Geekvertising

Advertising agencies on Facebook

2010-07-10T05:56:00.000-07:00

So ad agencies always witter on about Facebook, but it's amazing how few have a Facebook presence. Especially ones in the UK. Come on, Brits.

For a big network, Ogilvy's Facebook page is pretty impressive with over 12,000 likes. It's themed around 'create or else' - they've got a twitter account too, called 'sell or else'. And YouTube channel. And a reason to go there. Thumbs up.

Holler, a digital agency in Sydney have put their whole site on Facebook for a while, showcasing all their work.

In the UK, probably the best example is AKQA, with 7286 likes, plus 9513 followers on Twitter.

Still though, UK ad agencies are very absent on Facebook - I couldn't see BBH, Fallon, AMV, CHI...

Great list of digital and advertising agencies on Facebook from Between 0 and 1.
And another from Mojave. I've collated them below and added some more:

The most popular Facebook page for an ad agency goes to:
Sid Lee with 13700 likes

Then it's a bit thin on the ground for non-networked advertising agencies...
Wieden & Kennedy has a group with 1034 likes
Wieden+Kennedy London 538 likes
They Inspire: 246 likes - Canadian integrated agency

Networked ad agencies
Ogilvy - 12,869 likes and a YouTube channel
Leo Burnett 6562 likes
TBWA – 8223 likes
McCann Erickson NY 818 likes
BBDO: 493 likes

Networked interactive/digital Agencies
AKQA 7286 likes
Digitas 2471 likes
GSD&M Idea City 2000 likes
Organic 857 likes
iCrossing - 462 likes

Agency.com on Facebook 318 likes
Euro RSCG 4D 119 likes

Interactive/ digital agencies:
Razorfish: 4121 likes
R/GA - 2959 likes
Modernista – 2451 likes
PJA: 311 likes
14Four - 195 likes
Juxt 183 likes
Work Club 134 likes

Digital Production / digital design companies:
Big Spaceship 2615 likes
The Barbarian Group 1065 likes
Odopod - 158 likes

Free trials that don't harm a brand

2009-02-09T01:55:00.000-08:00

'Free trial' can be a dirty phrase, but here's some examples that don't feel like brands buying your love.

1. Burger King's 'Sacrifice a Friend' promotion manages to do advocacy in an elegant way. You simply sacrifice a 10 friends for a free whopper.

2. Ricola's Mystery Cougher promotion gives a brilliant reason for trial and advocacy to total strangers. You just have to give a Ricola cough sweet to a mystery cougher to win up to a million dollars. Of course, you don't know who the mystery cougher is.

3. Get a free iTunes track with every Coke. Totally simple way to launch iTunes.

4. Outdoor outfitter Northland Professional gives away its gear on billboards. Hats, gloves and scarves have been attached to 50 billboards around Graz in Austria. OK, so it really is just a big cash splash, but still, it's appropriate to give away warm gear when you're outside in chilly Austria.

The best GPS phone apps

2009-01-28T05:22:00.000-08:00

1. On Google Android, Wikitude shows you geo-tagged WIkipedia articles which appear in your camera viewfinder as you scan the horizon.

2. iNap is an iphone app which allows you to have a snooze on the bus then wakes you up when you reach your destination.

3. Sit or Squat - tells you the nearest public loos or urinals. A saviour for the iphone enabled and weak-bladdered.

4. Trapster - see and share police cameras and hiding police cars. On your iphone.

5. GoSkyWatch Planetarium - point the back of your iphone to the night sky, and it'll pinpoint clusters of stars. Like a mini observatory in your hand.

6. Google Earth - includes satellite views of the streets and buildings.

7. Vicinity - finds local services on your iphone.

8. Weatherbug - tells you the weather where you are (though you could just look out the window).

9. Milebug - Basically a mileometer, beginning wherever you like.

Where's the UK's location-based social network?

2009-01-28T04:14:00.000-08:00

In the US, there's Brightkite a location based social network so popular that its even launched an iphone app. So now smug iphoneites all over the States can let friends know their location at all times, post photos of themselves smugly drinking lattes in cool cafes, meet other iphoneites hanging out near cool cafes and explore more cool cafes.

However, there doesn't seem to be anything like this in the UK. Nokia's Friend Finder doesn't launch til later this year. Facebook has a couple of apps like InstaMapper, but it only has about 4,000 active users.

Meanwhile the Facebook app FriendGPS only has 1,000 users. Rather lonely friends then.
Nokia have also bought a location-based social networking service, Plazes, but dont seem to have done anything with it. Article here.

Maybe it's because the Brits value their privacy more, and recoil at the thought of that online acquaintance you vaguely know tracking you down when you pop out to buy milk. Maybe it's because they're not huge fans of stalkers. Or maybe they're just technologically slow.

The history of flash mob

2009-01-22T23:30:00.000-08:00

The basic idea of the flash mob is this: Take a public situation. Stooges either break into song or dance, start pillow-fighting, freeze, finger gun-fight or walk like zombies. The public look suitably bemused and yet inspired by the spontaneous act of self-expression before realising everyone but them is in on the act. Everyone goes back to normal and the public's day is just ever so slightly improved.

It all started for me at a wedding a couple of years ago. Half way through the wedding breakfast, the waiting staff all broke into song. It turned out they were trained opera singers.

In 2006 a flash mob walked like zombies in San Francisco.

Followed by air guitar flash mobbing, where's waldo flash mobbing, silent dance flash mobbing. Even then advertisers were picking up on the craze, with a Singaporean phone company doing a clucking chicken flash mob.

2007 saw flash mobbing get even more imaginative, with finger gun fight flash mobbing, ninja flash mobbing and flash mob pillow-fighting.

The flash mob dance in particular has grown from kooky wedding act to novel way to control prisoners, to advertising fodder. Thriller seems to be the all time favourite dance to flash mob to.
Last week T-Mobile took over Liverpool St station with a flash mob which involved more actors than there were public in the station. It seemed like a case of throwing money at the problem, rather than creating a new twist to flash mobbing. The element of surprise in flash mobbing is key but sadly missing here.

Help! RFID tags stole my life.

2008-12-01T09:28:00.000-08:00

RFID tags are becoming ubiquitous, creeping steadily into your passport, your credit card, your concert tickets, your car key, your oystercard, you supermarket loyalty card, your airport luggage tags, your toaster and maybe even your new-born baby. They're there timing your marathon, keeping check on who's nicking Mach 3 razorblades and in 'smart' fridges telling you when you've run out of peanut butter.

Here's my top ten particularly wierd uses:

1. On a leg of lamb to report on the last 24 hours of temperature readings, checking it's not been sitting out in the warm.
2. Surgically-implanted into a cat, meaning only your kitty comes in through your catflap. Found here.
3. Inside a golf ball, helping out rubbish golfers find their balls the world over.
4. On casino chips, helping casino owners analyse betting behaviour.
5. Implanted in your oesophegus to monitor reflux. Found here.
6. Implanted in your arm, as a bicep Oystercard which swipes you into VIP lounges and allows you to pay for your drinks. Happened at Barcelona club, Baja Beach Club.
7. On 'smart' loos, to turn off the water if they look like overflowing.
8. On corpses after Hurricane Katrina.
9. In pans, co-ordinating with a recipe card, so you don't burn your next fry-up.
10. On bee hives, to prevent honey lovers tea-leafing them.

Luckily you can get a personal RFID firewall to prevent some little tyke/ an MI5 agent from scanning your tags and discovering you're a secret Elton John fan, a heavy gambler with a propensity for stealing casino chips, still haven't returned that copy of Saramago's Blindness to Bow Road Ideas Store, are £2700 overdrawn, drive an Alfa 147, walked down aisle 14 three times before buying a packet of baked beans and a loaf of granary bread this afternoon, had 3 espresso martinis last night before taking the DLR back to Limehouse and you're in a wheelchair that's the property of Stepney Hospital.

So if you want to rid an RFID tag from your life, best way is to put it in the microwave for 5 seconds. Though it might also kill whatever it's attached to so best not do it to your kitty. Found here.

A @(---`---`--- by any other name

2008-11-03T07:42:00.000-08:00

When you're really in love, sometimes it takes more than just 26 letters to express it. Sometimes the only way to say 'I love you' is to write someone a rosebud in ascii. Here's a few variations if you get tongue-tied:

The longer stemmed rose, probably a hybrid tea rose:

@(---`---,---

A shorter stemmed variety, probably a Jacquard rose:

@}-`-,-

And if you're feeling really extravagant:

Or, to really impress the ladies:

______8″=,,88,
_____8″”=”"8′__”88a88′
.._.;88m a8___,8″”_”8
__”8″‘__”88″__A”_____8;
___”8,__”8___8_______”8,
____”8___8,__8,_______”8
_____8,__”8,_”8,_______8,
_____”8,__”8,_”8mm”"”"”"8m.
______”8,am888i”‘___ 3,mm”
______,8″___8″__ 3.m888″
_____,88P”"”"” 3I888888
________________”I888_
__________________”I8,
___________________”I8
____________________”I8_
________,mmeem.m”"i,_I8″”__,mmeem,’.
_______m”"____._”8.8_I8__,8″___.__”88
______i8__._’__,mi”"8I8_,8_._’__,8″_88
______88.’_,mm”"____”8I88″m,,mm’” 8
______”8_m”"_________”I8 “”‘
_______”8_____________I8
______________________I8
______________________I8
______________________I8
______________________I8

Or, if she's the one:

Shoot me if I ever start speaking internet

2008-10-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

If I ever get caught using any of the following without irony, please spear me in the eyes with cocktail sticks:

Any LOL based anacronym
Words devoid of vowels
Any emoticon. :) ;) :(

Similarly, if I ever email round pictures like this, you may cheese-grate my face for as long as you desire:

Counting the internet

2008-09-05T07:20:00.001-07:00

The internet is an amazing and powerful enigma, capable of incredible self-analysis and calculations beyond anything we ever thought possible. Look how well we use it's awesome power. First, in 2003, we work out which words are used the most on the internet. Big surprise, the most popular word is 'the'. Thanks, internet. (It's author, Jonathon Harris, did at least go on to better things. Like this.)

Then we use the mighty power of the internet to analyse the mentions of body parts in the lyrics of different music genres in Fleshmap. So now I know that 'penis' is mentioned in 0.46% of hip hop songs. Thanks again, internet.

Mobile live-streaming

2008-08-11T08:01:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I'll get data-charged up the arse for this, but mobile video streamed to the net live? That's pretty sensational.

Here's my uninspiring Work Club video.

Cheer up

2008-08-04T12:38:00.001-07:00

The Morale-o-meter.

We have strange dreams

2008-08-04T12:28:00.000-07:00

On 43 Things, I noticed more people want to "drink more water" (16087 people) than "get married" (15320 people) today. A sad reflection on our disillusionment with marriage and obsession with health and Evian.

Rubbish at drawing?

2008-07-04T12:14:00.000-07:00

You've no excuse for drawing bland faces now. Artnatomy is a brilliant tool which demonstrating facial expressions, from pain to irony to inhibition, in a click.

Reality, if you lived in a James Bond movie

2008-06-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

This is definitely the sort of thing Q Branch should get involved with, if they weren't a fictional entity.

This was an augmented reality press ad for Wellington Zoo.
Point your mobile at a barcode type thing in a newspaper ad, and you can see a 3D model of a giraffe, cheetah or bear as if it's right there in front of you. I guess it is relevant in that it made punters feel closer to the animals, but it would be so much better if it was James Bond opening an Italian newspaper, in say Rome, and reading this secret code hidden in a random photo on his mobile and seeing a 3D model of the guy he had to assassinate. See the vid.

Here, you print out a piece of paper, hold it in front of a webcam, it plays you back a video. There's no particular reason for BBC1's Big Weekend to do it, other than it's a new gimmick, and people who didn't get tickets for some gig get to see the Fratellis play to them. However, again, wouldn't it be much more exciting if Bond was stuck in some impossible dungeon with a strange piece of paper and his mobile and he works out that the paper will play a video in which M explains how he can escape? Or not.

Now imagine Daniel Craig getting a quick preview of his new souped -up Aston Martin using this 3D modelling viewed through a mobile. You can ignore the offensive warbling at the end by James Blunt.

Augmented reality GPS tour that takes you back in time. 007 could use this to great effect.
Quite frankly, I think Q Branch has to get with the program.

I'm feeling a little crazy today

2008-06-10T03:27:00.001-07:00

pimp myspace

This picture of dementia was made courtesy of a nice little animated gif creator called gickr.com

Story-telling will never be the same.

2008-05-14T03:44:00.000-07:00

Penguin got 6 authors to tell 6 stories across the internet in "We Tell Stories". Call it 'transmedia storytelling' if you will, or excellent Idea Keepy-Uppy, this takes stories across blogs, Twitter, Google Earth and even alternate reality gaming. Hats off.
Found here and here.

'Sieve is I E'

2008-05-12T06:12:00.000-07:00

I often like to rant about spelling. Sometimes I like to do this via the medium of song. And just occasionally, I like to write a song about spelling in the style of Kate Nash.

Talk for She Says

2008-05-08T07:16:00.000-07:00

They asked me to talk about advertising awards. I ended up creating my own. Not quite sure how that happened.

Cute counting

2008-04-25T08:41:00.000-07:00

Cute counting is the new trend in Japan and China, in which girls count on their hands as they are getting their photos taken in photo booths. All with the hope of looking super-cute. And look, it works!

But it is (data-driven) art? My top howevermany

2008-04-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

1. First up is The Dumpster. OK this is hardly new, but it is a cool idea. It takes blogs from American teenagers in the midst of break ups in 2005 and makes the data a little more meaningful.

2. It's probably where someone got the idea for We Feel Fine. Same sort of dots bobbing about, but this time it sucks up emotional vocabulary from people's blogs.

3. And why should email just be visualised as a list? This dude has a huuuuge list of why not.

Buddy Graph. This one is particularly cute and reminds me of this.

4. The Spam Recycler sucks up your old spam and makes wierd prettiness out of it. And here's another Spam churner, but maybe not as pretty.

5. Saw this in a Wired article.
It's Andy Warhol's version of art i.e. Getting minions to do the dirty work. This guy created a Processing-based drawing tools and then got spods on Amazon.com's mechanical Turk to create 10,000 sheep images by promising them 2 cents per mutton.

Is it lunchtime?

2008-04-15T03:23:00.000-07:00

Click here for the answer.

Ladbrokes goes extreme

2008-04-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

Directed by Zak and Dan at Knucklehead.

Beating up kids.

2008-04-08T02:11:00.001-07:00

It's International Map Week at Geekvertising Towers

2008-04-02T01:27:00.000-07:00

So here's my favourite maps.
1. The world wide webulator interpreted like the Tokyo tube map. Zoomable.

2. Travel time map. Based on how long it takes to get to destinations.

3. Wikimapia. Not that brilliant yet but once it gets more entries, sure to be a winner.

4. This one.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

5. Where are Trains? A question I've often asked myself. Trace in real-time every TGV (french high speed trains) departing from and arriving to Paris. A trainspotters wet dream.

And here's a blog of Strange Maps.

Map out your website

2008-03-31T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is the Geekvertising URL displayed using the medium of a dot tree. Make your own here.
Blue denotes links, red means tables, pink for pictures, black is the original html.
And if you're interested in expressing your URL via the medium of a different tree, here's an earlier post that might might interest you.

Pig meets jellyfish.

2008-03-22T02:48:00.000-07:00

They've injected jellyfish molecules into pigs and turned them green. It's apparently a very useful way of researching transplants. And they've genetically modified fish with coral so they glow-in-the-dark, but that's just for fun. And commercial gain.
Found courtesy of Mandy Owen.

Terminate a mate

2008-03-21T17:36:00.000-07:00

We've seen films that include your name, but now there's film that can tell where you are. In Terminate-a-mate, you type your friend's details in, and they get sent a film on their mobile that features their name, mobile number and their actual location as they view the film. Big Brother has arrived.

Blow your screen.

2008-02-19T09:33:00.000-08:00

Useful for paraplegics who want to blow out virtual onscreen candles.

One for aspiring spies.

2008-02-19T06:29:00.000-08:00

Hide text in html.
I couldn't make the code work on this blog so you'll have to go here to see it in action.

They said the HTC Touch was better than the iphone.

2008-02-18T09:28:00.000-08:00

They lied. They said it gives you 'finger tip control'. Again, a lie. You get a little stubby pen thingy (they call it a 'stylus') and you have to almost spear the screen to get any sort of response. However, on the plus side, it does have powerpoint on it, in case I'm in an emergency in the Outback whereby I really really need to knock up a powerpoint presentation and my life depends on it. Phew. Then I'll be really thankful I got the HTC Touch after all.

Britney gets un-touched

2008-02-05T03:53:00.000-08:00

Done by Meowza in 21 minutes on Phoenix, Aviary's image editor.

Gesture based technology

2008-02-01T07:24:00.000-08:00

Interact with a screen without even touching it. Perfect for obsessively hygienic people.

And this tracks full body movement in realtime. Works in the same way as the interactive ecosystem works.

Tokyo's monster of the deep

2008-01-29T06:35:00.000-08:00

A large water screen and some very well timed water fountains were used to create this launch stunt for the film "The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep"

Euphoria about Star Wars 3D

2008-01-25T04:17:00.000-08:00

Not only will the next Star Wars have a tie-in novel by Sean Williams, action figures, a comic book, a reference book and a role-playing game supplement but also a game that uses some of the best gaming software around - Euphoria and Digital Molecular Matter (DMM). The first is a behavioural-simulation engine that gives characters a nervous system, meaning they react in real time to stimuli. The second is a real-time physical simulation technology that causes materials to act in the game world as they would in the real world: wood splinters, glass shatters, and metal dents. Watch it here.

Chinese online maps go cartoony

2008-01-23T06:43:00.000-08:00

How do the Chinese get round the satellite imagery ban? They make their online maps all Sim City.

Thankful plastic bags

2008-01-22T07:38:00.001-08:00

End your search for the ultimate photo collection of a 'thank you' shopping bag right here.

The East End Decapitator

2008-01-07T09:21:00.000-08:00

A graffiti artist is decapitating heads on advertising posters round the East End. He even chopped Chantelle's head off. Tsk.

Promo just itching to be ripped off

2007-12-19T05:49:00.000-08:00

"Motus" by Seb Martel. Directed by Arno Salters.

Hamstery Christmas

2007-12-14T07:26:00.000-08:00

Live stream Christmas card, featuring a neon sign powered by two very cute hamsters. I think I might steal them.

Go round twice if you're happy

2007-12-13T07:28:00.000-08:00

This made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

$390+ to have your genotype artified.

2007-12-07T05:37:00.000-08:00

The perfect christmas present for datageeks. Simply send in a sample of your beloved's DNA and their DNA portrait will be created.

Why have sunsets when you can have this?

2007-12-06T09:40:00.000-08:00

A new concept in interactive lighting from Philips.

URLs demonstrated using the medium of forestry

2007-12-05T08:33:00.000-08:00

Above is the syntactic structure of this web site transformed into a tree structure using Texone. A veritable woodland idyll.

Play Tetris on the side of a building

2007-12-02T08:21:00.000-08:00

Folks from the Finnish Student Union rigged up an elaborate colored graphics platform using the Mikontalo's D-staircase as light pixels, so you can play tetris on the building using your phone.

Spam Art

2007-11-30T06:31:00.000-08:00

Beautiful spam.

Interactive ecosystem

2007-11-28T09:26:00.000-08:00

Funky Forest is an installation that makes you wish you were a kid again. It's an interactive ecosystem where children create trees with their body and then divert the water flowing from the waterfall to the trees to keep them alive. The health of the trees contributes to the overall health of the forest and the types of creatures that inhabit it.It premiered at the 2007 Cinekid festival in the Netherlands.

Digital Brush Painting

2007-11-26T11:32:00.000-08:00

Paint using anything as your palette.

An end to pixelated images

2007-11-15T08:50:00.000-08:00

Vector Magic is a clever new tool that allows you to create vector-based images out of bitmap images in a click. I thought Adam Connelly's pixelated porn art presented a perfect opportunity to test out this online auto-tracer thingy.

Does anyone ever click on banners?

2007-10-18T02:20:00.000-07:00

Simply put, no. Do we? No. Does my boss? No. Do you? Of course you don't.
1% click-through is the norm, 3% is a good day for the banner people. So, we're seeing if we can up the averages on our very own banner. We're hoping to prove that increasingly, personal recommendation is the only thing that makes anyone click-through. So, please click on the little Google Adsense banner discreetly positioned at the bottom of the blog, and you'll earn us precisely 1p.

Forget dogs dressed as bees

2007-10-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

Stuff on my cat is another website catering for the global community of total losers.

Social networking insights on a surf weekend

2007-10-03T02:17:00.000-07:00

This weekend I went surfing down in Devon and found out about 'rah' Facebook. Some surfer (wearing a signet ring and a supercilious manner) told me he "couldn't believe" I didn't know about A Small World. Apparently it's an invite-only social network for Eurotrash, celeb wannabes and hooray Henrys everywhere. "Really useful" I was told, for tips on where to hang out in new cities if you're rich and famous. This digital version of an old boys network, with its 150,000-strong membership is a luxury advertiser's wet dream.
I'm still waiting for my invite.