Ive seen the posters near our office for a few weeks and I thought it was just a poster. Little did I know they were actually selling the beans at 10c a can. Great idea from Happy Solidiers for The Hallway Agency.

Digitally it hasn't been supported that well, but the idea is simple enough to not to need much polishing.

You can also sign up to their newsleter and win a years worth of beans $36 worth!

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 11:38 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Interesting Promotions

Virgin, thanks to Host have launched a new campaign called What Happens Next. Choose your scene and then direct what happens next. The best entry will get turned into an ad (i think Virgin did this before?) and you win a trip to Cairns. That's northern Qld not Southern France. Oh and 5 grand cash too so that's pretty sweet.

The actual drawing tool is quite nice and the film genre video changes are nice too but the entries themselves so far are quite boring to view. I guess I was on the look out for dick and balls, but I think those wont get past the moderators.

I did enjoy the man turns into rabbit entry but look forward to see the gallery fill out over the next few weeks.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 10:09 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Interesting Promotions

Is it just me or does releasing a press release about your latest endevor online that hasn't even started yet seem like talking up how you're "totally gonna root that person at the xmas party". Ok, let me know after the party and give me the sticky details, just don't waste my time now.

The latest offender is Naked who reports "Intern Gavin Chimes' first day at work at Naked Communications is one he is unlike to forget after being packed off on a 10-day European tour courtesy of holiday firm Contiki." there's even a link to the Youtube channel.

Not even a video expaining the stunt, or a word from Contiki. They had enough time to write a PR and take photos but not enough to actually get the ball rolling on the actual blog. What if I wanted to blog about this amazing new innovation in marketing? Well I'd be blogging "vaporads". I'll have to bookmark it and then check in a week, maybe 10 days? Or wait for the next PR release. By that time I'd be following some other phantom campaign.

I did find the channel honours interesting though.

I've been a big supporter of Youtube but the stats below are a bit sad. This is Australian stats. I can imagine other countries fare differently.

If 0 subscribers = #2 then what about the other channels?

Oh...

It's weird as Sprite Truth Hunters (the best Aussie example of a Youtube channel) doesn't appear in this list?

Here's a channel I had a hand in working on. Whoops!

I don't want to bag Youtube as I love it. I've also been a strong supportor of it to clients, but you'd think they'd be bending over backwards to make their sponsors channels go through the roof and then try and bilk them for cash when they are happy.

P.S. I'm claiming ownership over the term Vaporads. Adding it to my lexicon of claims including unforghetti and poolates.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 09:35 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Industry News

Eyeblaster have launched their Analytics Bulletin with a 2007 Summary. There are lots of chunky stats and graphs to gorge on and they compare North America, Europe and Asia Pacific in depth. View the full document as a PDF here.

I found it interesting the different verticals dominating each region. Australia sure loves cars and banks. I'm surprised automotive isn't higher in North America. I thought cars were like lungs to Americans. ie they need two to function.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 06:32 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Interesting Articles

VIRGIN Blue has been left red-faced after being forced to scrap an advertising campaign which urged people to "chuck a sickie" and jet off on holidays.

The controversial online "chuck-a-sickie sale" campaign urged frequent flyers to take time off work and take advantage of "top sale fares".

But Virgin Blue chief Brett Godfrey moved to axe the campaign just 29 minutes after first seeing it, following a media inquiry over the slogan.

Read the full article on News.com.au

Here's a good article on the Art of the Sickie from the BBC.

P.S We'd love to see the actual ads. So if someone want's to slip us the swf files we'd be great appreciated.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 04:37 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Industry News

iBeer is the #5 top paid app on the iPhone. It's a great tool to show off to your friends and it costs $3.99 AUD

Cool. But for Free you can get the iPint App which does the same thing + has a free game. This is what picked up silver at Cannes 2008.

I always assumed Apple users were pretty smart. But this might be a case of over excited and over cashed nerds.

Many app on there are what you'd expect for free anyway. Todo lists apps for $3. C'mon.

It'll be interesting to see the new breed of apps coming for the iPhone in the future. Apple will also have to create a better way to sort through them as already it's 80% utter shite, 10% useless and 8% what you'd expect anyway and 2% inspired.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 04:12 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Technology

If you told someone that you're main source of income was for a site about LOLcats the reply would be WTF!

But the team behind I Can Has Cheez Burger not only have themselves one of the top blogs in the world (#8 to be precise) but they also now have a network of 4 other blogs with the same simple structure and same social network tools.

Failblog, Graphjam, Pundit Kitchen and their newest one Totally Looks Like are all perfect examples of what people want from online. Tiny bite sized laughs that they can contribute to easily. It's easy to join and play along and these are perfect email fodder.

This is a lesson for all potential bloggers or agencies trying to create blogs for their clients. Find something and do it well. These blogs pretty much run themselves now. The community do all the work and the team behind it reap the rewards.

After studying these more closely I need to tweak a few of my blogs. WTFcostumes is the easiest to update but doesn't have any of the necessary tools to let people contribute properly while Sleevage requires a lot of research and some posts take me more than two days to put together. The blog I'm working on now for City of Ember an underground blog also takes quite a long to put together.

Even Bannerblog could use a major overhaul in how I let people digest the site.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 01:06 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Interesting Articles

Mike has done a lot of research into viral marketing patterns breaking them down into 21 different segments in this article.

For me he has missed a very obious trend and that's music. Check the top viewed videos on Youtube of all time, pretty much back to the top 100, and it's domicated by music. So if you want to market something tie it in with music.

And two he missed my personal fav Crowded Ads. But aside from those two omissions it's a good read.

Oh and he's missed mashups too. Ok no list will ever be complete or maybe these are covered these with different categories.

Oh and the virals that look like they took (and probably did) take a shit load of time and effort. Usually stop motion of some kind.

Oh and spoofs/parody.

Also don't forget the major element to anything going viral is being first (ie original). It doesnt matter i

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 10:54 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Interesting Articles

What I love about having a vested interest in companies on the share market is it makes it easy to follow. When I was a kid all the numbers and numbers in (brackets) didn't mean anything. I had no idea how some shares were worth $25 and others 2c.

Which I why I find following the listed digital agencies in Australia so interesting. I can compare EBDIT's, profile ratios and billings with the others and my own.

While the DOTCOM boom maybe over people are still forking out wads of cash and people are still losing money, CEO's are being fired, companies liquidated, assets written off, profits not being met and much more.

It's sad to say there hasn't been a success case. There isn't any shining light to say this is how it's done. I'm basing my opinons purely off the share prices. Some companies may be running very well but for investors it's been painful.

All this is happening while digital is in a boom with money pouring into the sector from the other mediums.

I first covered this in January of this year and maybe I should have gone on record as things have gone downwill for every major player.

Here's where the shares were as of Jan 3, 2008. (approx)

SGN: STW COMMUNICATIONS: $2.38
HYO: Hyro: $0.18
BLU: Blue Freeway: $1.14
CQU: Commquest: $1.10
QXQ: Q Limited: $0.05
MCU: Mitchell Communication Group: $1.05

And this is where they are now. Just 6 months later in what was/is one of the biggest years in our industry.

SGN: STW COMMUNICATIONS: $1.47
HYO: Hyro: $0.046
BLU: Blue Freeway: $0.069
CQU: Commquest: $0.175
QXQ Q Limited: $0.015
MCU: Mitchell Communication Group: $0.55

Ouch! That's a tough lesson for investors and for those companies that recently sold themselves. I hope you took the cash offer!

Here's the slippery slope in graphical form.

In January I said you'd have been better off buying Apple shares. That was bad advice as shares have dropped from $199 - $170. Even with the Iphone!

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 10:14 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Industry News

I just found the IAB Australia Youtube channel with the Great Place to work videos. Google and Yahoo! battle it out for the most produced video while the others go home made. I'm not sure if the winners has been announced but you can view the entries here for yourself.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 09:48 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Awards

Classic. The narration is spot on.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 01:59 AM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Viral