away

I'm off to China for a couple of weeks so there won't be much going on around here for a while.

clever

Radiohead did some more clever stuff (this time with Rough Trade) on Wednesday night. The benefits to both parties are summed up nicely by W&K here.

What I liked best about it was the rawness of the webcast bit. It was just a solid black page that was 2 hours late, then the cast appeared with an edit and camera angles that really reflected the intimacy of the gig, then it went back to solid black again. No messing about. No thought of how to get maximum reach, which adversly made it feel even more exclusive.

You can see the webcast here if you missed it.

Even The Scarborough Evening News picked up on it all.

good timing

A very well placed ad for British Gas on the Guardian yesterday. Read the bottom left then the top right.

Couldn't of worked out better for them really.

cookalong with Gordon

Wouldn't it be good if Gordon did a deal with a supermarket to get them to bag up all of the above so when you went in store you could just pick up and go home ready for tonight. I recon it would take more than half an hour and a lot of aisle wondering to get it all together other wise. Especially the chili flakes. What bloody section are chilli flakes in?

I won't be joining in myself. I haven't got a telly in the kitchen and I'm a boy hence can only do one thing at once.

let there be light

If you're stuck for something to do in London go and see Anthony Mccall at the Serpentine.

It's free

It's bloody amaizing.

driving traffic

Probably the best potential tool most brands have of getting traffic to their website is their actual product. It also comes with the distinct advantage of it being free media space (you own it already).

Kinder seem to have got their heads right around this with this magic-kinder campaign. The product pushes to the website through a special code in each egg (below), and vice versa the website pushes to the product with the promise of if you buy an egg and get the special code you'll be rewarded with a surprise of some sort (above).

It worked for us.

just browsing

The phrase 'browsing the web' is probably quite apt really.

I think there's a stat out there the states that 3% (probably less) of a sites audience will be responsible for 100% of its UGC in whatever shape or form (blog comment, content submission etc).

The other 97% are just browsing.

I've just been looking at the Sony Walkman Project and it really struck me that rather than front loading it with the call to action to get involved they should have started with the content itself. The content is fantastic (home music clips mixed together to produce a single track seemlessly reflecting the TV ad message).

The problem I have with it is that the fantastic bit is really hidden away and it's probably this content that 97% of their visitors are most interested in. So it should make sure sence to front load with this?

While I'm on the moan it would have been even better (and done the campaigns propegation a world of good) of they'd made each mix available as a video snippet so I could have shown you in video not a screen shot what it's all about and how good it is.

Go and have a browse though if you fancy and dig a video out.

snacking

I went to Curzon Soho last night. Curzon do good cinemas. Kind of everything that Odeon isn't. They also do their own range of snacks now which I thought was a good idea.

They've even left some room for cross promotion on the side. I doubt it will make them millions but it's still a logical and worthwhile extension of their brand.

Give them a try next time you go.

random acts of friendly interaction

Boots are doing some in store random acts of kindness as the minute in what looks like a January brand building excercise.

The other day they were handing out free vitamin pills speradically to customers they liked to look of. Then they're giving out special reciepts to every 100th customer that push through to a survey and free prize draw.

The wording of the question 'please describe the friendly interaction you had with a member of staff' seems a bit forced to me but still made me smile. There's far worse things they could be doing with their marketing budget though I suppose.

Look out for the free Vitamin C. Give the cashier a smile and you might get some to.

the future

January is all about predictions and trends and stuff. The future as it were. So in a tenious link as vague as they come here's something on the future. This bit from The Children of Men (when he gets out onto the street) paints just about the most realistic version of 'the future' as I can imagine.

It looks good for tuk tuks, digital outdoor in London has caught up with Tokyo in 1990, everyone is speaking German and everything else looks same same but different. Scary.