I love the new ‘Blackberry Boys’ TVC from Vodafone. It’s amazing how Rajiv Rao and team at Ogilvy manage to get it right time and time again!
I decided to help them out by composing a little ditty for the iPhone 4 launch:
We wear suede shoes, we wait in queues,
We worship Steve Jobs, that we cannot lie …
{Begin chorus}
We’re the Apple Fan Boys.
We’re the Apple Fan Boys …
We’re the Apple Fan Boys.
{End Chorus}
We play games on retina display, with 326 dpi,
No Android can ever, beat the iOS GUI ..
{Chorus}
Camera, Flash and Gyro, so many new features,
Did you know FaceTime works over wifi …
{Chorus}
If you have a Nokia, sorry we can’t be friends anymore,
Least you can do is visit an iStore nearby ..
{Chorus}
Whoever said the meet would inherit the earth was wrong. In the brave new digital world we live in, the GEEK shall inherit the earth.
When Graeme Anthony, a digital PR guy, decided to move to London with his Mrs, he thought of taking a different approach to applying for a new job.
He made a C.V.I.V or a Curriculum Vitae Interactive Video. This video is nothing but a reasonably well produced video with some creative use of Youtube annotations, but it works extremely well to showcase his skills and differentiate him from the rest of the market. Well done Graeme!
P.S: A video resume is something that was on my mind for a while. Now that someone else has beat me to making it and internet fame, looks like I’ll have to make one using augmented reality! 🙂
P.P.S: Check out this article on PR Week where heavy praise has been showered on Graeme by one of the industry bigwigs:
http://community.prweek.com/blogs/firehose/archive/2010/09/14/just-know-pr-th…
After plugging a hole in the Times of India front page last year for the launch of the Polo (which incidentally reminded me more of the mint), we see yet another expensive print media innovation from Volkswagen. Today’s ToI has a special supplement with the Volkswagen Vento ad on the last page. This ad contains a small speaker with a sensor that plays a voiceover only when you open up the folded newspaper. While I laud Volkswagen for being bold enough to experiment with innovations time and again, I wonder whether this mega expensive exercise was the right way to go about for the launch. Don’t get me wrong. It made me notice the ad and I’m blogging about it. But what I am getting at is the issue of relevance – whether Volkswagen was the right fit for this innovation.
The audio track played on the speaker is nothing but a plain VoiceOver which adds zero value to the advertisement. There is nothing that the audio can tell me which I can’t already take in from reading the Ad. This type of media innovation would have been more suited for a brand which has an established jingle/theme (eg. Airtel) or for one where audio is an essential component of the product being advertised. (maybe the music release of a film w one surefire hit song playing as a sample)
In my opinion, the perfect candidate for this print innovation at this time would be KBC 4. On the launch date, they could take out a full page ad with the famous theme music playing when the consumer opens the newspaper!
The fault in this case lies with the agency. In their quest to generate maximum ‘award-worthy’ work, agencies often end up shortchanging the client by preferring gimmicks over effectiveness. I am proud to say that in my four years at agencies, my team can never be accused of the above.
The agency concerned here may get it’s Emvies nomination, but as far as I am concerned, this exercise is a wonderful opportunity lost to do something really groundbreaking. (Pls excuse any typos. Sending this post from my phone)
Every now and then you find a little gem online and this is one of those. The video comes courtesy of Greenpeace, in one of their many anti-Facebook moves. Their aim is to get Facebook to ‘unfriend coal’ and it’s a fantastically timed campaign, given the imminent release of The Social Network. This will hopefully raise huge awareness around the initiative and I look forward to what response we might get from Facebook out of this.
I’m sure whoever set out to do this redub had the best of intentions but it has turned into a major LOLfest. Watch out for the parts where he goes ‘BRRAAAAAWWW’! 🙂
“Herding Cats” is an experiment by IKEA UK where they released 100 cats inside their Wembley store at night.
Yep. Take 100 territorial monsters and put them together in one room. Not really sure what the point of this whole experiment was. If they just wanted the cute shots at the end, they could’ve accomplished that with a few cats and some patience. 😐
Little gem of a video from Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
He gives a name to an analogy that I have used often with great success. The deal is: When faced with any important decision that has potentially high risks/rewards, ask yourself “When I am old and crinkly, what will I regret more: DOING this action or NOT DOING it?”
Hat tip to Zaid for the link.
Australian broadcaster Foxtel, which is the official broadcaster in the country for the Commonwealth Games, has released an interesting promotion on Facebook called ‘Delhi Yourself’.
Once you submit your profile picture to them, they will email you a hand-made illustration of the same within two days with a Delhi (read Indian) theme. The promotion seems to be picking up well with the special ‘Follow the Games’ page generating approx 5.5k ‘likes’ so far.
Here is what you gotta do to get yours:
1. Set your profile picture to the one you want illustrated. (Important because the mechanism doesn’t allow you to choose a picture)
2. Like the Foxtel Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/#!/FollowTheGames?ref=ts
3. Click on the ‘Delhi Yourself’ tab in the page to work the magic.
My picture is attached below. I kinda like it, though I don’t know why they had to raise my hairline further upwards. Those damned Aussies! 🙂
Know of any Indian companies who are getting on the CWG bandwagon in the online space? Let me know.
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