'Wake the F--- Up and Vote for Obama'

Samuel L Jackson reprises his 'Go the fuck to sleep' video in this film.  "Paid for by the Jewish Council for Education and Research, not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee."

I suspect this may be this election's 'Yes We Can'

Visit WTFU2012.com for more details on the video.

Coca Cola turn a magazine into a loudspeaker

This is brilliant.  One of my colleagues sent me this link, and initially I though that Coca Cola had embedded something very expensive into a print ad, but no - they've just used some well-placed paper cuts on the outside of a magazine to turn it into a loudspeaker to amplify music played over the iPhone.  As it says 'amplify the party'.



psfk has the full story, but basically its a very clever way to promote the first year anniversay of Coca-Cola.FM, the Brazillian online radio station.

Kellogg's #TweetShop - Pay with a Tweet

Kellogg's are claiming a world's first with a pop-up shop in London where you pay with a tweet.  (Kellogg are a client of the agency I work for, but I'm not involved in this campaign)

It was announced this morning with this Tweet:

World's first Tweet Shop opens today to launch new Cracker Crisps. 13 Meard Street London. 1 tweet= free box #tweetshop twitter.com/KelloggsUK/sta…
— Kellogg's UK(@KelloggsUK) September 25, 2012

In the name of research I went down at lunchtime to get some - here's the outside of the shop:

& a packet of the Special K Cracker Crisps

& the Tweet I sent to get my free packet.

At the new @kelloggsuk #TweetShop in Meard Street, Soho 1 tweet gets you 1 pack instagr.am/p/P_6SYHMgvJ/
— Dan Calladine (@dancall) September 25, 2012

The shop is on Meard Street (Off Wardour Street) and is open until Friday.

Fifty Five DSL #55SecondsToLive

#55SecondsToLive is a new campaign from fashion brand 55DSL.  It's like a tweet race, but when each level of tweets is reached new content gets released.

It was inspired by the brand's recent launch in India, where they used the theme 'Paint Your Town' and got street artists involved.  This has been extended online where people can paint the web with their ambitions, through the medium of twitter.

As they get to each threshold one Tweet will be judged the most creative, and that user will get a prize.

At the time of writing it's still all up for grabs, so get involved!

Optimising for Instagram

As Instagram gets more and more popular - over 100m users, now, and 45% of pics use no filter, so forget the hipster cliches - people are trying integrate it into their communications.

Two examples:

First, the Barack Obama campaign is now posting square pictures on Facebook, making them perfect for screen grabbing and posting on Instagram.  This one is very well done.

(I've now realised that lots of brands post square pics on Facebook, but I hadn't noticed it done so well before)

Second, brands are trying to create photo opportunities for people to take pics to share.  I saw this one in Leicester Square a couple of months ago.

Seen any other good examples of people making it easier to share?

Political Snarking

Three recent examples of what is effectively user generated snarking at political figures.  Yes, all come from publications, rather than users, but all brilliantly pick up on that spreads and gains traction online.

First, in response to the leaked video of Mitt Romney claiming that he was never going to get the vote of the 47% of Americans who pay no taxes (he meant income taxes), Slate produced this flow chart of whether or not Romney wants your vote.

Next, on the same theme, Cracked produced this short quiz of quotes from either Mitt Romney or Monty Burns from The Simpsons.

& finally, here's a video that British online magazine The Poke produced, autotuning Nick Clegg's apology to voters.


(To give him his due, when The Poke asked Clegg if they could sell the song on iTunes he said yes, as long as the proceeds went to a specified charity)

Any of these could have the power to affect people's perceptions (given enough exposure) as famous newspaper front pages of the past, for example the The Sun's 'Crisis, What Crisis?'

The Friskies

Awarded for the best cat video of the year, obviously.  A brilliant, brilliant idea.



You can see this getting lots of coverage across all the channels including TV and in the press.

BaconBarter - what can you buy for Bacon?

This is a very clever campaign that could really take off.



To demonstrate the attractive qualities of Oscar Mayer's bacon, Josh Sankey is travelling across America with a truck of (hopefully refrigerated) bacon, but no money or credit cards.

To get what he needs in terms of other food, accommodation, fuel, entertainment and so on, he must trade the bacon along the way.

People can monitor his progress and contact him through the usual social channels, including Twitter, including the hashtag #BaconBarter, Facebook, and Instagram.

I really, really like this.  If it takes off you can see the bacon lasting a long time as many different people will be competing to trade with him, making the bacon go further.  See how seriously I'm taking it..?

Follow the progress here.

Update - 1st October:

He made it to LA.  The campaign didn't exactly set the world alight, but I expect they made a lot of friends along the way.  Let's see if they repeat the idea.



Update - Heineken have been running a very similar concept - a man travels from Mongolia to Bangkok, with no money, just Heineken:

How to buy Twitter followers

One of the ways you judge a brand or a celebrity (or even - maybe - a colleague) these days is by looking at how many followers they have on Twitter.

Two Olympic stories:

First, when Edwina Currie caused a fuss on Twitter by making comments about Italian Paralympic athletes during the opening ceremony I initially thought it was probably a fake account because she had fewer than 4,000 followers.

Second, celebrity managers know how important it is for their charges to have an active presence, as shown in this quote from the FT:

"An athlete’s following on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites has quickly become key in determining [how long an athlete can stay in the spotlight].
“Brands always ask how many followers an athlete has,” said Ricky Simms, director at Pace Sports Management who is Bolt’s worldwide agent. “For many companies, this is the way they want to reach their target customers.”
Olympic athletes traditionally had a short time frame to capitalise on their performance in the Games because they quickly fade from the public eye, according to marketing executives. But social media has allowed the athletes to extend relationships with fans by sharing messages, photos and videos.
Sponsorship now typically involve some social media promotion through an athlete’s Twitter feed or Facebook page. Before the Games, for instance, Bolt posted messages about his sponsors, such as a picture of a refrigerator filled with bottles of the orange Gatorade sports drink"

How do you get lots of followers?  Be very good at Twitter, or more probably, get famous among a group of people.  Greg Rutherford had only a few thousand followers in July, but now he has more than 100,000.

Or...  Buy them.  Today I received an email offering the chance to do just that; 10,000 Twitter followers for £99.  (Or 500 +1s on Google for £99, or 20,000 YouTube views for £199).  (No, I'm not going to link to the company)

As it says in the blurb:

"Please note that whilst all of these followers will be real people, they will not be profiled to meet your target market and are therefore unlikely to interact with your page or buy any of your goods or services.  This service is intended to create the perception that your Twitter page is extremely popular and increase your online credibility."

If you do use the number of Twitter followers someone has as a measure of their worth, or their influence, then use a site like TwitterCounter to see the speed of their follower growth, and look out for any sudden bumps!

Volkswagen's Bluemotion recycling label

This is a very smart campaign for Volkswagen in South Africa.  To emphasise the environmental credentials of Volkswagen's Bluemotion range, they spent some of the advertising & production budget on pre-paid postage stickers that they put on their magazine ads.



When people had finished reading the magazines they just had to put the sticker on the front then post them back to VW in a standard postbox, letting VW recycle the magazines.  South Africa doesn't have many recycling points, so this effectively put a recycling station in every district.

Very clever, and great contrary thinking.

ABBA - Interactive Timeline on YouTube

Universal Music have just produced this interactive timeline for ABBA.  Watch it through, or click on the mini videos to watch the songs in full.  It's a YouTube first, but clearly an idea that would have lots of applications.

It's good, although unless I'm missing something there is no easy way to return to the 'timeline' video once you've finished watching an individual video, or want to quit before the end.  Also, if you watch on YouTube you get ads before the individual videos.

Scary to think that ABBA were only producing music for eight years, though.

 


Originally announced in this tweet:

Check out the ABBA interactive time line - A YouTube first! youtu.be/BPozYQmYrf0
— Universal Music UK (@UMusicuk) September 3, 2012