TV is dead... Oh wait, its fine.

Hybrid Media: How Social is Enabling Event TV

I like this presentation. Television is often held up as an "Old Media" straw man, which because of its inherently uninteractive format is destined to be cast aside to the analogue world of Betamax, Gramophones and those big grey gameboys people in Shoreditch wear as necklaces.

This presentation avoids all those cliches though, and argues TV has always been best when it is communal and social, and technology is now allowing this aspect to be expanded. Its an interesting time for TV and brands should be experimenting with how they can latch onto the two-screen behaviour people are already exhibiting. Some examples of it being used so far:

Honda- app to interact with the TV ad
Israel Kamakawiwo'ole- Shazam logo on the TV ad inviting viewers to buy the song there and then.
MTV Skins- 'Caption Bomb' conversation

Forget the pony, I want a mini giraffe. NOW!

Grey New York's ads for DirecTV feature Gregor the billionaire; a preposterous Russian wallowing in opulence. He's got bullion, poker playing dogs, a harem of hot women and a 24 carat gym. But most importantly, Gregor has a tiny 'lap giraffe'. 

And now thanks to the Sokoblovsky Farm site, you too can join the waiting list for your very own Petite Lap Giraffe. You can bet your ass Paris Hilton already has. (Warning, giraffe will not be available until the year 5066.)

http://www.petitelapgiraffe.com

Via Ad Freak

Junkyard Jumbotron

Professional brains Rick Borovoy and Brian Knep at MIT have come up with the Junkyard Jumbotron; a web tool which allows you to stretch a single image over multiple screens or in Borovoy's words "We've built a way to stitch together a bunch of random displays into one large virtual display."


Not hugely useful but it looks like fun. Check out the video below and head over to Wired for the science bit.*




*Speaking of Jennifer Anniston - see her new meme-tastic spot for Smart Water; it squeezes in Double Rainbow Guy, dogs on skateboards, that creepy bespectacled lip-synching kid, dancing babies, sex tapes and 'The Rachel' haircut. It's sharply done but the spoofing is maybe a little too knowing for me, not that that matters - it's already well on its way to 8m hits. Link

Virtual Test Drive through the medium of paper.

Now you can test drive a Volkswagen through a digitally activated print ad using your iPhone. Whatever next Internet? Ordering the love of your life from Russia? Some sort of cat-related online roulette? Charlie Sheen being anointed Warlock Overlord of the World Wide Web? (I think we're on track for that.)

Take a look at the video from Volkswagen Norway to see how it works:



It's not going to be an Angry Birds killer but then it's not a game, it's just a new way to interact with VW.

P.S. Track in the video is Paper Aeroplane by Angus and Julia Stone. Link

Via Digital Buzz Blog

My favourite production

Our agency in Buenos Aires is doing great work at the moment. Check out this advert for chewing gum under the line 'indestructible kisses'.

It is beautifully made.

Crowd Beacon

So last year everyone in advertising got on Foursquare, used it a while and then left it alone. This year began with a brief flirtation with Q&A service Quora.

Now, what would a cross between Foursquare and Quora look like. Well boys, i'll tell you.

It's called Crowd Beacon, and as the world of real-time information and selfless communities of information providers gathers column inches, Crows Beacon is there to provide GPS organised knowledge right into the palm of your digital hand.

For example, say you are in Mayfair instead of Shoreditch (out of your comfort zone), and you don't know where you can get an asymmetrical haircut at 6.30 PM, you put out a crowd beacon on your smartphone,  and local experts are informed as to your request. Huzzah! Now, where's my scooter so I can head back east?

Here's a video about how it works.

http://crowdbeacon.com/how-works.aspx

Mo Money, Mo Infographics

Infographic showing how damn profitable it can be to use the power of collectivity. I wish I started Groupon.

Barbie gets social

This is so fricking charming. Mattell have used facebook, twitter, foursquare and Match.com to scatter the narrative of a Ken & Barbie reunion.

Saatchi Summer Scholarship Round One

Nothing attracts the sanctimonious like social media. Especially Twitter. There have been several critics of the first challenge for applicants to this summer's grad scheme, condemning it as misunderstanding the nature of Twitter. Applicants are invited to create a Twitter account, and over a month or so have to build that in terms of followers, mentions and retweets. For sustained use, like the majority of people I enjoy Twitter to share interests and not to collect acolytes. However, it does surprise me that people would not consider the potential usefulness of Twitter to test applicants, in a fun and revealing way.

In a recent post I criticized the effects of ranking people by social influence determined by Twitter usage stats, and then what? Our summer scholarship launches by testing applicants by asking them to create a Twitter account and build an engaged audience.

It is important to remember that this is a test, and Saatchi & Saatchi receive thousands of applicants each year. They are not testing for the steady build of becoming a long term influencer, but are instead testing resourcefulness, understanding of what interests people, creativity and character. It is about targeting and constructing a conversation, the very sort that are important to the day to day work of a communications company.

The challenge is not about bandwagons. Anyone who describes Twitter as such might as well do the same for the steam engine. Twitter isn't new, but the ways in which people use it can be, and Saatchi & Saatchi are looking for those who can innovate within the obstructions they have laid out.

The misunderstanding here is seeing the task as a marker of how a communications company uses or understands Twitter, where in fact it is rather more about how those who apply can use it as a shop window to put themselves in.

I am confident that this approach will help Saatchi & Saatchi to find future leaders within the sector.

Mesdames Messieurs, le disque jockey Beadle est de retour.

After the Pink Ponies Case Study send up, I find it hard to watch them. However, this one shows that in the 21st century, Beadle's about would be the most popular show in the country.

Broadcasting the pranks live on radio is what gives the ad some impact I think. You feel it happening around you, you feel closer to it. Lovely real time, but not on the interwebs for a change.

Thanks to @nicktgold for putting me on to this.

What's Klout About?

Klout.com recently received $8.5m in investment to develop its social influence ranking tool. Using social media accounts such as Twitter, the folks at Klout take your followers, retweets, followback ratios and various other metrics into account when they decide your worth to society online. If 2011 is the year of influence then isn't that a bit depressing? The lovely dreamworld of the internet being a place of equals, replaced by the real world of some tweeters tweeting more equally than others. I suppose by recognising and ranking the influential we are addressing the elephant in the chat room. It is just that ranking formalises the hierarchy, and will result I fear in a widespread adoption of more mercenary and self-serving approaches to sharing online, not to say that we are devoid of them already.

And of course we are now obsessed with Listening In, and keeping an ear out for buzz whilst thinking 'if 'comte4059' is the biggest influencer in the cheese market, how can we tap into him/her?' (Dodged an Andy Gray shaped bullet there). For brands this is useful, as we must strive to find out the value of the conversations surrounding them online. However, I simply don't think that an influence grade point average can do anything but create a smug and superficial oily layer on top of the already murky landscape of social media.

A question about influence that i posted on the much derided Q&A site Quora turned up some interesting responses. I asked for '5 tips to becoming a social influencer on Twitter'. The majority of answers were built around the idea that in order to influence, you have to listen first.

Some things are as true online as they offline.

The second biggest book after the Book of Revelations

What? The Zuckerberg's boy from number 19? He'll never amount to anything.

Fogeyish Hypothesis

On the tube on the way home last night, a late middle aged inebriate started a conversation with me. 'Is that one of those iPads?' Self conscious that my wankiness had been named, I admitted that it was and tried to force the conversation towards an awkward silence. Not so lightly. 'I wanna know what she's reading' mumbled the man as he gestured towards a young lady sitting opposite us. The lady in question was leafing through a huge tome, a biography on Jean Rhys. My neighbour continued, 'I can tell that you like it, because you're making lots of tiny notes all over it. Must mean something to you'.

'Indeed it does' replied the lady softly, 'I'm writing my PHD on her'. What ensued was one of those brief, cordial but wholly unexpected conversations that are simultaneously unusual and pleasant. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the conversation about the work iPad was far less interesting. Of course I could have read about Jean Rhys on the old iPad, but who would have been able to tell that I wasn't just playing Angry Birds?

A couple of years ago a friend of mine wrote on the Picador publishing blog about the solidarity in seeing someone read the same book as you whilst traveling about in London, and yesterday's tube experience worried me that soon we will be stripped of that improbable connection, that in a couple of years, our eReaders and tablets will help us carry the anonymity or rehearsed personality of the internet to the signal free depths of the London underground.

Kit Ka(r)t

Tom Gibson, my esteemed predecessor and I have just had a wee chat about the video embedded above. He raised the good point that without a successful explosion in popularity of the video content then the installation wouldn't have been worth executing at all. I have to say that I agree with him. Whether this video is exciting enough to do the rounds is somewhat doubtful, but nevertheless it raises some interesting points.

I would say however, that for the little cost involved, creating many small projects like this is the best way of ensuring that some of your work achieves the viral success you are looking for. The chances of getting it right every time (without spending much money) are slim, so little and often might just be the best approach. Also, I would hesitate to dismiss the power of profoundly affecting the small number who have engaged with the work in the real world, as the potency of their interaction is likely to start conversations.

Also, harking back to a previous post I wrote on the role brands have to play in the arts, I would imagine that even if Kit Kat paid nothing (which I highly doubt) to take part in the exhibit,then they will have generated fantastic PR for an exhibition in a time when they need all the support they can get.

Honk if you hate domestic violence

Here's a lovely upbeat campaign to ease you into the working year. It is, as you've probably guessed, an augmented reality app that shows a woman being punched in the face. Not exactly sneezing panda, though I think we can all agree that domestic violence is a bit of a no no.


However, the app/print integration is a lovely exercise in possibility. The print work intrigues, then the video hits home, so that when combined the message really packs a punch (nb i deliberated taking that pun out).


This is almost definitely a clunky use of the technology, as by the time you've downloaded the app in order to see the video, it will make Avatar seem like a 3 minute wonder. But, when the phones have the readers built in, then we could potentially see the reinvention of print as the gatekeeper to fun digital oojima whatzits, tempting us in, and through the contrast of the stationary and the kinetic, giving us to more to play with.



Thanks to @ddlp for sharing.

Simple, Selfless, Universal

2011 'tis upon us. I wonder what exciting titbits it will hold.

By now the majority of people will have seen this, but i thought it was worth a quick post. Schweppes have created an app that allows you to customise your Facebook profile by creating a sort of triptych that stretches across the page, segmenting the photo you choose into a stylish skin for all to see.

For its simplicity, the application has a potentially universal reach, drawing from the global culture of Facebook rather than any localised trend.

I can't imagine this cost a fortune to develop, or took an enormous amount of time, but it feels like a gift. It is not prohibitively branded, nor conspicuously targeted. This, in my opinion, is great digital work. It understands people's efforts to use social media as a megaphone for personality, and gives them the tools to express themselves in a different way.

Schweppes is a brand that I haven't (perhaps unreasonably) associated as being particularly modern, but this gesture brings me closer to them. They know that we like to share stuff, and that perhaps more importantly we want to show off.

Look what Jon Yang did? I like Jon Yang now. Do you? That's what he wants.