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Archive for May 2009

A trip to New York in May

I’m taking a trip to New York between May 19th and May 23rd. Getting over to see my online colleagues at Ruder Finn Innovation Studios. Happy to meet up with social media people in the neighbourhood.

Links of the day

Link building: less can be more | Blog | Econsultancy TelecomTV – TelecomTV One – News Gaviscon: “It’s like a fireman came in your mouth.” | AdHack Beta – if there was a list of great copywriting gaffs of our time, this must be near the top Conversationage : Censorship for Hire in China – [...]

I like: Coca-Cola’s summer designs of drinks cans

Big-food leviathan Coca-Cola busts some smart moves in packaging design. Last summer cans reflected the brand’s close relationship with the Beijing olympics and Chinese culture. This year they have done a really simple, clever execution around summer icons such as beach balls, barbecue sets and surfboards. My favourite is the classic aviator sunglasses design, giving [...]

GeoCities: the Facebook of ten years ago

When people ask me about social media: teach them how to do <insert an activity> on <insert the name of a service de jour> and I say sure I can teach you that (for a fee), but this is as much about the way think and look at things as anything else. You can pick [...]

The Evening Standard and marriage jokes

I can’t remember which comedian I heard first say that ‘the secret to a successful marriage was starting every conversation with his wife with the word sorry.‘ It looks like the Evening Standard took that advice to heart. Its new advertising campaign ahead of its relaunch says sorry for the previous publication failings. From a [...]

Links of the day

The 100 Million Views Club: The Most Watched Viral Videos of All-Time? Vibewire » Blog Archive » Can iTunes, Copyright and File Sharing coexist? Micro Persuasion: The End of the Destination Web Era In China, Knockoff Cellphones Are a Hit – NYTimes.com – if phones are that cheap to make, why do Motorola et al [...]

Carluccio’s brand extension

Carluccio’s have a Vespa scooter on the menu. an interesting brand extension from Italian food to Italian lifestyle.

The secondhand music market is screwed too?

The music industry claims that rampant piracy in a world of inveterate criminals, or so that’s what the music industry would have us believe. Yinke Adegoke has the numbers here: Global music sales keep falling, pretty much everywhere. Maybe something else has changed? With advent of the CD and digital music the industry gradually killed [...]

Links of the day

I like: Chivas Regal vs Alexander McQueen

I am probably a bit late to this, but given that I don’t drink, it may explain  why I have been slow to catch on. Alexander McQueen has designed some limited edition packaging for Chivas Regal’s 18 year old malt whisky. It plays to that that quaint eccentricity that British luxury brands are perceived to [...]

Jargon Watch: Choice Blindness

I’ve always wanted to understand how consumers don’t have a higher level of dissatisfaction when they go home with the supermarket’s own brand goods as a mistake instead of a branded product. (This is the the reason why Tesco, ASDA et al will often have rows of branded goods in the middle of similar looking [...]

Links of the day

PSFK Talks to Artist and VJ Shantell Martin – PSFK.com Random Oblique Strategies – nice implementation of Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies Setanta kicks off iPlayer rival – New Media & Search : News Videos on ExpertVillage.com | How to videos, free video clips & more Highest Paying CPC Ads in a Google AdSense Unit May [...]

Oprah Time: Barbarians Led by Bill Gates written by Jennifer Edstrom and Marlin Eller

I started reading Barbarians Led by Bill Gates after the I’m a PC campaign tried to humanise the brand image of Microsoft. Barbarians is an unusual book: it is unspun lacking the fingerprints of public relations-led storytelling and yet fits uncomfortably between gonzo journalism and business history book. This partly explains the negative reactions that [...]

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