2010 Most Contagious

If you don't know Contagious, you should as it's an excellent resource for all things Creative across the world. Their end of year wrap is excellent, and covers some of the best creative campaigns of the year, from social, viral, PR and brand experience, it also takes a look at technology and the brands themselves.

This shows what an incredibly creative year 2010 has been.

Cheers

Nic

Most Contagious 2010 / www.mostcontagious.com

THe cloud - according to 10 year olds

Had to share this.

Wan't to know what the cloud is?

who do you ask?

A load of 10 year old's of course.

This will be part scary, part funny, part amazing for most. Enjoy.

Cheers

Nic

New Facebook profiles launched

Facebook love to tinker with their pages on a reasonably regular basis, and they've done so again - announcing a new look, and new features last night. The video below gives you an outline of what they've done, as ever - designed to make us even more social than we are.

As expected, they've made Facebook Places more visible, showing your check in's, in their attempt to steal the location world of Foursquare and Gowalla. You'll see your recently tagged snaps at the top of the profile (don't worry you can change them...), a better navigation and the ability to group your friends in to 'best', 'work' etc which is to depict the depth of relationships, and give people the opportunity to filter out what they hear from whom.

To activate yours, simply go here http://www.facebook.com/about/profile/

Feels like an improvement, let me know what you think.

Cheers

Nic

The ultimate Facebook album

We think this is cool.

Following on from A Life on Facebook (now removed due to copyright) last week, we also rather liked this Facebook app from Bouygues Telecom, France. Take your virtual social world, and create a coffee table book. Thanks to @adenhepburn for the find.

A great campaign to bring the digital and physical world's together. Enjoy.

Cheers

Nic

Facebook Places

Hi

It's been quite a month or so in the digital world, with launches including:

- Facebook Places

- Google Instant Search

- A new much improved Twitter homepage

- Google's social strategy steps forward with the Google me announcement.

We'll endeavour to tell you about all in separate posts this week. Let's start with Facebook Places, which launched in the States last month. The UK and Japan have since followed and we are due pretty soon, possibly October (if you go to your Facebook app on the Iphone you'll see the button is ready and waiting)

It's hardly a surprise as Facebook's move in to location has been mooted for quite some time, it follows the likes of Gowalla and Foursquare in to location, who combined have around 4 million users globally. Facebook, with its 500m will immediately have a leg up in the game of course...

As ever with any Facebook functionality, it's seemingly hit by controversy - this time over minors sharing their location. Any 13-17 year olds using the service will have added security but it's still kicked up a wee bit of a storm.

What's it all about? making friend connections easier, find out recommendations on restaurants, bars - whatever, receive discounts, special offers, special event invites - all based around your personal location.

Anyway, check it out here, and watch this space for the Australian launch.

Old Spice Case Study in full

Sorry, I'm a few weeks behind on this one, but I've been away - and this is worth noting anyway.

Some of you may well have seen the full case study by now, but if not - here it is in all its 4 minutes of glory. It's great to see the sales results back up the incredible buzz this campaign created on and offline - yes, advertising does work.

I fear we are all playing for second at the awards shows this year, and quite rightly too.

Cheers Nic

Can paid content work online?

7.1m people (unique) visited The Times Online website in May 2010.

Rupert Murdoch then launched a paid model on June 1st 2010 and reports are that the site visitation has dropped around 95% to 355,000 (once the free trial was over) - all of whom are now paying either £1 a day or £2 a week to access the content.

Being a former Times and Sunday Times reader in the UK, I'm mildly tempted to pay for the content, I certainly would if I were still in the UK as I do value some (not all) of their content. And the some is very much the key to the debate about how paid news content online is going to develop over time.

Not everyone agrees with me of course, and the numbers and blog feedback speak for themselves in terms of the general public. These two tickled me in particular:

"That sound you hear is champagne corks popping at the Guardian and BBC"

"Murdoch may be right in principle but The Times doesn't live in a vacuum. The issue is not whether or not the Times content is worth paying for, it's whether it's worth more than the papers still giving their content away. You don't have to out-run the grizzly bear, you just have to out-run your mate"

Murdoch is no mug though, and whilst he might have to take a short (ok, medium) term hit on revenue and traffic (The Times is losing $16m a month anyway...) he knows that ultimately, paid journalistic content is the model that will prevail, it has to (we are already paying on the ipad!).

At the moment however, I don't believe News International have got the model quite right. But you have to start somewhere and that somewhere is either pay for the lot, or don't pay at all. Pleasingly, for Rupert and friends is independent research that found a combined 23 percent of Times Online users rated themselves variations of “likely” to pay in the long run.

My preference however, would be for a narrowcast approach to the content, where users can pick and choose which parts of the wider Times Online or News International content portfolio they want to pay for. This, incidentally is a model I'd love to see in the Television world, where I can pick and choose channels from around the globe - but that's one for another day.

I don't necessarily find the Times Gardening news particularly interesting, so would rather not pay for it, I do however love their Sport coverage, and there are a couple of columnists in particular that I'd be willing to pay for - I just don't want to have to cover the rest of the content that I know I can get from the BBC (or whoever). The big challenge for News international, and whatever publisher goes next (New York Times will go paid in January 2011) is to work out what they are willing to give away (such as general news), and what is deemed as valuable (columnists, insight etc) and therefore paid. Once they do this, they'll have a working model that is the perfect mix of paid and free.

It's interesting to see what impact this shift has had on the Times social platforms in the last 2 months too. Whereas The Guardian in the UK, and all the papers in Australia use Twitter to announce news and drive traffic to their site, The Times twitter feed has turned in to aterribly drab, nothing affair pointing people at some blog content that remains free and archive news - yawn.

Again, they'll need to look at how they manage this over time as that's clearly not a working model for a social platform.

All credit to them however, the journey is underway, and I'm sure they never expected to get it right first time round.

Debate welcome.

Cheers Nic

Pilot Pen Cyber winner

The great thing about Cannes (even if you haven't been...) is that you get to enjoy the incredible work, from TV to Digital, Radio to Print. This is the kind of work we want to be inspiring to so if you can, get yourself on to the Cannes site and watch some of the video entries - the videos don't stay online for long and there's some cracking work on there.

We'd like to book in a few internal and client sessions to showcase some of the best in class from the festival, but in the meantime it's worth showcasing some of our personal favourites over the coming weeks, to whet the appetite.

I just love the personalisation and creativity in this piece from Pilot Pen. The case study tells the full story.

Cheers Nic

Rich's first video blog from Cannes

Hey, you'll most likely see this on Campaign Brief a little bit later today as Rich is cutting these little videos (partly) for them, but he wanted to share them with the 303 crowd first, ah special.

Looks like all is well, and he's cutting his teeth as an interviewer (he'll get better).

No sign of Cabbie Mckie or Disco Medalia yet.

Cheers

Rich (via Nic)

Augmented reality game banner

Stunning augmented reality banner courtesy of @adenhepburn over at Digital Buzz today.

We've seen plenty of AR banners in the past, but few that step in to gaming. It's for AT and T and the World Cup. Very addictive I'm sure, and a huge amount of engagement time and talkability. Ace.

Cool thing is, Tatch could do this.

Cheers

Nic

On and offline worlds meet

We rather liked this cute idea for a Men's aftershave. They've managed to create the world's first scented banner. Impressive stuff, and will have no doubt generated significant chatter.

Cheers

Nic

Happy birthday You Tube

To celebrate their 5th birthday they've created this video to remind you of all the stuff you've been enjoying since 2005.

They've also created the Five year Channel, where You Tube encourages users to upload videos discussion how You Tube has affected or changed their lives. Check the channel out here which has a great 'gadget' for uploading videos (Bails will like it anyway).

Enjoy!

Nic

Google job experiment results in a job and awards

Hopefully you had a look at last week's brilliantly simple digital idea from an Opticians in Israel (if you didn't - take a look here), and here's another - courtesy of @adenhepburn and the team at Digital Buzz. Loving these ridiculously simple and cheap ideas going around at the moment, just shows you don't have to have big budgets to do brilliant work.

This one cost $6 and earnt the guy a Gold Pencil. Pretty impressive stuff.

Cheers

Nic

Ideas on $500

This is a few months old now, but I wanted to share it anyway as it's such a cracking little idea. And yes, all on a budget of $500.

I'll let the video do it justice.

Cheers

Nic

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Social media gives the electorate a voice

The UK election has proven the power of social media to give people a compelling voice. I think it’s a better example than the Obama ‘change’ campaign.

Facebook has shown itself to be the ideal platform for people to run personal political mini-campaigns and exchange views with people across the political spectrum. This election has been the first I can remember where people have been so open about their political allegiances. I’ve had interesting political discussions with some of my friends for the first time, and I’ve also discovered some friends to be more politically engaged than I could ever have imagined.

The quality and diversity of the content they’ve hosted has been nothing sort of astonishing. Articles, video, spoofs, audio of speeches, tweets, images has provided a view of the UK election to me in Sydney significantly better than the 2006 election when I was based in London.

The major parties have also risen to the challenge providing Twitter feeds that delivered the ammunition their supporters required to do their social media campaigning for them. It’s no accident that as a result, the UK experienced the largest turnout for a general election in recent memory.

For the first time since 1929 there was the feeling that the election was to be a genuine three horse race. The Liberal Democrats in particular showing their flair for presentation and using online channels to engage with the public. Cleggmania was very real and ignited the election.

The flip side is they was rather too good at the dissemination of information. Once the British public found out the finer points of their policies, the early fervour didn’t translate into votes. If you live by the social media sword you can also die by it.

Political apathy has been a talking point for years in political circles and 2010 has severely challenged this idea. It’s now clear UK citizens are politically engaged, they just needed to be provided with the right tools and content, delivered in the right manner, hence scenes of public disorder across the UK as polling stations failed to deal with the volume of voters.

The displeasure of those that didn’t get to vote is across social media for all to see. Especially hard to take for the Electoral Commission, who now look mildly ridiculous. Years of encouraging voting and when voters did turn up, they were found wanting.

The British sense of reserve means it’s unlikely someone would be prepared to walk into an office shouting “Gordon/David/Nick for Prime Minister” but a Facebook status update can have a similar, more viral effect to a more targeted audience.

The ‘like’ feature on Facebook has also provided an previously unseen insights with a quick ‘like’ on “David Cameron for Prime Minister” revealing previously unknown allegiances.

Unlike the US political election soap opera, the UK version is almost quaint in comparison with the entire campaign completed in four weeks. (The US takes the best part of two years). When you only have a matter of weeks to get your point across, social media is key to your campaign strategy. Speed and directness are a must.

The BBC, arguably the world leaders in political coverage have used every possible platform to ensure a truly interactive experience with live tweets, forum discussion and user-generated content seamlessly weaved into their flagship coverage. Their 2012 Olympic coverage will surely set a new benchmark for the interactive viewer experience.

Social commentators have been quick to question social media’s difficult relationship with privacy but democratic elections are clearly one forum where the openness, sharing and sense of community provided by social media is of real benefit to everybody.

Social media means that democracy is suddenly a much warmer and engaging experience.

Nigel

An award winning campaign in the making

This is about a month old now, but deserves more airtime for those that might not have seen it. I don't want to tell you much about it, rather you involve yourself in the experience yourselves.

http://www.doyouchat.com/

Cheers, and happy birthday all

Nic

Apple iAds example

I wanted to follow up on the Apple iAds discussion from last week, particularly with a demonstration of what these ads could look like on your phone.

The key difference between the ads currently running and the new iAd platform is how the ad is presented. At the moment, if you click on an ad you leave the app and go to the browser, from which you then need to go back in to the app and start whatever it was you were doing before. Basically - painful.

iAd is built in to the Operating System and therefore the ad runs in the app, and as such is less intrusive in terms of changing your browsing behaviour at a given time - at least that's what Apple hope.

Below is the ad platform section of Jobs' presentation, I've saved you the 'apps are everything, browsers are not' rhetoric and you'll just see some ad examples they've mocked up for Toy Story, Nike and Target - it's worth 2 mins out of your day. There's no doubt this example delivers on engagement, which is the push Apple are making for this platform.

Cheers

Nic

Augmented reality game

Courtesy of Rene this one - the Augmented reality t-shirt paper, scissors, stone!

Augmented reality use continues to grow apace (if you didn't know we are in the midst of one of our own for LWP right now), and this is a brilliant example of how interactive you can get.

Great inspiration.

Cheers Nic

Two very different campaigns from "Tiger" Brands

As many of you will have seen I'm sure, Nike launched their new "Tiger" ad yesterday - 1 day before the Masters.

I'm sure you can make your own conclusions about the Nike work... it's certainly different and will generate much debate around the world - which of course is the point, but its likely to generate a huge amount of negativity too. Brave execution.

I'm sure the ad industry will love it, but I doubt you can say the same for your average Hockey Mom in USA or family man in Australia.

At the same time we wanted to showcase some work from a former "Tiger brand" in Gatorade, in what is a far more engaging experience (the Sydney crowd have seen this). The idea is pretty simple, Gatorade are giving regular guys and girls the chance to replay classic sporting match ups they were involved in from 10-20 years ago, be that Hockey, Football - whatever.

In one example, a bunch of former College footballers get to replay a classic from 1993, beer guts and all. Brilliant content generation, brilliant brand experience for all involved. 10,000 people turned up for the replay in 2010!

Check it out here http://replaytheseries.com

Weirdos or Wonderful?

We often get asked 'what's the next big thing'? The answer is often 'its not been created yet'.

Well, if you haven't been reading the trash magazines, chat shows or blogs in the past couple of months then let me introduce Chat Roulette. It's simple - turn on your web cam and 'speak' (or whatever you wanna do) to complete randoms across the web.

It's a bit of a phenomenon for now, but we are fearful for its longevity as it scores incredibly highly on the weirdometer.

FCUK have already launched a campaign using it, to much debate - you can read more about that here. Fair to say, its probably not one for Fujitsu just yet.

If you've got a few minutes, this video does a brilliant job of explaining what the fuss is all about, and does some funny audience demo testing too.

Cheers

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

Standard banner sizes - let's not forget creativity

Hi

"What can I do in 30 or 40k banners?"

We get this question a lot, usually with a pained expression and a sprinkling of negativity...

Well, the answer is plenty, and we wanted to showcase some of these to make it easier for you to reference some of the work. All of these can be found on Bannerblog (http://www.bannerblog.com.au/), which is a great resource for reviewing best practice and latest work online.

I've got Andrew Pascoe from the UK to thanks for coming up with this list of 30-40k banners that sing a bit... so thanks Andrew:

http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2007/08/hsbc_polar_bear.php
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2009/10/golf_launch_in_australia.php
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2006/11/coruba_gold_party.php
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2006/11/toyota_yaris.php
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2008/04/sky_dual_record.php
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2008/03/workopolis_clean_sweep.php?fbc_channel=1
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2007/11/canon_endless_imagination.php
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2007/08/ea_burnout_dominator.php
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2005/09/3_soccer.php
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2009/04/mr_strings.php
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2007/01/realestatecomau_blin.php
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2009/01/pedigree_puppy_pack.php
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/2007/05/cw_jobs_it_career.php

There are now no excuses for uninspiring banner work...

We'll be formalising a home for work across the digital spectrum that we have created in house, and also work from other people that we love, so watch this space.

Cheers

Nic

Cool new campaign - Adidas

We've had a bit of a think about the content on the blog, and thought you might like to see regular updates on the best/latest digital campaigns around the world.

It's good in 2 ways:

1) helps understand new ideas and technology

2) it's less writing for me ;-)

See this latest idea from Adidas (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/12/adidas-sneaker-augmented-reality/) - where they are using Augmented Reality and their new range of trainers to create a virtual world. The user needs to hold their trainer up against a web cam and they can experience a unique half reality world. Interesting to see how product and technology are coming together here. It's not a first of course as we saw Nike and APple do it with Nike+ (http://www.apple.com/ipod/nike/)

Thanks

Nic

2010 Glossary of digital terms

Can't claim any of this, but thought it was very much worth sharing. Pete Blackshaw writing for Advertising Age, has written his 20 top digital glossary terms for 2010. Nice work Pete.

http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=141450

SPURNED MEDIA: Just like it sounds, earned media that goes horribly negative, invades otherwise pristine search results or bleeds into traditional media. Bad customer service is a top driver of "spurned media."

MOBILENECKING: The alarming tendency to have our necks titled down or shifted sideways -- ever glued to our mobile device. This anywhere, anyplace epidemic is increasingly common in cars, airplanes and crosswalks. Closely related to term "Eyevoidance," where no one looks at anyone anymore.

JACK RIPPER: The device warriors who hog outlets anywhere they can find them -- in the airport, via the USB port of a colleague's computer, even a restaurant reservation desk. They get a charge from a charge.

WIKI WART: A bad piece of news or an embarrassing brand episode (e.g., an activist protest or a social-media campaign that backfired) that just won't go away in a brand's Wikipedia description. PR pros often give false hope to brands of removing the warts, but relentless Wikipedia editors put them right back.

OEDIPOST COMPLEX: The curious neurosis that compels folks to sleep with their Blackberry or iPhone. The afflicted can't stop checking -- even in late hours -- for responses to tweets or blog and Facebook posts.

DECIPROCITY: When everything you post actually decreases your friend and follower count. Even when you friend or follow others, the rules of reciprocity just don't apply. Soul searching is typically in order here.

FAUX POST: When you are talking to someone on the phone and they notice an unrelated tweet or Facebook status update from you showing up in real-time. Bad form -- don't do it. (Trust me!)

APPFUSION: An inevitable outcome of app overload. Very common among iPhone users who download so many apps they can't find their address book. Appfusion can lead to as many problems as the apps solve.

BRAND TEASE: A consumer who "friends" or "fans" a brand, only to never return for a second date. Brands feed the cycle by forgetting to court the consumer with engaging, interesting or sustaining content or value.

CONVERSATIONAL DIVIDE: The huge gap between what marketers preach about social-media "conversations" and the brand's actual customer-service or call-center operations. Stems from cost vs. profit-center tension.

SHELF STORM: When organic search results suddenly go haywire, or shift to the dark side, thanks to the link-love logic of social media. Consider Tiger Woods' search-result shift from 95% positive to 60% hostile (in a matter of days). Or how brands with highly publicized service failures quickly acquire shelf-venom.

APPTOSTERONE: The mojo that fuels intense "mine's bigger/better" conversation about mobile apps. "Dude, you got Bump, but I've got FourSquare." Marketing techies are loaded with Apptosterone.

BUCK SUCKED: The condition that typically slaps you in the face when reading your credit card bill and you see dozens of "dollar" charges for music and "what the heck" iPhone or mobile apps. Expect much more of this as it gets worlds easier and more convenient to pay for online content. (Good news for publishers!)

TRUST LAPSE: The frighteningly popular tendency we have to "open up" our friend network to a cool, unknown social-media service or app. Ego, vanity and impatience often collide with rationality here.

RUNWAY REBEL: That guy (or gal) who keeps the "electronic device" going well past the airline warnings and prohibitions. We see them everywhere, and no one is innocent here.

BLOG DODGER: Someone who has abandoned his or her blog for Twitter or some other lower-hassle social-media substitute. This was big in 2009, and we'll likely see much more of it in 2010.

QUAD STALKERS: Folks from your past who "friend" you (e.g., folks you marginally knew from the high-school quad) and who seem to comment on everything you post on Facebook. Mostly benign, but a tad curious.

TWEET-SHIFTING: Delaying or mixing Twitter posts so axe murderers don't know you're miles from home. Increasingly common as a spousal and family covenant among folks who travel with high frequency.

CURBCASTING: The almost unstoppable cacophony of loud voices barking all manner of silliness into the airwaves thanks to Bluetooth devices. You see this on every street corner and curb.

TWITSTOP: A bathroom detour from a meeting or conversation in order to check e-mail, Twitter or the latest and greatest via an app. (Swear on the Bible, I don't do this ... but I'm told lots of others do.)

DIGITAL DETOX: What we all need -- at least in doses. As we've learned, total digital immersion has side effects. Let's all pursue a roadmap for balance in 2010. (This is likely the topic of my next book, so send feedback.)