Essential Reading

Contagious have just released their Most Contagious list for 2009 and as ever it's packed full of great stuff. You can download the full report HERE.
Along with Google's 87 Cool Things they provide a pretty good summary of the year!

The Ultimate Rematch

Definitely one of my favourite campaigns this year is Gatorade’s branded content piece Replay.
An epic documentary that sees two rival high school football teams from 1993 replay a grudge match that ended in a tie 15 years ago. As honorary coach Peyton Manning put “What athlete doesn’t have a game or a moment they wish they could do-over?”
A great example of a brand moving beyond traditional advertising and creating compelling content.
Check out the trailer:

Beyond Fan Pages

I've recently come across two simple but brilliant ways of using facebook to engage your audience.

The first one comes from Ikea who utilised the popular tagging tool to generate awareness of a new store opening.



The second example advertises the 10th anniversary edition of Fight Club. Rather than try and explain it you should try it for yourselves HERE.
A little gimmicky but lots of fun.

Normal Service Resumes

After a couple of quiet months the Book of Revelations is back! With the addition of an extra author, Tom Callard.
Tom is the new Insight Manager here at 80 Charlotte Street and will be co-authoring the blog with me. You can follow us on Twitter @saatchilondon or individually @tompgibson and @tomcallard.

The Nike Way

There’s a great article in Revolution on Nike’s approach to marketing which is summed up nicely by the above quote.
Given their approach to advertising it comes as no surprise that they’re venturing into the world of film, as a promotional partner for More Than a Game.

HT MakeTheLogoBigger
Original photo from eightfivezero

Ephebiphobia

Nielsen’s latest report “How Teens Use Media” aims to rid the marketing world of ephebiphobia, the irrational fear of youth, debunking the myth that teens are wildly different to other consumers.
The report challenges the popular assumptions about teens, showing that although they may be wildly different to their counterparts of generations past, they are not that different in their media use to other consumers.

A couple of things that stood out for me:

• Teens are NOT abandoning TV for new media: In fact, they watch more TV than ever, up 6% over the past five years in the U.S. Furthermore 92% of teen viewing was live TV.
• Teens love the Internet…but spend far less time browsing than adults: Teens spend 11 hours and 32 minutes per month online—far below the average of 29 hours and 15 minutes. Not surprising when you consider teens spend much of their day in the classroom.
• Teens spend 35% less time watching online video than adults 25–34, but recall ads better when watching TV shows online than they do on television.
• The average US teen sends/receives 96 text messages EVERY DAY! This is up 566% in just 2 years. With this increase in mobile usage it’s not surprising that 62% of US mobile teens say that their parents have placed at least one restriction on their mobile use.
• It’s a myth that teens consume media 10 screens at a time. In reality 77% of the time teens are consuming media they are using just one at a time compared to 69% for adults.
  

Read the entire report HERE.

87 Cool Things

Google Creative Lab have put together a great presentation of well, 87 cool things from the internet. The list consists of:

1. Stuff they like
2. Stuff that's probably worth knowing about
   
3. Stuff they made
   

A really good summary of all that's cool from the web. Check it out HERE.

Honesty Is The Best Policy

Hats off to whoever managed to sell these ads to the client. The jury may still be out but I think they’re brilliant. They show a real understanding of consumer mentality; treating real-world stores as showrooms, then finding the lowest price online.
It’s refreshing to see a brand being honest about their strengths and those of their competitors. As I posted about previously in Reviewing Is The New Advertising, with the advent of the iPhone and the Android, for the first time ever, on-the-spot price comparison in the ‘real world’ is now possible. Customers won’t even need to leave John Lewis/Harrods/Selfridges to compare the price with online stores, they'll just use apps such as Shopsavvy.

Cultural Insights

A couple of great infographics to share this week that give a good insight into how behaviour and culture change over time.
First up is What Britain Eats, which brings to life three decades of grocery shopping in the UK, illustrating how what we eat has changed over time. The interactive tool allows you to search by the five main food types and then see how consumption of that food group has changed.

Secondly is The Evolution of The Household: 1950 to Today, which looks at various aspects of household life in the US and explores how they have changed over the last half century. More of a photo essay than an infographic, it shows things such as:

• Average home size has more than doubled since the 50s
• Pounds of chicken consumed eaten has almost trebled since the 60s.
• The total time spent watching TV per household per day has increased by 82% since the 50s. Even in the last decade TV watching has increased by 57 minutes.
• The number of TV channels available in the average home today is more than 6 times that available in the 1980s.
  

Whilst not all the figures are comparable for each decade it’s still an interesting read. See the full infographic HERE. Original article from Woman’s Day (a must read for all planners...)

A Planner's Dream

If you want to know the answer to such life questions as which moonwalk is better (Neil Armstrong’s or Michael Jackson’s) you should check out this blog. But for everything else, the new Google Internet Stats is a good place to start. The site collates stats on a range of topics from macroeconomic trends to consumer trends.

You Really Should Watch This

The latest edition of the Did You Know? series has just been released and as usual it's full of thought-provoking statistics. Developed in partnership with the Economist, this year’s theme focuses on media convergence.
For all the sources check out their wiki.

What's Hot This Week #7

Neurosonics – awesome new video featuring the scratch perverts.
MTV Sticky – the revamp of the MTV Sticky site has finally happened and it looks pretty nice. Check it out for all things “youth culture, trends and insight”.
Animoto – bored of sharing your photos as a slideshow on Picassa? Then head over to Animoto which creates a “movie trailer for your pictures”. Simply upload your photos and choose your music and Animoto does the rest.
goPostal – my new favourite iphone app allows you to send photos on your iphone as postcards. Simply choose a photo, write your message and choose the person you want to send it to from the address book. The postcard is then printed and delivered for a mere $1.29. Hope it comes to the UK soon.
Art & Copy – new film about advertising from director Doug Pray that explores “the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time - people who've profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry.”
Physical vs. Digital – great infographic that shows our increased ability to store data whether it’s music or photos. For example did you know that every hour the equivalent of 384 albums of photos are uploaded onto Flickr?
Twitter & Young People – according to the latest data form comScore the view that young people don’t Tweet may soon be about to change. Their data shows that younger users are the sites fastest growing audience segment.
DHL – really nice bit of print work for DHL that demonstrates the speed and reliability of the service through an innovative use of print.
History of Flight – beautiful website from Nike in the style of a pop-up book.

The Cares of a Generation

With over 50,000 people already signed up Vinspired are doing some good work at changing the image of volunteering in the UK.
They’ve also got a data visualisation arm called Voicebox that curates young people’s opinions on a range of subjects. What I really like is they then present the data in creative ways that allows you to explore the results by age, gender, region and ethnicity.
Their latest project called Voicebot aims to create a direct channel between young people and MPs. 16-25 year olds are being asked to submit 160 characters on what they care about and the best submissions will then be physically written out by a robot inside Parliament in October. No doubt they’ll then collate all the submissions and do something fancy with the results.

It reminds be of Nike’s Chalkbot idea from earlier this year.

Hat Tip to threebillion

Reviewing Is The New Advertising

Reviewing is the new advertising according to the latest briefing from TrendWatching.com. The report examines the shift in consumers’ decision making processes to a powerful peer-to-peer model and provides a look at what’s new, happening, upcoming and important in the era of transparency. There’s a lot of interesting examples in the report and plenty of sites to use to garner consumer opinions on your brands.
A small selection lifted from the report:

• Shopsavvy, an Android app, allows the user to scan almost any barcode using the phone’s camera, and it will then search over 20,000 online and local retailers to find the best price. Once the best deal has been found, users can either purchase online, or use the phone’s built-in Google Maps feature to find their way to the store.
• SnapTell is owned by Amazon.com, who last month also released its own, free, Android mobile application, which allows users to take photos of an item on their phone, or scan a barcode, and then have Amazon search for the same product online, enabling immediate comparison with the physical-retail price. If the price is right, users can purchase the item securely from their mobile device.
• Local review site Yelp boasts the first iPhone app with augmented reality. Users can put their iPhone camera in front of a restaurant, with Yelp’s reviews then overlaying their real-world views.
• Fixya is a popular post-sale tech support site, where 15 million members help each other with product support questions on 1 million products. It has now added product recommendations to its website.
  

Read the full report HERE.

Buy Your Street

The new global campaign from Hasbro aims to turn the whole world into a giant game of Monopoly. They’ve teamed up with Google to produce a huge online version of the game that allows you to buy, sell, and develop property on any street in the world. The game launches on 9th September and will last for four months. Look forward to seeing how they use Google Maps and Google Earth to make it all possible.

Via PSFK

City Life

As Pete Heskett said in the fantastic Advice to the Next-Generation Planner:

“The planner of the future will need to be more Global not just in experience but in outlook and orientation…. We will travel more, we’ll consume more culture from outside of our home countries, and we’ll all become less ‘national’ and more ‘cosmopolitan’. Planners will need to make sure their ideas are more cosmopolitan and will need to focus not just on the difference of brands but how they can connect to the similarities in people across cultures.”

I use the internet an awful lot to pick up culture from outside the UK from sites such as Le Cool, PSFK, Spring Wise and Cool Hunting to name a few. I recently came across a new site called City One Minutes that gives you a peak into life in more than 100 cities around the world via one-minute videos.
Each city is divided into 24 one minute videos representing each hour of the day. You can search by city, time of day and month in which the video was shot.
Well worth having a browse through some of the videos for cultural and behavioural differences and similarites between various cities.

Ad of The Week

It’s not quite the end of the week but I don’t think this spot for Jay Z’s new album "The Blueprint 3" is going to be beaten.

What Happens In Vegas Stays On Facebook

Nice video on social media.
I particularly like the thought that “successful companies in social media are more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy”.



UPDATE
Looks like some of the stats on this video aren’t that reliable.
Lesson of the day: Don’t trust stats just because they’re from an expert.
Thanks to Robert Cole for doing what I should have done and checking the reliability of the “facts”. The sources for the stats in the video can be found HERE and Robert's interrogation of them HERE.
For redemption here are my top 5 sources for social media stats:

WHAT THE F**K IS SOCIAL MEDIA one year later – great presentation by Marta Kagan.
Universal McCann’s Social Media Tracker Wave 3 and Wave 4 – comprehensive worldwide study of social media.
When Did We Start Trusting Strangers? – another great bit of work from Universal
McCann looking at how the internet has turned is all into influencers.
Pew Internet – US based but lots of interesting research.
Digital Stats – great blog regularly updated with interesting stats about digital media.

Holiday Time!

Off on holiday to sunny Australia so there won't be any posts for a couple of weeks. Back early September!

What's Hot This Week #6

Bromance – the picture above was the best-selling shot on Getty Images last month. Following the recent MTV series of the same name, it looks like bromance is “in”.
9 to 5 Brow$er - a conceptual Firefox plugin that calculates how much company money you’re wasting while surfing the net at work. On a similar vain is the Meeting Ticker which aims to do away with pointless meetings by calculating how much money meetings cost.
What Do People Do All Day? – superb infographic from the NY Times which shows how Americans spent their time in 2008.
A Serious Man - if the trailer is anything to go by, be excited about the new Coen brothers film.
Timeline of Internet Memes – pretty much what the title says!
Citysounds.fm – a great website that streams the latest music from the most interesting cities around the world. The most active cities appear at the top of the list and the list is constantly changing as new music is being created.
PDF Newspaper - ok so this isn’t particularly “hot” but it is useful. This site lets you create PDFs from web content. Great for converting blogs to a more readable newspaper format to read on the tube home.
Nerd Boyfriend - really liking this fashion blog. It would be a smart idea for a clothing brand to jump on.... or for the Sartorialist to make even more money.
London Twirls Project - one man’s mission to map the availability of Cadbury Twirls in London.

Everything Is Interesting

I think this same rule applies to advertising as it does to designing; especially for planners.
A while ago I found this thought on the role of a good planner. Unfortunately I can’t remember where I stole it from but it really resonated with me:

“Part of the job of a good planner is to have their eyes and ears and mind open to all conversations, all possibilities and opinion because our primary role is to always be in touch and moving with not just what's going on with the world, but also how people feel about it all. We take in these movements, and then use them to fuel creative thoughts within our teams of writers and art directors and subsequently solve business problems - not always with ads.
In essence, planners are inspired by everything, and we use this inspiration to inspire creatives, who use that inspiration to inspire consumers to act.”

I think this is spot on. It’s the essence of what we do. It’s also what makes the job bloody fantastic.
On that thought here are 8 of my favourite sites for inspiration, ideas and learning about “everything”.

POP!Tech - a one-of-a-kind conference, a community of remarkable people, and an ongoing conversation about science, technology and the future of ideas. I’ve included one of my favourite talks below. It’s by Frank Warren on the story of PostSecret & the spin-off projects it inspired.

@ Yahoo! Video

TED – riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world. As an introduction watch THIS entertaining talk by Joachim de Posada.
Business Innovation Factory – this year’s Innovation Summit brings more than 25 storytellers together for two days of rapid-fire storytelling about what it really takes to innovate. No keynotes. No corporate infomercials. Just real talk about innovating in tough economic times.
Good Experience Live - a conference and community exploring good experience in all its forms: in business, art, society, technology, and life.
BIL - an ad-hoc conference for people changing the world in big ways. It's a place for passionate people to come together to energize, brainstorm, and take action.
ideaCity - 50 Presenters, 3 Legendary Parties, a Ton of Inspiration. ideaCity, also known as 'Canada's Premiere Meeting of the Minds', is an eclectic gathering of artists, adventurers, authors, cosmologists, doctors, designers, entertainers, filmmakers, inventors, magicians, musicians, scientists and technologists.
Sputnik Observatory - educational organization dedicated to the study of contemporary culture.
Fora.TV - the web's largest collection of unmediated video drawn from live events, lectures, and debates going on all the time at the world's top universities, think tanks and conferences.

And if that isn’t enough there are plenty more sources HERE!
Via Mashable.

The Music Industry is Dead: Long Live The Music Industry!

People have been predicting the death of the music industry for longer than I can remember. This article examines the changes in how we listen to music and then explores how record labels are still trying to make money from music sales.

Whilst the fact that we are buying less music now than we did ten years ago is common knowledge, the rate of the decline is quite staggering. According to research by the NPD Group, 13 to 17 year old Americans “acquired 19% less music in 2008 than they did in 2007.” Unsurprisingly CD sales fell at twice the rate of digital sales, down 26% and 13% respectively.

What is also interesting is that people are not only buying less music but also sharing their music less. Indeed the same research from NPD showed the quantity of tracks downloaded from P2P networks fell 6% in 2008 and the number of teens borrowing music to copy, fell by 28%.
The Music Think Tank illustrates the decline in file sharing by looking at the Google search trends for Free Music, Free MP3s and File Sharing, all of which show a clear trend:

So how are teens getting their music? Not surprisingly, sites like Spotify and Last.fm, coupled with technology like the iPhone, are changing the market, as the NY Times put it, “from an acquisition model to an access model”.

Is music ownership now a thing of the past? Has there been a fundamental shift in how we perceive music, from a thing that we own to a service that we can use whenever and wherever we are? Certainly the British research illustrated the beginnings of such a shift, with two-thirds of teens now listen to streaming music “regularly” and nearly a third listen to it every day.

So how are record labels making money? Revenues made by the British music industry from live music increased 13% on last year to £1.4bn. In London alone the number of licences for events of more than 5,000 people has risen from 40 in 2005 to about 200 today. But that revenue only makes up 39% of the total. Hence actual music sales are crucial to the survival of the music industry.

In the face of sites like Spotify, how can bands and their labels continue to sell music? The answer according to a recent article in Wired is to reinvent the distribution model. Below are 5 of the more interesting ways record labels are changing how they sell their music:

Capitalising on YouTube sensations



With over 15 million views on YouTube last time I checked, the Wedding Dance video is the current viral hit. Rather than sit back planning legal action over the bride and groom for using their song, Sony Music made a smart move to capitalise on the use of the Chris Brown song "Forever" in the video. According to the YouTube blog “The rights holders for "Forever" used these tools to claim and monetize the song, as well as to start running Click-to-Buy links over the video, giving viewers the opportunity to purchase the music track on Amazon and iTunes.” The result of this was that even over a year after its release, “Forever” reached number 4 in the iTunes singles charts and number 3 on Amazon’s best selling MP3 list.

Music discovery – I love this idea from the music company Ghostly International. To get people to explore more of the artists on their record label they created a free app called Ghostly Discovery. Unlike Last.fm the recommendations are based on your mood which you select using a colour wheel. You can then select the style by choosing between Digital and Organic and Fast and Slow. If you like any of the songs on the custom playlist you can then add it to your favourites or buy on iTunes.

Sell more than just a CD - Mos Def sold his latest album in the form of a T Shirt that contained a download code for getting the tracks online.

Collaborate - DJ Danger Mouse’s latest album, Dark Night of The Soul, involved a collaboration with director David Lynch as well as a host of other stars. Unfortunately the album was blocked by EMI for legal reasons. Not one to shy away from controversy he subsequently released a limited run of blank CDs, asking fans to find the music “by whatever means”… The CDs were limited to a run of 5000, and each copy came with a poster and a 100 page book with photographs by David Lynch.

Brand partnerships – certainly not a new idea but there are right and wrong ways of doing it. One of the best examples was the Nike and De La Soul tie up earlier this year. The partnership resulted in the album “Are You in?: Nike+ Original Run,” a 44-minute workout LP, which forms part of Nike’s SportMusic range.

UPDATE

More examples of how bands are trying to sell their music over on Trendplanner's blog.

New On Slideshare

This week’s addition to SaatchiPlanning’s Slideshare is a presentation looking at the future of advertising.

What’s Next In Marketing and Advertising 2009 by Paul Isakson

Ok so it’s a topic that’s been done to death (I’ve already posted David Armano’s presentation The Future of Advertising. WTF?). But what I really liked about Paul’s presentation is that he’s managed to edit it down to the key points with a single great example to back up each of his predictions. Oh and there’s a nod to the T-Mobile work which always helps.

"Bottled water causes blindness in puppies"

Love this idea from the anti-bottle water group Tappening. The group were angered by the dishonest advertising tactics used in the industry, with many bottled water companies not listing their sources yet showing water “cascading over pristine mountaintops”. So in their latest campaign they decided to encourage people to “start a lie” about the bottled water industry in order to even the playing field. But rather than cover up their lies they’re bragging about them with the message “If bottled water companies can lie, we can too”.
People are encouraged to start and spread their own lies at the Start a Lie site. So far entries have ranged from “Bottled water shot the sheriff and the deputy” to “Bottle water gave me swine flu”.

Fast Thinking

The car rental company Sixt have done it again. Earlier this year they did a great campaign using guerilla wi-fi, which is well worth watching HERE if you haven’t seen it.
Their latest campaign is a great example of brands leveraging current affairs to their advantage.
When German politician Ulla Schmitt created her own little expenses scandal, by using her government-paid car whilst on holiday, Sixt were quick to respond with the following ad which reads:

“Why take the company car on your vacation? Sixt also rents cars in Alicante for 29 EUR a day.”


A great way of giving the brand some personality and generating word of mouth.

Via Cultural Fuel.

What's Hot This Week #5

555 KubiK – Ever wondered what a building would look like if it was dreaming? This latest bit of work from UrbanScreen attempts to show us with some pretty amazing visual effects.
Jaydiohead – 5 new tracks from the fantastic Radiohead/Jay-Z mashup.
TED Oxford – from @brainpicker’s tweets it looks like there were some great talks. Check out Gordon Brown's surprise appearance on day 1 HERE.
Pizza Hut – the best branded iPhone app so far? The Pizza Hut app lets you create your perfect pizza from scratch then order it instantly.
Come Into The Closet – brilliant new website for Ikea.
Fisch Franke – using live fish in their latest bus stop ads.
Hackney Wick Festival – the galleries and studios of Hackney Wick open up their doors this weekend for what NY Arts Magazine described as ‘the most vital art event of the summer’. Don’t miss out!
Skateboarding – Nike, Adidas, Axe and Converse have all released skateboard videos in the past month or so. The Nike and Adidas ones are pretty damn good.

iQ Font

Interesting new campaign for the Toyota IQ, who decided to promote the car’s agility by using the it to create its very own font. The font is actually pretty nice and is available for download HERE. It’s certainly a different way of promoting a new car. I like the idea although it does feel very similar to the BMW Z4 Expression of Joy campaign from earlier this year.

I've Seen The Future...

Two rappers have recently used content from ads in their music videos and promotional activity. First up was 50 Cent who used part of the Philips Carousel web film in his video. Then Snoop Dogg spoofed Heineken’s walk-in fridge.

Is this the future of advertising? Musicians get free content, whilst brands get product placement.

New On Slideshare

Check out SaatchiPlanning’s Slideshare this week for one of the best presentations that I’ve seen on social media.

WHAT THE F**K IS SOCIAL MEDIA one year later by Marta Kagan.

Full of great stats such as social media by numbers:

13 hours - the amount of video uploaded to YouTube every minute.
412.3 years - the length of time it would take to view every YouTube video.
100,000,000 - the number of YouTube videos viewed per day.
13,000,000 - the number of articles available on Wikipedia.
3,600,000,000 - the number of photos archived on Flickr as of June 2009. That’s roughly 1 photo per every 2 people on the planet.
1,000,000,000 - the amount of content (web links, photos, notes etc) shared on Facebook each week.

And great quotes:

“The word blog is irrelevant. What’s important is that it is now common, and will soon be expected, that every intelligent person (and quite a few unintelligent ones) will have a media platform where they share what they care about with the world.”
- Seth Godin

For a more comprehensive study on social media here are two great presentations from Universal McCann:

Power To The People Social Media Tracker
When did we start trusting strangers?

And a nice chart showing how people share content on the web HERE.

If the UK were a village of 100 people...

...and all current demographic and social proportions remained the same, what would the village look like? A great article in the Independent this week that converts useful stats about the UK into a usable form, by comparing the UK to a village of 100 people.
Some of the things I found interesting:

• Only 64% of the households would have access to the internet.
• Thirty people would have a Facebook account.
• The 80 adults in the village would share a personal debt of £2.4m (£30,480 each, on average).
• The richest 10 people in the village would earn more than the poorest 50 combined.
• 31% of households would be single person households.
• The villagers would have 118 mobile phones between them.
  

A pdf of the info is available HERE.

Convincingly Natural

There’s something really striking about this promotional piece for Red Bull Cola. It consists of a wooden box displaying real samples of the 17 natural ingredients that go into the drink.
So many brands try to communicate their ‘naturalness’ and the authenticity of their ingredients but fail to do so in a convincing way. I think this works because of its simplicity and the power that physical objects have in an increasingly digital world.
I hope this wasn’t just something they sent to the press as I think it could have a real impact in store.

Everything is Conected to Everything Else: The Sputnik Observatory

Jonathan Harris is back!

The internet artist "combines elements of computer science, anthropology, visual art and storytelling, to design systems to explore and explain the human world.”
His past projects include We Feel Fine, a database of several million human feelings aggregated from blogs, and the superb Whale Hunt, a storytelling experiment.
Harris’ latest work, called the Sputnik Observatory, is dedicated to documenting contemporary culture. The Observatory consists of interviews with hundreds of leading thinkers from all sorts of disciplines and chronicles some of the most provocative human ideas to have emerged in the last few decades.
The thing that I love about the site is the sense of exploring it gives you through forming your own connections between seemingly disconnected ideas.
As Harris puts it:

“Everything is connected to everything else, and that topics and ideas that may seem fringe and even heretical to the mainstream world are in fact being investigated by leading thinkers working in fields as diverse as quantum physics, mathematics, neuroscience, music… Sputnik is dedicated to bringing these crucial ideas from the fringes of thought out into the limelight, so that the world can begin to understand them.”

(The picture accompanying this post is Bill Cheswick's map of the internet, in which he traces the edges of the individual networks and then colour codes them. As Clay Shirky eloquently described it, "this thing that looks like a peacock hit a windscreen".)

What's Hot This Week #4

MTV refreshed – based on the idea of "pop x 1000%", MTV’s new idents are pretty awesome.
The Eternal Moonwalk – a strangely mesmerising tribute to the King of Pop. If you love MJ then show it!
Labuat – stunning interactive music video.
Hibi No Neiro (Tone of Everyday) – the Japanese group Sour let their fans create their latest music video by collaborating around the world using their webcams.
The mother of all lists – Greg Rutter has compiled a great list of “99 things you should have already experienced on the internet unless you’re a loser or old or something”.
Dark Night of The Soul – DJ Danger Mouse’s latest work in which he collaborated with director David Lynch as well as a host of guest stars, was blocked by EMI for legal reasons. Not one to shy away from controversy he subsequently released a limited run of blank CDs, asking fans to find the music “by whatever means”…

Ad of The Week

The obvious choice this week is the fantastic VB ad from Droga 5 but there’s already a great post over on Jason’s blog who says, “what really does it for me is the lack of artifice and bullshit advertising pretence”.
So I decided to pick the campaign for MasOportuniades.com by BBDO Argentina. MasOportunidades is a rival to Ebay with only a 10% market share vs. Ebay’s 90%. Their problem was that their communications benefited Ebay more than themselves. By adding an emotional element they essentially generated a new playing field. Consequently monthly visits went up from 500,000 to 2 million.

MasOportunidades.com from Digital on Vimeo.

Talking About a Revolution

(Image courtesy of Helge Tenno)

Fascinating talk by Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody. He examines how the top-down control of news is changing not only the nature of politics but also how brands interact with their consumers.
To whet your appetite, Shirky states that "The moment we're living through is the largest increase in expressive capability in human history."
Well worth investing 17 minutes to watch this!

Peacocking

In the world of dating peacocking means dressing for attention, just like peacock’s use their feathers to get a mate. It’s a simple strategy that helps you get noticed in a crowded room. Fortunately this is not a post giving you dating advice.
In the last few weeks there have been a few notable examples of peacocking in the world of outdoor advertising. With the whole world going digital crazy it’s nice to see some effective outdoor work.

Amnesty International – clever bus stop ad that changes depending whether or not someone is looking at it. Very effective way of getting across an anti-domestic abuse message.

Coca-Cola – to demonstrate the new Grip Bottle they made people experience the grip using Velcro posters, resulting in a 3.7% brand volume growth in France.

McDonald's – recently took advantage of one of London’s most photographed locations. Their interactive sign encouraged people to have their photo taken in front of the ad. I would love to know the multiplier effect of people uploading their photos to Facebook and thereby significantly increasing the number of people who saw the ad.

New On Slideshare

A lot of people have been asking me about why I use Twitter and I’m generally met with the words “But I don’t care what you’re doing!”. So I was pleased to find a fantastic presentation from Minxuan Lee called How Twitter Changed My Life. For everyone who doesn’t get Twitter this is well worth a look! I particularly like her slide on the 5 stages of Twitter Acceptance and her point that Twitter is not about “What are you doing?” but rather “What has your attention?”

In keeping with the Twitter theme here are 10 useful stats taken from the Ogilvy PR blog.

1. 21% of Twitter accounts are empty placeholders.
2. Nearly 94% of all Twitter accounts have less than 100 followers.
3. March and April of 2009 were the tipping point for Twitter.
4. 150 followers is the magic number
5. A small minority creates most of the activity. 5% of users account for 75% of all activity, and 10% of users account for 86%.
6. Half of all Twitter users are not "active." Where active is defined as posting a tweet in the last 7 days.
7. Tuesday is the most active Twitter day.
   
8. APIs have been the key to Twitter's growth. 55% of all Twitter users use something other than Twitter.com to tweet, search and connect with others.
9. English still dominates Twitter.The top four countries on Twitter are all English speaking (US, UK, Canada, Australia). Of these, US makes up 62% of all Twitter users, followed by UK with nearly 8% and Canada and Australia with 5.7% and 2.8% respectively. The largest non-English speaking country on Twitter is Brazil with 2%.
10. Twitter is being led by the social media geeks.15% of Twitter users who follow more than 2000 people identify themselves as social media marketers.

I'd Rather Be Watching Porn

Mike Aruz has come up with a great measure for the strength of ideas. He states that since “your competition is everything on the internet”, ideas need to pass the “I’d rather be watching porn test”. So next time you’re trying to create an online experience, Mike suggests we ask ourselves:

Does this idea pass the "I'd rather be watching porn" test? Or if you prefer the safe for work option, Does this idea pass the "I'd rather be looking at pictures of kittens" test?

There’s also some useful stuff in his post about integrating online experiences into the domains where the audience already hangs out, rather than trying to compete with them.

What's Hot This Week #3

• Three Wolf Moon T Shirt – after several ironic reviews on Amazon sales of this "iconic" T shirt shot up 2,300% to become one of the most popular items sold by Amazon in the last few weeks. The original review that started the whole thing stated that it "Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women" but "cannot see wolves with arms crossed".
• The Tarantino Mixtape – an epic mashup of Tarantino movies. Sit back and enjoy!
• We Love You So – really like this blog put together by the people behind the hotly anticipated Where The Wild Things Are movie. It’s a place where they share their inspiration and influences behind the film including little gems like THIS. Simple yet brilliant.
• NY From Above – amazing virtual tour of NYC. Who needs a tourist website?
• Spezify – nice site for inspiration and ideas. Simply type in a word and it produces a page of images, quotes and information on that subject.
• To Mr. Cheng – fascinated by the way the postal system works, artist Eric Ericson decided to put it to the test. So he sent all sorts of objects, unpackaged to a post office in Berlin, addressed to a Mr. Cheng. Items range from a prosthetic hand to a violin and everything in-between.
• Play him off, Keyboard Cat – the latest internet sensation. Keyboard Cat makes light of awkward moments. Watch my favourite HERE.

Ad of The Week

This week’s winner is Apple for their recent banner ads. Normally I find this medium results in quite dull work but Apple have gone against the usual conventions and produced ads that interact not only with each other but also with the copy on the page.

Half Man, Half Keyboard

Using the internet to interact with the real world seems like a strange logic to me – what is the appeal of going online to do an activity when it’s far more fun to actually do it for real?
In the last few weeks BBC and Doritos have both launched campaigns that allow you to do just that. The BBC’s Blast Studio enables you to affect a real art studio, whilst Dorito’s Dodgeball Challenge lets you fire “real dodgeballs at real people”. Wow, thank God for the internet for allowing us to play dodgeball. How on earth did we ever play before?
Of course there are exceptions to this genre of website. The best example being sendamessage.nl that allows you to spray a message on the Gaza wall to remind the Palestinians that they have not been forgotten by the outside world.

American Dreams

David Lynch’s latest project, aptly named the Interview Project, involves a film crew going on a 20,000 mile road trip across America. Throughout the 70 day adventure they stop and interview ordinary people questions about their lives. The first in the 121 part series went online today and a new video will be posted every three days for the next year.
It feels like the Americans are still trying to define who they are in the new Obama era. In the last few months there has been a spate of projects like this one, such as The 50 States Project and the Rebranding America feature in Papermag earlier this year.

The Future of Marketing

Gareth Kay, head of planning at Modernista!, has written a great article on what he thinks will be the future of marketing, in which he makes four key points:

1. Brands will be built on cultural and social missions, not commercial propositions.
2. Marketing will be about what you do, not what you say.
3. Lots of little ideas, not one big idea.
4. People first.
   

There are definite parallels to a fantastic talk by Seth Godin on Tribes.

Laid Off

Stumbled across this inspiring project called Cards of Change. It's a collection of business cards, from people who have recently been laid off. The cards all have a personal message written on them, showing the positive side of not having a job. As well as giving hope to people in similar situations, the aim of the project is to connect people with new opportunities from potential employers and business partners.

Coming To An Ad Near You Soon

Ok so I'm going to be completley honest - I "borrowed" this idea from CMW's blog.
The idea is that if I see something I think might be used for an ad I'll post it under this title - just remember where you saw it first!
Think of this and the Aero advert that resulted.
So the first "Coming to an ad near you soon" is this short film by Chris Milk.

Who Are You Having For Lunch?

Mastercard, in partnership with the Eden Project, are attempting to bring back community spirit into the UK with their latest campaign "the big lunch". From their website:

"Basically, it's a party in your street, in everyone's street. On 19th July we're asking the people of Britain to stop what they're doing and sit down to lunch together. Why? Well for lots of reasons really but mainly to put a smile back on Britain."



For anyone who needs convincing about the importance of community they give some pretty compelling stats:

• According to research conducted by the BBC last year, 97% of UK communities have become more fragmented in the last 30 years.
• "Even the weakest communities in 1971 were stronger than any community now." -Professor Daniel Dorling
  
• In April of last year, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation conducted a survey of 3,500 people. Their biggest single concern, across the social spectrum, was that communities are weak and people are increasingly isolated from their neighbours.
• Numerous studies around the world show that there is almost a mathematical correlation between people's sense of security and happiness and the number of neighbours they actively know.

What's Hot This Week #2

• Webtrends Map – maps out the 333 leading Web domains and the 111 most influential Internet people onto the Tokyo Metro map.
• We Are Hunted - a new music site which aggregates a daily chart of the 99 most popular songs online by looking at sites such as iLike, BitTorrent, Last.fm, MySpace Music etc. Great for finding emerging artists.
• Adidas Marathon App – one of those “I wish I’d thought of that” ideas. For Sunday’s marathon Adidas developed an app that you could tap in someone’s race number and it would tell you where they were on the course, along with information on the best places to stand and the nearest tube and train stations to get there.
• Vimeo and Honda – doing more than just uploading their ad to the internet, Honda partnered with Vimeo to make ‘Let it Shine’ even more spectacular. Great simple way to drive online views. A bit like THIS earlier piece from Nintendo.
• Table Tennis – with Bud Light’s launch of the Hard Bat Classic, a ‘revolutionary one-of-a-kind table tennis tournament and lifestyle event’ I think table tennis could be making a comeback this year.
• Cooliris – a great Firefox add-on that saves an awful lot of time when browsing images and videos online – thanks Jason for pointing this one out.

What Do Piracy and Brand Value Have In Common?

It seems two things happen in a recession. Pirates come out of retirement and brand value increases. At least according to Millward Brown's annual ‘Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands’, released earlier this week. Interestingly “In a year of global economic turmoil, when every key financial indicator plummeted, the value of the top 100 brands increased by 2 percent to $2 trillion.”

Ad of The Week

With the risk of sounding like Jesse, this week my favourite advert goes to Droga 5 for their ad for VB.


There has been some controversy around the ad in Australia for linking patriotic respect with binge drinking. I don't agree with this at all. On the contrary, it is great to see a brand standing for something meaningful that people care about. A really strong emotional ad in my opinion.
As part of the campaign VB donated one dollar from every case of beer sold during April and gave 1500 kegs of beer to clubs for use on Anzac Day. The campaign has so far raised $1.1 million.

Scaredy-Cats

The latest research from Mintel suggests that fear of the recession is causing people to change their spending habits, rather than an actual change in circumstances.
Mintel reported that:

“While less than half of adults (43%) claim to have been personally affected by the recession, as many as three quarters (71%) of consumers have cut down on their spending as a result of the current economic situation.”

So how exactly are people reigning in their spending?
Research released by Booz & Co. this week found the following:

63% of British shoppers have decreased their outlay.
57% now eat out less
55% buy fewer new clothes
47% are purchasing less personal care and beauty products
45% of shoppers intend to visit hard discount chains like Aldi and Lidl more frequently
61% of participants said they would "trade down" on household products

The full report can be found HERE.

The Art of Storytelling

I think this ad for wind energy is a great example of how storytelling can be a powerful means to bring a boring category to life.

New on Slideshare

Week 2 brings 2 more additions to SaatchiPlanning’s Slideshare:

The Future of Advertising. WTF? by David Armano
Pretty much what it says on the tin, this is David’s take on the future. Lots of nice examples backing up his main points.

100 Words about Digital Branding by Mike Aruz
Short and sweet is probably the best description of this presentation. A lot of the content sounds obvious but it’s amazing how many brands get it wrong. Particularly agree with his point that “Your competition on the internet is everything else on the internet.

Does That Say 'Recession' or 'Recess Is On'?

Morgans Hotel Group (who own the Sanderson amongst others), have taken a head on approach to the recession.
From their website:


As part of their RecessIsOn campaign, they have released a series of 8 music videos shot in their hotels, to show that they are positively embracing the recession as a time for creativity to flourish.

When everyone else is talking about value, it’s a bold position to take. I think it’s a great strategy to have, that gets to the core of their business as a place to escape the outside world and as a facilatator to take time to enjoy yourself.

(For those interested, I took the above photo on Great Eastern St.)

Guerilla Wi-Fi

You may not have heard of guerilla wi-fi but THIS is brilliant.

Genius idea that's spot on for the brand.
I don't agree that "People use their laptops everywhere" is their insight.
It works so well because:

1. When you're in a cafe, finding a wireless network that someone has forgotten to put a password on is one of life's small victories, a bit like finding a tenner in the pocket of an old pair of jeans.
2. People become even more nosey if what they find adds an element of danger and a sense of "I really shouldn't be looking at this but..."

The car rental company SIXT used a similar idea for THIS campaign.

Via Adverblog.

What's Hot This Week #1

• ‘Our Song’ – one of the best facebook apps I've seen.
• Philip Carousel Ad – no idea how they did this but it’s pretty spectacular. Watch the HD version for maximum effect!
  
• Wired - new issue features the amazing JJ Abrams as guest editor. The writer, producer and director of the likes of Lost, Alias and the latest Star Trek, argues the importance of mystery in storytelling.
  
• Tweenbots – restoring faith in mankind.
• Jaguar Skills - 30 years of hip-hop, 538 tracks, 1 mix.

Think You're Targeting an Independent 20-something? Think again.

More people are living alone, more children are being raised by single parents and more grown-up children are living with their parents than ever before, according to the latest Social Trends report from the Office for National Statistics. The theme of this year’s report is the changing aspects of households, families and children.

What surprised me:

• Almost a third of men and a fifth of women aged between 20 and 34 live at home with their parents.
• The number of people living alone doubled from 6% of the population in 1971 to 12% in 2008.
• Single-parent households nearly tripled from 4 per cent of the total to 11 per cent between 1971 and 2008.
• In 2007 the lowest number of marriages were recorded since 1895.
• Women are more likely to give birth before they turn 25 than get married.

Free Drinks For Happy People

Following on from the launch of their 'Kindness as Currency' ad, Absolut are practicing what they preech all this week.

From their website:
"For one week, kind gestures such as giving smiles, high fives and simply saying good morning are going to become currency and earn their givers coffees, drinks and cinema snacks, as we bring to life our vision of An ABSOLUT World where currency is replaced by kindness."



I think it's a great initiative and gives some much needed direction to their idea of an 'Absolut World'. It's certainly a change in direction from their Kanye West spot.
However, I think the execution lets the idea down. Had I not seen the events in London the idea of 'Kindness as Currency' would probably have passed me by. Would it not have been better to carry out the acts of random kindness first and use real footage for the ads?

Via PSFK.