Next Generation Talent: 09 Edition first impressions

I wrote about Next Generation Talent at the end of last year, a competition organised by Panasonic where students are given a brief to create an advert for one of their products. It was set during an event as a social media panel then, and I'm participating again this year though there's no event.

The task this year was to create an advert for the G10 Viera TV and with the 'Everything Matters' strapline. Four people have been preselected as finalists with TV ads that are available to view on a dedicated Youtube channel.

I have been asked to judge those four preselected finalists and send some feedback, it would be great to have your opinions about them as well.

I'm going to embed the videos here and write my first impressions about them. For anyone reading this who doesn't know me, I'm fairly direct and straightforward so I'll be writing in a similar fashion. Doesn't mean I'll be mean but it's just so you know it's not personal if ever you're offended by anything (Which could perhaps apply to the contestants). If ever you are, apologies in advance and please tell me in the comments.

To start with, congratulations to all the students participating and well done on the finalists for getting there. I'm guessing this is all extra-curricular stuff (Or maybe not..?), so kudos for getting involved.

One general impression telling me I need to check the complete brief the students had on is that I was told in the document sent to me that the advert is for the TV, but most of the finalists created an advert for a range of Panasonic products so I feel like I'm missing something.

One more thing I'm adding. My comments could be seen as harsh but they're really just my fairly raw first impressions. Also, I realise it's pretty tough to realise a full blown video / TV ad with what likely was limited time and resources - another congrats for that.

Entry from Paul Bryant, Loughborough University



I just watched it twice and read the snippet alongside the video. I don't get the flashing / stroboscoping blackness. It hurt my eyes. I think it might be some kind of first person blinking eye, or is it a cinema reel..? The author explains this is meant to be like an opticians examination with a phoropter. I understand the thought behind the explanation once I read it rather than when I saw the ad. From my perspective, I was lost after two seconds and ultimately this isn't an artwork and the business purpose of the ad seems lost too. I feel the flashing takes away from the stop motion animation behind which I think is unfortunate because it looks really nice otherwise.

I get the idea there's an evolution, today's equipment is better than yesterday's but what does that tell me about the product itself? Or about Panasonic? It feels like any TV could be in this spot and it would be the same thing.

Entry from Romaine Reid, Ravensbourne College



Nice. Really nice animation. There's a flow and a story told visually linking all the range of HD Panasonic products (But that's also where if it is supposed to advertise the TV in particular, then I don't get it).
On the other hand, it feels sort of done before and time again. It's concentrating on the products themselves, images and colours. Every competitor in the market has been saying that at some or another.

To most people, if they look the same, are about the same size and have a similar looking image quality, one TV is the same as another TV. Sure all the ads will tell us they have nice colours and images. What's different about this one?

Entry from David Childs-Clarke, Ravensbourne College



There's definitely a very particular and artistic visual style here that I personally like, so I'd say as an interpretation that's what differentiates this ad and by association, this product. That said and again, I'm not sure that's what is intended to be conveyed here and I don't even get it's an ad for a TV at all. Or any specific product, just generally about Panasonic perhaps.

Entry from Steffan Harrison, Ravensbourne College



Now wondering even more if students were asked specifically to focus on the products. The idea of focusing on the four colours of the Freesat logo is interesting but the task seems like it was about HD and Panasonic rather than Freesat. Wasn't it..? Actually what I like most is the intent written of showing the TV as a bigger whole than the elements associated with it (the other satellite products, camera, etc)

I'll write another post with a more thought through opinion in a couple of days.

I f*cking hate Pizza Express

I f*cking hate Pizza Express. You may have already figured that out from the title. Most of my friends or people I tell don't get it and I think they're insane. It's insipid, their food is bland, really expensive, the portions are tiny, and they're overtaking everything at a Starbucks speed (Which I don't like that much but as much as I hate Pizza Express).

It's not that surprising given their size they can keep throwing 241 vouchers at all the affiliate sites possible and imaginable so people keep coming. Incentives and e-marketing 101. But then again, nothing wrong with that I guess.

Apart from the fact that I've been in a bit of an angry mood lately, I've just learned Pizza Express launched a ridiculous new product lately and it's as good an opportunity as any to share my distaste for the brand. I'm sure the 241 afficionados will be soon be all over it like a rash: The leggera pizza (it means light in Italian, call it a diet pizza). A pizza with a hole in the middle and salad in the hole. So like half a pizza.

Eat a salad if you're worrying about your diet. The worst thing is this kind of minute segmentation will probably work; specially created for the diet conscious who want to look good in front of their friends, feel good about themselves and can't make up their minds on whether to have a pizza or a salad. Now they can have both. I'm so relieved.

Curious, I checked the menu found out a classic Margherita costs £5.90. A light Margherita costs £7.95. I guess the fresh tomatoes in the latter are perhaps more expensive..? Still outrageous. Otherwise, the rest of their pizzas cost a fortune, ridiculousy overpriced.

Their ice cream isn't very good either. I don't understand how so many people love it. Apparently they have over 13,000 fans on their Facebook page. But I'm not one for random hate and I'm glad a good reason for you to boycott Pizza Express if you're up for it. Check out this Facebook group about Pizza Express employees.

Now there are problems with managing tips for the whole restaurant industry but still: Pizza Express takes 8% from whatever the service charge is for admin fees. Service charge in the UK is not obligatory, customers don't have to pay it, but usually do with the understanding that this money is tips for the staff. That's rarely the case and here a good example of Pizza Express taking money from their low paid employees.

Pizza Express employees protested against this in 2007 and a restaurant manager who supported the employees claims got sacked.

I'm also glad I found a few other people who don't like it, such as Pete Cashmore from 'Une Annee sans Pizza', the blog of a pizza lover who didn't eat any for a whole year.

And it's not just Pizza Express, it's every single standardised eatery and baverage chains. All the same lame decorations, overpriced offering, same bland flavours, paint by numbers school of cooking, etc. It's all killing the small restaurants and originality.

To finish on a positive note, because I'm not all hatred, I absolutely love good pizza. For some really good pizza and Italian food check out these places in London:

• Bar Italia in Soho, a London institution open since 1949. If you haven't tried their pizzas yet, have one. They're not the best in the world but very good and beat a Pizza Express any time.
• Ripe Tomato, close to Portobello Road.
• Centonove, on Westbourne Park Road.

What are your favourite pizza places? I'd love to know.

Rant done. One day I may talk about Fire & Stone, possibly the only pizza place I hate more than Pizza Express ;) Have a great weekend.

PS: You probably noticed, but no link love for Pizza Express.

May 2015 update: For some reason this post seems to be garnering some comments in recent months so I'll reiterate a comment I wrote below. Feedback from a few employees are saying the service charge is split up fairly, if it's the case I'm glad for the employees. Otherwise it's a pretty old post, I don't hold passionate opinions about Pizza Express one way or another aside from appreciating the success from a business perspective perhaps. I don't eat there, nor do I particularly think about it unless someone comments here.

Avatar Day

I was invited last minute to go see the 15 minutes of clips from Avatar at the IMAX in London for Avatar Day. It's the new James Cameron movie that will be released in December this year and has been talked about for months already - if not a year or two.

For a movie building up so much expectations I think it's a pretty good idea to offer to see 15 minutes of clips months before the release date to get fans buy-in and build even more anticipation. Of course it's also gambling on the fact that most people will like those 15 minutes, but so far it seems to be paying off according to Avatar mentions on Twitter, although District 9 and Inglorious Basterds are both in the top 10 trends right now and Avatar isn't.

Apparently Cameron spent over $300M on this production, so I'm glad to say at the very least it looks good. Even stunning, in fact. A giant full fledged 3D animated fest of special effects for sure, but a visually beautiful universe. So it has that going, and it's pretty certain I'll go see it - I would advise an IMAX cinema for something at this scale.

Now the scenario may have some kind of twist but it seems unlikely and the storyline looks extremely basic. I had only read one article about Avatar and I think having created a whole brand new science-fiction universe, they are hoping to rival with something like Star Wars for a new generation of movie goers. So far as I said it looks beautiful and maybe even memorable - but only for so long.

Interestingly, Titanic was another giant super-production from Cameron and people haven't forgotten it but I don't think it has a cult status or following either (Does it?). Avatar might end up in the same category, but we'll see.

The other thing I'm not convinced about is the 3D glasses. I don't get the renewed 3D trend at the moment. I think it's still sort of blurry (Or not blurry, at least has a strange quality), the glasses are annoying and I don't find the little bit of depth perception adds much to the movie experience...

But I'll say one last time that it looks amazingly beautiful and that should definitely be worth it.

Trailer here.

Rubbish

Remember SMEBS..? The Social Media Burnout Syndrome? Sure you must remember, back in February Marcus Brown came over to London and did a brilliant Garden of Tweetdom evening, including a piece about people suffering from terrible social media addictions.

SMEBS Watch - Meet Andrew from Marcus Brown on Vimeo.

More information on SMEBS watch.

So the new news is that Sony VAIO launched a campaign, apparently created by Nascom in Belgium and basically ripped the concept off completely. That makes the Kaiser angry. And the Hippo too (Why not, and people should know not to fuck with hippos, they kill more people in Africa than any other animal apparently).



As Marcus says in this post, just ask for god's sake. We all know there's stealing, sopying and plagiarism in the advertising industry, but when it's so blatant have the decency of asking.

What I actually find even weirder is that I don't like the campaign at all. I don't understand what the hell it has to do with Sony VAIO and doesn't seem to portray VAIO owners in a good light. Sure, one easy way to view it is that VAIOs are so good that you can't your hands off them.

Another interpretation is that Twitter / Facebook / etc are so addictive it has nothing to do with the computer.

Yet another one, and what I thought immediately was that VAIO users were obviously a bunch of worthless, sad weak willed junkies - so the computer can't be worth that much either.

I wonder how much Sony really wants to be directly associated with addictive behaviours, actually drugs and support Anonymous type groups..?

I would be interested in having more of other people's opinions about this, both about the plagiarism and thoughts about the campaign.

And actually, one more thing to finish. It just occured to me that I usually say that for any communications to be successful and generate conversations, they need to be polarising. And this one is. I don't like it and am campaigning about it.

That actually sounds like a pretty good job in my book.

2012

You've probably heard of the new Roland Emmerich cataclysmic fest of a movie coming out soon, 2012. The movie is based on the Mayan calendar stopping in 2012 and predicting the Earth will be destroyed (I haven't checked up on the legend and history so I won't elaborate) If you haven't seen the trailer, check it out but Bud pointed us out (via Twitter) to this excellent trailer remake inspired by 70's disaster movies with an awesome groovy tune:



Last weekend I was working on a few personal projects (Notably thinking of moving this blog to self hosted WordPress and registered another domain name for all the travel writing I have taking up dust in a folder, so look out for Ice Cream for Everywhere coming out soon).

Anyhoo, given I was looking at a few WP sites I ended up visiting Big Spaceship again and browsing around I saw they created a website for The IHC, The Institute for Human Continuity. An organisation dedicated to the noble cause of saving a few select humans by blasting them out in outer space while the planet will be destroyed in 2012 (Which by the way looks like a WP as well, isn't it?).

Nice way to promote the movie. But then also realised this was part of a larger ARG type experience and so I registered to the Lottery to be saved before the apocalypse, you should check it out if you want to have a chance to get of here in, ironically, a big spaceship. So now I have an optimistic Dr. Soren Ulfert PhD, Communications Director of the IHC emailing me with news and next actions in the preparation for our species survival.

But not everyone believes in the righteous actions of the IHC: I found out Charlie Frost, broadcasting live from his Winnebago out in the middle of nowhere, USA, does not believe anyone will survive 2012 and makes it his mission to tell whoever will listen in his website - This is the End.

He also has is own Youtube channel and answers audience questions about the apocalypse:
(You may notice he strangely resembles Woody Harrelson ;)

Charlie Frost is also on Twitter, as is The IHC. They are also on a bunch of other sites, links are on peppered on the main sites.

I don't really know where this is going but I'm finding it quite entertaining for now and expect it to perhaps be better than the movie so I wanted to share it with you.

On this note I will leave you and go submit my application to become the Post-2012 Glorious Leader of Humanity. Vote Willem!

Nom Nom Nom winners!

To our complete surprise, Kai and I won the Nom Nom Nom competition last Sunday!! We are not the proud owners of the NomNomNom09 trophies, Kitchen Aid blenders, and a few more goodies. All the nice photos of the day are here.



Now the online vote just started and we're going to ask for your support! Please vote for The French Connection, the name of our team

This was the three course meal we prepared:



A salmon tartare to start with. We were originally going to make it with tuna but one of the criteria of the competition was sustainability so we thought salmon was a bit better. The fresh salmon is marinated in lemon for an hours or two and then incorporated to a mix of finely chopped tomatoes, onions, chives and a bit of fromage blanc on a bed of thinly sliced cucumber. Thank you very much to Epicurean.com for the recipe and Kai completely mastered the preparation of it.



For the main, we cooked duck breast with spiced apple chutney and a side of salad. The duck is marinated in fresh orange juice, soy sauce and a pinch of chillli powder for a couple of hours before being seared on a frying pan. The apple chutney is slowly cooked with cardamom, cumin, cinnamon, and a few more spices. Pretty easy to do though the balance of spices can be depending on taste to get right. We were told it was a bit overpowering (the judges should have tried the one I made the day before on our practice run, that was intensely flavourful!).



Now surprisingly our star dish seemed to have been the dessert. I'm not a big fan of cooking desserts and even less baking. The recipe was suggested by Hazel, my flatmates girlfriend and thank you again for that! I had never cooked it the day before and hadn't made a meringue in about ten years (and had failed) so we were close to changing the dessert but kept to it and it seems it paid off! A meringue base cooked with chopped pecans, topped with mascarpone, double cream, raspberries and dark chocolate shavings - delicately roll the whol thing up, et Voila! It's not actually that difficult, give me a shout if you want the recipe!

Nom Nom Nom 09

I'm going to be cooking for the Nom Nom Nom competition tomorrow with Kai. We're going to be documenting the day and there will be an online vote based on photos and videos of the day so there will be a more complete post coming up and I'll be asking everyone I know to please vote for our team ;)

We didn't practice together yet and still thinking about changing the dishes we planned on cooking but in any case I have taken a bit of time to practice during this past week. Here's a picture of the main course practice run: Duck breast with apple chutney. It was delicious, though the dish is not dressed properly at all on this photo - the plan is for this to look a lot more attractive on the day (Though I must say it was already delicious ;)

Lots of random stuff

Dusting off the cobwebs around here so here's a bunch of stuff from the past month:

Today's Venn diagram:


Prototype is a video game that has been mucho hyped months ago and is now coming out on Xbox 360, the site is pretty cool because as far as I know they are the first to integrate Facebook Connect in a really smart way so that in just one click from the user half your life is mixed in te game's trailer, really good stuff.



My brother Bjorn's new restaurant opened a few weeks ago, called Eastside Inn. It's absolutely awesome (Sure, I'd say that - but it really is ;) and deserves a post of its own, but in the meantime here are some reviews: Evening Standard. London Paper. Come and join us on the Facebook page, if you make it to the restaurant you can write a note or a review about it directly there.

I also liked the Lacoste Colour DNA website, I'm sure you'll be glad to know I'm a Firelight. Nice idea, colour / personality intepretations have been around for a while but it's the first time I see a brand take advantage of it online. They also have a Twitter account for the campaign.

Also in family news, my little brother Morgan who recently moved to Bolivia with his girlfriend is going to be a daddy, so I'm going to be an uncle once again. I'm planning to go visit Peru and Bolivia at the end of the year.

My best mate James started participating in an online mag called Bai Cai Mag and I'm going to write a piece in it - though I'm already late with that...

On the work side of things, pretty busy on a bunch of stuff, and among them summer activities for VW vans / campervans under the VW Escape title. We are managing some social media presence with Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and Youtube. We wraped some vans with illustrations and will be at several events, first of which at the Blackheath Bike and Kite festival in a couple of weeks which looks like it's going to be pretty cool.

Sure, a lot more has been going on in the past month, but let's just finish with some randomness - it's Pet Fashion Week, which also reminded me of the My Little Pony movie characters:

Coraline

If you remember, I mentioned before I was really looking forward to seeing Coraline - the new movie by Henry Selick and Laika studio based on a Neil Gaiman book. I was lucky enough to go to a screening last week invited by Melinda and Cristiano.

As mentioned before, the whole movie is made in stop motion animation and every single thing in it was hand crafted. On top of that, the movie is shown in 3D in certain cinemas, so it gives it an additional strange 3D animation quality even though everything is in stop motion.

The result is a stunningly beautiful animated movie and I highly recommend it - particularly if you like strange and dreamy universes - and Neil Gaiman. The storyline itself is not extremely original, but thinking of it as a children's fairytale it doesn't matter that much. The characters are really original, weird and quirky. The whole movie is visually beautiful. I don't really have much more to say right now, just go see it (Melinda also wrote a pretty comprehensive review here).

Absolut Kindness

I don't talk about work we do at iris Digital that often here, but here's a little piece we are running at the moment that I'd like to mention so I'm doing some blatant self-promotion.

Asbolut Vodka are running a campaign in London this week within the idea 'In an Absolut World, kindness would be currency'. We created this website (You'll notice it's in WordPress, all the rage at the moment ;) and a Twitter account to engage with people with questions such as 'If kindness were currency, who do you think the millionaires would be?' informing of the events taking place in London throughout the week organised by the team over at iris Experience. For example, it started Sunday at the Clapham Picture House and at Screen on the Green in Angel. Kai made it to the cinema in Angel and took some pictures.

It all happened extremely fast so unfortunately we didn't have time to engage that much with people before the events started, but starting work on the Twitter account over the weekend was a great experience already. I find it quite exhilarating to represent 'the face of a brand' and getting to practice what I talk about on a regular basis. (Luis has been leading on the project, I was mostly just helping over the weekend)

"Can I haz Kindness?' We are also working alongside We are Social, spreading the #kindness all over the Internets and telling people about the campaign and the events happening in london.

There are more events taking place tomorrow, Thursday and Friday - check the Twitter stream if you're going to be around Soho or Shoreditch!

PS: Luis just got back from lunch as I finished this, just have to add it in. #Kindness everywhere, he found a purse by the Tate Modern and called the owner's to return it - Without stealing anything! You just can't make that stuff up ;o)

We're all Slideshare RockStars!!

There are a bunch of April Fool's day pranks going round today (I liked this Guardian article), obviously but so far respect for Slideshare for theirs!

I received this email - as did a lot of other people:

Hi Willemvdh,

We've noticed that your slideshow on SlideShare has been getting a LOT of views in the last 24 hours. Great job ... you must be doing something right. ;-)

Why don't you tweet or blog this? Use the hashtag #bestofslideshare so we can track the conversation.

Congratulations,
-SlideShare Team

I checked my Slideshare and the only presentation I have on there suddenly has over 30,000 views! I think they added an extra 00 or something to everyone's numbers and sent that Slideshare RockStar email! RickStars, more like ;)

It's already trending on Twitter as the number 4 topic. Really simple and elegant idea, lots of buzz and conversation created from it. Brilliant. And it plays with people's egos, so all the more reason to talk about it, they probably also saw a big surge in visits to their site. They must be LTAO ;o)

Earth Hour

It's that time of the year again! WWF are calling to everyone on the planet to turn their lights off for an hour on Saturday 28th March at 8:30pm GMT.

All you have to do to participate is turn your lights off. Get some candles. I participated last year (Reminded last minute by Google that changed their homepage for the occasion ;). You can also sign up here to show your support, it'll only take you a couple of minutes and it's for a good cause.

There are a bunch of resources here for your blog, banners, etc - but what's pretty cool is they also created a highly fashionable augmented reality 'Earth in your hands' thing - if you never saw 3D augmented reality, the concept is that you print out a specific design handed out and then show that to your webcam on the site, and voila! A 3D design appears in your hands. Pretty nifty, heh?



Even the pandas are doing, so why not you? Crazy pandas...

McDonalds Ad..? Or am I being cynical?

I received this email chain from a friend. I hadn't received any in so long, I'm just thinking it's a McDonald's marketing campaign ;) Touching story I guess, though a bit too much God in it.

Do you think God eats at McDonald's?

Don't get me wrong I'd gladly sacrifice 10 friends on Facebook to give a Whopper to a hungry/homeless person, I just don't think God, McDonald's and this email will help them that much.

My friend Adam said I wasn't being too cynical, just too French. I don't know what he means..?

PS: On this note, I'm making a donation to Crisis and I encourage you to do the same, it will make more of a difference than forwarding this email around!

A Return is Requested....You'll see why.

Breakfast at McDonald's

This is a good story and is true, please read it all the way through until the end! (After the story, there are some very interesting facts!):

I am a mother of three (ages 14, 12, 3) and have recently completed my college degree.

The last class I had to take was Sociology.

The teacher was absolutely inspiring with the qualities that I wish every human being had been graced with.

Her last project of the term was called, 'Smile.'

The class was asked to go out and smile at three people and document their reactions.

I am a very friendly person and always smile at everyone and say hello anyway. So, I thought this would be a piece of cake, literally.

Soon after we were assigned the project, my husband, youngest son, and I went out to McDonald's one crisp March morning.

It was just our way of sharing special playtime with our son.

We were standing in line, waiting to be served, when all of a sudden everyone around us began to back away, and then even my husband did.

I did not move an inch... an overwhelming feeling of panic welled up inside of me as I turned to see why they had moved.

As I turned around I smelled a horrible 'dirty body' smell, and there standing behind me were two poor homeless men.

As I looked down at the short gentleman, close to me, he was 'smiling'

His beautiful sky blue eyes were full of God's Light as he searched for acceptance.

He said, 'Good day' as he counted the few coins he had been clutching.

The second man fumbled with his hands as he stood behind his friend. I realized the second man was mentally challenged and the blue-eyed gentleman was his salvation.

I held my tears as I stood there with them.

The young lady at the counter asked him what they wanted.

He said, 'Coffee is all Miss' because that was all they could afford. (If they wanted to sit in the restaurant and warm up, they had to buy something. He just wanted to be warm).


Then I really felt it - the compulsion was so great I almost reached out and embraced the little man with the blue eyes.


That is when I noticed all eyes in the
restaurant were set on me, judging my every action.

I smiled and asked the young lady behind the counter to give me two more breakfast meals on a separate tray.

I then walked around the corner to the table that the men had chosen as a resting spot. I put the tray on the table and laid my hand on the blue-eyed gentleman's cold hand.

He looked up at me, with tears in his eyes, and said, 'Thank you.'

I leaned over, began to pat his hand and said, 'I did not do this for you. God is here working through me to give you hope.'

I started to cry as I walked away to join my husband and son. When I sat down my husband smiled at me and said, 'That is why God gave you to me, Honey, to give me hope..'

We held hands for a moment and at that time, we knew that only because of the Grace that we had been given were we able to give.

We are not church goers, but we are believers.
That day showed me the pure Light of God's sweet love.

I returned to college, on the last evening of class, with this story in hand.
I turned in 'my project' and the instructor read it.
Then she looked up at me and said, 'Can I share this?'
I slowly nodded as she got the attention of the class.

She began to read and that is when I knew that we as human beings and being part of God share this need to heal people and to be healed.

In my own way I had touched the people at McDonald's, my son,the instructor, and every soul that shared the classroom on the last night I spent as a college student.

I graduated with one of the biggest lessons I would ever learn:

UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE.

Much love and compassion is sent to each and every person who may read this and learn how to

LOVE PEOPLE AND USE THINGS -
NOT LOVE THINGS AND USE PEOPLE.

There is an Angel sent to watch over you.

In order for her to work, you must pass this on to the people you want watched over.

An Angel wrote:

Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart

To handle yourself, use your head..
To handle others, use your heart.

God Gives every bird it's food, but He does not throw it into its nest.

Send it back, you'll see why !

A box of gold

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

With a secret inside that has never been told

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

This box is priceless but as I see

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The treasure inside is precious to me

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Today I share this treasure with thee

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It's the treasure of friendship you've given me.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

If this comes back to you then you'll have a friend for life

but, if this becomes deleted, you are not a friend.

Send this to everyone you consider a friend!

It will grant you one wish and only one wish,

that is, if you decide to send this to others. You can wish for anything.

Repeat your wish until you have stopped scrolling. Make it count!

FOR YOUR WISH TO COME TRUE YOU HAVE TO SEND IT TO:
3 PEOPLE - YOUR WISH WILL COME TRUE EVENTUALLY
5 PEOPLE - YOUR WISH WILL COME TRUE IN 3 MONTHS
10 PEOPLE - YOUR WISH WILL COME TRUE IN 5 WEEKS
15 PEOPLE - YOUR WISH WILL COME TRUE IN 1 WEEK

CAN'T WAIT A WEEK???

22 People-Your Wish Will Come True In 1 Day!

****** **********REMEMBER**************
THIS MUST BE SENT OUT THE
DAY YOU READ IT FOR
YOU TO GET YOUR WISH

First day of SXSWi

I don't know if I'll be writing a post every day for this, but I'm not being too crazy tonight and can write so I might as well ;)

First really busy day of conferencing, and it was pretty amazing! Glad I got up early and managed to do my registration and grab my badge really quickly given the Convention Centre was pretty much empty. My hotel is a little far from downtown - not too much but enough that I can't really easily be going back and worth walking if I need to srop something off. Like the gigantic goody bag I got this morning. Hanged around the huge Austin Convention Centre for a couple of hours, came across Alex from Hide & Seek and Jeremy, and talked with a few other people as well before catching up with Katy for lunch.

Went according to plan for the first panel of the day: 'Minority Report is real' and it was very cool - exactly the kind of research and forward thinking I was expecting from coming over here. Three people on the panel, all seriously interesting people, but not exactly into interface design - this was more of a side research project they started conducting together, looking into how movies and sci-fi have influenced new technology developments and still are - or sometimes the other way round as well.

They distinguished several trends in interface design / gestural UI development, and showed us examples in movie clips and then how close or far we are from those in real life. That was very cool and beautiful, but it was really great they kept asking the questions going further about what they might be used for and whether we really need an oblong beautiful Minority Report right now, how much is it exactly used for good, etc.

Next wasn't so good, unfortunately. I was hesitating between a web design one and this one about a company doing ARG types games, I probably should have gone to the other one, but hey - it's also part of choosing between so many things, and some other people told me most of the other talks at the same time as the last time weren't very good - I chose right for the 1st one, I guess. The company in question, The Go Game, actually do really interesting stuff in terms of games for corporate / team building events but I thought they didn't really have much to say and didn't feel like they really prepared for this talk either - they probably could have done it in 10 min with the material they had but talked for an hour... Nice people and their games look definitely great but not so great at talking in a panel...


Next was one of the big talks of SXSWi with Alex Bogusky - the B in CP+B - Talking about 'Can an Ad guy bring bike sharing to America?' Having quickly found out that the answer was in fact no, the topic shifted slightly to 'The art of sticking your nose where it doesn't belong'. He introduced CP+B and talked about who they are and the kind of work they do; as you do in such a talk - I actually didn't mind given I'd never heard him talk in a conference and apart from BK these days I haven't been talking about everything they do and found about a couple of campaigns I didn't know about as well. But more importantly, he talked about a load of pretty fucked up things on this planet via a bunch of good quotes and stats (#collapsonomics) and about making a difference. At first it could seem like it's all hopeless, but going from the fact that human knowledge is growing exponentially and a few other things - basically just go out there and do something to help, anything you're passionate about. 'Poke around' Go with an idea, talk to some people, meet some people who know people who know people, stick your nose where it doesn't belong.

He essentially shared this through their project (Humana, Trek and CP+B) of bringing bike sharing to America - a similar system that exists in Paris with the Velib. All really interesting stuff and pretty inspiring!


Mr Alex Bogusky

I ended up going off to a bar from there with Alice from BBH, Nicole (whose Husband was freelancing with us at iD recently), Damiano from the RSA, Conor from the RoundHouse and a couple of other people. Originally well intended wanting to go to the first official drinks for SXSW but way too much queue and it turned out Nicole's sister is a bar manager in Austin, so we went there for drinks (I then tried going to the 2nd official event - saw the queue, turned around) and then on to a Mexican restaurant with a few other Austin peeps. Turned out, we ate close to the Hotel where I'm staying so I thought I'd go back and write this - keep the big party energy for tomorrow ;)


The Gueres Taco bar

Quick SXSW update

I finally landed in Austin, Texas for SXSWi! Long flight (s) and some delays, but got here in the end and that's what counts! Couldn't wait to have a beer and walk around a little as I arrived at the hotel and the event already started. Loads of people were already on the flight and the hotel bar had a few people there already pre-celebrating...

Already maing some contacts, the first person I saw at Heathrow this morning at 8am is also the first person I saw arriving here and turns out to be in charge of new media at the RoundHouse in Camden - very cool Irish guy. We had a really good chat about online and music - having just completed the HERD chapter about WoM and the Arcic Monkeys, I had stuff to talk about ;0).

All looking pretty awesome!

Also met a bunch of other people, including a colourful and pretty lively couple from Tennessee - that I might just try to avoid slightly in the coming next days ;)

Very excited, though tomorrow morning is going to be a very long queue to register for the event, apparently the queues were already huge this evening for the pre-registration...

I realise I should have some kind of picture illustrating, but that will be for tomorrow.

Ice Cream Review - The Garden of Tweetdom: An evening with Marcus Brown

May 7, 1824: Premiere night of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

According to one witness, "the public received the musical hero with the utmost respect and sympathy, listened to his wonderful, gigantic creations with the most absorbed attention and broke out in jubilant applause, often during sections, and repeatedly at the end of them."



March 9, 2009: Premiere night of Marcus Brown's Garden of Tweetdom. (Photo by Ben Terrett)

Need I say more..?


An unusual atmosphere of sheer anticipation could be felt yesterday around London Bridge, but on a Monday evening, this had nothing to do with the with the well-known bustle surrounding the famous Borough Market on Fridays and Saturdays.

No, this could only be described as an entirely different level of artistry for this evening was the first live and official Tweet Reading event to take place in London. Rumours abounded over the past few weeks amongst the eminent Twitterati of hushed discussions via Direct Messages concerning the veracity of the artist having turned down requests to speak from the Royal Academy of Arts. The choice of the Market Porter as a venue, an established and popular public house, can only be explained from the extreme proximity with the farmer's market and the glorious food sold therein. Just as food is sustenance for the body, the Tweet Reader's work and interpretation of tweets are sustenance for the mind; moreover the theme of the evening was to be of the origins of all things Twitter, just as the market is the best representation of the origins of food in the heart of a city.

The London Twitterati lucky enough to be invited gathered in the room around 7pm and Marcus Brown appeared soon after, opening the evening with his signature and unmistakable words: 'Good evening'. Those two otherwise innocuous words, carried enough weight to silence the room instantly. A certain feeling of awe was immediately palpable within the audience, clearly the sign of being in the presence of a true master. After a few more words, Marcus announced that there would only be three Tweet Readings for the evening. A slight murmur of disappointment made its way through the room, though I admit I smiled at the intrinsic audacity of the number.

3. As you all well know, a magic number for as long as the number has existed. From the Holy Trinity in Christianity to the Triforce in the Legend of Zelda, three is the first uneven prime number, one of the major forces in the Universe. Using a number of such power, Marcus sets the tone and promises us an extraordinary evening at the very least. 'But will he deliver?' I thought.

With readings of William Humphrey, John Dodds, and ended with Sam Ismail (Whom according to anonymous sources has been instrumental in enticing the artist to a live performance) the evening certainly couldn't go wrong with such prolific and extremely talented Tweet authors; and they certainly deserve the acknowledgment accompanying their readings by such an important international figure in the Twitterverse; some even call Marcus the very first Twitter Academic. The sceptics will certainly accuse Marcus of a certain lack of creativity in choosing the most obvious authors for the evening, but what truly counts is the value of the insight and of the interpretation and in this field, detractors will have a difficult time finding any flaws to Marcus' readings.

But let us also remember that Marcus is first and foremost a Renaissance Man, a Polymath recognized by the worlds of arts and sciences as the Leonardo da Vinci of the Third Millenium. Marcus shared with us his previous works: iPod Singing, The Sacrum episode with Wieden and Kennedy, Charles Stabs' Business Horoscopes, and more surprises. As I said, food for the mind, but also food for the soul. To describe the rest of the event would only destroy the surprise for other spectators and as such, I will stop revealing any more here.

There is only one way to finish this review and Marcus Brown fortunately showed me the way: Marcus Brown delivered an outstanding performance at the Market Porter yesterday and I urge you; no, I beg you, to follow his works on And As if by magic, or run to get tickets if you hear of another live event, it might just... transform your life. Thank you.

Become a Vedett

Now here's a really nice little mix of digital and experiential for a campaign. I was talking to my sister a few days ago and she tells me she was having drinks with a few friends in a bar around Shoreditch. A guy showed up to them with a camera and asked them if he could take a picture.

They said yes, he takes the photo and disappears. He then comes back a few minutes with a beer bottle for each of them, the beer label prominently displaying the picture that was shot a few minutes ago. He explains that Vedett - the beer brand in question, is running a campaign where they will be printing pictures of people on the labels countrywide, so here's a free beer with your picture on it and go check out the website for more info about the campaign.

My sister said all of the sudden she has a completely different experience of that evening, she brought her beer bottle back home and said it's decorating her room now, it's a souvenir and she won't be drinking it for a while.

I really like that idea, very simple and even though the overall digital campaign isn't that original, having a few people roaming bars and priting picture labels makes a huge difference, all of a sudden the experience is real and personal, potentially becoming a souvenir token, or at least something to talk about at the bar with other people. And making people talk is generally awesome. I like it.

I need to try that beer now!



Here's the pic I submitted on the website. I thought having a bottle of Tsing Tao on it would be appropriate ;)

ASDA - Astroturfing Stupidly Destroys Advertising

I saw in a Brand Republic article this morning that ASDA just launched a new campaign and a Youtube video channel: Saving You Money TV



I started out being in two minds about it. Basically the gist of it is ASDA is always being cheap and saving you money. Given the recession it's even more important than ever to all pull together like brothers and that you keep spending the little money you have at ASDA - anyways something like that.

So they created this TV channel on Youtube where everyone can share what their money saving tips are - though it's already (Just with 11 videos) turning into an any tips, advice or cooking recipe acceptable.

Sooo... I thought OK, sure could be interesting, Youtube channel design is nice, the videos on offer aren't overly interesting but could have a small audience, and more to the point some the videos shot on location in an ASDA might be shared to friends of the people appearing on there.

The whole idea works for ASDA as a brand (even though milking and choking to death the recession theme, but everyone is doing right now...) and they're making sending videos as easy as possible, which is a great point in their favour (via Youtube uploads, email, MMS, etc).

But here's the last thing, I kept looking at a couple of videos, such the definitely waaay too long cheese grating 'competition' and noticed the 2 comments. Those are highly suspicious and prety sure it's astroturfing. Could be just those two and hopefully not part of the whole campaign, but I hate that. It's wrong and it always backfires.



User 1: Nitramrallytrack - Joined Youtube in January and since then the only activity is to have subscribed to the ASDA channel and watched their videos. Highly suspicious. Basic astroturfing. Other user is katec1975 and only joined a few days ago, same story...

They write: 'Utterly random but funny as...This man should be on telly - mentle' 'What a grate idea...'

Have you seen the video? Do you just happen to specialise in bad puns or bad spelling? Who do you think ASDA customers are? All dumb and illiterate? If it's the case, it's insulting is what it is.

Maybe nobody will care about this whole thing, but hey... What goes around comes around.

Now on the other hand, a couple of real Youtube users - or rather one right now have noticed the channel and posted one of their videos, so as I said earlier it might be interesting to a few people and might get khgibbons more video views, so why not...

Skittles - probably the Nth post about it

I'm sure there are already hundreds of posts about it out there and I read at least 2 good ones and I'm doing something else, so I'm going to over it very quickly and be really lazy and just advise to read their posts.

Without any particular argument, I personally really like it. And whatever you think about it, a LOT of people are talking about it.

Is any press good press? Good question.
Have they basically ripped off the Modernista website? Yes - but so what?

iboy compared the whole thing to a Turducken: Check his post.

David Armano also wrote about it on Logic+Emotion, check his out. Both are interesting for different reasons.

I think it's really interesting and they're a lot of attention for their new site launch

And let's remind ourselves that Skittles adverts are generally a bit bonkers anyway, I love their latest one:



And Cherry flavoured Skittle on the top, join in the fun and change your Twitter avatar to a giant Skittle!!

Hand crafted goodness

Here's a movie I'm seriously looking forward to: Coraline. And along with it a very cool campaign to promote it! Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors and I seriously recommend checking out his books if you've never read him (I'd say American Gods and Neverwhere are amongst the best), Henry Selick has done amazing work in the past and Laika animations are always outstanding!

Besides the almost obvious fact that the animation looks beautiful, one particularity here is that everything in the movie has been entirely crafted by hand.

W+K was in charge of the campaign and apparently part of Laika's intention was to come up with a completely innovative way to market the movie. To start with, they created 50 different hand crafted boxes, with designs representative of the look and feel of the movie, filled them with goodies, little puzzles, clues, challenges, access to a website and specially made films; and then sent those to specifically targeted bloggers. The campaign went on with interactive store fronts (Where people could see themselves with buttons on their eyes), guerilla style posters, custom made Nike trainers, rich media online advertising, etc. All of this cultivating a theme of intrigue and mystery encouraging people to go find out more about it.

Nice stuff, really looking forward to the movie! Check out the Coraline movie website here and the video summing up the campaign here:

Where the Wild Things are

This is my first time creating and uploading a presentation to Slideshare! I thought of this yesterday, and here it is, not necessarily ground-breaking but I hope you like it.

I'd love to know what you think of it!

Where the Wild Things are - with a modern communication twist

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: wild marketing)

Eyebrowbics

Eyebrowbics: All the scream with the cool kids of today.

So the new Cadbury's ad just came out, I saw it earlier today. I have to say that once again I'm not impressed by A glass and half full productions. It's vaguely interesting in a weird way and I'm sure it will be talked about a lot (I'm saying I don't like it, but I'm still writing about it...).

Given how much I disliked the Gorilla when it came out and it so successful (So I hear, at least) and well received that I'm wondering if my personal preference and opinion simply goes in opposite directions of that of the majority of people - and actually please confirm this is true only if you really want to please my ego. ;o)

This whole talk about the Gorilla and emotional marketing is sort of absurd. I watch the Eyebrowbics and I'm definitely sure it stirs emotions for the viewer - I suspect a range from amusement, laughter, slight confusion, like/dislike, etc.

But it doesn't say anything. Is there a message I'm not getting? Not really a story either... Is it enough to cause an emotion for the audience watching to associate it with your company, or does the memory prime the video content over that of. I think it's the latter. Just like any user created video, only with more money and a product depicted at the end.

Anyways, that's just one more positive tick in my mind for Lindt and Green & Black's and even though I rarely eat Cadbury's chocolate, I think I will suppress it entirely from my diet.

Ice cream for everyone

I just came across this video and a list of reasons why social media is like ice cream, regardless of any relevance it is obviously perfect for this blog! And the video is cute too, explaining what this whole social media shenanigans is supposed with an easily understandable analogy - even though it probably could have something else than ice cream.



Why is social media like ice cream?:

1) it has tonnes of variety
2) the best is usually not mass produced
3) freshness counts
4) it's neat to mix flavours
5) it's best when shared with others
6) flavour preference is very tribal
7) it comes in different formats - cup=video, cone=audio, cake=blog
8) it sparks passion, emotion and positive thoughts - we enjoy it
9) depending on the environment, it has a long or short half life
10) it's more than just bits and bytes/bites
11) the winning brands usually have a good story
12) the worst tended to forms tend to get burned/freezer burned
13) tastes better with authentic ingredients
14) you gain incredible loyalty when users feel in control (i.e. Coldstone Creamery)
15) some people don't like it, some people gorge on it
16) it's practised and consumed differently by country
17) it's a good way to waste time and gain weight

Shamelessly plundered from here, thanks!

Another post about Twitter

I had written a long post about Twitter, but in hindsight I think it's boring and doesn't really add much to the plethora of posts about Twitter out there already. I might revise it at some point, we'll see.

This is what matters in the meantime:

- I'm addicted to Twitter. (You can follow me @Hippowill)

- I mostly like following friends / acquaintances and people sharing interesting stuff around digital / advertising / marketing / planning.

- I use it as my main information filtering tool.

- It's interesting but I am getting bored of the amount of posts about how to best use Twitter, I'm going to stop reading most of them and use it however I like.

- I leave you with a pet of one of my favourite comic strip characters ever: Gaston Lagaffe's laughing seagull (La mouette rieuse). Here, in one of it's aggressive phases. Not sure why, but I think sometimes Twitter feels a bit like that for non-users adopting it, particularly when others around keep talking about it. ;o)

Hippo eats dwarf and meerkats using hippos

I just came across this and just had to post it:



All right, it seems this is pretty old news after all given apparently the first time this hoax came around the internets was in 1994 with a resurgence in 2006. Good memes (also rumours or urban legends) live through some sort of web boomerang effect and I hadn't heard of it at the time, so here it is again!

It was actually published in the Pattaya Mail, and there are a bunch of mentions on sites if you Google 'Hippo eats dwarf' including pages on The Museum of Hoaxes and Snopes.com.

Well that wasn't as exciting as it first seemed when I came across the image on Google five minutes ago, so maybe I should mention something about digital marketing given it is supposedly one of the main intentions of this blog.

Now maybe hippos don't eat dwarves, even accidentally when one falls in their mouth, but sources tell us meerkats will certainly be using them as soon as they evolve and are ready to take on the human race. Casual Meerkat Manor documentaries aficionados perhaps do not realise how advanced they have become... But some Antipodean dwellers seem to have an idea of possible times to come (Be sure to read the first comment as well).

The site recently developed by one Aleksandr Orlov (Most certainly tied to the Russian maffia) and his outrageous company Compare the meerkat.com dares boasting roller-skating or knitting meerkats from all over the world to show us what they can do!

Crazy conspiracy theory you say..? Here is the undeniable proof of a meerkat playing ultimate freesbee in New York:



Now of course if you really don't care about the meerkat world domination and all you're interested in is cheap car insurance, you might as well head over to Compare the market.com...

You might have realised I really like this new campaign, really simple, very fun and memorable idea! I learned from Amelia that a creative team at VCCP are responsible for this so congratulations to them! They were looking for a way for a comparison to stand out and come front of mind for people when they start looking or using a search engine and I love the solution.

Just seeing that Aleksandr Orlov has over 3000 friends on Facebook (Update - had, looks like his personal profile has been taken off, now and over 400 fans on a 'more official' page) it seems a bunch of other people are appreciating the idea as well.