Not another Best Job in the World campaign, but plenty of “buzz”

The Westword Weekly News in Denver, Colorado recently had an open job position for a Medical Pot Reviewer. Many  claim that this was “The REAL Best Job in the World” (sorry Hamilton Island and Ben Southall).  Regardless of your beliefs towards legalized marijuana, the speed and quality of job application responses are both amazing and hilarious.  Especially considering this was never intended to be a campaign.

Marketing Lesson: The right incentive to the right target audience will always get a high response rate.  (sorry, couldn’t resist)

Vodafone Symphonia

A cute little video a Kiwi friend of mine sent to me today from Vodafone New Zealand.

I find the making of videos more interesting. And it occured to me that something like this could only happen in a small market like New Zealand where there isn’t much network traffic in the early hours of the day, compared to somewhere like China or the US.  However, China does have this.

Shameless Self Promotion: Nokia Picture Story…

Hey kids – just wanted to take a moment and share with you the latest bit of work we’ve done for Nokia.

To promote the picture sharing capabilities of Ovi, the 6303 classic, 6700 classic, and 6600i slide phones, Isobar has put together a fun little web application that allows you to insert yourself into videos in a rather cool way.  Click on the above image to see one that I just whipped together – go give it a bash yourself!

Da Apple Kid: The Apple retail experience shines through…

Here’s an outstanding example of a brand’s retail experience shining through 100%.  Nicholi, a kid from NYC, has decided to use the Apple store as his own personal studio, recording his demo reel during store hours.  The following is his creationg, one of  a series of positively excellent lip syncing videos…such as Black Eyed Peas:  Boom Boom Pow:

Or another great song off their new album – I Got A Feeling.

You can check out all of his videos at his YouTube channel.  Nicholas, you’re getting views in Hong Kong.  Keep it up!

Whilst I’m not sure Apple quite envisioned this as a potential result of setting up a try-before-you-buy retail environment, it’s absolute gold for them.  I’m having a hard time thinking of a better story for Apple than a kid creating his demo reel in the middle of their store.

Cant touch this

To promote Hammertime the new series following the life of MC Hammer, A & E did this great little gorilla effort.  Might have been a little bit OTT as some people look very scared of the sudden invasion of gold hammer pants.

Carl’s Jr UGC videos off to a fast start

Following up on our previous post, The New Network Buy, the branded UGC vids for Carl’s Jr’s Portabello Mushroom Burger have hit the Tube-waves.  You can view them all here: http://www.youtube.com/carlsjr

So far the videos have received 3,412,606 views in the first week of launch.  The expected viewership was set at 10 million views and we think they’re well on pace to exceed that.  After all, video responses from the community haven’t even joined in on the fun yet.

YouTube all-star, nigahiga, is leading the way with 1.2 million+ views on his creation.

We appreciate the $1 off coupon on the YouTube branded page as well.  Good for accountability and stuff.

The next big thing in gaming?

Just got wind of a new website launching this winter that gaming industry experts feel will be a real threat to consoles.  The  start-up, OnLive has created a console-less gaming system in which gamers can use their broadband connections to stream on-demand games from the likes of EA, Ubisoft and Atari to their computers or TV.

The site will also be community based, offering multiplayer gaming, sharing clips of gaming highlights (“brag clips”), and watching real-time game play.   The platform will be offered through a monthly subscription plan, and expected to be competitively priced to retail. It’ll be interesting to see how gamers will receive the site once it is launched.

Condom ad + Mao + China = Oops

Just got this one via the ever intriguing ChinaSMACK – it seems that Doc Morris Pharmacies, a German condom manufacturer, has created a series of ads that are just a tad bit controversial.  Nothing like combining the likenesses of Mao, Hitler, and Bin Laden in your advertisement to create some slightly negative buzz.  

No word on whether they market their condoms in China, but I’m kind of hoping not given the reaction they’ve generated in the Mainland.  Grey Worldwide appears to be the agency behind the adverts.

Taking swine flu too far?

Gogorilla is the NY gorilla agency that recently trying to capitalise on the potential pandemic by selling sponsorships on branded surgical masks, which would then be handed out free of charge to the public.  Blog posts have slammed this and the company have since sent an apology. Though some have suggested the whole thing is a PR stunt…

Welcome to the video of Now…

…before we brought you the website of Now.  Apparently there’s a supporting video, which probably went a long way to explaining the concept of the website to the typical consumer wherever it ran.  I’m not a huge TVC fan, but I am a big fan dry humor.  The Twitter comment did it for me.

Hat tip to Mike Fung @ Carat for the link.

One simple idea

I’m currently hypnotised by this site: fifty people, one question. it’s a very simple idea, ask 50 people a stimulating question and record their answers. The result is a well-produced and fascinating look into human emotion.

Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn from Fifty People, One Question on Vimeo.

The video I watched today asks “where would you like to wake up?”  I feel the most creative response was from the woman in the blue scarf pictured above — “a world where every closet connects to someone else’s closet and you can use it to travel to meet someone new and have breakfast with them.”

Dwayne Serjeant is 40 years old…

…so everyone, let’s Tweet about it!

http://fb.wwwins.com.hk/dwayne40/

A huge shout out goes to all the kids at Wwwins HK for putting together an outstanding 2.0 birthday celebration site for creative director, Dwayne Serjeant. Put together over the weekend, the site runs a constantly updated feed of birthday tweets with the tag #dwayne40. Very cool kids.

Join in on the fun and spread the word – let’s make Dwayne’s 40th year of age known to all across the Twittersphere!

Music videos – making a comeback or creating a reverse Napster?

Ok, so this is mostly an excuse for me to post this video I first saw on threebillion.com, but damn, it’s sweet enough to present here. Whilst it’s obvious enough, music videos are making a definite comeback with the easy online distribution available on the YouTubes of the world. Note that I really would never have listened to the track without this video…and now I’m hooked on it.

Watch in high quality for the full experience. Seriously.

The twist however, involves the recent blocking of videos across YouTube UK over revenue share disputes with the Performing Rights Society in the UK. YouTube’s (rather weak) argument: “We lose money streaming these videos, record labels make money from the promotion of the music tracks. We want some of that money.”

More here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7933565.stm

It’s almost like YouTube’s business model is inherently flawed. Hrm.

Skittles

I love Skittels, but not so keen on what they are doing with their website…

This morning on Twitter there was a lot of talk about the skittles home page, so I checked it out. The home page has been replaced with a live twitter search feed on the brand. Actually the whole site has been replaced with skittles entries on wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, and Flickr. The only “corporate” thing left is a widget like navigation console on the top left.  This site explains what’s happening.

I get the principle behind Skittles latest move. Many companies are starting to realize that whatever content they offer online pales in comparison to where the community contributes to the whole via various social media sites; even the simple fact of generating buzz (it’s worked). Yet, I’m of the impression that when I go to a corporate website, I want to hear from the company as well as the fans and cynics. It’s nice to see the real time skittles recommendations on Twitter, but you have to dig through all the shout-outs and profanity. Where is Skittle’s voice? It seems like they are putting in no effort into their own online branding.

T-Mobile dance ad in Liverpool St Station

I love this!

The art of re-tweeting, and why you should care…

David Armano has another solid post up on his blog examining the art of re-tweeting.  Essentially all this means is getting people to re-broadcast your tweets to their own subscribers.  The more this happens, the higher up the list and the more influence you gain within the Twitter community.  Upon closer examination of the top folks in the list it becomes apparent they’re there because they actually supply quite valuable information within their tweets.  Duh, right?

http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2009/01/tapping-twitters-viral-nature.html

While many a marketer is worrying about ensuring they’ve got a “Tweet This” button on their site and that they’ve got a strategy for dealing with it, all you really need to do as a brand is provide a solid service that your consumers find valuable.  Sure you want to make it easy for them to tell their friends, but as David points out – it’s not only about the network you use but about the value you provide.  

Which is a really long way of saying once again, “Be useful.”  Nice.

What NOT to do when it comes to creating buzz…

Way to go Motorola.  Seriously.  

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/11/25/motorola-could-you-p.html

Good lord.  It’d be funny except I’m quite positive there was a ridiculous budget attached to this – surely billed as a “viral seeding” component in a media plan.  Kids, random posts on comment threads does NOT equal seeding.  Seeding is when you form a real, valued, long term relationship with relevant key influencers.  In short, it means you um, form friendly relationships and don’t lie.  

Sigh.

Inside women’s heads

Japanese retailer Uniglo have created a site to promote their newly launched Bra Top. They recruited women and asked them a series of questions and the site features all their answers. The nice part is the filtering you can do to select you height/build and then watch only the women who are similar to you. 

Uniglo have cleverly made some of their research into a consumer experience- which apparently has increased sales five fold. Nice work.

A very nice Twitter visualization…

This is pretty slick.  No idea how / why Tropicana would sponsor this really…the brand connection is a huge stretch, but the visualization of term volume is pretty cool. 

http://anorangeamerica.com/