The Terrier

Spread a Little Happiness

terrier98045 — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:42:24 +0000

This is a fantastic idea and one which will undoubtedly spread across the web, when these virals come together they generally have a significant impact with Nike’s Jogo Bonito being a terrific example.

To promote its free video calling feature the popular free VOIP unit of eBay has launched the viral marketing campaign Skype Laughter Chain, with the aid of London-based viral agency The Viral Factory.

Skype is inviting its 220 million users to submit their own laughter clips with the aim to create the world’s longest laughter chain video. Using their webcam and microphone, visitors can easily enter directly into the application in order to send their own laughter clip. There’s no software download necessary. And if you don’t want to participate in the chain, you can just watch the video of people laughing by selecting “skip to chain”.

So want to join the Laughter Chain? Just play, record, laugh along… with e.g. the most famous laughing baby or classic video Dad at Comedy Barn and be part of it. Then sign their terms, press send, and your video is sent to Skype for possible addition to the chain video.

Want to learn more about laughter? See the special section “Learn About Laughter” on SkypeLaughterChain.com.

Tiger Translate

terrier98045 — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:41:49 +0000

I must admit I hadn’t heard much about Tiger Translate until before it’s London appearance but have been very impressed with it as a significant tool in the strategy of marrying emerging creativity with the Tiger Brand. Tiger Translate which is described as “a new and innovative platform for Asia’s emergent creatives” undoubtedly enhances the brand expereince, my only concern would be how big an impact it has in terms of penetration.

You can visit the website here

Or read more on Tiger Translate below

Tiger Translate

There is a new and innovative platform for Asia’s emergent creatives – Tiger Translate, an ongoing series of events showcasing individuals who double-time as creative forces in their home countries. Taking the locals-rule concept onto a global stage, Tiger Translate has already roared through cities such as Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh, Dubai, Beijing, New York, Berlin, Dublin and Auckland, where it all started three years ago as the global marketing platform conceived and organized by world-acclaimed Tiger Beer.

If one word embodies what Tiger Translate is about, it is redefinition- that is, redefining our place in an ever-changing and globalizing environment by updating our thoughts on contemporary art and culture and getting in touch with the creative heartbeat of our planet. To this end, Tiger Translate has nomadically discovered artists that are redefining contemporary Asia for the world to see. Here’s how it works: A national search is announced within a country and artists from diverse fields such as graffiti, illustration, graphic design, photography, film and music submit their work. Then, a few get chosen by a qualified panel to perform in an exclusive party event and next, the most outstanding artists and performers will end up showcasing their craft alongside other creative artists at the Tiger Translate Global Showcase in London set for September 2008.

This month, Tiger Translate’s camp operations in Bangkok, have uncovered some of the hottest bands in thick of the Thai urban jungles. The grand finale took place on February 9th this year at the Suanlum Night Bazaar in Bangkok where a music battle royale of nine bands will rock out to win some handsome hard cash 1,000,000 Thai Baht and a trip to London for the Tiger Translate Global Showcase.

Even though bands may have their eyes locked on the prize, this is perhaps secondary to displaying their passion on stage and the joy of taking part in such a community-building event where artists of all disciplines come together to celebrate. Featured in the photo below are members of the well known Thai indie band, Scrubb, at a Tiger Translate event in the Chiang Mai province.

And wherever Tiger Translate sets camp, a selection of spaces are creatively transformed into art-filled galleries and spots for live music to deliver a multi-sensory fusion of music and arts. Pictured below: famous Thai comedian, Note–Udom Taepanich (right), well-known photographer Chayaporn Maneesuwan (middle) and world-class graffiti artist, P7, showing their brand of creativity at the first Tiger Translate event held in Korat, Thailand.

Included in the fusion of creative arts, was another notable art contribution- umbrellas serving as canvas for a showcase of manga art. This was showcased at another Tiger Translate party in Chiang Mai.

After successfully unearthing some of the most creative emerging talents from Asia in the last two years, the Tiger brand team will continue to uncover bright young creative talents to be featured at the Tiger Translate Global Showcase held in London later this year.

All in all, Tiger Translate events are a sensational fusion of art, design and music accompanied by the world-acclaimed brew, Tiger beer. As long as emergent creative artists keep breaking new ground by challenging themselves and their beliefs, Tiger

Ryanair Flights Have “Blowjobs” Included!

terrier98045 — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:22:30 +0000

This is a classic, Michael O’Leary at his best! During a press conference in Düsseldorf, Germany, Michael O’Leary, chief executive of the low-cost airline Ryanair, declared their business class tickets are “beds and blowjobs included”. In ten days time over 250.000 people watched the video.

San Miguel music events

terrier98045 — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:24:26 +0000

This is a good example of how to create a unique sponsorship experience, it can be difficult to achieve penetration and stand out in the realms of music sponsorship and thus you have to constantly look to find new ways of delivering the sponsorship to the consumer. San Miguels Hidden depths is a great example of adding value to the sponsorship. I look forward to seeing more from Brando and Amplify on this over the next few months.

The concept and campaign, focused around young urban people who like to discover new things and look beyond the obvious, has been created and developed by Amplify San Miguel Hidden Depths aims to challenge consumers to look that little bit deeper as they are given a rare insight into the musical and visual inspirations of some of the UK’s most intriguing artists

This year, the series will consist of five one-off events held in London and Manchester from June until September 2008.

Each unique event will be curated by a different guest host from the worlds of music and multi-media.

PR agency Brando will be working alongside Amplify to implement a 360degree campaign, with the primary aim to increase the number of San Miguel adorers.

Brando’s carefully targeted print, broadcast and online campaign will start immediately to support the first San Miguel Hidden Depths event, hosted by Wall of Sound’s visionary founder Mark Jones on 26 June at the Soho Revue Bar.

The campaign will include talent publicity, establishing links with on-brand third parties and promoting the events through secret teaser DJ sessions, media relations and by offering money-can’t-buy experiences to press and consumers The launch night will be closely followed by four more events in London and Manchester, each curated in turn by The Glimmers, Secret Sundaze, Chromeo and It’s Pop It’s Art.

The hosts will be briefed to invite their own friends, inspirations and label talent to perform – with the full line-up not being revealed until the night itself to stimulate word of mouth.

San Miguel Brand Manager Elena Iborra said: “Aimed at people who like to look a little bit further, San Miguel Hidden Depths is a series of unique collaborations between San Miguel and the guests invited to curate.

“By creating unique partnerships with the artists, we can gain their direct endorsement for Hidden Depths, which acts as a powerful communication tool.

“Social currency is key for this audience, so the marketing campaign aims to get consumers to spread the word on San Miguel’s behalf”.

Amplify will be developing and managing a social media campaign involving online seeding and word-of-mouth, ensuring that the endorsement for the brand and the Hidden Depths property comes from the target consumers’ trusted sources such as blog sites.

To activate and support the campaign, Amplify is building a Hidden Depths community with a CRM-programme being implemented throughout and beyond.

Consumers will be sent content to include podcasts, vodcasts and newsletters as well as e-alerts that direct them back to an online hub, created by digital communications agency Glass.

The site URL will act as a home for the events as well as providing a channel through which to give consumers access to rich content from video interviews and footage and photos from the night, to exclusive mixes and downloadable tracks.

To further engage the right audience and give an additional dimension to the campaign, an illustration competition will be run throughout with support from a media partnership.

Jonathan Emmins, managing partner of Amplify, commented: “Without doubt San Miguel is known as the definitive Spanish lager.

“Going into its second year, the Hidden Depths concept is further building true emotional connections with young urban people, completely along the lines of what San Miguel stands for: ‘refreshing with a depth of flavour’.

“The campaign feels authentic as the brand is behaving like a promoter, speaking to young urban people in their own language and pioneering the use of untraditional media they consume day in day out”.

Amplify is an experiential agency with a focus on creating an emotional connection between consumers and a brand product or service.

The Amplify aim is to creatively facilitate a desired experience, telling a compelling story or truth about the brand, while understanding the cultural context and impact of the action.

Oh, and we’re mighty fine at the logistics and project management of any big idea with campaigns, such as what we have already done for Virgin Media, Scottish and Newcastle and Christian Aid among others.

Amplify was founded by Jonathan Emmins and Anton Mercier in 2007.

Antisocial Marketing

terrier98045 — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:53:16 +0000

I saw this on NMK, interesting report, undoubtedly there have been very mixed results with online campaigns, however how much of this is down to a lack of knowledge and poor tactical planning on behalf of marketers is open for debate. There are significant opportunities in the online space but as with any other form of marketing or PR, execution is key.

A new report has revealed that brands are still unsure of how best to leverage the large communities on social networking sites such as Facebook. Tim Hoang reports.

Despite the clamour by the marketing industry to affix 2.0 to all things vaguely Internet-related, it would appear that marketers are still struggling to fully utilise social networks as a channel of communication. A report by JupiterResearch has highlighted how half of all advertiser branded social network pages in Europe have fewer than 1,000 friends with the average branded social networking page having ‘only’ 6,494 friends.

Failing to engage

The report, Branded Social Networking Pages: Best Practices for Successfully Engaging Users finds that most brands are failing to properly engage with consumers. Social networking sites allow businesses to communicate to consumers on an unprecedented level, yet many are simply broadcasting information with little in the way of interaction. Marketers, it would appear, are sticking closely to their traditional methods of pushing out information, with social networking pages being little more than microsites.

There has been talk in the marketing industry for years about how Web 2.0 technologies could revolutionise business communications. However, it would seem that this is so far not the case. While poster-child examples such as Borkowski’s Bring Back Wispa continue to be cited, there appears to be a lack of successful case studies in the social media space.

Increasing spend wasted

This is surprising especially considering the increasing spend by marketers on social media sites. eMarketer recently predicted that by 2012, £285 million will be spent advertising on sites such as MySpace and Bebo. The popularity of social networking sites continues to be strong with around one-third of the total number of Internet users in the UK accessing them last year.

In the report, JupiterResearch underlines how difficult it can be for marketers to fully embrace social networks. However, it has made a series of recommendations in order to get the most out of social networks:

• Marketers should promote their pages with paid adverts rather than relying on viral marketing to get the message out. The vast majority of marketers attempting to generate viral buzz don’t succeed in getting users to pass along their messages.
• Advertisers need to engage users on the page. Even simple forms of engagement, such as contests, on average doubled the number of friends acquired by each branded page.
• Marketers must appeal to social networkers’ love of multimedia to get noticed. Social Networkers are twice as likely to visit a branded page focused on media content than a branded page focused on products.

Nate Elliot, research director at JupiterResearch and lead author on the report said: “Most advertisers simply don’t know how to market properly within social networks. Too many marketers create dull, non-interactive pages inside social networks and wait for a viral marketing effect to bring users to their door. But our research clearly shows that ongoing promotion and advertising, as well as the use of even relatively simple forms of engagement, are vital to the success of branded social networking pages.”

Opportunity for listeners

According to David Schatsky, president of JupiterResearch, Web 2.0 technologies present a fantastic opportunity for marketers to promote their respective brands.

“As online advertisers make increasingly large investments in social marketing and Web 2.0, it’s vital that they get the most for their money. By following the examples of what’s worked for other marketers and listening to what consumers want-such as original and entertaining multimedia content-advertisers can greatly improve the effectiveness of their social marketing efforts,” said Schatsky.

Mat Morrison, Digital Planning Director, Porter Novelli says that the marketing industry needs to readdress how it sees the social media space before they can utilise it to its full potential.

“The biggest problem is that many marketers still treat people as ‘media’. These are people, and people will always resist strongly our attempts to use them as channels through which to sell our shampoo and toothpaste products,” said Morrison.

“Nearly everything we do in the dominant marketing world is based on asking questions like ‘how do we talk to as few people as possible to have as big an impact as possible?’ In the dominant model, those few people are journalists, ad sales team, retailers, special interest groups, and politicians. Now in the emergent marketing world, we’re asking questions like, ‘who are the most influential bloggers?’ and ‘who are the trend setters among this group of schoolchildren?’

“What do both these have in common? I think they are both asking: ‘who do I have to talk to get something done around here?’ In both the dominant and the emergent worlds we’re assuming that we – the marketers, the brands, the companies – are the subject of the sentence. It’s all about us, and what ‘we’ want to do. This is the biggest mistake. We can’t buy people like we can buy media space. We can’t come to an understanding with them like we do with editorial teams.”

However, Morrison was keen to highlight that he believed there was an opportunity for marketers, and brands, who practiced what they preached.

“If we stop seeing this thing we’re calling “social media” as a channel through which we can talk to audiences, and understand that they’re channels through which we can hear our audiences talking about us, we’re about three quarters of the way to coping with the emerging marketing landscape,” continued Morrison.

“Broadcast advertising is so expensive that planners have to think in terms of short bursts of activity; all of our best thinking for the past few decades has been about how to optimise these short bursts. Campaigns are ‘oldthink’ – they’re a function of these finite marketing budgets. Today we need to think about long term, sustained activities and programmes, laid down one layer at a time. It’s going to be as much, if not more about what we do, as it is about what we say,” he commented.

Doritos Viral

terrier98045 — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:17:07 +0000

Here’s the latest consumer generated advert from Doritos. It came froma UK – wide contest for consumers to have their advert aired on TV. The competition was run through you tube with a cash prize for the winning advert plus the kudos of having it on TV! The winning advert of a Dorito tribe has got over 22,000 views on YouTube so far and is currently on TV.

tapas fantasticas

terrier98045 — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:15:11 +0000

Another experiential campaign which should work very well is Phipps’ Rioja festival in London. Similar to the innocent village fete, this festival will draw punters in and give them a full brand experience, creating an event that will appeal to all the senses. Phipps work with some great brands food brands such as Green & Black’s and Kettle chips and I’ve no doubt this Rioja festival will be a great hit.

Check out wines from Rioja

Phipps PR, a consumer agency specialising in food and drink, has created a fresh new summer festival for Wines from Rioja to reach a younger consumer market.

Tapas Fantasticas festival, a celebration of Rioja wine, Spanish food and lifestyle, will run on 28-29 June in Ely’s Yard, Brick Lane, London, and expects to draw crowds of up to 10,000 for free wine tasting, authentic tapas, expert wine seminars and Spanish entertainment Leading experiential production agency RPM were appointed by Phipps to manage the creative execution and implementation of the festival, generating a stand-out event in this increasingly popular East London location.

Debbie Feickert, Director from Phipps PR, said: “This year we decided to break from the traditional model of sampling at other people’s festivals where we’ve found the consumer experience of Rioja limited, the branding opportunities restricted and the competition from other wine brands and regions fierce.

“We created Tapas Fantasticas as a standalone event, dedicated to showcasing Rioja wines in a unique way that we believe is a ‘first’ for a wine region.

“We believe that the result will be significantly more impactful”.

Alex webb, Director from RPM, said: “We have sought to create an innovative event which will transform Brick Lane for one weekend so it mirrors the streets in Rioja, which are famed for their ‘tapas trails’ where groups of friends wander from bar to bar enjoying a speciality dish and a small glass of Rioja wine”.

Some 19 Rioja wineries will be exhibiting a range of modern and traditional style Rioja red, white and rose wines for tasting and purchase by the glass.

Nine of Rioja’s finest tapas bars will be relocating from Logrono to London to serve their speciality tapas dishes and six of London’s top Spanish restaurants will be serving their own mix of authentic and contemporary tapas bites.

The event is supported by media partner Time Out and by Arbacares, Rioja’s Restaurant and Hotel Association.

Village Fete

terrier98045 — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:19:42 +0000

Congragulations to the guys in innocent with the announcement of their second village fete, it’s an excellent concept and one that really strengthens the innocent brand. I wouldn’t be surprised to see something akin to the Regents park event cropping up on these shores within the next couple of years.

Ecover, Puffin Books, Yorkshire Tea, Lonely Planet, Good Energy, Origins and Hunter are just some of the brands who have signed up to attend the innocent village fete this summer.

Now in its second year, the innocent village fete will be returning to London’s Regent’s Park on 2 and 3 August And once again, both Sledge, the experiential agency behind the fete, and innocent are keen to offer visitors a truly unique experience

Ian Irving, sales and marketing director at Sledge, said: “We’re working with brands that share innocent’s values and ethos to ensure that visitors enjoy a really interactive experience.

“Hunter, for example, will be using its famous Wellington boots to create a ‘welly coconut shy’, and the new ’spoken word’ area sponsored by publishers 4th Estate, will be home to all sorts of spoken performances including poetry and book slams, word comedy, interactive word play and open mic sessions for fete goers”.

“We’re really excited about this year’s fete,” said Charlotte Rawlins, head of communications at innocent.

“Over 50,000 people enjoyed a family day out with us in the sunshine last year with traditional fete pursuits like ferret racing, dog agility and duck herding proving especially popular.

“The idea behind the fete was to bring a little bit of summer countryside to the heart of London and we’re building on last year’s success to make this year’s fete even better”.

The innocent village fete will also host a huge farmers’ market with stalls from Borough Market and live music from artists including The James Taylor Quartet, Earl Okin, Imelda May, The Faireys Band, The Ukulele Orchestra, Christian Prommer’s Drumlesson, The Boy Least Likely To, Peter and The Wolf, Son Of Dave, James Yuill and many more.

Visitors will be able to enjoy music from the Acoustic Bandstand and practise their dancing in the Al Fresco Ballroom alongside Cut a Shine and The London Swing Dance Society.

There’ll be loads of stuff for kids (including a dedicated kids’ area with kids food stalls, rides and a petting zoo), as well as a picnic area, knitting tent, arts and crafts, massages, vegetable tent, cake tent hosted by the Women’s Institute and, of course, lots of smoothies to taste.

The innocent village fete is a non-profit-making event that supports Wellchild, Friends of the Earth and Samaritans.

Tickets are GBP7.50 for adults and GBP3.50 for kids (plus GBP1.50 adult booking fee/GBP1 kids booking fee) and will be available via Ticketmaster.