A light-injected love story - L.I.F.T.
Beautifully executed campaign for Pumas new ultra lightweight footwear - 173 gram Puma L.I.F.T shoes. Great visuals telling an interesting story.
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.
Fantastic viral piece for Vodafone
I loved this video involving a couple of office clowns, Lewis Hamilton and a Blackberry Storm.
Getty and Flickr - the partnership is finally live
Since July last year when the partnership was first announced, users of Flickr (and Getty) have been waiting to see how the pairing of arguably two of the biggest names in world photography could actually work.
Well, last night the Flickr Collection was officially launched. A handpicked collection by Getty editors that gets refreshed each month. Given Flickr has over 3 billion images, there’s plenty to choose from.
The images don’t come cheap (it is Getty after all), but being an avid fan, and user of Flickr, it’s great to see some people getting rewarded for their talent.
Nike disappoints with its new site
It’s not often that Nike disappoints, so I was supprised at my reaction to the new Air Jordan 2009 website. Don’t get me wrong, great execution (as always), powerful use of well-known athletes, etc etc… but I wanted more. I found the whole experience shallow and almost arrogant from a brand that got to where it is by being intouch with the people.
Love to know other people’s thoughts?
iPhone musical madness - Kids by MGMT played on iPhones and iPod Touches
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.
‘Made For Each Other’ by Frito-Lay
Check out the latest offering from the good folk at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners for Frito-Lay. A cute, beautifully illustrated environment where the user’s task is to play match-maker between the chips and dips - hence the campaign, ‘Made for each other‘.
I had a lot of fun hunting around, interacting with the various characters and playing some of the hidden games. Some elements were slow to load, but hey, blame Australian infrastructure for that.
The combination of 2D and 3D illustration is really well done and the characterisation pretty cool. Some of the ‘blobs’ even reminded me a little of the ‘Sensibles‘ campaign for Spring Valley.
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.