How I wish I had this when I was a young ‘un in the agency world. £5 a month for all the templates, briefings, inspiration across the myriad world of marketing you can devour. You’d be an idiot not to if you’re an AE, AM, SAM or even someone who wants a bit of a refresher or thinking of changing tack or even getting to grips with that new fangled world of the interweb. 5,000 pages of marketing content , over 150 templates and links a plenty from the Stop Gap Marketing Mentor.

Just think of it as two over-priced coffees a month to give your career more of a kick-start than the caffeine hit ever will.

The kind folks at Stop Gap (thank you, Rebecca) who are bringing this to you allowed me to have a play for a short time and suitably impressed by the volume and quality of the information. I learned stuff too which is always a good thing – you should never stop learning or being inquisitive in this business.

When some training courses out there are both over-priced and questionable, this is a brand utility tool that should be a must have for all aspiring ad people.

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I watched and live tweeted my thoughts on the Digital Horizons: Commercialising Innovation webinar earlier this week. A lot of bullshit bingo, Rory Sutherland stole the show (and really could/should have just been him talking for 40 mins), the guy from Sony was interesting but the film guy was dull and the woman from Dragon’s Den spent most of her time pushing her own ventures and coming up with a bizarre reference to growing Camembert! Some nice soundbites which hopefully come out in the tweets below around convergence and opportunities. My esteemed colleague, Matt Burrough summed up the part about meta data well to me afterwards, “it seems meta data is important but they couldn’t really explain why.” Technically, the webcast was excellent and the real-time integration of comments & live tweeting added to the experience. You can see all tweets, watch the video again or check out the strategy.

1. that’s all folks – get the strategy deck here http://www.innovateuk.org/c… #creativeindustries12:42 PM Nov 2nd
2. please stop her plugging her start ups & more or rory #creativeindustries12:40 PM Nov 2nd

3. “can you see how the camembert grows?” WTF?? #creativeindustries12:39 PM Nov 2nd

4. so the film industry has taken no learnings from the music industry? (another bingo – inter-operability) #creativeindustries12:37 PM Nov 2nd

5. when you re-assemble content, do you do it covertly or overtly depending on who’s doing it and who audience is #creativeindustries12:34 PM Nov 2nd

6. sacrifice time for telly, sacrifice privacy for online ads #creativeindustries12:32 PM Nov 2nd

7. the extent to which brand reputation is formed horizontally is increasing #creativeindustries12:31 PM Nov 2nd

8. more bingo – “iphone app” #creativeindustries12:29 PM Nov 2nd

9. discovery process is fraught & infinite data increases anxiety. that’s why sharing & access points are so key #creativeindustries12:27 PM Nov 2nd

10. is she just plugging all her start ups she’s involved in? #creativeindustries12:25 PM Nov 2nd

11. not entirely sure agree with advertising consumption goes up in sky+ hholds. research i’ve seen shows 70% ffwd thru ads #creativeindustries12:22 PM Nov 2nd

12. oh no, rory silenced to discuss meta data. the other 3 better try harder #creativeindustries12:21 PM Nov 2nd

13. before television there was drunken-ness. now you can do both. hehe #creativeindustries12:18 PM Nov 2nd

14. coherence becomes more difficult with the more platforms you use #creativeindustries12:16 PM Nov 2nd

15. rory genius on now: consumption of events: live and simultaneous (e.g. internet betting & TV) – totally under-exploited #creativeindustries12:16 PM Nov 2nd

16. was that a shameless plug rather than an example? #creativeindustries12:14 PM Nov 2nd

17. will become different to separate games & films in 10 yrs due to immersion & story telling. I think sooner #creativeindustries12:13 PM Nov 2nd

18. immersive experiences, transmedia, convergence – lots of bingo points available here #creativeindustries12:10 PM Nov 2nd

19. consumers don’t want to know about the technology but they want the technology to work so experience is seamless #creativeindustries12:09 PM Nov 2nd

20. music’s always been converged – oppty is about interaction, eg GTA in-game interaction #creativeindustries12:07 PM Nov 2nd

21. #creativeindustries strategy webcast – here’s the strategy http://www.innovateuk.org/c…

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Liking MySkyStatus – a new service from Lufthansa (via Profero in NY) that sends accurate departure, altitude and arrival updates to your Twitter and Facebook pages while you’re up in the ether. In the culture of now-ism that we’re firmly embedded in, this is an innovative and useful piece of content.

Thanks to Nick Clarke for sharing.

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New campaign for Absolut Rock – a very weird leather and studs special edition of Absolut vodka. No, I don’t know why either.  In collaboration with NME there’s a legendary rock star rider quiz and a UGC piece asking users to unleash their ultimate rock star rider requests with one lucky winner getting their full rider supplied to them. Rock on but rock quick – finishes on Sunday November 1.

I’ve particularly enjoyed some of the riders including “my full body weight in jelly” and “a projector playing Ghostbusters on repeat with a full size replica of marshmellow man from the movie.” What would yours be? Have a go & you could win it.

Probably due to some media exclusivity deal with NME but shame it’s not featured in other social spaces such as the Absolut Twitter brand outpost where the random rider content could take the campaign into interesting places.

Thanks to Jessica from We Are Social.

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I had the joy of presenting at the 14th Annual Youth Perspectives Conference with Marketing magazine today in a morning workshop entitled: Digi Savvy Youth: Social Networks & Twitter in Focus. I tag-teamed with the delightful Graeme Ford from Phones 4U who gave the inside track on how they have developed their social media presence and a candid assessment of the highs and lows. Graeme’s content is at the half-way point of the slideshare deck below.  Mine is the usual mix of digital fun, sweary videos and hopefully some interesting content on Twitter and some of our case studies from Samsung and Activision.

Carla from Haymarket did a bit of live tweeting & you can track that & others thoughts on the #youthconf search.

As always, the deck is available for download to enjoy, re-use, re-purpose but be a good interweb citizen and give credit where it’s due.

Video links:

Twitter counter

David Lynch on iPhone

Wimbledon 2009 IBM Augmented Reality

Kutiman – Mother of all funk chords

Lego Death Star

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I presented this little badger to an exclusive gathering of IBM folk at the Mermaid Centre, Blackfriars in London Town. I had fun. See, I even look happy in the pic from Fiona. And to cap it all, I even got a homepage featurette on Slideshare. Fame at last. Fiona even tried a little bit of live tweeting as an experiment but some way to go there me thinks.

As always, the deck is available for download to enjoy, re-use, re-purpose but be a good interweb citizen and give credit where it’s due.

Video links:

Twitter counter

Dramatic shift in marketing reality

Social media in plain English

Wimbledon 2009 IBM Augmented Reality

Kutiman – Mother of all funk chords

Nike Boot Camp

Shell Dialogues

My Starbucks Idea

Tea Running

American Express Open

Lego Death Star

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Two new campaigns I wanted to share for the same reason: using digital to raise awareness and action of two serious health issues by doing something interesting.

Memories Matter

Do you have a favourite memory? Something that you always look back on and smile? Domain have just launched a new campaign for the Alzheimer’s Research Trust including a microsite which stores peoples’ memories forever. The site demonstrates that without more funding for research into dementia, this is what we stand to lose. Sadly, dementia set to double within a generation. The site is a blend of real people and celeb memories including Terry Pratchett (the world’s most “famous” sufferer of Alzheimer’s) and others including Michael Parkinson, Felicity Kendall, Patrick Moore, Gordon Brown and loads more.  When you read some, you’ll laugh out loud. Read others and you’ll be quite choked. So many people, so many very personal memories.

This is quite close to my heart as my grandfather suffered from Alzheimer’s and it’s so heart breaking to see the inevitable decline from a once strong and clever man through the comedy moments of losing his glasses and they’re on top of his head all the time & deciding to flush tea towels down the toilet instead of the washing machine; to living in a different time period where he recognized nobody and nothing around him and the fear and anger this created inside him. Worse still was the decline in his health through the disease, the tension it caused in his relationships with his wife of over 50 years, his daughter and the inter-family relationships that are hard-wired into that bond. Sadly the mental decline and the need for constant care saw him spend his latter days in a care home where it was so painful to see someone you love literally wilt away.

Alzheimer’s is not a sexy charity in the way Cancer Research or stuff for kids is but it’s a cruel disease robbing people of their memories and ultimately their lives. Please support this campaign. Well done, Catch.

A hard Story About a Soft Subject

[Site / You Tube Channel]

Obviously this isn’t one I’m familiar with but a wonderful take on a serious issue – erectile dysfunction. Profero have teamed up with Aardman films to create a series of short films about Dennis and his journey from Droop to Don Juan for Bayer-Schering pharma. In England, we’re very bad at admitting any health problem – unlike our American friends who appear to hold in high esteem their physical and psychological problems and will happily tell you all and the drugs their taking too. Over here, we just ignore it and hope it will go away. Not so easy when it’s a condition that affects millions of men over 40. I particularly like the disengaging tone and the way the truths of the problem come through (no pun intended) by being entertaining and engaging. In this overly-cluttered advertising world, doing something interesting is the only way to get noticed. This has it spades. Thanks to Nick Clarke for sharing.

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Presentation delivered today to a select group of HR professionals for Group agency LawtonWare on social media in HR. Want to be part of this conversation? Follow @lawtonware. Most of the video links can be found in this post plus others included here:

Social media in plain English

How to use social media to get a job

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Latest edition of Digital WTF.Feel free to re-use and have fun with.

Video links in the presentation:

Dramatic shift in marketing reality

Wimbledon 2009 IBM Augmented Reality

Kutiman – Mother of all funk chords

Nike Boot Camp

Fiat Eco Drive

Orange unlimited

Orange Balloonacy

My Starbucks Idea

Sprint – now network

Sony Foam City

Absolut Kindness

Electrolux Art Home – video

Electrolux Art Home – site

Lego Death Star

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Been meaning to write about this for a long time as it’s cool. The Flickr collection on Getty Images. But the best thing is the ability to create Flickr Clouds or what they describe as “little packages of your favourite images on a certain theme, photographer or occasion.” I like the way they can be used as an inspirational tool or as a way of creatively presenting an idea. Comes in a variety of flavours including screensaver, Facebook app and widget.

Here’s another cool thing Getty did: 27 letters.

Thanks to Holly @ Bite.

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