I am uniQue by Foxtel
Lowe Sydney have recently launched a lovely new campaign for Foxtel called I am uniQue. The premise is pretty simple, create a 3D portrait of yourself that incorporates text, video and images from social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Logging-in is easy if you’ve got a Facebook account (using Connect) and the navigation for viewing the portraits once they’re uploaded is pretty neat.
One nice aspect to the campaign is that these portraits can be enhanced by others with them adding greater detail than the original creator may have given. Having not done this, I wonder what kind of moderation levels there are in place.
As each update is made, the users Wall on their Facebook page is also updated keeping people on on the platform up to date with how their 3D profile is progressing.
‘Skimmer’ social media application by Fallon
I’ve been using Skimmer, an Adobe Air application by the folk at Fallon, for over two weeks now and just love it. It pulls in things like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Blogger so your browsing time should be greatly reduced.
There’s plenty of these apps around, but rarely do you find one that’s been designed with the audience/users in mind from the ground up. The interface is incredibly intuitive, the transitions between features seamless, and stability (so far) seems great.
Nice to see an agency, known for being uber creative, developing useful tools.
Virgin - right music wrongs
So, the campaign is over, Vanilla Ice is innocent and Virgin wins another round of applause for clever ideas.
Drog5 Sydney, created the Virgin Mobile ‘Right Music Wrongs‘ campaign which was originally launched on YouTube. A video of Vanilla Ice apologising for his singing, baggy pants and bad hair appeared, with a followup site encouraging users to vote for not just him, but the likes of Milli Vanilli, Right Said Fred and David Hasselhoff.
Here’s the video:
I really liked this idea - Vanilla Ice plays his part beautifully (make sure you watch the video’s), the execution was great and the seeding seemed to work - it appeared everywhere for a while.
I do think they probably could have pushed the user interaction a little further, as simply voting for something like this is perhaps a little pedestrian.
NRMA gives motorists a voice
NRMA have recently launched RoadTube, a website dedicated to letting politicians and others know what irritates you about our roads and ways in which to fix them.
Users can submit comments, upload a video of their own or record videos in one of the specially designed booths touring Australia. These can then be linked through other social networks to spread the word.
NRMA president Wendy Machin said the organisation would use the groundswell of community action to lobby the State and Federal Government as part of its new Get NSW Moving Again campaign.
Skittles - good for the brand or good for the marketers?
A week has passed since Skittles.com relaunched and debate is still raging. Has this been a triumph for the brand - clever harnessing of social media to deliver an authentic user-generated experience, or a triumph for the team behind the idea?
There’s no denying the idea is clever - use Twitter, Facebook and Wikipedia as the foundation for the Skittles site. It doesn’t just integrate their feeds or API’s, but actually has them at the core of the offering.
It’s also a brave move, throwing open the doors with an inability to moderate commentary on the brand. I guess the point of view has been taken, that any brand chatter is better than no brand chatter.
At one point the “#skittles” tag was being so inundated with inappropriate material (abusive messages, porn links etc) that the company had to redirect traffic to its Facebook page.
A large part of the Twitter commentary taking place at present, is not from the supposedly ‘youth-oriented’ market discussing cherry vs orange flavour, but rather marketers discussing the value of the campaign.
So, did it work? The answer is probably. If getting your brand talked about is deemed working, then great. It certainly won’t work for all brands and caution should be shown.
Who did it really work for then? It has to be the marketers behind the idea. They’re the real winners here - a first for the idea and a case study for other brands to ponder.
A safe online network for sick kids
Finally, there’s a safe and fun online community dedicated to young people (aged over 10 and under 21 years) living with a serious illness, chronic condition or disability - Livewire (www.liverwire.org.au).
The media are touting it as a “Facebook and MySpace for sick kids” where sharing experiences takes place on an equal level. Here kids can talk about their situations in a comfortable, guarded community, safe from judgement and cyber bullying. In fact, the Federal Police have actually developed part of the program.
Livewire is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Starlight Children’s Foundation and is supported by funding from the Australian Government under the Clever Networks Program and in-kind contributions from Starlight and Livewire partners.
It’s been trialled and tested over the last few months with a staged roll-out and hopes to sign up 20 000 members this year.
Facebook crumbles in the face of people power
So Facebook has done a giant backflip. This isn’t the first time, but it comes on the back of a statement made by Mark Zuckerberg under a month ago saying people would just have to put up with the new regime: no more softly softly approach to the instigation of site-wide changes.
Well, Facebook overnight posted the following message above everyone’s feed:
If you haven’t been following, the story is pretty simple. Facebook changed it’s terms of service to state that they can use, modify or even sublicense all content you’ve ever uploaded to the site. The real killer however, is the fact that this remains the case even if you quit the network. You can read some more on this and some very interesting comments on The Consumerist.
This debate is one that’s not going to die quietly. It may not always be about Facebook, but the underlying copyright and usage issues will always be there. Check the fineprint, investigate things like Creative Commons licenses and be aware that what you put out there is in other people’s hands.
MySpace v Facebook - stats don’t lie, or do they?
It seems to be all over the digital press, so here’s a quick summary of what’s going on in the battle between MySpace and Facebook.
The January stats are in from the States (courtesy of compete.com via cnet) and show Facebook in the lead with about 68 million unique visitors, well ahead of MySpace on 58 million. Of interest, is the rise of Twitter, sitting pretty in third spot.
One of the founders of MySpace, Brett Brewer, revealed in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald this week, that “MySpace would still grow strongly (this year) but not as fast as Facebook.” Figures from closer to home, support Brewer’s view, with Nielson Online reporting that MySpace users have declined by 400 000 users over the past year while Facebook have signed 2 million. This is a big turnaround from September 2007 when MySpace had double the number of Facebook users.
How do they monetise all these users… don’t ask Rupert Murdoch, he’s been out discussing (and looking for answers to) this very topic this week.
As for the way statistics are reported, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has been vocal of late in it’s quest to develop a standard measurment system to avoid losing the confidence of advertisers. Paul Fisher, the CEO of IAB Australia, has called for an end to online metrics like ‘unique browsers’ and ‘unique visitors’ in place of a more accountable and truthful metric.
The IAB believe that vast inaccuracies occur with measurement when factors such as cookie deletion and multiple IP addresses are not dealt with accurately.
Design your own cover
FHM are running a campaign (FHM Recovered) through Ninemsn at the moment, allowing users to create their own cover and go into the running to have it published in the May issue of the magazine, as well as winning $5000 and one weeks internship at Holler - the campaign creators.
You can create your masterpiece online in ‘amateur’ mode or download the templates in ‘professional’ mode. There’s a gallery to vote on and some nice sharing tools - post the covers to different networks.
I think it’s been well done but lacked some of the impact of other similar campaigns going around. Take for example the recent campaign for Puma - I am 60 - both play on similar ideas around customising an image with uploads, nice flash tools and some copywriting wit, but one is easily more successful than the other. Check it out and judge for yourself.
Every wondered what’s being said out there…?
Spy can listen in on the social media conversations you’re interested in. Type in a word or phrase (’snow london’ entered in the example above) and let it search Twitter, Flickr, Blogs, FriendFeed and others to deliver an interesting snapshot of current dialogue taking place.