Magazine

Contagious Magazine

2010-08-31T15:58:02Z

Hands up if any of the following apply to you:

1)      I claim to read hundreds of blog posts every day, but only ever read the titles
2)      My attention span is going out of the window due to overuse of Twitter
3)      I'm trying to stay on top of the changes in the industry, but have no time to consider how all these changes might fit together
4)      I could really do with a cup of tea and a sit down

We're well aware of the tension implicit in issues of putting out a quarterly edition (in antiquated hard copy, no less!) in which we focus on the most innovative and successful developments in advertising, technology, design and consumer culture.

However, we like to think of Contagious Magazine as your chance to sit back, digest, and actually take something in. It's the quarter, condensed. Everything you need to know in a handy, carry-around format.

To steal from the marvelous Ze Frank, we think so you don't have to.

This quarter's amazing issue features case studies on the renaissance of Levi's, 'the performance sportswear of the 1870s'; and an in-depth look at brand activists of the moment Gatorade, whose focus on grassroots sport is worth any number of professional sponsorships.

Our news round-up of the most innovative advertising initiatives from around the world is the cheat's guide to what's happening in the advertising world. The Contagious team filters through thousands of campaigns to ensure that only the most creative and successful make the cut, and this quarter's DVD has a bumper crop of 66 video case studies on it to inspire your entire team. (Don't forget, all those case studies are also available to subscribers right here at www.contagiousmagazine.com).

We've also launched a new section entitled 'Upstarts'. We've rounded up the most innovative side projects of the quarter, from a bunch of smart young things destined for huge success.

Expert opinions this quarter come from Adrian Hon of Six to Start, who makes sense of the hype around games and points systems. Jonah Peretti of BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post explains why the 'Bored at Work' network is a marketer's best friend.

We catch up with Matt Webb from the wonderful BERG to get his take on how polite design can change the world. Check out BERG's amazing latest project for the BBC, How Big Really. A great way of wrapping your brain round the scale of the events and perspectives shaping the world, and indicative of another trend we're pulling apart this quarter - practical data visualization. Enough of the pretty pictures! At what point does dataviz stop being a 'nice to have', and start being a necessity?

We go behind the scenes at Mumsnet, the online community exerting an influence over everything from product design to politics, and look at the potential for brand owners in the rise of fractional ownership. In addition to this, Small But Perfectly Formed, our regular showcase of the little companies punching above their weight, continues apace. This quarter, soft drink Vita Coco, cycling apparel brand Rapha, and crowd-sourced web filtre Hunch are just a few of the companies we put under the microscope. Plus, if you're not already aware of them, please check out food whizkids Bompas and Parr. Breathable gin and tonics? We'll take ten.

All this plus the regulars: Wildfire (the best of tech, design and sustainability), Martin Lindstrom's column, retail trends, and a nice healthy dose of future forecasting to wrap it all up.

To all of our subscribers - we hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed putting it together. (Also, it's our quarter century issue in a few months! Any ideas you have to help us celebrate this milestone, send them to emily@contagiousmagazine.com).

To all of our non-subscribers, to get your own copy, for indeed you should, please contact sharlene@contagiousmagazine.com.

The Importance of Context

2010-08-31T15:37:02Z

Our obsession with gaining a better understanding of how consumers might react to branded products and/or services continues to have its own fair share (and growing) of the annual marketing purse. Will consumers buy Starbucks or opt for the local caff? Will they spend an extra £500 for the GPS upgrade on their car, or take the standard model?

What drives these myriad purchase or 'experience' decisions we all make every day?

If there was a simple answer to this, I'd be writing from my yacht in Monaco. That said, as an industry, the more we delve into consumers' decision making processes, the more we can appreciate what the IPA is currently championing - Behavioural Economics and its challenge to the theories of classical economics. In simple terms, behavioural economics suggests that consumers do not make choices based entirely on rational thinking, jarring with classical theories that essentially, they believe they do. To put more formally, behavioural economics is the synthesis of psychological and cognitive theory mixed with traditional economics.

As a digital marketing agency, we at 3Sixty understand that how choices are designed for consumers and the context they are presented in can have an enormous impact on the decision to purchase one product or brand over another. Behavioural economics and what sits beside it - choice architecture - have both been around for some time as marketingtools yet the industry has never truly understood how and why these principles work. Until now.

In order to understand it all a little better, we need to look at the diagram above and understand the effect that context has on us.

Strange isn't it? The grey circle has not changed at all, yet simply by altering the context which it is placed in, by splitting (diagram b) or offsetting (diagram c), the grey circle appears to be totally different colours. Now you may be wondering what an optical illusion such as this has to do with marketing - and this is where it starts to get interesting...

Seeing in context

Vision is something we as humans are really very good at, we have evolved over millions of years to use our sight to hunt animals on the plains, get out of the way of danger and find the best possible mate, so an enormous part of our brain's processing power is given over to it. Yet, as we can see from the diagram above, we can still make fairly elementary and predictable mistakes with our eyes, and in this example it comes down to the simple idea of context.

Prof Nick Chater from UCL explained the importance of context in his speech at the IPA's Behavioural Economics event. In his words 'For humans, everything is relative. There are no absolute measures. Our judgement becomes swamped by local context. We can only tell you how pleasurable or painful an experience is based on our previous experience of what is painful or pleasurable, hot or cold, slow or fast and so on.'

Now, suppose you are choosing for afternoon tea and you can have either:

a) A toasted teacake with a cup of tea
b) A slice of chocolate cake with a cup of tea
c) A slice of chocolate cake.

Psychological studies have shown we are most likely to choose the slice of chocolate cake with the cup of tea. Why? Well we immediately recognise that option c) is the least desirable, and because we are able to compare it to b) quite easily, it makes it look even better (i.e. the chocolate cake and a cup of tea). In this simple instance, where we have context and an easy comparison between options, average minds will naturally tend to disregard the teacake.

Too much choice is overwhelming and when faced with a multitude of options, consumers are likely to do nothing at all. So, how might we use choice architecture to help our customers make the best decisions and improve outcomes for a brand?

Bread making machines were a very new product in the American market and the company that was manufacturing them became very concerned by poor sales figures. They brought in a market research firm, which suggested a simple fix: introduce a larger and even more expensive bread machine as a 'decoy'. The problem was that at this time, bread machines were a new product and consumers simply did not know what to make of them, with nothing to compare them to. Once the new, larger and more expensive, machine had been introduced, sales for the original bread machine rocketed, while the decoy languished. With a choice and now in proper context, consumers felt they could make a rational decision.

Despite the fact that as in this instance, the cheaper bread machine won the day, the presence of a more expensive option within a comparative set has been shown to raise the amount of money spent overall. Many of you will appreciate this within the role choice architecture plays in the restaurant business. According to research, it has been found that consumers rarely choose the most expensive items on food or wine menus and in fact, restaurant owners do not expect to sell many of these items anyway. So why have them? Simply, their role is to provide a contextual anchor, to make sure all the other dishes on the menu look relatively good value. Including a super premium product in your range might not result in many sales of that product but it will certainly up the overall spend of other products.

Sales are what we strive for but they do not necessarily build longer term brand advocates and loyalty. That's the marketing bit. With smart choice architecture in place, consumers will understand that the brand in question helped guide them towards a good purchase decision which in turn results in goodwill and longer term advocacy.

With the rise of social media, a brand's relationship with its consumer has changed, with more control in the hands of those that purchase. Consumers are more marketing savvy and with it, comes a fickleness in terms of brand choice and loyalty. Decisions are not made in a vacuum, nor can we force certain outcomes - consumers will still always have the ability to make the choice. However we can 'nudge' them to make the decisions we as marketers would prefer them to make.

Behavioural economics and choice architecture can help us to make that consumer decision making process more efficient and less confusing, guiding them towards the best choices of product or service. A greater focus on a brand's strategic planning both in terms of the wider context our products are viewed in as well as the local context we place our products in online, will help to create truly effective marketing campaigns for the future. Brands and their agencies create choices for consumers every day. Whether or not they maximise the chances of success is another matter.

Laura Fletcher is Account Planner 3 Sixty Digital Marketing

Arcade Fire

2010-08-31T14:14:06Z

Arcade Fire continues to be the band pushing the music video form forward, this time with a personalised video that pulls map and Google Street View data on the viewer's home town and works it into a beautiful multi-stage visual and narrative journey.

Director Chris Milk and Google Creative Labs artist Aaron Koblin led the project, collaborating with a large team from @radical.media, B-Reel, Google and friends like designer / developer mr. doob.

You'll remember Milk and Koblin collaborated last on another music video, for the Johnny Cash Estate. This time, though, they've pushed boundaries on how technology and creative ideas can work together and provided yet another wonderful showcase of the feature set of the Chrome browser.

After a viewer inputs the address of the home he or she grew up in and the video renders and loads, a multi-window journey through various satellite views of the viewer's neighborhood ensues, with a hooded figure running home as the various Maps and Street View images follow.

New layers pop all over your screen, as the browser senses how large your display is and uses the full area available.The satellite and Street View images are rendered to keep them uniform and ensure color grading is consistent.

At the song's climax, as the goal is reached, a drawing program appears and the video asks you to write a message to the earlier version of yourself that lived in that house. Keystrokes and cursor lines grow tendrils unto themselves.

The experience was constructed in HTML5 using its Canvas tools, according to the Chrome Experiments site.

The film goes a long way toward improving the perception of Google's toolbox, like many of the efforts in the Chrome Experiments series before it. But wrapping in Maps and Street View data goes even further. The bridge between plain but useful Google services and pieces of creative online content is wide. Building Brand Google into something other than a technology monolith depends on collaborations like this to show how delightful those elements can integrate with creative vision.

Arcade Fire, meanwhile, continue to excel in providing its fans with experiences worthy of the music. Remember, when the Neon Bible album arrived, the band debuted this great interactive video site. Now, with its Suburbs album debuting at the top of the Billboard charts the band has an equally worthy accompaniment..

IQ2

2010-08-31T09:52:07Z

William Gibson is the author who coined the phrase 'cyberspace' and is one of the most acclaimed science fiction writers of his time. Steven Poole, of the Guardian described: 'In terms of influence he is probably the most important novelist of the past two decades'.

Gibson will be talking about his life and work, and in particular his latest book Zero History, which is set largely in London and captures the paranoia and fear of our post-recessionary times. This novel marks a shift away from his previous sci-fi driven books to a more realistic and yet compelling portrayal of our modern world.

Tickets are on sale now - so make sure you order yours quickly before they sell out.

Augmented City 3D

2010-08-31T09:48:49Z

Freelance designer and film-maker Keiichi Matsuda has unveiled his latest film, merging thoughts about the future of city dwelling with super-advanced Augmented Reality while adding a dose of 3D (if you're armed with some 3D glasses, put them on to watch the film above).

Matsuda's previous film, Augmented (Hyper) Reality - Domestic Robocop, created for his Masters of Architecture at London's Bartlett School (UCL), provided the most food for thought of any Augmented Reality project we've seen when it was featured in Contagious 22.

His latest film turns from the interior to imagining how AR has the potential to affect almost every aspect of our lives out of the home, creating new data-enriched mobile experiences while merging traditional venues such as libraries and restaurants, or broadcasting personal information about our mood or belief system. Each augmentation - from guidebook-style info to building modifications, adverts and graffiti - is overlaid onto the cityscape in the film.

Matsuda explains: 'The architecture of the contemporary city is no longer simply about the physical space of buildings and landscape, more and more it is about the synthetic spaces created by the digital information that we collect, consume and organise; an immersive interface may become as much part of the world we inhabit as the buildings around us.

'Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging technology defined by its ability to overlay physical space with information. It is part of a paradigm shift that succeeds Virtual Reality; instead of disembodied occupation of virtual worlds, the physical and virtual are seen together as a contiguous, layered and dynamic whole. It may lead to a world where media is indistinguishable from 'reality'. The spatial organisation of data has important implications for architecture, as we re-evaluate the city as an immersive human-computer interface.'

Matsuda is currently consulting for RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Building Futures think tank on the City Rebooted project.

What do you think of the prospect of AR entering our lives to such an extent? Incredible enhancement or unwelcome intrusion? Share your thoughts below...

Vail Resorts

2010-08-30T18:08:15Z

One of America's largest ski resort companies is hoping to make the sport even more social this season, with a location-based gaming app it's calling Epic Mix.

Vail Resorts, owners of Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Heavenly resorts in Colorado and California debuted the mobile and web-based application today at a press event at the Ace Hotel in Manhattan.

When the mountains open in November, Epic Mix will allow visitors to the resorts to track the runs they completed, log their vertical feet as a score, unlock achievement 'Pins' and access several utilities, both in iPhone and Android apps and at epicmix.com.

The project combines lots of location-based service and gaming elements; rewards for varied experience, social sharing of vertical feet in a leaderboard and more.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Epic Mix tracking system is it works on the RFID chips in skiiers' passes. There's no fumbling with your phone on the lift to check in to a run. When your pass is scanned at the lift, you're checked in, and no constant GPS contact and battery drain is required, like North Face's Trailhead iPhone app.

The effort began several years ago when RFID chips came into the mix, and made their way into the reloadable hard plastic passes customers could load their lift tickets into, say Mike Sloane, Vail's director of marketing, online marketing and sales.

'It's like Nike+ and Foursquare, but bringing in elements of traditional ski history', Sloane says. '[Skiing has] always been a social experience, its a natural thing. Soda brands have to come up with something social that's interesting, but we've always been social, this is something that's grown out of that'.

Sloane's team worked with agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Boulder which developed the external web design elements, and Odin Technologies, which developed the robust RFID capabilities the mountains will need for the extreme weather shifts.

The passive tracking system is the crux of the offering. Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz says that's what's keeping the effort in line with the leisure branding of the company.

Where the often fatiguing points race of the game economy may put a cramp on your downtime, here Vail is tabulating it all for you so you only have to log in after-hours and brag about your accomplishments or relive the memories.

'We didn't want people to have to do any check-ins, to pull the phone out of their pocket when they're skiing', Katz says.

Katz points to data from millennial and Gen-Y skiers as evidence 'getting away from it all' no longer means leaving the phone at home. 'We really feel lke this is going to give people a whole new experience and extends their connection with our mountain because they're going to be able to relive their time with us'.

Linking your Facebook and Twitter accounts lets you compare the pins, like 'Pow Hound', you've won with your friends, see who's logged the most days or vertical feet, even see where on the mountain your friends were and message them to see snow conditions or set a meetup point. Kids 13 and under get their own site, where parents can monitor their location on the mountain. At the moment, though, despite unlocking achievements and earning pins, Vail isn't offering coupons for activity on the Epic Mix platform.

'This is more about recognition', Katz says. 'This isn't an advertising model for us. Its coming from our IT and mountain operations teas, like if we were opening a new lift or restaurant'. The cross-department collaboration ensures this isn't entirely a marketing effort, Katz says, but rather an investment in the company's infrastructure.

Katz fielded questions about potentials like licensing the technology to other resorts, developing off-mountain scanning to check-in at area businesses or apres ski hot spots and using the data as a CRM platform as possible future options.

Additionally he mentioned promoting the platform by tracking ski celebrities like Lindsey Vonn or athletes from promotional tours like Mountain Dew's Winter Dew Tour, much like Nike's Ellie Runs.

As for the impact on Vail's traditional marketing efforts, well, 'We don't do as much traditional anything anymore'.

Vail Resorts
Epic Mix

Chiquita

2010-08-27T15:32:07Z

Less than a year ago banana brand Chiquita launched its vibrant new EatAChiquita.com site, resplendent with fruity interactive fun from casual games to YouTube clips.

Noting the success of their Sticker Studio, where 25,000 fans took advantage of the chance to customise the little blue sticker adorning each piece of fruit on the shelves - adding their efforts to photos, an online gallery section and even onto Zazzle-produced merchandise - Chiquita rolled out a summer 2010 sticker design contest.

The brand invited entries with the incentive to create one of 18 user-generated designs to go into stores across America. Now at a second, public vote stage, the contest has seen 1,355 entrants, with designs whittled down to a final 50 before site visitors select the final winners. The voting series began this week and has already drawn five-figure voter numbers before its close on 23 September.

A simple design template has made for a tempting canvas for fans to work with, while the brand's busy site has been a notable success, attracting more than 500,000 visitors since launch. According to Compete, unique visitor figures more than doubled to 17,000 this July, when the contest was open for entry. A Facebook page and Twitter account support the online dialogue.

The design contest has the combined effect of boosting a sense of brand ownership, the product's on shelf presence, and thanks to the multi-phased campaign, strong PR and social media reach.

A New York Times article points to Chiquita's commitment to generating emotional engagement with the banana brand, neatly summing up the campaign's ingenuity: 'The little sticker is the most minimal form of packaging imaginable, and yet it's completely plausible that people will not only seek it out but also buy it. And as a bonus, it even comes with a banana.'

EatAChiquita.com

Eurostar

2010-08-26T16:37:31Z

Serendipity is a big part of travel, whether it be finding a new restaurant tucked away off the Champs Elysée or renting a bike and cruising through the streets of Amsterdam. Sharing these finds is almost as fun as the discovery, and this is why the site exists, allowing travellers to submit their reviews of destinations around Europe. The end result will hopefully be a useful trip-planning resource for anyone thinking of journeying to the continent, a handy guide that fits perfectly with the brand's new 'Exploring is beautiful' campaign, designed to inspire travellers to venture beyond Eurostar's core destinations of Paris, Lille and Brussels.

We Are Social's MD Robin Grant says 'Travel is about experience, conversation and sharing, which are also the key elements of social media. We've tried to ensure anyone planning a trip around Europe can take advantage of what other people have learned - travel is a naturally social sector, and feel sure the new platform will be really valuable.'

We Are Social will be backing up the user-generated content with a blog, editorially highlighting the best things to see and do in featured destinations. Visitors can explore the platform via a familiar Google Maps interface or searching by destination.

europebyeurostar.com

Seventeen Magazine / JCPenney

2010-08-26T15:33:46Z

Hearst Magazine Digital Media, apparel brand JCPenney and augmented reality (AR) studio Metaio have partnered to produce a virtual dressing room enabled by AR on US-based teen magazine website, Seventeen.com. The dressing room allows shoppers to virtually try on clothes and select, rate and share their top picks with friends via Facebook or email. Users can also purchase the items directly from jcp.com.

The software application makes it easy for the user to adjust the image of the item of clothing to fit their size and height using AR markers which adjust the display with just the wave of a hand.

'Teens have long turned to Seventeen as a trusted style authority,' said Mike Boylson, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for JCPenney. 'Through this unique collaboration with Seventeen.com, we're able to merge teens' love of technology and shopping, and provide an interactive experience that allows them to discover the exciting, affordable fashion available at JCPenney.'

The integration of the AR technology should be a hit for young teenage girls who will now be able to take the guesswork out of shopping online. The brands involved also benefit from the novelty of the application, which should attract more customers to the site to use the online shopping tool and buy the results.

www.seventeen.com/fashion/virtual-dressing-room

Smarties

2010-08-24T12:45:47Z

The 8 Colours of Fun campaign sees eight kids - one for each Smarties colour - paired with eight adult artists. The aim is for each duo to create an artwork inspired by their designated colour - be it a sculpture, song, photographic project or piece of interpretive dance. Each journey of creative discovery is being documented by Curious Films director Summer Agnew and will be available both via a branded YouTube channel and the Smarties Australia Facebook page.

www.youtube.com/user/SmartiesAustralia

The campaign has launched with the colour blue - a nod, perhaps, towards the brand's discontinuing of this colour which was met with universal disapproval from consumers until it was reinstated...

In project blue, plucky moon-walking nipper Jonathan teams up with singer-songwriter Raymond Wassef and the pair begin brainstorming around a song based on adventuring under the sea. Raymond goes away and uses themes/characters described by Jonathan to write and record a catchy, Jackson 5-esque tune - 'Bluewalk' - with his band, The Ray Man Three.

If suitably inspired by the colourfully creative process, Mums can find some inspiration of their own via the Facebook page; for each colour, Smarties has provided a downloadable PDF with instructions for a DIY art project to keep their kid(s) entertained. Consistent with Jonathan and Raymond's efforts, the first of these shows how to build a simple rubber band guitar!

8 Colours of Fun on Facebook

Courvoisier

2010-08-23T15:31:58Z

As part of Courvoisier's 'Summer of Punch' campaign, the brand is currently running a promotion on Foursquare linked to 15 bars across London.

Users of the location-based social networking site will now be able to check into participating venues across London such as Bar de Musee in Greenwich and Kosmopol in Fulham; which all serve Courvoisier cocktails in limited edition punch bowls. Each entrant who checks into one of the participating venues will be competing against other participants to win a punch kit - one person will win this prize every night by taking the most imaginative picture with the punchbowl and entering it via either Facebook or Twitter.

The UK's marketing manager for Courvoisier, Janice Mcintosh explains: 'By embracing social media such as Facebook, Twitter and now Foursquare, not only are we building deeper relationships with our consumers, we are also growing the numbers of cognac drinkers by appealing to a younger audience. We are also pleased to be supporting our customers with activity that will bring them new consumers and drive footfall in bars.'

The overall best picture will win a VIP trip to the Courvoisier chateau in France for two.

Greg Saunders, creative director at White Label UK, London, the agency behind the tour, adds: 'We recognised the geo-social platform is still in its infancy and utilised by tech-savvy early adopters, but saw the value in being the first drinks brand to use the tool and the first brand which isn't location-based to provide customer rewards. This commitment to ambitious and arresting activity led to the Foursquare 'Summer of Punch' tour which has allowed us to translate a traditional on-trade sales programme in to more of an integrated proposition.'

http://summerofpunch.com/

http://www.whitelabeluk.com/

KitKat

2010-08-20T11:16:55Z

Has a technology with as much instant wow factor and potential as augmented reality ever been so underutilised in practical applications?

Well, maybe, but it's a strong contender for the title. However, much as we like our AR as utilitarian as possible here at Contagious, occasionally we don't mind if something a little bit fun sneaks through.

KitKat's 'Bring Music to Life' campaign does just that with a little help from UK pop group Scouting for Girls and digital agency Skive, London. Special promotional wrappers of the four-finger chocolate bars feature an AR marker which, when the user is on www.kitkat.co.uk and enables their webcam, spawns a music video for the band's latest single 'Silly Song' (see video above).

Also featured in the AR experience is a bonus acoustic session from the band and a promotion to win £100 worth of Ticketmaster vouchers.

Ok, so it may not be the most brain melting example of AR we've every seen, but it's fun enough while you munch down a chocolate bar, which makes it a perfect fit for the Nestlé brand's 'take a break' tagline.

Scouting for Girls are also set to launch KitKat's new partnership with MySpace to host four intimate gigs which will be streamed live on Facebook.

Yes, you read that right. Partnered with MySpace. Streamed on Facebook.

-cue lively discussion-

http://www.kitkat.co.uk

Dying A Digital Death

2010-08-19T16:34:47Z

There are those that think the finite nature of death does not apply to the digital format. They envision it as like the mythical phoenix: able to ignite in an impressive display of self-sacrifice, and emerge reborn. They are wrong. Digital is dying. Marketers shouldn't be fooled in to thinking digital will redeem tired campaigns. There's a growing disconnect that it's a single discipline. As a term it means many different things, even within advertising. As a result, the core principles of digital are being severely compromised by both brands and agencies keen to showboat rehashed campaigns. The time for navel gazing is over. It's time to address that which is killing digital and salvage what we can from its pixelated ashes.

Creating Digital Ghettoes

With the limitless possibilities that technology offers, it's tempting to do things just to get a kick out of the technology - 'wouldn't it be cool if.....' That's all very well and good in the techno-slum of the digital city. However, the reality is that denizens of this run-down neighbourhood are trapped in a vicious circle. They can't wean themselves of technology, so it becomes an all-encompassing part of their existence. Every piece of work created has to be visible on the latest kit. Because that's what makes brands innovative - right?

This is sin incarnate: a recipe for heavy, overcomplicated work. New technology is not necessarily great technology. Take iPhone apps and social media. The problem is that these platforms are becoming more important than campaigns themselves, limiting what could make ideas more engaging.

Since its launch in April the Apple's iPad is the technophile's latest idol of covetousness. Sales total around three million units to date. The number of iPad apps is rumoured to total around 3,000 and counting. However, you have to wonder whether there should be some form of vetting process in place when you consider just how ridiculous some of these apps really are. For example, there's the virtual box of chocolates users are asked to pay 99c for - not a charity initiative, just chocolate you can't eat. Similarly, there's the app that showcases some prime examples of Japanese vegetables - 24 slides of the finest. That's it. Whether marketing-orientated or not, the fact is that the technology remains seductive, and the rule book remains open to abuse.

However, it's not just developers that are misusing technology. While Steve Jobs' recent assertion that Flash falls short when used in mobile devices may well be true, the fact is it remains a core development tool for cross platform content creation. This of course makes perfect business sense for Apple, but in terms of the effect on the user experience, imposing limitations of any kind could ultimately have a damaging effect.

Misuse of technology in this respect means saturating the market with the same sort of thing time and again. When people talk, they discuss what's new and innovative - things that resonate with them. When digital plays to these concerns too closely, it fails to launch.

www.perfectfools.com

Sony Music

2010-08-19T15:23:09Z

Sony Music London has created an interactive music video for American artist Lissie that adds a little context to your viewing experience. Produced by Simon Poon Tip, who you might remember from such music videos as Kasabian Football Hero, it utilises a Google Maps API, a live weather feed and the optional ability to geo-locate you Enemy of the State style through the magic of HTML5. It was built by developers Half Cyborg, London.

What this all adds up to is a music video with weather matching the same sunny day or downpour outside your very window, a cute idea. When you land on the microsite a pop up requests the use of your location, which then correlates with a live online weather feed - so if it's raining cats and dogs in your neck of the woods Lisse and her fellow band members will don rain macs in the midst of a downpour. Likewise, if the trees outside your office are bending to and fro in a stiff breeze the video will reflect this with a rather windswept looking band. Overall five different types of weather conditions were shot, all using in camera effects and no post production.

A big part of the team that worked on this were young creatives Wilf Eddings and his partner (and former Contagious intern) Luke Wicker.

Direction came from Sony Music Creative Directors Steve Milbourne and Phil Clandillon, and Contagious was interested to hear this experienced duos thoughts on the state of music videos and the opportunities PC-based viewing has created. Here's what they had to say:

'In the old days we sat on our sofas and watched MTV and were shown the latest music videos as chosen by a scheduler, from there we'd gain interest in the artist - this was our gateway into music.

'Now, with the absence of schedulers, music videos (especially for artists who don't have an established fan base) need to be interesting with a reason, or tell a story, or have something of interest that will make an audience share and talk about it. The audience itself has become the influencer that was once the domain of the scheduler.

'The fact that a lot of music videos are now consumed at the computer, means there is so much room to try new things, and people should be experimenting in that... without becoming formulaic but trying to find ways that enhance the user's experience of the music and the artist. Essentially, it's not that all videos now need to be interactive, but all videos should be interesting, relevant to the audience you're trying to reach and tell a story, or allow others to tell a story about it.

There's a lot of talk in the industry about the decline of music TV and dwindling viewers of music videos... and what sort of things we should be doing to counter it. In actuality, people are watching music videos more than ever.'

Check it out at lissie.com/weather

sonymusic.co.uk

@lukeandwilf

Facebook

2010-08-19T13:31:22Z

Do you remember just a few short years ago when no one cared where their friends were and the only thing people checked into were hotels? What a dull, dull world we lived in.

Now, of course, the smart set are all brandishing smartphones bursting with various location-based apps and merrily checking in to anything that casts a shadow. Much better.

Earlier this year, we covered some of the key players fighting it out to become top dog in the location-based app war, and yesterday a cheeky new upstart entered the fray which we think will be worth keeping an eye on. If you're already one of their 500m+ global users, you may have heard of them.

Facebook Places is poised to take check-in culture mainstream, positioning itself as a facility to share where you are and find nearby friends. Of course, the latter feature may cause a few people to revist the collection of school acquaintances, stalkers and ex-lovers they currently call 'friends'...

Although currently limited to users in the US with mobile access to touch.facebook.com or the iPhone app, the Facebook website promises Places will be rolled out more broadly at an unspecified point 'in the future'.

Brands will inevitably be keen to leverage this new development but, while it's possible to 'claim' a place owned by a business, it's not possible to use the system to target ads at people who have checked into a specific place. The Places for Advertisers FAQs states that the current benefit is to use Places as a simple promotion tool: 'By giving your potential customers the ability to check in at your business, you give them the power to tell their friends about your business'. Any business with an official Facebook page will be able to merge it with their Place, again at some time in the future.

While this is probably less functionality than most advertisers would have hoped for, it's not to be underestimated. Facebook's existing engagement ads, which allow people to interact through comments, polls and the unbiquitous 'like' button, have already proved hugely successful. Speaking at a recent event at the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, Facebook's UK commercial director Stephen Haines gave details of how social ads, i.e. 'an ad that has [your friends] names in it', increased ad recall by 68%, while also raising puchase intent by a factor of four.

Once they've claimed their official 'places', brands will be left waiting to see how keen Facebook's users are to adopt what many see as an erosion of privacy.

Let us know what you think. Is it farewell to Foursquare? Or will the world baulk at Facebook encroaching this far into their lives?

http://www.facebook.com/places/