A Source Of Inspiration

Bill Gates and Jay-Z (who now owns an ad agency). Photo by Nial Kennedy

Following a recent question by Paulo, Ilya quotes a quite provocative note by Scot Karp at Publishing 2.0:

When you think about it, it makes perfect sense that technology companies should take over the advertising industry. Nobody in Silicon Valley will win a Clio Award, but they will help clients get more than $1 back for every $1 of advertising they spend — and advertisers have always cared more about their bottom lines than Madison Avenue’s ego.

So, it’s not only about ad agencies being able to change, it’s also about being able to resist the hits from money makers Microsoft and Google. What do you think?

Here goes one more online political marketing post. Pro-Obama, of course.

As if it wasn’t enough that BarackObama.com rocks, will.i.am teamed up with agency Syrup and builded a site where Obama supporters can join in to momentum.

The same way the video came to life, the website is counting on crowdsourcing and UGC, by uploading photos with name and location into the music video, or tagging their Flickr photos with “hopeactchange”, and create a mosaic visualization.

Yes We Can.

DNTEL, Marié Digby, Swizz, The Blakes and The Raveonettes inspired other like minded directors to create 5 music videos, with color as the main concept. The result is a website with a solid work on the sharing features, linking to goodies such as interviews, making-off and FREE MP3s.

So, for my portuguese friends that were tonight at The Raveonettes concert, here’s the sound of black and white:

• Client: Gap
• Agency: Rehab

Source: Adrants

Flugtag Flight Lab is a immersive Papervision experience, developed by LessRain for Red Bull.

You get to hack your plane in a virtual hangar, cutting, painting and applying you own patterns. In the end, you flap your wings to control your creation in a 3D environment.

Red Bull gives you wings!

The hell with planning, account meetings and business smalltalk. What we really need is some fast decisions to pick the latest buzz and deliver some great advertising on top of it.

Credits

After the latest TCM post, now I found this one by Axe.
And don’t forget last year’s most successful direct sales campaign, about Julien Lopetegui, a Spanish football star who fainted during a TV news broadcast. Banco Gallego and agency Shackleton picked the story and a few days later a print campaign was out, inviting consumers to visit porquesedesmaylopetegui.com (offline) and find out why Lopetegui had fainted.

Agencies and marketeers are having a hard time keeping up with the speed of information, but those who are fortunate enough to tune their messages to consumer’s buzz have a better chance of being listened.

Source: The Planning Lab

Update (06/03/08) : The international version is now live at http://www.cokezerogame.com/

North Kingdom is getting ready for more awards (after FWA Site Of The Year with Get The Glass). Robert Lindström unveiled the work they’re doing for Coke Germany a few days ago, and we now have access to another making-of, this time for Coke Zero Game.

In 2 big posts, Robert gives us a sneak peek at the whole creative process, from storyboards to the latest draft, with a special demo site documenting the advergame concept and execution.

I greatly admire those ⁽¹⁾ who share their creative process in similar ways North Kingdom is doing, as it inspires young creatives to improve their skills and practices, learning from the masters. This kind of attitude is another great difference between traditional agencies and digital agencies. Kudos to Robert and crew.

(1) Fantasy Interactive has also a nice video about the creative process on the Porsche Cayenne site.

Singularity is the first large-scale online web conference in the world.

Born in the mind of the Flash genius Aral Balkan, the event is scheduled for October 24-26th, 2008, with more than 100 of the world’s top web visionaries, developers, designers, thought leaders, and celebrities.

Last year, Aral asked his blog readers to promote the mysterious new brand. Shame on me for not having posted a badge before, but as i knew Aral’s work was mostly in the Flash arena, i was expecting something like a framework or some new Open Source project. But this blows my mind. It’s a huge one man effort, and skyrockets my respect for Aral as a true SOURCE OF INSPIRATION.

The sessions will be available to attendees for a period of six months, and later released under a Creative Commons license. It will take advantage of existing networks to get full community involvement (yeah, i follow you on Twitter, Aral).

And get inspired with this list of confirmed speakers:

• Andy Budd
• Ann McMeekin
• Brendan Dawes
• Carlos Ulloa
• Cheryl Annett-Baker
• Christian Heilmann
• Craig Swann
• Derek Featherstone
• Dr. WooHoo
• Ian Forrester
• Jeremy Keith
• Joshua Hirsch
• Keith Peters
• Lynda Weinman
• Mario Klingemann
• Mike Davies
• Molly E. Holzschlag
• Paul Boag
• Peter Elst
• Ralph Hauwert
• Richard Rutter
• Seb Lee Delisle
• Stephanie Sullivan
• Steve Webster
• Thomas Vander Wal

Aral, the badge is now on the sidebar, but it would be great if you had also a countdown badge. How long do we have to wait until October?

Enjoying a deserved break in Madrid, it came to my attention on a newspaper a political marketing effort by candidate Mariano Rajoy.

The online marketing campaign is a mix by the one from Moveon.org and Bushin30seconds with the one from Sporting. The twist here is a mobile invitation made to voters, so they take a seat on a PP (Partido Popular) meeting and do a bit of crowdsourcing, at tupropuestaen30segundos.com.

After their previous efforts on Facebook, the PP is generating enough tech buzz, promising wi-fi in every city.

Political online marketing had a promising year start, with personal favorite Barack Obama getting all attention with UGC hits like Obama Girl and YouBama. With young voters loosing their interest in politics, it all comes down to: If you can’t fool them, you’ll better join them.