Color Changing Card Trick!

Watch the video first.



It's amazing to see how the way we focus on something affects our whole perspective and attention level.
We are conditioning ourselves to the traditional card trick, we try to catch "that specific moment" where we will understand how the thing works. But as you see, all the environment is changing at that time. And once that someone shows it to us in an obvious way, we say "wow, I did not even realized it!"

well, it seems like this video is a good picture of the world we are living in.
we have got to catch the whole thing changing instead of wasting time, trying to understand the tricky point which is distracting and locking us...

why are sales declining, how has our customer changed?
it seems that not only the customer has changed color. "nothing is like it was a few years ago".

What if God had a MySpace?

Just a funny youtube discovery for the weekend - interesting to see how MySpace still inspires people to create crazy stuff...




Mathias

P!NK video contest galore!

To support the single "Dear Mr. President" (Top 10 charts already - 5th single out of this album!) we set up a huge online & tv promotion with www.myvideo.de (german youtube, 5th biggest internet page in Germany and the biggest national video portal). The promotion is also TV covered by TAFF (boulevard & entertainment program at big private tv station PRO7).

P!NK herself asks the fans to record their own video to "Dear Mr. President" to win a meet & greet with her this summer. The promotion includes all of her videos - only with the "Dear Mr. President" clip you can win the prize. TAFF does accompany everything - announcement, broadcast of fan clips on a regular base, will show P!NK picking the winner as well as the final meet & greet. Online banner are set up at the whole network of PRO7 media (www.pro7.de, www.kabel1.de, www.taff.de, www.myvideo.de and affiliate partners) together with buy recommendation/links.

Check out: http://www.myvideo.de/online/page.php?l=1&P=610#player

Alex & Nina!

Coke and iTunes link for promotion

Coke and iTunes link for promotion
15 May 2007 - 11:46:47

Coca-Cola is teaming up with iTunes on a music promotion that will span 17 European countries this summer.

The campaign will see the drinks company give away songs from the iTunes store in 2bn promotional packs of Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coke Zero before the end of August.

The on-pack promotion will also offer customers the chance to win iPods and attend Coke and iTunes-sponsored concerts across Europe.

The Coke and iTunes summer concerts will see headline acts playing with newer acts from Coca-Cola's grassroots programme that allows undiscovered artists to upload their music on Coke's website( www.coke.com/music ).

All of the concerts will be recorded and made available as downloads and podcasts exclusively on iTunes.

What's The Big Idea?

Last week I attended a conference in the UK called Media 360 which gathered together some of the biggest and brightest marketers, advertising and digital agencies, media buyers and media owners ranging from companies such as Unilever, P & G, Barclays, Channel 4 through to Olgivy, Clearchannel, Microsoft, Yahoo and Vodafone.

A key point of discussion and debate was about marketing in today's world. One of the key themes that came up a number of times was the essential aspect of creating a Big Idea or Big Ideal to base your campaign around. Alan Rutherford, VP of Global Media for Unilever, summed it up well by outlining a four stage process...

1. Put the consumer first - understand the psychology and sociology of your audience.
2. Engage with key cultural trends.
3. Create talkability.
4. Do the numbers last.

As an example see the video below for an amazing campaign that was put together for Lynx in Australia and New Zealand.

The insight behind the campaign was that Unilever discovered and tapped into the fact that Lynx's target audience in Oz and Nz (18-21 year old guys) started to think that air travel and the planning of their first overseas trip on their own was a very aspirational goal.

The insight resulted in a Big Idea which was driven through 32 different channels in an example of true 360 degree integration...see the video below. The sales impact off the back of the campaign was unprecedented.

Obviously our artists aren't brands like Lynx, but to what extent do we need to start thinking in this way?

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Advertising vs. the Consumer

A video by Microsoft digital advertising solutions...

Sometimes (unfortunately more times than some), aren't we this guy? Still turning the same old tricks the same old way to a consumer that has dramatically CHANGED. Are we thinking enough about the CONSUMER as we market our music? The guy listening on the other end? Or the girl singing her lungs out along to the radio in her car? Who is SHE? And not just what is she listening to but where is she going and how is this music connecting to HER? I need to think about that more. Sometimes I get too caught up in the big picture. A launch event. A meet & greet. TV advertising or a radio show. And I lose touch with her.

The Break Up
Uploaded by geertdesager

Relax, Take It Easy

Sometimes music seems to be written for tv commercials like Mika´s new single "Relax, Take It Easy" for German Telco Alice advertising their new combined DSL + landline + mobile rate:

Alice TV Spot

Fergie's solo tour is going wireless.

An interesting headline from the Billboard Bulletin last week. It will be interesting to see the fans reaction and whether the tour suffers due to this deal being exclusive to one carrier - Verizon.
"Fergie's solo tour is going wireless. No paper tickets will be sold for the 20-city tour, sponsored by Verizon Wireless. Instead, fans can download a mobile ticket to their mobile phones which they can present at the door for entry. Verizon Wireless subscribers can get a ticket via any of the following mobile tie-ins: by downloading any of Fergie's songs from the VCast Music full-song download service; attending one of several planned Verizon Wireless i-store events; downloading the new Fergie TV channel on VCast; buying select Motorola phones; participating in various "Try 2 Win" fitting events at Kohl's department stores; or through radio promotions. The mobile ticketing initiative is backed up by a number of other mobile-related activities Fergie is offering fans. She created a custom "Fergie TV" channel that fans can download from the VCast mobile video service, available May 21. Content includes clips based around fashion, style, relationships and music. The artist also plans to take questions from fans via text messaging, which she will then answer in the Fergie TV updates. The tour will also feature "green screens" similar to those used in motion picture special effects, allowing fans to dance to Fergie songs and have their image inserted into the show footage. The resulting video will be sent to fans' mobile phones, and fans creating the best videos will have the chance to join Fergie on stage during the finale of each stop. Verizon additionally created as special Fergie Mobile Fashion Meter contest. Fans will be invited to visit certain Verizon Wireless stores to have their pictures taken with mobile phones. The most stylish fans will have the chance to model on stage at a fashion show by the Candie's fashion line." More details click here BEP.com.

Ray-ban Viral

This viral for Ray-Ban was posted to youtube just yesterday, and it’s already nearing 7k views. It was created by Cutwater (Omnicom's newest agency).

Here’s what Chuck McBride, ecd of Cutwater had to say:

“It can’t be a fashion brand, but it is fashionable, so what is it? People like them at the comfort level. They’re what they wear when they are most themselves. That’s how we came up with “Never Hide.” These glasses don’t mask who you are, they’re a window to who you are. For the short while, ”Never Hide” is one of the best branding ideas I’ve had. Everyone gets the double entendre; it’s just right strategically for the audience and the client, and it is evoking a truth. And it’s a big idea that a lot of cool executions can live under. We went out to find the biggest truth out in a marketplace that is going label-driven and fashion. It is a nice, disruptive thought.”

Have You Been Drinking?

I fell on that nice and creative guerilla campaign from Portugal.
The gerilla team of the Portuguese Taxi Association put yellow "taxi prisms" on all the cars in front of big clubs and bars, writing "If you've been drinking, don't risk it. Call 707 308 294."
Received calls between midnight and 4am have increased by 50%.

Would a similar idea work, by reaching interested audience at the end of concerts? "If you like it, you may want to buy it"
??

Paying Artists For Free Music

"The Pirate Bay has started a unique collaboration with the members of the Swedish rock band Lamont and their manager Kristopher S. Wilbur. After lengthy discussions about the future of the record industry and its implications for the many talented artists and songwriters around the world, we discovered that we held the same vision. The shared insight that the record industry—with its current business model—is outdated inspired the birth of Playble.com.

This innovative music site will allow users to download music by artists for free and still support them financially. Playble.com will give companies with strong brands the opportunity to support music and artists directly. Welcome to Playble.com."

www.playable.com

Great Online Advertising

watch this:
http://www.club-internet.fr/le-duel/

Keep Your Hands Off My Meat

Meat maker inks music download deal.

What's the only thing better than ground meat encased in synthetic intestines? That same meat accompanied by downloadable music, of course.

Looking to tap into the popularity of digital music, meat maker Carl Buddig & Co. and its subsidiary Old Wisconsin sausages have inked a deal to offer a free download in its packaged deli meats and specialty sausages.

The firm has hooked up with digital music provider Puretracks, which is layering a free download into about 15 million Buddig and Old Wisconsin packages. Puretracks has a catalog of 2 million songs and connected with the meat maker through Promotional Currency, a Dallas-based marketing strategies firm that specializes in digital entertainment promotions. Each specially marked Buddig or Old Wisconsin package will include a unique package code, along with a pointer to the firm's Web site to retrieve the download.

5 Visions

What happens when you give 5 video directors one script, each commissioned to shoot a film the way they interpret it? How different would each film be?

This is a competition that Clarins ran promoting a film festival in Argentina called Project 155. If you have seven minutes to watch the whole thing tell me which one you liked the most. Just a tip- you may want to skip the first short film because I think it is the worst, but hey, that’s just my opinion.

I like this idea. I think music video directors, for example, are under-recognized. What if we work together with MTV to create 5 different short music videos for one song, leading up to the EMAs? The idea being to celebrate the "directors" rather than just the artist. Using our artist and music as the drawing board.

NIN viral campaign catch-up

Lots of people have asked me about the NIN campaign which has attracted a lot of noise around the release of their new album Year Zero. Matthias Lumm (Malum) posted about it last month and John Fleckenstein commented on it this morning.

Here's a brief catch-up on the details:

The campaign began when fans found that a new Nine Inch Nails tour T-shirt contained highlighted letters that spell out the words "I am trying to believe." It was then discovered that iamtryingtobelieve.com was a website that spoke of a vision of a dystopian future - also other websites found in the same IP range were also portraying a similar theme.

Soon after a USB key containing an mp3 of a new song from the album was found in the bathroom at a NIN concert in Lisbon, followed by others at other concerts - these quickly found their way around the net.

Other files included an mp3 of static noise that when ran through a spectrograph produced an image of 'the presence' which would go on to become the album cover.

The entire concept is about harnessing the power of fans. Marketing never gives the consumers enough credit (in my humble opinion).

Comprehensive Data Guide to the Digital Marketing World

NEW YORK - The world of digital marketing is evolving so rapidly in so many directions that simply keeping up with developments is a major challenge for most of us. Attached is a Digital Fact Pack, a 52-page data guide to the digital media and marketing landscape. Some great facts and figures across all categories. Long but worth flicking through!

Click the atached to download the guide: the Digital Marketing landscape.

Nine Inch Nails Releases Tracks on The Pirate Bay

One of the most notorious BitTorrent sites, a haven for pirates and copyright content, The Pirate Bay has been embraced by Trent Razor and the Nine Inch Nails, who have chosen to make their tracks, "Capital G", "My Violent Heart", and "Me, I'm Not." available for download via torrents indexed on the site.

http://www.slyck.com/story1461.html

Addicted

Check out the new TV spot for Nike+. Titled "Addicted", directed by Dante Ariola, voiced by Edward Norton, music score by A-Bomb. It's awesome.

Three Billion

There are 3 Billion people under the age of 25 on this planet. That's over half the world's population. What are they doing? What fascinates them? What makes them tick? What are they buying?

Check out the 3 Billion website, a research group focused on decoding this fickle demographic. I've also included the link in our Cool Links sidebar.

They just released this video: The threebillion Random Youth Facts'n'Stats Video - Volume One

The Future according to Intel

What happens when we get super-small portable computers that integrate with just about everything? My dream of becoming the real Inspector Gadget becomes a reality. Intel apparently has some of these big ideas, and it all looks pretty damn cool.

Coca-Cola: Virtual Thirst on Second Life

Last Monday, Coke launched their first entrance into Second Life, titled "Virtual Thirst: Coke+Alt+Refresh". The most interesting aspect of Coke's launch is that they didn't just build some huge island, a mecca to the Coke brand, as has been pretty much the status quo so far with these virtual world branding attempts (i.e. SONY BMG Music's Media Island).

Instead, Coke took a fresh approach, asking Second Lifers themselves to create a Coca-Cola virtual vending machine that would quench a "virtual thirst". What is your virtual thirst? This is how they got it right - it's not about what Coke wants you to be... it's about what YOU want you to be. This approach aligns perfectly with the core purpose and attraction of Second Life... to be able to experience things that in First Life are impossible - a perfect combination of limitless creativity and supernatural ability.

Here are two examples of submissions so far:

mock up of apple campaign

Found this little montage on ipodlife.de

YouTube Alternatives

YouTube is clearly the most popular video sharing site on the web. But limits on video length, DMCA takedown notices and billion dollar lawsuits have damaged YouTube’s ability to facilitate serious copyright infringement. The smaller guys are now stepping in to fill the void.

Full length copies of well known TV shows and/or movies are readily available on a number of YouTube competitors. Watch, for example, The Office on DailyMotion, Scrubs on GoFish, or SouthPark on Veoh.

And if searching for the shows on these sites is just too much work, there are other sites that aggregate and organize this content, and embed it on their own sites. Watch any episode from any of the 11 seasons of SouthPark on Allsp.com. And new site VideoHybrid is in a class of its own, with dozens of full length movies and virtually every popular TV show. VideoHybrid even give statistics showing exactly how many times copyrights have been violated.

Its not clear if the MPAA and networks just aren’t focusing on these smaller video sharing sites yet, or if DMCA notices are simply being ignored. These sites aren’t hiding out and trying to evade the law - they’re funded by well known venture capitalists and, in Veoh’s case, copyright holders. And GoFish is actually a public company.

Hmmm. Maybe EMI should do a deal with them.

Mac vs. PC

I love this one...

EXPERIENTIAL BLUETOOTH

After numerous attempts by many companies to 'ping' passers-by on the street, we've realised 99% of Australian's don't walk around with their bluetooth switched on.

Different companies are now in the market offering "experiential" bluetooth, scattered booths where signage and "hosts" draw people in, ask them to turn their bluetooth on to download vouchers, wallpapers etc.

Two executions are currently being worked in Australia...

Virgin Mobile have teamed up with Groove Armada for their forthcoming appearance at the V Festival March 31 & April 1. Users will be 'pinged' a Groove Armada wallpaper that tags the album release (see below) as they walk past roaming "angels" at the two day festival.






For Beyonce's forthcoming tour, Telstra will have pods scattered across the Sydney Entertainment Centre. These open pods, partnered with signage and a host, will help prompt consumers to turn their bluetooth on and download the "Deluxe Edition" Voucher, which includes a wallpaper, physical retail discount coupon and ringtone link for the sale of Beyonce's latest tones and tracks.

In addition to bluetooth nationally, we're in talks to get a 2 minute "Deluxe Edition" piece (less selly, more entertainment, but still delivering the point) placed on the big screens inside the venue, tagging our ringtone number, plus flyers on all seats tieing back to physical and digital retail partners.

So after more consumer education, and new phone models constantly coming out, bluetooth may a find a real niche in experiential marketing down under.

Keep Your Hands Off My Blog!

Sticker postcards are still one of the most effective viral street tools around and for the release of the new GC single/album we´ve created 100.000 of them with a "fill in the blanks" feature (see picture).

So Keep Your Hands Off My Car, Mobile, Blog or whatever you like others to stay away from!

Here my version:

Sky high release & (possibly) a Guiness Record?

The Norwegian artist Magnet has been signed to SONY BMG Norway, and we thought a 4th album release had to be done a bit differently to properly reignite the interest for this experienced artist.

So this Tuesday, we're doing it... differently!

• Gather 100+ key journalists, taste makers, & key retailers
• Pack our Passports and Speedos :)
• Bring a representative from The Guiness Book of World Records to witness the event.
• Hold a release party & mini-gig @ 35,000 ft above sea-level onboard an SAS flight from Oslo to Iceland.
• Once in Iceland, have a mini concert in a Geo-thermal seawater lagoon
  
• Upon return to Oslo, attendees go directly to a concert hall where the artist plays a full gig in front of a paying crowd. Party party...
• The Airline picks up the tab for all the flights.
• The event becomes one of the most talked-about happenings in Norway 2007.

Credit goes to the label manager and promo dept for brilliantly putting this together
and creating a massive amount of buzz & attention around the release. :)

It might not be digital business, but it's at least new! ;-)

Jan Henrik

I Innovate

I Innovate posts a podcast every week, interviewing today's top innovators and entrepreneurials. The most recent interview is with Mark Junk, former COO of MySpace & Fox Interactive. One I really liked was the interview with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. Among the topics they covered were:

• Anti-trust
  

• Innovation

• Competitive advantages

• Motivation of entrepreneurs

• Maintaining the entrepreneurial spirit

• Traditional and non-traditional organization design

• What Microsoft and Yahoo does that impresses him

• Invention of disruptive technologies

My favorite line was: “You don’t learn very much when you yourself are talking.”

Check it out. They've got a fascinating insight into where things are headed.

NIN viral campaign vs. UMG

You may have heard about the NIN viral campaign - pretty cool stuff. But check out the link to see how badly the result can be if something goes wrong!

MySpace enters the US Presidential Race

MySpace has more registered members than Mexico has people. If it was a country it would be the 11th largest in the world. So while it may be a major marketing event for MySpace to say it’s holding a presidential primary next January, you can be sure the candidates will take it seriously.

The MySpace primary will be held on January 1 & 2, 2008, before any of the official state primaries. Every user will be asked to vote for their favorite candidate.

Most of the candidates already have MySpace pages. See, for example, Hillary Clinton (7,468 friends), John Edwards (16,921 friends), Rudy Guiliani (private profile), John McCain (3,596 friends) and Barack Obama (89,465 friends). See all of the candidates here.

The Pirate Bay supported by a right-wing extremist?!

Spread the word...

Is Brown the new Black?

Brown??? I don't get it. But here is an article from I.D. that discusses the rational behind it...

Microsoft's Zune heralds a return to chocolatey hues.

by Jesse Ashlock
From the March/April 2007 issue of I.D.


When microsoft revealed last fall that its new iPod challenger, the Zune, would come in brown, there was a chorus of snickers on the blogosphere ranging from playground jokes about poo to Gizmodo's snarky comparisons to "swamp water Jell-O." After the player's lackluster debut, tech analyst Rob Enderle blamed poor sales on the color (even though the device is also available in black and white), remarking snidely, "Microsoft came to the conclusion after market research that the new hot color is brown. No other hardware company has come to that conclusion."

But what if Microsoft was right? The computing giant doesn't exactly have a reputation for being a market leader in design, but maybe they were on to something with the whole brown thing. Maybe consumers have grown weary of a personal technology landscape in which the options are limited to white, black, and brushed steel. Maybe consumers are craving a color palette that feels a bit more... human.

At least that's what JDK Design, the Vermont-based firm that worked with Microsoft to develop the Zune's colors, logo, packaging, and other identity elements, was hoping. Knowing that Microsoft wasn't likely to out-iPod Apple with a first-generation device, JDK looked for a genuine point of differentiation. What didn't the iPod and its brethren do well? They concluded that the MP3 player market was missing the kind of emotional experience music consumers used to get from old-school analog equipment. "Like when you open a vinyl record and you smell it," explains JDK design director Malcolm Buick, who oversaw the project. "Or when you open an old portable turntable from the '60s, with the little vanity case made of leather. There was an amazing experience there, the touch of it, the smell of it, the stitching on it."

Taking cues from high-end audiophile gear, JDK first thought to design the player with a wood veneer, then considered leather or copper, which would take on a patina over time-anything to depart from what Buick calls the "preciousness" of white. Eventually, technical considerations mandated a molded plastic design similar to the Zune's competitors. But JDK sought to reproduce the analog emotional experience by using brown, a warmer tone virtually absent from personal technology products since the first Atari consoles a quarter century ago. A subtle overlay of acid green (called a "double shot") gives the device additional depth and dimensionality, distinguishing what is otherwise an attractive but relatively staid object.

It's a baby step, but could the Zune portend a sea change in the way our devices look? A similar aesthetic has already found its way into mobile phone design: Nokia's 2005 line of L'Amour fashion phones, with a warm palette inspired by natural materials like amber and metal, was a critical success. "Brown, bronze-these are great colors to humanize technical products," notes Silas Grant, Nokia's senior design director of fashion and premium. A rash of like-minded designers have sought to deemphasize tech's chilly austerity with nature-inspired accessories, from Miniot's luxe hardwood iPod cases to Peter Kinne's oak, maple, and brass hard-drive containers. "Maybe by this time next year we'll have wood-veneer USB key chains," Buick muses, and in fact, the product he imagines is already here: Last year, the Dutch firm Oooms introduced a USB device in the shape of a twig that, as designer Guido Ooms puts it, deliberately seeks to "intrude on the slick plastic world of computers."

After all, though nearly everyone agrees that the iPod is beautifully designed, it calls attention to itself as a piece of technology; when it inevitably gets scratched and dinged, it looks damaged. The Zune's ambition is to weather comfortably and disappear into your life, like a wallet or any other beloved everyday object. As Ooms explains, "We all believe by now that technology works, so I don't think we need to see it in the same way." In other words, maybe gadgets don't need to look so damn gadgety anymore-we'll find out how amazing they are by using them. If consumers come around to this way of thinking, brown just might be back for good.


(Photo: clockwise from top Brown is back: Microsoftís Zune, Guido Oomsís Twig USB device, Nokiaís 7370, and Amadanaís Conversion Calculator by Shuwa Tei)

A Radio Station Just for You

An interesting NY Times article featuring services like Pandora, Last.fm and Slacker evaluate your musical tastes, then serve up a continuous stream of programming to match. Create a Radio station to suit your taste!

By WILSON ROTHMAN

March 29, 2007

New iTunes Service Lets Customers Complete Albums

Wall Street Journal Article
By NICK WINGFIELDMarch 29, 2007 11:14 a.m.

When Apple Inc. opened its iTunes Store for business four years ago, the company changed how consumers purchased music by letting them buy singles instead of full albums. Now Apple is giving its customers a new incentive to go back to the old way of buying music.

The Cupertino, Calif., company Thursday introduced a new offering on the iTunes Store called Complete My Album that allows consumers to purchase at a reduced price the remaining songs from an album for which they've already purchases singles on iTunes. The reduction consumers receive on album prices is based on the number of 99-cent tracks they previously purchased from the album: someone who bought two 99-cent singles, for instance, would pay $8.01 for the remaining songs on an album that normally retails for $9.99.

Previously, iTunes customers who decided to purchase a full album after buying singles would face two unappealing scenarios: They could buy the entire album, including the singles they had already purchased, or they could buy the album tracks they didn't already own for 99 cents each, a bad deal for consumers since albums on iTunes are invariably more expensive when purchased as individual songs. Apple typically prices full albums at $9.99, most of which have 12 or so songs on them.

"The idea here is that simple -- once you bought singles from an album, we'll give you credit for it," Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president for iTunes, said in an interview. "This is something that is another example of how digital music is a changer in the way we do things."

While many consumers have warmed to the idea of buying singles, the shift away from album sales has undermined a lucrative method of bundling songs together. Some music industry executives believe the emphasis on single sales through online retailers like iTunes is one factor behind a years-long decline in music sales, along with digital piracy, since consumers can now selectively purchase individual songs for far less money than they would otherwise spend on complete albums.

Mr. Cue said that about 55% of the music purchased through iTunes is sold as singles, a figure that has been consistent since the introduction of iTunes. He said Apple negotiated agreements with its partners in the recording industry to offer its new album-purchasing service to customers. As part of the service, Apple is giving consumers a motivation to act soon to buy the remaining songs on albums that they don't already own: The offer is good for only 180 days after customers purchase individual songs from an album.

2nd Life Apple Store

Have you been to the Apple store on Second Life? It's amazing.... a virtual re-creation of the Manhattan 5th Avenue store. It was actually built by an avid Apple fan, one of the land developing residents in Second Life... NOT by Apple themselves. Remarkable what a brand can move people to do.

Some quick info on Second Life:

Over 4,000,000 inhabitants worldwide and is growing at a rate of 38 percent every month. Inhabitants create their virtual selves (called avatars), build homes, businesses, raise families --- in effect, role-play life in all its glorious mundanity, and all via the Web. The game has transformed conventional role-playing games into a sort of reality-playing game.

The estimated value of the Second Life economy was $64 million USD in 2005. Today, it is more than triple that. In late February of this year, Reuters tested and found that over 1.7 million USD was spent during a 24-hour period. It was recently reported that a Chinese language teacher has made over $250,000 in real-world cash by selling and buying virtual land. Governments are discussing whether they should impose property tax on virtual real estate.

Companies like adidas and Reebok are selling shoes in Second Life. Nissan and Toyota are selling cars. Westin and Sheraton hotels have begun selling hotel rooms for virtual road warriors, and IBM is investing over 10 million to move the company into virtual worlds --- it has already held meetings with top sales executives within the metaverse. The BBC has rented space to host live music, Reuters news service has a full-time reporter named Adam Reuters (or Adam Pasick in real life) who covers events as they happen. There are even a few virtual advertising agencies like Crayon that have simultaneously opened their doors in the real world and in Second Life.

Those who want to meet me there, my Second Life name is Galt Runo. You can also check out the Sony BMG space on Media Island. We're actually creating a Rolf avatar for this space which we're going to show at the upcoming Las Vegas MD conference... Rolf in lederhosen! Cool!

Top 25 Marketing Blogs

What are the best marketing blogs for inspiring, innovative, cool and yet APPLICABLE information?

The ones I like the best are The Viral Garden, Jaffe Juice, The Anti-marketer and Hee-Haw Marketing.

Here is a list of the Top 25 most visited Marketing Blogs this week. The Viral Garden posts the list each week for their readers' information. Check some of them out. Tons of great stuff out there:

1 - Seth's Blog
2 - Creating Passionate Users
3 - Duct Tape Marketing
4 - Gaping Void
5 - Marketing Shift
6 - Daily Fix
7 - Converstations
8 - Drew's Marketing Minute
9 - New School of Network Marketing
10 - The Viral Garden
11 - Influential Interactive Marketing
12 - Coolzor
13 - Logic + Emotion
14 - What's Next
15 - Church of the Customer
16 - Brand Autopsy
17 - Marketing Headhunter
18 - Marketing Nirvana
19 - Marketing Hipster
20 - Diva Marketing
21 - Jaffe Juice
22 - Spare Change
23 - Hee-Haw Marketing
24 - Beyond Madison Avenue
25 - Pro Hip-Hip - Hip-Hop Marketing

Albert Einstein

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."

Albert Einstein

I think that sums up marketing (and the purpose of this blog) very well.

TED TALKS

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a group for thought-leaders and movers & shakers, focused on the latest ideas in technology, entertainment and design. Once a year they gather together in California, hosting some of the world's most fascinating people to present, share and learn together.

You may have seen some of the talks on YouTube or elsewhere. Out of popular demand, TED has recently teamed up with BMW and production partner WNYC/New York Public Radio to share some of the most remarkable TED talks on-line. Every week, a new talk is published on their site.

You can also search through their archives or subscribe to the talks on iTunes as either an audio or video podcast. Perfect for your iPod.

Last week's talk is by Neil Gershenfeld (Director of MIT's celebrated Center for Bits and Atoms).

Neil offers a glimpse at life after the digital revolution by sharing some of the projects created in Fab Labs - low-cost fabrication labs that encourage invention and production on a local level. Gershenfeld explains how his Fab Labs, set up around the world, harness the creative energy of local people, allowing them to build eyeglass frames, toys, computer parts, anything they need ...

It's AMAZING.

There are a ton of great ones though. Malcolm Gladwell's is good (The Tipping Point) and so many others are relevant to innovation. Fascinating and FREE.

Interesting Blog...Will post some adequate stuff soon!

Willheimer

Creative Banners

The few music or artist related banners I've seen around the web are BORING and frankly, two-dimensional yesterday banners. Today's technology offers us so much more in on-line banner capabilities. Some are micro-sites within themselves. Others are just simply clever.

Here is a series of ads that Play With US, a UK advertising agency, has created to illustrate the point:

Scene One
Scene Two
Scene Three

We should not be placing "buy this album now" banners any longer (been there, done that) - instead, the banners should be interactive, 3 dimensional, and much more clever! They could be a click-through, leading you to a much larger-scale campaign, the artist's site or a competition landing page, etc.

Check out this axe feather page which was first created as a banner. We need to do something like this with Christina Aguilera.

Food for thought.

Digital Outlook Report

Avenue Raxorfish recently published the 2007 Digital Outlook Report. This report examines trends in the way consumers, publishers, and advertisers employ digital media to have a conversation with each other. Specifically, it covers the following areas:

1. Digital Buzz

2. Digital Media (R)evolution

3. Search

4. Consumer Dialogues: The Digital Class

5. Measurement

6. Op-Ed: What’s on Our Minds?

   • Creative Considerations for 2007 by Jim Gibson

   • Why Authority Matters in Web 2.0 by Laura Porto

   • The Death of the Page View: How AJAX, RSS, and Widgets Will Force Us to Define a New Metric for User Engagement by Garrick Schmitt

   • “We”conomics: Monetization of the Evolving Digital Economy by Greg Pomaro

   • The New (Media) World Order by Bruce Woolsey

7. Five Questions

   • Nathan Levi on Search Marketing

   • Iain McDonald on Viral Markting

   • Ray Velez on Windows Vista

   • David Baker on E-Mail Marketing

   • Olaf Czeschner on the Evolution of Digital Creative

   • Grace Ho on Mobile Marketing

   • Margie Chiu on Digital Strategy and Analytics

8. Five Things Every Executive Should Know About Digital in 2007

It’s very useful reading for anyone involved with digital media (which is all of us), so check it out.

Nike's Festival of Air

There are some campaigns that just grab my attention, shout 'That is sooo cool' and make me wish it was one of my ideas. This is one of them I came across last week....

This award winning campaign was centred around a platform Nike created called 'The Festival of Air' designed to show the benefits, heritage and technology of Nike Air shoes.

The 'Festival of Air' platform saw the creation of a month-long set of events at NikeTown in London, featuring a series of interactive elements including running and basketball challenges, data capture and virtual shoes.

Nike fans were able to put their skills up alongside the professionals to see how far they could jump vs LeBron James or see whether they could out run Paula Radcliffe. Their performances were captured live in store, beamed up to giant screens and turned into their own personal versions of the Nike adverts which were then made available to download, share on the web and displayed instore and in Nike windows. How cool is that?

Completely immersive, co-created connected marketing.

Now how can I copy this?

Click here to check out a video overview of the campaign

My Video Battle

Cingular has created a site called My Video Battle. It is not over-branded and feels more like a social site on which Cingular is advertising.

The site offers cash rewards to the winners of user-generated video contests. Anyone can upload a self-made video and vote. The most voted video wins the prize. Simple.

The most recent contest was a lip-sync to JoJo's "Too Little Too Late" single. The winner recieved $5,000. The current contest running is a lip-sync to Nelly Furtado's "Say It Right."

I think Daniel Levy should do one - he would win for sure.

Viral Brand Video Games

KEMPT is a gaming technology company that makes simple on-line games based on any brief they're given. For example, Sony Electronics have used them to create a game featuring their Walkman Flash Player called Toon Crisis.

The game is simple and surprisingly inexpensive to create.

Once Kempt develops the game, they then use Killer Virus (a credible on-line gaming company among gamers) to spread the game around virally through gaming sites, blogs, etc.

They then track the number of unique visitors to the game, number times played, number of times forwarded on, % of returning visitors, etc using MemeCounter (below). You can see from the tracking below that ToonCrisis has been played over 5 million times over the past 3 months, with 25% of its traffic returning to play again. At the minute I was pulling this info, there were 36 players currently on-line playing. Average viewing time is 3.32 minutes.



Seeing some of the different games Kempt has come up with, they are clever. Given the right artist and brief, perhaps this is something we could do with one of our artists. If the game is interesting and fun enough, it could be a great viral marketing tool.

SheMarketing

SHEMARKETING recently held a seminar on “The Science Of Marketing To Women”. I didn’t attend but I got all 125 slides of FMCG gold. Considering we’re in the business of emotion, they did have some theories relevant to our industry. I’ve got the Powerpoint Presentation if you want to see all the slides, but below is my exec summary…

Women are more likely than men to relate incoming messages to more facets of their lives, what they call “multi-dimensional selling proposition” i.e. whilst men are more likely to see a product at face value, women are more likely to connect this product to their work, family, friendships and health.

Women want to be spoken to in a new, fresh and different way, e.g. the 28–35 year old “independent princess” tends to reject the traditional norm, something to consider in artist positioning

Women want to be respected and recognised as multi-dimensional (not stereotyped), e.g. the 50+ “Young At Hearts” reject the old-lady stereotypes and love being busy, something definitely at the core of the “Il Divo” success.

Women want to be spoken to using emotion and story telling, e.g. sub-plots in video clips and emotional messages in advertisements

Women will choose a brand that celebrates and supports through awards and charity support, e.g. in Australia Mt Franklin “pink” bottled water for Breast Cancer is supported as it’s relevant, emotive and consumer focussed

Women want to feel a part of a network or community, e.g. Dove connected women together for their “ordinary model” skin care campaign

Women want to be communicated to proactively and according to key milestones, e.g. weddings, births.

Women want to escape and have time-out, e.g. the 35-45 year old “Family First” category are stressed, have little indulgence time and still want to enjoy a social life. Very applicable in the promotion of music.



We obviously can’t summarise a complete gender so broadly, but after reading it through I felt that there was quite a bit applicable to artist cores, compilation imagery, video clips and TVC executions we can adopt to even better connect our products to women. Food for thought.

Google in Content Deal With Media Companies

Monetizing our content in the new world order!

Google is working with Dow Jones & Company, Condé Nast, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and other large content companies to syndicate their video content on other Web sites. The videos appear inside Google ad boxes on sites that are relevant to the content of the videos, and advertisements run during or after the content. Google shared the ad revenue with the video provider and with the sites that show the videos.

Read the full article here.

Ning - build your own social network

Fed up of driving traffic and revenue to MySpace/Bebo et al?

Now there's another alternative. Build your own social network using Ning. They have developed an easy to use software application that allows you to build your own social network platform and bolt it onto the back of your website. RCA in the UK are currently looking at Ning and thinking about trailing it on one or two of their artist websites as an alternative to message boards. It's interesting to see how what sites like Blogger have done for web publishing, will Ning be the Blogger of social networking? Perhaps their model will evolve to see a decent share of ad revenues? Now who wants a social network?

For a video interview with their CEO go to http://www.podtech.net/

Who's Reading This Blog???

Since not everyone in the company has been invited to be a member of this blog, you may be wondering... who else is on here?

So we've included a list of 360° members in the sidebar to the left. Scroll down and see who your creative compatriates are. Today, we're 54 members in total. The only way to become a member is to be invited by the blog administrator - so if you want someone in the company to become a member, please email hannah.sirbu@sonybmg.com.

Our blog also tracks which countries are checking in every day. For example, so far this week, here is a list of who was on 360°:



We're tracking an average of 200 page views per week.

So, what do you think? Are you finding the blog useful? Interesting? What would you like to see changed or added?

And if you do see something interesting around you, share it with the rest of us.

What makes a video viral?

Right now we're working on a Justin viral video campaign around his upcoming European tour, using both Justin behind-the-scenes footage and user-generated video.

In looking at the creative of the video content, trying to make it as viral as possible, I read some research done by the market research company Millward Brown.

The research identified a few consistent ingredients that motivated a viewer to forward the video on to a friend. Only 8 of the 129 films researched prompted more than 1/5th of consumers to claim they would definitely forward the film on if they were to receive it via email.

The specific areas of enjoyment that improve a film’s chances of clocking up virtual airmiles are:
L. - laugh out loud funny
E. - edgy
G. - gripping
S. - sex

In other words if your film has LEGS it will increase its chances of becoming viral.

Forwarding a branded film creates an opportunity for the sender to communicate. In fact the study showed that there is a certain kudos factor for the sender. This works much in the same way as someone who tells a good joke will delight in their audience’s laughter. In order to receive this kudos however, the film has to be good. In sending a viral on, the sender is saying that THEY think it’s good. Sending a bad viral is rather like telling a joke that falls flat.

Once the viral has been forwarded on, then all of the standard truisms and rules of advertising come into play: if the film is not clearly linked to the brand in question, any impact on the brand is unlikely. Similarly, assuming the film is linked back to the brand, if the message communicated within the film isn’t linked to the brand value and proposition, then at best the film will only serve to heighten brand awareness. At worst it could damage brand perceptions. What is communicated within the film should therefore not be compromised, forgotten or ignored in the bid to gain momentum.

The top 5 films that people say they would forward online are:

1) Bud Light’s Magic Fridge


2) Ikea’s Pig Chase


3) DC Shoe’s B.Ball


4) Carlton Draught’s Big Ad


5) British Columbia Lion’s Cheering Works

Why Joost Isn't Just Your Average 'YouTube Killer'

If you haven't already, meet the newest player in the broadband-video space, Joost which is backed by the founders of Kazaa and Skype. Oh, and meet its ad model, too.

See the above article from Advetising Age and todays from the New York Times.

Beatbox Mixer

http://www.beatboxmixer.com
Great page/online tool because it involves the user.
The user creates a song and has the option to have the mix sent to an email adresse. With the email you get an URL to your mix (that youcan foward etc.).


It's viral!!! Listen to my mix. It's simply bad!! http://www.beatboxmixer.com/?edit=6ed1f53c-638f-4b00-8683-cf1a395604f8

Is this the end of the superstar era ?

Not a marketing idea, but a very interesting article written by British journalist, Neil McCormick, for the Daily Telegraph broadsheet newspaper........

Is This The End Of the Superstar Era?

Mini Builds Expansive Campaign Around Quirky Webisodes

Check out the new innovative Mini campaign that covers a broad range of media. It has at its foundation a series of online short films and integrates six online episodes, 15 second video on demand spots for mobile, ipod video downloads, event marketing, a mock music video, DVD releases, teaser in theatre movie trailers, quirky outdoor and integrated creative magazine advertsing. This is going to be a very interesting campaign to watch as it is rolls out in the months ahead.

Feed Your PSP

The PSP platform is creating interesting new opportunities for packaging content other than games. It's been a few months since Lonely Planet launched their series of City Guides for the console, but now there's another source of on-the-go gadget-fodder.

FeedYourPSP is a brand new online magazine created for download directly to a PSP. Regularly updated, the site will feature everything from celebrity interviews to short films, from learning how to play Urban Croquet to going behind the scenes with bands like Hard-Fi.


The current issue has:

• Advice on how to get your festival kicks in the winter
• Pro-level grass cutting tips from the groundsmen of a Premiership football club
• An investigation into the Nu Rave scene
• A review of the recent Air Guitar championships.

If that doesn't grab you, there's also an archive of content you can dip into when you fancy. The sheer eclecticism of these snack-sized reports should keep even those with the most limited of attention-spans entertained during those tedious commutes home...

Sounds interesting. If this catches on, it could be a tool to send teaser clips of new artists or singles/videos or info.

Tea Partay

A viral campaign for Smirnoff Raw Tea, based on a "hiphop" video feat. Prep-Unit, the New England Gangsters. A creative way of getting the message out by using Youtube etc.

Over 2 million views so far!

Personalized Big Brand Mash-ups

Big brands are catching on... it's all about personalization on the web.

Combining the hands-on user-generated approach with in-your-face advertising, mash-ups are proving to be an effective marketing tool for the web-savvy public. From interactive games to making your own commercials and ad soundtracks, the concept of mash-ups taps into the creative streak of modern audiences.

‘Becoming an M&M’ allows users to put together their own little M&M character and watch him/her feature in a variety of movies and arcade games.

Similarly, Nikemashup.com promotes the ‘Second Coming’ campaign for the Nike AF25 Basketball trainer, in which people are given an array of clips, close-ups and a soundtrack to cut and splice together a unique version of the recent Wieden + Kennedy commercial, featuring 10 Nike-sponsored basketball players battling it out in an abandoned airbase hangar.

I've also seen a new online campaign for the Motorola RAZR phone, collaborating with Discovery TV show Miami Ink to produce an interactive site where visitors can design covers for the Motorola RAZR using a selection of tattoo designs. The prize for the best design is a RAZR phone decorated with your own creative etchings.




This "mash-up" concept has become so popular that an on-line agency called ViTrue has created an entire site dedicated to user generated commercials, acting as a platform to other video mash-ups sites. The site also hosts tools for editing your videos including AdMixer, a program for users to piece together their own TV commercials.

Very cool. We need to do some mash-ups with our artists!

Thailand Is For Lovers--Happy Valentines Day

Hats off to Thailand for showing more love than any other country!

MSN, Control Room to Present Another Live 8

Concert News Comes Amid Talk Partnership Isn't Paying Off

An intersting article on MSN and the Control Room deal. Strong rumors of a Live 8 concert being organised for July 7 '07 with Al Gore's involvement.

"Track it Down" teams up with "Kiss 100"

Track it Down has teamed up with Kiss 100 to offer tracks that are being played directly from artist shows. The new service will allow listeners to buy tracks played by specialist DJs such as Carl Cox and John Digweed via the website totalkiss.com.

Who's Really Viewing YouTube

And You Might Be Surprised at What They're Watching

By Mike Vorhaus SVP-managing director, new media and strategy for Frank N. Magid Associates. Article from Ad Age Digital

Published: February 12, 2007

As online video takes hold in America, many people seem to be under the impression that only young people are drawn to this type of content and that the videos are mostly generated by consumers.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. More than 44% of online Americans (ages 12 to 64) use online video weekly -- this has clearly become a mainstream distribution channel for video. And the No. 1 type of video viewed is news, followed by weather and movie clips, all of which are types of content produced by professionals, not by consumers (although often this video is consumer-distributed, meaning consumers are posting it to video-sharing sites).

The demographic watching online video most frequently is males ages 25 to 34; 64% of them watch online video at least once a week. But it's not just limited to young viewers. Among males 55 to 64 years old, 43% watch online video weekly. Among the females the rates are lower with 49% of female teens watching online video weekly and only 27% of females 55 to 64 watching online video weekly.

#1 YOUTUBE VIDEO OF ALL TIME

A must see: EVOLUTION OF DANCE.

Advertsing Awards Winner

A great advert from the recent Advertising Awards.
Great creative, wonderful positive emotion for the product.
I won't give it away, check it out.

Steve Jobs: "Thoughts on Music"

Interesting article posted on the Apple site today. Steve Jobs' "Thoughts on music". It fits perfectly into the panel discussion RMG had in NY last week.

New Mobile Handsets

There are a lot of great new music/entertainment handsets launching this year. And as we all know handsets and devices drive digital consumption. I had a chance to play with two good new devices recently. Nokia held an event last weekend where a bunch of got to play with their new n-series phone (N95). The handset is the best entertainment device that Nokia has created to date and it will be announced at 3GSM in Barcelona this coming week.



SonyEricsson also recently released a new handset. The Walkman Series 950. It is a very slick looking handset that has a touchscreen and 4GB of internal memory. The iPhone will certainly bring a new awareness of OTA (over the air) downloads to the masses but the fact that SonyEricsson, Nokia, and Samsung (to name a few) are releasing good music-player handsets will be a very good thing in assuring that the mobile music space evolves in a way where this is not an iPod-like dominance.

Microsoft Vista Puzzle

Created for Microsoft Vista by the fiendishly clever souls at 42 Entertainment, a global puzzle challenge titled Vanishing is offering a tempting array of tech goodies.

The challenge is titled "Vanishing Point".

The scene was set in December when special puzzle boxes were sent out to bloggers to be solved with the help of a USB key and a note from puzzle mistress Loki. (For the uninitiated, Loki is the Norse God of mischief. Of course.)

The site explains that each week, twelve puzzles will be posted along with footage of an unusual real world event. Each puzzle consists of an online element and a real world element which must be combined to arrive at the correct answer. To join your fellow players and take part in a puzzle challenge spanning the planet, you can either show up at the physical location when a countdown hits zero, or check online to view recorded footage of the event.

The Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas was the first of these real world events, with messages projected into the night sky above the Bellagio Hotel and Casino. Countdown timers, GPS codes and faded pictures have been posted to the website as clues to the next stage of the game, which is already generating significant buzz for the brand. Whether it can overcome the lingering skepticism about Vista's capabilities remains to be seen.

Want to catch up fast? Laughingsquid has a brilliant breakdown of the game here: http://laughingsquid.com/microsofts-vanishing-point-game/

I think it's an awesome example of smart viral marketing... getting the tech geeks into the product first!

Imagination

Check out General Electric’s ‘Imagination Theatre’ - a series of three live action and animated short films conceived by BBDO New York, including a beautiful manga-esque cartoon entitled Samurai. The films are available as Video on Demand and debuted in November and December on Time Warner’s Digital Cable’s ‘Movie Trailers on Demand’ channel. The films have gathered momentum supported by teaser adverts on TV as well as wild postings in New York and spoof film posters in ‘Entertainment Weekly’.

All the ads drive viewers to the GE site www.ge.com/imaginationtheater where the films can be viewed online, although they are also available on YouTube.

The project was conceived by BBDO as a way of allowing consumers to become more engaged and involved with the brand, choosing when they view content rather than having it pushed upon them. It also works well against the TIVO trend of FFWding commercials.

I think it's a great usage of all of the new ways to reach people now, as well as something creative and surprising.

Budweiser is doing something similar as well. They've developed a series of animated humorous shorts for Bud Select. The shorts reflect the antics of the Bud Select logo, now broken down into five little characters. They’re racking up hundreds of thousands of views on Youtube and are surprisingly yet refreshingly irreverent.

All the clips are also hosted online at a bespoke site, www.crowntown.tv ‘Hot Tub’ is my favourite.

Whether this is an indicator of the kind of original content we’ll be able to expect from forthcoming online entertainment hub bud.tv is still unclear, but it’s not a bad start.

STARDOLL.COM

BEYONCE (yes I dressed her) ON STARDOLL.COM!

Check out Stardoll, a Swedish site that’s just exploding with close to 5 000 000 members (60% in the US, 30% Germany… UK, Poland, Sweden etc.) targeting girls 7-16... who as we all know rule the world of music and fashion trends worldwide.

Like a Myspace or Facebook, Stardoll is a word of mouth phenomenon. And it is travelling from school yard to school yard all over the world. Rapidly.

The site simply lets the user dress up star “paper” dolls in different outfits, design personal dolls, decorate their own space and basically just hang out with friends. It’s also possible to buy virtual clothing items and accessories for real money. The next natural step is, ta da, music!

Stardoll is already talking to managements and record labels in the US, hoping to make it possible for the users to design their own space/room with not only virtual furniture, posters and teddy bears… but with real music playing in your virtual stereo.

So far Stardoll has no advertising or any other commercial message, other than their own limited edition virtual clothing brand (!!!), but that’s about to change. Take a few minutes to check it out: www.stardoll.com.