Cool Bus Advertisements

Instead of posting about bus shelter ads here and here I thought I'd post about some really cool "Bus Advertisements"













Check out some more here
http://inventorspot.com/articles/taking_transportation_next_level_6455

Cheers,
Dean

Call To Action V's Blasting

Great article well worth reading.

It's been estimated that the average consumer is exposed to something like 7,000 media messages a day … but only absorbs seven.

I know the old adage is "50% of my marketing is being wasted I just dont know what 50%" but these days I think marketers / brand managers are accepting even less results than that and I just dont get it.

Why are you happy with only 1 in 1000% call to actions (or even less). Yeh I know costs have fallen so you can now say you are reaching 1 million people for the same spend you used to pay for 1000 people but so what.

If you aren't engaging the 'blastees' who cares.


Cheers,
Dean

Leonard Cohen

No blog posts today.

Take the day off and listen to the Leonard Cohen mp3's while watching the blue skies turn to black.

Vonage Hit With $69.5M Judgement

So Vonage got hit with another patent suite today, this time from Sprint.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/25/2243252&from=rss

I think this quote just about sums it up so I dont really need to add anything.



It is increasingly starting to look like the US system will grind to a halt. The real question is what it will take for competition from abroad to force a reform. My guess is that sooner or latter the US economy will take such a hit that the rest of the world will no longer be dependant upon it. When that happens Black Tuesday will look like statistical noise in comparison.



Cheers,
Dean

OLPC

Want to write about the Adobe AIR conference from yesterday but flat out so will get to it tomorrow.

Just wanted to make a quick comment about the OLPC project and all the crappy people posting about it's perceived failure like at Valleywag here


http://valleywag.com/tech/nicholas-negroponte/oh-no-laptops-per-child-303519.php
Wow really interesting to see the claws come out in the comments here at Valleywag.
It's ok that the reporter passes judgement....they dont know better :) (oops did that cost me my chance at becoming a registered commenter?)

But realistically - so what that Wal Mart sells them for cheaper....it's not designed for the same purposes and it's not designed to be bulletproof and long lasting. (btw the $399 OLPC is for 2 computers 1 to give - 1 for the purchaser....walmarts aren't below $200)

The OLPC project isn't about cheap off the shelf windows computers it's about providing long lasting tools for the betterment of the users "lot in life".

As for the personal comments about Negroponte....what have you done with your life lately?

Did you raise $40m for 'plain vanilla education' as you suggested was required? No then STFU.

Cheers,
Dean Collins
www.collins.net.pr/blog

Awesome Marketing

Sorry for the crappy photo I'll try and get a better one at a later date.

For the non new yorkers this subway advertisement is for http://www.manhattanministorage.com/

Over the past two years or so they have been running some fantastic 'social commentary' advertisements such as "your closet - scarier than bush's agenda" and "your closet space is shrinking faster than a woman's right to choose".

1/ All publicity is good publicity - especially for something as innocuous as storage.

2/ As it's Manhattan based they aren't really going to piss off anyone with half a brain...or just visiting.

3/ It gives their brand an amazing identity. I know I've gone out of my way to 'read' their ads when i see a new one.

Apart from Kenneth Cole can anyone give examples of other great 'social commentary' marketing?

Cheers,
Dean

Laurel Papworth - Online Communities - Australia and Global: Australia you can't be trusted! (blame Chaser?)

Laurel Papworth - Online Communities - Australia and Global: Australia you can't be trusted! (blame Chaser?)


Dean Collins said...
screw them, when are politicians going to understand they dont have control they never will have control.

The internet is just another example of how out of touch they are.....in this bill are they proposing the implementation of a censorship wall al la China?

If not then who cares about websites hosted in Australia.Throw some servers up in Korea or Norway and watch the politicians lather about your uncensorable content.

I'm glad you posted this bill but Laurel please forward these comments to someone in charge about how ridiculous and ineffectual this law actually is.


Cheers,
Dean Collins
www.collins.net.pr/blog

Australian Terrorism

This is what i love about Australia "Kirribilli House attack: man charged"

........attacked with a flaming 'cotton bag' :)

no shoulder launched anti tank rpg, no fiery mac truck loaded with explosive fertiliser.


It's times like this I miss Australia.

When your time is up - it's up.

If it's wasn't such a serious topic it would be funny "Plan a funeral for $800 or less" I don't know why people get all freaked out about it and all.

I don't know why I've never cared about it - it's just something that has never bothered me.

BTW I've always told Jodie that I wanted to be turned into a diamond - i read about this company years ago that takes your cremation ashes and turns them into a man made diamond, sounds like a cool idea to me instead of taking up valuable real estate....though when I'm uber rich I think I'd like to be shot into space....but only if they are able to send the whole body complete....i figure that with my belief that there is definitely life on other planets that there should be an option to sending bodies into space that can then be brought back to life by advanced life forms.....or bump into an asteroid and fall alarmingly into a sun.

lol - like i said I don't take it that seriously.


Cheers,
Dean

Palm Refinances with new cash and new blood

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2182983,00.asp
$300 million and Apple's former iPod division chief Jon Rubinstein might see some new light from this dwindling star.
As a long time fan (now Windows Mobile user) I can only hope so.


Cheers,
Dean

closed wall worlds or open worlds?

As some of you know I'm working on a Second Life project, whilst I hate the current state of Second Life....I also have extremely high hopes for it's long term future. Being a forward thinker I can see how SL/"some other 3d virtual environment" will have as much an influence on our lives as our assorted homepages/social networks do today.

Linden Labs have done some great things but they are also at a stage that they fundamentally have to radically change the way they move forward from here in order to survive...will they? who knows.

So it was with great interest that i read this article today.
http://gigaom.com/2007/09/18/metaplace-unveiled-raph-koster/#more-10250
http://www.areae.net/
http://www.metaplace.com/

I'd never heard of him before but I totally understand why/where he is going.

Keep an eye on it.


Cheers,
Dean

Your brands reputation...$3-$20

So I went to a presentation with the best and brightest in the New York advertising world last night (..... for those of you at Ad Club don't take this the wrong way as I think the concept is a good idea but the rest of this post is going to be a little slanderous)

So like I was saying....I was at an Ad Club event last night in the 6th Avenue offices of Yahoo.

It was my first one of these that I've attended outside of the tech community but two of my clients are in the marketing space so I thought I'd go along to see what there was to be seen.

There were a couple of interesting things at the end of the night but this isn't what this post is about - this post is about one of the worst ideas I think I've heard in a long time.

"Pay Per Post" blogging.

So I actually took a few pictures of the various competitors but they all look pretty much the same....guys giving powerpoints about their new startups (and some well funded startups too with some excellent boards/management ex Google people etc).

So what these guys are doing is providing an infrastructure where you as a brand manager can go and select the amount of money you are willing to pay someone to blog about your product on a paid basis.

The average amount paid per post is between $3 to $20

WTF!!!

So basically you have just spent a kazillion dollars in R&D to produce the latest titanium razors, spent a whole heap in wholesale education and delivery channels etc. Probably spent a boatload of advertising dollars in 'old school' media in print and tv campaigns.....and now you are going to pay someone $3 to write about your product in which you have no control over the content, tone, positioning or message.

In addition as a blogger what does this say about your reputation that you are willing to whore yourself out for $3.

This isn't like you have a long term sponsorship by dell to review their products or apple to use their laptops - this is a one off relationship that you are putting your name to....for $3-$20

Send me your address with a self stamped return envelope and I'll send you some spare change if you're that hard up.

Cheers,
Dean

Bug Labs - Opensource Hardware

I had a really interesting conference call today about a new startup called http://www.buglabs.net/

They are looking to introduce a modular set of 'devices' that fit together and along with supporting software will allow you to create your own 'opensource hardware mashups'.

So the core 'base unit' is a fully programmable and "hackable" Linux computer, equipped with a fast CPU, 128MB RAM, built-in WiFi, rechargeable battery, USB, Ethernet, and a small LCD with button controls.

From there 4 additional modules can be added, gps, video camera, lcd display, accelerometer/motion sensor being the first 4 for release (though 81 have been mocked up so far).

The long term concept is if you want a 'weather station with live video feeds and gps location control you can add various modules together to deliver what you are looking to achieve.

I have high hopes for the concepts, and wish the guys well as it seems their hearts are in the right place.....though it's going to be a long (but interesting) road to travel.


Cheers,
Dean

Laurel Papworth - Online Communities - Australia and Global: Tom Ford sexually explicit ad campaign

Laurel Papworth - Online Communities - Australia and Global: Tom Ford sexually explicit ad campaign


Finally a brand that understands your target audience dont care about 'social rules' so why should you.

As I posted in this blog http://deancollinsblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/marketing-borders-no-longer-exist.html when your customer isn't Mrs Smith, 50, Petersham (gets 90% of her marketing from TV and the weekly local paper) then you dont really need to conform to her sense of sensebility.Having said that....I think that the Tom Ford campaign is a shitty example of this and poorly executed.

Whilst you'll get the 'views' (heck I even replayed it twice...at least :) - I dont see this translating into sales.... better luck next time guys.

Cheers,
Dean Collins
www.Cognation.net

iCarly.com - it's a generational thing

Ok so I have some numbers for you;

3,500,000 tv viewers
721,000 download streams
2,000 audience video submissions.


Wow those are some big numbers for a premier to achieve in just 7 days.

When I read this article this morning on http://www.media30.com/
NICKELODEON’s “iCarly” showed early signs of success for its unique mix of plotted story-lines and user-generated content. During its premiere on September 8th, the show drew 3.5 million viewers. Online, TurboNick fed 721,000 streams of the show during the opening weekend, and kids uploaded over 2,000 videos to the iCarly.com site.

I thought yeh interesting and kept reading to the next article then about an hour later I came back and re-read those numbers. Wow 721,000 people got off their butts and went to 'rewatch' something they had already seen OR even better went and forwarded a link to a friend which is even more valuable.

2000 of those people in the first 7 days actually went to the effort of video taping themselves and then uploading this content (heck even if half were crap and they used 4 per episode thats over 5 years worth of user submission content right there in less than a week).

Go check out the site http://www.icarly.com/ - you might learn something about whats missing in your own product offerings (for one they have a really slick screen viewer/full screen player).

I can see this being huge in a very short time frame - and certainly an example of why there are very few tv genres that sholdn't come with an extensive online/mobile component.


Cheers,
Dean
P.S. I love the nature of the real time countdown till the next episode.

Jon Stewart

One of the cool things about living in New York is access to events that are going on locally like seeing a live taping of The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

We went last night and it was way better than I ever thought it could be, we were lucky enough to see the Senator Larry Craig story .......lol watch the video - the joke about Croc shoes was cracking everyone up (btw R Kelly was amazing to see sing live).

What was really amazing was to see how smooth these guys are. They basically ran through the whole show non stop from start to finish with only 1 or 2 very small retakes. Watching someone flawlessly for 25 mins of perfect delivery was staggerinng - you can see why these guys get paid as much as they do.

Was interesting to watch the show later that night as it was actually funnier in person that on tv.

If you are ever in New York definately try and go see it however you need to really book in advance (we booked our tickets 4 months ago).

Cheers,

Dean

London Oyster - MTA ?

I was reading an article today at Kablenet.com about how the London Oyster has now been expanded to include additional trial stored value purchases.

So now you can buy your London Times paper with the same card you pay your tube ride.

Of course in London they use contactless readers rather than the mag strip the MTA in NY uses but some subways have been fitted with trial NFC readers.

LOL - seriously though I just dont get why this has to be so freaking difficult it's 2007 already - we are fast approaching the jetson age but seems we are being held back by legacy banking community who want to own it all so refuse to change.

I just want one card that pays for my subway and my paper and my coffee in the morning.....oh and I want it to be real and not a plastic mockup like the iCache that's being flogged around town at the moment ....love the concept but why even get the banks involved at all - cut them out of the loop and just implement your solution already.


Cheers,
Dean 'Frustrated this morning' Collins

P.S. Yep I also agree with this writer that iCache is way too thick for my liking - I also think that their 10-6=4 maths is crap though I'll hold judgement until I see something real.

Laurel Papworth - Online Communities - Australia and Global: User generated advertising: Facebook stalker and Social Media consultants

Laurel Papworth - Online Communities - Australia and Global: User generated advertising: Facebook stalker and Social Media consultants



Lol cracked me up - this video clip is fantastic.
thanks.
Dean

Tribal Baseball

We went to the baseball at Shea Stadium last night. I guess being New Yorkers we won being that the NY Mets beat the Houston Astro's 11 to 2 - yeh team :)

What was really interesting to us as outsiders were all the 'cute' little things that the whole crowd does as a group. Like in the 7th inning everyone stands up and stretches as a group and does the same stretch movement, and certain 5 second musical interludes kick off certain chants etc where everyone claps or snaps at the same time.

Lol as an outsider who wasn't 'induced' to the rituals from their first ball game at 5 years old we found it kind of amusing - but cute at the same time.

But hey from a country who includes Cricket as a national pastime what the hell do we know.


Cheers,
Dean

Rats in NY Restaurants

http://eater.com/archives/2007/09/inside_edition.php
Tomorrow night Inside Edition will air part two of its "Rat Patrol" investigation, in which the show sends reporters out into the streets between 1 and 4 AM to find rats and other vermin running loose at top New York restaurants

Lol I love it - My comments were this;

I cant believe how New Yorkers are happy to throw their trash in the street in plastic garbage bags and then complain how you have rats.
In every major city in the world they have evolved years ago to sealed garbage bins (also automated collection trucks that pick up standardised containers which makes collected far cleaner).
New York we live in a third world city and as on par with Kuala Lumpur or Bankok we have to expect rats OR choose to do something about it.
Cheers,
Dean

I wonder if that will win me any friends from the local natives.
Have a great weekend.


Cheers,
Dean

P.S. I took the photos of these garbage bags on the way home from the baseball last night.They were piled up outside of Trump Towers on 68th and 3rd.You cant quite see it in the photo but I love how one of the bags was 'oozing' a lovely sticky liquid.....very santitary....and classy to boot hey Trump ?

Configuring A Product Online? Patented! Lots Of Companies Sued

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070906/010117.shtml
Would you believe that the concept of allowing people to configure a product online before ordering it has been patented? Indeed, just such a patent is at the center of a new lawsuit filed by some unknown patent hoarding company (amazingly not filed in Marshall, Texas!) against Hyundai, Michelin, Reebok, Puma and Polo Ralph Lauren for daring to offer a feature on their websites that let people configure products before ordering.

Lol I think this comment covers it all;
"This is just another in a long list of reasons why the current patent system needs to be taken out behind the barn and shot through the head... with buckshot".


Cheers,
Dean

Huge QR Code guerilla marketing campaign

Shoutout to my buddy Scott Schaffer aka The Pondering Primate. If you are in the mobile marketing space and dont read this guys blog then you are missing out.

Scott posted this morning about a QR Code campaign that was launched in London http://theponderingprimate.blogspot.com/2007/09/28-weeks-later-uses-qr-codes-for-dvd.html for the dvd release of "28 Weeks Later" that is taking the marketing space by storm.

(I had to see this movie while in London on a consulting project a few months back - lol hadn't planned on it but we were out at dinner in Leicester Square and saw it was playing and had to see it while in town (the movie is set in London in case you didn't know) ).



http://www.behindthebuzz.com/28-weeks-later-qr-code/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/sep/05/news
http://www.crackunit.com/2007/08/30/why-i-like-this-qr-code-poster/
http://mobile.kaywa.com/qr-code-data-matrix/qr-code-mania-in-uk-28-weeks-later-and-umbro-following-up-on-the-pet-shop-boys.html
http://www.filmstalker.co.uk/archives/2007/09/new_smart_code_advertising_for.html
http://benayers.blogspot.com/2007/09/qr-craze-used-to-promote-dvd-release.html
http://www.camera-core.co.uk/05-09-2007-qr-codes-for-camera-phone-decoding-launched-in-uk.html
http://www.altogetherdigital.com/20070905/28-days-later-sequel-to-use-qr-codes-28-days-after-we-wrote-about-it/
http://www.bluemedia.com/blueline/?p=160


If you are in marketing and dont know what a QR Code is then go do some research.

QR codes are the url of the future (i say that and groan as they have been common place in Japan and other parts of Asia for over 10 years).

Before you say this will never take off - go and look at how many url's you used in your last marketing campaign.....I'm sure there was some naysayer 10 years ago saying "there is no way I'm going to put that ugly WWW. in this beautiful print campaign" (shortly before he lost his job like the dinosaur he was).

Oh and if you feel lost and want a briefing to catch up - go check out my commercial profile www.cognation.net/profile and arrange a time for me to come in and run a workshop briefing for you and your team on QR campaigns and how they can be implemented for your marketing brands (or your clients brands should you really have already discussed this as a marketing strategy with them).


Cheers,
Dean

USA Farmers Offshore

Really really interesting article in today's NY Times about US Farmers who are now 'offshoring'.

Fed up with 'the flighty winds of change' regarding their seasonal laborers 'legal status' depending on whether its an election year or not.

Farmers are starting to realise how easy it is to move their operations (or a part of) a few hundred miles south into Mexico where there is a very willing and able workforce to implement their plans.

I'm wondering when the USA government is going to realise that this is a 'major' change in how the nation is fed. If your farming community is no longer even tied to your land then offshoring is a really big issue.

The US government is going to be in a position in the very near future where they are competing for the brightest and most efficient 'mind capital' that is stored in these farmers minds to try and 'win them' back to the USA with grants and tax breaks and subsidies.

Like I've said in more than a few blog posts, governments globally now need to understand that you are in a competition with every other country globally to try and attract the brightest and smartest 'intellectual capital' to their shores.

Yes quality of life etc comes into consideration but there are other factors that are more 'malleable' and can be influenced by the government directly.

Either way I think that the USA government is going to pay the piper for their electioneering rhetoric about immigration this year when everyone already knows that the USA cant survive without cheap labor.

And as for politicians complaining about Chinese toy recalls.....lets discuss the amount of recalls causing actual loss of life in the American auto industry....didn't hear you guys grandstanding then did we.

Anyway hope you enjoy the article.


Cheers,
Dean
P.S. Offshoring farming.....I remember doing a presentation on offshoring in 2002 and it was certainly in my 'not possible to offshore list' - wow how times change.

Oh Nooooooo

Breaking devastating news (and no not that Steve Fosset is lost)


It turns out that the butter in microwave popcorn is hazardous to your health.....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20592711/

What am I going to do......


Cheers,
Dean

Improv Everywhere

BTW people ask how come I like living in New York - check out this link to Improv Everywhere's latest social experience - we weren't there but shows how cool some people in New York are.

Video after the link
http://www.improveverywhere.com/2007/08/22/the-mp3-experiment-four/

Cheers,
Dean

Interesting Insight

Article about the X-Prize and the insurers http://techdirt.com/articles/20070830/074450.shtml interesting insights about 'industry' and how much of a 'pulse check' they have some times.

Very interesting point to think about.


Cheers,
Dean
P.S. If you've never heard about X-Prize you can start here.
http://deancollinsblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/inventions-little-guy.html

New York Incinerators

Whats up with that New York?

How can this disgusting smoke be considered even reasonable for people to be breathing. Is this really the way you want to run your city?

Cheers,

Dean