First day of SXSWi

I don't know if I'll be writing a post every day for this, but I'm not being too crazy tonight and can write so I might as well ;)

First really busy day of conferencing, and it was pretty amazing! Glad I got up early and managed to do my registration and grab my badge really quickly given the Convention Centre was pretty much empty. My hotel is a little far from downtown - not too much but enough that I can't really easily be going back and worth walking if I need to srop something off. Like the gigantic goody bag I got this morning. Hanged around the huge Austin Convention Centre for a couple of hours, came across Alex from Hide & Seek and Jeremy, and talked with a few other people as well before catching up with Katy for lunch.

Went according to plan for the first panel of the day: 'Minority Report is real' and it was very cool - exactly the kind of research and forward thinking I was expecting from coming over here. Three people on the panel, all seriously interesting people, but not exactly into interface design - this was more of a side research project they started conducting together, looking into how movies and sci-fi have influenced new technology developments and still are - or sometimes the other way round as well.

They distinguished several trends in interface design / gestural UI development, and showed us examples in movie clips and then how close or far we are from those in real life. That was very cool and beautiful, but it was really great they kept asking the questions going further about what they might be used for and whether we really need an oblong beautiful Minority Report right now, how much is it exactly used for good, etc.

Next wasn't so good, unfortunately. I was hesitating between a web design one and this one about a company doing ARG types games, I probably should have gone to the other one, but hey - it's also part of choosing between so many things, and some other people told me most of the other talks at the same time as the last time weren't very good - I chose right for the 1st one, I guess. The company in question, The Go Game, actually do really interesting stuff in terms of games for corporate / team building events but I thought they didn't really have much to say and didn't feel like they really prepared for this talk either - they probably could have done it in 10 min with the material they had but talked for an hour... Nice people and their games look definitely great but not so great at talking in a panel...


Next was one of the big talks of SXSWi with Alex Bogusky - the B in CP+B - Talking about 'Can an Ad guy bring bike sharing to America?' Having quickly found out that the answer was in fact no, the topic shifted slightly to 'The art of sticking your nose where it doesn't belong'. He introduced CP+B and talked about who they are and the kind of work they do; as you do in such a talk - I actually didn't mind given I'd never heard him talk in a conference and apart from BK these days I haven't been talking about everything they do and found about a couple of campaigns I didn't know about as well. But more importantly, he talked about a load of pretty fucked up things on this planet via a bunch of good quotes and stats (#collapsonomics) and about making a difference. At first it could seem like it's all hopeless, but going from the fact that human knowledge is growing exponentially and a few other things - basically just go out there and do something to help, anything you're passionate about. 'Poke around' Go with an idea, talk to some people, meet some people who know people who know people, stick your nose where it doesn't belong.

He essentially shared this through their project (Humana, Trek and CP+B) of bringing bike sharing to America - a similar system that exists in Paris with the Velib. All really interesting stuff and pretty inspiring!


Mr Alex Bogusky

I ended up going off to a bar from there with Alice from BBH, Nicole (whose Husband was freelancing with us at iD recently), Damiano from the RSA, Conor from the RoundHouse and a couple of other people. Originally well intended wanting to go to the first official drinks for SXSW but way too much queue and it turned out Nicole's sister is a bar manager in Austin, so we went there for drinks (I then tried going to the 2nd official event - saw the queue, turned around) and then on to a Mexican restaurant with a few other Austin peeps. Turned out, we ate close to the Hotel where I'm staying so I thought I'd go back and write this - keep the big party energy for tomorrow ;)


The Gueres Taco bar

Quick SXSW update

I finally landed in Austin, Texas for SXSWi! Long flight (s) and some delays, but got here in the end and that's what counts! Couldn't wait to have a beer and walk around a little as I arrived at the hotel and the event already started. Loads of people were already on the flight and the hotel bar had a few people there already pre-celebrating...

Already maing some contacts, the first person I saw at Heathrow this morning at 8am is also the first person I saw arriving here and turns out to be in charge of new media at the RoundHouse in Camden - very cool Irish guy. We had a really good chat about online and music - having just completed the HERD chapter about WoM and the Arcic Monkeys, I had stuff to talk about ;0).

All looking pretty awesome!

Also met a bunch of other people, including a colourful and pretty lively couple from Tennessee - that I might just try to avoid slightly in the coming next days ;)

Very excited, though tomorrow morning is going to be a very long queue to register for the event, apparently the queues were already huge this evening for the pre-registration...

I realise I should have some kind of picture illustrating, but that will be for tomorrow.

Ice Cream Review - The Garden of Tweetdom: An evening with Marcus Brown

May 7, 1824: Premiere night of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

According to one witness, "the public received the musical hero with the utmost respect and sympathy, listened to his wonderful, gigantic creations with the most absorbed attention and broke out in jubilant applause, often during sections, and repeatedly at the end of them."



March 9, 2009: Premiere night of Marcus Brown's Garden of Tweetdom. (Photo by Ben Terrett)

Need I say more..?


An unusual atmosphere of sheer anticipation could be felt yesterday around London Bridge, but on a Monday evening, this had nothing to do with the with the well-known bustle surrounding the famous Borough Market on Fridays and Saturdays.

No, this could only be described as an entirely different level of artistry for this evening was the first live and official Tweet Reading event to take place in London. Rumours abounded over the past few weeks amongst the eminent Twitterati of hushed discussions via Direct Messages concerning the veracity of the artist having turned down requests to speak from the Royal Academy of Arts. The choice of the Market Porter as a venue, an established and popular public house, can only be explained from the extreme proximity with the farmer's market and the glorious food sold therein. Just as food is sustenance for the body, the Tweet Reader's work and interpretation of tweets are sustenance for the mind; moreover the theme of the evening was to be of the origins of all things Twitter, just as the market is the best representation of the origins of food in the heart of a city.

The London Twitterati lucky enough to be invited gathered in the room around 7pm and Marcus Brown appeared soon after, opening the evening with his signature and unmistakable words: 'Good evening'. Those two otherwise innocuous words, carried enough weight to silence the room instantly. A certain feeling of awe was immediately palpable within the audience, clearly the sign of being in the presence of a true master. After a few more words, Marcus announced that there would only be three Tweet Readings for the evening. A slight murmur of disappointment made its way through the room, though I admit I smiled at the intrinsic audacity of the number.

3. As you all well know, a magic number for as long as the number has existed. From the Holy Trinity in Christianity to the Triforce in the Legend of Zelda, three is the first uneven prime number, one of the major forces in the Universe. Using a number of such power, Marcus sets the tone and promises us an extraordinary evening at the very least. 'But will he deliver?' I thought.

With readings of William Humphrey, John Dodds, and ended with Sam Ismail (Whom according to anonymous sources has been instrumental in enticing the artist to a live performance) the evening certainly couldn't go wrong with such prolific and extremely talented Tweet authors; and they certainly deserve the acknowledgment accompanying their readings by such an important international figure in the Twitterverse; some even call Marcus the very first Twitter Academic. The sceptics will certainly accuse Marcus of a certain lack of creativity in choosing the most obvious authors for the evening, but what truly counts is the value of the insight and of the interpretation and in this field, detractors will have a difficult time finding any flaws to Marcus' readings.

But let us also remember that Marcus is first and foremost a Renaissance Man, a Polymath recognized by the worlds of arts and sciences as the Leonardo da Vinci of the Third Millenium. Marcus shared with us his previous works: iPod Singing, The Sacrum episode with Wieden and Kennedy, Charles Stabs' Business Horoscopes, and more surprises. As I said, food for the mind, but also food for the soul. To describe the rest of the event would only destroy the surprise for other spectators and as such, I will stop revealing any more here.

There is only one way to finish this review and Marcus Brown fortunately showed me the way: Marcus Brown delivered an outstanding performance at the Market Porter yesterday and I urge you; no, I beg you, to follow his works on And As if by magic, or run to get tickets if you hear of another live event, it might just... transform your life. Thank you.

Become a Vedett

Now here's a really nice little mix of digital and experiential for a campaign. I was talking to my sister a few days ago and she tells me she was having drinks with a few friends in a bar around Shoreditch. A guy showed up to them with a camera and asked them if he could take a picture.

They said yes, he takes the photo and disappears. He then comes back a few minutes with a beer bottle for each of them, the beer label prominently displaying the picture that was shot a few minutes ago. He explains that Vedett - the beer brand in question, is running a campaign where they will be printing pictures of people on the labels countrywide, so here's a free beer with your picture on it and go check out the website for more info about the campaign.

My sister said all of the sudden she has a completely different experience of that evening, she brought her beer bottle back home and said it's decorating her room now, it's a souvenir and she won't be drinking it for a while.

I really like that idea, very simple and even though the overall digital campaign isn't that original, having a few people roaming bars and priting picture labels makes a huge difference, all of a sudden the experience is real and personal, potentially becoming a souvenir token, or at least something to talk about at the bar with other people. And making people talk is generally awesome. I like it.

I need to try that beer now!



Here's the pic I submitted on the website. I thought having a bottle of Tsing Tao on it would be appropriate ;)

ASDA - Astroturfing Stupidly Destroys Advertising

I saw in a Brand Republic article this morning that ASDA just launched a new campaign and a Youtube video channel: Saving You Money TV



I started out being in two minds about it. Basically the gist of it is ASDA is always being cheap and saving you money. Given the recession it's even more important than ever to all pull together like brothers and that you keep spending the little money you have at ASDA - anyways something like that.

So they created this TV channel on Youtube where everyone can share what their money saving tips are - though it's already (Just with 11 videos) turning into an any tips, advice or cooking recipe acceptable.

Sooo... I thought OK, sure could be interesting, Youtube channel design is nice, the videos on offer aren't overly interesting but could have a small audience, and more to the point some the videos shot on location in an ASDA might be shared to friends of the people appearing on there.

The whole idea works for ASDA as a brand (even though milking and choking to death the recession theme, but everyone is doing right now...) and they're making sending videos as easy as possible, which is a great point in their favour (via Youtube uploads, email, MMS, etc).

But here's the last thing, I kept looking at a couple of videos, such the definitely waaay too long cheese grating 'competition' and noticed the 2 comments. Those are highly suspicious and prety sure it's astroturfing. Could be just those two and hopefully not part of the whole campaign, but I hate that. It's wrong and it always backfires.



User 1: Nitramrallytrack - Joined Youtube in January and since then the only activity is to have subscribed to the ASDA channel and watched their videos. Highly suspicious. Basic astroturfing. Other user is katec1975 and only joined a few days ago, same story...

They write: 'Utterly random but funny as...This man should be on telly - mentle' 'What a grate idea...'

Have you seen the video? Do you just happen to specialise in bad puns or bad spelling? Who do you think ASDA customers are? All dumb and illiterate? If it's the case, it's insulting is what it is.

Maybe nobody will care about this whole thing, but hey... What goes around comes around.

Now on the other hand, a couple of real Youtube users - or rather one right now have noticed the channel and posted one of their videos, so as I said earlier it might be interesting to a few people and might get khgibbons more video views, so why not...

Skittles - probably the Nth post about it

I'm sure there are already hundreds of posts about it out there and I read at least 2 good ones and I'm doing something else, so I'm going to over it very quickly and be really lazy and just advise to read their posts.

Without any particular argument, I personally really like it. And whatever you think about it, a LOT of people are talking about it.

Is any press good press? Good question.
Have they basically ripped off the Modernista website? Yes - but so what?

iboy compared the whole thing to a Turducken: Check his post.

David Armano also wrote about it on Logic+Emotion, check his out. Both are interesting for different reasons.

I think it's really interesting and they're a lot of attention for their new site launch

And let's remind ourselves that Skittles adverts are generally a bit bonkers anyway, I love their latest one:



And Cherry flavoured Skittle on the top, join in the fun and change your Twitter avatar to a giant Skittle!!

Hand crafted goodness

Here's a movie I'm seriously looking forward to: Coraline. And along with it a very cool campaign to promote it! Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors and I seriously recommend checking out his books if you've never read him (I'd say American Gods and Neverwhere are amongst the best), Henry Selick has done amazing work in the past and Laika animations are always outstanding!

Besides the almost obvious fact that the animation looks beautiful, one particularity here is that everything in the movie has been entirely crafted by hand.

W+K was in charge of the campaign and apparently part of Laika's intention was to come up with a completely innovative way to market the movie. To start with, they created 50 different hand crafted boxes, with designs representative of the look and feel of the movie, filled them with goodies, little puzzles, clues, challenges, access to a website and specially made films; and then sent those to specifically targeted bloggers. The campaign went on with interactive store fronts (Where people could see themselves with buttons on their eyes), guerilla style posters, custom made Nike trainers, rich media online advertising, etc. All of this cultivating a theme of intrigue and mystery encouraging people to go find out more about it.

Nice stuff, really looking forward to the movie! Check out the Coraline movie website here and the video summing up the campaign here:

Where the Wild Things are

This is my first time creating and uploading a presentation to Slideshare! I thought of this yesterday, and here it is, not necessarily ground-breaking but I hope you like it.

I'd love to know what you think of it!

Where the Wild Things are - with a modern communication twist

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: wild marketing)

Eyebrowbics

Eyebrowbics: All the scream with the cool kids of today.

So the new Cadbury's ad just came out, I saw it earlier today. I have to say that once again I'm not impressed by A glass and half full productions. It's vaguely interesting in a weird way and I'm sure it will be talked about a lot (I'm saying I don't like it, but I'm still writing about it...).

Given how much I disliked the Gorilla when it came out and it so successful (So I hear, at least) and well received that I'm wondering if my personal preference and opinion simply goes in opposite directions of that of the majority of people - and actually please confirm this is true only if you really want to please my ego. ;o)

This whole talk about the Gorilla and emotional marketing is sort of absurd. I watch the Eyebrowbics and I'm definitely sure it stirs emotions for the viewer - I suspect a range from amusement, laughter, slight confusion, like/dislike, etc.

But it doesn't say anything. Is there a message I'm not getting? Not really a story either... Is it enough to cause an emotion for the audience watching to associate it with your company, or does the memory prime the video content over that of. I think it's the latter. Just like any user created video, only with more money and a product depicted at the end.

Anyways, that's just one more positive tick in my mind for Lindt and Green & Black's and even though I rarely eat Cadbury's chocolate, I think I will suppress it entirely from my diet.

Ice cream for everyone

I just came across this video and a list of reasons why social media is like ice cream, regardless of any relevance it is obviously perfect for this blog! And the video is cute too, explaining what this whole social media shenanigans is supposed with an easily understandable analogy - even though it probably could have something else than ice cream.



Why is social media like ice cream?:

1) it has tonnes of variety
2) the best is usually not mass produced
3) freshness counts
4) it's neat to mix flavours
5) it's best when shared with others
6) flavour preference is very tribal
7) it comes in different formats - cup=video, cone=audio, cake=blog
8) it sparks passion, emotion and positive thoughts - we enjoy it
9) depending on the environment, it has a long or short half life
10) it's more than just bits and bytes/bites
11) the winning brands usually have a good story
12) the worst tended to forms tend to get burned/freezer burned
13) tastes better with authentic ingredients
14) you gain incredible loyalty when users feel in control (i.e. Coldstone Creamery)
15) some people don't like it, some people gorge on it
16) it's practised and consumed differently by country
17) it's a good way to waste time and gain weight

Shamelessly plundered from here, thanks!