Digital Stuffing

Spot the Bull with Orange (image from Poke)

Orange are again doing their Spot the Bull competition, giving away tickets to Glastonbury if you can predict where a bull will be in a field at a certain time of day. I played this last year and it was good fun; it got launched yesterday, starting off with an email, I’m guessing to all of last year’s participants. Later on, I got a lot more information about the competition from Poke.

• They’re using a new bull this year, called Desmond, a 5 year-old Charolais Apparently last year’s bull was a little quiet, they’re hoping for more action this year.
• In another change, they’ve adjusted the tech they’re using. Instead of a complicated set up using GPS and satellites to follow the bull action, they’ve got people in the ground, posting the position every 5 minutes and getting great pictures using a mini-dv camera. In a further extension, they’re also tweeting throughout at spotthebull
• They’ve gone mobile this year; go to the same URL on your phone’s web browser and get a sweet mobile version of the site. You can play direct from your phone or SMS your chosen square. There’s also a html version
• Return visits are encouraged. Statistical information is being built up around where the bull will be over the day, plus the tweets will let you know what Desmond’s favourite places are. You can start to predict the bull’s behaviour. Another tip is to play at weekends, which were quieter last year so you have a higher chance.
• There’s an embeddable widget, which brings all the bull action to your blog or profile.

What I think

It’s a successful mechanic for a competition, that obviously worked well last year, enough for them to bring it back. What I’m most impressed about is how ‘solid’ the campaign is, with all the elements connected. There’s a html version, a very nice mobile version, a chance to connect with SMS, the sharable elements. They’ve connected all the dots from a digital perspective. My biggest issue is with the flash version, which is heavy, takes a while to load and slows down the browser. It’s very, very good, but just a little too much of it. All in all, I love this campaign/

As a blogger, they connected with me well, a polite first enquiry about writing about it, then a whole load of imformation that is just lovely. It was done by the Poke team, so thanks to Dylan for the info.

Armano Tweet

David Amarno just tweeted this:

people heading up social media initiatives with almost zero online footprint is the new jumbo shrimp

I think I’m missing a cultural reference when it comes to the jumbo shrimp, but I’m guessing he’s referring to people getting involved with social media activities despite never actually using the tools. It was something I found when looking for a job, a large number of people in the ‘digital’ space with absolutely no online presence at all (that could be found).

The question is, does an ‘expert’ or at least someone heading up a social media initiaitive have to practice what they preach. When you’re employing someone in any area, do you look for third party evidence they actually know what they are talking about or do you just take them at face value, that they can talk about the subject but they don’t have to demonstrate it in action. Most job interviews are just that – a good conversation.

With social media, any such external evidence is obvious, you should be able to find the person’s activity across a number of networks. If there’s nothing there, questions could be asked about their ability to work in that space. However, it could be possible they have only ever worked in the space for employees or clients, their whole presence is in someone else’s name and never their own.

There’s also a personal choice for how you are using the tools. I’m present in many a social media place, but I don’t necessarily use the tools in the same way I’d advise a client. I don’t necessarily want to push my personal brand, but that does not mean I can’t advise on how to do so. Others may be active but use different personas that may not connect back to any professional profille

Getting back to Armano’s statement, I absolutely believe that someone working on social media needs to be active in the space, but it’s not always going to be easy for an external view to understand how and where they are active.

I have no idea what to make of this ad from Air New Zealand except to say it makes me laugh. I’m guessing it makes lots of others laugh as well. I’m not sure what you would do if the staff actually did turn up in nothing but body paint.

That’s the only one in the weekly charts, but coming on strong today is this one for Captain Morgan, a lovely little chat up line; it does not appear to be an official upload, but it’s still pulling in the views. Right on brand message.

I like poetry, or at least some poetry. I prefer short stuff, nothing too difficult; I dip in and out of the various anthologies I have, working through my favourites. At the moment, I’m loving the promos the BBC are running for their Poetry season. They continue the tradition of bring poetry to all, mainstream focused and just good fun. As well as the TV proms, they’ve also put together some specific web one.

First, we have Jerusalem by William Blake, turned into the strange quotes from a footballer. Although I’m not sure you’d have all these people watching a press conference, the strangeness definitely fits.

We’ve also got The King Blues, quoting Byron, a moment of stillness and contemplation in the midst of a rock gig. (you can also find the video on their MySpace)

As well as the two above, the BBC YouTube channel has a whole bunch of interviews with various celebrities, talking about how poetry has influenced them.

On the BBC site, you can vote for your favourite poet (my vote went to Yeats), find out about the many programmes they are doing on the subject or the live events. According to the email I received, there’s also supposed to be a widget I can embed, but that seems to have failed to arrive at the moment.

What I think

The email pitch was nicely done, polite, all the information required, from someone I’d previously met. Definitely not a mass emailing there. The videos are lovely, then again it’s the BBC, so you’d expect that.

The site itself acts as a hub to all the other content that is being offered, an information hub. At the moment, the only interactivity is the voting. I’ll take a look at the promised widget when it arrives. A solid site, nothing spectacular, but supporting the season well.

There’s only one video in the rankings this week It’s all a bit quiet amongst the Eurovision, SNL and Enimem stuff. I bring you the making of the Samsung HD8910. Glad to see I got it right.

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Campaign has a piece in the dead-tree edition today, about the latest T-Mobile ad, about how agencies can follow a successful execution.

It says about the singalong event in Traflagar Square “lacks something of the spontaneous feel of its predecessor, probably because of the organised nature of the event”.

Personally, I think something of the opposite. The dance video was highly organised, highly choreographed. They knew exactly what the the performers would do, it was just the spectators who were an unknown. In this, part from the idea, everything was an unknown. You could predict what could happen, but you had no idea the numbers, or whether they would join in. Imagine if it had been a damp squid and about 3 people had turned up.

From the spectator point of view, it was far more spontaneous, a real flash mob, a surprise event. I’m guessing many people felt far closer to the brand than with the dance.

I do agree that from an outside, see it on the telly or the digital billboard it does not work as well, it is not as exciting, but it was far more in the moment than the dance.

Update: they appear to have put back the launch for ‘commercial reasons’:

Regrettably we have made the decision to postpone the launch of Quest.
Due to a number of commercial factors we have had to make this difficult decision.
We did not make this decision lightly and we are working towards launching Quest in the near future.

I went along to a small launch party for Quest TV, a new station, part of the Discovery channel/group, that launches in the UK today. (channel 47 if you’re interested). I had a great chat with Claire, their PR director, about the differences in the UK market and why they are launching a free channel instead of their normal model of paid for content.

They also seem to be creating for the web in parallel with the TV production, trying to think about making content that works across the media. As they make their own content, they have the scope to be able to do this. Including something like this video, where they appear to have arranged a cultural exchange with Canada to promote their new series of Heli Loggers

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When you get to an advertising or marketing website, what makes you wonder what the creators were thinking about when they sign it off, what things make you dislike the brand? Here’s my list, supplemented by a quick poll around the office.

• Useless Splash pages. I’ve gone to a site and all I get is a useless splash page (usually in flash, so it’s dynamic and moving, supposed to show something about the company). Why takes me to something that adds nothing to the experience, just makes me think you’re not interested in me getting to your content.
• Flash sites where there is nothing but one big flash file, with no section URLS. I can’t share this easily, even if I love it, epsecially if I only love one section. I’m not going to make my contacts work their way through multiple layers. I know I’ve delivered things like this occasionally, usually due to issues with the content management systems that won’t let me do anything else. But if you have free rein on hosting, then why make it complicated.
• Information-led sites that are just flash. Why bury stuff? Flash has its place, for video, for interactive experiences. If all you are doing is showing some case studies, some text-driven information or anything that really does not require ‘action’ then stick to HTML. Or at least fix the flash so I can copy and paste relevant information.
• Dodgy roll-over menus. Menus that are multi-leveled, that expand on rollover and all it takes is the smallest amount of movement to make it disappear. Make them a bit more fixed.
• Not providing adequate About or Help information but taking your straight to a ‘forum’. Twitter does this; Audioboo just has a how to video. Forums are difficult to naviage, videos take too much time. I tend to see this more with tech companies. Forums are great for a lot of stuff, but when it’s used to replace basic documentation, making me search through multiple forum threads for an answer, then it’s just annoying. The same with videos. You have to assume I have little time and no headphones.
• Sites that break the internet when they get taken down. If it’s only a tactical site, then let the URL degrade gracefully but redirecting to your main site.
• Teeny, tiny content windows. There’s a whole page and the information is stuck in a little section with a scroll bar in the middle of the page. Use the space!
• Sites that don’t have a mobile version. Again, degrade gacefully. If I have to have flash, put in the html version that lets me know what I need. Don’t just leave it blank.
• Resizing my browser. I’ve got my screens set up as I need them to be, small, medium or large. Respect my choices. Just because ‘your’ design needs a different size, doesn’t mean that the other 40 tabs I have open work in the same way.
• Autoplay – of anything. Sound, video, etc. When I have 40+ tabs open and I’m just opening more qucikly, don’t make me hunt for sound playing.
• Links in text that aren’t links but are rollover ads. They’re being disingenuous and leave you feeling hard done by, not a good feeling about the brand – either of them.
• Online advertising that is invasive; that wobbles, that has a tiny close button, that is far too bright and flashy and move your attention away from what you are looking at.
• Sites that deliver you content on IP address not on the TLD you typed in. I work with a fair few non-English people. They want to see content in their only language when going to the country site, not be forced to see the UK version.

One final one..from the Creative Director. He hates Creative Clichés (but they’re only clichés if you don’t do them well) and hates any cool site that does something that he wishes he had done. Don’t we all!