A Source Of Inspiration

Enter the realms of cognitive domination at boostyouresp.com where you are the master of sexual attractiveness …

As usual, AXE brings us a really funny website and this time you can use psychic powers to get you some girls or download a book with some hook up tips.

Link to YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nihi_cbGmYI
Disclaimer:”Girls represented in video game may not trully be into you”.

Source: AdRants

With a brand new identity and website, the Webby Awards - “the Oscars of the web” - have announced the nominees for the 2007 edition. The Webbys are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences and more than 500 members elect each year their favourite websites in several categories.

In this year edition, 3 new award categories have been introduced besides Websites: Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video and Mobile. Some great examples of online marketing such as personal favourites wefeelfine.org or Jonathan Yuen are there, together with some mainstream sites such as Flickr or Salon.com, or the one from DraftFCB for HP.

The part that interested me the most were the interactive advertising awards but as i browsed through the entries i noticed that most of them have already been showcased at other awards. One that surprised me though was the entry “Clock” by Almap BBDO for Greenpeace, so simple that is brilliant. As for the entries, most of my preferences go to FarFar that has really seduced me this year, altough R/GA has delivered some quality work, specially for Nike (as they usually do).

If you have a lot of spare time and want to keep up with the best of the web, webbyawards.com is the place.

P.S.: Jonathan Harries (of wefeelfine.org) has a new interactive piece at Universe/DayLife.

The circle is now complete, with Google closing the gap and acquiring the only thing that was missing in their digital marketing services portfolio. With the strong reputation of asset management that DoubleClick technologies offer, and mainly through their ability to integrate third party assets, Google has given the final stab in Microsoft aspiration at online advertising.

DoubleClick did some buzz lately, with their intention to create a online ad marketplace, and perhaps that spurred the interest at Mountain View, that had some changes ($3.1 billion) to spend. One of the question that remains to be answered is wheter the platform will be provided to Google users for free, much in the same way that Urchin became Analytics. If this happens, it will represent a enormous boost in online advertising, as publishers could finally benefit of a widespread technology and standards, with equivalent metrics and centralized asset management.

Press release: Google, DoubleClick 

Today is a sad morning. My club just lost yesterday to Espanyol Barcelona at the quarter-finals of UEFA Cup, so i started to look for something positive about Benfica to cheer me up, and nothing better than announcing that Benfica has their own fan club at Second Life !

According to the sources, this is the first major football/soccer club to have a presence at Second Life, with some virtual merchandise to see or chat with other club fans. And this was all created by 2 loyal geek supporters, although the Marketing Department of the club is already in talks and looking at ways to be a part of it.

Second Life surely is a great opportunity to sports marketing, with their inherent fan based culture and passion about their other selfs. In a way a club fan is having a second life when he goes to matches or gathers his friends to have a beer while watching the match on TV.

While Benfica is not as global as Manchester or Real Madrid (although it is officially the club with most associates), if they manage to create a great experience at the virtual fan club, with clever product placements, merchandising, memorabilia and links to the online store, it might be a great revenue source - maybe next year we could pitch Saviola or Ronaldinho :).

Oh, out of curisity, the anagram for Benfica is SLB (Sport Lisboa Benfica), as in Second Life Benfica.

E-mkt 2007 is the first Portuguese conference on e-marketing, with invited speakers discussing the role of new media on traditional marketing strategies.

Here’s the program schedule (19th April) :

10h00m Web 2.0 – Plano Tecnológico e o E-MKT
Rui Grilo - Portuguese Technology Plan Coordinator

10h45m Putting e-Marketing in Context
Alain Heureux - IAB Europe President

11h15 Coffee-Break

11h45 Media Trends and the development of e-commerce across Europe
Alison Fennah - EIAA Executive Director

12h30 e-Marketing Integrated Tools
Ricardo Pereira - Elemento Digital - Business Development Manager
Luis Serra / Elemento Digital – e-Marketing Manager

13h00 - Almoço

14h15 SEM - Specific Web Marketing Tools
Chewy Trewhella / Google Customer Solutions Engineer

15h00 Online Advertising Case-Study Vivebem
Sérgio Leitão – Elec3city Advertising Manager

15h45 Coffee-Break

16h00 Search Engine Marketing
Inês Gonçalves / Google Ireland
João Anastácio / Google Ireland

16h45 Web 2.0

It surely will be quite interesting to anyone who works at SEM to have a first hand experience from Google professionals and get to know some interesting case studies in the Portuguese e-marketing industry. A must-go conference for any marketing manager or interactive professional. Sign up here.

Green is the new black, with the Al Gore manifesto making waves in many fields. Now it’s the turn for designers to take a stand with designcanchange.org.

The site uses great  infographics and smooth photo transitions to present a quick overview about global warming and encourages designers to make a change, through their active role in society. Choosing materials or suppliers that are ecologically sustainable is one of the examples given so in the end a designer does make a difference.

Our professional role does have implications to our society - in a sense,  we do shape the environment with minor design choices that build the long tail of our consumer society. If you feel like taking a active role, take the pledge and join the community.

I love chocolat. And I love great advertising. Ergo i love Thorntons.

A British chocolatier Thorntons created an 860 pound (390kg) pure chocolate billboard in London that was 14.5 ft by 9.5 ft large and made from 10 chocolate bunnies, 72 giant chocolate eggs and 128 chocolate panels. The billboard took three months to build. It was eaten in three hours.

Source: tip by Andre, via Billboardroom

Come on, you have to be joking …

I thought these million dollar schemes were over, but to find this one from a Portuguese developer amazes me. The guy has some dubious intentions on buying air time (on US) with one ad per frame. I don’t want to ruin this guy business, but here’s 2 thoughts: viewers don’t click and the frame rate is too fast to even figure what brand is there?

Then again, maybe this is just some personal marketing stunt. Or maybe there are people dumb enough to go for that stuff. Whatever.

Source: MIT Ad Lab