A Source Of Inspiration

Michael Lebowitz is back to microblogging, sharing BigSpaceship’s latest work with ad agency Cramer-Kasselt: The Corona Beach.

If you’re having one of those awful Mondays (aren’t they all?), then a quick stroll on the Corona Beach might turn your day a bit more pleasant. Head to Corona beach and feel the breeze while listening to waves breaking on the sea shore or get a glimpse right here by watching one of the campaign’s commercials:

You get to explore the landscape or blow on the beer bottles, but what really impressed me was when I got to draw in the sand, that felt almost like the real thing.

Once you check the website, you might start dreaming with paradisaical islands and buckets of iced Coronas.
Or you’ll realize that you’ve got already 10 more emails to answer and your phone keeps ringing.
Have a nice work week.

Being swamped with work in the past week, blogging frequency was tuned down. A lot of inspirations passed by and feeds piled up to 1000+, but i couldn’t help to share these precious gems:

• Search is In Da HouZe!

  - and you though that SEM and SEO were lame !
  
  Youtube link
  
  Wait, there’s more. Now with some Social Media Hip Hop:
  

  (source: Fallon Planning)

• The urbanista diaries

  Nokia partnered with Google on their Urbanista Diaries moBloggging experience.
  
  Source: Cpluv

• Mystical swords, now live and loud.
  
  
  Source: Cati Vaucelle
• This guy probably shaped your taste in music, 17 years ago
  
  
  
  Visit The Land Salmon blog to find out who he is or check the photographer’s website.
• Some agencies really get the web ! Check out what Modernista did with Faacebook, Wikipedia and other essential websites for their new internet presence.
  
  http://www.modernista.com/
• Social network addicts: Compete shows the numbers
  
  Favorite quote: “MySpace addicts are somewhat vain”.
• Bjork’s Wanderlust 3d video premieres today on Yahoo. Meanwhile, have a look at a 2D Preview:
  
• Last, a big idea from tech companies: Using TV analogic spectrum to provide free wifi. I wonder what ISPs and mobile operators have to say about it ?

Enjoy these collected weekly inspirations.

Perhaps this has been around for longer, but it’s a first for me. Alexa, an Amazon company, now lists the top 100 Portuguese sites. A few patterns emerge:

• Hi5 ranks nr 1

  Besides user base, i simply don’t get it why it got so popular around here, specially when it’s way behind Facebook or MySpace in terms of features. Well, at least they announced their support for OpenSocial, by the end of this month. Curious how Orkut is ahead of MySpace (Brazilian emigration might not be the only reason).

• Google domains

  Google.pt + google.com + YouTube + Blogger = all your base belongs to us.

• Travian is #10?!?!

  I always made fun of Travian as being WoW for dummies. In several trips to my hometown in the countryside, it amazed me the dozens of teenagers gathering around in the local cofee shop to play this online strategy game. Now i fully respect it, though i still haven’t figured out the whole etnography. Another contender is Hattrick, a football manager that’s killing productivity in Portuguese offices. (Hey boss, if you’re reading this, keep in mind I play neither of them).

• The ISP / media conglomerate pack

  Sapo, IOL, AEIOU do their best to take advantage of being a default start page. With agressive content agreements and new service launches they try to hold on to a good slice of the market.

• Sports

  Football, mostly. With 3 daily sports newspaper (odd, isn’t it?), no wonder the online versions of Record, A Bola and O Jogo rank in the top 30.

• Leechers

  Oh boy, where should i start? Emule, private servers, Usenet … As if it wasn’t enough illegal downloads, Portuguese leechers are coming to the web to use services like MegaUpload, RapidShare, BtNext or Mininova. You think that’s funny? You should try to get a Cable connection to work decently on peak traffic hours.

• Portuguese do it better

  Keeping this blog Safe-For-Work, you probably can figure out what is the subject in matter. Although it seems we have to see a lot of “instructional materials” to keep in shape, as 8 in 100 sites seem to point out.

• The birth of social media

  Besides Hi5 and Blogger, several user publishing plataforms are getting big enough to believe we’ll see a sustainable growth in social media tools in the near future. Wordpress.com, Flickr, Fotolog and Imeem (where’s last.fm ???) have some impressive figures, a promising sign for User Generated Content.

• Web 1.5

  My biggest disappointment was not founding a single decent “Web 2.0″ (there, i said it) portuguese service. From the great list at Bloguite, none is featured on Alexa’s top 100.

Alexa’s ranking system, while extremely biased by those who have their toolbar, is the best free choice we have until compete.com becomes less US centric.

But i guess it’s our own market’s fault, that keeps feeding a monopoly like the one that Marktest has with their closed metrics solution Netpanel. Ah, if only comScore was here ….

Last year, on the balance of the e-Mkt 2007 conference, there was hope in bringing forward our national digital marketing industry, perhaps by becoming part of of EIAA or creating local IAB offices. Maybe that was not a feasible solution, but the reality of having poor industry metrics is a huge problem that needs to be addressed.
Better yet, let’s all have a true conversation about it. Your turn.

Several online campaigns have been around in the last few months that used sensorial immersive experiences worth of notice.
In this blog, you’ve seen the ones by Porsche and Arcade Fire, and now 2 more, hand picked from partner blog Osocio.org, to sharpen your senses:

* UPDATE (17/03/08): apparently DoTheTest is a ripoff, with no credit given to original author.

Do the test

http://www.dothetest.co.uk/

A witty mind hack and web sensorial campaign by Transport for London, aiming to reduce the number of cyclists that are hurt on London’s roads.
According to the campaign press release, researchers at Harvard University played this trick on some unsuspecting people and over 50 per cent failed to spot the change. This selective blindness is possibly the reason why motorists collide with cyclists.

Check also another video piece from Transport for London, that also plays on mind hacks.

Red Cross Hørselstest

http://www.horselstest.no/english/

This one is creating quite a buzz (pun intended), but you’ll need to have headphones to fully experience it.

Come on, give it a try. And listen carefully.
It’s more important than you might think.

This is a cross-post from Osocio.org, a blog on Social advertising and non-profit campaigns

Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour is sponsoring Burima, a micro-credit program with finantial support from Benetton, which also developed the website AfricaWorks, at their Fabrica studio.

In the words of Staci Smith who sent the project to my friend and art director Andre:

Late in 2007, Benetton began documenting the progress of the loan recipients through the images of photographer James Mollison. Mollison’s photos spotlight a diverse group of entrepreneurs including a fisherman, a decorator, a musician, a farmer, and a boxer. In keeping with Benetton’s commitment to social advocacy, the images are featured on billboards and print ads in the company’s new “Africa Works” global communications campaign. Benetton’s hope is that these everyday people will become tangible symbols of an Africa that uses the dignity of work to fight poverty and take back responsibility for creating its own future

A simple, zoomable navigation, trying to have a real impact on African’s looking for a way to change their lives for the better. The event launched worldwide last February 13th, with a performance by Youssou n’Dour of the song Birima (campaign video clip below).

Birima is also the name of the portal (http://www.birima.org/) where you can find more about the micro-credit program.

• Advertiser:Benetton
• Agency:Fabrica

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

At least online, with Arrotes.com.br, a new site by Almap BBDO for Pepsi Twist.

Using Text-To-Speech technology, the site allows you to type a sentence, that is burped after a educational pre-roll video. Gross, isn’t it? I’ll guess you won’t even bother to try it. Not enough? You can burp-a-friend too.

If you’re really “twisted”, why don’t you search for “burp” on YouTube? Guaranteed to make you sick after the first 10 videos.

Source: Brainstorm#9