Random Culture

Friday Fun: Clark and Michael

Riding the wave of press for the upcoming movie "Superbad", Michael Cera, of Arrested Development fame, is starting to get some recognition for a CBS online series called "Clark and Michael." You can watch all 10 episodes online at ClarkandMichael.com.

The videos have also been uploaded by CBS to Youtube. Check out one below:

Didja Hear NBC is Taking on YouTube?

You've heard about the mysterious video venture that NBC and News Corp are launching as a frontal assault on YouTube, but it appears now that it's a multi-pronged effort. According to a Variety article published today, NBC is launching Didja.com, an "all-advertising" site.

Didja stutter? No, I said an "all-advertising" site.

I'm not sure if I even need to keep writing this post, because you don't have to be a crystal-ball gazer to figure out how this is going to turn out. According to Variety, the site:

Will offer a vast archive of current and classic TV spots, movie trailers and other "brand-related content." USA-Sci Fi Channel prexy Bonnie Hammer said the goal is to "become the go-to destination for on-demand advertising content."

The intent behind the site? Variety continues:

"Didja.com is the logical next step in the changing dynamic between consumers and advertisers," Hammer said. "There's no doubt that commercials are major drivers of pop culture -- all you have to do is check out traffic on any video-sharing site. We want to own that watercooler conversation."

Actually, go to YouTube right now and see how many commercials or movie trailers are in the top viewed videos... there aren't many. In fact, when I took a cursory glance at the top 50 viewed videos of all time on YouTube, there was one movie trailer and I didn't see any ads. Most of the content, in fact, was music videos, clips from TV shows, and some user generated content.

NBC also isn't the first company to start a site around this idea. Variety points out that TBS launched VeryFunnyAds.com, and another site called adTV offers similar content. The fact that anyone could call this a YouTube competitor is laughable, and if Didja is a sign of the type of competition that YouTube will be facing from the joint NBC/News Corp venture, I think YouTube is going to have a very bright future for quite a while.

Link via MIT Convergence Culture Consortium.

Research Tool: Newsletter Archive

Keeping tabs on competitive emails is a tricky business. We just completed a competitive email audit, and had to subscribe to many email programs, and then monitor them over 60 days. Well, the Three Minds @ Organic blog posted about an interesting new resource that could help make the process easier... The Newsletter Archive.

It's not the most comprehensive resource, but for a quick dig into a particular industry or company, it looks like it could shape up to be a good tool.

Creating Possibilities: AAAA Planning Conference

It's been more than 24 hours since I got back from the 2007 AAAA Planning Conference in San Diego, and I've had time to digest everything. Rather than give a play-by-play, I thought it would be appropriate to focus on the things that stuck with me.

Opening Keynote: Sir Ken Robinson
If you watched the videos from the TED conference, you may have seen Sir Ken Robinson speak. Sir Ken is definitely an inspiring guy, and he used those inspirational skills to address a topic he specializes in, creativity. He talked about the dangerous division we've created between creativity and intelligence, and challenged us to be "farmers" of creativity... setting up the ideal situations for others to find their creative medium.

Seven Deadly Sins
This first breakout session I attended featured Gareth Kay of Modernista! and Mark Lewis from DDB. As stated in the description, this session was a "provocation about new ways to think." Each "deadly sin" made sense, such as operating under unchallenged assumptions, self-importance and thinking only big things matter, but one that stuck with me was to learn, and then do. Too many brands hang their hat on one campaign, with little testing about what will actually work. As Gareth and Mark point out, none of us knows 100% if our idea will be effective. Why not let 1 dollar out of 20 be used to test several ideas? The Internet has created the perfect test bed. They Office Max as an example, who created almost 20 viral sites last holiday season, one of which, Elf Yourself, which according to AdAge, received 36 million hits in just a few weeks, and resulted in a 20% increase in holiday traffic to OfficeMax.com. You can view the complete slides for the presentation here on SlideShare.

Eric Ryan, Method
Before launching the company, Eric Ryan was a planner. He saw an opportunity in the cleaning product category that wasn't being filled, and launched Method, which became a competitor by breaking convention. More than that, Method embodies all the ideals of innovation and creativity that the conference was all about. Eric encourages creativity in his employees, expects his agency to truly be a partner, and is willing to experiment with the product to actually LIVE the brand promise, instead of talk about it. I highly recommend watching the webcast of his speech here on the AAAA website.

The Third Eye - Seeing Opportunity
According to Adam Morgan of Eatbigfish, our jobs shouldn't be about finding innovation, they should be about finding opportunity.

Know who invented the Cheeseburger? It wasn't McDonald's... it was JWT. They had Kraft as a client, who wanted to sell more cheese. JWT saw an opportunity to pair the product with the most popular food of the day.

Truly, seeing opportunities is a "mindset", being open to information, how you think not just about communication, but about the business, the category, assets, distribution and more. Sadly, we often only think about these things in the new business phase, but Adam challenges us to really be a partner, and be catalysts for opportunity.

Massive Change, Bruce Mau
The perfect rallying cry for the end of the conference came from Bruce Mau and the Institute Without Boundaries. Massive Change is all about a revolution of possibilities... It's not about crisis, but about optimism.

We design everything around us. Energy economies are designed, information economies, market economies and more. Bruce asserts that we should intentionally use design and technology to solve the problems in our world.

He may have convinced more than one planner to take a different career path.

Stuck in the middle
Overall, the general sessions were hit and miss, and the breakout sessions were good. I didn't attend the conference for the digital content, which is a blessing. Apart from a breakout session from Brandon Geary, the director of planning for Avenue A | Razorfish, interactive was represented by sales executives from Yahoo, Google and Facebook, who offered little insight into how digital is being integrated into the planning process and the agency world at large. I would have liked to see interactive planners from agencies like Goodby or R/GA, rather than "vendors." The planning world, like the agency world at large, still doesn't know what to make of interactive. It's an exciting time, and I feel that excitement, as I'm building an interactive planning group at my agency.

There seemed to be some uncertainty about the future of planning, and certainly a "call to arms" for planners to be more innovative, to examine our roles and re-evaluate our practices. I'll be interested to see the fruits of those labors over the next year.

Sprint Waitless

Sprint has launched a new website at Waitless.org, which offers time saving ideas in the form of "Sprintcuts" videos. There's also a time calculator that lets you figure out how much time over your lifetime you're wasting on any task. Overall, the site is promoting unlimited calling on Sprint that starts at 7pm instead of 9pm. It's a simple idea executed well. The bigger question is... are they doing anything to promote these "Sprintcuts" videos outside of the site? Yes, they are! The videos have been distributed on YouTube as well.

Link via Three Minds @ Organic.

AAAA Conference

I'm in San Diego this week, attending the AAAA planning conference. There looks to be some good sessions on the docket, including some interesting breakaway sessions on integration, and a talk by Ed Cotton from Influx Insights, one of my regular blog reads that you'll find as a familiar reference here.

I'll be posting here about my thoughts on the conference, so stay tuned. And if you happen to be attending, give me a shout!

Toyrama: Great New HP Site

HP has launched a great new site, Toyrama, to promote a new machine they're targeting towards animators. The website provides some interesting tools for users to create their own homemade animation, as well as a contest for animators to submit their own stop motion films. The site was created by Arc Worldwide.

Link via Adverblog.

Quick Links: Jul. 23, 2007

Al Gore's Cannes Speech
The ad industry's role in dealing with the climate crisis. View part 1, part 2, part 3. [via AdFreak]

National Geographic on "Swarm Theory"
Interesting read, with some great photos that accompany it as well. [via Fimoculous]

I Send to U Copy Crocs
Post from Influx Insights that makes you think about the power of the Internet and the rise of China.

Did You Know? 2.0

Roland at Web Jungle has posted a great video worth checking it. It's the second version of a great video created by Xplane for Shifthappens. Check it out:

Simpsons Promo Swiped from Leo Burnett?

According to NPR's "Morning Edition" from yesterday, July 18th, it looks like the clever promotion for the Simpson's Movie may have been "co-opted" from Leo Burnett when they pitched the business.

Listen to Morning Edition's take on the story.

Sad to hear, if it's true, that one of the best promotions I've seen may have been the result of this kind of behavior.

3D Email: Hoax, or Worst Idea Ever?

Tired of the same old boring inbox? Why not use Second Life to read your email? Well, if this trailer is any indication, because it's an awful idea...

Not sure if 3D Mailbox is real... but I sincerely hope it isn't.

Link via TechCrunch.

Future of the Web, Circa 1994

Ever wonder what people in 1994 thought the future of the web would look like? Well take a look.

Via Fimoculous.

Quick Links: Jul. 16, 2007

The Bloomberg Makeover
Happy Corp, IDEO and Ziba give the Bloomberg interface a redesign. [via Cool Hunting]

London Gets Free Wi-Fi
Yet another city launches free public Wi-Fi... goodbye monthly DSL payments!

Searching for Standards in Downloadable Media
A new industry association has been formed to create podcast, video standards, The ADM, Association of Downloadable Media.

Working at Google vs. Microsoft

Microsoft may have Google-envy, but maybe the grass isn't greener on the other side of the fence. It seems that an email has been making the rounds at Microsoft, from an employee that used to work at Google, comparing the two... and Google doesn't come out on top. I've always admired Google's stated policy of spending 20% of your time on personal projects. But they might be overstating how committed they are to that principal... Here's a sample from the email:

20% of your time on personal project. How many people actually get to use it? If so, how do they use it? Does Google own your personal project?

“20% is your benefit and your responsibility.”

In other words, it’s your job to carve out 20% of your work week for a project.  If you don’t carve out the time, you don’t get it.  Your project needs to be tacitly approved by your manager.  Whatever it is, is owned by Google.  If you’re organized, you can “save up” your 20% and use it all at once.  It’s not unheard of for people to have months and months of “20% time” saved up.

Most people don’t actually have a 20% project.  Most managers won’t remind you to start one

If this is true, it certainly changes my perspective. That policy was something that elevated Google in my eyes. Granted, this is coming from a Microsoft email, but it makes you think twice...

Link via Threadwatch.

Can Planners Really Be the New Creatives?

Interesting video from the PSFK conference in London.

Click To Play