Looks like Google Earth also has World Cup Fever. It’s integrated an awesome 3D look at every single World Cup Stadium in South Africa into its mapping system. Brilliant mix of Football Fanatic and Tech Junkie. I like it.
Posts Tagged ‘Cool’
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The Chilean Connection
The more time I spend in this Santiago the more I see the resemblance of so many disaffected developing countries with parts of town in urban decay and others in great development. I get images of Johannesburg town, Pretoria – specifically Marabastad, Durban town. Specifically South African Urban centres come to mind since that is my experience. Not so much London because London is first-world very clean and tidy urban settings. Even the decaying parts just don’t have the same feeling I get in South African and now in Santiago.
Pictures speak louder than words… I will need to find time to upload them. Right now the ‘official’ summit is over but the Global Voices meetings and breakaways are going to continue throughout the weekend. I’ve made a lot of new lifetime friends and am grateful to just be here.
Here’s the Flickr SlideShow for the GV Summit 2010…
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How Product Placement Works
Product placement is getting far more blatant in Movies nowadays and you can think up quick examples just from the top of your head like Audi and Iron Man for example or Up In The Air’s constant jabs with American Airlines. But let’s look a little deeper at the thinking behind it and how far things will go.
Brands are getting involved far earlier in the screen-writing process and interrogating characters and how their brands can fit into their lives, I wonder if it goes as far as introducing character traits which would enable the brand to feature, for example, give the title character a streak of environmental friendliness and let him drive a Toyota Prius. He could’ve been driving a Hummer before, but Toyota’s paying more.
The New York Times had an interesting tale of how this all works and this little snippet I found pretty interesting and just reinforces the point I made above.
“‘You’ve written Gray has a Dodge Ram,’ Mr. Yospe began, discussing a character. ‘Does it have to be a Dodge?’
‘What’s wrong with Dodge? What have you got against Dodge?’ said Mr. Orci, a soft-spoken 36-year-old.
The group began debating. In the script, Gray is described as ’soldier-fit’ but with ‘psychic damage.’ Could someone like that drive, say, a Lincoln Navigator?”
I wonder if this level of intrinsic involvement from brands will affect the quality of the movies being made. It could border on the ridiculous. But, taking a step back, Brands are ideas in themselves. This point was alluded to earlier with the environmentally friendly guy example. Brands have the innate talent of transferring meaning to anything they are associated with. Think Armani and Gucci and you immediately get the meaning and emotion of glamour, now associate them with a character in a movie and some of that glamour rubs off. Get it? So they do play a role in making meaning far more clear simply because brands have spent years and years of advertising making sure that meaning is drilled solid into our thick skulls.
You can imagine that this is particularly useful in movies who need to convey as much meaning as possible, especially when they try to make movies from books and epically fail, most of the time.
And then you get the movies which actually make fun of the entire process and looks at itself and society in general. Cue The Joneses (trailer below). Just watch it and you’ll get the picture. On a similar note though, if anyone has read Jennifer Government, the movie is in production, I am increasingly curious as to how they are going to portray the brands in the movie as they were ripped apart and portrayed as murderous corporate bastards. Google it. It’s going to be brilliant.
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Nike & RZA – Next Level Hip-Hop Advertising
I Love This. It’s a cool mix between hip-hop, basketball and the samurai/kung-fu/manga history which threads through the Wu-tang clan’s, and particularly RZA’s, career history. The music, the manga comic look and the story and tie in very well to the brands values. Mostly I like it because it all just works so well together.
Putting RZA into the mix definitely makes the entire messaging of the ad and the look and feel absolutely surreal but consistent and understandable given the target market which Nike wants to target. I wouldn’t say it was much of a risk, or at least Nike had mitigated the risk fairly well by tying in Basketball into the mix which makes perfect sense in the context it’s playing in the ad itself. basketball has always been involved with Hip-Hop, and this is just a very, very cool remix to drive home the point… along with some Confucian, self-exploratory, kung-fu philosophy thrown in for good measure.
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Movie Review: Daybreakers
The Placebo soundtrack on the trailer really drew me in. That and the tag line "The Matrix meets 28 Days Later." Overall, it was following the recent trend i.e. normal vampire movie with a twist. Not very engaging. The only link to the Matrix was tehir se of humans to survive… for blood this time, obviously.. not being used as batteries. The Matrix had it done better though… they had a plan in place to replace dead humans… here the dead humans just die… leaving a blood shortage.
Anyway… it was a filler movie. something you can waste your time with and would be just as good if you got it on DVD or waited for it come on TV.
What was great about it was the colouring and the cinematography. It was noir in a modern way and the soundtrack fit the movie really well. Also, Ethan Hawke makes a really good vampire. On the plot… I like how they put in all the normal stuff that happens after being a vampire becomes normalised. Things like the economy, class systems, food shortages, etc. start to take over the agenda.
I’d give the movie a 6/10 :) Enjoy.
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Is Brad Pitt a fishfinger? – Brand Design Analysis on Inglourious Basterds
Best Agency Christmas Present I ever received… so far."So what the hell does that mean?" is probably going through your head. Well here’s the rub… the Poster design for Inglourious Basterds was akin to having a great shot of a fishfinger on a pack of… well.. fishfingers. No differentiation, nothing to build the brand. Bland. Blends into the background. Status quo. Following Market conventions… Don’t agree? Let me prove it.
Exhibit A: The Inglourious Basterds Poster (Mainstream)
Exhibit B: The Valkyrie Poster
Spot the difference. None… design-wise anyway. Now you can see Brad Pitt in typical fish-finger style… blending into the background of mediocre poster history. Why would Tarantino bow down to corporate pressure like this and risk his almost instantaneously recognised style and colouring for mass-produced crap like this?
To be fair… there were incredibly great-looking posters made alongside this one… the issue I have is that the mass-produced poster was the most ubiquitous. Which was a shit move, marketing-wise. I’d fire whoever approved it, and am highly disappointed with Tarantino for condoning it.
Anyway… here’s the great ones…
So there you have it. On the mass poster, Brad Pitt is a fish-finger. That poster should not have been made, let alone be put up as the main attraction. The movie was fucking awesome, regardless.
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Google’s Nexus One vs. iPhone, Droid and Palm Pre
The below info is American-focused but you can get an idea of the benefits and pitfalls of each phone. Also, as I have always maintained, go for the phone which would suit your particular needs. Not everyone needs an iPhone despite it’s Cool status, which seems to be slowly dying out now. If you’re a business person, get a Blackberry. If you’re an all media, social, business, game and traveller junkie… stick with the iPhone… It’s all about utility, yo.
All info was thanks to Billshrink
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Uzi USB Drive Marketing Campaign
I don’t normally promote the music or activities of mainstream hip-hop. But this Marketing campaign for the "Get Busy Committee" caught my eye, especially wit h their custom-made Uzi-shaped USB drives… Clever since their new album is called "Uzi Does It."
Being a novelty USB junkie… I thought it was pretty cool :)
[Wired]
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Jump Trump Rump Bump
This is a very cool animation I came across… it makes me feel good, you know. It’s got good direction in the way you see one scene fading into the background as the new one takes precedence and the way the characters are introduced is done very effectively.
JumpTrumpRumpBump from Molasses Murphy on Vimeo.
Oh… and the ‘Pull my finger…’ gag is Priceless! It’s so Random! This is a classic.
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Brilliant Advertising: McDonald’s do Lobsters
I love the way they did this ad. Very creative :) Combines artful photography, functional branding and it communicates the specific targeted message very, very well.
Technorati Tags: McDonalds, Advertising, Cool, Lobster, Creative
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