Lord Alan Sugar in Cassetteboy V The Apprentice

Have long admired Cassetteboy's re-working of audio stuff, but am indebted to @mazi for tweeting this yesterday. Total NSFW genius.

Gratuitious self-promotion on Sky News

Did my regular stint on Sky News' skynews.com programme last night. I tweeted straight after that it has certainly improved with age - some great perspectives from bloggers on Obama's speech in the Middle East preceeded my brief stint...

Sponsored Hashtags #trustFAIL

So Landrover's US campaign has recruited an army of twitterers willing to insert a hashtag (#LRNY) to promote their 2010 cars.

Nothing strange about that. People who want to help other people find conversations regularly use hashtags on Twitter. Just take a look at the Telegraph and the fun they've had with #budget over the last couple of days. PR people and social media types have been using hashtags for ages. (All of sudden an ATL agency uses them, and it makes news. Hmmm)

No - the big difference with this is that it's the first time that a major brand has used a hashtag in above the line ads, and more importantly, according to Mashable, Land Rover PAID twitterers to use their hashtag. They are quite literally buying buzz.

Am I the only one who has a problem with that?

I know that I could simply unfollow people if I knew what they were doing - but paying people to use hashtags just seems slightly insidious. The Magpie model I can cope with - though I don't like it. (And to be fair, I haven't seen the Twittad one in practice, but I'm not sure I like the sound of it)

Maybe I'm naive and old-fashioned, but I think that any commercial company must have a totally clear and transparent relationship with it's audience. And that's why, for me, mixing paid for and non-paid for uses of the same hashtag is a very basic #trustFAIL.

[post-script - I wonder if Mashable has got some of it's facts wrong? Twittad's blog tells things from their side of the story. There weren't many paid tweets. And there was full disclosure that the tweets were from Twittad. Which makes things a bit better I guess - though I still don't like it. But my problem is not how reputable brands might use reputable and transparent techniques to drive traffic, it's the fact that other less-reputable agencies get in there and don't disclose that they paid for some hashtags. Which could totally undermine the medium]

Inhaling gin is a social object - discuss

Douglas Adams understood the many theraputic (and quintessentially English) benefits of a good Gin and Tonic. But his mantle has now passed to Bompass & Parr, previously best known for their fantastic jellymongers work.



I first came acros Bompass & Parr via my mate Nik Ramage, who (as far as I know has made the world's first, and best) jelly-wobbling machine. The jelly community is strong...



Anyway, I was lucky enough to be invited along to Bompass & Parr's Alcoholic Architecture installation on Friday night. And very entertaining it was too. The long and the short of it is that they've totally infused a basement room just off Carnaby St with Hendricks gin and tonic. After donning a protective suit (to keep your clothes gin-free) you're ushered into a room which is heavy with a sweet and sticky gin mist. And you simply breathe. Deeply.

It reminded me a slightly alcoholic version of Gormley's Blind Light installation. You can see about 6ft in front of your nose - occasionally making out the giant lime in the corner. Or the 6-foot decorative straw. Everyone's wearing head-to-toe white boiler suits. And everyone's asking everyone else if they feel a bit pissed yet.

Great fun. Hats off to Bompas & Parr for some fine entertainment.

More reviews on The Londonist and Around Britain with a Paunch, and some great pics on Flickr taken by Qype/Chris Osborn.

Spinvox Rocks

I've been using Spinvox on my iPhone for a few months now, and thought it worth a quick post. I'd always ignored Spinvox when it was shipped on my old Nokia's (on 3). Not quite sure why - but I've since learned how useful it is, after testing it prompted (in part at least) by this post from Mr Whatley.

(Pic by Imeldanz on Flickr)

It's a brilliantly simple tool: instead of you having to listen to a voicemail, Spinvox converts that voicemail to text, and then (err) texts it to you... It's a total godsend if you're in an important meeting and you're not sure whether the call coming in is more or less important than that meeting. A quick glance at the screen once it arrives answers that question. Nice.

Various friends and family have tried to trick the technology, and only barely succeeded. I'm now a fan - a bit like Sky+. Before you use it you don't know how useful it is. After you use it, you don't want to go back to your old ways.

Charity begins online

Have been thinking a fair bit about the way that campaigning organisations and charities are using social media effectively recently. And some are using it very effectively indeed.

In no particular order, before I pick out some of the common themes

1. Amnesty UK. They've been active on social media for a long time (I've included one or two of their films here which I've picked up via Twitter). But the way they ran the 1 in 10 campaign for International Womens Day was textbook. Really good. And my mate Steve works there/writes for their blogs. Result
2. Comic Relief - Other campaigns have persuaded Twitter users to change their avatars for the day, but no-one has managed it as well as them imho. They gave people the tools to do it easily (with help from James Governor), and pay a little bit for the privilege. I have a sneaky suspicion that @amanda might have been involved - one of the leading lights of ...
3. Twestival - Enough said. A lot of good people had a really good time, and raised a fair whack for charity:water (the first Charity: water well will be dug next week)
4. The gift of life - a campaign by Holly Shaw to get as many people as possible to sign up to be organ donors yesterday. It resonated with a lot of people on Twitter, until, by the end of the Day Gordon Brown got in on the act and backed the campaign, perhaps conscious of his wife's growing involvement in online campaigning. Talking of which...
5. Sarah Brown - This morning she had 50 odd followers on Twitter. Now she's got 650 odd. She's following a lot of UK charities on there, and her bio is "signing up a million mums". Watch this space - she's going to use it very well...
6. Earth Hour - although I'm a bit dubious about the real-world effects of this WWF campaign, the fact they got massive brands and buildings to participate, made it extremely accessible across all social media and generated significant media coverage says something....
   
7. Yes yes yes to safe sex - campaign by MTV and The Body Shop to raise money for the Staying Alive Foundation (MTV's AIDS charity) by selling a limited edition Lip Butter. The reason this one gets included is because the campaign has energised the social media community, by encouraging active bloggers (mostly more active than me, it has to be said) to compile on-topic Spotify Playlists. A shrewd move. Everyone likes to check out their peers musical tastes. (Mine is on the yesyesyes blog here)

So what are the secrets of good online "Issues" campaigns?

Make participation easy, fun, worthwhile, and incredibly shareable (especially via Twitter).

Of course there are then all sorts of questions about how "engaged" people actually are in online campaigns when it's now so easy to (be seen to) participate - but if a campaign's objectives are to "raise awareness" (i.e. be talked about) then ticking these four boxes will undoubtedly help.

If I've missed any other amazing examples or obvious secrets, I'm all ears...

With power comes responsibility

Been slower to blog recently, but I have been saving up a theme.

1) PR Week threw a large twitter cat amongst some twitchy PR pigeons 10 days ago. Much has been written since. I've never been a fan of these sorts of rankings, but seeing as I let off my steam about the perils of carrying out "influence" research on a self-selecting data-set back in November I stayed quiet this time (except when talking to a couple of people directly involved at the Shoreditch Twit), though my feelings haven't changed since.

2) New Media Age have started a campaign to encourage the digital media industry to self-regulate. A great campaign (around behavioural targeting) , and one which (maybe because of my experience at the Advertising Standards Authority?) I'd totally endorse.

3) Skittles.com went everywhere and did a Modernista. Some people gamed it by seeing if swear words would appear on the Skittles.com site. (They did). Others pointed out that the very people at the cutting edge of the industry who spend their day jobs encouraging clients to "be brave" and commit to un-moderated social media seemed to be the very ones giving detractors the excuses to not invest in it. (They're right).

4) Twitter went a bit bonkers tonight as people shared this link around. A very real url from the Daily Telegraph.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/4961897/Gordon-Brown-is-a-cunt.html

It currently takes you here, but whether it will tomorrow morning I don't know...


[update - it transpires that anything you put after the number will take you to the same article - this is not quite as bad as it first seems. And apparently the Indy has the same set-up. Though I still wonder if/when it might get fixed]

5) A teenager got sacked for writing on her Facebook profile that her job was boring.

6) Someone (sorry, can't remember who) forwarded me this link on. It's ace.


...With power comes responsibility.

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• Authority and attention in the UK PR network (rainierpr.co.uk)

Social Media Influence Conference 09

For the last two years I've attended the Social Media Influence conference. This year I was lucky enough to be on the platform with Neville Hobson, Hubert Grealish and Kris Hoet in a session about PR and Twitter, hosted by Robert Andrews - managing reputations in an era of 140 characters.

I'm not going to go into the whole thing here - it's been pretty well blogged and tweeted, and today's Business Week gives it a pretty good write up

Good to see/meet some familiar and new faces, including Antony Mayfield, Michelle Goodall, Mazi, George Hopkin, Bash, and Kerryatdell.

10 points again to Matthew and Bernhard for sorting it out.

Seth Godin - London Tribes

Seth Godin is an inspring thinker who practices what he preaches. Today's London talk was a sell-out. It was also entertaining, inspiring and (dare I say it) extremely re-assuring too.

Around a number of central premises (covered off in Tribes and elsewhere):

• Ideas that spread, win.
• Marketers should live a bit more dangerously - it's at the edges that marketers win
• We should be in the business of helping people spread stories about their brands

He offered a series of entertaining examples of brands which get it - illustrated by images that don't.

I know I come from a PR background, but a lot of it was music to my ears. He said that Method's soap is the same as others. It's THE STORY that people pay for. (very reminiscent of working with clients to get their narrative down on paper before any major launch)

He also said, "People like people who like what they like". Obvious but true - and one of the most succinct arguments I've heard for making more content (online and off) social.

One big soundbite which is still resonating:

TV/Radio/Magazines depend on advertising
The internet doesn't

All totally laudable. And extremely noddable-alongable-to. I left the talk enthused. Particularly about the way that the boundaries between "traditional" marketing services industries are disappearing.

It's now all about the story you tell, and the story that your audiences can pass on. One which people like me, with a PR background should hopefully be well placed to deliver...

I'm sure I'm not alone.

Sony V Apple - Let the Onion decide

The Onion's NSFW Sony rip-off has been doing the rounds on Twitter/email the last couple of days. It's extremely funny and worth a watch if you haven't seen it yet.


Sony releases new stupid piece of shit that doesn't fucking work

It posed an interesting question round our office - if you were offering PR advice to Sony, what would it be? A cease and desist letter? Let it wash over? Or try and laugh it off?

Either way I'd rather have been Apple's PR, after they got Onioned, last year.

Apple introduces revolutionary new laptop with no keyboard

Tony Hart RIP

Inspiration for a generation.

And the music for the Gallery was ace too.

RKCR's BBC6 campaign and Blu's MUTO - spot the difference

Just seen the BBC6 trail, put together by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R. It's very good. A-Punk by Vampire Weekend works really well. But it's also extremely similar to one of my favourite Blu animations. I mean EXTREMELY.

I've blogged about it Blu's genius film in August here, and blogged about advertising agencies paying "homage" to artists/academics several times before (Sony, WCRS). Is this yet another example of an ad agency's idea being uncannily similar to someone else's? I think it might be...


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.



So I have a question or two for Damon Collins, executive creative director at RKCR [warning - Flash only site], who was quoted in the Guardian about it, saying "Such a cutting edge and fresh digital radio station requires something appropriately innovative to promote it, and we hope we've done that," said Damon Collins, executive creative director at RKCR [my itals]

1) Did you run the creative idea by Blu before pitching it?
2) Did you pay him for the creative concept?
3) Did you tell the BBC that the idea behind it was his?
4) Or did you genuinely not know of Blu's work before, or
5) Think that your creative was so different from his that you didn't need to acknowledge it in any way?

And questions for everyone else. What do you think? Homage, or copy?

(and hat tip too to Gerel who's written a v similar post)

Puma 1, other sports brands nil

We could all learn from Puma.

All over the UK papers today/yesterday is the story of Joseph Pritchard, born with just two fingers and a thumb on each hand. His ambition is to be a premier league goalie, but given his disability, normal goalie gloves kept slipping off.

His parents (according to the Sun) "contacted several sports brands for help and were thrilled when Puma got in touch".

Puma then made up four pairs of the gloves, with his name on, and got them to him for Christmas.



Why is this so special, apart from the obvious?

1) Someone with the foresight in Puma listened to the request rather than sending a standard "sorry we can't help you response" and recognised that this was just a good helpful thing to do. Their processes for dealing with requests like this let them pull this one out and act upon it. More companies should behave like this.

2) It's just going to make everyone who hears about the brand feel better about it

3) It shows that PR is not just sending press releases. Word of Mouth doesn't just happen online. How a brand acts is far more powerful than whatever a brand says or sponsors. Fact. But it takes a certain amount of self-belief to do it.

4) I'd be surprised if Puma punted out a release on this themselves. I reckon the story bubbled up through local media - but could be wrong. Certainly that's what I hope happened. Does anyone know?

5) In one act it's transformed Puma's reputation. Nike might spend millions on CSR projects, but they're still remembered for all the pre-No Logo backlash of young kids sewing footballs together for a pittance in the developing world. Compare that reputation to Puma's this morning - making four pairs of bespoke gloves for an 8 year old boy to follow his goalkeeping passion.

Virgin's 25 year anniversary ad - still red hot

This is the first 80s throwback ad which I think works very well, even down to the retro styling of the ad direction. Brings back a lot of memories. Top marks all round.

But why can't I find a decent quality version on YouTube from Virgin themselves? Why only have it on Virgin's microsite with no share/send buttons? You can't even watch it on Facebook... Considering Mr Branson's dalliances with Twitter and social media this seems like a real faux pas, no? Or does Virgin not want to have it discussed/forwarded on? In which case, why have a dedicated microsite, and a pretty effective PR operation to support it, but no obvious campaign to generate online talkability/distribution of the ad. Curious. I'd have loved to have the brief to generate coverage for the ad and the red hot campaign...

Anyway, excuse the quality. But do admire it at the same time.

Memes maketh the man (2) - What made me go into PR?

Another meme, this one from Adam Lewis of Flawless Buzz fame.

He's asked five of us

1. Ben Matthews
2. Tom Malcolm
3. Jedster Hallam
4. Chris Reed
5. Richard Bailey

to answer three questions about the world of PR... So here goes

1. What is the one piece of advice you would give to someone entering the world of PR?

Consume all of the media you want to influence and get to know journalists' likes and dislikes as soon as possible. The single worst mistake anyone can ever make in PR is to not know enough about the individual you're pitching to, what they've written/broadcast before, and how they like to be approached. And with the advent of google and social media (especially Twitter) it's actually much easier now to research these things than ever before.

Totally understand the topic/area/product/sector you're going to represent. You're only useful if you know more than the person you're talking to, or can help them quicker and better than Google can. You have to earn their respect and trust by being authorative, accurate and helpful. And don't miss their deadline.

Actually - if it was just one thing, I'd say it's be transparent at all times. Never lie.

2. The favourite part of your job?

The variety. I've always been interested in marketing communications, advertising, DM etc - but with PR you can combine the best bits of all of those disciplines. The best PRs are account handlers, creatives, strategists, planners, project managers and evaluation experts all wrapped up in one person, or one tight team.

3. Why did you decide to go into PR?

I'd thought about law, but felt I could not represent people who were so obviously not telling the truth. I thought about journalism, but after seeing some death-knock tabloid hacks in action decided I wouldn't get a kick out of it... In my last year at Uni (1992) I was running an environmental/recycling campaign. I wrote and sold in a press release about it which got me interviewed on the local BBC station. I liked the idea of giving journalists a story they wanted but with my agenda. The rest is...

Next up for this one (partly because I'm curious) is Daljit, Becky, and Stephen Davies. Consider the meme batton passed on, if you fancy it. And while I'm at it, Alex or one the PR and Comms Network bloggers.

Do slow memes maketh the man?

I've been tagged twice in memeworld (once ages ago) so thought both worthy of a reply. Belatedly, mind. I've been quiet on the rss reading/bloggy/tweety front recently. Christmas with two young kids. My three year old got a new bike and learned to ride straight away. Total highlight.

Anyway, the entertaining Melanie Seasons tagged me and Iain Tait (I'm a big Crackunit fan) in the "What inspires you to blog?" meme, which as so far attracted some of the old guard like Drew Benvie and Ged Carroll, as well as Jaz Cummins, Jonny Rosemount, Lewis Webb, Wadds and no doubt lots of others who did theirs way back when.

So here goes.

1) It's when interesting thoughts and time to write about them collide. Generally late at night, with one eye on the laptop and one eye on the TV. Especially true after I've tagged things in Delicious during the day/week before and there's not that much on the box

2) If I see something I want to share - which requires a bit more commentary than 140 chars. Often this is something I really like. Sometimes it's something I can't stand

3) When something in the world is just plain wrong - according to my own ginger world view

4) When I think I can add something useful to a conversation (Chris Applegate's recent post on Andy Burnham's proposal to age-restrict certain sites was so spot on I simply didn't want to re-write it after he'd done it justice already)

5) After I've met, listened to or talked to someone interesting

6) When I want to pimp great stuff any of my mates are doing/have done

By way of pedigree... my first blog was a travel blog in 2000 (The only page left on the Way Back When machine is in 2001). Since then I didn't pick it up again until this one. But I also have a little music blog which I'm not quite sure what to do with. And I set up Twitterfund.com after what I thought was a great idea (but unfortunately just before Twitter got $17M in VC funding). I'm not good at generating linkbait. But I do like to learn new stuff, share stuff and be helpful... Which is, I guess, why I got back into blogging - to participate in conversations.

And given that this is all about a conversation - albeit one with a massive gap between sentences, I tag Robin Wilson, and James Gordon-Macintosh to continue (or rather revive) things.

Two more great cards

Some very creative Christmas cards doing the rounds. Mucho respecto to Daljit and the Diffusion chaps...



...and Wadds at Rainier. Very nice.

Christmas time, mistletoe and wine

Two of the finest digital Christmas Cards I've ever seen - AKQA's microwaves (slightly reminiscent of some of Ze Frank's early stuff.


And this interactive Christmas card gem (admittedly, from last year I think) from Pill and Pillow

More Sky action

London Bloggers Meetup - an online wine tasting

I've only been to two London Bloggers' meet-ups, but I'm hooked. Organised by Andy Bargery, they're a great informal mix of chat, booze, interesting people, and...in last night's case, wine. Plenty of wine.

Rob Macintosh of Wine Conversation set up a table in the corner of the room, and invited London's bloggers to sample a selection of 9 wines (if you include Port and Sherry), all of which have blogs devoted to their production.

• Vivanco Viura/Malvasia 2007, Bodegas Dinastia Vivanco - courtesy of thirstforrioja.co.uk
• Riesling Kabinett Trocken 2007, Weingut Clauer (and if you are really nice to me, a taste of Riesling Auslese 2003, Weingut Clauer) - courtesy of winzerblog.de
• Higueruela 2007, from Sta. Quiteria - courtesy of tintoralba.com
• Dinastia Vivanco Crianza 2004, Bodegas Dinastia Vivanco - courtesy of thirstforrioja.co.uk
• Bellamarsilia 2007, Poggio Argentiera - courtesy of poggioargentiera.com
• CVP 2007, La Casa de las Vides - courtesy of casavides.com
• Syrah 2004, Cortes de Cima - courtesy of cortesdecima.com
• Antique Oloroso Sherry from Fernando de Castilla - courtesy of jerez-xerez-sherry.blogspot.com (who also writes about sherry here)
• Special Reserve Tawny Port, Quevedo Port - courtesy of Quevedoportwine.com

(pic by Peter Marshall)

Do vineyards make good bloggers? I'm not sure yet. But the idea of using blogs to add a bit of personality to wines has got to be a good thing. I will regualrly default to buying wine from a vineyard I've been to (both of them) if I see it for sale. And I guess a blog is one way to keep your vineyard's visitors updated wth news, should they want it.

And no doubt about it, Rob Macintosh is passionate and authoritative about wine. My favourite (which as luck would have it I seem to have won a bottle of), is the CVP. Looking forward to pulling the cork on it this weekend...