Overcoming the Economic Climate, in China

The current economic climate isn't isolated to the British Isles and America. Unfortunately the situation is global. However, many Asian business are looking to overcome the current market conditions by expanding their businesses and growing new promotional channels.

Market Research firm Analysys International have just completed their annual advertising white paper on the state of the advertising landscape in Asia. Statistics from the research show that the size of China's outdoor digital display market has grown to €755 million in 2008 from €127 million in 2005, the compound growth rate exceeding 80 percent, making it the fastest growing sector on China's advertising market.

Fu Xinghua, new media analyst from Analysys International, said, “China's out-of-home digital display market is showing a tendency of robust growth and development. We [Analysys International] expect the market to reorganize and merge at the same time with leading enterprises inclined to join hands in dominating sub-markets, by stretching their businesses to other media, including traditional media, the internet and handset media, paying more attention to two-way communication.”

As an example, VisionChina, the leading operator of outdoor digital TV advertising networks on mass transpiration systems in China, recorded total revenues of €27.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2008, hiking 185.1 percent year on year. Its net profit soared 158.6 percent to €11.7 million. For the whole year of 2008, the company's total revenues and net profit amounted to €82.4 million dollars and €37 million dollars, respectively, up 254.2 percent and 398.4 percent.

This growth has been driven by positive market outlook and a move that saw the company partnered with Hangzhou New & Mobile Media in January; signing an exclusive advertising agreement to expand its network coverage to Tianjin.

ThruYou by Kutiman

Another fantastic find from Stephen. This is ThruYou, a collection of YouTube video's mashed and remixed by Kutiman. A lot of time has been spent on this and it certainly shows. Really nice work!



This is just the first video, so make sure to check out the site for the full playlist and all the credits.

No Line on the Horizon for $3.99?

When was the last time you bought a CD? To be honest it’s been a while since I’ve set foot in a music shop, let alone bought a CD. So when I read that U2 were selling there new album, No Line on the Horizon, for $3.99 on Amazon (US), I presumed it was part of an offer, or perhaps even a typo - €13.99 would seem more realistic surely?

Well as it turns out, $3.99 is exactly what they are selling the new album for. In a week that has seen the 22 Grammy’d, 140 million albums sold, Irish God’s of rock take up a week long residency on The Late Show and have a New York road named after them, U2 have taken the bold move to release their newest works at a seriously discounted price.

So what do you think, clever marketing ploy or an attempt to connect with the masses during a tough economic time, by Paul David Hewson and co. Interestingly Lily Allen recently did a similar $3.99 pricing on Amazon.com for the debut of her second album, It's Not Me It's You, and landed at No. 5 on the charts. So there’s no reason the same tactic wouldn’t work for superstars like U2. Of course it could also be an interesting ploy to discourage illegal downloads of the album. At $3.99 why bother stealing it?

The physical CD is selling for $9.99, there’s a limited-edition boxed set with poster and film download for $64.99, and the digi-pack with the same perks is $22.99.

All in all it’s very similar to Radiohead’s "pay what you like" offer for the 2007 digital release of In Rainbows. Of course Radiohead weren’t under contract at the time (a fact people often forget). In this case, U2's label, Interscope, suffers the biggest burden of loss if most people simply go with the MP3 only option of Horizon's first week sales.

Could an Irishman get the 'Best Job in the World'?

For those of you who missed the fantastic Australian Tourism Board campaign for the “Best Job in the World”, you missed a craic'r! Imagine being paid AUS$150k to spend 6 months on a tropical island in your own private 3 bedroom house, complete with ocean views and heated tropical swimming pool. The catch? There wasn't one. Sure you'd have a job to do; feed the fish, clean the pool, collect the mail and maintain a blog of your day-today going-ons, but lets face it, that's hardly work.

To get this amazing job all you had to do was record a short video of yourself, explaining why you should become the new Hamilton Island Caretaker. Considering the position it's therefore not surprising that over 35,000 people applied, from over 200 countries.

From those people a short list of 50 has been drawn up to compete for a Wild Card to join 10 people already chosen by the tourism board. Impressively, an Irishman has made the final shortlist of 50. So what happens next?

Now it's up to the world to vote on who from those 50 people gets through. As of today’s results, our Irishman is at number 5 in the Wild Card Leaderboard…giving our man a seriously good chance of winning!

The gent in question, George Karellas from Bettystown, is a Meathman who worked for RTE in the 90s, before moving to Carr Communications and then on to a number of creative projects in Greece.

Paddy's Day is two weeks away - if ever there was a cuase to unfurl your Irishness to, it's this. I for one have cast my vote, and expect each of ye to do the same.

100 Musicians, 50 Locations, 1 Concert

I can't express just how much I'm loving this. Yesterday, the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra took it upon themselves to create the largest concert hall ever! Bringing together 100 musicians, spread across 50 different city locations, Hamburg itself became the setting. Conductor Simone Young will set up her stand on the famous St. Michaels Tower, with her every instruction relayed to her musicians via a video feed. This effect will be to allow the public to either listen to the combined instruments via the Hamburg 1 TV station, or to experience the individual ocherstral parts around the different ares of the city.

Check out their website (click towards the bottom for an English version for non-German speakers) and this video...



Cheers to Stephen who sent this around the office