Applications Open For The Arthur Guinness Fund

As I said back in August when I first wrote about the Guinness 250 Years Celebrations, "Unless you've been hiding under a stone lately, you'll be well aware that this September 24th marks the first Arthur’s Day." So back in September on a Thursday evening the country took a break and celebrated the birth of Guinness (the signing of the Guinness lease at St. James’s Gate), and across Dublin hundreds of people enjoyed a spectacular evening's music. Arthur's Day wasn't just about music and pints though. To celebrate the birth of Guinness, Guinness announced the setting up of the Arthur Guinness Fund.

The fund represents up to €2.5m that will be made available to Social Entrepreneurs. The fund is seeking to find and support up to 25 Social Entrepreneurs over a two-year period within Ireland. These 25 Social Entrepreneurs will gain financial support (€100,000 per project) and practical support and advice from the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland Alumni network.

Sean Coughlan, CEO of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland said, "We were delighted to support Guinness believing, as we do, that this initiative could have a very significant impact for social entrepreneurs and the communities they support and have agreed to be their partner in the development of the fund."

The big news is that applications are now open for the Arthur Guinness Fund.

So what next? Well, for more information on the Arthur Guinness Fund and how to apply, click here.

Tweet Inspires New Air New Zealand Campaign

Following on from Air New Zealand's recent success with their 'Bare Essentialls' campaign, the airline has launched a new ad campaign inspired by a Tweet from one of their passenger.

Back in June Tim Benjamin was on a flight with Air New Zealand and tweeted the following message: "Just flown Air New Zealand from LHR to LAX. Best airline I've experienced. Food & IFE great. Staff allowed to have a personality."

Albion have said that it was during their research phase, that they came across the tweet. The particular comment "Staff allowed to have a personality", struck a chord and Air New Zealand's agency Albion immediately recognised that it was the perfect strapline for the new campaign. Air New Zealand runs a policy of trusting its crew members to uphold the company's brand and service values without forcing them to comply with rigorous rules, allowing them to "have a personality".

Benjamin's tweet now forms the basis of Air New Zealand's latest brand campaign, and appears on ads running across digital outdoor and online advertising placements. The online executions feature full rich video and are backed up with standard formats showing the crew's personal opinions of the onboard products and their personal recommendations for places to visit and things to do at the various Air New Zealand destinations. The video executions will appear on digital escalator panels and LCD digital screens at various tube stations across London and will run for four weeks. They will also appear on roadside LCD 48 sheet billboards.

Scott Carr, Air New Zealand General Manager, Europe, said, “This year, the campaign is 100% digital and online, allowing us to fully interact with our audience. By letting the crew shine through the use of video footage, the digital executions really enable us to demonstrate the personality of the airline. In addition we believe the creative executions are a breath of fresh air and break from the traditional style of airline advertising giving the campaign real stand-out and our world-class crew the recognition they deserve.”

This is the making of video for the new campaign:


Albion have been acting as Air New Zealand's lead agency since last April, following a four-way pitch against Adam & Eve, Publicis and Farm. The account was reported to be worth £2 million.

For those that missed it, this is the video for the 'Bare Essentials' campaign:

iPhone Halloween Custome

It's pretty common place to see Supermen, Doctors, Witches, Vampires and a huge assortment of celebrities and movie characters wandering around on Halloween night, but it takes someone with real creativity to do something really cool. In recent years a lot of people have chosen to dress up as internet memes or personalities, mimicking some of the various stupid things that people have done that have made them internet viral hits.

So what's left out there for people to be truly original this Halloween?

I spotted this over on Mashable, and it's definitely one of the coolest costumes I've seen. At least it's a costume that takes a lot of time, money and commitment on the night.



The costumes apparently took 3 weeks to build and each of them weighs 85lbs. Most of this comes from the 42″ LCD screen and car battery that form the guts of the costume. The visuals are powered by an iPhone 3GS which is attached to a LCD.

Co-creator John Savio writes, "This all started two years ago Reko Rivera and Bobby Hartman created a wearable large iPhone costume with a real 37″ lcd tv. An iPod was attached with a looping video of a real iphones screen in normal use. This time with the help of John Savio and John Matthews the team created yet another amazing rendition of the new iPhone 3GS…The team has about $2000 into the two costumes and has no regrets!"

This originally appeared on MacRumours.

Volkswagen Golf GTI 2010

When it comes to using the iPhone to promote a product or brand, there are now literally thousands of examples of how to do it, and how not to do it. Either way, most follow the exact same approach - create a free iPhone app, throw in a host of features and functionality, deliver at least one USP that will give you first mover advantage, and away you go. The kids will love it, you'll get hundreds of thousands of downloads and everything will be good in the world.

Boring!

What if you approached it from a whole new line of thinking. Consider that you're a car manufacturer in a marketplace of falling print readership, a marketplace where audiences are moving their TV viewing to the Web, and a marketplace that has been severely effected by the current economic climate. Volkswagen are such a car manufacturer but instead of going with the flow and doing what everyone else has tried doing, Volkswagen have decided to do things a little differently.

So in preperation of the launch of their 2010 GTI Golf, Volkswagen have done a bit of research. According to their findings there are 4 million 21-34 year old male iPhone gamers. This is the core GTI target market, and Volkswagen believe that while they may want this car, they simply don't know it yet. So they have decided to go after that audience in a very targeted, using the iPhone, but not as we know it.

Volkswagen have become the first car manufacturer to launch a car solely on the iPhone. Not as an app, but instead as an exclusive, playable element of the iPhone racing game Firemint Real Racing. This is a game that already has 70 million downloads since its launch in June. Available at the iTunes App Store for free, the 'Real Racing GTI' level lets you choose from six different 2010 GTIs and race them on a track laden with VW logos.


On top of being able to drive the car and experience its performance through the game, Volkswagen are also offering an added bonus. Players can compete to win one of six limited-edition black GTI Mach 6 Golfs; featuring special edition stitching on the floor mats and head rests, carbon-fiber finishes on the doors and mirrors, red calipers on the wheels, and special logos on the front and on the steering wheel. In addition, the 2010 GTI's sound system has been upgraded to include full iPod integration. Over six weeks (from last Thursday), players can race as often as they want and scores are automatically uploaded to an online leaderboard. The best score for each week wins the car for that week.

The game also lets you send Twitter messages straight from the game and upload videos of your best races to YouTube so you’ll be able to show everyone the race that got you a brand new 2010 VW GTI.

In itself this would be a fundamentally revolutionary way to drive awareness of a new car, but this is the only marketing and advertising that Volkswagen is doing for the car. By concentrating on a young and tech savvy, car loving audience, Volkswagen estimate that they will only have to spend a quarter of a typical print and television campaign budget.

This is the Volkswagen promo video for the campaign:


This is a video uploaded to YouTube by a gamer his actual Volkswagen GTI race:

V Australia - One Way Ticket

Back in July and August, V Australia and Virgin Atlantic ran two really innovative and immersive competitions. 4320:SYD and 4320:LA were Twitter driven campaigns that offered participants a once in a life time experience, through a first of its kind mechanic. Following their Twitter based activity, V Australia have launched their latest online marketing campaign, this time through Facebook.

The latest campaign is based on the concept of Frienemies.

Frienemy [Frie•ne•my]
- noun
1. A combination of 'friend' and 'enemy'.
2. A ‘friend’ who has become an ‘enemy’ by doing something that’s got on your nerves. So why not get rid of them?


The campaign calls on users to nominate a ‘frienemy’ using the V Australia Facebook app. By nominating a ‘Frienemy’ with the app you can win the chance to send them on a one-way trip to Johannesburg, Phuket or LA. The app features a public leaderboard of the campaign's top Frienemies, and will run until November 24.

The campaign has been developed by V Australia by Native.