Nitmesh

Ford Balloons Viral from New Zealand

Here's an example of a piece of traditional TV advertising working in conjunction with a web video viral. Ogilvy London and Ford produced a traditional TV ad where cars floated away in the sky. I never quite understood it but JWT Auckland, which has the Ford account in NZ took the release of the original ad one step further by producing this obvious idea for a viral which then went onto become a traditional worldwide new story driving viewers back to the net and breaking records on youtube especially in the comments. via JWT blog

Lovebites - Branded Content Webisodic Series

JWT commissioned this two and half minute webisodic series financed by Sunsilk hair products which actually runs in the ad breaks of Sex in the City on TBS TV channel. The series is also clearly similar to Sex in the City too! Created with the actor Paul Reiser, from Mad About You sitcom. Having the same ratings as Sex in the City, a second series of sixty-five episodes was commissioned and Elle.com was brought in to partner the production. We are seeing the first signs of the merging TV and online. Will this model become commonplace, short and long form contextual content next to each other or will we see the multibranded fully financed content model or it's other name, product placement?

Trafalgar Square Freeze

Brits freeze in Trafalgar Square. Would have preferred to have see it happen in grand interior like Waterloo, Liverpool Street or even the new St Pancreas Station. via now in colour

UPDATE - Here's all 28 cities  in 13 countries (Rome, Stockholm, LA, Boston, Newcastle just to name a few) frozen flash mob web videos to watch.

David Armano - Experience Design and Convergence

Here's David Armano speaking below at the Interaction 08 Conference. So many great talks listed here from the conference but Armano's brings together the principles and some great examples of experience design, meshing utility, creativity and technology, explaining how interaction designers are the hub whether they are for transactional sites, branded experiences, or content that makes you laugh including breaking out onto the mobile platform. Ideas to bring sticky engagement to brand experiences. Via Brand New.

Deputy Dog - Blog of wonderful oddities

Deputy Dog is a wonderful blog that deserves a mention for it's great photographic and web video list of weird and wonderful things. DD calls itself 'a website dedicated to showcasing incredible examples of the world’s most fascinating architecture, inspirational design, phenomenal natural oddities…'

Much like the latest private cinema post pic above. He's drawn up the strangest elevators and my favourite was all the most unusual runways, most of which are crazy web videos of planes landing on mountain sides and beaches, all fascinating to watch.  Here's a crazy landing at Courchevel mountainside runway below.

Here's some of the best posts. 13 worst fake accents. ,11 phenomenal images of earth, top 9 unique structures soon to be built, interesting elevators, the steepest streets in the world, 10 of the best natural phenomena

Enjoy. Well worth bookmarking or adding to your reader.

UPDATE - Had to add these two pics of this Portugese runway which underneath is a car park...

207 Frozen People in Grand Central Station

How could you use this in experiential brand engagement?

Gorilla, Convergence of Technology, Brands and Creative

In reading Scamp's piece on Gorilla and it's origins, I expanded my comment into the post below.

The photo is an example of the interactive screen in the back of all Shanghai taxis which is full of basic, but engaging content you just can't help exploring as you wizz around what is fast becoming the fastest growing and most alive city of this new century. Remember if you go, you never tip the taxi drivers. Well, not yet.

Beyond the recycling of ideas which is the debate on in the comments...isn't the point that we (and the brands) have to realize that the consumer is the power now and they/us can decide what to watch, when and where so whatever we create has to be so far beyond advertising. Our ideas have to be compulsive and engaging enough to be remarkable, so we all spread it on free through online and offline WOM, and counting it as a success when it goes beyond it's niche audience (UK market for Gorilla), and breaking out and scaling around the world primarily through online. There are over 200 mash ups of Gorilla on youtube and countless other video sites. What does that say about our new world of audience participation where brands have to relinquish control of their brand image and let the prosumer trust, enhance and ultimately spread their brand message? Even the marketing guru Tom Peters’ blog commented on Gorilla which has a huge and influential audience...irony being it cost nothing in media spend, they just found it entertaining.

This leads me on to my next point that agencies have to compete with everyone now in the online content space and should fast invest in all kinds of ideas (from not just creatives, but from scriptwriters, film directors, game designers, actors, musicians, TV producers) whatever the talent, the cost, the length and less in traditional ad media spend. Although it has it's merits in the live events arena and isn't going to go away soon, in reality, we all know we all ignore or skip or just don't watch it as much.

As I said the (young and increasing older) consumer (prosumer?) is in control, and you have to trust them to comment,
Seen this?  Supposedly consumer generated ad destruction of SONY PS3 (song) Wonder if it was produced by X-Box marketing team?

To spread the content, that means giving them entertainment (not advertising) that they're going to gain their attention, talk about, enjoy, embed and ultimately value. It's obvious. Whose making it obvious to the brands? Is it all the new net start ups, new tech coms, search companies meshing their tech and ideas that are eating away at the traditional ad world with no baggage or history of trad. ad models? Or is it the traditional ad agencies trying to shoehorn their old profitable ad models into this new liberating, uncontrollable, exciting online world where it's not just ideas but a future where the knitting of new tech, brands and ideas (Nike +) that matter and where now, within reason, you can quite literally try anything?

Even as your own brand, which you are, who or whatever you plagiarize, I, like everyone within and increasing out of the ad industry, will continue to follow your engaging imaginative exploits. Rock on Juan.