Unearthing one golden pixel at a time
Taking mash ups to the next level, the DJ culture is introducing mixing music videos live in nightclubs across the US. The concept is brilliant; you’ve got someone on the dancefloor shakin their thing and watching the big screen at the same time. The club circuit has always been on the leading edge of trends, and I wonder if mixing music vids will usher in a yet another format for advertising.
See more vids from the pioneer of video mixing, DJ Ronnie G of MTV.
The world’s biggest free standing structure and the world’s biggest underground tunnel network isn’t enough for my hometown of Toronto. Now the city can boast the world’s biggest Facebook network. Given its relatively smaller population (among the world’s biggest cities that is), this distinction probably won’t last forever. The following numbers come from blogger Ryan Feely
| City | Metro Population | Facebook Members |
|---|---|---|
| Toronto, Canada | 5,113,149 | +500,000 |
| London, UK | 7,554,236 | 338,188 |
| New York City | 18,818,536 | 206,228 |
| Chicago | 9,505,748 | 195,410 |
| Vancouver | 2,116,581 | 159,947 |
| Los Angeles | 12,950,129 | 102,130 |
| Calgary | 1,079,310 | 90,859 |
| Philadelphia | 5,826,742 | 90,091 |
| Montreal | 3,635,571 | 82,922 |
| Houston | 5,539,949 | 69,682 |
| San Francisco | 4,180,027 | 48,496 |
To follow up on a previous post regarding Nike’s announcement to shift some of its $250 million advertising business to a more digitally savvy agency, Nike has chosen Crispin Porter + Bogusky to handle Nike ID and Nike Plus but says that the rumours are false and it’s NOT because their existing agency Wieden + Kennedy, “wasn’t cutting it online”.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada (IAB) today announced that 2006 Canadian Online Advertising Revenues surged to an unprecedented $1.01 billion dollars for the year. The 2006 actuals represent a 26% increase over the $801 million originally estimated by the IAB for 2006; and an 80% increase over the 2005 actuals of $562 million.
Of the $1.01 billion, approximately $208 million or 21 percent of ad dollars were allocated to the French Canadian Online market, representing growth of 68% over the 2005 actuals of $124 million.
Interesting study from the Oxygen Network. Apparently, women prefer tech to purses or diamonds.
Nokia’s latest campaign for the high-end N95 features touch screen games built into the advertising hoardings at London bus stops. It’s a version of the old tile matching game where you flip tiles and attempt to make a pair. See Video
Since around the time of SxSW and perhaps earlier, the buzz on Twitter has gone through the roof. Collecting groups of text messages and emails from people cataloguing “what they are doing now” might seem like a colossal waste of time, but it has found a devoted following from bloggers and those actively engaged in social media because of the immediacy and real time appeal of sharing your thoughts. This is different than blogging, this is like carrying a text based recorder on your shoulder to broadcast your location and current thoughts to the world. It’s not hard to see why this would appeal to bloggers who are already sharing their personal views of the world online. Twitter adds a frame of reference and has the same live appeal of instant messenger.
Still, a quick visit to the homepage of Twitter may leave the uninitiated unimpressed. It’s mostly a collection of people you don’t know talking about doing stuff you don’t care about. Even if you read these updates from people you do know, it’s tough to get excited about. The tool, though, offers a great platform for sharing experiences real time and has plenty of potential for marketing. Here are just a few non-boring ways to use Twitter for marketing:
1. Capture the live pulse of an event – This is one of the most popular marketing uses that I have seen for Twitter, where it is used to offer a visual display of conversations happening around an event. More and more interactive events have this, and I suspect other non-Web related events will start to incorporate it as well to offer participants a visual way to track the pulse of an event and determine where to spend time.
2. Deepen a static experience through live commentary – I saw an interesting story last week about how Fox is going to be using Twitter to promote their new show Drive by having the director provide live updates and directors commentary via Twitter throughout the show. We will definitely be seeing more of this type of marketing in the near future.
3. Facilitate collaborative watching – When it comes to watching video content online or on television, Twitter can allow you to watch something “alongside” anyone anywhere by sharing your impressions and reading impressions from others as a program unfolds. This is a powerful new method of sharing feedback and ideas
4. Add a new dimension to promotions – Scavenger hunts, user generated content campaigns, and other reality based marketing promotions are growing popularity as ways to encourage interaction from customers. Twitter can offer a way of encouraging dialogue between promotion participants and adding an “instant message style” dimension to a promotion without the privacy and contact acceptance barriers normally associated with using IM for marketing.
Tapping Twitter for marketing is still a relatively unique ocurrence — but from what I can see, there are plenty of opportunities. If the popularity of the site continues to grow it’s likely these opportunities will continue to get more appealing, and the list of ideas for using Twitter in marketing will grow as well.
Source: Rohit Bhargava
Great article about the state of online advertising over at Micro Persuasion. The gist of it is scary: some 55% of all ad revenues now flow to one or more of the major portals. Their share was growing even before Google bought Doubleclick. A separate article on WSJ.com notes that newspapers saw their online advertising dip. Again, the portals are a factor here.
What’s an advertiser like Dove supposed to do? Nissan? Nexient?
Bloggers, podcasters and social networks serve niche markets. This makes them relatively cost effective and attractive to advertisers. But how does one manage a media buy across a bunch of small sites? Partnering with the major portals is one option, as Micro Persuasion suggests. But what if your budget doesn’t allow for that?
How do we segment and manage our messages in channels like blogs? While the audience is receptive, I wonder where that would leave agency resources. Thoughts?
A brilliant microsite for the new Honda CRV. Built by Moscow’s famous Red Keds the animation and attention is painstakingly beautiful. A lot of hours went into building this property that makes you want to blast some Boney M and drive. Launch Site
The old P&G formula of problem, solution and show the damn product in action is every art director’s and copywriter’s nightmare. I remember always looking for ways to demonstrate the ubiquitous product shot and still feeling somewhat obligated to include the spot on my demo reel.
With the evolution of flash, I’m coming across more and more sites the take product demos to a whole new level.
This site takes mens suits and uses everyday situations to demonstrate the fabric’s superiority.
Splat the mat uses real time, fast-forwarding to demonstrate how good these car mats are for everyday usage.
Seen any other good uses of flash as a product demo, please reply.
Digital Digs (BETA) 