Short Film Shot by Scanner: The minute-long film Memoirs of a Scanner is composed entirely of still shots from a copier and, despite the length, you feel satisfied when it’s over (#twss). We think that this could have been the kick-off to an amazing consumer contest from Richoh or Xerox.
That Picture is Amazing: Check out this engaging video from Samsung. The brand does an amazing job of creating a short that heavily incorporates their product AND has a shot of actually going viral. How’d they do it? By relying on two hooks: social networking pictures and Weekly World News cover model, Bat Boy.
Oscar Winners Hate Each Other!: Remember the gentleman who accepted the award best documentary short that got Kanye’d (amazing verb) by the lady in the tres-dramatique formal satin jacket? Turns out, they hate each other! They’re suing each other! His 87-year-old mom used her cane to block that lady from getting to the stage first! Read about all the amazing drama over at Salon.
Bonus: We don’t have much to say about Tokyo/Glow except that it is elegant and beautiful; you should check it out.
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Pencil You In: If you think a wall calendar with pictures of babies in flower pots is the bees knees, you ain’t seen nothing yet. From designer Oscar Diaz’s archives, we bring you the “ink calendar.” Diaz uses a slow absorbing ink to indicate time; a new calendar number is “printed” daily.
NYC’s Building Blocks: At the beginning of the month, German artist Jan Vormann of Jarmuschek+Partner gallery, along with a motley crew of volunteers, took to the streets and began filling in building cracks with Legos. Is this part of a larger Lego trend? Perhaps. Check out this Lego conference room table and this Lego kitchen.
Haul Video Blogs: What’s the newest trend among the tween girls? Well, its something called “haul videos” where they show off their most recent purchases via YouTube. That’s actually a pretty simple explanation, as you’ll see from the video linked above, these ladies wear a lot of hats (or toboggans, as SoCalAshleyDanielle might say), including:
Economist “I have been trying to save a lot of money, not just because I need to, but because I feel like I spend way too much money on makeup and I need to spend more money on clothes.”
Dentist “The original Crest Whitestrips sucked, saliva would start accumulating and the strips would start foaming.”
Personal Trainer “…If you want to look skinny, wear dark wash skinny jeans.”
Computer Whiz Kid “Just type in ‘fashion’ and ‘Marilyn Monroe’ or whatever you want to find and you can find it on Photobucket.”
Philosopher “Is it ‘Nordstrom’ or ‘Nordstrom’s’?”
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Great Balls of Fire: Even the worst pool players can look like sharpshooters thanks to CueLight. After all, when fireballs are shooting across the pool table, who’s paying attention to anything else? Featured in Esquire’s “Ultimate Bachelor Pad” in SoHo, this pool table is hooked up to a projection system that follows the motions of the pool balls (in this one setting, a trail of fire follows each ball), creating an interactive art display.
This Too Shall Pass: Actually, it won’t (well, not until their next ingenious music video goes viral). Getting six million hits in six days, OK Go’s new (embeddable!) music vid “This Too Shall Pass” features a giant Rube Goldberg machine. To top it all off – the entire video was done in one shot (it took them 70 tries for everything to work without a glitch, but still, awesome)! Perhaps most interesting is the fact that insurance giant State Farm actually sponsored the creation of the video.
Home Sweet Home: Check out some of the innovative work of designer Mark Reigelman including his “bite cutlery,” “urban vases,” and a bus shelter that he turned into a cozy home. We love all of these concepts, but wonder why he chose carnations for his urban vases.
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You may know Matt from the videos of his ridiculously embarrassing dance moves that got him tons of sponsored trips around the world to dance in high-profile places and post his dancing videos online. South Africa Tourism signed him on board to encourage online users to submit videos of themselves dancing the Diski - a silly dance inspired by the slick moves of South Africa’s soccer team. The best Diskier diskies his or her way to a World Cup Soccer match in Cape Town, sponsored by South African Airways.
Matt’s video - already taped - airs on YouTube this coming Friday (March 5) and instructs viewers on how to dance the Diski as he travels through portions of the surrounding Capetown area.
Just another example of a high-profile destination understanding how to have a little fun and put its best foot forward…while diski-ing.
I don’t know how I missed this viral ad from Samsung, but it is one of the best ones I have ever seen and I’m so jealous I didn’t think of it. Tapping into our cultural obsession with cuteness, the video shows various adorable baby animals and how they creatively use the Samsung Ultratouch cellphone (hint: not as an actual phone). This ad combines two of my favorite things: cute animals and miniature dioramas. What could be better?
Last weekend, Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade opened up his life off the courts in an unprecedented way. No, it is not another reality show. Wade went live with his life via his Ustream account for the first installment of “3 Under the Tree,” a series of charity events hosted by the Wade’s World Foundation.
Fans could follow Dwyane live for a day on Saturday as he attended a charity event, went go-karting and interacted with followers in realtime, through both Twitter and Ustream. ESPN gave the event a bit of flak for being a PR stunt, but they did note that Wade did reveal a few genuine moments that made him seem a bit more human.
I think this is a brilliant idea, despite what some may say. PR initiative for Wade and his charity? Of course! Effective way of generating buzz for his cause while at the same time making him more accessible to his masses of fans? Definitely! It will be interesting to see if more athletes open up their lives in this manner. Judging by the number of athletes already on Twitter, I have no doubt others will follow suit.
You know those annoying FreeCreditReport.comcommercials with the guitar-playing guy singing a catchy song about how you can easily check your credit report online? Well, it turns out that FreeCreditReport.com isn’t exactly free (who’da thunk it, with the word “free” in the name and all?). When you sign up to receive your credit report, you have to provide your credit card information, and if you don’t call and cancel within 7 days (and they don’t make it easy for you — I’ve done it), your card is charged $15 per month.
Apparently, many people have been reeled in by the catchy jingle and charged for their supposedly “free” credit report. Now, the FTC is fighting back with their own online videos — complete with a guitar-wielding dude and catchy jingles — to promote AnnualCreditReport.com, which is actually 100% free. The videos are spot-on parodies, and it’s very clever of the FTC to give them a dose of their own medicine.
Whether you love him or you hate him, Gary Vaynerchuck is obviously engaging. His web marketing book called Crush It is actually crushing the bestseller lists.
Anyway, here’s a clip of him being a lunatic on Fox and Friends.
Saturday was a wash — literally and figuratively. Thanks to monsoon-like rain, replete with thunder and lightning of Hollywood proportions, I literally only left the house to walk my dog. Sure, I kept busy by cleaning my bathroom, color-coding all the clothing in my closet and making guacamole…but eventually it was time to zone out and pick a new TV show to immerse myself in online. Yep, I turned to Hulu — the best companion to the boredom-stricken since YouTube.
I watched about five episodes of Modern Familyand caught up on my current fave, Glee. Now, in the interest of full candor, I happen to be one of those people who holds out on technology. I jumped from an old school cell to a BlackBerry, an iPod mini to the Touch, and Nintendo NES to Wii (yeah, I still have Duck Hunt). I have yet to cross over to DVR or Tivo fanaticism, but as I watched episode after episode (and let’s not forget all those commercials), I realized that it’s been a while since I saw my favorite shows in primetime. But how much is that convenience worth to me?
Hulu, owned by News Corp., NBC and Disney, announced this week that the site will start charging for content in 2010. According to a recent poll by Lifehacker, only 17% of Hulu users would still visit the site if they had to pay for content. Um, duh.
Do you like Star Wars…like, more than a friend? Do you stay up nights thinking about Princess Leia in her bikini as you practice wielding a “laser” sword in your garage? Chances are, if this sounds like you, then you probably also own a webcam. (Actually, if this sounds like you, then you probably also have a burning desire to wear a cape and speak in a secret language that is a cross between C++, pig latin and Vulcan — but that is a non-sequitur.)
Anyway, the Star Wars: Uncut project capitalizes on the number of Star Wars fans who also enjoy making viral videos. The project is simple — they’ve divided the movie into 472 15-second sections. Fans can then log on to the site, claim a section and film their own version of that snippet.
Once all of the sections are complete, they will be strung together to create an entirely crowdsourced version of the film. It will be perfect for people who liked the original, but wish it starred more awkward teens who “think prom is stupid anyway.”
In fairness, some of the 15-second offerings are really amazing and the project concept is totally brilliant. I, for one, am hoping that this is a trend. I’ve already picked out the 15 seconds of Mean Girls* that I’d like to re-create.
Earlier this month, the airline KLM gave online personality “Mr. Safety” quite a wedding gift, with two business class tickets to anywhere the carrier flies. The catch was that online viewers got to pick the destination, after visiting KLM’s destinations page to peruse where the carrier flies.
According to KLM, 14,000 people connected to the site in just one week and 4,000 registered their e-mails for KLM updates, which is a pretty good ROI in terms of getting in front of potential new fliers.
So will KLM give the FWD Thinking blog some free business-class tickets if we let our readers choose the location of the M Booth holiday party? I’m pulling for Rio de Janeiro…
It all started yesterday, when rumors circulated via Twitter and Facebook that Braff was dead, based on a fake webpage put up by prankster Chris Laganella in 2007.
Braff took charge by posting a video on YouTube to let everyone know that he is very much alive.
This is the kind of “viral” that every company dreams of.
Remember last Thursday? How happy you were when Tracy Morgan joined Twitter? Well, as Fraulein Maria said, “When God closes a door, he opens a window.” I’m here to tell you, the reverse is true too. Rather than explaining this tenuous metaphor, I’ll just give it to you straight: tween megastar Miley Cyrus (formerly @MileyCyrus) has quit Twitter.
Why would Miley introduce humanity to the worst suffering it has ever known? She says wants to live a more private life. And to PROVE that she wants to live a quieter, more introspective, Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond-esque life, Miley created a rap video explaining her decision-making processes. Now, this isn’t some two-bit, impromptu Miley + webcam joint. There is editing, backup dancers and text treatments that will remind you of your middle school television station. She means business!
Sensing the gravitas of the situation. Miley’s superstar dad, Billy Ray (@BillyRayCyrus), stepped in to try to tweet some sense into his daughter. (Take note, Nobel committee!):
“Miley. You are a light in a world of darkness. You were born ‘Destiny Hope Cyrus’ for a reason. You can’t leave everyone now. We r countin on u.”
Unfortunately, because of the 140-character limit, he was unable to incorporate the words “achy breaky” into his tweet. Currently, no domestic or international government agencies have issued any statements of warning or instruction. Until they do, we here at FWD Thinking recommend that you stay calm. This is probably just a stunt and she’ll be back in three weeks, y’all.
Last week, we worked with our client, The Macallan Single Malt Scotch Whisky, to host a progressive Twitter tasting throughout the city of Dallas, Texas. While differing in format from our previous Twitter tasting last June, the marriage of Twitter and Scotch continues to be effective, allowing us to simultaneously interact with local enthusiasts and consumers worldwide—a much larger group than traditional tastings allow for.
To get a better idea of the tastings’ format and ambiance, watch the segment above, which aired last night during Dallas’ local CW news broadcast.
The paradigm of publishing is shifting, evidenced by this week’s Conde Nast closures. Newspapers and magazines need to move with the times, and that might mean literally embracing movement.
Entertainment Weekly and Esquire generated serious buzz with their respective forays into the integration of motion + magazine. What’s next? Check out the above video, which shows where the future of magazines could be headed. It is a fascinating look at what might be in store for a changing industry. It is also a helpful catalyst for thinking about how the public relations industry will shift in response.
