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Blogger's relief

Just because I can't enough of doing digital pr and promotion for other brands, here's another one! I just received my Berocca blogger's relief pack! And actually I've never had Berocca before, but it's a good time given I've just had a bit of food poisoning over the weekend it's probably a good time for an extra vitamin and minerals intake (That aside, it tastes just like any other orange flavoured vitamin and minerals effervescent tablets).

Nice idea from Berocca to get some digital pr. At first I thought going under the idea that all bloggers are stressed out was a bit easy, but without going as far as stressed out, all the bloggers I know are defninitely busy people and the box is subtitled "Tailored vitamins and essential minerals for hectic lifestyles". Sounds appropriate to me, or close.



In the pack I get a load of fabulous items I've dreamed of having for a long time but never dared buying (Because they're useless perhaps... ;o) such a Dead Fred pen holder, USB panic button, etc...

Anyway, it's a nice idea all in all, so good effort!

Blogology

I was at the London bloggers meetup yesterday evening and it was a brilliantly organised event, I think fun was had by all! It was sponsored by Smirnoff and we were invited to the Diageo company bar, and they have a very nice bar (Thinking about it, well, yes you would expect them to have a nice bar... But hey , I don't take things for granted ;o)

The PR agency Splendid organised it (with Andy, thanks!) in the context of their promotion for Smirnoff and a particular drink, the Moscow Mule - which is essentially vodka, ginger ale, a pinch of ginger and a squeeze of lime. Quite nice, even though I'm not a big fan of ginger in drinks.

I think the best part was that they had a sort of fact sheet about each one of us and our blogs and the Diageo professional mixologists (bartenders in normal speak) prepared a special cocktail for each of us based on our blogs (and on the base for the moscow mule - so, vodka and ginger). They were really great and I think they had fun doing it too. Really nice touch!

Neil just posted about interacting with online communities, and here is a good example of how to do it well, in my opinion at least. And seeing the great feedback on the meetup page, lots of others agree - and most of these people also are professional bloggers, work in marketing, PR, social media, etc...

By the way, we also had lots of food served, so goo in the spirit of drink responsibly! I would have loved to say that it went absolutely berserk crazy with drunken and wasted bloggers dancing on the tables that had to be thrown out of the premises but it wasn't the case - all very civilised lounge like cocktail night. Actually talking about it, that happened at Twestival last week - a Swiss twitterer was thrown out of the bar after having thrown up in the bar (I met him outside while he was recovering).

Joke aside, iris has Brown-Forman as a client (Jack Daniel's among other brands) and I kept thinking they should really be taking some more risks in the digital space because Diageo is seriously winning points here! I guess here is an opportunity for me to raise some points ;o).

Apart from the PR part, it was brilliant to meet more London bloggers, always a pleasure to hear about different people's interests, good conversations! Some cool pics on Lolly's Flickr stream, including my personalised cocktail and me.

To finish we all had a goody bag with a bottle of vodka, so I'm going to be able to organise a little cocktail night - and I also need to have some more people taste my special rums - particularly the pistachio, almond and honey one which has been macerating for 3 months now!

Internet Memes on Dipity

Adam just told me of this, I'd not seen it before. It's absolutely brilliant! A chronology of internet memes on Dipity, from the beginning of the internet and the moment the term 'meme' was coined in 1976 to today. Pretty cool interface as well, just zoom in and out from the top of the page. Enjoy!

Ice Cream Weekly Digest

It's been a pretty busy week so there are a few things I can compile in a post.

I was at Twestival on Thursday evening (Thanks to Lolly for helping me get a last minute place ;o), I'm only a pretty recent Twitter user so there was a lot of cool people to meet and had a lot of fun! The bar was absolutely packed when I arrived so I also learned that it was better to go early to get a few free drinks, and also to avoid walking out for a cigarette break right before the raffle prize draw... That Nintendo Wii could have been mine, we'll never know....

We also had a live performance of the Twitter Song by @ihatemornings (I admit I only heard the song for the first time right before the event...)

I had to leave relatively early because I had a morning meeting with Google at their offices the day, which was pretty cool. I know everything about Youtube and its advertising/partnerships/branded stuff pricing and systems, which is essentially what we wanted to know about. Also talked about Google Gadgets and the fairly recent ad network they're developing.


Apart from that, I was quite happy I showed the Google peeps the Wario Wii Shake Youtube full page takeover everyone is talking about (Which is awesome by the way, check it if you haven't seen it! Now over 2m views in just over a week) and they hadn't seen it before! Big silence upon me asking about how much it would cost to do something like that again... Nice meeting anyway, and they have a really nice roof terrace.

In the afternoon, we had the second iteration of iris Digital's creative gathering where one person on the team has the run of the boardroom for a presentation while the rest of us sip some beer and enjoy. Matt told us about Lomo and Lomography, they are a Russian camera brand with a very active group of enthusiasts. It was pretty cool. Check Lomokev's Flickr stream for some beautiful lomographies. You may notice Lomographers have a lot of fun with cross processing their pics, among other things. I booked myself in for a talk end of October, though don't know what it will be about yet.

Image Courtesy

And apart from that I'm looking for a new flat and walked around a lot yesterday, I saw a really nice place in Rotherhithe - I may end up there, it's a really nice area and the flat was good as well... We'll see!

NMA Top 100 2008

I know it's not everything, but the NMA Top 100 Interactive agencies 2008 just came out yesterday and iris Digital is on there for the first time, number 63 on the list which is pretty cool

;o)

The eagle has landed... At the V&A!

The mystery behind the 7th Syndikate finally unravelled this
evening and I'm glad to say I had a really good time!

I almost ran to get to the Albert Memorial on time. I put on on
my hat and sunglasses as instructed while arriving there, along
with a newspaper under my left arm. I met with a few other
strange characters similarly dressed on the steps, and they were
generally as clueless to the purpose of this whole thing
as I was...


A few minutes past 6:45pm: the man with a tan mac and a
bowler hat, our mark to tail as agents of the
7th Syndikate, finally arrived. Needless to say we got
some funny looks from people on the streets, particularly
when having a drill sergeant experience in the underground
subway by the museums... Perhaps not as fun as when I got
to walk around Birmingham with my full on Indian wedding
suit (running errands for the bride who was a friend)
but still very cool.

Turned out we were going to the V&A and it was brilliant!

I like the V&A a lot and just walking through the doors
at night while the place is closed to the general public
was excellent!

The new exhibition this was all about is opening tomorrow:
Cold War Modern, A collection of designs created between
1945 and 1970.

We had a few drinks, a few explanations about the whole
ARG (alternate reality game)
and then got to see the exhibition before everyone else. ;o)

Here is some info about it:
The decades after the Second World War saw an intense
rivalry between the world’s two superpowers: the Soviet
Union and America. In the ‘cold war’ that ensued,
the two powers engaged in aggressive contests to build
their own spheres of influence. They accelerated the
development of new technologies to produce weapons,
launched ambitious space programmes and waged
propaganda campaigns across the world.

Vying to outdo one another, each deployed displays
of modern living, signs of progress and images of
future utopias. Art, architecture and design were drawn
into this Cold War competition to demonstrate a
superior vision of modernity.
I met some cool people while over there, though unfortunately
didn't get everyone's details - just leave a comment here or
on the Facebook group if you want to be in touch!
The campaign was created by 1000 Heads, they label
themselves the Word of Mouth People. I met Seb who was
in charge of the campaign and I learned they carefully
targeted 73 London bloggers with for this campaign.
Now I don't know about you, but in my book contacting
73 people and having 30 showing up is a damn good ratio!

Congratulations to all those involved in the campaign,
it was brilliant! (I kind of suspect Lolly may have
suggested I'd be a good candidate - thanks if that's
the case ;o)

A really cool exhibition, it made me think of the
Weapons of Mass Communication last year at the
Imperial War Museum, though this one was much better.

Some architectural designs, fashion of the times
(Manhattan in a glass bubble and Pierre Cardin's 
space dress were amazing, and there are lots more!)

Really good campaign and great exhibition,
I highly recommend seeing it!

Now part of the Syndikate

Been pretty busy these few days, between a big Indian wedding (One of my best friends); talking monkeys, Bebo, milk, angels and heroes at work (Intense but lots of fun on current projects!); and my mom arriving in town I didn't take much time out for blogging... That said, I followed up with 7th Syndikate and I just received this message confirming I'm now part of the conspiracy ;o)

I'm confident I figured out who it was for/from as well!

Hi Willem

You've been activated; you will now be known as Bill WG-104.

Stand by for further instructions.

Countdown begins now.

Curtis TH-915

-----------www.7thsyndikate.org-------------

The grey jackal skips joyfully across the pond

That's the title of an email I received a couple of days ago. From TRUST.NO.ONE

New ARG..? Or just a dodgy email?

I received a second email from Curtis-TH915 today. The first one had got into my spam box a couple of days ago and I hadn't noticed yet - nor do I generally open anything titled that way.

A non sequitur but Google Curtis TH-915 and this is where you get. Not so exciting. Try "I'm feeling lucky" it's even better.

It's all from 7th Syndikate.

Pretty strange email arousing my curiosity, gaming, mystery solving, scoobidoo-esque, search skills, role player and Famous Five enthusiast instincts! Something is wrong with the grammar/syntax of that sentence, but I'm sure you get the idea.

At least a couple of other people in the London blogosphere received the same message (Check your spam boxes maybe you have one too!), Melinda aka Miss Geeky twittered that it could be an ARG... Having looked into it, I think it might be as well.

If it is, it would be my first time getting involved in one, could be fun! (Or it might jut be something dodgy, but I don't think so at this stage - and they want buzz, well I'm participating without even knowing what it's about! And I don't care, I love games, love a mystery, I'm curious and it gives me easy content for a post ;o)

I figured it out by the way (It's not that difficult). Something's going on for (or in) 3 weeks. Watch out for the people randomly placing the words "big armadillo" in their conversations!

TRUST.NO.ONE

Web and TV, a sibling rivalry

I hadn't watched a TED talk for quite a while, so I was glad to watch this one earlier and I thought it absolutely brilliant (Well sure, they all are - or close). Peter Hirshberg is a Silicon Valley executive, entrepreneur and marketer - amongst other things, he's on the board of directors for Technorati.

He delivers a really fun and insightful talk starting from the fact that TV and computing pretty much started at the same time and they evolved as rival siblings.

For examples, he tells us about fundamental marketing methods

Marketing Lessons:
A. If you use our product...
You'll find true love, fulfillment, prosperity
B. If you don't...
You'll die

He also shows us the surprising first example of proprietary material locked in by the vendor, the Winky Dink crayons:



Check it out!