Why am I not absolutley pumped and engaged in the Vancouver 2010 Olympics?

The Winter Olympics are coming to Vancouver, British Columbia in 2010. I imagine that most of us are aware of this fact but outside of some OK, some good and mostly shit TV spots I am not being engaged by the games.

The winter Olympics is a chance for not just Vancouver but all of Canada to be in the spotlight for the rest of the world. Every airport, hotel chain, car rental service, restaurant and Canadian has a chance to show the world how great our country can be. For those of you who are not Canadian I will use an analogy to tell you how I feel about our Countries current attitude.

I feel like we are a guy who a few years ago proposed. We got really excited, put countless hours into picking the ring, planning the proposal, writing the speech, re-writing the speech, then after 8 ounces of scotch got the nerve up to ask her father that we were sure would say no. To our relief and excitement he said yes, then a few days later so did she.

For months it was all we talked about, showing off the ring, saying the word "fiance" until our single friends got sick and then we started planning the wedding. By we I mean we approved the location and then left it to our future bride and her bridesmaid. Currently we are waiting for an invitation to find out when it is happening and what, if anything we need to do.


In 1988 I was lucky enough to carry to the Olympic torch for a feet as my Mom was carrying it for a Kilometre or two and I have always loved the Winter Olympics more than any other sporting event on a world stage.

About 8 Months from now we will be welcoming the wolrd. Our Atheletes will be challenging the world and all I know is Coke is giving me a chance to carry the flame.

Here are 5 ideas for VANOC to run with:

1. In the spirit of IdeaStorm challenge Canadians to share ideas about how they think we should share our Canadian Spirit with the world. Ways Canadians think we can make the 2010 games unique.
   
   
2. Crowdsource a Canadian visitors handbook. Have Canadians share their favourite Canadian traditions, meals visitors must try, places they must visit and historical facts and figures that have shaped Canada. Let all of Canada decide what we want the world to know about us.
   
   
3. User-generated tours of Canada and Vancouver. Create a website where Canadians can upload videos where they showcase their town, city or neighbourhood. International travelers may want to extend their stay and see more of Canada. I love the Vancouver Islands, Whistler, Banff and Jasper as much as the next person but there are other cities and places that world may want to know about. Think Drumheller, Kananaskis, Niagara Falls...all of PEI, etc. Let the world get a real understanding of where else they can go while they are in our Country.
   
   
4. Podcast tours of Vancouver. Have users create and upload Podcast tours of Yaletown, Gastown, Granville, Kitsalano and all of the pockets of Vancouver. Let them be beer tours, art tours, architectural tours, etc created by actual residents of Vancouver for free. Proved a map and directions so they can listen as the travel the town.
   
   
5. Thank the world. Our economy (fingers crossed) will get a kick-start, Vancouver will benefit from improved infrastructure and facilities and our nation will have had a chance to showcase the best of our country. In standard Canadian style lets say Thank you bigger, better and more heartfelt than any nation has thanked the world after hosting the games before. Where can unsold t-shirts go (Darfur, Somalia, etc)? Who can use our extra winter jackets and pants, toques and gloves? How can we collect money to help the countries of our world in need? AND most importantly lets ask all of Canada, the visiting athletes and visiting tourists to help us decided where we should direct this help. Lets make the games about more the Vancouver, more than Canada and more than sports. Lets make them about spirit, about a world coming together to showcase sportmanship, friendship and excellence.
   

Please add your thoughts in the comments section below and for the love of God Vanoc let me get involved.

Microsoft, it's Everybody's Business is Good.

I have meant to talk about these ads for a while because I really like them. I enjoy them on a number of levels and I think that this campaign does what I think all ads do. Build a brand while communicating a message.

Why do I like these ads:

1. Featured companies. The companies choosen are a great selection of loved brands (Coca Cola, Nestle) and some more unique challenger brands such as Method, Quiksilver, and WestJet. Delivering a Microsoft message to the beat of a surfing CEO is not how the world perceives Microsoft. In my eyes these brands associations help to make the Microsoft brand a little more current and cool to a 14 - 18 year old, while delivering what is essentially a B2B message.
   
   
2. The visual style. Obviously inspired from the "I met the Walrus" interview video created by Josh Raskin and illustrator James Braithwaite this is not the look and feel one would expect from Microsoft. The visual narrative of the spots helps to effectively deliver the message, while making the spots "cool" and "hip". I also find I focus a lot more on the audio as I listen to see how the visually connect the art direction to the audio.
   
   
3. Talking about ideas, culture and making a difference. Microsoft used to be about powering the machine. These spots flip it so that it looks and sounds like Microsoft's technology and products don't just help the man eliminate jobs, increase reliance on technology but that their technology brings ideas to life, inspires, facilitates collaboration and are a friend to the creative class. Nice.
   
   
   

Onward by Nike

Onwards from AKQA on Vimeo.

Big thanks to Ricky for this link. Hadn't seen this short before but it's really nice. Love it when brands think outside the product box and create content that is brand-focused (and different).

Great Camera + Amazing Parkour = Good Ad

I'm surprised the video below didn't get more press in Canada. Created for XBOX by the creative director and co-founder of AKQA, this spot uses 1,000 FPS camera's to capture Parkour in it's truest way. The shots are amazing, the talent is crazy (considering the buildings and ledges that they are going off) and the VO is sick.

Have you heard? Twitter is here!!!!!

In case you haven't noticed, the only website being talked about in the world right now is Twitter. When Oprah and Larry King are talking about how to subcribe to their Tweets, you know that the site has gone mainstream. We've been having a number of discussions about the site and although I think it's here to stay, many people have mixed feelings about it.

What seems to be the largest barrier is understanding why people would even use the service. I've heard, from a number of people, that they simply don't care about hearing what people are doing 'right now'. ("I just ate a Big Mac!" or "I feel tired. Should I go to sleep?"). While I agree that the little mundane facts about our lives aren't really for mass consumption, Twitter does have it's advantages.

For starters, it gives you access to people who are not your friends. You can follow celebs, athletes, journalists and politicians to track their every move. You can send them direct messages (not that they'll respond) and feel like they could be your friends. You can't get that type of access on Facebook.

Secondly, Twitter does a great job at connecting people who have like minded interests. For example, there are a number of marketers and advertisers who use the service and it's easy to follow them and see what campaigns are getting a lot of press and what people are currently discussing in the space. LinkedIn and Facebook don't offer this type of opportunity. LinkedIn let's me build my personal network of contacts but I don't really use it to have discussions with people. Facebook is for my friends - the people I've actually met.

One of the best lines I've heard about Facebook and Twitter is this:

"Facebook is the place you go to connect with people you know. Twitter is the place you go to connect with people you wish you knew."

Whether you Tweet or not, you can't deny the ridiculous amount of coverage the site has been getting (see video below, thanks Bud!). I'm looking forward to checking back in about a year to see how things are going.



You can follow me here (if you want to learn about my mundane life).

Honda Shine's with Vimeo

We recently did a post about the new Honda 'Let it Shine' spot. It was another great TV spot from W+K. But what about the integrated campaign? Better yet, how could Honda take this idea and spread it online in meaningful way?

Cue a great media partnership with Vimeo. Honda has created a fantastic page takeover that keeps the spot intact and enhances it in a way that only digital can.

Remember when Nintendo partnered with YouTube for a great page takeover? It was good but I think that this is even better. The media company clearly played a large role in making this happen and I'm impressed that Vimeo was willing to do this. I wonder what the costs were...

How could you make your TV spot shine online?

Via Adverblog.

Armano on the Future...

David Armano posted a new presentation he's giving on the future of advertising tomorrow. As per usual, the design is great - enticing slides combined with excellent examples and ideas.

Although we've heard a lot of these ideas before (traditional model is dying, old CEO's aren't changing enough with the times, departments are isolated and the entire agency process is too production focused), it's always good to see a reminder of what other people are saying. Check it out.

Google's Data Container Centre

Minor security. Only a little bit of engineering.

Greenpeace = Big Budgets Apparently

Heineken Cab - A PSA I enjoyed

Excellent track selection - I will be singing it all day.

What is your brand?

I had a great discussion tonight about knowing your personal brand and it got me thinking - do people even consider their brand when they use the digital space?

Take Facebook as the prime example. If you're under 25 and live in Canada, chances are that you've got a profile. There are, after all, over 5.2 million profiles that fit that description. So what's on your profile? Information about yourself, what you're interested in, a few applications (probably iLike and some others that you installed once and never thought of again) and your friends.

What am I forgetting? Pictures. Lot's of them. Of you on vacation, at a house party, fooling around one afternoon at work, on a patio, jumping off a cliff in the summer...whatever. Most profiles have hundreds of pictures and these pics are open to the public - anytime, anywhere.

This isn't a new thought. People - specifically those over 30 - are continually astounded about how much personal content people are willing to freely disclose about themselves online. Forget about personal data such as where you live and your phone number and think about how much someone could learn about you from your newsfeed, who your friends are and whose wall your writing on. It can be a bit scary. Especially when you don't realize it.

A few people in the last couple of days have asked to chat with me about how to get into the industry. It's a tough time and people are looking for any edge they can - even if it does mean meeting a random ad guy. What's the first thing I typically do when I get one of those calls or emails? Google them. The second? Go on their Facebook profile.

Why? Because that's as close to the 'real you' as I can get prior to meeting you. It gives me a sense of your interests and your digital capabilities (in knowing what should be private vs. not).

Don't get me wrong - up to a few years ago everything I had was totally public. Every drunken photo, random post, thought and feeling. Pissed at work? Tell all your friends. Angry at a co-worker? Blog it. Interested in a new job? Publicly send a post to a big recruiter on LinkedIn.

See the problem here?

Everyone knows what you're doing online to some degree - especially when you're the one explicitly telling them. So what you should do? Here are three tips:


1. Check your privacy settings on Facebook and create friend groups. Classify people you work with and play with in different categories. Is your mom your friend? If yes, she doesn't want to see you shotgunning a beer on the golf course (trust me). You can find the setting on the navigation bar at the top of your profile under 'settings'.

2. Think before you post an update - especially if you are doing it from your mobile. We've all been there. A frustrating presentation, brutal client feedback or a project that just isn't getting off the ground. Let it out to your boss or coworker in a room - not on your world-wide feed. Posting something when you are mad is like drunk dialing an ex-girlfriend after 6 hours at a bar.

3. Remember that your boss is now online - this wasn't the case a few years ago. I remember starting my job and seeing a big gap between who was using social networks and who wasn't. I was never worried about the latest picture because I knew that nobody overly senior used the services I did. Now? They're everywhere - and that's a good thing. I'd rather work with a group of people who use all sites and are obsessed with digital. It just forces you to be a bit more thoughtful in what you broadcast to the world vs. your friends.

I'm not a privacy freak. In fact, I think I put more and more stuff (my opinions, thoughts, etc) online everyday. All I'm saying - especially for those looking to break into the industry - is to be careful.

What is your personal brand? Give me your name and I'll tell you.

My Favourite Image Search Site of the day

One of the many cool projects found at Airtight Interactive is this Flickr Image Search tool.

Try it out. I love how it takes specific keywords and also returns relevant other keywords so you can quickly find just the right photo.

Time for some Inspiration

Well, I have been pretty busy lately and Tyler has been keeping this blog going. Thanks buddy.

But even in busy times I have been finding time to look for inspiration, interesting content and anything that will make me remember what I love about being creative. I decided today if I don't have time to write perspectives or share my opinions I might as well share inspiration and just plain cool content.

First up:

Mark Jenkins - he is a Street Installation artist that continuously amazes me with his creativity and at times darkness. Check out his full collection here.

Phillips Carousel is Turning Heads

On my Twitter feed a few days ago, I re-tweeted a post from Shots out of the UK in regards to this spot. When I viewed it on YouTube, it had less than 350 views, a few days later it's over 20K and being picked up by a number of popular blogs.



The first time I watched, I didn't have a clue what it was for. Turns out it's for Phillips HD TV's and the microsite is worth checking out. It is an enhancement of the spot and the utility of the site allows users to fast-forward, rewind and hear commentary on how it was created. Simple site, attention-grabbing spot and excellent execution.

One Thousand Posts

A little under two years ago, we started AdJoke. What started as a little blog with a few posts per week has become a passion that we have become addicted too - posting almost everyday at least once and trolling the web for the coolest content we can find. We've had a few redesigns, a few good posts and a steady increase in traffic since we started. Today, we've had over 26,000 unique visits and are hoping to grow even more in the next few months.

We didn't start the blog to 'get our names out there' or show everyone how obsessed with digital we are. We began it because our lives revolve around digital (and advertising) and we want to share the campaigns that we thought everyone should aspire too (and also those we think you should never want to do).

The best part about the blog, though, is our readers. We love getting suggestions for new content, feedback on our posts and the occasional argument about the latest site. We love linking to our other favorite bloggers (especially the Canadian ones) and the fact that AdJoke is now on dozens of blogrolls across the web.

To celebrate our 1,000th post, we are throwing out a challenge to our readers:

• What is the one thing you would recommend we change about the blog? Do you think we should do a complete redesign? Add a feature that we are desperately missing? Write about something that we've never talked about before? Anything.

Over the next week, we will take the suggestions and pick our favorites. Winners will receive a small prize as well a lunch on us (if you live in the area...otherwise we will send you an emoticon of a sandwich).

Thanks to everyone who has ever read the blog. We really appreciate your support and remember to check back often and help us in our quest to dominate Marketing Magazine.

FINALLY: An Truly Integreated Campaign

Back in November, we wrote about the cool microsite from Sprint called Sprint Now. Since that time, the site has been updated with a number of great new widgets (including the Top 10 Google Search terms of the day, the number of texts currently being sent on Sprint devices right now and the current national debt).

Not only has the site been updated, but Sprint recently launched a new spot to help promote their "Now Network:"



I'm a big fan of this spot. For starters, it came from the site - not the other way around. It's a spot full of the widgets on the site and it contains some great stats (I love the Twitter one specifically). Secondly, it focuses on Sprint. The number of text sent on their network, the number of calls, the types of messages, the uploaded videos - everything.

When you compare this campaign to the Verizon 'Can you hear me now' stuff, it seems bigger. Sure, Verizon might technically be more reliable but with applications and spots like this, Sprint seems way more in touch with their customers. Nice stuff.

2009 Webby Nominations

A lot of people as us how they can become more digital. We all know that there are a number of great books out there as well as hundreds of 'digital gurus' with various blogs (some good / some bad) to get your feet wet. I think that one of the quickest ways to think more digitally, though, is to review the entire list of Webby nominations across every category.

This list not only represents great creative and campaigns, it's a listing of the sites out there with the best content, utility and applications on the web. While I'm not a huge fan of award shows and 'creative-off's' I think that this list is a great example of the best in class work in our space.

Here is one of my favorites from the Corporate Site category. Boeing provides an engaging product demonstration that is simple to use (and very high in production quality) and fun to watch. Check it out here.

And in the mean time, take 20 minutes out of your busy day and scroll through the entire list of nominations. Congrats to all those who were nominated.

In your face, Audi!

I love the BMW smack down on Audi on this one. Both brands have done some really smart advertising in the last couple of years but I still love it when they take shots at each other - even if it is on a street in Santa Monica.

The fact that these brands not only go at each other but create custom placements to call one another out is great. In fact, I think it helps both of them to have the frick and frac against each other. I remember both of these ads now as a result (even though BMW is better positioned in this competition) and I hope they keep this up.

Found via adrants.

Nice Ringtune...

Another gem found via copyranter.

While I find that most beer ads come from the same place ('this party is going to be amazing now that I'm drinking 'X' brand' or 'those model chicks think I'm so hot now that I'm drinking...'), there are some super funny ones. Even though they don't all make it on TV, it's nice to have a laugh now and then.

To be honest, though, two seconds after watching this spot I had no idea what brand it was for.

WWF - Lungs

Great retouching. Found via Adgoodness

Can you spell CANNES LION? Check out Mow the lawn

Catchy jingle, great message and wonderful creative. I hope this becomes a campaign.

Women's Aid: Isn't it time someone called Cut

Here is another spot that is hoping shock factor of its very graphic content will help raise awareness. I am not going to lie I would have changed the channel, it is uncomfortably graphic and does not make me want to support the organization.

Why focus on the negative when you can focus on the positive?

Links [Copied Edition]

I love reading Copyranter - especially his link updates. He's just posted his recent faves and he has a link to a Brad J Lamb ad that is all over Toronto right now (and it's brutal). Lamb is known as one of the major real estate guys in the city and his team dominates condo sales in the city. That being said, all of his ads are horrid and I'm glad people are starting to call him out on them. Check out Copyranter if you've never read it and if you're in real estate, please think of an idea that doesn't involve your head on a bus stop.

Well...there is a reason this was banned...

Inspired from a recent AdRants posts. I can see how a creative team might have gone this route (after all, it is a condom brief) but think that there is better work in the 'category' out there.

On another note, I'm headed on vacay this week so the post will be minimal. Feel free to send me and PJC stuff in your spare time and we will be sure to put it up. Thanks for reading.

Top 5 Wired Articles [March]

Just plowed through this month's issue of Wired. Here are 5 stories you've got to check out:

• A great (true) story about the largest robbery ever - over $100 million in diamonds stolen from one of the most secure places in the world
• Clive Thompson provides a short perspective on how to manage user generated comments in a way that doesn't piss people off. Fascinating read and worth it for anyone who has clients who want to be sure they can 'manage' he conversation in the social media space (even though you could argue that this isn't really...well...possible)
  
• Apple is challenging the tech world to their 'Touch' technology. This lawsuit is going to get ugly
• 7 simple ways that the US can fix the energy grid and get on the road to environmental enlightenment
• Check out how scientists are creating a map of the brain - pretty intense stuff

Once again, Wired doesn't let you down.