Insane Beyonce painting with iPad app..

Audi suicide commercial..

Reminiscent of the infamous VW Polo ‘Bomber’ ad a few years ago, now it’s Audi’s turn to get some bootleg treatment in this darkly humoured viral.

Cassetteboy – The Web for Beginners

IKEA Facebook tag..

Free Stuff + Very cunning use of Facebook’s functionality = Recipe for Swedish awesomeness.

Wonderful idea.

‘Flad’ Mobs..

Love it or hate it, the ‘Flash Mob’ is surely something we’ll be remembering as one of the most talked about ad strategies in 2009. Although flash mobbing’s roots lie in more humanistic theatres; performance art, social expression and -- how ironically -- corporate antagonism, as with all interesting ideas, advertisers invariably will borrow or steal them for their own means. Some with more success than others.

From my memory, Lastminute.com in 2008 with their ‘Flash-Opera‘ mob viral was the first ‘large’ brand in the UK that used the mob as branding tool. I thought it was good. Certainly at the time felt pretty fresh -- and had a lot of relevance to the message. Unlike the much more obese T-Mobile flash mob in Liverpool Street Station -- whose tagline still escapes me even after having blogged about this before….bringing people together? life is precious? life is people..? Trident chewing gum also had one, with their Beyonce flash mob in Piccadilly Circus to promote their new ‘unwrapped’ gum.  Tenuous at best.

So, where do we go next with this? Creatively speaking, a lot of people dancing/singing in one place does have the possibility of becoming a bit stale after a while..

Cue Daffy’s.

From AdAge:

Moviegoers got more than they bargained for on Friday night, when dancers streamed onto the stage at New York City’s Ziegfeld Theatre just prior to a showing of “Amelia.” For three and a half minutes, ten dancers performed what Screenvision says is a first-of-its-kind live in-cinema ad. The “Fitting Dance” was accompanied by images on the movie screen behind the dancers. Only near the end was it revealed that patrons had been watching a lengthy ad for Daffy’s.

Capture the inherent unexpectedness of a flash mob, stick it in a public place where you really wouldn’t expect it.. and whilst you’re at it mash the event up with an actual ad playing on a large screen. This is what Daffy’s did. ‘Flad’ mob?

I had no idea what Daffy’s was. After some sniffing about (nice website btw), I get the feeling they’re like a funner version of GAP with the economic sensibilities of H&M -- in which case something like this for them works well. It’s well thought out, well executed and the idea that they have lots of choice at an affordable price comes through fairly well. I’d like to see them continue this whole dancing thing as branding tool -- it feels right. Dancing and clothes… dancing and everyday clothes….. Ah. S**t. Been done before.

It’s as if an old GAP ad reworked itself in 3D, learnt now to mix electro and had a friday night out in Hoxton.

Still, enjoyable nonetheless.

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VW’s Fun Theory..

This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.

This is the core idea underlying ‘The Fun Theory‘ -- a green awareness/behaviour changing/feel good/virally driven move from VW. Of course its intentions are good and I wish them all the success -- but a branding move it is nonetheless. But fair enough. Car manufacturers have all fallen to the way side to some degree  - it’s hard to truly pull your brand away from the focus of topics such as climate change when your brand lies in a category that is essentially a large part of ‘the problem’.

Despite my slight cynicism and distrust towards brands that preach but don’t practice --  I genuinely like this move from VW.

Firstly -- I love the overall transparency of it. The core idea is defined, robust and very appealing -- not to mention horribly in vogue --  and despite the VW branding saying its ‘their intiative‘ (surely people have probably been doing this for a while?) it still feels personable and relatively ‘brand free’.

Secondly, the several viral videos (courtesy of DDB Stockholm) that are driving the campaign really are quite neat. The Fly-on-the-Wall approach makes things much more human and everyday, which sits perfectly with the idea of the whole campaign. And these vids seem to have been tremendously contagious. The Piano staircase has been doing the rounds all over blogland and has notched up a staggering amount of views considering how long the  vid has been around for -- apx. 5 million in less than a month.

Definitely more Passat than Polo.

A more recent video that has been uploaded by the team @ The Fun Theory -- whilst not quite as good an execution imo, is still a lot of FUN either way and has a great sense of continuity with the other videos :

So hats off to VW and DDB -- think you’ve pulled this one off.

..you had to after having releasing this though. *shakes head*

iDon’t care..

Hilarious.

Following on from the iPhone baiting viral from Verizon I blogged about a few days ago, a group of die hard (and technically skilled) Apple fans have put together this viral in response. Fair game to them but I only see this adding more buzz to the Verizon viral in the first place.

Unless that was the plan all along..? *strokes chin*

iDon’t..

I am fond of my Android powered G1. I like its integration with all things Google, I like Cupcake’s friendly interface…but that’s about it unfortunately.

I admit, I get massive bouts of iPhone envy whenever I step into the Apple store or happen to get on the Tube (everyone has one). So it’s nice to see bitchy little ads like this time to time. Sure, it’s tacky and a bit obvious but it made me get a little more excited about Android. If you can’t be bothered to go to the website -- it’s something from Verizon, in anticipation of a new Android powered Motorola handset coming out in the US at the end of the year.

Epiphanies and viral video..

YouTube recently announced that it was receiving  100 million hits a day and that over 20 hours of content was being uploaded to the video sharing website every minute. Behind Google, Facebook and Yahoo!, YouTube is the fourth most visited website in the world.

Although the most recognized and used website in video sharing, it’s not just YouTube that’s in on the game. Sites such as Google Video, MySpace Video, Vimeo, Metacafe and many others all have a slice of the pie. Online video sharing is huge. And this certainly hasn’t passed the marketers by…

For many years now, viral video has occupied a modest chunk of many a brand’s digital marketing budget with high buzz potential and next to free distribution costs proving to be alluring. To some extent certain categories and brands were initially more suited to this form of viral communication and definitely more suited amongst specific groups of people (early adopters of video sharing tended to be younger audiences). However, in a day and age where even the British Monarchy have their own YouTube content, the mass exposure and consumption of video on the internet is now as mainstream as using a search engine.

A few years ago YouTube announced its brand channel project, which allowed brands and corporate identities to customize their YouTube pages, remove advertising and incorporate their own content within. YouTube became another important touch point and much like a blog, a Twitter profile or a Facebook page – a branded YouTube page hosting brand specific content became a given for companies, particularly companies that embraced social technologies. And it is these social technologies that have energised the viral potential of video, catalyzing the distribution of campaign content in a way never seen before in traditional media.

So.

Marketing questions.

What role does my viral video have in communicating my campaign message? What is the effect on my brand? Is there one at all? Should I even be doing this? So many questions yet so hard to answer. And two broader truths at hand are what make things a bit messy.

1) There has been a shift in power -- Joe Internet has become active broadcaster over passive receiver. He takes the seat and deems what he wants to see, when to see it and more importantly..if he’s going to share it.

2) There is too much information – The sheer volume of online video that Joe Internet can consume is staggering. YouTube say that the amount of video that gets uploaded in a week is equivalent to Hollywood releasing 86000 feature length films in a week. Of course a lot of that content consists of this and unfortunately a lot of that and not necessarily the content that’s particularly interesting. But a lot of it is.

These truths compounded are the very foundations of the ‘fast food’ information culture the internet seems to have spawned -- it’s all about being here today and gone forgotten tomorrow. This paradigm shift in how we consume has impacted on all online media and particularly online video. From a campaign point of view we’re now seeing viral video acting almost like a foot soldier in an army of more antiquated, more trusted and ultimately more senior media choices -- viral video is committed and ubiquitous but at the end of the day, entirely expendable.

So if I am someone that has decided that an online viral is something I need in a campaign wouldn’t it be a bonus if this viral could also sit more centrally in the campaign mix and speak with as much authority and weight as more traditional media? That not only had viral capacity but at its very core was saying the things that are relevant to my campaign and intrinsic to my brand?

Something that told the whole story.

That might work.

This is exactly what Epipheo Studios are trying to do. And it’s trés cool

Epipheo studios create short, often animated videos that companies and brands use as a vehicle to visualise a core idea underpinning their product, their campaign, their event… their story. The aim is to create epiphanies by telling a story through video. Epipheo. You see what they did there? Their broad vision is that any marketing campaign will benefit with an Epipheo at the ‘centre’ of the communications rather than on the ‘periphery’. Have a look.

Epipheos are fairly abundant. There’s a quite a heavily viewed one on the social media revolution, there’s one on Google Wave and even one on the history of…er, evil. There is also a website (epipheo.com) which acts as a hub where users can share and rate epipheos they find.

Check out their own epipheo below. It’s all about where they’re coming from and what they’re trying to do. I’m particularly fond of this. It tells a story in a graceful, memorable way that ‘I get’.

Oh and I’ve also now shared it on Facebook, Twitter and written about it in my blog that you’re reading right now. Job done.

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