Pringoooals football celebrations

Pringoooals football celebrations

Our contribution to helping repressed England Football fans express their true feelings on scoring a goal. Hopefully the England football team will get a chance to use some of 'em!!

The Distant Future. The year 2000

"I write this blog post on my phone while travelling on the train. When I'm done I'll email it to a central data hub which will then distribute my waffle to a goodly number of destinations....my blog, micro blog, social networks, business networks, The Big Shot website. It will also mail it to those lucky blog snorkellers who subscribe to my RSS feeds. Then once it's 'out there' on the Internet the spiders will come looking for the meta tags and links compiling all that search data ready for people to find on google or maybe that other engine. When some one finds the information they need they'll read it and they may the share it with others through a range of specialist social bookmarks and they may contact me directly to offer their opinion on mine."

It amazes me that if you wrote that paragraph just 15 years ago it would have been as an intro to a science fiction novel.

Posted via email from oliversrussell's posterous

What will the iPad do for us? - A thought piece written by our guest blogger Mr. Rick Sareen...

Recently 'mobile' has been much talked about as the next big thing. Mobile agencies have sprung up like wild flowers in spring, some have already sold for millions, multiple mobile operating systems have arisen (Apple, Windows Mobile, Android, Blackberry), and the mighty iPhone has been the standard-bearer throughout.

 

This latest platform, like those before it, is seen as some kind of stand alone entity; experts in this platform arise in agencies, large clients will create individual managers for the discipline, reporting in to a digital manager, up through a marketing manager and so on. And this is reflected in the way media is structured, owned and sold.

The segregation is usually by media in other words. Always was. TV dept, DR, Shows and Exhibitions, PR, Print etc.

To this you must add web, search, email, social media, games, apps…. (there will be another one along in a minute). And you can now watch TV and read your newspaper on a (mobile) screen.

Thus all media are in play as they compete for the ad pound that pays the bills and keeps it all afloat.

And now we have a new player on the block. The iPad. Already whole industries are frantically re-evaluating their business model, their marketing strategies and much more besides. Has there ever been an example of an industry (telecoms) collectively waiting to see if the arrival of one product will be a game changer?

I'd like to offer a slightly different way to look at the effect of the iPad by considering the way we use these new devices.

Generally we see the desktop PC as sitting at the top of the pile. The most powerful, the mother ship, the most connected, the biggest, the most expensive. Then comes the laptop, now universally able to connect with wifi, which is becoming ever more pervasive, fast and free.

Mobile was the dividing line at this point. And mobile meant phones. The dongle has now given that capability to laptops. Smartphones, led by the iPhone have stolen people's time away from the wider web and desktops as apps provide more and more functionality and access to specific content e.g. YouTube, BBC, FB. iPhone watchers were also surprised to discover that a significant percentage of users were happy to read books on the small screen. Which brings me to my point…the screen size

The iPad is a bridge that will allow us to see screen size as a new discriminator in marketing. The screen size determines how and sometimes where you use the device. And that means what you do with it. Already many are describing the iPad as a couch device. You can spend the evening with it listening to music, watching video, playing games, using social sites and so on. But it's not (yet) much of an inputting tool for anything beyond reference data or status updates. For that you will move to your larger desktop or laptop. Out and about, in the evenings, in your social world, you are likely to use a (smaller screened) phone.

Already content is configured for the device it will be viewed on. Dot mob sites are not what you look at on your laptop. Equally, www does not play well on traditional, small screen Nokias.

The screen size governs the nature of the communication and how advertising will adapt to these varying sizes; small single line ad units at the bottom of any app are not the place for Big Strategy; it's a signpost that you are best advised to point to your shop or website. On the other hand the web is the place to put thoughtful, commissioned content that draws users to watch and spend time in your brand space.

And if you have produced or are thinking of producing an iphone app, consider this - an average smartphone user will tolerate up to 5 or so full screens of apps. After this it becomes too difficult to manage (folders are coming to iPhone 4 to help with this). So if you want a user to give up some of this most valuable screen space on a device which has such an intimate relationship with its owner, your app had better earn its keep.

Posted via email from oliversrussell's posterous

Hi - Tec Walking on water

I'm moved to write an 'extraordinary' blog post on the wonderful wonderful work of Hi Tec and their Walking on Water viral - as they are revealed today as the brand behind this video that already has over 4 million views.

It encapsulates everything that is right about creating video content for both special interest and mass consumption.

Have a look here first.....



Fantastic!

You can see it being seeded and catching fire on extreme sports sites before moving onto more mainstream sites all the while being shared on video sharing and social bookmarking sites gaining momentum.

 This sort of content would work just as well if it was genuine rather than a hoax and that's the point...

Is it misleading to those who thought they's discovered a new sport? Certainly. Does it have its tongue firmly enough in it's cheek to get away with it? Definitely!

Is there a market for providing compelling content to niche verticals that then spreads into more mainstream areas - most certainly!
Do you have to brand everything within an inch of its life to get your brand into the content - of course not!!

We doff our collective caps to you Hi Tec - well done!!