Cannes Lions is a 7 day festival for the Advertising and related fields, held annually in June at the Palais de Festivals at Cannes. This video is a short wrap by Microsoft, and the official 2010 highlights video is here.
Tuesday 29 June 2010
Monday 28 June 2010
Sunday 27 June 2010
Last week’s ‘yin & yang’ of social networking
On one side there is the immensely successful Facebook, with rapidly increasing ad revenues – and on the other side there is Bebo, sold by AOL for a mere $10m (USD) whereas it was purchased for $850m two years ago. Bebo was the pioneer of social networking in many respects, such as deep ad integration with video, widgets and engagement marketing. I’m wondering what plans the hopeful buyers have to get the balance sheet back on track – which in the name of healthy competition I hope they do? Whatever they may decide to do, first and foremost they will need to win over the audience. As before a social networking site can be commercialised it needs to reach critical mass.
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Australia’s first female PM
I applaud the fact that earlier this week in Canberra, the first female Prime Minister was sworn in. However an article on Larvatus Prodeo highlights a few uncomfortable points about how and why it happened…
‘Before he walked away, Rudd told the caucus: “We can’t allow this federal caucus to have embedded in it the same type of culture as NSW where, every time you make tough policy decisions and polls dip, you get a campaign to cripple the leader. It’s not good to bring the NSW culture to Canberra.”
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Oh, this is funny…
Thank you Michael Wade. I just realised why I can’t stand horror films – it’s not even the fear (or is it?), but the stupidity of the storyline (well that, too)…
Check out the ‘Horror film exercise’ blog post by Execupundit.
Facebook & Microsoft
When Microsoft purchased a 1.6% stake in Facebook late in 2007, some applauded 
but there were more who criticised. Mainly the price rather than the two companies linking up. Microsoft paid a whopping $240M for the 1.6% stake.
However, a couple of years on and it looks like, it may just have been worth it. According to eMarketer, Facebook is closing the revenue gap with the Portals and is predicted to make between $1-2 billion (USD) this year. (Compare that to the big 4 US Portals in the chart below.)
If they they reach the upper limit of that prediction, 1.6% will equal to $32m share of (although not profit, but) revenue. However, at the pace Facebook has been growing revenues in the last couple of years, that investment may just pay for itself sooner than many anticipated…
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Friday 25 June 2010
Draw me the truth, nothing but the truth…
…and the whole truth.
The latest in lie detection: don’t tell me what happened – draw it!
During a research study conducted by Aldert Vrij, two recurring aspects helped to distinguish liars from those telling the truth after a certain event took place:
1. The liars, drawing an imaginary place to help them with their fib, also forgot to include a key player who was knowingly present at the event. This was a huge giveaway, and it alone helped identifying 87% of this group correctly.
2. In addition, an overwhelming majority (81%) of the liars also drew the event from a removed birds-eye view, compared to only 41% of truth tellers.
Could this be the/a new lie detection tool?
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Wednesday 23 June 2010
another great video! Andy Murray Tennis Street Magic in London – promoting Head
Thanks to Swiss Miss for posting, and Nicholas Bate for bringing it to my attention… I couldn’t resist to post it as well.
It’s a viral video ad with Andy Murray, promoting the tennis brand Head, timed to coincide with this year’s Wimbledon tournament.
A great creative execution that aimed at getting people thinking it’s time to play tennis again (see it work at Swiss Miss). I picked up on a few clever colour connotations that serve to connect the brand and the message with the content:
- Andy Murray’s orange T-Shirt (Head’s brand colour is orange)
- A Head racket with an orange rim
- I think the last can was orange
- the ‘paint ball’ at the end. Nice finish.
It’s a viral video ad with Andy Murray, promoting the tennis brand Head, timed to coincide with this year’s Wimbledon tournament.
A great creative execution that aimed at getting people thinking it’s time to play tennis again (see it work at Swiss Miss). I picked up on a few clever colour connotations that serve to connect the brand and the message with the content:
- Andy Murray’s orange T-Shirt (Head’s brand colour is orange)
- A Head racket with an orange rim
- I think the last can was orange
- the ‘paint ball’ at the end. Nice finish.
Part of the integrated marketing effort, the Head website is a great extension of the viral ad, vica versa. Check it out:
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.Tuesday 22 June 2010
The magic of the red brick – the World’s Greatest Salesperson
When times are hard (recession), a good salesperson is one of the most important assets a company can have. So to bring the precious skills back in the limelight at this year’s Cannes Lions 2010 Advertising Awards, OgilvyOne posed a challenge to the young and brave media professionals: sell us a brick. (post here)
And here is the winning entry by Todd Herman, a young Canadian who takes us on a 2 minute journey and ticks all the boxes of a great sell. Persuasion, emotional connection, case study, product knowledge and passion. He uses sound effects and visuals really well, and seem to take cost out of the equation - you want it before you know how much. Brilliant work, enjoy.
Furthermore, this clever chap created the buytheredbrick.com
website, which is only a click away from the eBay auction site, where you could purchase the original brick itself (auction ended on the 9th April with proceeds going to help rebuilding Haiti).
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Search for the World’s greatest salesperson
When times are hard (recession), a good salesperson is one of the most important assets a company can have. So to bring the precious skills back in the limelight at this year’s Cannes Lions 2010 Advertising Awards, OgilvyOne posed a challenge to the young and brave media professionals: sell us a brick.
Watch their call for entries below – brilliant work, as you’d expect from Ogilvy.
More on the equally brilliant winning entry in a little while!
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Monday 21 June 2010
Language reflects the balance of good & bad
For every bad you show me, I’ll show you something good… Better yet! For every 1 x bad thing, I’ll show you at least 5 x good!
’Positive events outnumber negative events’. (source)
And here are the results of recent study to support it:
After analysing a corpus of 100 million words of spoken and written English, Paul & Rozin say that language reflects the balance of good and bad. They found that positive words are used far more often than negative words - just as you'd expect if positive events are more common. To take one example, 'good' is mentioned 795 times per million words compared with 153 mentions per million for 'bad'’ (source).
Which would look something like this:
Satisfyingly reassuring, quietly comforting, and
truly encouraging. Great stuff!
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Sunday 20 June 2010
How to get what you want
in 38 different ways by Nicholas Bate.
39. Discipline. Not some authoritarian schoolmaster type of discipline, but a focussed, controlled mindset. A disciplined thinking.
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Bing it on!
Bing, Microsoft’s search product has been around for about a year by now. It enjoyed a positive reception from marketers and advertisers alike and has been albeit slowly but steadily gaining market share.
Here is yet another great offering from the team: visual search
And what else to test it on than the World Cup!
For the latest, most up to date info, click here. You’ll find a clutter free, user friendly environment with info on the teams and their results so far. Bing it on!
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Here is yet another great offering from the team: visual search
And what else to test it on than the World Cup!
For the latest, most up to date info, click here. You’ll find a clutter free, user friendly environment with info on the teams and their results so far. Bing it on!
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Friday 18 June 2010
Windows Live Hotmail – the all new & updated
Launching today, some great updates are being rolled out as part of Wave 4 (June 2010 update), including but not limited to, easy mobile access and email sorting, user friendly privacy control, Facebook syncing, and free access to Office software on Microsoft’s cloud: Skydive. Microsoft did well.
Ambush marketing at the World Cup
36 young women stripped down to bright orange mini dresses to promote the Dutch Bavaria Brewery during the Netherlands/Denmark match. They were swiftly escorted out and Fifa is looking into how to take legal action.
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Thursday 17 June 2010
When everyone wants a piece of the action…
And either there is just not enough to go around, or the price doesn’t stack up for some. But the media crowd is not a ‘giver-upper’. No, they put their creative minds together and find a way: ambush marketing.
You may have heard of the latest stunt by Bavaria Brewery at the Football World Cup. Watch it here.
On one side there is Fifa, who are ardently trying to protect the advertising rights of the event – rightly so, sponsors fork out a fortune to be part of it (that is part of one of the largest corporate advertising spectacular with the sport element occasionally fading into the background)…
While on the other side there is the challenger brand, Bavaria Brewery, Budweiser’s competitor, who are pulling this stunt the second time around. Yes, they amused us in 2006 with the ‘orange lederhosen’… And of course, they are getting a huge amount of publicity for a fraction of the official sponsorship. But can you really, honestly say that you loath their efforts (bar the Budweiser camp of course)? I think they are rather cool…
Photo credit: www.guardian.co.uk
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You may have heard of the latest stunt by Bavaria Brewery at the Football World Cup. Watch it here.
On one side there is Fifa, who are ardently trying to protect the advertising rights of the event – rightly so, sponsors fork out a fortune to be part of it (that is part of one of the largest corporate advertising spectacular with the sport element occasionally fading into the background)…
While on the other side there is the challenger brand, Bavaria Brewery, Budweiser’s competitor, who are pulling this stunt the second time around. Yes, they amused us in 2006 with the ‘orange lederhosen’… And of course, they are getting a huge amount of publicity for a fraction of the official sponsorship. But can you really, honestly say that you loath their efforts (bar the Budweiser camp of course)? I think they are rather cool… Photo credit: www.guardian.co.uk .
Sunday 13 June 2010
Brilliant at the basics of business 100
Yes, it’s him again. Nicholas Bate with 100 useful business advice. And yes, all the 100 points are brilliant.
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Brilliant at life
Nicholas Bate’s reality check-list: How are you learning 7?
Although, I did miss blogging being mentioned – reading and producing…
Tuesday 1 June 2010
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