Life and death and everything in between......

I had to give a talk last month to some clients of our sister agency over in Brussels. The talk was one of those "how the internet works this year" type of things, but what was interesting and challenging was that the clients weren't your usual collection of brands and marketeers. This being Brussels, most of them were lobbying organisations, their jobs being solely concerned with reputation management and the spreading of ideas. So, talking to them about brands, customers and conversion rates registers a nice big blank stare. Showing them how this one idea can start "there" and then spread "to there" however gets them sat up and asking all sorts of questions.


So, was interested to catch sight of this last week, a great film about influencers and how ideas are spread. It's been blogged about loads already but, as this blog is in truth my own collection of bookmarks, then I wanted to stick it down here and share it with my future self.




INFLUENCERS FULL VERSION from R+I creative on Vimeo.


The other thing that caused some nice oohs and ahhs was this great film about life and death on Facebook. It's a simple story, well told, and reflective of the fact that Facebook is beyond being a website and is now, for many, the very fabric of the web.







So, worth keeping up your sleeve when your potential client from the Federation of Chemical Farmers and Gamekeepers Association asks you why digital is worth more than taking an MEP out to lunch and slipping them an envelope full of promises.....

Free lunch.....

People like vouchers being sent to their mobile....people don't like marketing messages being sent to their mobile (unless there's a voucher / payoff involved).


This is good news if you're thinking of using Voucher Cloud or even Foursquare in any upcoming retail campaigns (I am). 


Brand Republic survey here


More mobile research from Lightspeed Research (who conducted the survey) here


By the way, there is now a healthy market in "vintage" mobile phones. A Motorola 8000x sold on eBay for $5000 last year. I feel so old....and poor. Relive the glory of vintage mobiles here

We sell or else.....

There's simply not enough talks these days that include the words "idiotic" and "lunacy"....


This is still relevant because the thrust of it is really very simple...we're here to sell, one way or another, and to pretend that doesn't matter is ignoring why clients bother to give us money and give us so much grief when what we come back with doesn't fulfil that primary criteria.


I like...a lot

Leave your name and number and we'll call you right back.....

One Hello World is a great idea, like Secret Tweet, but with heart. Call the number and leave a message, the chap on the other end will compose some music around it. It's even got it's own Facebook page, with some nice discourse around some of the entries.


There's some great examples of this happening through curation (We Feel Fine and Twistori spring to mind) but when it's flipped over to something more overt and prompted the results seem to acquire more of an edge and resonance to them. I wonder what message Tony Blair would leave if he knew about it? In fact, if Rory Bremner fancies phoning in a few impressions then I think we'd have something. 


It's always nice to see how the web, with the right prompting and guarantee of anonymity, can allow people to open up and talk about what's on their minds. It's the internet as global wailing wall, confessor and silent counsellor.


Do hope this becomes massively popular.
Don't hope this ends up as a sponsored branding exercise.

That's longer than you said, it isn't what you told me and it's not really free....

Three things to say about this ad and the landing page it takes you to...

1. There is no website.....it's actually to sell you ad words

2. It doesn't take 20 mins, they say they'll get back to you in 2 to 3 days

3. It's not free....there's a £30 credit but after that you pay

Click here to see that landing page in all it's glory

Google....you should know better

I'm just saying.....

Pull up to the bumper baby...

Haven't posted for ages, and I'm sure the few of you who read this won't necessarily care, but I have been rather busy sorting out a new job, going on holiday, dealing with errant children and generally getting many a priority straightened. The lesson learned, above all else, is to please yourself and don't worry about anyone else...they can't be helped but it might help them to see someone helping themselves.

So, to get back in the swing of things, I'm just

going to post up this little gem. It's called Bump and it's a social network site for car owners. Whilst their promo video is cheesy as hell, the service (and in truth it's a service built around a social network) is very neat. It relies on the drivers of the world to play nicely and show a little altruism. Your number plate is your ID and means that if someone sees there's a problem with your car they've got a quick and easy way of letting you know by tapping your registration into the site and sending you a message.

Anyway, you've got @Documentally to thank for this, via his excellent blog here

I'm only posting this because I've spent the last couple of months researching car drivers and wondered why no one had thought of this before....turns out they had (as Documentally's post will attest). I'll write up the whole car driver research thing for a future post as it was very insightful and a lot of fun.

The moral of this story is....if you've got a great idea, do it before someone else does....