An Expression of Joy

BMW have just launched their latest marketing campaign for the BMW Z4 Roadster - “An Expression of Joy”

The ambitious campaign centres around a massive and very unique art project, bringing together video, outdoor, print, mobile and digital elements. The campaign features a painting two football fields in size created by artist Robin Rhode and filmmaker Jake Scott.

Utilising 160 litres of paint and 45 cameras, the pair filmed two Roadsters fitted with paint jets mounted behind their wheels, drifting and racing around the immense canvas, to create both a 30-second ad and a 30-minute documentary.

The documentary will be shown in the US on Discovery HD today, May 10 at 8:00pm. Repeats are scheduled throughout May and June, as well as a transition cross the water for airing on the European Discovery network. The 30-second ad will be used both on TV and onlin through MSN’s expandable video unit. This is the first time the unit will be used for a digital marketing campaign, allowing users to see the ads in full-screen mode.

In addition to MSN, video banners will also run on a number of high profile sites including CNN and Yahoo. Print ads are set to include an eight-page insert in Vanity Fair’s June issue, and coverage in several top end art and interior magazines. Outdoor will center on 10 international airports around the US.

However, beyond all this activity, the most interesting element of the campaign is the campaign microsite - “An Expression of Joy” which shows the filming process through a dynamic video interface, and features the mobile game, “BMW Z4 – An Expression of Joy”. The game has been developed for the iPhone and iPod Touch and has been available for download since March. An impressive 500,000 downloads have already been recorded. times.

Monster Waves

I absolutely love nature - I love the outdoors and everything about being outside. Living in Ringsend I spent quite a bit of time down around Sandymount. Sometimes just walking or maybe taking photographs. I have always dreamed about living beside the sea - there's something about the ocean that draws me in, and completely inspires me.

I just stumbledupon this article on BBC about Bali Strickland (seriously renowned cameraman) and Huw Cordey (top producer and director), and their mission to film big waves. Definitely worth a read, but also check out the video too...

Top Brands on Twitter

Brand Republic have a list of the top 100 brands mention on Twitter, and whether or not they have an active Twitter presence. Interesting to see just how many of the top 100 don't actually Tweet themselves. Especially companies like Apple, Microsoft, Coca-Cola and Sony.

Be Careful What You Do With Your Old Hard Drive

The British Telecom's Security Research Centre recently carried out a joint security study with the University of Glamorgan in Wales, Edith Cowan University in Australia and Longwood University in the US. They bought 300 hard drives on eBay, originating from the US, UK, Germany, France and Australia. A proportion of the drives were formatted, but none were done with a destructive format and many contained easily recovered files.

100 of the drives turned out to contain extremely confidential information such as building blueprints and launch procedures for the Lockheed Martin's surface-to-air missile defense system. Other drives included everything from medical records, x-ray images, patient photos, confidential letters and confidential corporate information detailing a 50 billion currency exchange.

So the moral of the story is that if you're selling or throwing out your old hard drive, you better remember to perform a destructive, all-zeroes format.

via Daily Mail

Your Blog - Top of the World!

I have three simple questions:

1. Are you a Blogger or Tweeter?
2. Would you like to see yourself at the roof of the world?
3. What would you say if I told you all you had to do was suggest a cool digitasl strategy for a charity?

No brainers, right?

Well here it is, the simplest, most easy, and only, way to get your Blog or Tweet to the roof of the world, Mount Everest!

I work for Cybercom and we have been lucky enough to be given the chance to work with Gavin Bate, one of the most inspirational people on the planet. What do we have to do? All we have to do is the stuff we love doing - blog, tweet, code, optimise and market. What is Gavin doing? Well aside from running www.movingmountains.org.uk (an absolutely incredible charity), aside from making his 5th attempt to reach the highest peak on earth, aside from doing just about everything humanily possible to make the lives of those less fortunate just a little bit better, aside from all that, he's giving one lucky Blogger or Tweeter the chance to send him a message with their name and their Blog/Twitter URL where he will photo them on top of the world!

Seriously, how cool is that!

Get the full story here, but in a nut shell it goes like this...

Gavin is an expert mountaineer but he isn't a digital marketer, cyber guru or online addict. So Gavin needs help and has asked for ideas from the Irish digital community to promote his current summit bid (eventful). Why would you want to do that though? Well as Gavin said himself, "Unlike many of the climbers out here I don't really need to stand on a bit of real estate over 5 miles up in the sky. My sole reason for doing this is to raise money and the profile of my Charity www.movingmountains.org.uk "

So what do you need to do?

Gavin wants killer ideas that will help him promote his website (and donation page). In return Gavin will promote you from the top of Mount Everest by way of a picture with your blog's name on it or via an audio blog mentioning both your name and your blog's name.

Just send a link to your blog post of promotional ideas by Tweet (@gavinbate or @cybercom using #cyb10) and may the best blogger win!