Oil slick on theapofcrap.com

The clever buggers at instant oil spill let you drop a load of oil all  over any webpage you want.
Nice stuff. (Kudos to the rabbits for the find)

EasyJet dodging the subject...again

Remember when Ryanair created a print ad calling on "Mr Late Again...to stop hiding the truth about easyJet's flight delays."

Well, as many of you will probably be aware, easyJet have a Twitter page. And, I love a good rant, especially at 8am after a delayed flight. (The first of the day, good start.)

I travel with them fairly often as it's the easiest and cheapest way to get from Edinburgh to Crawley, but I'm never on time. Ever.

So I decided to vent my frustration on them this morning:

To which I get back... 

And, erm...

Ooops.

Yet they dodged my subject completely! I know the Twitter person is trying to be nice, but that's only angered me further. Grr. I can see why Ryanair go to all the effort. I mean. I even wrote a blog post about it too. That's what getting up at 5am does to me!

No Knives, Better Lives.

It's been a long time coming, but finally Steve and Alfie (the other junior team in Leith) got to release their knife crime viral. Inspired by Blu, the animatic highlights the risks involved in carrying a knife.

It was their last piece published as a team as Alfie has now departed for more exotic shores. There's a  few more videos, words and events at the No Knives, Better Lives website, and here's their pretty cool viral. Over 20,000 hits and counting. Enjoy.

An Innocent Mistake

Brands are always good when they're trying to be polite and interesting, but occasionally it goes a little bit wrong. Thanks @innocentdrinks, I like you being human.

The first 'round' YouTube video

You almost wouldn't believe what was possible would you... a circular YouTube video?! How does that work? And, how cool is that? 

The spherical clip in question is for a hamster than works out in his wheel for Cadbury's 55g Dairy Milk Milk Chocolate Roll Pack. Yep, that's a mouthful. And, it's so elusive that I could only find it on the Australian Dairy Milk Fairtrade Website. (It's the little tube at the bottom.)

So what does it do? Well, because it's clever, you can't embed it. Meaning all you get is this screen grab until you click here to see it for real.

But wait! I've worked out how they've done it. Because, although the play button and speaker button look like they're real, that's all.

If you pause the video, it doesn't buffer, you can't decrease the volume. Nor can you change the video resolution. You can't even move the timeline or click on the drop down menu. All these things would have meant this even better than it is.

But despite my attention to detail, it makes perfect sense for the Dairy Milk Roll Park. Why? Because it's round!

Great job. And, I love the fact YouTube are prepared to do things like this too. Roll on.

Pseudos on Twitter

Everyone loves a funny fake profile on Twitter. Be it @theashcloud or @thevuvuzelahorn, it's first come first serve when it comes to taking the piss. And now there's @raoulontherun. 

With a location of: As if I'm going to fockin' say.

And a bio of: 2010 Hide & Seek Champion. Might not be the real Raoul. 

Whoever they are, likes a laugh.

I know it's a touchy subject but I must admit, this tweet made me laugh a bit too much.

And, he's a bad bad man. Well, both of them really, especially when they're making light of a big issue.

UHI Advert

At this time of year, there are loads of unis spending their advertising budget to get the last few students, who haven't made up their mind, to choose them. They're all the same right? Yep. An inspirational ad full of campus shots and 'students' talking about something or other. I could hardly differentiate from one to the next, except with this one:



It's the University-level study in the Highlands and Islands advert. Nothing overally special or different, apart from the fact, I didn't see that one on the TV... I saw this one:



It's in Gaelic! What a lovely idea. And, it's the first Scotland wide TV ad to be broadcast in Gaelic. What's seems really odd. Granted I had no idea what it said, but it 'said' enough to me to put UHI on the map. I didn't notice any other ads during the break, I wasn't even looking at the TV. Yet I heard something in Gaelic and looked up at the screen. A ploy? Some free PR or just a clever bit of marketing?

With the tagline ‘Think UHI’ the £25k, 30 sec ad, which many can't understood has been considered an over indulgence.

But UHI believe the ad will signal the “difference” between it and it's competitors as they "put the language front and centre of their plans to reach out to a new generation of students."

I can only hope it works, because I think it's great for a Scottish uni to be promoting their language.

I also wondered if the new GoCompare ad is less annoying in Gaelic. Well, maybe not.

#joinglueisobar

I've sussed it. And, it's only taken me a week.

This ad appeared last week in the "What Next In Digital" supplement of Campaign (25/6/10) and the digitally savvy people would have recognised the #joinglueisobar hastag at the bottom of the page. 

Well, for those looking to "Quit Advertising" all you have to do is contact Glue Isobar on Twitter (with some links or details) and some of their lovely people, who are watching the #joinglueisobar hashtag, will contact the responders directly.

Simple. Easy. And very digital. Love it.

And if Glue Isobar want to know more about me, everything is here.

ScotRail Ads

After surviving a pitch, research, development and then some more research, our ScotRail campaign finally went live a couple of weeks ago (throughout Scotland). Now that all the press has run, I thought I'd share it on here.

This leisure campaign centered around showing off all the discount tickets available on their train services. That you're better off on the train. And, because the First Group run buses and trains, they wanted a campaign that screamed train at the customer.

So this is what we came up with.

For the Advance Single ticket. 

For the Kids Go Free ticket:

For Off-Peak Day Returns:

And for GroupSave (and Friends Fare):

There's also radio, DM, a billboard (which I'll post ASAP) and lots of online work, including the microsite.

You can also find more work on our Facebook Group (feel free to join). Cheers.