brand
Crisps and Conversations
I’ve been a bit of a sceptic about interactivity and FMCGs. Most of the time they just create digital litter. Maybe it’s just because I’m a big fan of crisps. But Walkers seem to be doing some peculiarly interesting things around…
I Have A Podcast – Plus A New Mix
My (ir)regular mixes are now available as . Hooray. And as an incentive to go and visit there’s . Tracklist: Hide and Seek – Imogen Heap Roter Platz (Original Mix) – Burger, Voigt (This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan (Superpitcher Kompakt…
What Advertising Can Learn From Radiohead
I wasn’t going to blog about the House of Cards video and it’s brilliant integration with Google and the geekosphere. I wasn’t going to blog it because everyone else has. It is bloody brilliant though. Yet another example of how Radiohead…
Morris Dancing – Just Do It?
Yesterday my life was changed. I saw street Morris Dancing. Well it was just ordinary Morris Dancing. But in the street. I’m sure there’s room for updating this old fashioned art – perhaps mashing it up with some rude drum and bass styles…
14tracks.com – A New Boomkat Offering
I’ve whanged on about Boomkat before. They’re a great example of a niche e-commerce player – although I’m guessing they’re a pretty big niche player now. They sell music online – mainly electronic stuff – they started selling CDs and Vinyl…
Red Bull Music Academy – Brilliant
I’ve not really looked into the Red Bull Music Academy stuff before. IT’S AMAZING. There’s some brilliant video lectures and an awesome podcast. It’s like TED for cool music. The lectures are full of heroic musical dudes from bunch of…
My Talk at Under The Influence
Here’s the talk I did at Iris’ excellent Under the Influence day. It’s basically about digital experiences and magic and how the two are interconnected. Hope it’s OK – from my perspective I think it wanders a bit at the end (I sort of ran…
Judging Viral – Viral in 5 Words
I’ve been doing some bits and pieces of awards judging for various folk this year. It’s all been interesting so far. The one I’m most worried about is the D&AD Viral Category. I’m the chairman of the jury and I’m guessing that there’s…
The Rise of The Ad Man 2.0
[I’ve written this post once already. I got to the end of it just as someone phoned me up. I picked up the phone. Fumbled it. And dropped it on my laptop which duly crashed in a spectacular fashion. The second revision is slightly shorter…
The Art of Sneaker Cleaning and Sneaker Cleaning Products
I’ve veered into silliness with trainers a few times, going out of my way to find them, spending too much money on them and hoarding them badly. I’ve always known that I wasn’t a real sneakerhead though. And I had that confirmed to me when…
Pownce Errors
I’m not convinced that I need Pownce (yet), but I did like their error message: I wonder if they’ve got clearance for the image use? if you’ve got a web business these days you need to have a great error page. I bet most brand…
Youth Trend Watch: Hardstyle, Hardjump & Jumpstyle
This started out being a silly moment in techno post. But it’s grown into something far more important. Something that trend watchers and marketeers around the world have to pay heed to. It started with this clip from Malaysia: A few…
Stockhausen’s Helicopters
One of the things I’m trying to do differently this year (not a resolution as such) is to avoid reading the trashy free papers that come as part of the commuting package. I’m pretty sure their particular brand of reporting-lite has…
Why Marketeers Are Too Excited About Facebook
I almost can’t bring myself to write about Facebook. Everywhere I go I overhear people talking about Facebook. From people in the street on their phones talking to people about how they’re going to Facebook them to arrange a night out, to…
Investing in Content
Jib Jab – US peddlers of funny animations and stuff (my description not theirs) have just raised another $3m in funding from VCs – in total they’re reported to have raised $6m. Read/Write Web have more on the story. I found myself nodding…
Nike, is it Supersonic?
Right now you can’t move in London without seeing some kind of ad for Nike Supersonic. According to the blog spam I got the other day: “Nike is launching an exclusive invitation only event for 3,000 people in London to push their pace…
Marc Ecko’s Latest ‘Stunt’
Marc Ecko, he of ‘Tagging Airforce One‘ fame, has come up with another big noisy stunt. He’s bought a baseball for 3/4 million dollars. It’s a controversial baseball. It’s the ball that was hit by some dude (Barry Bonds) who got 756 home…
Super Supermarkets
Normally I’m a bit hurried or hassled going around the supermarket, but on Saturday I decided to have a bit of a wander and look around the shelves to see what caught my eye. I even bought some of the things I thought were interesting…
I’ve seen the future of Marketing 2.0 and it’s rubbish (but don’t worry, it’s in Beta)
[Please note: none of the brands mentioned here have ever done anything like this (as far as I know), it’s a purely fictional story of an imagined future from my slightly fuddled brain] Imagine if last night everyone who worked in the…
Brands, Bands, Fans
Music strategy and comms agency Frukt send me a lovely email every month called Brands | Bands | Fans which is a top snapshot of the way that brands are ruining music. Or in some rare occasions doing something that’s actually quite good…
Making Do
The most excellent Giles who is the creator of the most excellent Edward Monkton posted a link in the comments section of the Bonfire of the Brands post. But it’s such an excellent link that I thought I had to float it to the top. Robert…
Bonfire of the Brands – Book Soon
I was chatting to someone the other day about whatever had happened to Neil Boorman’s book – Bonfire of the Brands. As I understand it, it’s the process and results of his self-inflicted experiment to give up all branded stuff…
Dress Codes Gone Mad
I love the phrase ‘Dress to Impress’ it makes me immediately understand that this is not a club for me. But the addition of no ‘branded shirts’ is great. I’m sure that Naomi Klein would be overjoyed that her whole No Logo philosophy has…
Firefox eBay Edition
This could have been around for ages, but I just saw a banner for it today for the first time… It’s basically a version of Firefox for people who do a lot of eBaying – it’s basically just a load of extensions for Firefox that have been…
The 7 Deadly Sins of Digital
There’s a bunch of things that people who are just getting into digital always seem to propose at some point or another. I guess they’re things that are part of the learning process. Things that a lot of us have done, and hopefully learned…
I Blame Russell Brand
ToyotaSpace – I Don’t Like This
To me this shows exactly how not to approach bloggers to get them onside. I’ve not put in a link to the site, and I don’t want one back from them. But if you do want to visit the site you can figure out the URL from the text above. Reasons…
Noise Map – A Great Idea Terribly Done
If I told you there’s a site where you can find out where to get a bit of peace and quiet in London, you might think “What a nice idea”. And it is. I was dead excited when I read about Noisemapping.org. A government department, DEFRA, have…
Zopa Wins a Webby
I found out yesterday that Zopa won a Webby award. Which made me happy. I’m not normally all that excited about awards. Having been on the judging side a couple of times you start to see how ‘the system’ works. And to be honest I think…
I don’t hate advertising. I just like digital better.
Well I finally did it. I finished my list of “10 Reasons that Digital is Better than Advertising“. Which is a personal triumph. It’s the longest sustained thought of my blog so far. Even longer than my ranting about Virgin Media! Even…
The Daddy of All Secret Clubs…
Following the post about secret clubs, posters like this have just started going up for Secret Sundaze (one of the original new wave of oudoor / warehouse parties). It doesn’t get much more secret than that. If you’re smart you might be…
Babycham Trainers – A Brand Extension Too Far?
That’ll be a yes then
10 Reasons Why Digital is Better Than Advertising – Number 1
Digital agencies sometimes do advertising. But only a few of them call themselves ‘digital advertising agencies’. This means that we’re given permission to do lots of other things. If you work in advertising you are typically expected to…
QR Codes – There’s More
Following earlier posts about QR codes (or Semacodes) – the barcodes that your phone can translate into cool stuff – thought I ought to post this from the MIT Advertising Lab on uses for QR codes. I can’t help but think that the ones above…
I’ve never seen this before…
I was searching for “Sothern Trains” and I got this error from Google. Quite a surprise. Google is one of those services you expect never to give you an error. And when something odd happens it doesn’t feel like a brand letting you down…
Google Australia Puts People on the Map, Nice.
Damn Google being able to use their own technology to be able to do something really really cool. Google Australia is celebrating Australia Day 2007 by photographing Sydney Harbour from the air, and we want to make sure as many of us as…
BBH Wins Lynx Digital Account
An interesting ‘moment’ in online advertising. BBH win Lynx digital account. To my mind Dare have done some really amazing online advertising for Lynx (Feather and Blow to name but two), and I’m really surprised that the account has gone…
Powder Your Nose in Style
I like this. A luxury private washroom on Oxford Street. Brilliantly named WC1 (well I liked it anyway!). A glamorous urban sanctuary, WC1 is the world’s first one-million-pound powder room. It has been designed with impeccable hygiene and…
I Love Second Life
Someone mentioned to me that they were surprised by how much I hate Second Life, so I probably need to put the record straight. I don’t hate Second Life. In fact I love Second Life – above you can see my alter ego Taito Dahlstrom wearing…
Crisp NPD for Kettle Chips
I’m a bit of crisp junkie as I’ve said before (even post the drinking oil advert that put me off a bit). So I’m a bit biased, but I like this thought. Buy this Kettle Chips party box online for $19.99 which contains: Five 5 oz. bags of…
F**K you and your Second Life ‘firsts’ you bunch of Adf**ks
I’m glad that someone with some heritage and history in Second Life has come out and said this: Second Life Herald: Gallery of Lies. And said it very loud. I’d have loved to have written this piece, but as my Second Life consists of about…
Netflix Prize
This must be one of the most blogged about stories of the last week. But I’m going to do it anyway because I think it’s really interesting and it spans the worlds of geekery and marketing perfectly… Netflix are offering $1,000,000 to…
New Design
Stan Lee suggested that maybe I should consider a new web 2.0 logo, and pointed me in the direction of the Web 2.0 logo generator. What do you reckon?…
WhenWeRollWeRollBig.com
A response from the Agency.com camp regarding the Subway video. It’s basically saying: “we did it, we got people talking, that’s the whole point”. I’m sure the debate will rage on around whether this is just a good piece of…
A Wee Bit of Advertising
Saw this in a gents loo yesterday. It made me chuckle a tiny bit. Then it made me feel sick. A small goalpost drenched in mens’ wee. Not something I’d want my brand to be associated with. But then I’m not advertising pissy goalposts (yet).…
I Hate Viral(s)
I’ve grown to hate the term viral: I hate the fact that it’s overused. I hate the fact that it’s misused. I hate the fact that ‘viral’ appears as a line on media plans. I hate the fact that people now call them virals. With an (s) as if…
Netvibes Rocks – Harder
Netvibes (my favourite Web 2.0 personal homepage maker) has just added a whole raft of brand new features and enhancements. The most significant of which is a whole new ‘community site’: eco.netvibes.com It’s like a feed directory, but it…
Bonfire Of The Brands
Neil Boorman (ex-editor of ex-Sleazenation, Shorditch Twat and other titles I’m sure) is writing a book called: Bonfire Of The Brands As part of his experience he’s burning all of his branded goods in a big bonfire as part of re-evaluating…
Eau De Play Doh
Play-Doh Fragrance – pretty much everyone loves the smell of Play Doh, don’t they? I know I do. But does that actually mean we want to smell like Play Doh? Well if you do, you can. Thanks to this limited edition cologne. Even if they don’t…
Run London – RouteFinder
Funnily enough a second post about an AKQA piece of work in one day, they must be doing something right. And in this case they really are: Run London – RouteFinder. An extension of the undoubtedly great brand property Run London, this time…
Guns ‘R’ Us
Psssst. Wanna buy some guns? A brand new microsite by Poke. The film’s been done by Mother. We’re trying to get it seen by as many people as we can. So we’ve put together a microsite and have done some interesting distribution stuff…
broken leon (not really)
Following on from my dirty BP ad post last week, was interesting to see another debate around the tiny little things that make all the difference. russell davies: broken leon (not really). Which in turn references a dissection of the book…
Burger King Gets Farked
Adrants covers BK getting ‘Farked’ – an interesting story of a brand getting stacks of exposure though an online community running away with their ‘icon’ and co-opting it in their own way. The article kind of makes it sound as if BK had a…