Celebrating sport not just Olympians

The Olympics are in full flow here in London, my train this morning was full of excited spectators, and the sun's still shining. The opening ceremony was by all accounts spectacular,  and worthy of it's hefty budget, so I'll be catching up on that at some point soon having been out the country on Friday. I've enjoyed watching Her Majesty the Queen & James Bond this morning.

But for all the hype, the buzz statistics about more tweets during the opening ceremony than for the entire Beijing Olympics, the medals tables, the marketing messages, so far this piece from non-sponsor Nike is the piece that's touched me most. Nice observation & sentiment, along the lines of sponsor P&G's "Thank you Mum/Mom" work, it's well executed, embracing and makes you feel good.  Video content alchemy. Watch:



Now admire this piece that sees Nike taking a different tack, leveraging technology to deliver innovation & participation. Good stuff.

Samsung : Empowering people to do what they want to do

Happiness came to my inbox two days ago. This is a rare thing.

Touchnote, possibly one of my favourite favourite apps (which for the uninformed means I can send postcards all over the world from photos I take on my phone (and / or upload from desktop, not that I use that function much)) has partnered with Olympic sponsor  & leading smartphone manufacturer Samsung.  They sent me an email to tell me that thanks to Samsung, I can "share great moments" free, i.e send postcards all over the world. At least until the end of August at any rate. 

The trade off - well I have to allow a little Samsung / Olympics Sponsor branding on the cards I send & my pictures get shared in their gallery.That's a value exchange I can live with.  

This is one of the nicest examples I've seen recently of a brand understanding that they can add value and bask in a halo of positive brand sentiment from helping people do what they want to do anyway rather than trying to shoehorn people into doing what the brand wants them to do.  

Along the way they are also cleverly "earning media"  - not only do I get a Samsung related Olympic sponsor message going through the postcard sending process, chances are I'm using an image I took on my phone so I'm linking device to brand which may influence favourability for future decisions, and, the recipients of my cards (and I can send as many as I like - 2 so far) also get exposed to the brand message. 

Super smart. Well done chaps. I wish more brands could recognise the benefit of partnership and generosity of action and spirit rather than contriving awkward interruptive experiences that real consumers see little benefit in participating in or interacting with. 

How socially active are you?

My lovely buddies over at Global Web Index have recently shared this nifty Slideshare deck looking at social behaviours - who's active where and what are they up to - very pertinent in a world where there is no shortage of platforms to choose from, and where clients too often default to Facebook without really thinking about what the real barriers they want social engagement to help them to overcome, where the communities they want to engage with play and what content they need to serve them.  Enjoy.

Facebook Beyond the Hype - GlobalWebIndex july 2012 from GlobalWebIndex

Then as a variant on the socially active theme, I struck social listening gold this morning (well bronze at least): I found a tool that appears at least to be a useful start point (wearing my training hat) to get people to think about how language rather than geographical borders define the word on the web.  I seem to have stood on that particular soap box rather a lot on the last month for one reason or another.

Tweeting Earth is a data visualisation of who is tweeting about the topic you specified where across the globe... here's one I did for the Olympics early this morning, bearing in mind I'm in London and as host city and with the Games starting this weekend, there's lots of marketing activity live, travel chaos warnings rife etc...

Then here's another taken just now (late afternoon UK time now, and the US is well and truly awake east to west), predictably it looks rather different to when I found the tool this morning given a broader perspective on interest around the Olympics elsewhere. For me, the key indicators are the number of tweets and the content angle if you look closely (Click to enlarge the images). 

I can't find any technical details so I presume it's just an API scraper at a given moment but nonetheless potentially interesting as a discussion igniter around listening. Have a play.

Clever new toys as technology integrates more and more

It's been far too long since I've written a blog post.  Blame workload, holidays, too much crammed in (she says guiltily having read this very interesting article from the NY Times on "Busyness" ), and perhaps just a tad of digital jaded-ness.  2 weeks entirely disconnected from the digital world might just have cured me of that, even if my friends didn't believe I could do it!

So.. here's one of the first things that's tickled my digital fancy now that I'm back and reconnected...

Pebble: An ePaper watch that can be customised in both design and function to deliver not just the time but against a range of other tasks via connectivity with your phone. Fun and functional, not extortionate, and fuels my "turn data into useful things I can readily understand" soap box of the moment.  Watch: (forgive the pun)

Turning tears into smiles with technology

After a month of rain, the sun has finally come out and to add to my buoyant mood I spotted this piece of  digital treasure this morning.

I've been boring anyone who will listen for months now on the opportunities AR(augmented reality) can bring to enhance product experience beyond the functional, harnessing accessible technology to great effect, and how I believe that we will see more and more of this going forward.  Brands continue to hesitate around content creation investment in a world troubled by economic pressures, yet because of those economic tensions, the importance of brand love and the willingness to pay more for those brand enhanced differentiating experiences should be getting a lot more focus than it is.

Character licensed Band-Aid (sticking plasters) aren't a new thing, I remember loving my Mr Bump plasters when I was 6 way back when.  Throw in some technology  and the possibilities are now so much greater. Anyone who's helped a little kid who has fallen over knows that "I'll kiss it better" is vital, but far beyond that, distraction is every grown up's gold card, which is why I LOVE this use of the Muppets not just on the plaster itself but enhanced by AR interaction via iPhone or iPad. How could you not forget something hurt when Kermit, Gonzo and Miss Piggy are casting their magic?  Gold.

From the young to the young at heart

Courtesy of my friend Dan I discovered this very cool time-lapse video - the first 12 years in the life of the editor's daughter in just a few minute. A stark reminder of how much tempus fugit.  Looking at my ever dwindling frequency of blog posts is evidence thereof... by the time I've emailed, tweeted, uploaded some pics and video, managed a few social profiles, some for me, some for organisations I am part of, pinterested... let alone done some work or glanced at a Tumblr... there's precious little time left for writing long form.



By contrast, tomorrow is Silver Surfer's Day, with events all over the country aimed at helping the young at heart build their confidence and skills in todays digital era. It's a great initiative, share the link with your parents and grandparents. We all have a responsibility to help educate those who may be less confident.

2020 Media landscape - line up and take your bets

So the Easter news was all about Facebook buying photo sharing app/platform Instagram, just days after they finally released the Android version, but what's captured my attention more this morning is this piece by the CEO of Red Bee from the MediaGuardian Changing Media Summit 2012



Food for thought. With consumers armed with more choices about what content to consume on which device when, there's a balance to be struck between the "matching luggage" approach to multi-channel creative that was soooo late 90's / early 00's and creating screen neutral experiences that are tailored to the capabilities that eacy device can bring to the experience party.