I don’t know whether it’s my love for the Old 97s, hand-made toys, music, sappy stuff, or all of the above - but this spot for Fuse made me happy:

(via Ad Age’s Creativity Weekly)

The music from this new VW spot, by DDB London, is a made from a compilation of sounds recorded in and around the Golf and was composed and produced by Orbital’s Paul Hartnoll.

When I saw this, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Lasse “Crazy Eyes” Gjertsen’s “Hyperactive…”

…and Wieden + Kennedy London’s ‘06 Civic Choir:

Dear Europe: Why do you get all the special hotness?

(via Fresh Creation)

This 30-second video is a mind-slap. Our attention can only stretch so far, you know:

(Seen on Seth’s blog and Drew’s Marketing Minute)

(Originally posted on Open Source CU)

I thought it’d be nice to start the week off with a rant inspired by three things:

1. Jim Bruene’s recent post about the scrappy usage (his word: ‘anemic’) of financial apps in Facebook.
2. My disagreement with this quote from the CUES Nexus blog (sorry, Lisa):
   

   If you want to reach Gen Y, why not be where they are? The more than 68 million Facebook users (many of them young people) spend an average of 20 minutes a day on the site. And about 250,000 new users sign on every day. Some CUs are already there, waiting to greet them.

3. That there are still high-fives given for corporate MySpace pages.

Social networks…

Are Not:

Real estate. If you look at online communities as an opportunity to park your caboose and head people off at the pass, you’re missing the point. Go buy a TV spot, pop up or newspaper ad – stick to the proven, tried and true methods of interrupting and annoying people.

To brands who treat conversations like billboards: you’re not just old marketers, you’re also posers. (And I should note that I’m not talking about Lisa here at all.)

There are 140 Facebook apps added every day. This is Noise 2.0. The apps that are the most successful are those that help Facebook users do what they came to Facebook to do rather than react to the fact that they happen to be there. More on that in a second.

Are:

Communities. If you bust in on that without immersing, participating, understanding, you are a door to door salesman. If you show up, you and your toothy grin, you’d better be adding value to the community by helping them interact, grow, and have a deeper connection with each other (that’s why they’re all there in the first place). The Cluetrain Manifesto said communites are groups “of people who care about each other more than they should.” And each community/platform is unique, but also interwoven. Engaging the Facebook community looks different from engaging the Second Life community looks different from engaging the Twitter community.

For Example:

Why is Facebook’s iLike so successful (361,568 daily active users, $15.8 million in funding…for a Facebook app)? Because people use Facebook to communicate themselves, learn about and connect with people. iLike enables that and, as a result, enhances Facebook for its users.

This is shown across the board in the numbers too. According to Adanomics data (made sense of by Asi Sharabi) the most widely used apps (44%) are “Identity Formation / Social Comparison.”

Why do I think Fiserve’s MyMoney will not succeed as it is right now? Because, frankly, who cares that you can access your account within Facebook? It is not that difficult or time consuming to open a new window or tab and get to my online banking login. Thank you for saving me three clicks, but until MyMoney brings more to the table I’d rather keep my applications clean.

What if you could use MyMoney to visualize your progress as you saved for a vacation, a new toy, or the secret to time travel. What if a few trusted friends and I could use Facebook’s social tools to build a cross-FI collective overdraft protection account that auto transfers cash in a time of need, notifies each person on the account, and in doing so: 1) saves me fees and 2) builds in the obligation to replace that money as soon as I can?

By the same token, Financially Fun Island™ (not a real thing, but almost a real thing) in Second Life will, at best, attract a lot of industry insiders who are interested in this “innovative new tactic.” But the citizens have better things to do than go to your island and play money games. They’re building an active economy. However, a financial institution that offers home, land, and small business loans in Second Life for Second Life is enriching the in-world experience…not just capitalizing on it.

I’d much rather be enabled than greeted.

Alright, that’s all I’ve got. You can yell at me now.

AOL is kicking out an ad in a few weeks with a precious cartoon penguin, appropriately named “Mr. Penguin,” to explain ad targeting and internet privacy. Enjoy the storyboard and try not to feel too patronized.

(from the New York Times)

I want to hang out with this guy:

David Armano was right on in calling this “The Best (and Cheapest) SuperBowl Ad.”

Last night’s was arguably one of the best Super Bowls in a long time. To quote my highly-caffeinated friend Chase Jones, who’s a better sports commentator than I’ll ever be:

UNDOUBTEDLY THE MOST ASTONISHING UPSET VICTORY IN THE WORLDS GREATEST GAME ON THE WORLDS GREATEST STAGE IN HISTORYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

That said, the crop of ads this year was completely disappointing (except for CareerBuilder’s, which always grabbed the room). If you missed them - or just want to relive the dumb - they’re all online, organized by quarter, on the Super Bowl Ads MySpace Page.

It seems that lately, not just with the Super Bowl but across the board, media has overtaken creative as the cool kid on the advertising block. If so, that’s a problem.

Was this year’s sad lot reflective of changes in the ad industry, or was this just a bad year?

Last year, marketing bloggers Drew McLellen and Gavin Heaton brought 100 marketing bloggers under one book called “The Age of Conversation.” They’re doing it again, and you can help. Today is the last day to sign up as an author of The Age of Conversation 2.0.

If you want to contribute or vote on the topic, click here and get in touch with Drew.

Now’s the specific call-out time. I’d love to see contributions from: Trey Reeme, William Azaroff, Shari Storm, Tim McAlpine, Terrell Meek, and Ron Shevlin.

Ron wrote in the first Age of Conversation, and just because I enjoyed it a lot, here’s a piece from his chapter, “Behavioral Conversations” - -

To succeed in the Age of Conversation, it’s not sufficient for marketers to engage customers in verbal conversations on social networking sites. Instead, they must develop a new marketing competency — a sense-and-respond competency — to sense consumer needs and intentions based on their behavior, and to respond with appropriate advice, guidance and offers. And in a broader sense, this capability is about understanding trends and directions about the customer community based on their collective actions and behaviors.

I’m excited to be contributing to the second book. You can order the first book here. All proceeds go to Variety – The Children’s Charity.

I just learned that Luke Sullivan’s sassy and invaluable book on advertising, “Hey Whipple, Squeeze This,” has been re-released with added content.

This third addition covers all of the original material, but Sullivan has also added chapters for online, guerilla, and direct marketing.

I own a copy of the last edition, but I’m probably going to have to pick up this latest version.

Click here to order it on Amazon.

Starting today, legal file-sharing network Qtrax is opening up access to 25,000,000 free songs, all supported by relevant advertising (think Google ads). You’ll need the Qtrax player to access the songs, which sadly is Windows only (Mac OS version to ship out on March 18th).

This isn’t the first time an ad-supported music model has given it a shot. SpiralFrog launched at the end of 2006. So far, they’ve had huge losses. The company who will sell advertising for Qtrax is actually founded by two ad execs who left SpiralFrog (says the NY Times).

Qtrax’s target audience are users of illegal file sharing networks. From the New York Times article:

Labels hope that the legitimacy and convenience of services like Qtrax will help them compete with unauthorized offerings. “We hope this service will draw from the illegal P-to-P sites,” said George White, senior vice president, Strategy and Product Development for Warner Music Group.

My projection: This won’t catch on. Ad supported models rely on mass use. Qtrax downloads require the Qtrax player and won’t work on an iPod. The first ad supported music that works will be wildly accessible, and the music will be just as easy to download and use as any given song from an illegal file-sharing network. Right now this model offers an enormous value proposition for the music industry, but not much for their target user.

Dear music industry: you can’t stop piracy from happening, but you can compete with it. It’s up to you to be competitive.

Update (1/29/08): I just read on TechCrunch that Qtrax pretty much botched the job (from “Qtrax really blows its launch“):

In what may be the dumbest business move of the year so far, Qtrax announced its free music download service this weekend before bothering to sign contracts with three of the four major labels. Now the music companies are saying, “Wait a second, there is no deal yet. We’re just talking to Qtrax.” Without the labels on board, there is no service.

C’est la vie.