Soda - Keeping Curious

Many apologies for my lack of updates in the last couple of months, we have been rushed off our feet working on a big project, which has now been launched.

The project is a new IPTV site Friction.TV and is a joint venture between a small group of investors and The Together Agency. We developed the online technology and have been playing a role in the launch and content of the site.

The basic premise behind Friction.TV is a “global platform for user generated news and debate”. It is a place where you can share your thoughts with the world, be challenged and perhaps create some friction around a specific issue. It is intended to provide an alternative to the sanitised views of the conventional mass media as it delivers true user generated opinions in an unedited, uninhibited and necessarily challenging way.

Basically, users record a short 30 second to 3 minute long video on an issue that is important to them. The issue can be global or local, personal or of worldwide significance. Other visitors to the site can then debate the issue via text or video responses. Kind of like an online Speaker’s Corner!

To date we have had some exciting submissions, from the general public, from organisations such as The Countryside Alliance, The League Against Cruel Sports, FOREST, ASH and b-eat and from public figures such as Boris Johnson, Tommy Sheridan and Nick Griffin of the BNP.

Friction.TV promises that content will not be edited in any way (as long as it remains within the law!). We have received a lot of positive feedback from organisations and people that are often either ignored or censored by traditional media.

A feature we have found to be particularly successful is highlighting a current issue on the homepage to encourage debate around this issue. For example, during National Post Office Week we had a customised banner which led people to debate the closure of regional Post Offices. We are now looking forward to running a campaign giving a voice to both sides of the debate on London Congestion Charges.

Soda readers are encouraged to take a look at the Friction.TV site, comment, debate and let me know what you think!

…with YouTube! I just can’t get enough of it. Even while I am working, I have it on in the background as a sort of jukebox. Recently a list was published by The Viral Video Chart listing the 10 most popular viral videos from 2006. The chart is as follows:

1. Kerry Belittles U.S. Troops
2. Free Hugs Campaign
3. White and Nerdy
4. Worst Burglar Ever
5. Evolution of Dance
6. Kiwi!
7. OK Go - Here It Goes Again
8. Colbert Roasts President Bush - 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner
9. A Message From Chad and Steve
10. Guiness World Record for most T-Shirts worn at one time

Interestingly, none of these videos are actually selling anything, apart from OK Go at number 7, which I suppose could be seen as “selling” the band’s single. Instead there seems to be a desire for the quirky and a strong interest in US politics, with two of the top 10 videos being on this subject.

To be honest, none of these videos really blew me away this year (apart from OK Go and Chad and Steve’s $1.85 billion excitement, which I admit I watched several times).

Off the top of my head, my two favourites are Panda Sneezing and the rather festive Jimmy Jangle, which, I warn you, is EXTREMELY rude! If you are not from the UK, you most likely won’t get it, do an image search on Jimmy Saville, note that he calls his mother “the Duchess”, throw in a little Gary Giltter and you might be half way there…

NB. This one is also making me want to punch my computer monitor with joy

Apologies for the lack of updates, work has been very, very busy recently.

I am currently listening to people laughing as they read the link I just mailed round to Adverbatims, a collection of quotes from people in the marketing/advertising world. Some of them sound strangely familiar…

I just saw an entry on TIGS blog about a new incentive where bloggers are offered money in return for posting about their (good) experiences at McDonalds. Although they say “we don’t want you to write nice words about McDonald’s”, I’m pretty sure the blogging community as a whole has more bad words to say about them, yet surprisingly I don’t see one negative post. Funny that.

What a rubbish campaign, a really stupid, cynical attempt to harness user generated content and community power without actually offering anything of substance. As if everyone isn’t just going to see straight through it. And the worst thing? The homepage claims “We’re not McDonalds. We’re just McLovers!”. URGH. Yeah right. If you are going to exploit people, at least be honest about it, McSellouts.

I have just been checking our site stats and this week our blog has had 14 visits from the Unilever network. Unilever is of course Dove’s parent company. I also noticed that the Dove videos on YouTube seem to have a lot of comments from someone claiming to be a Dove employee. This would suggest that Dove are taking the time to find out what the internet community thinks about their new advertising campaigns and are keen to get feedback from everyday people like you and me. Good on you Dove, another string in your friendly advertising bow!

I blogged about advertising to women some time ago. Today I took a look at Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. There are a couple of videos on YouTube I’d like to talk about. The first basically shows a model being done up and photoshopped until the face that appears in the ad is virtually unrecognisable. Although it’s interesting to see how photographs are retouched for ads, this video is a little…well, flat.

Don’t we all already know that models and actresses are often made up and photoshopped to within an inch of their lives? So what? They are a hell of a lot more beautiful than the average woman to begin with. Surely that’s missing the point. The fact that women are judged on beauty in the first place is what needs to be considered.

Some time ago Steph directed me to an article in the Guardian, where the writer Ellie Levenson assures the readers that we need to realise “it’s OK to be ugly”. We must move “away from holding beauty up as an attribute to be valued above all others and moving towards accepting that beauty, ugliness, and everything in between is of equal worth”. She suggests placing more value on traits such as tolerance and kindness, which are “qualities that all can achieve and that are worth far more than a pretty face”.

Unfortunately, she misses the point. The very fact that beauty is not attainable by all is what makes it so valued and precious. Everyone likes looking at beautiful faces and there is nothing wrong with that at all. It’s like looking at a beautiful piece of art or a fantastic sunset.

However, the danger is when girls start to get the feeling that these beautiful freaks of nature are what we should all look like. The second video from the Dove campaign makes me sad. When girls as young as this are already having their self esteem whittled away by peers and advertising’s unattainable images, surely something is wrong.

Physical beauty is enchanting and alluring, but most of us don’t live in that rareifed world where your face is your fortune. What I would like to see is a world where people can accept that we all like looking at beautiful faces, that’s fine, we shouldn’t try to deny beauty’s allure. But we should also not forget that to most of us it just shouldn’t be as relevant as we are told.

On Monday the rumours that Google would be purchasing YouTube, the biggest video site on the web, were confirmed. The cost? $1.65 billion. And to think, not long ago I read that YouTube hadn’t managed to clear their $11.5 million investment yet!

This is an unusual move for Google who traditionally purchase smaller start ups such as Upstartle, creator of a Web-based word processor. However, with online video fast becoming “an Internet service comparable to e-mail and Web search”, Google Video’s ranking of 7 just wasn’t going to cut it for Google, the king of the internet.

YouTube shows 100 million video clips a day. There are 34 million monthly visits to the site from the US alone. Combining YouTube and Google’s statistics, this gives a figure of 101 million site visits for August 2006.

Although there has been some controversy over YouTube’s handling of copyright, in recent months Google and YouTube have separately set up agreements with three of the world’s largest record companies to add music videos on their Web sites. YouTube made deals with the two largest music companies in the world, Universal Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment. Google has made deals with Sony Corp. and Warner Music Group Corp, the fourth largest.

The video revolution is just beginning. Take a look at Craig’s article below to find out about broadband saturation by the end of 2008. Video online is set to explode and I can’t wait! The YouTube founders seem pretty excited themselves, and who wouldn’t be with $1.65 billion in the bank?! Good for you, boys!

Source: Bloomberg News

I haven’t had much of a chance to write recently as this week I started in my new role as Account Executive here at Together. I have been moving to the downstairs office and have been busy clearing everything up and getting ready to take on all my new accounts. Hee!

However, I just wanted to share this viral game I came across. It is for dark chocolate M&M’s and involves trying to find 50 film names from the visual clues in a picture. I thought it was quite clever to tie the “dark” of the dark chocolate with a dark Bosch type picture. I have already forwarded it my old friends upstairs, just in case they are forgetting who I am.

I have only found 7 of the 50 films in the 5 minutes I have been doing it. Let me know if you fare any better…

EDIT: It has just occured to me that the films I found so far are all horror/dark films. Perhaps this will help me narrow things down a little…

EDIT 2: Umm…yes. It actually says that they are “dark movies” in the intro. That’ll teach me to start reading instructions!

The Telegraph reports on a new MySpace profile for Jesus. The profile is part of a campaign by the Churches Advertising Network, who have run campaigns in the past with striking images of Jesus as Che Guevara or The Last Supper re-worked as a board meeting with Microsoft playing Judas.

This year their campaign is based on the recent trend of spotting Jesus (and other Biblical figures) in bizarre places, remember the woman who saw the Virgin Mary’s face in a cheese sandwich? The “Is this Jesus” campaign detailed on MySpace features an empty pint glass with Jesus’ face appearing in the left over foam, the tagline is “Where will you find him?”

Not surprisingly some people are going to be offended by the MySpace Jesus’ seeming advocation of drinking…but really, come on. There’s no way the Churches Advertising Network is going to reach young people if they had remained disdainful and distant of the very things that young people enjoy. Anyway, controversy aside, it’s not a new idea to use MySpace for marketing, but I have to give the Churches Advertising Network kudos for being completely honest about what they are doing. On the profile they clearly state that it is part of “a new advertising campaign for the churches…The campaign, which also includes radio ads, wants to get people talking about where they find God today, even if it’s in the most unlikely places.”

This is where marketing so often fails, young people are not stupid and tend to see through cynical marketing techniques that pretend to be honest. So well done to the Churches Advertising Network for getting it right.

Consultancy agency Accenture have published results from a global survey of 10,000 consumers. The survey has revealed that nearly 40% of internet users now download videos online. Additionally, 54% of young internet users express a desire to create and share their own content on the web.

In terms of comparison with TV, most users say they still prefer viewing content on their television sets rather than their PCs. According to Accenture partner Dave Brown, “UK consumers are most interested in applications that allow them to download and watch films, TV shows and other video content on their TV.” The survey found that 54% of people would like to download and watch videos on TV, compared with 30% via the internet.

On this note, Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine highlights new technology from Apple (iTV) that allows a PC to link to a television set via wifi. He also mentions TiVo, which provides a similar service. Both of these technologies basically mean that it will be possible to view online content on a tv set…essentially putting everyone in the role of TV channel programmer.

Source: BuzzMachine