Did you know 4.0

So i have been massively lame at updating this recently.. maybe this post will see me getting back into it.

Just seen the latest 'Did you know' video and i am sure that the facts that these guys come up with get scarier and and scarier.

Anyway, is definitely worth investing 4 1/2 minutes of your life on.

BMW Magnetic Tow Technology - April fools or just a little fooish

As is becoming customary today saw a host of April fools gags in the press.. apparently The Guardian is ditching print and going to be exclusively available on Twitter and there are several fake stories in the Metro that people in the office are talking about this morning.

BMW decided that rather than missing out on the fun they would run the below ad and get into the spirit of things.



As it goes it works pretty well... it looks and feels very BMW and someone here mentioned seeing something similar talked about on Tomorrows World (and as far as i can remember that hasn't been on TV for at least 10+ years).

And i am sure that BMW's Head of Innovation, Herr Noitt All must be very proud and the inbox (mailto:uve.vollenvorit@bmw.co.uk) on ad is clearly going to be filled with gullible potential buyers wanting more info (i would love to see what responses they do get?)

But without sounding like a complete humbug the question that i found myself asking is whether or not, given the current financial gloom and general state of the car industry, it was a stoke of genius or a bit foolhardy.

I saw the ad in The Guardian this morning and only after i read an article on the cover of how Porsche's car sales are down by 27% (and they only made a decent amount of cash last year by acting like a hedge fund), then flicking on a few pages to the financial section you get to an article on how beleaguered General Motors is having to go through yet another round of restructuring to try and survive by offloading (or winding-up) the Hummer brand.

I'm no financial expert but I am guessing that if every other car manufacturer is hurting then BMW must be feeling the pinch too... begging the question whether running the ad was the right thing to do?

To be honest it probably is... it has talkability (hence me writing this post) and light hearted relief is something that I am sure we could all do with, it certainly beats riots and anti-capitalist protests.

Probably the Best House Party In the World

The concept for this ad could have been for Carlsberg's 'Probably the Best' campaign with the exception of Carlsberg probably not being able to secure this amount of talent and the fact that they might like to be they could never be this effortlessly cool.





Celebratory based advertising tends (in my experience anyway) to be advertising of the worst kind. The majority of which tends to be lazy and lacking in any kind of real creative thought/edge and relying on the celebratory(ies) alone to sell the product through association (I can't help but think of the recent Gillette ad's as I am typing this).

I guess that Adidas have a bit of a headstart on most and it must help when;

A) you have a really very cool brand to start with

B) you have a whole host of talent that are ready and waiting to endorse it

Those two things aside this is probably the slickest TV ad that i can remember for some time. It blends a perfect balance of celebrity (some of which I don't have a clue who they are suffice to say that they are clearly that cool), product and lifestyle in a package that even the coolest of music video's don't come close to.

I doubt that any other sportswear/lifestyle brand could pull this off, the likes of Nike are strong in sports stars/sponsorship but the presence of Run DMC, Ting Tings, Katy Perry plus the likes of Beckham et al really does demonstrate the depth of the Adidas brand.

Apart from the odd pair of Stan Smith's i have always been more Nike than Adidas and in recent years have been more drawn to Converse and Onitsuka Tigers but this is making me question whether i need to reappraise my trainer selection....

From a Galaxy Far, Far, Away.....

Coolest thing ever...  i want one

Twitter overload

Back on the 15th Jan i wrote my first post on "I Found This" looking at Twitter and how this could be the year for it to break into the mainstream.

At the time I didn't have any idea how quickly this would/could happen.... 

I am not sure what 'The Tipping Point" actually was although having Stephen Fry as (unofficial) Twitter envoy for the UK and specifically his interview on Jonathan Ross would appear to have had quite some impact.  

It would now seem that every DJ on Radio 1 (and i don't doubt most other Yoof stations) is talking about it and i didn't think that i would see the day that 'Micro-Blogging' would enter the UK mainstream media - could it be a contender for a place in the next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary?.

As I mentioned in my earlier post the one thing that seems to be missing from the (commercial) success of Twitter has been some form of business model, something that i am sure has been giving Biz (Stone, Twitter's founder) some sleepless nights.

So, it appears that he has cracked it (or not!), an article i read this morning on Brand Republic quotes Biz as saying that he will introduce charges for corporations on Twitter "'We are noticing more companies using Twitter and individuals following them. We can identify ways to make this experience even more valuable and charge for commercial accounts", although Brand Republic state that "he wouldn't be drawn on the level of charges."

A couple of interest bods are also quoted with Bob Pearson of Dell saying that "(their) instinct would be to go elsewhere" and Robin Grant from social media consultancy We Are Social suggesting that maybe that monetization could be introduced through display advertising and/or allowing companies to pay to access individual information.

Clearly for any business to be viable it needs to make cash and have a revenue stream that isn't just reliant on VC funding but this, to me, seems to be an odd way to go.

Interestingly Biz has mentioned "companies" and not "Brands", the thing with brands is where would you draw the line?, is a band a brand?, is a celebrity a brand? - i think that you argue this both way for each of these examples - so who would decide who pays or doesn't?.

From an acquisition/customer services perspective i can see why companies may consider stumping up some cash to stay involved in the conversation.  However if this (shortsighted?) plan spells the death of brands on Twitter could it kill Twitter entirely?... where else will the cash come from?  

If you look at Facebook they have moved away from ads being able to be inserted into their News Feed, we know that display advertising is becoming increasingly less effective and personally I don't know how individuals would respond to their conversation about the latest Nike trainers being met with a 'tweet' from JD Sports offering to sell them said trainers with 10% if they buy them now....

I guess time will tell.

T-Mobile's "Flash-Mob" Flashmobbed

There seems to have been a lot of debate since the new T-Mobile 'Life is for Sharing' ad aired during the Big Brother final a couple of weeks ago.

Like it or loath the ad it certainly seems to have got people talking (3,256,680 views on YouTube alone proving for once its not just the Ad/Marketing industries) and in some ways that itself could be considered to have made it a success . 

The fact that it wasn't a Flash Mob at all and was a carefully choreographed dance routine performed by professional dancers has appeared to have been overlooked by the average punter on the street.  So much so that last Friday evening at 7pm 13,000 people descended on Liverpool St to recreate the ad.

Whether or not T-Mobile would want to be associated with the station being closed for a couple of hours and people crowd surfing whilst naked is debatable but the fact that so many people were compelled to take-part and people travelled from as far away as Leeds to take part can not be underestimated.

60 Years of Onitsuka - Zodiac Race

Beautifully animated short-film from Amsterdam Worldwide to celebrate 60 years of Onitsuka Tiger.

I have to confess that i didn't know the story prior to seeing the film but it would appear that it is an ancient Japanese story on how the Zodiac calendar came to be..  thankfully the website has the  legend of the zodiac race, making of etc.  

The only thing is they don't appear to have finished it...  the 'explore the island' and share element are coming soon (hence why i have had to post the film itself from YouTube)..  

I wish I had thought of that.... or not?

How many times have you seen something and thought what a simple idea it is and how you wish it was something that you'd thought of? I am pretty sure most of us have on some occasion.

On the handful of times that this has happened to me the thing that i have marveled over has been really simple and the sort of thing that was so obvious it is kind of a doh! moment, something that was simply blindingly obvious that anyone could have dreamt up.

I saw this today on the Contagious site and had one of those moments... kind of - Is it a bird?, is it a plane?, or is it a backpack that converts into a bike/scooter and that lets gravity take care of the rest......(and i dont mean one of the fold-up, Brompton, commuter variety).

Bergmönch from Thomas Kaiser on Vimeo.

Whatever it is it looks like a great way to break a couple of bones. and the video, what is going on there?

Inauguration ad from Phillips

Thanks to Liza for discovering this little gem.

Simply genius.

The Irony - From First Class to Bottom of the Class

CSR from Nike, yep... Nike

CSR in my opinion can be pretty dull, a sweeping generalisation I know,  however i can't remember the last time i saw something that was a pure CSR initiative that was really engaging (if anyone else can think of one let me know - might just be me i guess).  

Enter Nike's 'Game Changers' initiative in the good ol' US of A.

CSR and Nike don't usually flow in the same sentence, occasionally they might when talking about some of Nike's (supposed) shady manufacturing partners in Asia.

Game Changers attempts to address issues that effect us all by making them a bit of fun, using the clout of the Nike marketing machine and the creativity they have on tap at their roster of agencies (McKinney in this instance) to tackle real world issues through something that is slick, engaging and charming.

The blurb on the site goes:

"It’s not about one person. Or one company. Or one donation.   It’s about all of us. Working together. As a team. Because when we play together, the competition – global warming, HIV, poverty, inequality, despair – doesn’t stand a chance.   We’ve got the skills, the players, and the determination to go full out until we’ve beaten each and every thing standing between us and a world where any person, anywhere, can go outside and compete.  The world is our playing field. So, let’s go out there, beat anything and change everything."

Personally i couldn't agree more, is just a bit of a surprise that it came from Nike!, check the site out and have a look at one of the video's Yogurt vs. Gasoline below.

Hello

Welcome to my blog.

This is something that i have been meaning to set-up for a while but haven't quite got around to for a bit too long.

Hope you enjoy and any feedback would be appreciated (unless it is on grammar which is atrocious and you are probably wasting your breath)

The year of Twitter?

So, it appears that Twitter is hitting a bit of a tipping point and starting to become mainstream.

I have been on Twitter for a while and apart from adding the odd (in number) update and it allowing me to follow some incredibly interesting people (check out Stephen Fry: twitter.com/stephenfry) i didn't think that it had much in the way of practical application.

However it would appear that i may, don't fall off your seats, it does happen sometimes, be wrong.

I just read a really interesting blog post (found via Twitter and posted by Poke NY's creative director Tom Ajello) on the way people are using Twitter... from a consumer perspective these are pretty interesting, however it would be interesting to see whether Twitter have any research on usage and/or plans to build a business model around any its practical applications, paid for listings for service related brands so people can find them easier maybe and some sort of Twitter directory enquiries?

It then seemed that another group were have the same sort of conversation on the WeAreSocial blog

Would be interesting to know if anyone who reads this has found any other application for it?

Guerilla adbusting

Most print/outdoor ad's have been somewhere near photoshop at some point... and some guerilla ad busters in Berlin have decided to 'out' them....

Courtesy of Matt Mason, Full set of photo's and original post about it is here