Bog Standard Art

This via The Design Inspiration some really innovative art created with old toilet role tubes - never ceases to amaze me how people can apply creativity to the strangest most mundane objects to such great effect.



Really cool stuff - you can see the whole collection here

Cool poster site

Spotted this on http://adverlab.blogspot.com/ really nice poster site that gives something away to passers by. Here is also a link to some other similar types of poster site.

Great New Ad Fromat - Open IMU

I met Josh from This is Open recently and he showed us this really innovative and interesting new ad format / concept he had created with his gang at This is Open

The unit essentially allows you to do several cool things.

1. Put almost the content of a microsite in to an ad format
2. Scrape content and bring in xml leads etc
3. Share / Embedd the unit in to your own site
4. Play video and a/v full screen from the ad
4. Data capture etc.

In essence its a really cool widget that can be tailored and served like an add with any content you wish to put it to it.

Here is one they have developed for MyDeco:

And a Vodafone F1 Sponsorship Unit all about McLaren and the F1 season.


Overall really nice and we are thinking of how to use it for clients like Virgin Holidays, Trains and Media even HMRC God forbid your Self assesment could be done in a banner.

Twitter Again

I don't like twitter that much and have not used it but I did spend a good few minutes looking at this piece of genius someone has made an app - called the twitter fall where you can view live the chatter on any subject or keyword you like.

If you run a brand, work for a particular company or client, its worth putting in your company or clients name in and just watching it for a few minutes - real live reputation stuff - now if you are really confident you publish this on your site letting your visitors see what everyone is talking about real time - good if you are the owner of kindle or the distributor of Watchmen but not so hot if you are RBS or Fred the shred.

I know how to fold a T-shirt in less than 2 secs - so how come I never do?

What the hell am I going on about now? Well its probably a bad example but I've been struggling with the question of changing consumer behavior and how mass awareness can and cannot affect it.

I, like about well over 10,000,000+ other people have seen the following video online several times:



There are over a 100 different versions of it and people have made tutorials etc BUT despite its relative success in terms of views NO ONE I KNOW FOLDS THEIR T-SHIRTS THIS WAY? Why not, its more efficient, has a certain fun factor to it and looks pretty cool.

Here is where I struggle with the Awareness:Change of Behavior dynamic. I watched the video and I said that is good, it's a better way of doing it than i already do and despite that I still fold T-shirts badly in a conventional haphazard manner if I bother to fold them at all. So creating awareness is possible but changing an ingrained behavior is so much harder even when its right, or has a benefit to me. Maybe we need to concentrate more in the ultimate benefit and not just on the process to effect change?

Anyway, I'm interested in changing behavior through interaction online. If I work out how to do this more often I think it will be a good thing.

BK Whopper Sacrifice

WOW! those guys at Burger King are in the news everyday for cranking out cool digital work at the moment.



In order to get a free Whopper you have to sacrifice (give up) 10 of your so called friends in face book (not much of a dilemma here). Another great example of a brand doing something fun and good for once using social network sites in the right way. There have only been a few - I thought the O2 promotion last year at the dome was brilliant too.

So many people get it wrong but BK have been doing great work for years so its hardly surprising they have nailed this one - the pr opportunity is likely to be massive, and measurable - I can already feel the 'We saw 10,000,000 friends traded for a million burgers that's how much you love the whoppers' ad coming. Apparently there are people forming groups on face book to offer themselves as sacrificial stooges. You know you are on to something when it takes a life of its own.

Some more future gazing

I found a few interesting videos on the BBC Technology pages showcasing developments in retail, living, dining etc for the near future. Most of them seem to be developed by German's, oh well maybe its the technology equivalent of the towel on the deck chair.

Here are the links to 4 short videos (sadly the BBC hasn't quite grasped the concept of allowing people to embed their videos yet but perhaps that is in another video called the BBc of the Future - let's hope so).

• Inside the house of the future(04.54)
• Germany's 'robot' restaurant(01.49)
• Supermarket of the future(02.56)
• Germans create 'future hotel' (03.51)

What Tech Developments We Want To See 2009

A great post here on fast company about 6 major tech developments we want to see in 2009

1. Free National WiFi
2. Powerful Mobile Internet Devices
3. Linux On Everything
4. Connected Cars
5. 4G Wireless
6. Windows' Redemption

I wonder how many will come true.