I’ve been a huge fan of The Ginger Runner and Billy Yang for a while now. Both are excellent runners as well as filmmakers and their GoPro isn’t ever too far away when they’re out for a run. A long time subscriber of their YouTube channels, I find myself eagerly looking forward to their next adventure – more often than not featuring amazing mountain scenery, glorious trails and regular guest appearances by some of the Ultrarunning elite.
So things have been a bit quiet around here.
A simple explanation really: I’ve gone from a long distance relationship to living together. A change that brought about a dramatic change in weekend priorities, one where geeking out over t’Interwebs and digital bits of interest slipped down behind spending time with G, long walks with the dog, doing the weekly shop, shouting at the telly because Arsenal are yet again throwing away a game.
But now, it’s the first day of 2015, I’m back from the traditional New Year’s Day run and what better way to get into this bits and bytes malarkey than looking back at 2014 and a wee peek at what could be in store. Continue reading “Looking back at 2014 and my top 3 predictions for PR, marketing and digital in 2015”
Time-lapse photography has been around for a long time. It’s always been a very manual, time consuming process. Timing systems and software have made the process easier and in recent years we’ve seen more an more moving time-lapse shots, where the camera is mobile. To get that to work, you need a rig to steady the camera while it moves. Not cheap and another layer of difficulty.
Instagram have just gone and launched a free iOS app called ‘Hyperlapse‘, making moving time-lapse photography easy and accessible to anybody who can hold an iPhone. You don’t even need a tripod to hold your phone steady, the app does this for you. Continue reading “Instagram’s Hyperlapse and how brands are getting on board”
Andrea Pirlo was one of 11 Italians that broke my heart in 2006 when he beat Germany on his way to winning the World Cup. Gutwrenching. I boycotted pizza for half a year. But even I had to admit: Pirlo is one of the greatest midfielders of all time. Even now, in his later years, where he strolls across the park stroking his glorious beard, he still dictates the game, picks a pass and puts one of his lads through. Likely a Balotelli. Which makes it painful all over again. Continue reading “#Pirloisnotimpressed vs. the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge”
Missed opportunity for the Premier League?
After a fabulous footballing summer for German Arsenal fans, the Premier League finally started up this weekend. The Gooners squeaked past Crystal Palace on a sunny Saturday. Marvellous.
And after a World Cup where Twitter really came into its own, dedicating entire sections of its service to updating users about live games, reporting on the Tweets per minute from key incidents and the usual banter, you’d think that the FA might pick up on the popularity of sharing instant reactions to games – especially when instant reactions often also mean the instant replay of that cracking goal, or that ridiculous decision, or Santi getting sprayed in the face by the ref who can’t quite get the vanishing spray to work. Continue reading “Vine – a missed opportunity for the Premier League?”
The Cup of Memes
I am recovering from the relentless Brazil v Chile game. A game decided by the woodwork (both times in favour of the hosts), a game that neither team deserved to lose, a game that Spiegel Online reckons was Howard Webb’s application to also referee the final – after all, not many would have the stones to (correctly!) disallow a goal for handball. Also, he’s English.
It’s the Cup of Memes (stolen from the WSJ).
From van Persie’s diving header against Spain, the impenetrable wall of Ochoa, to, of course, Suarez loosing his balance against Italy’s Chiellini and falling on his shoulder. Hurting his teeth. Bless.
The Suarez incident in particular has received the most attention. Partly because it was just so predictable before the first ball was even kicked, but mostly because it provides so much fodder for wordsmiths to sink their teeth in. See what I did there? Yes. Very clever.
Twitter went into pundemonium…
… and finally had a use for a Vine of an Aussie chap imitating a dog attack
But it was brands that really went dental
Then there’s the fabulous Louis Suarez Biting Game by @usvsth3m
#WorldCup
Twitter has been a key part of the tournament, at least from the perspective of the fans following the games, reacting to goals, incidents and saves.
The chaps at Twitter have kept a close eye on what we’ve been tweeting about during the group phase. Some of the highlights
- 300 million tweets related to #WorldCup, with the opening game garnering the most Tweets (I suspect that will have been surpassed by last night’s game against Chile)
- Marcelo’s own goal against Croatia was the most tweeted moment
- Messi is the most mentioned player
- The most retweeted Tweet was by @FinallyMario who would have like a kiss on the cheek from the Queen as a thank you to Italy for beating Costa Rica and keeping England’s chances of progressing alive. Italy lost, England went home
USA wins!
To finish off the World Cup round-up, for this week at least, is a look at the love of soccer in the US of A. Sparked by a team that is actually quite good (mostly because they have a German coach and mostly German players) the nation of cheerleaders has finally discovered the beautiful game.
They have the biggest set of travelling fans and after their dramatic win against Ghana in their first game, they coined a catchy new chant: ‘I believe that we will win’. A chant that fans in this pub were giving their all. See if you can spot the moment where Portugal equalises.
Then of course there was much confusion about how a game can end in a draw. Or that you’d advance to the next round after losing. Welcome, finally, to the world’s game, America.
Bits and bytes
- A collection of the very best 404 pages from across the web. Kinda makes you want to build a broken website
- There are blogs, Facebook groups and galleries dedicated to images of incorrectly spelt names on Starbucks cups. This exchange between a customer who reckons it’s just Starbucks’ way to get people to post free ads and @Starbucks is an excellent example how matching your counterpart’s sentiment and tone of voice can often lead to social media win
- Rumour has it that Facebook is building FB@Work – possible competition to Intranets across the corporate Internet that will have in-house IT and Internal Comms teams freaking out over
- Path doesn’t know it’s dead. Awkward.
- Gallup reckons consumers don’t give a crap about what brands say on social media. Brands should listen and interact to make them care – two buzzwords and concepts that have been around forever, but seemingly ignored if this research is to be believed
Videos of the week
Remember the viral über-sensation ‘First Kiss‘ from a few months back? A black and white film for fashion company WREN showing strangers kissing for the first time? It spawned a number of parodies – including, this week, a surprisingly tender and lovely version by Max Landis called ‘The Slap’. Initially a parody, Landis also posted a making of clip where he refers to it as an experiment. The slap as a social interaction. Both worth a watch.
I love this mind-bending video for the track Kodama by 20syl. Minimal electro beeps and bloops that end up in a Dali-esque landscape. Trippy. More on how it was made on Creative Review.
And finally
World Cup players folding their arms because they are cross about things (HT @VictoriaDove).
More from the World Cup
What a bonkers tournament it’s been thus far. Everybody’s agreed to ignore the principles of defending and to score as many goals as possible. Makes for great entertainment, but perhaps not so brilliant for the nerves of some fans. Well, except if you support the Dutch. Ugh.
Twitter’s gone big, with a permanent fixture in the feed directing people to matches currently live and actively promoting tweets with score updates.
The BBC and ITV are also both integrating Twitter into their live broadcasts, asking viewers about tactics and subs. ITV wants viewers to share their #goalface (mind you, since England’s premature exist, opportunities for audience participation has taken a back seat).
Some more World Cup bits that caught my eye:
- Dot Design have pulled together four PR stunts inspired by the tournament – most of which turned out to be rather less brilliant. The list includes Asda’s wearable England Flag, Paddy Power’s Brazilian, and Delta’s ill-advised use of images
- Nike is doing a better job at creating buzz around the World Cup than the official sponsor Adidas
- The New York Times has some nifty interactive elements adding a bit more depth to their World Cup coverage. I particularly liked their ‘spot the ball‘ game, where you’re confronted with images from games where the ball has been shopped out. You need to deduce from player sight lines and positions where the ball could be (here’s round 2, and round 3). Their interactive table on who has the best chances to proceed to the next round is also rather clever
Yo
Yo!
Yo?
Yo.
That’s it. That’s all you can do with a new mobile messaging app called Yo. Yo has taken the the concept of a character limit to the extreme. It not only limits you to just two characters, it also limits you to putting the Y first. Then the o.
Yo.
The app was launched on April Fool’s Day, has 50,000 users and those people have sent each other 4 million Yo’s. The app has secured $1.2 million in funding.
As Colbert asks: “Y?”
The makers of the app talk about context. That the meaning of a Yo is dependent on the environment, the time of day, the sender/recipient. Thank you captain obvious.
Techcrunch goes into a bit more depth on this, talking about digital dualism and that for Yo users (YoYos?), apps like Yo, Snapchat, Whisper and Secret are used in the now, as an extra digital layer atop of their real life.
Only that younger generations don’t discern between the two. For them, the Venn Diagram between digital and real is just a circle. The overlap is complete. Or, as Techcrunch so wonderfully puts it:
The brief popularity of Yo is a signal of a larger trend. Software developers are today tasked with a bigger problem than convenience or accessibility or distribution. The line between our physical lives and the lives we lead in our minds, with our thumbs, on a touchscreen, is rapidly fading. Yo may be just a touch too basic (bitch) to last for the long haul, or perhaps Yo is the beginning of a new era in push notifications. But apps that integrate pieces of our real-world lives are just settling in for a long stay.
Brilliantly, Ad Age was quick to react and asked its readers about their Yo strategy, providing some helpful questions:
If a cultural event of any significance occurs, make sure to send a YO from your brand. You won’t be able to explain why you sent it, but consumers will understand.
Genius.
Since receiving funding, Yo has been hacked by three college students. They were able to access telephone numbers and send messages.
Twitter supports gifs, freaks out
This week, Twitter announced it now supports animated gifs, by posting an animated gif. Simple.
And of course, the Internet was all like
Hootsuite pulled together some of their favourite reactions to the announcement.
Cannes Lions
Difficult to miss the fact that the Oscars of advertising happened this week, with many an ad bod descending upon the French Riviera. My Twitter feed was full of selfies on boats and linkbait posing as insight. Still, some good bits did catch my eye:
- Utility, authenticity, and storytelling win (HT @shingy)
- Earned media and collaboration more important than ever
- Apparently, it is still the year of the mobile (hell of a long year)
Bits and bytes
- Fab post by @jeremywaite about the six key rules set up by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone to build a happy company
- Expect to see this in all future content marketing presentations: the periodic table of content marketing
- Amazon launches a phone that ales you to buy anything you take a photo of. The Internet isn’t impressed
- Facebook takes on Snapchat with it’s own ‘messages will self-destruct after reading’ platform Slingshot. The catch: in order to see what your friend is sending you, you have to send them something in return
- Ikea kicked off a bit of a storm this week when it transpired that they were forcing the wonderful ikeahackers.net to shut down. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and it looks like the site will stay up, perhaps with a new name. What a massive own-goal that would have been!
Videos of the week
French supermarket took a page out of Sainsbury’s playbook and launched their own version of our ‘Love ugly fruit and veg‘ campaign from two years ago called ‘Les fruits et légumes moches’. Great to see other supermarkets share the love.
OK Go have a new single. The single has a video. As is the norm with OK Go, their videos are always spectacular. This effort features a plethora of optical illusions that will leave you brain bamboozled and clicking that replay button. Must watch!
Durex wants footballers to stop faking it.
And finally
@BoringMilner asks @Asda if they have any stores in Brazil as he’s run out of tea bags. Well played Asda, well played (HT @a_little_wine).
Uber massive Black Cab own goal
On Wednesday, @a_little_wine and I were enjoying our lunch in the glorious London sunshine. At least until a long procession of Black Cabs showed up, honking their horns and clogging up Holborn Circus and the surrounding roads. Fellow road users weren’t impressed, a colleague missed their flight because they were stuck in traffic to Heathrow and cyclists were being smug as cyclists always are.
The following conversation echoed throughout the office all day:
What’s going on with all the cabs?
They’re on strike because of Uber.
They’re on strike because they can’t spell the German word for over?
No. Uber. It’s a mobile app that let’s you book cars to get you around London. It’s really very good and it’s actually quite a lot cheaper than taking a Black Cab.
@tomparker81 and @amyvwilson were too happy to tell us more about something that until that day we’d only heard about in passing. We learnt about Uber, that it was cheaper than a cab and that it was very easy to use. I learnt that if I sign up using a code, Amy and I would both get £10 off our next ride. I signed up.
Also, as Rory Sutherland so marvellously puts it in (at 42 mins in this clip), human beings hate uncertainty. Uber takes that uncertainty away because you see the car approaching. You know exactly where and when that Uber car is going to show up. There’s no stress. A few taps and your off.
So Uber has many things going for it.
Now. Cabbies (and many other metered taxi drivers around Europe) aren’t complete idiots. They went on strike because they feel that Transport for London should not allow Uber cars to use a meter (which is essentially what the app does) as this is something only Black Cabs are allowed to do. TFL reckons it is something for the courts to decide upon. Unhappy, they decided to make their case heard.
Rather than help the cabbies, the strike has done the exact opposite:
- it’s generated huge awareness of Uber on all forms of media
- it’s caused a 850% spike in registrations to Uber
- it’s pissed off a lot of motorists and people who spent an afternoon stuck in traffic
- it’s generated more smug cyclists. This is never a good thing
I’m not saying that Cabbies don’t have a point. Rules and regulations for metered cabs should be fair. But as we’ve seen with Polaroid, HMV, Blockbuster, etc – if you ignore the way the customer is going, you’re going to have a bad time.
Google Glass discrimination
The Daily Show reports on the horrible discrimination Google Glass wearers – or Explorers as they prefer to be called – face every day. Harrowing.
The Flying Dutchman
The Internet loves an image based meme. And last night, after van Persie equalised for the Dutch with a glorious diving, looping, deliciously weighted header after a magnificent cross from Blind, the Internet had found new material.
Within hours, the ‘shopped images of RVP began appearing in all kinds of marvellous scenes:
@KICKTV flying dutchman http://t.co/kxhuaqSXg6—
christian (@christivn_) June 13, 2014
Reuters’ Digital News Report
Reuters’ annual Digital News Report reveals new insights about digital news consumption based on a survey of over 18,000 online news consumers in the UK, US, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, Denmark and Finland.
You can find the full report here, for a TL;DR summary, I give you some bullets:
- Even though not technically new, mobile its seen as the second disruptive digital revolution creating new links between the audience and news outlets
- People don’t and don’t want to pay for news but more news outlets are moving to subscription models
- Although Facebook and Twitter are still the platforms of choice for discovering, sharing and commenting on news events, there are new players entering the game. Also: WhatsApp is a surprising big player in some countries – in India for example it was used to great effect to drive people the polls in the last election
- Journalists themselves are turning into brands and just (if not more) trusted than the media outlet they work for
Bits and bytes
- The biggest development in journalism has finally happened: Man bites dog
- I hesitate to link to anything that bills itself as the ultimate guide to anything, but this guide to mobile social media by Buffer is not only good but also full of practical advice. Kudos!
- No. A computer did not just beat the Turing Test. We have a bit of time yet until we battle Skynet
- Scoopshot – the app that let’s you take on photography assignments from The Metro, Evening Standard or the Press Association and sell your work. Even brands such as Finnair are asking passengers to share photos from their flight
Videos of the week
VW in China worked with Ogilvy to create an ad that showed just how dangerous texting and driving can be. Cinema goers were shown the ad as part of the usual build up of commercials and trailers: a monotonous scene shot from the driver’s perspective of cruising down a country lane, counting on them being bored by the clip. What happens next is very effective – if a bit dramatic.
You’ll have seen this during the first few World Cup games, Nike’s ‘Incredibles’ style animated film about a group of heroic footballers (and Rooney) playing the game of their lives against a team of perfect but predictable footballbots.
Why animate? Well, despite all the playacting on the pitch to get the other guy booked, footballers are actually terrible actors (with the obvious exceptions of Vinnie Jones and Eric Cantona), but also because footballers don’t nearly have enough of a sense of humour to actually agree to take part in this splendid little film.
Remember the Old Spice Guy? Of course you do. Turns out he actually was on a horse.
And finally
John Oliver explains Net Neutrality…
Veteran Daily Show and Senior Britishness Correspondent John Oliver has made a name for himself in the US during his time on Jon Stewart’s (more or less) daily comedy news show.
Oliver recently landed his own weekly show on HBO called ‘Last Week Tonight‘, essentially The Daily Show, but longer and without studio guests.
In a recent episode, Oliver produced the best summary of Net Neutrality I have seen. Period. From how and why it came about, to what it actually means, how ridiculous and wrong it is and – here’s where it get’s interesting – to what people can actually do to stop cable companies and ISPs from ‘fixing a system that isn’t broken’.
Utterly brilliant and this week’s must watch clip:
Not only is Oliver’s summary bang on, but his call to action to “Internet commenters, monsters and trolls” is likely to have been the cause of the FCC’s website going down, as he directs viewers to unleash their vitriol on the FCC which is accepting feedback on the proposed changes until July 15 (or, as it’s called in FCC Doublespeak: Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet).
… or why I get my news from satirical news media
It is bizarre when a comedy news show such as Last Week Tonight does a better job of explaining what’s going on in the world that ‘traditional’ media.
In fact, a study found that another Daily Show alumni, Stephen Colbert, did a better job of teaching viewers about the role of money in US politics on his satirical news show than the actual news. The University of Pennsylvania found that viewers of ‘The Colbert Report’ were more informed about campaign financing than viewers of CNN, MSNBC and FOX News (OK, no surprise at the last one).
Now, I tried finding a clip of Colbert apologising to his viewers about actually informing them about the news. What I found instead is a clip of Hapless CNN Anchor and Marginally Less Hapless Media Pundit ‘analysing’ how Colbert does a better job of what CNN and news outlets should be doing.
My favourite part is when Hapless CNN Anchor says: “[Colbert] has this certain je ne said quoi, if you will, right, but, but, but, they dedicate, like, chunks of time on that show to something such as [campaign financing] and he pulls it off!”
Later in that same clip, Hapless CNN Anchor goes on to concede, that of course a 24 hour news channel like CNN is at a disadvantage, because Colbert has an audience that keeps coming back and a room full of writers who helps him write the jokes!
The mind boggles not only at how oblivious Hapless CNN Anchor is to the words that are coming out of her mouth, that this actually aired on CNN, but that the clip below is hosted on CNN’s YouTube channel!
The CIA goes social
The @CIA joined Twitter and Facebook this week. Looking past the fact that they’ve had a presence on Flickr and Youtube for a while and, let’s face it, have been following all of us for longer than that, it seems they’ve definitely learnt a thing or two about the appropriate tone of voice on social, especially Twitter.
According to the CIA’s website, their new accounts will be used to share “the latest CIA updates, #tbt (Throwback Thursday) photos, reflections on intelligence history, and fun facts from the CIA World Factbook“.
Let’s have a look then, shall we?
It’s generated well over 250k retweets an a wave of public support and praise for an organisation that in recent time has had its fair share of cock-ups.
Despite the brilliance of poking fun at the Glomar Response and thereby harking back to (arguably) the golden days of spying during the Cold War, I really was very surprised at the almost exclusively positive reaction to the tweet.
Well, except for WikiLeaks.
And Gawker – their reaction is perhaps more eloquently put, by Vice.
I find the reaction, especially to the Tweet, immensely disconcerting. Almost as if that cheeky message somehow absolves the CIA from all the other controversies surrounding the Agency. Just have a look at their Twitter bio:
Far less cuddly and cute now. We get shit done. That sure gives their first Tweet a slightly more sinister edge.
Over on the CIA’s Facebook, the reaction to Big Brother getting on board has been a little more tempered – both in terms of numbers but also fan-girling. This will be due in part to the nature of Facebook being more of a closed network but also down to the more serious tone in their first posts about the anniversary of D-Day.
Still, the reaction on Facebook is much more in line with the cynical tone that I’ have expected on Twitter:
Still, spy-hats off to the spooks for a genius PR move – I’m looking forward to more unclassified content and a peek under that trench coat.
Sainsbury’s Food Rescue
We waste 4.2 million tonnes of food and drink each year in the UK. That translates as a loss of £60 per month for the average family.
Searches for recipes using leftovers have surged by 1/3 compared to last year, with 2/3 of those searches made via mobile devices.
This is why Sainsbury’s and Google have launched Sainsbury’s Food Rescue. The tool gives people practical help and inspiration on using up ingredients that can often lay forgotten at the back of the fridge or cupboard.
Food Rescue will also provide some insight into what food the UK saves and how that differs across the country:
- the most rescued ingredient is a potato
- 176 Feed Rescue recipes have been made since launch
- £1.30 aAverage saving per recipe
Bits and bytes
- Whole Foods uses an internal photo sharing community where staff shares images from stores to glean insight into which displays work well without giving away a competitive advantage
- Google now treats brand mentions as links. They’re not like ‘express links, things you can click that will take you some place else, but rather ‘implied links’. Which means that every brand mention is now a link to your website. Or, more succinctly as this marvellous info graphic from MC Saatchi puts it: PR = SEO
- Twitter is in trouble: losing users, inactive accounts, too much noise. It has lost more than half its market value, a staggering USD18 billion, since late December. Here’s how Twitter can avoid becoming irrelevant
- Bit of ad-porn? Cannes Lions 2014 top 100 contenders, compiled by Per Pedersen, Deputy Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at Grey
Videos of the week
Mexican retailer Coppel teams up with world freestyle champion @seanfreestyle to play a little prank on some unsuspecting kids.
On the slightly less skilled front, we have Zidane, Bale and Moura smashing up Beckham’s house while looking street in their Adidas gear.
And then there’s this fantastically bizarre clip by Polish window maker Drutex featuring Philipp Lahm, Andrea Pirlo and Jakub Blaszczykowski showing students who’s best at keepy uppy only to then find out that great footballers not only have great skills in common, but also great windows. Windows for champions. Seriously. That’s the actual slogan (at least in the German translation).
Bits and Bytes 