Continuing the trend of companies co-opting celebs to create content for them, comes this video that is somehow promoting Chrome. I'd love to know the deal - who was paying whom?
Gaga's everywhere at the moment - in FarmVille, and in Starbucks, for example.
Update: On the day of release, Amazon.com was selling the album for $0.99, with a free upgrade to a 20gb Amazon Cloud account. I'm assuming that Amazon subsidised this all themselves.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Games for Cats
Genius. Well done Friskies.
Site here
Sadly the games aren't available as apps, but you can play them on the iPad or on Android tablet by visiting the site. Having played I can testify that the games are perfect for cats. For example the Cat Fishing game keeps track of how many fish you hit.
Via Liam Brennan
Site here
Sadly the games aren't available as apps, but you can play them on the iPad or on Android tablet by visiting the site. Having played I can testify that the games are perfect for cats. For example the Cat Fishing game keeps track of how many fish you hit.
Via Liam Brennan
Monday, May 16, 2011
Bing x Dizzie Rascal
Bing is pretty big on partnerships. In the past they've partnered with:
Jay-Z to promote his book Decoded
Tapulous to provide a free Katie Perry download
Angry Birds - Bing is embedded into the game to help people find cheats
Now they've teamed up with Dizzie Rascal to showcase his photos on their homepage. There'll be a new photo each day this week.
See more on the Your Britain site.
YouTube takeover for King Fu Panda 2
We're starting to see more and more of these, but this one for Kung Fu Panda 2 brings in some nice interactivity.
Watch the first video, then click on the link:
It should take you here
Watch the first video, then click on the link:
It should take you here
Have a play with it!
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Giving your spare space away
I like this very clever banner ad for the Nissan Micra.
To emphasise how good the car is with space (lots of places to stow stuff), the car ad only took up a small part of the banner, leaving the rest for people to fill with their own text car ad.
The banner then tweeted the user's car ad.
Also in the same vein, is this excellent work by Ben & Jerry.
They got people to opt in to donate spare characters from their tweets to help promote Fair Trade through Fair Tweets
This is my tweet 'Chewing on a yummy banana'.
Both are really good examples, because in the first the brand gives something to users, and in the second users are encouraged to give something to charity.
To emphasise how good the car is with space (lots of places to stow stuff), the car ad only took up a small part of the banner, leaving the rest for people to fill with their own text car ad.
The banner then tweeted the user's car ad.
Also in the same vein, is this excellent work by Ben & Jerry.
They got people to opt in to donate spare characters from their tweets to help promote Fair Trade through Fair Tweets
This is my tweet 'Chewing on a yummy banana'.
Both are really good examples, because in the first the brand gives something to users, and in the second users are encouraged to give something to charity.
Ghostbusters DVD viewing party on Twitter
This is excellent! To build the love for the whole Ghostbusters world in the run up to next year's Ghostbusters 3, Sony are holding a special DVD viewing party for the first Ghostbusters film on Twitter tomorrow. (It's also Friday 13th)
Follow @GhostbustersDVD on twitter, then start the DVD at 9pm EST, 6pm PST (2am UK time) and join in the fun.
So far the twitter account has got only 324 followers, but what a fun idea.
It'd be fun to do this as a regular cult film event with people like Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg or even - why not - stars of the film paid/encouraged to take part, or even as a special event on the day of a DVD release.
Imagine it - buy the DVD for Hangover II on the day of release, then watch it with the cast on twitter that evening.
(Click to enlarge)
Follow @GhostbustersDVD on twitter, then start the DVD at 9pm EST, 6pm PST (2am UK time) and join in the fun.
So far the twitter account has got only 324 followers, but what a fun idea.
It'd be fun to do this as a regular cult film event with people like Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg or even - why not - stars of the film paid/encouraged to take part, or even as a special event on the day of a DVD release.
Imagine it - buy the DVD for Hangover II on the day of release, then watch it with the cast on twitter that evening.
Monday, May 09, 2011
Nokia Shorts - this is how you pitch
These are the sorts of pitches that win competitions!
Nokia Shorts is a competition on Vimeo that Carat (my agency) has helped to set up. To emphasise the quality of the video you can shoot with a Nokia N8, Nokia are giving film makers the chance to win a budget of $5,000 and two N8s to shoot on, prior to an ultimate prize of a premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and $10,000 prize money. I first wrote about it in March.
Film makers had to pitch their ideas. The eight winning pitches have now been revealed.
Here are four of my favourites:
Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.
&
Homecoming from Teemu Nikki on Vimeo.
&
Pearls from jasonvangenderen on Vimeo.
Not to mention:
The Adventures of a Cardboard Box - Pitch from Studiocanoe on Vimeo.
I know I'm biased because my agency's involved, but I think there's so much promise in all of these films. Really looking forward to seeing the finished work!
Nokia Shorts is a competition on Vimeo that Carat (my agency) has helped to set up. To emphasise the quality of the video you can shoot with a Nokia N8, Nokia are giving film makers the chance to win a budget of $5,000 and two N8s to shoot on, prior to an ultimate prize of a premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and $10,000 prize money. I first wrote about it in March.
Film makers had to pitch their ideas. The eight winning pitches have now been revealed.
Here are four of my favourites:
Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.
&
Homecoming from Teemu Nikki on Vimeo.
&
Pearls from jasonvangenderen on Vimeo.
Not to mention:
The Adventures of a Cardboard Box - Pitch from Studiocanoe on Vimeo.
I know I'm biased because my agency's involved, but I think there's so much promise in all of these films. Really looking forward to seeing the finished work!
Selling Stewart Lee with Social Media
This is excellent. I'm sure a lot of us have been in meetings like this.
For more about Stewart Lee see the main BBC page here, Stewart's site here, or search for 'Angry Stew' in the App Store.
Via Creative Review.
(It's Kevin Eldon playing the social media guru)
For more about Stewart Lee see the main BBC page here, Stewart's site here, or search for 'Angry Stew' in the App Store.
Via Creative Review.
(It's Kevin Eldon playing the social media guru)
Friday, May 06, 2011
Cadbury's Charity Shop
A new ad from Cadbury's.
I like this - I think it might be the best one they've done since Gorilla - it's fun, the music's a guilty pleasure, and I can imagine it playing very well to a very broad audience. I bet Smiffy's, who make most of the fancy dress costumes, and designing some 'giant clothes' outfits as I write this.
It's too easy to be cynical in agencyland. We all hated T-Mobile's Royal Wedding film when we first saw it, and in the first few hours it was on YouTube the comments were dominated by people slagging it off, and pointing out the similarity to the earlier JK Wedding Entrance Dance film.
Yet 3 weeks later it's had nearly 20m views, the comments and ratings are overwhelmingly popular, and it reached millions on the BBC when a great chunk of it was shown on Have I Got News For You.
I think Cadbury's (Fallon) may have produced something that'll become very popular over the next few weeks.
I like this - I think it might be the best one they've done since Gorilla - it's fun, the music's a guilty pleasure, and I can imagine it playing very well to a very broad audience. I bet Smiffy's, who make most of the fancy dress costumes, and designing some 'giant clothes' outfits as I write this.
It's too easy to be cynical in agencyland. We all hated T-Mobile's Royal Wedding film when we first saw it, and in the first few hours it was on YouTube the comments were dominated by people slagging it off, and pointing out the similarity to the earlier JK Wedding Entrance Dance film.
Yet 3 weeks later it's had nearly 20m views, the comments and ratings are overwhelmingly popular, and it reached millions on the BBC when a great chunk of it was shown on Have I Got News For You.
I think Cadbury's (Fallon) may have produced something that'll become very popular over the next few weeks.
Popping Balloons Stop-Motion
This work for MTV Brazil is excellent. So simple in concept, in realisation... probably a less so!
Via Adrants
For 2 more great Stop-Motion examples - including one using T-shirts - see this post from 2007.
Via Adrants
For 2 more great Stop-Motion examples - including one using T-shirts - see this post from 2007.
Thursday, May 05, 2011
The Brennan JB7
Update - November 2014 - The Brennan has ceased production and Martin Brennan is working on a new product
The Brennan JB7 is a digital music player. You load your CDs in, and then you can then easily search through and play your collection, without the hassle of having to put your CDs in a CD player.
As it says on the website:
"The Brennan JB7 is simply a better way to enjoy your music.
JB7 holds your entire CD collection on a hard disk to give you instant access to any of your music and play unbroken music for as long as you want.
You can choose and play an album or track without getting out of your chair.
You get to see what is playing from across a room.
One button plays your entire music collection at random - another turns it off - its what you need when its late and you just want to unwind.
JB7 will re-awaken your passion for music. It will make you feel like a teenager again."
It's been advertised in every issue of Private Eye for the past 2 years or so (see pics) and they're clearly selling quite a few of them because the ads have now started to appear in more mainstream media, for example The Guardian's Weekend magazine. This ad below uses copy taken from a Ciao review written by Les Floon in July last year. People seem to love their Brennans.
However... I just don't get it at all. I don't get why anyone would buy one.
The ads talk about how you've loaded all your music onto a computer, but you never want to play music from your computer. Surely that's what an iPod is for? (Other MP3 players are available) I have all of my music on my computer, but I never play it from my computer. I synch it with my iPod, then connect my iPod to different systems in different rooms. I can take my iPod on the train, on holiday and so on - and I can also fill it with stuff I've downloaded. So why would I want to bother with the Brennan JB7? Oh - and the cheapest one costs £366. It's not a cheap option.
I think it must be a generational thing. (See the line about 'it will make you feel like a teenager again'.) I think the Brennan must be an example of a product that no one under the age of 40 (50?) would buy. I'm guessing that the media that the ads appear in reflects this, but that they're trying to go a bit younger with The Guardian.
Am I wrong? Tell me if I am. Clearly I'm not in the target market for this, and it's a bit sad people slagging off things that aren't meant for them, like when Bill Bryson moaned about computer games. I'll admit that it seems to be selling, and there's nothing wrong with targeting an older market. If you've got one and it's great tell me what I'm missing...
Anyway, I'm glad I've got that off my chest after 2 years of seeing the ads in Private Eye!
Update - 14th August 2011
Brennan are now advertising in the Financial Times Weekend Magazine, and have co-opted Jools Holland as their new brand spokesman:
& there's a TV ad too:
Update - 10th January 2012
The new ad in Private Eye has the heading "MP3 player or Brennan? I'll have both thanks" so at least they now acknowledge that MP3 players exist, and are more portable. Now they've shifted their focus onto the higher audio quality of the Brennan. So, a slight shift in strategy. I still wonder who's buying them though!
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
New Google Search video ad format
Google showed us this new ad format today.
Search for 'Priest', a new vampire movie, and you'll see the trailer come up as the top result. Click on that, and the video starts to stream, dimming the rest of the screen.
Officially it's a search format - you buy it as a keyword buy, and you pay cost per click. Click = a video view in this case.
So far you can only use it for entertainment brands - films and TV shows - but I'm assuming other categories will be able to use it eventually.
+1 for Google!
Search for 'Priest', a new vampire movie, and you'll see the trailer come up as the top result. Click on that, and the video starts to stream, dimming the rest of the screen.
Officially it's a search format - you buy it as a keyword buy, and you pay cost per click. Click = a video view in this case.
So far you can only use it for entertainment brands - films and TV shows - but I'm assuming other categories will be able to use it eventually.
+1 for Google!
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