I’m a sucker for soundtracks as they’re usually offer a great selection of music. And if you happen (as i am) to be a fan of Heroes, then you definitely have to check this blog: http://heroessongs.com/
It’s a great community work, and provides direct links to free MP3s. My favorite tune of all episodes still is Eyes from Rogue Wave, that you can listen at the band’s MySpace page. While you’re waiting for the next episode, how about listening to this heroic playlist?
Just in case anyone is interested in the singles, below are my favorite Heroes to tracks and albums by Rogue wave, Sigur Ros and Imogen Heap.:
From WalMart to Sony, we’ve witnessed lately a surge of blogs as a accessible medium to spread a marketing message. Even in Portugal, a relatively quiet country in digital marketing stunts, there was a timid essay on flogs by Vodafone, when their ad agency Brandia Central published a flog to spread a viral video, a copycat of the Marc Ecko/Air Force One Tagging Video by Droga5.
One of the reasons these campaigns seem to backfire is mostly a matter of speech since these brands just don’t talk the walk of blogs, and their traditional ad agencies haven’t figured out the right way to engage bloggers and their readers. If you’re a hip product or service, you might even get a positive return, but if you’ve never been trendy or socially responsible, as soon as bloggers spot you’re trying to fool them, you’re history.
My advice is much of the morale on the play by Oscar Wilde, “The importance of being Ernest”: you can even pretend a lot, but at least be amusing. You can’t fool them (bloggers) forever, so you’d better come upfront with disclaimers and let them play with your message. As in the character Ernest, sooner or later people will find the truth, so have your B-plan ready just in case anything goes wrong, with some spare Public Relations available.
As in the plot, Ernest has a lot of witty comments, so any brand should come up with interesting little breadcrumbs that provide leads to the website. Take for example the grassroots effort by music band Nine Inch Nails, that created a myriad of websites with obscure meaning and latter did some smart guerrilla marketing in their concerts (starting here in Lisbon).
After all, flogs aren’t evil, but their purpose might be. Consumers don’t appreciate being fooled our interrupted, but they enjoy a great story, a challenge or riddle, something that makes them curious. The bad press for flogs came mostly from companies that tried to push their messages into mediums that they clearly didn’t understood, viewing blogs as a cheap way to set some initial seeders for their viral marketing efforts. As in a theater play, we all know it’s fiction, but while they’re acting they’d better be damn good at it, or we’ll not going to spread the message to our friends.
As for bloggers, the well thought flogs might be a great opportunity to join into a profitable conversation. A well planed campaign, rewarding to bloggers as in a regular media plan, will surely make everyone happy. Advertising has long been using fake stories, way before blogs were born, so my advice to bloggers is that they should get used to these techniques as long as brands dont’t try to “bunbury” their true identity and respect the blog community.
I had to mention this today, since some of the authors are fellow bloggers.
Tubarao Esquilo went live today, being one of the most serious attempts as a federated content network of portuguese blogs. Nothing too pretentious at the beginning, but from an ad agency perspective i’m curious to see how this goes.
Not that i’m expecting anything too serious such as The Deck, Federated Media or 9 rules (although technically 9 rules is more of an aggregator). And while the mainstream portuguese marketing is still more comfortable with online display ads or AdWords, it’s a matter of time until some brands start innovating with micro-targeting in more specialized niche content.
P.S.
- thumbs down to no only one women on the initial authors list
- i still don’t get the name (translated as Squirrel Shark). A really poor branding choice.
“If you can’t beat them, join them”, was perhaps the recurring thought at DuPont, one of the largest industrial companies in the USA, as they closed the deal to a series of science stories with Amanda Congdom, one of the blogs superstars and former videocast hostess at RocketBoom.
Everyday situations are narrated by the sexy voice of Amanda with several DuPont product placements in the videos. In a similar style to RocketBoom webisodes, they do not intend to be viral, but rather more educational and perhaps more in the tone of serious pro-bloggers, the ideal seeders to spread the word on DuPont Labs. I think they’ve got me, then.
As in any knowledge circle, those who are most listened tend to be a more credible source of information, so it makes all the sense that if you’re a company really interested in talking in the same language as bloggers do, you’d better off hiring someone who really “talks the talk and walks the walk”.
Marketing FM has an interesting question: What do you think of advertising ubiquity?, i.e., the increasing presence of advertising on every support, place or media.
Check it out and share your thoughts. You can inspire yourself with a few selected examples:
If you dont’t know who is Rob Chiu is, check some of the work at TheRonin. I’ve seen him this year at Barcelona where he presented “Black Day to Freedom” and other works and he still is one of my main inspirations in motion design.
One of my regular blogs to visit is “Toma e Embrulha“, that can be roughly translated as “wrap-it up”.
Created by Bruno Luís, the blog is a selection of posts and examples for those working or interested in advertising.
On the sidebar you can find the latest commercials, with links to all the new stuff. You’d probably find out some unusual posts if you browse for a while in the archives or try your luck using the tags.
Bruno’s main focus are the new media campaigns, guerrilla marketing and viral marketing, with the most popular posts being:
