10 Mar, 2008
I know it’s a bit silent here and believe-you-me I wish it could be otherwise, but I’ve just moved houses and I’m still waiting for my internet provider to come and hook me up. My neighbors have secured their wifi, so I can’t leech (which I would never do, obviously, I just scanned for it out of curiosity) and I’m deprived of online living until the 14th of March.
Work is getting pretty busy too, with the TechDays coming up this week where I need to present 3 days in a row for 6 hours a day. Took me a little preparation time as well to get it all worked out.
Sorry for any delays. I’ve got a few posts nearly done, like the book reviews and a few cool marketing stunts, but I lack the time to style them in a way I feel comfortable with.
I’ll get to it as soon as I can. :)
Take care everyone and have a splendid day!
18 Feb, 2008
I came across a very cool trailer for FIFA3, which then lead me to a superb website that allows you to see and learn all the cool moves from the clip. I’m totally stunned. This really is amazing and the promo site must have cost a truckload of money because it looks very slick! Check this out:
Video: FIFA3 Street
Click the image to go to the site:
It must be the child within me that admires these supernatural skills and probably the long forgotten dream to run around with 21 other morons on a football field, chasing a round leather rabbit, but somewhere… I’ve always wanted to be a super pro footballer. Just like almost every sane man, I think. The thing is, I dug up my soccer ball again and actually started to try out the moves to make me feel better. And it helps.
11 Feb, 2008
This morning my sister gave birth to a wonderful and super tiny young girl named Stella. I’m going to be the godfather, and I think I’m already totally in love :) Welcome to the world, Stella! I went to the hospital during lunch and snapped these little images to share them with the world:
Stats: 48 cm large, 3 kilos heavy and the cutest face in the universe!
Yey!
(For John: 105.82 ounces and 18.89 inches)
8 Feb, 2008
There’s a super cool site I tend to visit a few times a week, just to browse through their archive and laugh myself silly with their hilarious geek jokes. The site’s called XKCD, and they publish a new toon every few days. If you’re not on track with this one, you’re missing out on some great fun!
This is just a tiny selection of their 300+ archive, and all I can say is: you’ve just got to go check it out… so many memories and ‘aha-erlebnis’ moments.
8 Feb, 2008
Whenever you’re in Orlando, chances are you’ll see a car like this driving around. All I can say is, even though I’ve been in Orlando and went out for dinner quite a few times, there’s only one place I remember where you can eat ‘the best lobsters in town’… I wonder why that is.
Great stunt for the Boston Lobster Feast!
8 Feb, 2008
It’s a fact that if you are a marketeer, a lot depends on how well you can wrap up your message to sell your product. Presentation is everything. The way you propose your product, supported by testimonials and based on facts that have been broadcasted on international TV stations will definitely determine the success of a product. Word of mouth will also help you out a bit, because nowadays, people very often rely on the statements their peers make before they decide to purchase a product. The perfect illustration of a great marketing stunt is the (most likely photoshopped) product below. Needless to say, this is so much more than the bare product could ever be. This carries a story, and stories sell. Even when this is a fake, it points out exactly what marketing is all about. You can make people want something, and they’ll be happy to pay a little more for it, as long as you succeed in wrapping it up nicely before you deliver.
Lesson learned.
8 Feb, 2008
A few months ago I did a post about 8 unfortunate company logos. Recently I came across another logo that really could fit in well with the others. I’m not really sure it’s in Spanish, because I can’t really translate it, but the pic has been sent to me by a friend who found it on the web. Since it’s travelling around, I thought I’d post it here. Thing is, when it comes to picking the right company name, please make sure the abbreviation is not ambiguous in other languages. Chances are if a company like this depends on tourists to survive, I don’t think it will be quite as popular :)
Thanks, Kristof
5 Feb, 2008
Aaaaages ago, when the ‘pc on every desktop’ meme still had to be dreamed of and DOS wasn’t coded yet, a company named the Philco-Ford Corporation launched a pretty foreseeing prototype video of the technology they would see arrive in the homes of people. Philco-Ford was funny enough an aeronautical company, but the devices they’ve placed in the living room or in dad’s home office look a lot like the ones you’d see in the early Bond movies. Despite the age of the movie, things like online shopping, home surveillance, automated backups and online payments were already being discussed. The movie is estimated to be of 1967. Enjoy the flashback.
Video: Digital Life in 1967
via
28 Jan, 2008
A while ago I posted about those yummy customizable M&Ms you could order and surprize friends or business relations with. But in the light of ‘healthy futures’ and ‘powerful messages’, what can be more fun than creating your own energy bar and have a custom name printed on the wrapper? I mean, the message is pretty clear: chocolate is for wussies and sweethearts. Energy bars are so much more of a statement than practically anything you’ve ever been able to customize. And it really shows you either have a powerful product to promote while you wish a good physical condition to your target audience by bringing them something they can use.
There’s not much more to add. Start creating your own bars, and send out a message that makes sense!
Visit YouBars
Thanks, Dave
28 Jan, 2008
I remember that whenever I had to do some ‘casual seeding’ for a promo video for an agency, I had a document with all the usernames and passwords of the sites I would dump the file to. It would take me up to a day to drill down that list, surf to the site and log in, upload the video, wait for the encoding and then bookmark the url of the clip to track the number of views afterwards. I know seeding promotonial clips has taken a downfall a bit, since not all communities are that keen on ‘being abused’ by ‘yet another agency that wants to score’ with a clip in the hopes it goes viral. So. Here is a solution that can make some people very pissed, but at the same time would come in very handy for an agency to start the seeding and save a lot of time.
In comes Hey!Spread…
First thing to do the ‘undercover work’ is to have some sleeping accounts. Just go to the sites listed below and register for an account. You better start making those on beforehand, even when you don’t have a clip to seed. You can put some ‘general’ funny clips on the account and pretend to be a regular user. It’s good to have a history on a site. The longer the better. It’s good to have some activity on that account as well, it will add up to your credibility. Write down all the usernames and passwords and then head over to the Hey!Spread website.
With a simple login, you get access to their service, name your movie, tag it and start the uploading. Hey!Spread will upload your movie to:
All the links above go directly to the registration page of the sites, so in case you don’t have a username/password on that site yet, you don’t have to look for the signup page.
Hey!Spread also allows you to add a watermark to the video file, in case you want to brand it for an official release or something. As soon as you start uploading your file, all you have to do is sit back and relax. The only thing you have to wait for is the processing time of each individual video site. When everything is uploaded, you get the URL to the location of the uploaded clip. Just copy-paste that list, put it in an e-mail or a Word document, and go check the views if you need to harvest the results.
As a bonus, you can use the Hey!Spread API which allows you to propose Hey!Spread in white label as a innovative and addictive feature to your users or clients. Allow them to mass-distribute video content over the best video platforms at any time, but still be the solution provider that came up with this brilliant plan for your customer!
Have fun.
28 Jan, 2008
To send New Year greetings for 2008, the communications team at the dinosaur museum in Brussels sent colleagues and main sponsors a highly original package. Inside was a block of plaster and a hammer & chisel with an invitation to amateur paleontologists to dig, not for the bones of a mighty T-Rex, but to find the museum’s greeting card.
Agency: McCann Erickson Belgium
Account Director: Talia Hendlisz
Creatives: Gregory Defay, Quentin Gascard
Thanks for the pointer, Tanguy
28 Jan, 2008
Take a look at this super sweet catalog from the Dutch Hema store :) Apparently they’ve launched their online department, and I must say the site is really a very cool experience. At first glance it looks like a regular e-shop, but if you wait a few seconds… you’ll be amazed. I love the way they did this!
Visit the product promo site :)
27 Jan, 2008
Time for environmental action! The “Coalition for a Cyanide Free Romania” is a civil society initiative that was formed to support a legislative proposal to ban cyanide in mining in Romania. Its concerns are based on social, economic and environmental grounds. Obviously that is a cause worth mentioning, and I’ve been asked to contribute to the general buzz, which of course I will. The campaign kicked off with a few x-mas cards that have been sent around, and it was also supported by spreading the stickers below.
Agency: Next, Romania
Campaign website
Hugs for Andrei Chirica, PR coordinator
Christmas cards are added after the jump: Read the rest of this entry »
27 Jan, 2008
The first time I saw this clip I thought it was a real video, like the one I’ve seen earlier of a holiday resort that had a beach right before the start of the runway of the airport. Then when I saw the plane turn I began to suspect something fishy, but I never really expected the clip to turn out the way it did!
Video: Have A Nice Trip
This is in fact a commercial for X-Travel, a Dutch site aimed for teens and youngster who are looking to plan a vacation. It’s a clip that promoted a campaign where teens could ’start their own airline company’ meaning that if they would check in 6 friends, they could win a free vacation for all. Tempting idea, and an appealing video for that specific target audience.
27 Jan, 2008
If spend quite some time with my little hero the last couple of weeks, and to be honest I’m always amazed how fast they learn. One thing that’s proven to be a really funny time of the day is dinner (or lunch or breakfast, for that matter). I remember that when I was young, my mom always used to make plane noises as she moved the little spoon or fork in the general direction of my mouth. A tactic I’ve been using too to entertain while doing the necessary thing. Very recently, Arnoud sent me a picture of a really neat gadget that could be of great assistance, but I haven’t been able to locate the online store that sells it, so to compensate, I’ve made paper wings and attached it to the plastic spoon I’ve been using to feed that little devil. Anyways, I just wanted to show the original idea that inspired me to create my own:
Like I said above, it’s easy to make some things like this yourself with two paper wings and a little bit of tape, but when I ever come across this one, I’ll buy it for sure.
