The real tetris

A bit more easy blogging, I just recently saw the real Tetris video, it's absolutely awesome!

Kourtrajme - The Funk Hunt

Ben and my cousin just told me about a series of French short movies I hadn't heard about and some are really awesome, mostly visual with excellent soundtracks; They called their production house call Kourtrajme - Short Movie in French "verlan" slang, basically.

The Funk Hunt is the story of a vinyl record through time and musical styles from the 7o's to pretty much nowadays. The record itself is actually the main actor in the short and the music is brilliant!

Check it here if ever the embedded version doesn't work: Part 1 Part 2





Funky!

Talk about Social Media and influencers

Yesterday, one of my colleagues asked me what my favourite thing about digital was. It's a tough one, I actually love everything (or almost) but I still said if I had to choose it would probably be social media. You can't really take it out of digital solely, at least I think it's part of a bigger whole - and also because I don't really like the buzz word. Still, I think one of the most fascinating aspects of the digital space is that people have the same opinions about brands and things they had before, but now they can address the entire world standing on their virtual cardboard box, not just a couple of passers-by a Sunday morning on Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park.

And a LOT of people have really worthwhile things to say, may it be smart, witty, insightful, funny, informative... You name it. Whatever the topic, from politics to marketing via technology, fly fishing, or thimbles (Not so sure there are that many people talking about thimbles but I just thought of Eddie Izzard). People listen, and well, if you're reading this you pretty much know the gist.

Bit of a long introduction, but I came across the Unofficial Sony Ericsson Blog a couple of weeks ago. Sony Ericsson is the main client of the agency I work for, so definitely interesting from that perspective. Really good blog (Granted, you do have to be interested in mobile/technology in the first place), and this is someone with a pretty consequent voice: 478 Authority on Technorati (Whatever you think of it), and over 1000 readers at the moment.

I checked my Netvibes earlier and saw a post titled "Someone needs a wake up call...". It obviously drew my attention. Really interesting and very detailed post of all the thoughts and (pretty constructive) criticism the author currently has for Sony Ericsson. Whatever one thinks of social media, this is definitely something a brand should listen to, because this is one of their most important advocates talking. You can imagine if he takes the time out to write such a long post, how many Sony Ericsson users have already given up long ago and gone to buy an LG/iPhone/Nokia/Random other handset..?

You may be already doing this, but if you're working in digital/marketing/related perhaps the brand(s) you're working on have similar strong advocates and it might be worth making sure they're being listened to.

Research reports are interesting and useful, but mostly collating the opinions of 500 to about 2000 people, and who knows in what circumstances they were asked the questions. Here we have one person (And a few contributors), actively listened to by over a thousand people and in all likelihood a bunch of other followers. It's pretty daunting to think about. I like it!

And I know what I'll be answering if someone asks me why they should be spending money and effort into their digital communications.

PS: I checked, there are blogs about thimbles. Well, they're mostly about knitting but still. Most of them also have more authority than this blog does ;o)

Music sharing with Blip.fm

Photo by Indigo Goat

I just found out about Blip.fm from Iain (via Twitter), it looks pretty crazy! Check it out! It looks like Twitter mixed with Deezer or Last.fm - I'm still loving Deezer (I was just setting up a Beethoven playlist in it - finding myself listening to more and classical and jazz music while doing strategy work - when I found out about Blip) but this looks intriguing.

I'm waiting for a bunch of songs to be uploaded on the site right now! I like the way it suggests people to follow that have played music or artists you like, I wrote a fairly long list of artists so I'm already following 31 people that will probably be playing music I like!

The funny thing is that it says I joined Blip.fm on 31st December 1969. I'm extremely proud to be a member of a site since before any kind of computers were networked at all - feels very pioneering - though in this case, I just followed Iain's Twitter call ;o)

Join me in random musical sharing! You never know, it might even convince some of the Twitter averse out there!

Holidays (or lack thereof)

I spent last weekend in Paris which was cool, but only quick for a friend's wedding - really need a proper holiday, though I don't really know what I'll be doing yet - or I might keep money to move house, given I'm also thinking about that...

Seriously missing some beach and particularly some sun! In the meantime, I can hang around the Corona Beach. As virtual beaches go (And marketing sites in general), it's pretty cool - check it out! But the sun still isn't real...

Lough Derravaragh

According to Wikipedia and Google Images, this is Lough Derravagh. It's in Ireland, and it's pretty.

All right, I have to keep posting on some kind of regular basis and I'm just thinking of a kind of format for a lazy drunken type blog post, probably celebrating the sheer amount of random and trivial knowledge and information that can be gotten from the internets in a couple of clicks. For the first edition, I went for a Wikipedia Random article and Google Images of the result. Obviously not perfect, but hopefully you will bear with me while I optimise the post format and idea.

In the meantime, I'm sure you'll agree this place looks damn pretty and will give you a (slight) rest from the intellectually demanding world of advertising, digital stuff, planning, strategising, or whatever you call your favoured and complicated job discipline.

This is apparently where the kids of King Lir spent 300 years before being turned into swans - so enjoy it, you never know when or what you'll be turned into...

Sur ce, bonsoir mes amis!

I am who I am because of everyone

Photo by bobster1985

He is who he is because of everyone!

I've been intrigued by the press adverts for the new Orange campaign created by Fallon for a few weeks now, and it went in slow stages, mostly while on the tube. First quickly noticing Orange seemed to have a whole new vibe going on, saw the long copy, my mind moved on. In the last few weeks, read the ads, not really getting it, was still kinda curious, and finally checked the website and looked into the campaign a bit more yesterday.

On one hand, I think it's a very bold and interesting proposition. "I am who I am because of everyone". We're getting straight into ontology, and existential philosophy there. Orange exists because everyone is connected and everyone is connected thanks to Orange. Orange becomes a brand at the core of what it means to be a human being and represents the sense of connectedness between all of us. I may be wrong - and perhaps exaggerating - but I'm guessing that's the idea. Leveraging people such as Rose Tremain is a good, and to promote Jont's Unlit on the website is pretty cool (Though Unlit was already a great idea without Orange).

Now the other hand, I think a brand needs a seriously rare case of hubris to think they can position themselves at the heart of being. Reading the slogan, my first thought was "Well yeah, I am who I am because of everyone! doh! And..?" That's the case for every single person on this planet and the notion is pretty well known and understood these days (At least, I think so, I could be wrong). Every company is nothing without the people in it, its customers, clients, etc. It's not rocket science. I think everyone intrinsically knows that.

So is Orange saying it's very special, we're all very special and Orange allows people to connected together, or is it saying that it's the same as everything and everyone else, that we're only one small part of a huge of web of connections; a cog in the machine, no more, no less..? It's the latter that came straight up to mind for me.

To finish, I thought the TV ad was pretty slow, boring, heavy of significance and the whole campaign takes itself too seriously. I then checked a couple of articles and apparently they spent nearly £100M on the campaign, their largest budget yet. They won Turkey of the week by Campaign and pretty mixed reviews elsewhere. I also liked the Voxpop video on Brand Republic, check it out.

Patsy @ iris for Bothud launch

The iris Summer edition of Bothud magazine just came out, launched in style drinking champers with Patsy! I tried for a "Blue Steel" look ... It's uncanny, just like I graduated from the Zoolander school for kids who can't read so good! Check here for some more pics.



Really, spot the difference ;o)





I also went to the Bloggers Meetup Summer Social yesterday, which was really nice - I met lots of cool people and free drinks, sponsored by Stella, can't go wrong! Annie Mole of the London Underground Blog even uploaded some pics.

Spiderman: Web of Shadows

I just came across the trailer of a new Spiderman video game, apparently coming out in October this year. Apart from the very cool fact that you can see a symbiote infested Wolverine in the video, I checked the website for the game and I thought it looked pretty cool as well, check it out.

I like the map navigation system with goodies to unlock, but what's even more surprising and really intriguing is that it claims that members of the website community can influence aspects of the design and development of the video game, which I think is very cool.
I haven't fully looked into it, but as I understand, players will have a lot of freedom of choice in the game and are reflecting that in this campaign, apparently people could lastly vote for the artwork featured on the Xbox 360 game packaging and before that people chose the model who would be playing Mary-Jane in the game.

Good example of interactivity and involving the users in the creation of the product. I would call that an interesting example of Wikinomics applied to the video games industry. I wonder how many people are registered on the website. I checked the site forums and there are over 6,000 posts in total; I don't know when the site was launched, but it sounds pretty healthy for a video game site.

That said, the game strangely looks much alike another I came across, whom apparently everyone is talking about these days; namely [Prototype]. You can view the trailer for the game here. Also set in New-York and and apparently completely open world, where the player is pretty much free to roam as they please. I'll have to check what they're doing for their online campaign...

Personal

Photo by Russ and Lori

I was at a networking event earlier this week and was told by (a really drunk) someone that I expressed my personal ideas and opinions a bit too much in my blog. Which was interesting, because I generally consider I'm not doing enough of that - actually not doing enough writing altogether, really. And ultimately, it's my personal blog... So sure, it's personal thoughts, etc. Check out George's AdScam (Which I love by the way) if you need contrast...

That same person also explained how and why I was really arrogant - but that's not really my fault, I'm French and moreover was raised in Paris, so I can't help it... (But apparently they're trying to make some efforts about it) ;o)

Anyways let's update on other news: I decided to go ahead and get myself a professional Flickr account! If I upload pics at the same rhythm I write here, maybe you'll see pics from my holidays two years ago in about two years time! Lucky for you, patience is virtue...

Let's finish with the best news, I'm finally changing my role next week and starting to work full time on digital strategy!! Woohoo! Jen's replacing me on the recruitment front at iris and is already doing great. It's weird to be letting go of all your work, but I'm really looking forward to the change!