The new Old Spice ad

It's very good. Who'd have thought you could rescue Old Spice from the graveyard of naff brands?



Also -check out the 'Intern Adventure' on Facebook.

C'mon LeBron

This summer LeBron James of the Cleaveland Cavaliers is out of contract. While he decides which team he should join, some of the cities are using social media to try to show how keen they are to have him.

Chief among these is New York. They have an officially sanctioned 'C'mon LeBron' campaign, created by the agency BBH, which is gaining popularity. As they put it "The world’s greatest athlete belongs in the world’s greatest city".

On their site they aggregate different things that people are doing, plus provide a toolkit with twitter crowns and more.

Not to be outdone, here is Dallas - LeBronToTheMavs, and Chicago - SendLeBronToChicago.

This sort of anticipation and celebration isn't new; my dad was in Naples the night it was announced that Maradona was signing in 1984, and apparently the locals drove around the city all night blasting their horns. In fact even if LeBron does go to New York it probably won't equal the scenes in Naples. These days it's easier to orchestrate, though.

More info at Econsultancy.

Update - 9th July - he's gone to Miami. Pretty good response on the C'mon LeBron site:

Foursquare iPhone 4 swarm

This is why Foursquare is useful - numbers of people in different Apple stores in New York, the day the iPhone 4 was released. Fascinating data, that wouldn't exist otherwise.

(I love how there's a location for 'Apple Store - iPhone Line' too)

Posted by @NathanFolkman

Coca Cola buy the hashtag #WC2010

Last week we saw the first promoted trend on twitter; this week is the second, and it's Coca Cola, buying the term #WC2010.


This means that anyone searching on that term (and there must be lots) will see the Coca Cola tweet at the top of the page.


In fact they're created about 5 different promoted tweets, as this screenshot shows: They are alternating, or appearing in different combinations at the top of the search results.

Arcade Fire secret gig in London for new album pre-orderers

Very smart, and I suspect soon to become pretty standard. It creates a buzz for the new Arcade Fire album, and it rewards people who pre-order their new album The Suburbs.

"Arcade Fire are offering an exclusive ticket pre-sale to a secret London show on a first come-first served basis to all those registered buyers of their new album on this site. The show will be on July 7th 2010 at a secret venue to be announced."

The gig is on the 7th July, tickets go on general sale on the 1st, but people pre-ordering the album by midnight on the 24th June get to buy tickets between the 28th and 30th.

"Ticket purchase is strictly non-transferable and is limited to 2 tickets per person. You will have 24 hours from the time you receive your email in order to buy your tickets. If you have not bought tickets by this time then the code will expire and we will notify the next person in the queue on a first come-first served basis."

It gives fans a reason to buy the album, rather than get it illegally, and it gives them a nice reward. Note that you have to buy the tickets for the gig, and that pre-orderers of the album aren't guaranteed that they'll be able to get tickets.

Very smart.

"I am 12 and what is this?"

A colleague showed this to me today - YouTube comments search.

Have a go here.

Seriously, you could spend hours here, what with searching for brand names, the place you live... and you can probably use it for lots of other nefarious purposes.

(I've no idea whether it's a new feature)

Here is a page of results for the standard trolling comment to any strange / controversial / funny video "I am 12, and what is this"

(More about I am 12... here)

Marketing with Kittens

This is a brilliant way to get the internet to notice you; make your own YouTube kitten video.

Lake Street Creamery is a food cart in Los Angeles. They make very nice sounding ice cream in the cart, and more around LA selling it, announcing their location on twitter. It's a big trend in LA; the wonderfully named ClusterTruck tracks their locations on a map.

To stand out from this crowd Lake Street have made a video of a kitten, wearing a hat, eating one of their ice creams. It's been on YouTube for 5 days and had nearly 80,000 views so far.



They even have out-takes, like this one, put up 2 weeks earlier as a sort of teaser strategy.



(The audition video has had 1.3m views in under 2 weeks. That's show business)

Well done guys; tipping my (tiny) hat to you!

Via the ever-reliable Metafilter

Miley Cyrus album preview in an app

Never seen this done before: To promote her new album Can't Be Tamed, Miley Cyrus is streaming it in full for free for fans in her new iPhone app. (You can also get it for the iPad, but in reality it's just a scaled up iPhone app)


This strikes me as a really good way to distribute it, albeit as a limited edition teaser. & once you've downloaded the app there are lots of ways to sell other things to you.

Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber in Stardoll

Stardoll is a community and game for teen and tween girls. Members create their own avatars (dolls) and dress them up.

They are also given a set of public dolls to use, and this is where it gets really fascinating.

This is Lady Gaga, and this is Justin Beiber. I'm assuming that management are involved in approving these, and it's a great way to interact with a young audience.

You can also see the most popular celeb avatars - currently it's Avril Lavigne, Milly & Becky Rosso (The Suite Life of Zack & Cody), Hilary Duff, Heidi Klum, and Gosia Pearline (Polish singer).

There's also a range of real brands to use (for example Abbey Dawn, Avril Lavigne's brand) and, Role Models. If you've ever wanted to dress Beatrix Potter or Joan of Arc, this is your chance.

OK Go Facebook competition

OK Go have produced a new video and are promoting it on Facebook.



Since splitting with EMI they're taking a more active role in their own marketing, and to this end they have a competition to find the most ardent fan who will spread the word for them the most.

The contest is simple: download our video, upload it to your Facebook page, and get your friends to comment on it. The upload with the most comments in two weeks wins.

The Details:
• Download OK Go's brand new video for the song 'End Love'
• Upload the video to your Facebook (instructions).
• Ask your friends to comment on YOUR upload of the video.
• Each friend's comment only counts as one point (so no you can not have your mom leave you 500 comments on it and win)
• 'Likes' count as half points
• Contest ends midnight PST on June 30th, 2010 so get going!

Very smart.

Twitter Promoted Trends

New today is Twitter promoted trends.

Disney Pixar have bought a position at the bottom of the trends table for Toy Story (with the word 'Promoted' clearly shown next to it).

Click on the term and you see search results for Toy Story, with Disney Pixar's promoted tweet as the top result.



I like this - not intrusive, and something that (I imagine) would be of genuine interest to many twitter users. It's likely to be more effective than the general promoted tweets, as they appear in the trend page for all users.

Official twitter info on Promoted Trends here.

Originally spotted by Neil Perkin.

(Disney Pixar is one of my clients, but I have nothing to do with this activity)

Playdio - radio shows on Spotify

Playdio is a new company that provides radio shows on Spotify.

It's a bit like podcasts would be if you could have full length songs in them.

Have a listen to this show from Phill Jupitus and Phil Wilding here. (Yes, you need to have Spotify)

Find out more at the blog here.

In other radio+spotify news, some kind hearted soul is regularly making the music from Adam Buxton's Big Mix Tape on 6Music into Spotify playlists, for example here. (Adam's Big Mix Tape is currently the best radio show in the UK, as far as I'm concerned. The Ken Korda edition was fantastic)

Brilliant Guardian World Cup Twitter visualisation

The official Twitter World Cup site seems a bit of a mess in retrospect - too many random tweets, too little perspective.

This new visualisation from The Guardian is much better. Watch any of the games that have already been played in terms of the most tweeted #worldcup words - the bigger the bubble the bigger the number of mentions, with the score shown in a circle in the middle.

Sadly you can't link to individual games, but click here and search for the Germany - Australia match.

Screenshots below:

Twirdie Twitter-based golf game

This is very strange, and also very entertaining and addictive.

Twirdie is a golf game that uses twitter analytics as a playing mechanism.

You take a shot by putting a word into the box. The number of times that word has been mentioned on twitter in the last 60 seconds determines how many yards your ball travels.

So at the start of the hole use words like 'birthday' that will be used frequently, and at the end, as you near the hole, use more obscure words like 'Liverpool'. You get the idea. Words like 'love', 'need', 'want' etc are far too popular; you end up having to start at the tee again.


It's great fun, pretty frustrating at times (in a good way) and an excellent way of getting people to think about twitter and data. Every time you play it will be slightly different, because the words will be used different amounts at different times.

Give it a go!

Big Cheer for Ericsson

Big Cheer is a site produced for Ericsson to create a bit of buzz around a certain large football tournament.

Send your cheer by text or twitter, then watch it get printed out, shredded and added to the confetti in the big box in the room.

It's a pretty pointless exercise - but it's also the sort of thing that just might become very popular!

Toy Story, Google style

I've no idea how this one came about! A special Google Search Story for the film Toy Story 3. It seems to be official, as there's a link to the official trailer in the description. It's excellent that Pixar are putting a twist onto an existing successful creative (& very viral) format.

It's so good - Enjoy:



Full disclosure - Disney is one of the clients of the agency that I work for

adidas Facebook Match Up app

adidas have just launched a new app on Facebook for football fans to play during the World Cup.

Called Match Ups, it asks fans to pick the winners between the games to be played. Fans then predict other aspects of the games, including possession, percent of shots outside the penalty area, and so on. It uses official football match stats supplied by Opta.

Players win points for participating, for sharing, for recruiting other players, for taking part in discussions, and for getting predictions right.

For example:

10 points for choosing your side
40 points for sharing with friends on Face Book or email
10 points for starting a comment thread (limited to 400 points each match up for starting a thread)
5 points for replying to another person’s thread (limited to 400 points each match up for replying to a tread)
1 point for liking another person’s comment
10 points every time your comment receives a Like
20 points for making a prediction 100-1500 points for making a correct prediction

It looks really good, and it's great to have a competition that uses real fans' hard core knowledge and opinions, rather than multiple choice tests and similar.

Full disclosure - adidas is one of the clients of the agency that I work for

Twitter World Cup site

Twitter have just launched a dedicated World Cup site at Twitter.com/WorldCup


This is a very smart move - it creates a focus page for all of the World Cup tweets, rather that people having to create their own aggregators or lists.

It's also, I think, the first time twitter have done something like this themselves, rather than just leave others to build it with their API.

Features include a 'top tweets' column, with the most re-tweeted World Cup posts, and specific pages for each of the matches. This is the page for South Africa Vs. Mexico, for example.


They've also created a page for each of the countries taking part - this is England.

They've also created 'official' hashtags for each of the teams, e.g. #eng, #arg, and so on.

More at the Twitter blog

Pepsi turns VC & mentor with the PepsiCo10

This is a very smart idea. Pepsi are teaming up with Mashable and Highland Capital Partners to select and mentor 10 new companies.

I've written before about the benefits of working with new companies and start-ups. Brands and agencies can do cool cutting edge projects, and build relationships with really interesting new companies in their very early days. Don't forget that Twitter is only 3 years old, and Foursquare is only one. Try getting in touch with them; it's pretty hard!

Pepsi are going to select 10 companies in total across 4 areas -

The Social Media & Marketing Revolution
Mobile Marketing: On the Phone and Beyond
Place-Based and Retail Experiential Marketing: Be Where Your Customers Are
Digital Video and Gaming

The winners get to be mentored by experienced experts, Pepsi get early access to their technologies for future campaigns.

Keep an eye out for cool stuff in about 9 months, I reckon.

Via Forbes

adidas Football World Cup video 2010

This is the official film for adidas football for this year's World Cup - featuring Zidane, Kaka, Messi, Nakamura, Gerrard, Pienaar, Villa, Guardado De Rossi, Ballack & the Jabulani ball.



Lots of players; blink & you'll miss 'em. Or watch it twice!

Full disclosure - adidas is one of the clients that my agency works with.

CNN & Foursquare partner for the World Cup

I wondered who was going to be first off the blocks with a Foursquare World Cup promotion!

It's CNN; check in at a number of venues in South Africa, Australia, the US and the UK, and get a special badge. Users who go to South Africa will get a 'South Africa Explorer' badge (above), users who check in elsewhere will get a 'Super Fan' badge (below).

London venues include The Freemason's Arms (where the FA was founded), and - um - The Walkabout.

Full list here.

Via Mashable

Autonomy, Mastery & Purpose

This is a brilliant, 10 minute video of a talk by Dan Pink, based on his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.



In it he explains academic studies that show that, for non-mechanical tasks, people don't necessarily work better if they're promised more reward.

He goes on to explain that for non mechanical jobs three factors are more important -

Autonomy - being allowed to work the way you want,
Mastery - being able to do soemthing you enjoy to get better at it,
&
Purpose - the feelign that you're doing something for the good of others or the world.

It's very similar to an observation in Ian McEwan's novel The Child In Time, where he says 'no one works more productively than a child at play'.

10 minute video. Well worth your time!

How I accidentally deleted my twitter account

Update - Thanks to the Twitter team I'm @dancall again - phew!

Oh blimey.

I've been on twitter since 2007, I think. I signed up early on to see what the fuss was, tweeted a bit, then stopped for about a year.

Then I got back into it in about mid 2008 , as it seemed to be gathering momentum in the UK, and there were lots of interesting people that I wanted to follow and interact with.

At one point I decided to link it to my Facebook account, so that I wouldn't need to update both. As time went on and I started to tweet more work-related stuff, including posts from this blog, and my stats blog.

Eventually I decided to break the link between my twitter and my Facebook.

So, earlier this morning I went to the twitter app in Facebook, and selected the option at the bottom to 'deactivate my account'. There didn't seem to be any other way to unlink twitter from Facebook.

Anyway, it deleted my entire twitter account - 1,100 or so followers, and 1,300 or so people that I'm following. It's a bit of a nightmare.

So please, if you used to follow me, please re-follow me at my new account @dancall1 (I'm now @dancall again)

It's been a bit of a shocking experience, to be honest. I'm not even going to go into how much I'd potentially pay to reverse the deletion, but I do know that it's less painful than:

Losing my Gmail
Losing my blog archives
Losing my delicious account.

& also it's a lot less painful than losing anyone 'real' if you know what I mean.

But anyway - beware with the twitter Facebook app (don't bother) and please re-follow me on twitter - @dancall1 (I'm now @dancall again)

Nokia N8 table football skills

This is a new series of viral films from Nokia to promote the N8. They show people playing table football in a bar, using the most amazing trick shots, all filmed on the N8.

The best table footballers I ever met were in a backstreet bar in Barcelona - two of us played two of them and we lost 9-nil each time. Eventually we suggested a mixed, Champions League style match (one English, one Spanish per team), and that evened things out a lot. But neither of them could touch the people in this video:



You can also see clips of the individual tricks - for example:



Full disclosure - Nokia is one of the clients of the agency I work for.

Tate Trumps

Tate Trumps is an iPhone app game that you play at the Tate Modern gallery.

Players wander the gallery collecting particular works of art, then play against friends Top Trumps style, to see who has the best hand.

Tate Trumps from Hide and Seek on Vimeo.

More here

adidas Star Wars Cantina

A new film to celebrate the adidas Star Wars collaboration. Lots to enjoy, including Ian Brown and Noel Gallagher chucking beer mats...



A full list of the stars featuring is listed in the tags for the video:

David Beckham Daft Punk Snoop Dogg Franz Beckenbauer Noel Gallagher Ian Brown Ciara Jay Baruchel DJ Neil Armstrong Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi ben kenobi Han Solo Cantina Greedo light saber C-3PO R2-D2 Artoo Detoo See-Threepio Droids adidas adidas Originals World Cup FIFA South Africa adidas Soccer soccer footie adidas Football adidas Commercial adidas ad adidas advert adidas advertisement adidas commercial Sneakers Oasis.

Notice how adidas, unlike Nike, are allowed to use the terms 'FIFA' and 'World Cup' as tags.

Full disclosure - Aegis, the company I work for, is one of adidas' agencies.

Buy cinema tickets on Facebook through Tickets Together

Tickets Together is a Facebook app that lets you buy cinema tickets and arrange an event simultaneously.

It's currently being used to sell tickets for Toy Story 3 in the US, but I'm assuming it'll be extended to other titles soon.

Users simply put in their location, select a screening time, and invite friends. It then creates an event, and they can buy tickets directly. You can see in the screengrab that I invited 2 friends. The Toy Story characters are going to be there anyway...

In the US it uses 3rd party ticketing agencies like Fandango to do the transaction; over here there is no similar arrangement, but you'd hope that they'd be able to organise something. Booking cinema tickets through a site like Facebook is such a no brainer, and part of a growing trend of being able to spend money on the site.

More details at Mashable.

Bing's ice cream van in London this summer

As a way of promoting Bing Maps Microsoft are sending out an ice cream van around London this summer. Unlike with the Jimmy Choo game, and even the street food trucks in the US, they're publishing a schedule in advance, so you'll know where to go.

In fact in some ways it's a bit of a tour of agencies around London, with stops at Shorts Garden, Westbourne Terrace, Charlotte Street and Golden Square (but not Parker Street - yet).

See the schedule on a Bing map here.

More at the Microsoft Advertising blog

Amazing 3D building projection for BMW

I've seen quite a few stunts using projections on buildings, but this has to be the best so far.



Very, very well done.

More here

Create your own Heineken

Heineken have created this is a nice feature, enabled by digital media.

Simply select a theme (party, sport, triumph, summer, celebration, 'just to say'), add some words, and get 6 personalised bottles for £29.99 within 15 days.

It's pretty expensive as beer, but still a really nice thing to offer.

On a completely different note, I also love this personalised service by Anya Hindmarch - upload a photo to create your own handbag or washbag.