Great quote

Found on rm116

"We need to create something viral"

A pretty daunting task for advertisers these days. Where do you start?

For most people, the common response seems to center around video.

"Let's create a cool, low-key video showing [insert target] doing [insert semi-related brand event] in a neat way.

We'll post the video to YouTube, buy some Google keywords and bam - the next Dove Onslaught."

What we tend to forget is the "pass on" factor. Now that the video has been posted and stumbled upon by a few hundred people, what makes it worthy of an email? Why would some random blogger write about it?

More importantly, why would you spend 30 seconds or a minute engaging with it?

On extension of a viral idea is customized messaging that can be sent to your friends.

Remember how cool it was to get a Snakes on a Plane email from Samuel L. Jackson saying your name, career and hobbies? Or how strange it was to get a call from Chris Angel after he accurately predicted your phone number?

This simple application (that is also on Facebook) creates a customized video of Bob Dylan in one of his most famous music videos. In the video, Dylan has a series of signs that he goes through - each with different messaging. The catch? You simply type in what you want each sign to say and a video is created with Dylan shuffling through your message.

Send it to your friends and show them something neat. Great awareness for Dylan? Certainly.

Allow users to make their message personal. After all, it's a lot more fun to read a message from a friend than from a marketer.

It could be worse...

Interesting AIDS spot from the US. Not overly new, but with World AIDS week coming up in November, we will most certainly see another national AIDS Campaign.

EBAY - shop victoriously

A selection of the new spots for ebay. I think the insight is perfect. You actually do feel like you "won" your purchase when you have a succesful bid on ebay.

The victorious ads in order of my preference:

The Fall of Facebook?

One of the latest posts to the Wired Blog outlines a recent interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The subject of the interview revolves around three potential ways that Facebook could fail.

Based on some of the other recent social networks (ahem...MySpace), these scenarios could certainly play out:

1) The User Base evaporates - the current 40 million users grow tired of the network and as certain friends leave for other sites, they follow.

2) Weak Business Model - although marketers are seemingly dumping money into sponsored groups and targeted advertisements, the model is murky at best. Without proper expansion / a consistent revenue stream, things could start to go downhill.

3) Growth Stunted While Waiting for Public Sale - with user growth still going strong, is Facebook hurting itself while waiting to sell? Increased funds could help the network expand and increase its core revenue.

With the rapid increase and falls other networks, it might not be long until the Facebook base moves elsewhere to the next great Web toy.

Create Your Own Social Network

For those of you who are tired of Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn and all the other social networks out there - try creating your own on Ning.

Instead of sifting through the thousands of new applications, sponsored group pages and random friend requests, why not create your own group with your own criteria?

By signing up on Ning for free, you can set your own terms - create profile pages, set criteria for members and get your network going.

Popular networks include "Ask A Ninja Fans," "INKED," and "Grasshoppers" (a network designed to help others find jobs, life tips, etc).

Try it out. It's easy to use and much less annoying than the larger options.

Dove Onslaught

A decent follow-up to the evolution campaign. What I like the most about the campaign for real beauty is their programs supporting the campaign such as the School for real beauty program, self-esteem fund and discussion boards.

Thanks Snowden.

7 Great Movie Speeches

Wanted to throw together a quick list of some of the best movie speeches out there. Why? No reason - other than to entertain and inspire. Tried to pick a number of different subjects and actors. Feel free to recommend and add.

Next week, we'll put together 7 of the best "real" speeches all-time.

Fantastic speech on the responsibilities of the media.



Hope - Morgan Freeman's greatest speech?



Best Sports Speech ever?



Potentially one of the most memorable moments in film History.



Memorable speech on life.



The Most Beautiful Thing?



Greed is good.

Ad Quote of the Day

"If advertising had a little more respect for the public, the public would have a lot more respect for advertising."

James Randolph Adams

Great Placement?

If Vick is near your pet, you'll probably need to call 1-800-PETMEDS pretty quick.

The Grey Album

The Beauty of Bulimia. Exposed.

'no anorexia' the new nolita campaign realised by oliviero toscani for the fashion brand of the flash&partners group, from italy leaves no room for doubt. The subject chosen to convey this message, in particular for young women who follow fashion, is that of a young girl who has fallen victim to the sickness which along with bulimia, affects as many as two million people in italy alone. Toscani has literally laid his subject bare, to show the reality of this sickness to all through this naked body, a sickness that in most cases is caused by the stereotypes imposed on women by the fashion world.

The Fashion world has reacted positively.

The rest has been hit and miss.

I think it is great.

Toscani of course brought us the great photos made famous in teh Benetton campaigns.

Organize your online life

From Trendcentral:

Keeping up with email and social networking messages can be hard work for young people leaving their digital footprints all over the web. Catering to the need for a simplified online presence, a new website called Fuser launched this week. Fuser allows users to organize emails from multiple accounts (including Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook, AOL, Hotmail, and POP), as well as messages from MySpace and Facebook, into one all-encompassing secure inbox, thus eliminating the need to bounce back and forth between multiple addresses and sites. Fuser users respond to emails as they would with a typical webmail application. Facebook members can even view Facebook wall posts and respond either by responding on the friend’s wall or by sending a message to the friend.

Fuser also offers users a “map” of their network by ranking friends according to how many times they have sent messages/posted on their wall; these rankings can even be viewed according to specific time periods. As young people value documentation such as this, as well as the site’s primary aggregation service, the site may find an audience.

And by the way: MySpace just launched a free, ad-supported mobile service for its users. The service works on all U.S. carriers, and allows users to send/receive messages and friend requests, comment on profiles and photos, post bulletins, update blogs, search for friends, and change their “mood” status.

One Sweet Piece of Ass - vertising

Thank you Che.

Ad Quote of the Day

"If you look at where all the best ideas in advertising are created, it tends to be in places where taking risks is acceptable. Where budgets are small and under the radar. Where not too many people want to be involved. Where the agency or client has nothing to lose. Where the environment or culture is forced to deal with risk on a daily basis."
- William Charnock, JWT NY

Thanks Hidden Persuader

Should you stand up?

Couldn't help but link to a recent post from Godin. When you've got something to say, make sure it counts. Such a true post in our industry - anyone can repeat the same facts but standing out with a meaningful comment takes something different.

Complete Godin post below:

"When you are ready to stand up and speak.

Perhaps you should consider sitting down.

When you are asked to give a short talk at the big company gathering, or contribute a few minutes in a large group discussion, and you're ready to stand up and have all eyes on you, sometimes, perhaps, it makes sense to sit down instead.

If you're a bit nervous and you've written everything out and your main goal is to say nothing controversial, nothing memorable, nothing that might get you in trouble... well, why say it?

If your job is to act as filler, to say a small not-so-funny joke and then stall for a minute or two, or your job is to put in an appearance, or perhaps to make sure that senior management knows you exist, I bet there are far better ways to pull that off.

The traffic engineers in New York think nothing of wasting two minutes of each person's time as they approach a gated toll booth. Multiply that two minutes times 12,000 people and it's a lot of hours every day, isn't it? If you're speaking to a thousand people for just a minute or two or three and you don't have anything in particular to communicate, you've just wasted many hours of the most expensive time your organization has purchased this year.

Big groups are perfect places for the efficient communication of emotion. They are terrific for the impact that comes from watching your peers shake their heads in agreement simultaneously. The power of groupthink doesn't happen in an electronic memo, but it can sure be powerful in a big room.

The flipside is obvious: if all you want to do is recite a fact or a policy or worst of all, not really be noticed, then it's probably better to just sit down."

Believe It - This IS an Ad

Nope - no cracker. But I did bring a bucket to barf in.

Link from Copyranter.

The Greatest Ecard Site!

Without a doubt this is the greatest ecard site on the internet. I have been risking HR backlash by sending these out to co-workers for months.

Visit someecards.com

Toyota Traps Brazilian Ladies

Mazda could learn a thing or two from Brazil (see previous). My only thought is that they could have done a better job of featuring the vehicles.

Do we need more Billboards?

Great pic of a billboard-boat in Shanghai that floats along the Yellow river. The screen is actually video and simply moves up and down the channel for people nearby.

Thanks to Rebecca for the pic and heads up!

The Laws of Simplicity

CMU Professor Gives His Last Lecture

One of the saddest stories these days is about CMU professor Randy Pausch. Randy, a 46 year-old father of three, was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer. After a number of treatments, doctors have given him approximately 3-6 months to live.

This amazing article by Matt Roch, describes Randy's last lecture to his CMU class. The lecture was about fulfilling your childhood dreams and helping others accomplish theirs. It was about hope and the fantastic life that Randy led - even though it was cut short.

Attended by over 400 students and faculty and webcast to hundreds of others, it was a remarkable lecture given the context.

One of my favorite quotes was about Randy's dream to one day play in the NFL. His coach, a classic, hard nosed guy said to him after a brutal practice: "When you're screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they've given up on you."

Check out the article if you have a second - it's sad stuff but pretty enlightening to see what kind of person Randy Pausch is.

The entire lecture (about an hour) can be watched on YouTube.

Want to piss of the Catholic Church? Follow Plug TV's lead

Here is the agency pitch to Plug. "Ok, picture Ron Jeremy dressed up like Jesus, drinking JD straight from the bottle, hitting on girls, using his Jesus powers to turn 5's into scantily clad 10's basically making everything in the bar better. He then leaves the bar with a some arm candy jumps into limo and then usues his JC power to turn the TV station to plug. The insight is our target market loves booze, tits, limos and hot chicks. We will have their attention and then show them that Plug TV like all of those thing is awesome."

I doubt it went like that but honestly - who pitches this crap AND who the hell approves it.

What has Fallon learned from their blog?

Vote756.com

Marc Ecko, founder of the hip-hop brand Ecko unlimited and creator of the viral video Still Free has launched a new microsite. The purpose? To decide what to do with Barry Bonds' record breaking home run ball (number 756 for those of you who don't watch Baseball).

A few weeks ago, Ecko bought the ball at an auction for around $750,000. Instead of putting the ball in his private collection or donating it to Cooperstown, Ecko has decided to let the people decide what to do with it.

On the microsite, users have the option to vote on one of three scenario's:

1. Send the ball to Cooperstown

2. Permanently brand the ball with an Astrix and give to Cooperstown

3. Send the ball on a rocket into space (the Banish it option)

In an interview, Ecko says that he wants people to share their opinions and have a say in what happens to the ball. The cheating debate has been going on for a number of years now and instead of leaving it to the baseball folks to decide, he's letting fans choose.

You might not agree with this contest, but I doubt that many $750,000 campaigns have generated this much buzz in a long time.