Our Tom interviewed about Who Killed Summer?

Brand-e.biz interviewed MWorks MD, Tom Thirlwall about our current online drama, Who Killed Summer? You can see the whole thing over here.

And you can watch Who Killed Summer? over here. Is good!

Who Killed Summer Episode 2 - recognise anyone our kid?!

Episode 2 of Who Killed Summer? is live!

Filmed last weekend at Benicassim Festival in Spain, this episode follows the 'contestants' as they plot how to get backstage to meet a celebrity and win this week's task..I'd say they did alright! See the whole episode here.

To keep up-to-date on what's happening in WKS09 and to be informed of upcoming episodes, join the Facebook group.

Who Killed Summer? Starts 16th July

Who Killed Summer? is a new online drama that sees 6 hot young music lovers from across Europe brought together by Vodafone for the summer of their lives. They'll hit the hottest gigs, the best festivals and the wildest parties, capturing content on their mobiles, whilst a film crew record every intimate moment in high definition.

..it should make for the most amazing summer ever, but will it?

How young people REALLY think, live + behave

This is a great presentation from Mobile Youth highlighting how so many brands are getting it horribly wrong when trying to communicate with the youth audience.

mobileYouth.org I am...not interested in mobile marketing

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: cell student)

As I used to say when I was a teen - 'TOLD!'

What I learnt today 23//01//09

That the Candid Cafe is a great place for a cosy drink. That Last.fm has launched on Android. The extent of the worldwide buzz surrounding Obama's inauguration on Twitter. That if you spread the word of Barcardi's new content sharing platform you can download Groove Armada's new album for FREE. That my cupcakes are tasty. That E4 has created a bespoke Skins MSN Messenger to engage with the youth audience, share content + information on the series. That Cadbury has launched the next 'cup and a half of joy' ad this time using kids with unnaturally wiggly eyebrows. That you can find out who the biggest brands in social media are here. That Howies has a great sale on. That Time Out is celebrating 40 years of fitness by running a free evening of fitness through the decades Leg Warmers + Lycra at the Central YMCA - I'll be there. That if you find a horseshoe you should hang it on a door with the points pointing up for good luck. That I like The Phantom Band.

The Riff Raff attracts 47,156 Bebo fans

Quick update on The Riff Raff Bebo campaign launched by our friends at Hideous Productions. When I originally wrote about this (here), the guys had 5 fans..basically us, them + the band!

..but since then they've managed to attract an astonishing 47,156 Bebo fans with large numbers of them interacting with the page on a daily basis by leaving comments on the wall, posting pictures, responding to the polls + inviting their friends to join. Hideous is now looking for a brand to sponsor the full campaign which should roll out towards the end of the year. So watch this space..

Round-up 30//07//08

GAMING
Update on Spore – over 1m creatures are being created each week // Got totally addicted to this, Astroflyer

WORLD WIDE WEB
Oooh, a potential contender to Google created by Google alumni, called Cuil has emerged! // More on customisation – the ultimate in car customisation from Volvo // Google’s launched a Second Life // U.S Chewing Gum brand Stride Gum sponsored this guy Matt to travel around the world and film himself dancing (badly) in each country.

CONTENT
One for…VAMPIRES – a really clever campaign launching in the states that takes product placement to a whole new level. More here // An update on Hideous Productions' Riff Raff Bebo campaign - they're currently at an astonishing 47k Bebo fans + are now looking for a brand sponsor // I was shocked to read that "some commissioners run a mile when they see a brand, even on a small channel where the money is tight." – an interesting article on how broadcasters view brands in the light of the recent demand for content and the popularity of ad-funded broadcasting.

TELECOMS
Met office offers weather service to mobile phones // Orange and Sony Ericsson-sponsored MobileAct Unsigned will be relaunched as "OrangeunsignedAct supported by Sony Ericsson" later this year. The show will launch on November 2 on Channel 4 and will be supported by an integrated marketing campaign // Google is launching an experiential activity to drive awareness of the Google services available on mobile phones, including Google Search + Google Maps. Google ‘lounging areas’ will be found in London’s commons and parks alongside interactive garden games + branded tricycles. And Google representatives will show consumers how to access the various Google services available using their own handsets.

GREEN + ETHICAL
EJF has linked with top designers including Katherine Hamnett + to create some v.cool t-shirts to raise awareness of environmental issues // And linking with designers seems to be the latest thing for getting the green message across..now Cath Kidston has designed a re-usable, recycled bag for Tesco – together they hope to raise £250k for Marie Curie Cancer + discourage the use of plastic bags // Pretty! Solar Powered Fairy Lights // Reverend + The Makers Guitarist, Tom Jarvis performed their last song on the John Peel tent at Glastonbury using a guitar made from recycled materials. More here.

JUST COOL
Brilliant – a food fight spoon // Kids Rock – your favourite bands singing kids songs..kinda // Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. This is a wordle for my blog, so it clearly shows what I talk about the most.

OLYMPICS
Pretty cool – a video created by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett (the guys behind the Gorillaz) + based on the classical Chinese Novel ‘Journey to the West’. It’s to promote BBC Sport’s coverage of the Olympics + will be shown on TV, online, on the radio + on mobile // And while we’re on the subject of the Olympics, here’s Nike’s (U.S) effort. I read about it on Contagious, where they also mention Bill Bailey’s comment on The Killers ‘I got Soul’ track, used in the ad (at Latitude festival) - “I’ve got soul but I am not a soldier? You can’t say that - it’s like saying I’ve got ham but I am not a hamster... “ – that made me laugh, a lot.

YOOF
This months 23 things (..rules for brands wishing to attract youth) from Ruby Pseudo // And a nice research presentation here on how young people are using their mobile phones.

EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
Sad to be missing the Innocent Village Fair this weekend // See the best views over London from the Stella Artois Star Over London - a Zeppelin airship which flies for 45 minutes // And this is a proper East End Old Time Music Hall featuring seven incredible quick-change artistes playing over 50 characters with magic, trapeze and everything. It's had mixed reviews, so...

Round-up 08//07//08

ONE FOR SUZ
Have you seen The Flight of the Conchords? Well if me + my blog is like Bret + Jermaine, then you're Mel:

TELECOMS
Nokia has launched the next stage of its Music Almighty campaign - a roller disco tour of the UK visiting London, Manchester + Brum. You can sign up for a pair of tickets here to skate for an hour + be musically entertained by DJ sets from Norman Jay, Zero 7, Guilty Pleasures + more. The tour supports Nokia’s ‘Comes with music’ service which has been set up to take on iTunes + has been doing very well having signed up all the major labels bar 1 (EMI). And they’ve cleverly turned what would otherwise be a purely experiential activity into a traffic + sales-driver for their music store by offering everyone to sign up a free download.

Blackberry will be pleased. As demonstrated in its latest campaign, Blackberry is trying to position itself as more of a consumer device. And now it turns out it’s benefiting from iPhone hype as consumers look for a more affordable option. The Samsung Soul does pretty well too..

Sony Ericsson has linked with the Women’s Tennis Association + to support it is launching an ad campaign across 75 countries worth £75m. They’ve also linked with Maria Sharapova to launch a range of mobile phone accessories for women in the 3rd quarter of this year called the Design Collection. Consisting of phone cases, party bags and travel wallets made with Sharapova’s ‘style, fashion + glamour’.

Worth reading but very long. This report talks about the predicted growth in global entertainment + media driven by digital + mobile. Now, we've been talking about this for 8 months or so, but suddenly the whole world is talking about mobile advertising as the next big thing. Nokia has even created Ad Labs in London + Boston to educate + certify ad agency staff on the dark art of mobile advertising + the huge potential for their clients’ brands.

Disney has linked up with Sharp to launch a

Cinderella themed handset aimed at tweens.

Watch this space - thanks to the Nintendo Wii making gaming more accessible, men + women of all ages now consider themselves to be 'casual gamers'. Nokia’s UK Marketing Director, Will Harris reckons gaming will be bigger than music as an industry this year + have made it a top priority. After the modest success of the Nokia NGage, its gaming software now sits alongside it's music + mapping software. Sony Ericsson have launched a Wii-style motion-gaming enabled handset, the F305.

INTERNET + SOCIAL MEDIA
Jim came across this one – Skittle Yourself is a simple but clever microsite that allows kids to create their own characters, Skittles packets + more + then export them into their Bebo profiles + other social networks. A nice example of creating online groundswell - Spore is an EA Games endeavour, which is not to be officially released until September, when it will be released on platforms including the iPhone. But such is the pedigree of its creator the buzz starts now. Created by the guy behind The Sims and Sim City in this new game you get to play God starting at the beginning of evolution and extending all the way to dominating outer space. To build a community online + get people talking + interacting, EA has created a site where you can create + download your own Spore creature + keep up-to-date on Spore news. Some of us were talking yesterday about the likelihood of an application that tells you where in the world your friends are popping up soon. And then literally 30 mins later EI sent through a link to Loopt - a social compass that does just that.

YOOF...+ A BIT OF TELECOMS
Everyone’s been talking about social media, buzz marketing, branded content blah blah blah as the favoured methods of creating a deeper interaction + 2-way conversations between brands + consumers. No longer do consumers just react to what a brand is telling them..they now have control + influence like never before. And while some brands have (to some extent) enabled their customers to even influence the design of products for a while now, I have a feeling this will become even more common - especially among the youth audience to whom expressing individuality is absolutely essential. Nike has been doing the customisation thing for a while, but has now stepped it up a notch by tapping into the mobile world. With Nike PhotoID, consumers can MMS a picture from the real world to inspire their footwear design. Nike will take the 2 main colours from the image to create a personalised pair of trainers. The user is then sent a link to view the trainers on the Nike PhotoID mobile site where they can use the image as wallpaper, send it to a friend + buy the trainers. They’ve timed it pretty well because as people are getting more + more dependant on the internet, social networks, email etc, they’re less averse to paying the connection charges to access the internet on their mobiles (the main barrier before). However, my thinking is that while the youth audience should demonstrate the biggest opportunity for this kind of campaign, they also have the least disposable income..to pay the connection charges + for the trainers themselves?!

..however, Blyk might just solve this problem. Blyk is an advertiser-funded free mobile phone service for 16-24 year olds. In exchange for agreeing to receive up to 6 commercial messages a day (MMS + SMS), users are given 43 minutes of talk + 217 texts free each month. Potentially freeing up cash for mobile internet (?), hmm. Blyk rents space on Orange’s network + has been around for 7 months now – they’ve reached 100k users ahead of schedule and hope to reach 250k users by Christmas.

And just to support the above…here’s another interesting presentation from Mobile Youth discussing what’s next in media for youth. And here are some great stats + graphs + things on the whole customisation thing.

ONE FOR TOM
Puma has created i-cycle – a site that explores + celebrates the culture of cycling through a series of films following cyclists in New York. While I do think the films go some way to capture what’s great about cycling, they’re just slightly too long + not quite engaging enough. However, I do think Puma is onto something + could do more with this…what with the whole green thing + because cycling IS fun, liberating, adventurous + should be shared. In fact I think they’d do well to get me + Tom involved.

GREEN + ETHICAL
Really liking Tonic – they make lovely ethical + organic clothes + bags..altho they are lacking in the female department at the moment. I do think it would be a crime if a certain Art Director of ours lived much longer without this. Camping, learning + entertainment – amazing. The Howies ‘Do’ lectures are taking place in September + they’re looking for applicants with causes they’re passionate about to learn how to actively make a difference. I’m pretty sure you have to write a handwritten letter to apply - find out more here. This is great - Time Out's A-Z of Green.

JUST PLAIN WEIRD
I think Alex + co. should wear these interesting Xbox trousers to their next client meeting…(g)eeeek! Weird – Open Please is a website selling ‘distinctive gifts for the dentist profession’ (WHAT?) – tho I have to say I do quite like the Dentist watch. This reminds me of the Family Guy episode where Peter wishes for his own personal soundtrack – this t-shirt plays different soundtracks selected by you based on your mood, including ‘sexy time’ and ‘sad accident’ themes. I’d love it for maybe 10 minutes.

The Riff Raff Make Tracks on Bebo

Our friends at Hideous Productions have been working with unsigned band, The Riff Raff to help them raise their profile among music-loving teens.

In a unique + innovative campaign, The Riff Raff is asking Bebo users to help them launch their debut album in a way that's never been done before!

The Riff Raff Make Tracks page asks Bebo users to join them on a journey which will take them to some of the coolest + unusual locations across the world. Each week they'll visit a different destination decided by the Bebo community through online polls, where they'll perform at gigs, meet some famous faces + generally have a lot of fun. All of their performances + antics will be documented via video posts, blog entries + more on Bebo. And as they go, they'll introduce a different track from the album to their Bebo community, which can then be downloaded via the Bebo site. So by the end of the tour not only will the fans have collected the entire debut album, they'll have been taken on, and contributed to an unforgettable journey with the band as well.

We think this is going to be a HUGE hit with the Bebo crowd..potentially changing the way music is released FOREVER! Support the band + join them on their journey by becoming a fan here..we have.

Round-up 17//06//08

TALKS / COURSES
Online Marketing Show 24th + 25th June – this is FREE guys, some of us should definitely go. Including a variety of talks including: Creative Directors showcase, Marketing through Social Networks, Widgets / Web Apps.

TELECOMMS
Orange to launch innovative virtual balloon race. Nice new Sony Ericsson G700. The negative impact of the iPhone on other carriers and makers.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Social networking site Bebo has commissioned a 2nd series of online TV show Sofia's Diary starring the 17-year old Sofia and her friends at college and work. Sofia’s Diary which was sponsored by Unilever’s Sure Girl deodorant first time round was also broadcast on digital TV station Fiver where it attracts 250k viewers. Channel 4 has turned to Facebook and Bebo to trigger interest in Big Brother 9 with a Facebook fan page and application which users can use to watch and rate the show + get news as it breaks. Research by Thinkbox and the IAB shows that using TV and online together in ad campaigns can result in 47% more positivity about a brand. The research also shows that the likelihood of buying or using a product increases by more than 50% when the two channels are used together…really interesting article debating in-house vs. out-sourcing when it comes to the production of engaging digital content at a time when agencies such as AKQA are setting up film departments in-house. From Nada - a clever campaign from Penguin that tells stories through Google Maps + Twitter...oooh.

GREEN STUFF
Innocent is running its ‘buy one get one tree’ campaign again which plants a tree for every bottle of Innocent bought. The site also includes digital badges, Facebook widgets and information on UK forest walks. Here's what Contagious has to say about it. Discovery Channel have launched a Planet Green channel. At a time of real concern for the number of plastic bottles hitting landfill (which take 150 years to decompose!), research shows that the UK is the fastest growing bottled-water market. To attempt to reverse this trend, the Evening Standard launched the Water on tap campaign alongside Mayor Ken (Boris continues to support it) encouraging London restaurants to pledge to offer tap water as standard to make drinking tap water more socially acceptable.

WII-NOVATION
You can now use your Wii remote to create street art with Wii-graffiti. Quit smoking with Alan Carr, Ubisoft and DS:

JUST COOL / CLEVER STUFF
Customise your moleskin. Clever advertising for Alzheimers charity in South Africa. Clever and simple. A site where you can find movie title screens – might come in useful one day?!

THE WORLD WIDE WEB
Apple launches films on iTunes. A really impactful video and website for charity, the girl effect which aims to empower females in poverty-striken countries. Coldplay preview new album on MySpace. To support new release Adulthood – the sequel to last year’s Kidulthood, Pathe has created a Facebook fan page offering ‘fans’ the chance to win screening tickets and access exclusive content such as trailers and film stills. This is genius – NZ campaign to encourage reading (and slacking at work) with book scripts presented in powerpoint. The Green Room + E.I have launched a new microsite for Christian Aid called ctrl.alt.shift. Ctrl.alt.shift differentiates Christian Aid from other charities by not just asking for money but by empowering people to make a difference with matters they’re really passionate about - giving them a voice and a platform to express it in a way that reaches + inspires others. The community-based site asks its users to create content that helps raise awareness of the various issues that Christian Aid supports, with the best being posted to the site. The initiative is being supported by top music names, Estelle and Sway.

YOOF
The Ruby Pseudo blog has these great timelines to show what’s pertinent + personal to kids’ aged between 11-16, broken down by year: 11-12's / 12-13's / 14-15's / 15-16's
Interesting Mobile youth Marketing to Generation Y presentation. And even better than that, MTV Asia has written this great pres on youth behaviour – full of great stats and insights.

CAKES
F*^k off-off. I noticed on W+K’s blog that they’ve had bake-offs and Jack-offs, and last week they held a Muff-off. And sources tell me that Iris often hold bake-offs – and while I know we’re planning a bank holiday Jerk-off, I can’t help thinking we need to avoid the whole ‘off-ing’ thing. So wrack your brains for thoughts on how we can each demonstrate our creative talents in a fun way that brings us all together. Alternatively we could take the bake-off thing to a new level of wholesome’ness and do it for Breast Cancer Care who’s asking people to hold strawberry picnics this June.

EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
Looks cool - Clive Boursnell exhibition on historic london. And another exhibition about the last few months of the Routemaster in London. IT'S MY BIRTHDAY next week - so I'm going here on Friday if anyone would like to join me for a night of pass the parcel, limbo + burlesque...no, really!

JUST WEIRD
Jeeeezus.

One for Lucy – social media (baby book) for babies.

News on Youth

Almost three-quarters want to know the news, with 51% of the 1,000 respondents surveyed at the start of May saying it was important and 23% saying it was very important. Meanwhile 25% of female respondents said news was not very important.

Q Research has just completed a survey of news consumption among 11-25-year-olds on our mobile phone panel. We wanted to understand how important news is to young people and which sources they use. In particular, we wanted to assess how much this generation relies on the internet and mobile phones to access the news rather than the traditional sources of newspapers, TV and radio. Liam Corcoran, MD of Q Research discusses the findings.

Almost three-quarters want to know the news, with 51% of the 1,000 respondents surveyed at the start of May saying it was important and 23% saying it was very important. Meanwhile 25% of female respondents said news was not very important.

Respondents were asked to select all their sources of news. TV topped the list at 85%, followed by newspapers at 66% of respondents. News websites (excluding those of newspapers) and radio were a tied choice at 46%. Just 28% said that they use newspaper websites, less than those who read magazines for the news (31%).

There are key differences in media choice by age and gender. The older the respondents, the more likely they are to use digital for their news. While TV is the top choice for all age groups, respondents aged 21-25 are most likely to use newspaper websites - 44%, compared to 28% of 16-20-year-olds and only 16% for 11-16-year-olds. However, the younger respondents are using other news sites, with 46% of 16-20-year-olds and 42% of 11-16-year-olds logging on. Of our 21-25-year-old respondents, 19% have headlines delivered via their mobile phone, almost twice the number of the younger respondents.

Men are more likely to get news via their mobile phone. This is a trend we've seen in past surveys, where women are less likely to download content on their mobiles. The men in our survey were more likely to cite digital sources as their preferred news source, with internet and TV neck and neck. The women were more attracted to traditional media, with more selecting radio and newspapers as their favourite.

These results challenge a widespread assumption that young people have little interest in news. Young men especially are avid consumers and many will pay for instant news on their mobile.

..again, stolen...but unsure where from

Round-up 05//06//08

JUST NICE STUFF
Manchester agency, Love Creative won an award for this rather nice digital campaign inviting people to design their own DM boots. Some really beautiful photography. A clever truck-side campaign for Dodge Challenger

YOOF
An interesting article from Mobile Youth reminding us that all kids really think about when considering a product is, a) Is it cheap?, b) Do my friends use it? + c) Will it help me get laid? And here are loads of insightful on-the-street interviews investigating how youth feels about mobile brands + other youth brands. Here’s a nice account of the recent Mobile Youth Marketing Workout. Almost ¾ of 11-25 year olds want to know the news, with 51% saying it’s important and 23% saying it was very important. Meanwhile 25% of female respondents said news was not very important. Full article.

TELECOMMS
Fun, new Nokia ad from W+K called 'Dance'. Free Nintendo Wii at mobiles.co.uk. Sony Ericsson launches c702 cybershot.

WRINKLIES
Old people are feeling left out!! An outrage! Research shows that ¾ of over 50s think that the only products specifically targeted at them are life assurance products, false teeth and incontinence plans. Yet they have cash, time + are increasingly savvy, active and adventurous. Full article. And just to re-affirm that point

DIGITAL + INNOVATION
One for Nada - RSS toilet paper. Radiohead is running a competition to create an animated video for their Weird Fishes track giving the winner $1,000 and 3 runner up prizes of golden tickets at their gigs. View and rate the entries here. And here’s a particularly cool entry. Minority report-style computer technology just around the corner. Orange launches a digital radio device. Qype, a user-generated review site for everything from the Electric Cinema to the Costa Coffee in Newhaven has gone down a storm with 750k registered users in less than a year and over 30,000 user reviews added to date driven by tie-ups and comps from the likes of Virgin Atlantic. Are they kidding? – Gameboy platforms

BBC iPlayer factoids - More than 42 million programmes have been accessed via the BBC's iPlayer since its launch on Christmas Day 2007, and in March viewing figures were up 25 percent on the previous month. Click here for full article and 10 top tips on VOD.

GREEN
How green are you? This National Geographic Greendex calculator will tell you. My score is 64 – which is even better than Brazil! Full green survey here too.

RETAIL
Retail windowspace done wrong..and by Nokia, oops

ONE FOR TOM London’s best deli’s and food shops

ONE FOR LEE Other Music Weekly Chart

..and here's a place you can create digital mixtapes and send them to your friends, ahh!

ANOTHER FOR NADA Stokefest. And secret sources tell me that the Strictly Come Barn Dance will be there!

EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
17 people were arrested during circle line cocktail party. Smithfield Nocturne – something to do with bikes, pin-stripe suits + Smithfields. Warm-up your vocal chords - Karokebox is coming to Smithfield, wooo. Prohibition – Bugsy Malone style 1920’s night out serving Hendricks Gin in teapots..amazing!