Imagining the "internet of things"

Timo Arnall from Oslo School of Architecture & Design did a visionary tour on the subject during last month's Web 2.0 expo in Berlin. Thought provoking and solidly reseached. If this was a book, it would be dog-eared by now. Click on the full screen-icon and "fit to height" to see the presentation properly.

Hat tip to Guido for twittering the URL of all Web2.0 Expo presentaions.

Starting the conversation from within

Tom Himpe's is thinking exactly the same thing we're saying to our clients when we talk about "Building brand beyond the promise" so we thought we'd share his brilliant presentation here.

"You're Not Stealing From Us Because We Give It To You For Free. So There !"

The relation between YouTube and the owners of popular audiovisual media copyrights has always been a most tempestuous one.  As an outlet for marketing and branding activities, the popular video site is a media company's wet dream, but as soon as someone else starts playing with their toys, all hell breaks loose.

Enter venerable British comedy anarchists Monty Python.  Even though they have been a YouTube member for more than two years, they only just started posting their own videos, for free.  Here's their rationale :

“For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It's time for us to take matters into our own hands.  We know who you are, we know where you live and we could come after you in ways too horrible to tell.

But being the extraordinarily nice chaps we are, we've figured a better way to get our own back: We've launched our own Monty Python channel on YouTube.  No more of those crap quality videos you've been posting. We're giving you the real thing - HQ videos delivered straight from our vault.  What's more, we're taking our most viewed clips and uploading brand new HQ versions. And what's even more, we're letting you see absolutely everything for free. So there!”

You have to admit, it sounds better than "If you can't beat them, join them".  So, all hail the Pythons !

AC/DC Rocks the office

Apparently vintage rockers AC/DC know their demographic : for their new single, Rock'n' Roll Train, they launched a new video full of guitar rock cliches.  Sadly, however, most of their fans have grown up, have jobs and spend their days at desks, staring at computer screens that quite often are behind extensive firewalls.  Not to worry, Australia's loudest come to the rescue with a special version of the video, rendered completely in Microsoft Excel.  Talk about surfing the information highway to hell !

New agency trend : make products, not campaigns?

Two years ago advertising agency BBH set up a brand invention arm called 'Zag', meant to spot market opportunities, invent new brands and team up with partners to bring them to market. Yesterday the first two product were announced.

Cannes 2008 - my round-up

As you might have noticed through our blog, flickr and twitter-feeds, we were with quite a lot at the Cannes Lions festival last week. Vinne -as a member of the cyber jury- already gave his favourites last week, so now I guess it's my turn to give my overview of last week overload of creativity.

For starters, last year a high rank media executive told the memorable worlds : "2007 will become known as the year where digital has finally left the computer". This quote really struck a chord with me as it echoes the vision we had when we launched Boondoggle. Without giving the whole story away, 2008 confirmed the trend : most of the interesting work at this year's Cannes festival was digital, whether it was online or not.

Watching Apart Together - Thoughts on OTT-TV

Yesterday, I gave a presentation at the Belgian Broadband Platform's symposium on over the top TV. I was lined up amidst a series of more technical speakers to give a point of view on what OTT-TV could mean for brands and consumers. Since I work for a new-skool agency that isn't burdened with a mass media heritage, I thought I'd add some fresh views on how brands could leverage the social aspects of OTT TV. These were some of the points I tried to make :

• TV used to be seen as a social medium but it's perception quickly became that of a high impact advertising medium to "reach" individuals. Probably the reason why orthodox marketing  is still officially in love with TV despite alarming data (slide 7 & 8) suggesting otherwise.
• The orthodox model of brand building via reach, frequency and interruption needs a serious rethink (and this time, not only agencies but also enlightened brands are proclaiming this)
• The current OTT TV platforms (Joost, Hulu,...)  succeed in overcoming some of the weaknesses of  traditional TV (too much ad pressure, no precise targetting). But on the other hand I can't help thinking that OTT TV only aggravates the isolation of the viewer by creating even more micro-segments.
• The real revolution of OTT is still to come when the respective strenghts of TV and the Internet (emotional impact and social possibilities) are combined into one. Only then will OTT-TV reach its adult (or art) phase. Unfortunately we're not there yet, but Channl.TV, Bebo and Honeyshed each contain some of the ingredients that will constitute the definitive OTT-TV platform.
• For "enlightened" brands these are exciting times. When OTT-TV will have reached its adulthood, brands will finally have a medium to practice what they've been preaching in the last couple of years. Like : being useful, adding to "what people are already doing", taking with instead of talking to, reaching communities instead of individuals,...

If you want to delve deeper in the points I tried to make, have a look at the slides below.

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Matt Damon in a hilarious Transmedia Storytelling clip

Another nice example of transmedia storytelling. A way of bringing a story in puzzle pieces  through different channels.   In Jimmy Kimmels TV show Jimmy has been having this little joke between him and Matt Damon. Watch this first clip. Matt Damon took revenge together with Kimmels ex-girlfriend via a Youtube clip. Of course it's all staged. But it's a great example of how the story universe of a TV show can be extended to other platforms.

Source: http://www.vkmag.com/magazine/comments/fcking_matt_damon/.

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Tags: mattdamon stransmedia storytelling

Life after Radiohead's "in Rainbows"

With all the controversy surrounding Radiohead's pay as you like-experiment (update : despite the Comcast-data inspired negativity, Radiohead made more money out of "in Rainbows" than out of all the other Radiohead releases put together!), one might forget that more artists have followed Radiohead's example.

Trent Reznor from NIN-fame produced and released Saul Williams new album through the same distribution model as Radiohead although a little different : the record could be downloaded for free at a low 192 kbs quality or for 5€ at 320kbs. Last week Trent Reznor posted the first sales results on the NIN-homepage :

Saul's previous record was released in 2004 and has sold 33,897 copies.

As of 1/2/08,
154,449 people chose to download Saul's new record.
28,322 of those people chose to pay $5 for it, meaning:
18.3% chose to pay.

While you might think that 18,3% paying customers is a disappointing figure, there's another side to the story. Because of the free publicity surrounding the stunt, the marketing budget was near to zero. And also:

Saul's music is in more peoples' iPods than ever before and people are interested in him. He'll be touring throughout the year and we will continue to get the word out however we can.. 

Find the complete story here. Meanwhile, Saul Williams' Niggy Tardust album is still up for downloading : free or at 5$. It's up to you...

Best of 2007-lists

It's that time of the year again, the "overviews of 2007" are cluttering the blogosphere again. But this one from Contagious is a classic : delivering a round up of all the marketing and technology news from 2007 in only 33 pages.

Hat tip to Vinne.