These are my favorite commercials aired during Superbowl XLV, between the Packers and the Steelers:

The Force by Volkswagen

Love the body language and determination of the kid. We communicate more than what we are aware, with our bodies (that is why email sometimes sucks). I guess many people feel identified with the kid: we all had our naïve fantasy.

Carma (not Karma) by Bridgestone

The beaver rules (especially at the end). Is like “bro you had my back, I never forget… I know have yours”.

Black Beetle by Volkswagen

Two great commercials by Volkswagen. This time they bring some top notch CGI animation. My favorite spot is when the mantis are fighting and the just stop.

Ozzy and Bieber by Best Buy

“How many bloody Gs are they?” well Ozzy at least here they are G to the Square. But really, the ad shows the push by companies to the market of new technology. Sometimes is just too much and there is some truth to it:some generations just can keep up, then again why should they? Ozzy is hilarious, with the “WTF” is happening here. (Here is the 1 minute version)

Love Hurts by Pepsi

Freaking funny ending and a plus for the cute girl.

Imported From Detroit by Chrysler

Intense, to the point it can get you pumped up and who best than “Lose Yourself” by Eminem… enough said.

A “hunter shoots a bear” ad by Tipex (developed by Grouek ) shows how you can build viral branding campaigns on Youtube. The video takes interactivity to a new level by letting the viewer finish the ad. In addition they embrace the freedom of of the internet by dealing with humor with typos (with a nice 404 video) or if you decide to use the word “fuck”.

However the most interesting thing is the “white labeling” effect where the viewer always gets the feeling that is in Youtube. And guess what? This will not have been possible with other technology then flash. The use of CSS3 based animations might become more popular as the web changes, still it will take very long  time (maybe 5 years) for other technology to push the boundaries of the web as it was done in this campaign by Tipex.

Flattr is a new service for paying or “rewarding” creators of digital content on the internet. Below is a video describing how it works.

I liked the video and I found it appealing to the eye and well produced, still they failed to deliver the message correctly. Which is a shouldn’t be the case when you are trying to change how people pay for content. Don’t get me wrong, I think the idea is awesome and disruptive, however it could have been presented in a better way.

Note the reader: Following are my thoughts on how should the idea been presented and will try to avoid talking about if it will work or not. that will be for another post.

When it starts running the first thing you will se is the following image:

Even if it is only shown for around 2 seconds, this is most important piece of information, due to this two words presented: social micropayments. In my case, the first thing that came to my mind was that this was a service like kiva.org (given it uses similar colors). Then I realized I was wrong when the video mentions content and consumers, the flattr button and the cake.

If the service is about showing appreciation or love to content creators, then they should remove “social micropayments” and replace it with some other message. The problem is that the service is about showing your love and appreciation to the artist or create, while the word payment is related to something more cold such a commercial transaction. Second, micropayments has been widely use hand by hand with microfinance in third world courtiers, which is out of context of where flattr will be used.

Instead of using social micropayment, they could have use something like:

rewarding content creators, flat rate love or flattering creators

In addition I will have change the way the cake analogy with a story, which will be of somebody using the service, while keeping the black graphics used (we don’t want it to look like a “revolutionary” vacuum cleaner commercial ).

Here is an example:

Tom is 29 year old web designer, that spends his day working, reading blogs and posting on twitter.

In the past year or so, Tom has found an interest for mashups of music. Most of the mashups are given for free by the DJs, so he just downloads them. Recently he found a mashup album of Jay -Z and Marvin Gaye called Brooklyn Soul, that he loves. He tells all his friends about it and enjoys to play it while commuting or just walking. So, he decided to show his appreciation to the producers of Brooklyn Soul with a Flattr.

Tom has 2 eruos in his account and in the past 3 weeks he has given a Flattr to Xaphoon Jones for his Mixtape and to a couple of writers for their free ebooks. In total it has been 4 flattrs and the month will end in two days. By then the 2 euros will be split in the four flattrs equally.

Why did Tom decide to give 2 Euros? Well he figured out that if he didn’t drink a latte a month, instead he could use the money to show his appreciation.

Why a story?

Is less abstract and is more down to earth. Also, by mentioning what is the give and get, the audience has a better understanding of the service.

If you want to now little bit more about why using stories to pitch an idea, check my previous post.

Got to love the remake of the 1993 McDonald’s Michael Jordan vs. Larry Bird commercial, this time it features Lebron James and Dwight Howard. Although they are not as accomplished as Jordan and Bird, they are representative of the NBA today and are possibly the future, so we have the star power.

The new commercial shows how the game has change, by instead of just going with jumpshots (like in the 93 version), they just go with dunks. As well as some taunting or trash talking.

The interesting thing here is that commercials generally are not remade or remastered as movies. Doesn’t make sense to copy a old idea, sure we have campaigns like Apple’s “I’m a Mac. I’m a PC” or Master Card “priceless”, that keep the same concept,  however in this case it works masterfully.

In case you didn’t remember the o1993 commercial or just want to compare you can see it bellow. (By the way, Jordan’s outfit reminds me of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air)

Yeap. things have change a lot in the last 17 years, still athletes eat fast food before a work out.

In this corner “The impossible made possible”, wearing black and white trunks Coca Cola Zeroooooooo! In the other corner, the step counter and music gadget, wearing red and white trunks the Nike Plusssssssssss! (Actually is Men vs Women and the winner takes on Zero).

Yesterday I was walking and I saw this two ads, one from  Coca Cola Zero and the other from Nike Plus. The two companies are monsters and can spend big bucks on ads. However they have a long history a providing us with remarkable advertisements, which are fun to watch and may tip the balance their way when buying products from their category (soft drinks and sports).

Coca Cola Zero “Impossible Made Possible”

The Zero commercial (“Mourning After”) is targeted at Men to communicate that Zero is “Men’s Drink”. That just because you care about calories, that doesn’t make you less of a Man. The ad  uses sex, action and special effects to deliver the message. Although is a minute long, there is a story with a bad guy (The Daddy) the cute girl and the boyfriend as the “hero”. At the end he made look freaking awesome by living in a helicopter, which kind of make us men say “he is the man”. The  “look and fee” of the commercial is from the movies made popular in the 70s that use the “Exploitation” promotion. Exploitations Films

is one which relies heavily on the lurid advertising of its contents, rather than the intrinsic quality of the film. the “exploit” are such as a big star, special effects, sex, violence, romance, etc.

Which were brought back to life, thanks to the double feature “Grindhouse” (2007) by Rodriguez and Tarentino. Although many may criticized the use of sex to sell soft drinks, if you complain or rave about it, Coca Cola just got what they wanted: you remembering the brand.

The Nike Plus ad is not about gender, even if “Men vs Women” is all over the place. No, this ad is about running and competition, and those who enjoy it.

Nike Plus One Minute Version

Nike took Nike Plus and made it social. Not many companies in the world are able to make their products social and successful as Nike did. Instead of sharing pictures, status updates or links, here you share your running data and music. The commercial grabs competition and music, wraps it into a race and tights it up with a punch line (men having the last laugh).

Yeah they use some professional athletes and Eva to do so, if you can why not, however when you see it and feel the music you just have fun. And maybe you get that itch of going out an run and join the competition. Although it will have been nice if they could had mixed up and not show fit and thin (especially girls) runners. Think about it, do people that don’t look that fit will feel unmotivated ? What about the elder? Maybe nike doesn’t care about that, they just want those that are passionate about running, because their products are not that cheap.

Nike Plus Extended Version

It was reported on monday by notebookreview.com: “Asus shows off revolutionary new dual-display concept notebook”.

Asus concept (source notebookreview.com)

My question is: how come it wasn’t revolutionary when One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) announced a very similar concept almost a year ago, called the OLPC XO-2.

Actually the the one by OLPC look cooler than the Asus one.

I guess the editor at notebookreview was quoting Asus because is how they made the announcement according to this news piece.

It’s funny how much the words revolutionary, unique, special and first of its kind, are used today. Correct if I’m wrong, but the last time a product launch that lived to its hype of calling it revolutionary was the iPhone. Even if its not perfect, it changed the industry. Other examples:

• the Asus Eee was revolutionary the notebook industry, what manufacturer doesn’t produce netbooks,
• the Wii was revolutionized the gamming industry by producing a console appealing to non gamers,
• Guitar Hero, not sure about it but hell it changed how we look at music and games

However, Asus dual-screen is not, you can’t call it revolutionary when somebody already has published the same concept.

Sometimes we try to impress other so much, that the only ones that are impress are ourselves. I guess the lasting impressions are those that don’t seek to impress.

Mike Hoffman reported wrote post in his blog questioning if viral video is dead?

I don’t plan to answer that question with words. First, I can’t and second there is a cool “viral” initiative from Hollywood to make young create awareness, which is betting on that viral video is alive.

Source

The other day I was in a lecture about trends. The presenter was talking about what he does in his company, identifying trends and his theories, I came to realized that I didn’t have a concrete definition of a trend. So, turned to Google to find out and got to a point that all the definitions that I got didn’t satisfy me. Also the word “trend” depends on the context, since we can have fashion trends, market trends, financial trends, etc., so a definition that applies to various contexts should be “the best”.

But then again, what is a trend? Well I found a definition I like: “A pattern that is evident from past events”[1]. The reason of my liking lies on the word pattern. For a trend to exist a pattern is needed, even if it evident or not. However identifying a “early” trend is basically identifying the pattern developing and that is where the first mover advantage can occur.

source

[1] http://ag.arizona.edu/futures/home/glossary.html, Glossary – Definitions of Selected Futures Terms, University of Arizona

Today I was checking an email account that I log in occasionally or when I remember, and not as a habit (it used to be a habit). I saw an email from a presenter at a workshop I attended some months ago (I think it was in February). We had a conversation in the event and then exchange some emails. I had shown interest in a trend analysis report that at that time was only in Swedish. Two months later the report is in my inbox, as she promised and the most astonishing thing is that she remembered me, in contrast my interest on it was in the limbo of my memories. Then I realized that its called Reciprocity.

It came out of the blue, “but reciprocity is responding to a positive action with another positive action”. Giving me the report is not a positive response, but is intended on creating a sense that I should be respond to her action in a positive way. I confessed I feel flattered that she remembers me and I can say she is woman of her word, but I can see she wants me to do some marketing for her. How do I get to this conclusion? Well, it is also mentioned in the email that I can share the report with anybody and that they are working in a new web site, where we can buy the reports. First of all I will had pass it on with their permission or not, may sound a bit harsh, but that is how the world works. If you get it for free, why not share. Second if she had not mentioned nothing from the new site I will have thought its pure “mensching“. I may be wrong, maybe she is mensching, but still its very interesting how human act and response.

In part I feel guilty because some people might think this post is rude (or maybe not), but I’m not complaining, it just serves as an example of how important is to understand how humans think. How this will help you in market your product or service better or even understand the customers that you think you know.

She has a lot of merit for still remembering to send me the report and I really appreciate that, because some people tell you that they will send you something or call you, etc. and they don’t do it, only if you are Bill Gates or they need something. This is a cool tactic, not as some “comment spammers” leave generic comments saying they like my blog, so I visit their blog and leave a comment.

will share with you the report and the web site where you can buy it if you like it, still she got me to spread it around, in one way or another. I wonder if the sharing of the document and the site is it a result of guilt, reciprocity, chance or something more complex ?

Site:www.urbanlifestylereport.com

Urban Lifestyle Report March 2008

Update
If the above link is to complicated for you, here is a public storage folder

Public Storage

Recently I wrote a post on the Kobe Bryant Jumping over a car video, in addition to other stuff concerning viral videos. As you can see, that video has created some buzz like or not, good or bad, the buzz is there. But when such video, event or “thing” starts to appear as “spoofs” around YouTube, you have nail it. In the case of Kobe Bryant (and concerning the USA market) when a TV station like TNT creates a spoof in their show “Inside the NBA” well that is priceless.

Here is the spoof created by TNT with Kobe Bryant watching it

Funny stuff and Inside the NBA is the best.

But back to viral videos, Kobe’s “stunt”, is on the verge of becoming pop culture. When more videos like the following will appear in different forms, you know you have done it.

Of coarse, like most things, its easier said than done. The key here is to be creative and feed on others momentum, like the two videos you will see at the end of this post. And the create thing of video sites is that you can monitor the success of your video, so it can become a trial and error process. The resources to pull it off are out there (as the videos on the bottom show), but in this media of viral videos, what matter is only one thing: the content.