Branson captured in sex romp for launch of latest Virgin Money venture

Virgin Money has unveiled a saucy viral campaign featuring its boss Sir Richard Branson enjoying a sex romp in a Jacuzzi, as part of the promotional activity for the launch of its mortgage service in Australia.

The viral ad, created by digital agency BWB, shows Branson sipping Champagne with his arms around two naked women in a spa before descending into science fiction farce.

Read more at Gordon's Republic

View viral: click here

Direct link to YouTube version here

Tags: virgin money saucy viral campaign digital agency BWB australia

Academy's darkly funny Viral for Leagas Delaney

Academy director Seb Edwards' new viral campaign for Leagas Delaney shows us in a darkly funny way why we should be using Goodyear's new Run On Flat tyres. Watch the spots here: Run On Flat

AddictingClips now taking your videos

It's hard to look at the overnight success of YouTube and not want a piece of that pie. Thus, we have Atom Entertainment, which made its name with the popular AtomFilms brand, expanding into user-submitted videos.

Since December, Atom has run a site called AddictingClips, a directory that allowed people to find cool video clips on the web. Now the site is taking submissions directly from users.

San Francisco's Atom Films has focused on finding and distributing casual games, short films and video shorts from independent creators. It's proven to be a profitable business.

AddictingClips functions much like YouTube in that people can easily pass around the videos or embed them in their web sites. One distinguishing feature, Roesch said, is that people will be able to submit videos directly from their camera phones. The company will also be on the lookout for high-quality video that it can promote through AtomFilms.

Full Story at: SiliconBeat

technorati tags: you+tube atom+films addicting+clips video clips entertainment

Stay on Target!

Recessed into a urinal is a pressure-sensitive display screen. When the guest uses it, he triggers an interactive game, producing images and sound.

The reduced size of the “target” improves restroom hygiene and saves on cleanings costs (like the “fly in the urinal” at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport). It also makes a trip to the urinal “fun and games” – more than just a necessary nuisance.

By projecting the game experience into the public space, viewers are treated to a new way of visualizing the abstract, and the entertainment value is boosted.

I'm positive there is an advertising model in there, just how you would pitch it I'm not too sure!

Source: Yanko Design

technorati tags: pressure-sensitive display screen entertainment urinal

Crazy multi-input touch screen

A standard touch screen allows one input at a time. This allows multiple people to use it and allows for Minority Report like features. Super cool.




technorati tags: multi-input screen

Thought Equity teams with Sony Pictures

Denver on-line footage portal Thought Equity has a deal to market Sony Pictures Entertainment's non-talent footage which, it claims, together with its other represented collections makes it "home to the world's largest entertainment motion content library".

Material from the 70,000-clip collection has been digitised for on-line browsing and is available for immediate download in HD and other qualities. The partnership with Sony Pictures brings to the Thought Equity stable Sony's own material -- footage from its theatrical brands, including Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures and Screen Gems.

More details: Footage.net

technorati tags: sony footage content library

Shots Forum 2006: Unleashing Creativity, New Approaches to the Agency and Adidas' World Cup Campaign

The fifth annual shots forum took place at London's BAFTA last week and over 120 leading advertising practitioners and producers gathered to explore the state of creativity today.

Delegates included creative and managing directors, heads of television, CEOs, executive producers and marketing directors from as far afield as Lisbon, Montreal and Barcelona, Paris and Tokyo. The audience heard keynote speeches and discussions from some of the advertising industry's leading lights and influential tastemakers from other fields.

Click here for a round up of the closing session of the shots forum.

New Antonio Banderas film is first to be promoted through 'mash up'

The new Antonio Banderas film 'Take the Lead' is being promoted through a new method, where the film is "re-mixed" by a VJ and shown online and in clubs.

DMC, which conceived and planned the campaign, charged Addictive TV, the London-based VJ team, with remixing the film on behalf of New Line Cinema, the US company behind the film.

The result is a video that uses lines and sounds from the film set to a dance beat. It can be viewed here

Two more versions are set to be made, one by UK outfit Eclectic Method, and another by DJ Second Nature from Atlanta, Georgia.

The viral has garnered positive coverage in blogs, including a piece on Livejournal saying: "Instead of going the traditional route for pushing the new Antonio Banderas vehicle 'Take the Lead', the Hollywood execs decided to be cool."

Full article: Brand Republic

technorati tags: film mash-up

Universal offers King Kong as first title in download-to-own service

'King Kong' will be the first of 35 movie titles available for consumers to download and own in a deal signed between Universal Pictures UK and online DVD rental service LoveFilm.

The movie download-to-own service is a direct-to-consumer, electronic distribution service. UK film fans will be to download two files of a film to own indefinitely -- one to save on their PCs plus a copy to view on a portable device -- alongside the DVD hire, when the service launches on April 10.

The service will also be available through AOL film downloads and is powered by online DVD rental service LoveFilm.

Peter Smith, president of Universal Pictures International, said: "Universal is very proud to be the first to launch this download-to-own model in partnership with LoveFilm, particularly debuting with a film of the calibre of 'King Kong'. Download-to-own has the potential to completely revolutionise the way people watch movies."

Full story at Revolution

BBC unveils new marketing campaign

The BBC is poised to unveil its widest-reaching marketing push since the "Perfect Day" campaign nine years ago and announce a new slogan to the public - "This is what we do".

The campaign, devised by ad agency Fallon, will tell behind-the-scenes stories about BBC personnel to celebrate the corporation's values and achievements - but in stark contrast with recent promotions will not feature any expensive computer graphics or a roster of famous names.

Watch John Simpson promo (mpg)

Watch The Office promo

Watch the Iraq news crew promo (mpg)

Full story at Guardian Unlimited

Coke backs Relentless energy drink with weekly virals

Coke is to launch its new energy drink, Relentless, with a website and viral communications.

Relentless is a new energy drink targeted at active people. Erasmus was appointed by Coca-Cola to develop the brand last October. It has come up with the message: "Give and you shall receive. No half measures." The idea was to focus on a struggle and sacrifice in the pursuit of a goal, and facing up to challenges.

The drink will be launched on the website with weekly virals seeded for six weeks.
Visitors to the site will be able to view an ad, which is to be shown across 1,000 cinemas in an eight-week push.

There is also an extensive point-of-sale push across thousands of outlets. Brand posters will promote specific events that Relentless is involved in over the next few months.

Source: Revolution UK

Video sharing with You Tube hits mainstream

The hottest site on the Internet right now is You Tube - think of it as Flickr for video.

Amber MacArthur talks with You Tube co-founder and CTO, Steve Chen during the latest Inside the Net Podcast: download here

An example of a You Tube video in an earlier blog post: Sky TV's real simpsons

Some other video sharing sites in this space:

Google Video
VSocial
VidiLife
Veoh.com
VideoEgg.com
Vimeo.com
metacafe.com
vmix.com
BrightCove.com
advection.net
DropShots.com
revver.com

It will be interesting to see the full revenue model and if the big TV channels/film studios start using it more to show trailers etc.

BSkyB to launch broadband service later this year

BSkyB will launch its broadband service, offering sports and movie downloads, later this year. The move comes after the company bought internet service provider Easynet for £211m at the end of 2005.

Read more at Brand Republic

PodZinger Adds Video Podcast Search

PodZinger has introduced a search that lets users search for spoken words within video podcasts.

"The explosion of online video, fueled by the growing adoption of broadband technologies in the home and office, and offerings from media outlets such as MTV, VH1 and ABC, has heightened the need for an effective, user-friendly search engine to help users find their favorite topics," said Alex Laats, president, PodZinger.

In addition to the benefits to online video users, PodZinger believes that its technology provides opportunities for enterprises wanting to make their video archives keyword-searchable and for advertisers to find targeted ways of reaching customers looking for video content.

read full story at Podcasting News

Michel Gondry's new film: Sneak Preview & Podcast

Popwatch has posted a link to a clip from The Science of Sleep, the feature written and directed by Michel Gondry that's due in US theaters in August. Starring actor Gael Garcia Bernal and featuring Gondry's signature brand of stop-motion kookiness, the clip is hosted by the director's commercial production company Partizan.

Partizan are also getting into the video podcast scene with their new podcast.

The BBC's Planet Earth in HD

The BBC's 'Planet Earth' natural history series is currently showing on a Sunday night schedule and netted a peak audience of 8.9m on it's first night.

The series is set to net the corporation over £20m from DVD sales and overseas network deals when it is released towards the end of the year.

The executive producer Alistair Fothergill, claims it features some of the most advanced camera techniques ever used, it is also expected to become the first BBC production to appear in the High-Definition DVD format.

Read more: Brand Republic & Hollywood Reporter

Vanessa Berlowitz and David Baille from the BBC report from HMS Endurance during filming:

BBC Film Crew Feature

BBC – Aerial Filming with HMS Endurance

Click here – to see a film of 434 helicopter with the Gyron camera

AOL launches free online TV channel

AOL has launched an online television channel showing Warner Brother's classic TV shows.

Named In2TV, the network hosts 30 series including Growing Pains and Eight is Enough. It also boasts interactive features including games and polls.

AOL plan to put more than 100 series on the channel in future, showing at least 300 episodes per month.

The company hopes the feature - to support itself through advertising - will attract people to its website.Its shows will only be on In2TV, says AOL, not on television repeats.

Source: Digital Spy

Check out the new Boards iMag!

Now you can watch streaming video in a digital version of their March 2006 issue. On screen, it looks like print, but offers video, interactive web links and much more!

Click here to view

Cannes Lions 2006 juries announced

21 Film jury members and 18 Press jury members are to judge the Film and Press competitions. David Droga, Creative Chairman of Drogafive will preside over both juries.

"These award winning creatives will bring together their global points of view to award great innovative and inspirational work that will raise the international creative benchmark," commented Terry Savage, Executive Chairman of the Festival.

Click here to see full list.

Levi's Moonbathing with BBH & Outsider

The editing debacle between BBH and production companies hasn't stopped them launching their latest campaign for Levi's.

Shot by Anthony Atanasio for Outsider, Moonbathing is part of the brand's summer Be Original campaign. It shows the nocturnal activities of the yoof of today in a series of 20-second spots, backed up by radio, print and a two-minute version of the work online. To watch the two-minute film, click here: Levi's Moonbathing

MSN and 3 link up for mobile video blogging channel

MSN.co.uk has signed a deal with mobile company 3 to create a mobile blogging channel.

Users will be able to submit short videos taken on their video mobiles or digital cameras to an email address. The 10 best videoclips will be posted daily on the 3 MSN Space where other users can vote for favourite clips and post blogs.

At the end of each week, the user who sends the video with the most votes will get £100 and the overall winner gets £1,000.

Katy Adelson, digital marketing manager at MSN.co.uk, said: "This new mobile blogging agreement illustrates a new medium for online advertising and demonstrates the potential value of advertising on a web 2.0 application. These are exciting times for online as we see new avenues for advertising and innovative campaigns evolving."

Full report at Brand republic

Gates envisions future of Mobile & Video

The digital advertising market is booming, "and we're still very much at the beginning," affirmed Corbis (and Microsoft) Chairman Bill Gates at that company's annual meeting in New York yesterday.

After 100 percent growth in mobile image sales last year he also pinpoints video as another growth area.

Gates believes Internet video is just around the corner. "Ads on that platform will be different. They'll be targeted to the viewer." And, he assured the assembled, skipping will be stopped to "make the economic model work."

Corbis also looks to be doing some interesting stuff in digital rights clearance. CEO Steve Davis showed an ad for Comcast that was, effectively, a mash-up on a 1978 episode of "The $60,000 Pyramid."

Rights management for mash-ups? This is going to be interesting.

Source: ClickZ

More details: StockPhotoTalk

Click here to listen to the Podcast of Bill Gates´ Introduction Speech during the 2006 Corbis annual meeting (MP3 file, approx 10.7 MB).

BBC licence fee secured for the next decade

Following yesterday's white paper, Julia Day from the Guardian's blog reports that there are divided comments in the national press regarding the future of the BBC.

The Guardian believes the question that should be asked is not how we can shackle the BBC, but how we can help it build on its very impressive global success.

The Independent said accountability is the key and that the BBC Trust must establish itself as the voice of the licence-fee payer "loudly and "clearly".

In the Daily Telegraph Anthony Smith, a former C4 board member and recently retired as president of Magdalen, Oxford, argued that the "BBC must do better, not more".

The Financial Times is incredulous that the BBC remainsfunded by the licence fee: "This is almost as unbelievable as time travel. The idea that Britain's biggest broadcaster should be guaranteed an income from the licence fee - a tax on every house with a TV - is unsustainable. It spells dire consequences for the Beeb's competitors that rely on cyclical advertising or sales - such as broadcasters, websites and publishers."

The Times believes the white paper has "let the country down".

A dream come true for W&K & Honda

British Television Advertising Awards awarded Best Television Commercial of the Year to W+K's Impossible Dream for Honda.

Impossible dream" follows in the footsteps of "grrr" in 2004 and "cog" in 2003. The ad was directed by Ivan Zacharias through Stink, was the brainchild of the Wieden & Kennedy copywriters Kim Papworth and Sean Thompson and the art directors Tony Davidson and Chris Groom.

Watch: Honda 'impossible dream' by Wieden & Kennedy

The Most Successful Advertising Agency award went to DDB London, and The Most Successful Production Company award went to Stink.

Agencies: Recouping losses for big pitches

Agencies are looking for ways to recoup loses from big pitches that eat up their time and resources.

Earlier this year EasyJet was accused of misleading agencies after it halted an eight-month pitch for its £50m advertising business.
Ogilvy & Mather and Saatchi & Saatchi had both spent more than £100,000 on the pitch. Saatchi's said the airline had "wasted its time" and removed itself from any future pitches with the company.

In January, the executive committee of AAAI passed a resolution allowing agencies to charge a fee to clients who call for a creative pitch.

It is a touchy subject, as reinventing the wheel isn't easy,with advertisers being asked to hand over money for something they had been getting for free for a long time.

Perhaps new solutions are required to keep pitching costs down and a fuller scrutiny of the whole pitch process is surly needed.

Opinions, discussions, views & ideas

Many companies are now exploring web interaction from their customers in a number of different style marketing campaigns.

Here is a selection that I have recently been looking at:

Honda UK's sponsored new blog network that lets consumers give their opinion on well-known brands.

AOL's What do you think? campaign, plays on the internet's downsides to broaden its customer base. Created by Grey London.

HSBC's Your point of view campaign has a website where people can leave their point of view on many world subjects.

Getty Images Change Me, an open conversation that brings people together to share ideas through powerful imagery.
For each submission, Getty Images will donate $10 to ONE:The Campaign to Make Poverty History - which help raise awareness about the crisis of extreme poverty and AIDS.

The Independent follows Sony with Digital Tube Ad's

The Independent newspaper is to run the first time-sensitive campaign on Viacom Outdoor’s Tottenham Court Road Tube station digital escalator panels.

This follows Sony's high-profile Bravia campaign (created by Fallon) that appeared on the Digital escalator panels at Tottenham Court Road Tube last month.

From 13 March, the panels will feature a different piece of creative on each day of the two week campaign, incorporating that day's front page of The Independent.

Grand Visual designed the creative in partnership with The Independent's creative agency Walsh Trott Chick Smith. Media was planned by Walker Media and bought through Posterscope.

Full story at Media Week

Sky TV's real simpsons

For more than a year, a team led by Sky TV's creative director Andy Granger and commercials director Chris Palmer have worked on a real-life version of the 60-second title sequence of The Simpsons.

It's finally airing this Sunday on Sky One after copies have been circulating on the internet for weeks.

View the clip...

MTV signs 63rd global deal to deliver digital content

MTV Networks International has signed a deal with T-Mobile to provide content to mobile TV subscribers across Europe.

T-Mobile subscribers will be able to access popular shows optimised for mobile. Channels available include MTV Snax and Trax -- known across Europe as MTV Music and MTV Shorts -- as well as Nickelodeon animations like 'SpongeBob SquarePants' and 'Dora the Explorer'.

MTV Networks has partnerships with 63 mobile operators globally, to deliver digital content, applications and services, which include short videoclips, games, ringtones, and voice products on mobile, text alerts and interactive applications.

Source: Brand Republic

How to make content compelling enough for a small screen is the question taxing the minds of broadcasters who want a piece of the mobile phone pie.

BBC’s Click presenter spoke to Gideon Bierer from MTV Networks: Follow this link to read the full article

Are TV schedulers soon to become redundant?

Peter Feuilherade's BBC article Digital media 'empowering users' comments that "As more media become increasingly available in digital formats, and traditional models of media packaging and distribution start to unravel, "the customer is king" is fast becoming the industry's new catchphrase."

Further comments from the London FT conference on New Media:

"Consumers are exercising more control, said Microsoft's Neil Holloway, Already in the US, 70% of personal video recorder users are skipping adverts, he noted."

"The trick for media companies is how to embrace multiple content in a profitable way," Ed Shedd of the UK consultancy firm Deloitte.

The growing trend towards on-demand viewing, although still representing a small minority of all TV viewing, was starting to exert the pressures of the internet on the world of commercial television.

One day, schedulers might even find themselves redundant, warned David Moody of BBC Worldwide, the BBC's commercial division.

For Rod Henwood of the UK's Channel 4, the key to ratings success for TV channels still lay in content. He told the audience passionately: "Take risks. Creativity differentiates."

Creative aspirations and visual ideas?

Single Shot, an initiative supported by Arts Council and UK Film Council's New Cinema Fund, is holding an open call for submissions to find "anyone with creative aspirations and visual ideas that can come alive through moving images".

Sounds like you? Rules are simple: as the name suggests entries should be one shot, or your take on that, and between 15 seconds and five minutes on any format that you think gets your message over.

Ideas picked will be professionally shot for inclusion in Single Shot which will receive a major London launch in November and then tour to a further five major cities in England.

Each film will receive full post production and edit from a team of specialists, while you remain at the helm as director. As well as this, your work will be shown alongside commissioned works by internationally recognised artists working in film and video. Want to find out more?

Check out the website: www.single-shot.co.uk

Rushes Soho Shorts Festival, call for entries

Rushes Soho Shorts Festival, now celebrating its eighth year, has announced its first call for entries in 2006.

The deadline for entries is May 5th and films must be no longer than 12 minutes in any of the five following categories: Short Film, Newcomer, Titles & Idents, Music Video and Animation. The festival will be held from July 29th until August 4th. Awards for the best director in each category will be presented on Thursday August 3rd at the Festival Awards night held at The CC Club in Piccadilly.

This year's spokesperson is actor Bill Nighy, and fellow Brit actor David Morrissey will be judging alongside Time Out's film critic Dave Calhoun and the Observer's Jason Solomons, Dave Waters, creative director and founder of DFGW and Maggie Ellis from the UK Film Council.

For more details and an application form go to: http://www.rushes.co.uk/

Crisp takes the Red Brick Road route

Lowe London's long-standing head of TV, Charles Crisp, has left this week to join Sir Frank Lowe's Red Brick Road.Crisp has been at Lowe for 18 years, 16 as head of TV.

"The opportunity to join a new agency of the calibre of Red Brick Road was too good to pass up. It's a really exciting venture and I will get to continue working on Tesco," said Crisp.

Read the full report at Shots

ITV's appetite for online and digital ventures

ITV's Digital Media Plans; $78 Million Online Ad Revs in 2005

UK broadcaster ITV reported its 2005 results today, and also elaborated on plans for digital media, through ITV.com and its newly announced brand ITV Play.

Among other things, ITV CEO Charles Allen wants to make programmes such as Coronation Street available on iPods. He added that ITV wanted to digitize its catalog as the company.

Allen said ITV considered mobile phones to be "an interesting opportunity" for distributing content, adding that the new ITV Play digital "participation TV" channel announced today would have mobile phone and broadband streaming elements. It hopes to generate $35 million from the ITV Play business in its first full year.

The Advertising Shift

Recent research conducted by TNS and commissioned by Google has shown that people in the UK are now spending more time surfing the internet than watching TV.

Along with many more TV channels and the evolving 3G mobile phone networks, the shift in advertising spend from TV is already happening.

Welcome to my Blog!

I will be regularly adding news items and comments relating to the Advertising, Broadcasting, Production, Corporate and New Media industries.