flickering

I like it when brands use flickr. It's always worked really well for innocent ever since Dan set up a flickr group for fruitstock 2006 off the back of his own account to see what happened. It went OK so we set up an offical account and have had lots of success with various groups ever since. (I don't like using the word success actually, how about fun?).

Anyway here's some thoughts on some other brands using flickr well and not so well.

Howies are doing something really interesting with their flickr account and that wonderful thing the real world at the minute.

Agent Provocateur are having far less success at getting young ladies to post up images of themselves in their undies to this flickr group right now. Funny that.

Ribenna had a go in the summer for thier harvestival but only managed to get their own pictures up by the look of it and then copyrighted it all up should a journalist want to come along and use them for something. What ever happened to facilitating word of mouth?

And I went to the V&A halloween thing last night and saw they've now got their own group. It seems to be getting a good pick up and should get even better once they start getting this kind of stuff into their own group.

So that's it. I like flickr's love you logo by the way. Nice to see they're out of beta now. Or was it gamma?

bad user interface

Why do keyboards put A so near to Q?

I've just command Q'd instead of command A'd right in the middle of a bloody post. It's literally a fine line between the two.

Bad.

it starts with a village

The Guardian launched a new charity campaign today called 'Katine, It starts with a village'.

Execution seems to be my favourite word of the day but christ have they executed it well. There's the website which includes a virtual village and blog that is going to be updated regularly for the next 3 years as far as I can make out. I've just added it to my RSS reader, it should be a very interesting live report from the ground.

Then there is the insert they added to Saturday's Guardian. Again executed to perfection via great photography, engaging copy and the surrounding story that humanises the appeal.

For example the insert not only talked about the struggle the community face but also let you into their world by showing what they eat and how they cook it...

(I think someone, probably a charity, should publish a whole cook book on third world food describing the exact ingredients and how to cook them like this. No one would be able to make them at home in the west but that would be half the point. Seeing what and how people eat is an amazing insight into a culture I think).

Plus features on local fashions such as hair...

and clothes..

The whole thing is an example of how to do a great branding and marketing job on what is essentially a community in need of help. And mostly done via great story telling. It got me bought in anyway. Literally.

They've even got a nice thank you from Joshua who's got a great smile. I want to see a smile like this everytime I sign up for something now, charity or anything else.

Did anyone see that thing on telly about a load of millionaires going out to Africa to help aswell? Their solution was a great idea really well executed which is now up and running in the real world and making a difference.

critical mass

If we missed a trick on our widget then have a look at Amnesty's new unsubscribe campaign for how to do it properly (just one version shown above). I'm meeting up with Adil Abrar, Anmesty's brand planner at some point so will hopefully learn some very intersting things about this.

My other thought on this is around critical mass and how easy it is to achieve given the right message and execution these days. To get 33,000 people on a march or signing a paper petition in the old days must have been a bloody nightmare, now it can be self producing pretty much. Two very deserving examples of critical mass being the above mentioned unsubscribe campaign (multiple access points allow for maximum value here) and Friends's of the Earth's Big Ask (172,000 engagements).

And then there's O2's facebook group with 80,000 members. That one is all about the carrot on the string though, that's not to say it's not the right carrot or hasn't been executed to perfection though.

more buy one get one tree

Faris picked up on our buy one get one tree thing last week and said some kind words which was nice. Snipperoo then picked up on our work via Faris's post and spotted a bit of a missed opportunity on our part. We're bang to rights on that one so I'm not going to argue the case.

What did strike me thought was the line "What year is this? 2006?". And they're right, we would have got away with it in 2006 but in 2007 it's just not cutting the mustard. It's the perfect illustration of how quickly things are moving though don't you think?

I can imagine it getting to a point where it will be "What month is this July?". Digital teams and agencies won't be so much creative production resources as rapid responce units.

happy

Ade's had a great idea.

old china/ new china

My mate Mr Clement was in Beijing earlier this year and came back with a couple of interesting insights. I think a lot of people imagine things like ping pong and yauatcha when they think about new China and the up coming olympics. Like it's going to be the new Japan or something. I imagine to an extent it may be like this but it might also be like this..

The Chinese don't like queing much.
A visit to The Forbidden City (Beijing's major cultural attraction like Paris's Louvre or London's Tower of London) sounds like a bit of a free for all with no queing system at all. It will be interesting to see how this goes down during the olympics.

The Chinese still aren't that bothered about toilets.
Also on a visit to The Forbidden City Mr Clement witnessed the experience of Chinese tiolets first hand. Hole in ground, no cubicles, a bit medievil. You could argue this comes with the territory but again this is their biggest cultural attraction so you'd think they'd start here then move on. Again another interesting one once the olympics get going.

The Chinese don't like the internet.
I don't know how they're expecting the olympic journalists to work with out the use of 90% of the internet functions and content.

Other than that it should all be just balmy.

iMTV

This is bloody great. The archetype of interactive media done well.

howies get real

Ade ih his shop, a happy chappie

I went to see howies new shop on Carnaby Street yesterday and finally solved this problem. As I suspected it's a lot easier to choose a pair of jeans when you can try them on. I ended up with the Timber's in the end, not the Skomer's as I would have gone for over the phone. The whole process was made a lot easier and far more enjoyable doing it in reality though.

I've mentioned bringing brands to life in the real world before and I'm very glad that howies is now one of them. Not least because I now know what a Wattson is. I want one. I'm abit worried I'd electrocute myself putting it in though.

I borrowed the picture of Ade is his shop from Dan's blog as I didn't have a camera on me yesterday.

more values & beliefs

I think it's going to be my values and beliefs that unltimately dictate how much I pay for this.

Or maybe how much is in my bank account by that point.