Project Re: Brief: Re-imagining Advertising

I've been meaning to post this for a while, if you have an hour this is well worth
watching. If you don't have an hour, find an hour to watch it all the way through!
You will definitely gain something if you work in the fields of creativity and marketing.

Although this is a Google project, it's not really about Google. The main thing to gain from
the film and project is the combination of a good idea or concept working in unison with
a technology or emerging technology to create better communication or even better...
connecting people and connecting to people with more value.

With almost two decades of online communication, digital ads are still being used to 

simply inform more than they're being used to connect, engage or entertain.

Project Re: Brief is a great experiment whereby Google partnered with five of the

brightest "old-school" legends from advertising to re-imagine their most iconic
creative work from a half-century ago for the modern web, for 4 global brands...
Coca-Cola, Volvo, Alka-Seltzer, Avis.

This experiment to re-imagine what advertising can be and push the boundaries of

how creative ideas and our technology can work hand in hand is a great example of

new world advertising. For people that have worked within digital communication 

for sometime, the key benefits and insights are not necessarily new, but there are

still more clients and companies that are still treating banners as traditional static

advertising or un-engaging forced messaging. More people are on the web, surfing

content and being engaged, so the need to create better ads is now a must.

The full potential of the internet has yet to be realised, where it will be in 10 or 20

years is just a guess, but advertising in some form will be present. One thing for sure

is that products and services will be more individually communicated, something we're

just seeing the light of now. But to get to better digital communication with better

values which mean more to people, we must inspire and inform clients and companies

of the changes and how to engage with costumers of today and tomorrow. There're

behaviours, buying habits and values have already shifted, so the main question at the

moment and everyday, has to be the one below...

I'm surprised the basis for this project hasn't been done before, re-imagining older
concepts in a modern world. I hope Google do more, the insights you can get from 
the original idea creators are lessons many creatives tend to bypass these days. 

More about the project here... http://www.projectrebrief.com

Defend our freedom to share (or why SOPA is a bad idea)

What does a bill like PIPA/SOPA mean to our shareable world? At the TED offices, Clay Shirky delivers 
a proper manifesto -- a call to defend our freedom to create, discuss, link and share, rather than passively consume.

Sexy Fingers

One way to engage people and draw attention / awareness to a heavy, important issues is...
MAKE IT FUN!!! Add simplicity and good interaction (a game maybe) and you should have a winner.

In this new AIDS campaign for Rapid HIV testing, the message is simple;
one finger is enough to play, but also to get tested for HIV.

Check it out and try the game, it's harder than it looks!

SITE HERE...

ROME: WebGL: The Technology Behind '3 Dreams of Black'

via youtube.com

The future of the music video. More tech advances by Aaron Koblin ;-)

The Life in a Day - Touchscreen Gallery

If you missed the amazing documentary 'The Life in a Day' you may be able to find it somewhere online.
It's well worth a watch from a filmmaking point of view, with honest and humanistic insight into the world we live in.

Ridley Scott is behind it and to cut a long story short, it's 80,000 clips (45000 hours) of footage cut into a 90-minute

fly on the wall documentary (shot by the people) about everyday people and their life. The best bits make it into the

movie. You can hear Ridley speak about the project in the clip at the bottom of this post.

From a digital data, information tech point of view, I think what these guys have done below is very cool!

Abby Road LIVE feed...

Watch tourists and fans bring chaos to North London traffic...
http://www.abbeyroad.com/visit

This is a nice simple way to promote a landmark or business... if you have heritage use it and involve people.
The clever thing here is that people were already there doing it, this live feed lets us join in on their fun.

You don't have to wait long until 4 people try to replicate that famous album cover.

Arcade Fire - The Wilderness Downtown

''We used to wait'' - an interactive film by Chris Milk...

Arcade Fire have always been progressive online. Knowing that most people watch music videos online, they

have again opted for a richer and more personal experience. Choreographed windows, interactive flocking,

custom rendered maps, real-time compositing, procedural drawing, 3D canvas rendering... this Chrome

Experiment has them all. "The Wilderness Downtown" is an interactive interpretation of Arcade Fire's song

"We Used To Wait" and was built entirely with the latest open web technologies, including HTML5 video,

audio, and canvas. MORE INFO HERE...

This Is Swedish Snus

A website (hub/platform) aimed at helping the USA to know all about Swedish Snus. More updates coming soon!

TAKE THE FULL EXPERIENCE HERE: http://www.thisisswedishsnus.com/

CREDITS:

Concept & Art Direction: Abby Norm

Digital/Online production: ACNE Production

Directors: Philip & Bez

NEWS & UPDATES here...

Chatroulette Piano Improv #2: Merton Returns

Also check this fella, Ben Folds doing a spoof LIVE with an audience...

Adidas Originals: Womens LookBook 2010

This is a smart way to reach people virally with your products! A little different from most fashion promo videos.

But why can't you click through to the adidas page with the product info and explore them more?

And why doesn't the YouTube version also have such a product click through feature? Surely you would reach more

people and continue the experience...

All in all a good idea which just needs a little more development and continuation, but then again maybe there is

some reason for not going all the way? I'm sure this type of thing will become quite standard soon, my mind starts

jumping how I could adapt this to some of the brands I work with, but make better ;-) Thanks adidas!

Best of Chatroulette

via youtube.com

People having fun with the Chat Roulette phenomena!

Posted via web from Greg's posterous

New Balance - 365 Project / iPhone App

New Balance step up their digital presence with a fun project created by Mother New York, in collaboration with

Swedish film director Jesper Kouthoofd. Very Swedish art direction in the movies and a fun iPhone app which is

apparently the world’s first audio/visual alarm clock. A new movie is added everyday, there's also some nice graphs

and stats related to who's asleep and who's not... but I hope this project develops, there is a lack of interaction

and participation at the moment I feel. Nice job on the whole though ;-) Explore the project yourself...

Lean Mean Fighting Machine - Radio

Lean Mean Fighting Machine have created this nice little idea which lets you explore playlists from the staff.

Feeding in from Last.fm I believe. Connecting to current technology is always better than reinventing the wheel!

Google Chrome - The Features ad + BTS Making

Google have made their most ambitious 'how to use' or 'the features' movie to date. I'm not sure if this is as easy

to understand as their other product and application demos or ads, but it is definitely more entertaining.

Everything shot in real-time sequences with a story for each feature, even the music is live and not overlaid.

Not a new style in advertising or film making, but a brave move for a tech company, it feels a little more humanistic

which is a good thing. If you like Mouse Trap, The Goonies or Michel Grondy, you're be into this I think ;-)

Favorite Places by Google, of course

via youtube.com

Whore houses and drug dealers can also benefit from this ;-)

I read a book recently that suggested having a Google city, for fans to live in.
But who needs a city when you can have the world and also know everything about the people living in that world?

Oh that's Google today!

Posted via web from Greg's posterous

Google Chrome Themes Channel

Check it out on the Google Chrome YouTube Channel...

Posted via web from Greg's posterous

The Editors - Launch new album with Google Street View?

Check it out... www.editorsofficial.com/streetview

This is how it works: a cleverly hacked version of Google Street View allows users to preview tracks from the

album in the areas of London that inspired them. As well as being able to move around as you would in the normal

Google Street View, there are red arrows to find in nine different London locations (one for each track of the album)

that each point to a location off the road - click it to find custom panoramic photographs of the band, shot at night

by photographer James Royall using a 180 degree fish-eye lens.

This is a simple idea with nice out of the box thinking behind it, attaching to current technology!!!

Shocking Barack - Brammo Road Trip

If you don't already know what the Brammo Enertia Motorcycle is... it's 100% electric with NO carbon footprint...

the most energy efficient electric vehicle in America (they say) and they seem to go quite fast as well ;-)

And there're off! They're plan is to retrace the route of the automotive CEOs who went to Washington DC asking for

government loans. But instead of looking for aid, they'd like to present President Obama with a homegrown solution

to the transportation crisis. They want to spread the word and have a little fun while we're doing it. Help them US!!!

Join them as they surf from plug to plug in a quest to meet Obama...

What a great idea and concept this is to spread the word on a limited budget! CPB of course!!!

Lufthansa - Create Social Application

The SAS Facebook Connect application/campaign, Globe Of Fortune, was a huge success and nice experiment

for the airline to raise awareness of the brand within/on social networks. But this new Lufthansa tool, MySkyStatus

is actually really useful to and for people. Basically by adding your flight number and details it sends altitude,

location, departure and arrival updates automatically to your Facebook and Twitter pages. And it's not restricted

to just Lufthansa flights, but seems all the carriers are there, pulling info from one big database.

This is one strategy brands can really jump on these days, connecting to people by creating useful things, tools,

whatever - that actually make peoples life's easier, or help them in someway. This feeds back into the brand!

The SAS campaign was obviously going for the fun element and relying on Facebook to help spread the word,

which is also valid and helps spread awareness, in that case of their flight destinations.

I look forward to using this! One problem is the robbers can then clean your house out while you're just getting into

the movie and sipping on your drink at 36,000 ft. Good to keep in mind if you're connected to some dodgy types ;-)

Fun online app to create speeches...

via speechbreaker.co.uk

Create speeches using Brown or Cameron and then post to YouTube.

Posted via web from Greg's posterous