use the world as a canvas, and play with our environment. There will be a lot more where this came from.

Cheeky Internet Shenanigans

As Justin Bieber contemplates an ill-advised "Suicide Tour" to North Korea, we can all rest easy that the Internet remains as anarchic, witty and ridiculous as ever. What started as a marketing ploy to encourage people to vote on where Bieber should tour, quickly developed into a viral campaign to send him to Kim Jong-il's dictatorship.

Amusing yes, surprising no. This is just the latest prank in a long history of internet anarchy, which stamps on any brand, celebrity or individual who naively opens themselves up to the web. A lot of it comes from 4chan (very much NSFW), the lawless image posting site, but the whole online community has always been averse to rules. Here are some of our favourites examples.


Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf- In 1998, at the very birth of the internet, a vote for People.com’s Most Beautiful Person of the year gave an unexpected winner.
The Penguin- A competition to redesign the UGC boot went spectactularly wrong when this ugly design won.
BMX-  This is why you don't ask the internet for help.
Rage against the Machine- Facebook-organized campaign to deny Simon Cowell number 1.
Skittles Twitter- A good example of big-brand naivety and an over-the-top reaction from cruel tweeters, who abused the open twitter feed. (See also CashGordon and MyDavidcameron for political examples)
Amazon Reviews- The internet has outdone itself in hunting out the useless and weird amongst  Amazon's product catalogue. Have a read of the brilliantly written comments for the Tuscan Milk and related products.

We are all workers

We really like this new work from Levis and W+K. The idea was to create something tangible and long-lasting, which they have undoubtedly done. It is a great development of the "Go Forth" campaign, managing to balance heritage with a more forward-looking view. There's a good interview in Contagious which reveals more.

The real life social network

This interesting presentation has been doing the rounds on Twitter, and is definitely worth a look. It is by Paul Adams, a "user-experience researcher" at Google, and it really gets to the heart of why Facebook "friends" are such an unnerving phenomenon.

The Stories of Objects

As if more examples were needed that we are increasingly looking for real things in the real world (rather than stuff on screens), we just came across Itizen. This allows you to tag objects which mean something to you and upload them. You can then pass them on so that the object may collect stories. It is a great example of digitally augmenting real world objects, and adding value to existing behaviour.

Also see:

Objects as storage devices - Interesting thoughts on PSFK
The Value of Things - Book from 2000 which is becoming increasingly relevant
The Comfort of Things - Recently published and getting great reviews

Shopbabbles- social media and shopping

In what is fast becoming a bumper week for blog posts (and an inefficient week for doing other work), here is another post. Shopbabbles is a blog focusing on where social media and shopping overlap. Its Saatchi & Saatchi run, and seems to have a lot of interesting stuff worth checking out.

Ad of the Week

Old Spice is back, and the general consensus seems to be that this is, incredibly, even better than the original. The same quirky wit and innovative 1-shot execution remain, and it has already been viewed almost 300k times. Well done W+K and P&G.

Engaging your Tweeters

In many ways it is pretty easy to show you care as a brand these days, as with pretty minimal investment you can monitor what people are saying and respond. However Wheat-thins have taken it one stage further, and in replying to a tweet have also got some great content for a hundred thousand people to view.

UPDATE: In fact looking at the comments they may even have started a meme. Look out for "Aaah I'm out of___, My life is officially over" popping up elsewhere.

Skills = Views. The Power of Awesome

This video was featured over on the Three Billion blog, and we felt it was worth posting here too. Its a great bit of skills-based awesomeness and as such is the perfect viral, if we are to believe the New York Times research that the most shared stories "inspire awe". It has been done before, but it is a good move for Head, and indeed Andy Murray, who gets to show his previously-hidden fun side.

The Social Media Overkill Room

Until very recently Gatorade meant nothing more to me than sugary orange water which Americans drank, but since Gatorade Replay I have taken more of an interest. This is the latest video I have seen from them, and although it is clearly self-promotional and marginally ridiculous, it does show a commitment to social media and conversations which most brands are still scared of. In fact this video could work to sell in greater social media awareness to other clients, who have not considered the amount of resources, and plasma screens, their competitors are now devoting to it.

Interactive Film on the Ipad

Touching Stories is a new interactive Ipad app/ video game/ movie. Preloaded ipads were handed out at Cannes to build up buzz. In essence it is another interactive story, just like Choose a Different Ending or Lexus Dark Ride, but this one is exciting for being the first to use the Ipad's functionality. At various points in the story you can shake and tilt the Ipad to influence the action. As PSFK suggest, this raises questions about all media as it gives artists the ability to involve people in their work. I'm sure we will see a lot more of this over the next few months.

Location comes of age

via pasta&Vinegar

In the latest issue of Wired UK, John Battelle illustrates the shift in online behaviour, now that "checking in" has been integrated. We can see what people are doing, what they are buying, what they want, who they know and now we also know where they are. Location has been central to all of the biggest tech developments of the year, from Twitter places to Stickybits and Facebook Location. With smart phones to outnumber desktop PCs by 2012, location-based services are not going anywhere.

Best of the Week

Here are a selection of things which have piqued our attention this week:

The Art of Analog Computing (above)- Lovely little video about the world as a computer.
The Flake Ad- Finally unveiled and is splitting opinion as predicted. (I agree with Ben Kay)
Uniqlo - More Twitter fun from the innovative clothing company
Fun Theory - More fun, this time installing slides in a German underground station
Crowdrise - Stylish community fundraising
The Most Awesomest Thing Ever - What is the most awesome thing in the world? Find out here.
Dulux - Lovely stuff from the Dulux "Let's Colour" campaign
Community Centred Design- Inspiring article from Mike Arauz." Read it. 
Underwater base jumping - Just Epic.
OMG Cat vs Robert Green - Lastly a return of the OMG Cat, reacting to some football action.

"Branded Content?"- Let's just call it comedy

At last, the planets have aligned and I've been gifted an opportunity to mention Arrested Development on the blog. Actors from the most underrated sitcom of all time have been popping up all over the place, most recently in this bit of "branded content" from Orbit. It is so watchable that it seems ridiculous to call it "content" rather than comedy, and unlike many forays into online video, Orbit have not shied away from getting the product in there. They have woven it convincingly into the narrative, meaning it isn't just an intrusion.

Though to be honest they could have made every character dress as chewing gum, I'd still watch Will Arnett.

Nike show how its done

About 9 months ago, just before I started posting on the blog, Tom G wrote a post about Nike "just doing cool stuff". They are still doing that, but I think recently what has become more obvious about the "stuff" is that they are very good at finding how their ideas live offline. Chalkbot was the best example, and will do well at Cannes this year (it got nominated anyway), but recently they have also given us the chance to write a message on Wayne's boots, and broadcast messages on the Johannesburg skyline. There is something so much more exciting about these ideas because they allow you to have an effect on the world beyond your computer screen. Let's hope Nike continue to innovate.