Australian Creative magazine are again running their Hotshop award for 2007. This time they remembered to include "Digital/Interactive" in the official entry form!

It's $110 an entry and entries close Jan 23, 2008 so plenty of time to get a sexy looking entry together. Last year there were around 11 interactive agencies who entered. Let's see if we can boost that up for this year.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 06:35 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Awards

20th Century Fox wants you to Munk Yourself for Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Create your own chipmunk character and record a custom message (which gets chipmunkatized) and send it on to friends. It's similar to Simpsons avatar or Simponize Me, except the emphasis is on recording your own message and the users voice rather than uploading your face.

Designed and built by Soap Creative using Oddcast technology.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 06:21 PM | Link to this Article | 2 Comments
Archived in: Interesting Promotions

Today in Australia we vote for who we wish to be our next Prime Minister.

Following on from Tobie's post below, this year is the first time the Internet has played such a big role in the campaigning of the major political parties.

It's interesting to see the difference between the two candidates, and how they've embraced YouTube, Facebook and even MySpace.

John Howard (Liberal) made some attempts at spreading his message on the YouTube, but didn't seem to grasp the medium too well. He was often addressing his audience as though it was a specific time or place, saying "Good Morning".

Kevin Rudd (Labor) at least achieved some notoriety with his footage of picking a piece of earwax out and eating it.

The polls favor a Labor victory, but without getting into the policies, I took my own mini poll by assessing a few characteristics of their online campaigns...

Homepage Design
Kevin Rudd (Labor) has used a fresh color palette to go with his "Fresh Ideas" mantra, shown a full embrace of the social-networking tools available to him, and allows for the page's text size to be increased.

John Howard (Liberal) however, has used a not so appealing "Infra Red" style effect and has disobeyed classic Jakob Neilsen advice in going with a red text on red background motif.

MySpace Design
Rudd (Labor) has forked out the dough for a custom template which aligns nicely.

Whilst Howard (Liberal) has gone with your stock standard MySpace ugliness.

MySpace Friends

Kevin Rudd (Labor) - 23,602
John Howard (Liberal) - 9

Facebook "Fans"
Kevin Rudd - 20,130
John Howard - 121

W3C Code Validation errors
Neither campaign sites validate completely, but Labor has the least validation errors with 23, versus a whopping 122 from the Liberals.

Use of photography
Kevin Rudd appears to have borrowed heavily from the stock photo category for the keywords "smooth + businessman".

I wonder if "Rebecca" below, would be disappointed in real life if Kevin and her met after cyber-dating?

Whilst John Howard has used a poorly compressed JPEG at tiny thumbnail size, and not a very inspiring pose.

All adds up to a pretty shoddy effort from the Liberals.

VERDICT: LABOR TO WIN

In all seriousness though, Labor's campaign does seem that little bit more progressive in their understanding of the web, and that is obviously a big issue in terms of Education and Innovation. Their policies also include improving Australia's woeful standing in broadband uptake too.

Generally speaking, the Labor Party appeals to a younger demographic, whilst the average Liberal voter is probably a bit older. But Labor still seems miles ahead.

In about nine hours we'll see what the real outcome is!

Posted by pete at 10:25 AM | Link to this Article | 1 Comments
Archived in: Campaigns

mmm - I'm sorry, but I can't take these things in combination "seriously".

Australian politics. Facebook. the word "Luv". the word "serious".

comments please.

Posted by tobie at 04:19 PM | Link to this Article | 1 Comments
Archived in: Campaigns

Following on from Tobie's post on those nice spam one-liners, I wanted to share these.

If you haven't seen Spamusement - Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines, check it out.

Some examples:

Posted by pete at 02:45 AM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Viral

love this.

Stanley (?) sent this about today, and it's just lovely. From a UK based illustrator, Linzie Hunter (some of her work here) - sorry linzie - linziehunter.co.uk wouldn't open for me...

I often feel the need to send on spam for it purely comic value - boy comedy that is - things like "vandal matriarchy bletheration outgate" (ha ha mmm) selling me cheap stiffy pills or "Hottest sluts admit, that larger dicks taste much better"....

This, much to my amazement, was not only a lovely set of illustrations to peruse, but an insight into the secret world of girl-spam and the "marketing" postitioning adjustments made for the fairer sex.

Figures.

addendum: you can buy some of them here www.thumbtackpress.com/linzie

Posted by tobie at 06:23 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Illustration

Sure, everyone's pitching in on this topic, but here's what emanated out of the smart, shiny noggin of Seth Godin:

"The problem is that ad agencies have defined themselves as the people who take the mediocre products and add interesting ads to them, and washed their hands and say, we can’t do anything about what the factory brings us."

Nicely put.

Found via Katie Kempner's podcasting site on Advertising & PR, which led me to the blog of John Winsor (Cultural Radar Operator at Crispin Porter + Bogusky), which pointed me to the wise words on Seth's site.

Posted by pete at 11:43 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Buzz Words

Itunes downloads of your fav shows was the catlyst behind the Writers Strike. Tom from Kerker emailed us with this insight on the issue. It's all over the news in the US and has already claimed some vistories. 24's premiere will be delayed, SNL will go into reruns and the finale of The Office may not be.

Tom Buchok from Kerker writes;

"Maybe you've seen the coverage and you're depressed that Lost will likely only have seven new episodes this winter.

I'm sad about not getting my full share of Jack, Kate, Sawyer and the rest of the island gang, too.

But I'm excited. The Writer's Guild of America strike is almost exclusively about the internet. You can read more about it here, but in short, the writers want to get paid fairly for their work that gets consumed online.

With both the major producers and the WGA calling the internet the future of their business, there's a lot to be encouraged about within our world of advertising.

In 2007, the primary role of the internet switched from Communications to Content. As the internet content business starts shifting into fifth gear (or sixth), they'll need to monetize the content. Forrester noted in May that ad-supported online video would begin to significantly eat into paid videos (like iTunes, Amazon Unbox, etc.).

More importantly, seven of 10 internet users prefer ad-supported online content to fee-based.

So as the WGA strike is bad for us TV viewers (and Lost superfans), it's great for us advertisers – the strike implicitly injects major relevance into online content. And that content needs to be monetized via ads."

Thanks for the info Tom.

All I can say to the big studios is let the writers have their money! They only get 4c for a $20 DVD dating back to a 1985 aggreement, so at least let them make some extra alcohol money from online.

Track the developments on Google news.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 03:31 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Industry News

Goodthingsshouldneverend.co.uk - It's a never ending webpage.


The pokers have been busy trying new things, this time for Orange UK - a promotional site for it's range of Unlimited offers. Makes sense. Yep. Nice.

Posted by tobie at 10:12 AM | Link to this Article | 2 Comments
Archived in: Site Launch

Posted by tobie at 12:14 PM | Link to this Article | 2 Comments
Archived in:

This week I've come across three interesting articles on the one interesting topic:

1. Lee Clow - The Next Revolution Is Here.

The chief creative officer of TBWA Worldwide said that an increasingly complex and creatively challenging media environment means that agencies' "product" would no longer be defined as advertising, but as "media arts. Everything we do now is media. It's how people come to a decision about a brand."

2. Jeff Goodby - Advertising Imitates Art.

Mr Goodby, who warned against creating digital silos in agencies, said it was no longer acceptable to run campaigns without including new media, which reached audiences that were no longer held captive by television, radio or press.

"I would never let us just do a single commercial for a client again in a million years," he said. "Everybody has to go through a phase as they deal with this new world in which they're exhausted by the new-media horizon.

All true, fair, inarguable comments. But the article on this topic that struck me as making the most sense, was this, from a blogger, not a worldwide Creative Director:

3. David Armano - Content is the next killer buzzword.

"Recently I was cornered by a fiesty individual who wanted to know what was in store for the "future, future" whatever the heck that means. I hate making predictions—but in this case, I wanted to make a stand, and so I said this:

"Content is the next killer app".

I know, I know—forgive me as it sounds buzzy. But here's my rationale. The industry has brainwashed us to believe that an experience is the equivalent of gratuitous Flash orgy Websites that pushes technology to it's limits. Create something bright and shiny—consumers will take the bait and you'll win an award right? Take a Flash micro site, toss in some viral for good measure, add a pinch of uninformed social media and viola! You've got yourself some digital marketing. Research? Who needs it?

Folks, we really need to start understanding what really motivates users. There are literally millions of enthusiasts out there producing quality content in highly search engine friendly formats. Not only is much of their content easier to find on the Web—it's engaging, relevant, and the people who produce it actually talk back to us. It's time to wake up. We need to get out in the field and understand people—what motivates them, and why they behave the way they do.

The reason why I say content is the next killer app is because it's the content that will keep us engaged, and coming back for more. It's the special sauce that can take a consumer and make them an active participant. Point in case, last week Herb Sawyer talked about his "non savvy" Mom using Google to find some information she was looking for. Upon arriving to a site which she spent a considerable amount of time on, she noticed an area called "comments" and so she left one. Then she came back and left some more. It wasn't a site she found, but a blog. Not a fabricated one, but a real one, the author wasn't a copywriter, they were an ordinary person. Mrs Sawyer never even knew she was on a blog. All she knew was that she was having a good experience with it—so she stuck around, participated and came back for more.

Mrs. Sawyer is my hero. I think she's going to give the industry a run for our money—and that's a prediction."

Posted by pete at 03:30 PM | Link to this Article | 1 Comments
Archived in: Interesting Articles