Volkswagen have just launched a new advertising campaign to highlight their support of independent cinema. Their first ad features a man who has been so inspired by the film 'The Big Lebowski' that he has created a religion around The Dude. He feels that Jeff Bridges character provides a teaching "that is just right for this time and place".
Does it seem strange that there's no VW cars featured anywhere in the ad?
Sunday, August 30, 2009
VW Dudeism
Saturday, August 29, 2009
The Sol Revolution
- - - UP DATE - - -
The Sol Revolution venue has changed, it will now be on in The Odeon. Same line-up etc. Start time is 8.30pm.The summer may be almost over but there's plenty of fun still to be had before you pull your winter coat of off its hibernation. Sol Beer is currently running a great campaign over on its Sunshine Revolution website. Just for the fun of it, Sol are hosting a free gig in Pygmalion and the Powerscourt Centre on the 16th of September. The line will see Super Extra Bonus Party, The Chapters, Kormac Live and Tucan take to the stage in an evening of fun and revelry.
But wait, I hear you cry, did you say free? I did indeed say free. Just pop over to the site and register your details. Hey presto, mission complete.
The Sol Revolution are also busy promoting the whole event over on Twitter and Facebook. So get following and add yourself as a fan. If you're looking for more info on Sol you can check out the International Beers site or Wikipedia.
The Story of Sol
As Sol legend has it, it all began on a brisk, sunny morning way back at the very end of the 19th centuary. The year was 1899, and in an old lost forgotten factory near Mexico City, named “El Salto del Agua”, a German master brewer chanced upon a brewing pot illuminated by a ray of sunlight, falling in through a dusty window. The brewer stopped in his tracks, captivated by golden ray beaming across the room, pulling his attention to the pot. He decided this new beer would be named “El Sol” (The Sun), and so Mexico's most famous beer was born. Since then Sol has become a popular beer sold around the world, served in its distinctive clear flint bottle always with a wedge of lime.
Here's also a funny little video about the classic Mexican cerveza...
Nokia and The Future
Historically Nokia have always been the leader in the mobile phone market. They have nearly always had the largest range of phones, and have catered for everyone's wants and needs from high-tech high-end smartphones to basic call and text handsets. Basically Nokia made a lot of really clever moves early on in the early days of the mobile boom. Not bad for a company who's primary business as rubber and lumber!
Then something happened. Something changed in the mobile market and Nokia started to lose that historic first choice preference and users started looking to other handsets. The best example of this is the US mobile market. The US mobile market is probably the largest mobile market in the west, and certainly the most important.
Most articles I've read lately would have you believe that Nokia's single major failing has nothing to do with handsets or technology. As a provider Nokia has a huge suite of mobile devices. Nokia is falling down in the US due to a failure to partner with the US mobile networks, and to be honest Nokia's relationship with US mobile networks is well documented. But there's more to it then that. People want smaller, smarter, faster and completely integrated devices. They don't want to have to carry a laptop, a phone, a music player, a camera, an organiser etc. They want to have a device that offers all of these things. Nokia, however, are still approaching their devices from the position of building phones.
The most exciting thing to come to the mobile market in some time, is with out doubt the iPhone. The most important thing to realise about the iPhone is that, contrary to what its name would have you believe, it is not in fact a phone at all. The iPhone is a mobile mini computer that offers the ability to make phone calls, among a host of features.
Building phones is what is truly holding Nokia back. So how will Nokia effect such a change? How will Nokia achieve their goal of becoming "the largest interactive media network in the world."
Nokia's campaigns over the last year have all aimed to grow social media presence, facilitated by conversation. Nokia want people to use their technology to express and broadcast themselves. To support this, Nokia launched a web service called Ovi. Ovi allows Nokia users to get apps like Facebook, Twitter and Bebo for their Nokia phone. While this is far more expansive for smartphones such as the Nokia N97, there are options for even the simplest handset. Nokia have also made major inroads to developing their music offering. Fast Company's article Nokia Rocks the World: The Phone King's Plan to Redefine Its Business gives an overview of Nokia's recent musical advance and the following interview...
So mission accomplished? An app platform in place, partnerships established, advertising ready, and a strategy thought out - Nokia stand poised to take over the world once and for all?
Well not quite. Unfortunately there is a lot of fine tuning still to do for Nokia to accomplish their goal. Nokia's platform, Ovi, is far from brilliant. It is unintuitive and lacks any sort of dynamicism. Coupled with this, the efforts that Nokia are making "to counter music piracy and offer an easy music access service", don't actually address the fact that people want to listen to music on a music player, not on a phone. This brings me back to the point that Nokia are failing to recognise exactly what their competition is really offering.
Once Nokia realise that they need to make more then just phones, they may stand a chance of regaining the premier position they once held for mobile devices.
Friday, August 28, 2009
In The Twittersphere
Two interesting things popped up in the news yesterday involving Twitter. The first is news of the confirmed launch of a new book entitled 'Twitter Wit'. 'Twitter Wit' is a compilation of the funniest tweets posted to the service - essentailly a round-up of all the daft things that have been Tweeted since the sites launch. This of course includes Tweets written by a number of famous Tweeters such as comedian Stephen Fry. One of Fry's featured Tweets "London city airport. Where form meets function. AND THEY HAVE A FIGHT", gives a good insight into the comic yet clever messages that the site has delivered.
The book, which has been written by Nick Douglas (founding editor of Valleywag.com), has been fully endorsed by Twitter and even carries a foreword by the Twitter's co-founder Biz Stone. Stone commented that there was no financial arrangement with the publisher Harper Collins, but that they did love the book so much they bought copies for all their San Francisco employees.
Stone wrote on the company's blog: "The tweets [in 'Twitter Wit'] are irreverent, inappropriate, geeky, and pretty much hilarious. If you don't like one, you'll like the next."
As part of the books launch, Harper Collins have created a competition that challenges readers to perform one of five tweets featured in the book. Entrants will need to create a short video of their performance, with a winner being selected by Douglas. The prize is an iPod touch and a copy of the book.
In other news, another new publication (this time a website) pays tribute to Twitter. Woofer, which describes itself as a 'macroblogging' site allows users to boost their usual 140-character Tweets to gigantic 1,400-characters Woofs. Although Woofer is just a novelty site and openly bills itself as a homage to Twitter in the form of a Social Media experiment, it does already have 9,000 users.
The site itself looks almost identical to the Twitter homepage, with the exception of the huge 1,400 character countdown for your Woofs. Woofers (users) can send messages attributed to their Twitter names. Unlike Tweets, the site asks that Woofers "Be eloquent, use adverbs and DEA (don't ever abbreviate)."
The site does distinctly distance itself from Twitter, confirming a number of time that it has nothing to do with Twitter and even goes as far as to feature a link in the top navigation 'Is this Twitter?'. Clicking on this leads users to page that simply reads "No" in giant letters.
The site has been created by digital agency Join the Company.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Top 50 UK/Irish Marketing Blogs
The following list has been compiled from the AdAge Power150 Blog List. Shown is the blog's position both within the British Isles and globally. All Blogs highlighted are especially worth visiting. I am also delighted to add that Digitology comes in at 42 on the list.
this list is correct as of 2am 27th August 2009
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