The adman's revenge

Sick of clients telling you what's best for THEIR brand? Criticising YOUR creative? Then you need this.

Creativity just because

Love have developed this site which I find intriguing. Its an environmental message using Santa's melting runway as the story.

I'm interested to see how this grows. They are partnering with a video company and sharing the investment - i'm really interested to see what it becomes.

If nothing else this is a great idea, well executed, nice use of e-mail (so far) and intriguing. What all creative agencies should be doung frankly.

More power to you boys.

Elf Yourself properly this time

It's back! Last year this was the viral marketing phenomenon - everyone was elfed. The trick that the originators missed last year however was brand recall. Ask 10 people and 9 would have no idea who was behind the project.

This year OfficeMax have branded the living daylights out of it. For months leading up to December they had a holding position with a countdown clock on the URL, adding intrigue and reinforcing the brand.

Goes to show that using technology/marketing in a new/interesting/ground-breaking way acheives lasting stand-out - even when there is no lasting brand association. There is no reason why this campaign can't live on and on with the odd brush-up - OfficeMax struck gold.

(yule) log

I saw this login prompt today. Made me chuckle (well, not really), but it instantly gave me a good feeling for the site - its personality and how I wanted to interact with it.

Now this approach isnt for all sites (and some may call it corny) but it's the page with the hightest drop-off rates of most sites and anything that can be done to minimise this can only be a good thing.

I say bring on the log! :-)

Note:
Brightkite is a location-based social network. In real time you can see where your friends are and what they're up to. Depending on your privacy settings you can also meet others nearby.

I'm dry

Like a prune.
I think I've basically had a few things i wanted to say pile up and now that I've blogged them I have nothing.
Should I be worried. or will I get interesting?
Or am I screwed?...
Oh - I changed my mind a bit about twitter today.
I found out that if you want you can read what Stephen Fry is doing.
Today he went to the lawyers.
Great.

Better than Google?

Have you seen this?

Its a new search engine.

Apparently, this was created by two ex-Google employees and they are allegedly the “world’s biggest search engine”. It claims to monitor more pages (three times more…) than Google and (ten times more….) than MSN.

I can't help but think about the betamax vs VHS battle that raged in the 80s.

Betamax was the better technology - it should have won the video tape race.

But VHS had massive marketing and technology partners behind it (and was quicker to market). So it won the race.

Another reason was thet you couldnt get porn on Betamax...

I have a sneaking feeling that Cuil may go the same way... appart from the porn bit...

Obama

He's everywhere. A software company jump on the bandwaggon with this beauty... Really, really blatent sponsorship prompt at the top of this game featuring everything including Nokia and UPS to Casino gaming vendors.

I don't like it (its a bit club-footed for me). Sponsorship in this manner is un-targetted and non-relevent (and frankly p1sses me off).

I'm a fan of sponsorship and there are some really good/obvious/relevent marriages.

Obama, 1983 arcade games and UPS ain't one. Sorry.

Twitter

Am I allowed not to like Twitter? I'm a fan of Facebook (I get it) - but Twitter has skipped past me merrily. Though on Twitters homepage they have a testimonial that reads:

''If you aren't familiar with Twitter, it is one of those things, like MySpace, that sounds totally ridiculous and stupid when you first hear about it. But once you start using it, you realize how much fun it is.''

Some people... (tut)

Just right?

.

I'm currently eating Kellogg's 'Just Right' cereal (excited yet?). Its the cheapest healthy choice down at Saino's at the mo (gotta watch the figure!).

It got me thinking about product naming (my mate works for Kellogg and spends a great deal of planning time looking at this very thing).

I can't help thinking that my box of 'Just right' needs to be straddled on the shelf by a box of 'Really sh1t' to its left and 'Absolutely Brilliant!' to the right.

Gives the thing some context non? Goldilocks needed some!

Have Argos gone mad?

Have you seen the new Argos Xmas TV ads? Sadly I cant point you to them online, however the proposition seems to be 'Why go to a nice department store and get your gifts beautifully wrapped this year when you can come to Argos and we'll give them to you ..... in a brown box!'. Brilliant.

Code Computerlove are Digital Agency of the Year

According to the Dadi Awards. And who are we to argue? :-)

We didnt win for our work on Crown or HMV sadly :-(.

Looking forward to seeing how our new Original Source site performs at the Big Chips. We love it.

PS: I'm not the 'awards type' to be honest - but its a great reminder of how lucky we are to work in the digital creative sector.

Cactus Boy

I think I like what Oasis did with Cactus Kid. Fully integrated with TV and offline, the user gets to choose the final TV cut.

Plus they've released lots of off-cuts and 'mystery sightings' of cactus boy - plus video blogs from the girl he's with.

They developed minisites - like the holding page for the motel they stayed in.

Lots of nice immersive touches - but key to its success is that all agencies were shown the brief at the start.

Often a brand will try and shoe-horn a digital mechanic into their brand planning after the direction has been made (and often after the TV has been shot). Try making THAT work hard online!

Have a look around You Tube and the other sites linking from the brand site - nice campaign.

Innocently brilliant

Innocent Smoothie's website (blog) is about as good as a brand gets to openning its doors to its consumers. It works because it's real. There are tens of staff members contributing - all of which would have 'innocent' written across their middles were you to take an axe to their midriff.

The content is interesting, honest, transparent, quirky, non-corporate - also focusses on 'giving something back' including charitable and environmental messages - just like the brand.

This is a brand that social media suits really well. You believe it.

I think its important to understand this in any social media strategy.

Choose your fights and choose what to have an opinion on. You'll have to sustain it and be credible, otherwise it can do more harm than good.

Oh and check out the hot healthcare/doctor Shilpee character. Yum.

Integrated monkey suit

Lots has been said about the fabulous Cadbury's Drumming Gorilla. As a peice of disruption advertising its up there with some of the best.

But have you seen the website? Nice.

Far from 'putting the ads online' it offers an immersive brand extension experience that over-delivers from your expectations. Beautifully animated, the site offers remixes of the Phil Collins original, and a great product 'history' section is a great way to explain the product benefits.

Find the hidden letters to unlock the vault extends further the experience - sadly you only get access to wallpaper and some video clips that are on You Tube - so I felt a little cheated.

There is a bizarre 'design your own chocolate bar' tool (above) that collects data about users and also feeds their NDP machine with lots of consumer goodness.

What's missing? Perhaps on opportunity to mix your own ads, or upload your own video would be nice - the ads are so strong it seems like an obvious extension.

I'm a PC

Loving, loving the I'm a PC TV ad created by Microsoft in response to the Mac vs PC ads Steve Jobs rolled out a while back.

Great use of celebrity - even a little cameo from Gatesy himself - mixed with real people in real situations.

It positions the machine against the mac as a creative tool - but its actually a Microsoft ad which I think is particulaly clever (such is the ubiquity of Microsoft they are actually in the business of selling machines not software).

The simplicity of this proposition gives the social networkers and budding video stars lots to go at in the way of spoof You Tube activity... watch this space.

Twix anyone?

Why should FMCG brands have a website? The age-old question.

To cut to the chase there are lots of reasons; but most of these reasons dont have anything to do with the product (I mean, just how exciting can you make a tea bag?), and everything to do with time with the brand. Brand marketers dont often get this, or if they do they dont have the tools or (dare I say) bravery (or more likely) money to allow them to try something new today (Sainsburys ref for no reason)

Check out the Twix website for example.

I think this is a good and a bad site.

It's good becuase they have taken a creative idea (the site is an interactive video environment where you make desisions for the lead guy) and attached it to the brand. Its interesting, slick as hell and viral - plus the time with the brand must get on for about 10 minutes (though the site is a bit slow to buffer which annoys).

Its bad because it has NOTHING to do with the product. In any way. In fact I was discussing the virtues of FMCG brand websites and confused this brand with KitKat, because in my head I had made the association with this site and the 'have a break' strapline from KitKat's offline stuff (ps: the lead guy waits for you to make a decision - it ties in beautifully).

So this website is great - it's just that the wrong brand owns it!

Its a US site too - which means that it means little to the UK market (on the assumption that they actually tied this into 360 degree comms offline, e-mail, digital channel etc) - but that's ok.

It still resonates with me as a great brand immersion example - only they got caught up in the mechanics and left the brand behind.

Welcome

As a cutting and thrusting Digital servant I thought it appropriate to develop my thoughts in a forum that would entertain (for the right reasons) and give me a place to host my opinion.

Now in the information age I'm not a massive fan of everyone publishing their opinion (who cares?) however I'm often excited (sometimes delighted) and occasionally disgusted with some of the (digital) things I see around me.

I'm in danger of falling into the 'who cares' category with this - but in the name of all things shiny and good... here I go!