A quote from my personal blog here managed to be lifted and make its way on to the homepage of the Sydney Morning Herald today, but unfortunately my first foray into mainstream media didn’t end up quite how I imagined.
The transfer of blogesque, flippant, tongue in cheek remarks didn’t really do me many favours. The article goes…
‘Amnesia refused to give additional details about its plans for Surface. Its strategist, Carl Moggridge, wrote on his personal blog: “After all the rumours, we have finally and quite literally unwrapped Australia’s first surface table. Now we just have to figure out what to do with it.” Mmmmm, thanks SMH for the profile raising. You could have at least shown me some link love. You can read the full article here.
Despite bucket loads of marketing cash having been spent during the games, I still found myself getting quite bored of brands creating some very tenuous links to their products. But now the torch is on its merry way to London, it’s time for the fallout and the usual debate regarding whether or not brands should a) jump on the Games bandwagon or b) spend money actually becoming an official partner.
Over the last few weeks, it felt like every brand in the world was bombarding me with Games related campaigns. A couple of my favourites were Holden, who had Aussie athletes warming up and stretching on the bonnets of its latest range of vehicles. Then there was Lenovo who found the connection between a top swimmer, their coach, and a splash proof feature on a laptop. But the Gold medal has to go to Visa for this spot which features Derek Redmond and his Dad. It’s a nice message but the never say die spirit has little to do with a credit card. I also love the fact that they are actually proud of making it impossible for people at the Games to use anything other than a Visa card.
Then there is the stomach churning stuff coming from Coles. I am probably being cynical and English but there is only so much top and tailing of a commercial break one man can take. I honestly think I have seen this 100 times in the last couple of week. Every time I see it I believe/feel it less and less.
Lately I have been doing some work with a couple of good brands and I don’t mean people simply like them, they actually do good things in relation to making the world a better, more equal place.
But with all the discussions relating to games making kids either more violent or actually improving their social skills, isn’t there surely a market for a really, really, really big blockbusting release relating to social justice issues and truthfully saving the world, not just in the style of James Bond. EA, you can have that idea for free.
Is Kindle the ideal device for a person that just really loves reading, irrespective of format? Amazon’s reading device allows you to ‘wirelessly download blogs, books, magazines, and newspapers’. You can read The Telegraph’s full article here.
But as one of the above people it’s probably the perfect gadget for me however the main thing that puts me off at the moment is the amount of content currently available. 200,000 titles is nothing when you think about all the blogs, books, magazines and newspapers in the world. There must be at least a squillion or something like that.
I do think this device will take off but predominantly for a mainstream audience. It will take Amazon years to populate the variety of niche publications and content that more and more people want and that arguably makes Amazon useful, and for me that is. Not that I’m in to any weird shit, honest, just stuff I can’t get in the average bookshop.
The first thing that’s interesting here is that this is a device that serves a very specific audience – one that loves reading. Now in my opinion this is why I will personally never buy an iPhone. My MP3 player is better than an iPhone, my camera is better than an iPhone, my mobile is better than an iPhone. My DS (if I had one) is better than an iPhone. So if you are really into something or need a device to function at a decent level the iPhone is just a jack of all trades, albeit a good one. It will unfortunately mean people could end up walking around with a suitcase full of gadgets and gizmos giving off enough radiation to cause a minor explosion should you get run over.
But to get to my point, I think we will see a proliferation of devices that are much more specific to the user’s needs and become highly integrated with their INSERT SOCIAL NETWORK/UTLITY. High quality cameras that allow you to upload photos direct to Flickr, Facebook and your blog. An MP3 player that you can download music on the go and connect to likeminded people on LastFM in real time and on the go. You get the gist.
I like to post things on a Friday that you can just sit back and enjoy and this one is a good if you give it a chance. The Hollowmen started on ABC this week at it is a bit like The Office but based around Australian politics. It’s essentially the same gag all the way through it but there are some surprising similarities to our industry and agency life in general. Admit it, we all have worked with people like this. You can watch the full episode here, but start on 10mins if you don’t have much time.
Anything written by Paul Feldwick is well worth reading, he certainly has a way with words. So thanks to Faris for flagging this essay up and please do read all of it. It’s a great piece and not just a flippant blog post (like this one is). It really is useful and well worth forwarding on to clients (unlike this one). Just make sure they don’t misinterpret the digital vs analogue part!
For me ‘associations and relationships’ is probably the most distilled down and helpful description of how to approach communications at the moment. It’s like this deck from Joe Crump on Digital Darwinism and John Grant’s Brand Molecules but it is related more specifically the the construction of an ‘advertising message’. Forward it on to all those people you who live and die by the USP.
Shit I like this and it’s not the first thing cool thing I have seen the BBC do this week. . To support Radio 1′s Big Weekend, and for those who didn’t get a ticket, the BBC has developed an application that allows you to get a ‘Band in your Hand’. Well as close as you can get unless you have really big, huge hands.
This is the first time I have seen the use of augmented reality, although my boss tells me it has been around for about 18 months, but not in a commercial sense. He is one of those people that has seen every new, cool, shiny thing ever circulated on the Internet. Oh behold the time I find something cool that he hasn’t seen before. That will be a post an a half.
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