Pixel Terrorism

PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN.
Uploaded by onemoreprod. - Watch original web videos.

Courtesy of 'We Love Viral'.

Tony on Digital

When I went to my Watford interview Tony said 'most digital ideas I see are shit'.

He said that if an idea works in traditional, it will work in digital. Don't start with the medium, start with the idea. That's something Dave Trott's said before, and I fully agree.

But does that mean you shouldn't shape the idea to the kind of media that's being used?

What about CP+B's 'Sacrifice a friend', Forsman & Bodenfors 'Ikea Facebook Showroom', or even Nitro's 'Best Job in the World'? These are all campaigns where the medium was central to the idea and its success.

If want a place on the course, I suppose I'd best learn what Tony wants first and deliver that.

After all, he knows his stuff.

In passing, he mentioned the recent 'Rage against the X-Factor' campaigning.

He said 'is it going to win any awards? No. Is it going to create a lot of publicity? Yes, probably.'

I think his point was that he doesn't want to see ideas which depend on the medium doing all the hard work. Especially not in your book.

There's no idea behind the Rage campaign bar 'sticking it to the man'. Nor is it the kind of campaign you can sit down and write in a room somewhere, expecting people to get on board. When this kind of thing happens, it just happens... it's highly unpredictable.

The Power of Reddit

Call me a geek, but I love Reddit and I love internet memes.

They are fun to witness, and tell you a lot about people.

So long as you can plow through the incredibly geeky computer coding, Call of Duty, and engineering posts, Reddit is a great place to spend five minutes.

Half a million people do it every day. This vid is a must see.

The Future of Google

(Source: Digital Buzz blog)

Google Autocomplete Meme

If you're like me and spend way too much time on the internet, you'll probably have seen this sort of thing quite a bit:

You can get a whole bunch on AutocompleteMe.com

They COULD be a naturally occurring phenomenon... but then why put a result that has 14,000 views above one that has 1,500,000?

The answer is that everyone of these humorous little screenshots acts as an ad for Google.

Each one gets handed round virally, and people go to the site to try find their own. It's a neat idea - they probably took the whole site to pieces and looked at each bit thinking: how can we make this more interesting/attractive. Obviously with Google's simplicity there wasn't much room for innovation, but they managed it.

Subtle advertising indeed (whether intentional or not).

Windows 7 and Badvertising

First time you watch this, you think it's ironic:

Then you remember that Americans don't do irony - this must be for real.

THEN you think: no. Surely this must be ironic - somehow, this time they've managed to grasp it. It's all fine. It's all a big joke - deliberately bad-advertising. A spoof. Phew.

THEN you see this, which found it's way to the Reddit homepage today:

And you realise that they wouldn't have spent money producing all this promo shit for the kind of 'subtle joke' you hope it is. They actually think people will have Microsoft parties. They really have got it that wrong.

I think this must be a case of someone who doesn't actually understand people making ads for a product they imagine everyone is just dying to fall in love with. The inflated ego of someone who is simply out of touch.

The only saving grace is that the ad is SO BAD, it's accidentally gone viral with 1million+ hits.

Shudder.

Dance Classics vs. Absurd Graphics

"If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it." 

- Albert Einstein

Okay, another post for you here. It seems that Clemmow Hornby Inge (CHI) have cracked the formula for a great TV-cum-viral video campaign. The most recent example to come to fruition is their 'Pheasant Rodeo' spot for Drench, in which a man rides a giant pheasant, drinks some Drench orange juice, then continues to ride the pheasant, all set to the 1989 hit 'Ride on time' by Black Box... and the strapline being "Stay on top of your game.'

Before this, of course, there was the 'Brains' spot, also for Drench, in which a brilliantly animated CGI Brains (of Thunderbirds fame) took to the stage and danced to the 1992 hit 'Rhythm is a Dancer' by Snap! until he got thirsty... for Drench water, would you believe.

With that one clocking up more than 800,000 YouTube views so far, and 'Pheasant Rodeo' well on its way, it seems like CHI are on to something. Perhaps a dance classic, plus an absurd graphic does get people going these days... it certainly provides a bit of light humour in 'these dark economic times', though we can't use the crunch to explain everything.

The drench spots are, of course, predated by that legendary Gorilla (set to Phil Collins' '81 hit 'In the Air Tonight') and those somewhat less legendary eyebrows (set to Freestyle's '84 hit 'Don't Stop the Rock'). All four share a sense of humour, delivering simplistic audio and visual bliss. Perhaps people are so sick of being advertised to, they'd prefer it if brands just dropped all pretense of honesty or sincerity and just gave them an unadulterated good time - one they want to pass on to others.

Expect to see more of these before the day is done.