T-Mobile Heathrow Flashmob

I must be going up in the world, I've been sent a sneak preview of T-Mobile's latest TV advert before it airs in full on Friday.

This time the 'Life's For Sharing' flashmob lays siege to Heathrow's Terminal 5 arrivals gate. And, it claims 600 people turned up to sing and dance to the passengers as they pass through. In the sneak preview, it shows numerous clips of the waiting crowd performing different songs, which is different to the previous flashmob TV ads. Whether or not they pick a specific one as the lead remains unclear but being a full three minutes long, it'll be epic either way.

Here's a few tasters:

But that's not all. What I think is a bigger idea is that this is;

'the world’s first ad to premiere across the entire ad break simultaneously on more than 80 digital and terrestrial commercial TV channels.'

I'd love to see a video of someone flicking channels at this very minute. (I'm not near a TV then so someone please do this. Hint, hint). How cool would that be? You won't be able to escape the same advert for whole ad break. Meaning that it'll be watched by nearly 10 million people across the UK and reach more than 2 million households. And, what the press release forgot to mention, cost a bloomin' fortune.

So to see a bit of history, tune in to pretty much any TV channel at 10.15pm on Friday 29th October.

Oh, and kudos to Saatchi&Saatchi for filming, editing and broadcasting it in under 36 hours. Not many places can do that.

Talking Billboard

Here's a lovely piece of outdoor advertising by Elvis. What's weird is that it went live on March 11th 2009 and yet the video has just appeared on October 5th 2010. A quick Google search reveals very few hits came up for this great little idea when it was launched. But, more than a year and a half on, I'll give it a plug too. Sit back and enjoy the wonders of the talking billboard.



Hat tip to Keith for the find.

Check-in with Cheryl Cole

No, we're not doing the dirty in a hotel room like Ashley. I'm talking about checking-in with Facebook Places.

With the launch of Cheryl Cole's latest single 'Promise This', MediaCom and Polydor have decided to promote it using an outdoor campaign with a difference. Fans have the chance to win two free tickets (plus travel and hotel) to one of her X Factor shows simply by checking into one of her billboards.

To win these tickets, you then have to head over to her Facebook Page and click on the poster challenge. Like everything else at the minute, you have to 'like' her page first, which is a tad annoying!

From here, you click the entry button that takes you to another page, where they steal all your data, agree to them sending you emails and post on my wall. Oh yay.

And, then you get to the competition page, which didn't work for me. Partly because I hadn't checked in on her lovely billboard. It then told me to politely go find one.

This is the first advertising stunt that I've seen that uses Facebook Places. I guess it helps when you can tap into 2,699,441 fans to do a trial run for the next batch of advertisers. A good starter for ten on the old Facebook Places advertising bandwagon.

Independent launch a social media style newspaper

The 'i' is "the first quality newspaper to be launched in Britain for almost 25 years."

It claims "it’s not only a new paper, but a new kind of paper. Colourful and accessible, concise and intelligent", but that it's also "your essential daily briefing. Packed with news, views, entertainment, business and sport".

Now I don't need that waffle, what I first saw was "the matrix on pages two and three is designed to give you an overview of today’s news stories and is replicated in business and sport, so that you can get everything you need to know at a glance."

It's a printed paper, but in Twitter form. Brilliant! What a great idea from what's essentially an in depth newspaper. It's made for today's young audience. People that want bitesize information, but in a more up market way.

When the Metro updated its format, I thought it was great. Lots of snippets of stuff, an easy read and plenty of stories to keep to you reading. That's what I want. But now you can actually get a better version. And at 20p, it's as cheap as The Sun. I can see the business commuters going fairly crazy for this, especially in London.

You've got news apps, Twitter, Facebook and endless other ways to consume information on your way to work. I love flicking through Twitter in a morning. But that's because I'm cherry-picking the good bits. Now a paper can do half of that for me. I've never purposely bought The Independent before, but I would with this. Anyone with me?

The smallest shortest film

After the success of W+K's smallest ever viral, Kessels Kramer went one better. The smallest shortest film ever made. It's bizarre. Especially when there's 26 seconds build up to it!

Little Children in the City

I saw this:



And immediately, thought of this by Slinkachu:

There's even a book, which I knew of before the blog.

Now I'm all for copying if it's either staying true to the style or making something better. That's normally my excuse for showing a YouTube clip in a presentation. But for me, the ad doesn't do enough. There's no charm there. It's a sensitive subject I know, but the style doesn't lend its self to being depressing or grungy. It's almost cute. Not exactly what I think it needs. Just me?

Appalling Skyscraper Ad

Sorry Jury's Inn, but who signed this off? I mean, seriously. There's idea, strategy and alignment issues for a start. There must be so many digital shops claiming to be able to make things. The one that made this, shouldn't claim to do that. I love the random set of goalposts on the second frame.

Dancing Hands

I don't usually post that many Youtube videos on their own. Mainly because many don't need an introduction. So all I'll say is, I reckon this is better than Daft Hands and their 43.5 million hits. It's addictive viewing to a rather repetitive song.
 
Kudos to Steve for the link.

#keepingitpeel

Oh yes, I've made it.

Via @jimwolffman, the digi guru.

P.S. this has nothing to do with my namesake John Peel. Honest. 

Metro's Win the Cover

The Metro are giving readers the chance to design the front cover of their newspaper. They're asking you to submit whatever you like to winthecover.co.uk and if selected, you could have your message in front of 3.5 million reader's eyes.

They're suggestions include marriage proposals, your own works of art, new invention ideas, pranks, requests for help and getting something off your chest. All they ask is that you don't put any contact details on it. And, to enter by 3rd November 2010 at 23.59.

With links, websites or email addresses not allowed, that screws up most of my ideas. I guess I'll have to think a bit harder.

Hang on, "Peel signs for United in £100m deal". I could write my own article. Hmm...

Short and sweet

I'm convinced text speak has ruined the modern day lingo. See what I mean? 

Is it me or does this poll from O₂ not read right? I'm all for getting the point across in the least amount of words possible, but sometimes an extra word or two can make a big difference.

I think O₂ have been typing too many texts themselves. And, seriously what's that poll for? ROFL.

Submerge Mr Phoenix with Skittles on Facebook

Skittles have trapped a man, by the name of Mr. Phoenix, in a perspex box on 82 Dean Street in London for 24 hours. During this time, they plan to drop thousands of Skittles on him every 15 minutes. Every time you refresh the page, you add 40 Skittles to the impending downfall.

To see this happening live, there's a stream on the Skittles Facebook Page. The commentator, who's filling every 15 minute interval, has a really dry sense of humour, which is quite therapeutic and unobtrusive. I for one can't wait until he's using some form of tube to breathe with. Is that ever so slightly evil?

When the countdown in nearly you can always seen a large crowd gathering in the reflection. But as soon as it's over. Off they go again. Nice bit of online/offline engagement. Especially when it's essentially a coloured sweet. 

Created, me thinks, by TBWA\London. (Seen as it's in their office window).

More Skittles filled tank pics to follow later.

Oakley hits gold with Chilean miners

The freed Chilean miners were pictured together for the first time today - all donning their essential shades. Says The Sun.

Speaking from a hospital bed at the San José mine, shift foreman Luis Urzúa – the man who kept the Chilean miners alive for two months – said his secret for keeping the men bonded and focused on survival was majority decision-making.

"You just have to speak the truth and believe in democracy," said Urzúa, his eyes hidden behind black glasses. Says The Guardian.

And, after spending so long in the dark, they are wearing the sunglasses to protect their eyes from the brilliant sunlight. Says the Daily Mail.

These sunglasses you see, were donated by Oakley. At a reported $180 a pair, a pricey gesture at that. Especially when they gave away 35 pairs in total. But these glasses were essential. The miners were forced to wear these shades to protect their eyes from the light having spend 69 days down a mine. It just so happens that this good will gesture is now getting more exposure than the miners. Apparently, over $41 millions worth of it.

The famous Oakley “O” is on the side of each of the miners glasses, meaning every photo they have taken is giving Oakley even more brand awareness. And for free. There's no contracts nor stipulations, they're wearing them purely on medical advice.

And how long do they have to keep these glasses on for? Well probably just long enough to get a bit more exposure I think.

A fantastically sly marketing technique that can only do the brand good.

Mr Men

When I saw the new Specsavers ad, I have to admit, I was a bit peeved. We once had an idea in our book using Mr Men, which was either loved or hated. People said it was funny, but because they thought you could never use Mr Men it always fell down. But then Specsavers managed to get away with it. And in my opinion, isn't a patch on the Postman Pat version. 

I also saw this banner ad today and wanted to see if they'd branded up a microsite for them.

And lone behold, they had six great offers using the appropriate characters.

Plus, when you click on them, they open up in book form, which is a nice touch.

My annoyance is, what's wrong with ours?

Ah, wait. They didn't tamper with the brand. Dammit.

The bad guys.

The good guys.

And our book.

I'm not bitter. Honest.

The Police are on Twitter

Greater Manchester Police have, for one day only, decided to document every call they receive and publish it on Twitter. By following @gmp24_1 @gmp_2 @gmp24_3 (or this lovely hashtag), you can discover what the police have to put up with on a regular basis.

This is a great way for the public sector to turn to social media in an attempt to show that they don’t just chase robbers all day and then lock ‘em up.

Since 5am, these tweets have been causing a stir.

Call 412 Report of woman ringing police asking for help to sue benefits agency as she has no money

Call 421 Dog on the motorway at junction 24 on the M60

Call 521 Dustbin in lane one of M60

Call 567 Woman reporting somebody putting a video on her youtube site 

Call 634 Confused woman reporting her cat missing due to neighbour involvement

Call 664 Man calls to say locked out of house. Wants police to break in for him, Bolton

Call 674 Confused man reporting his tv not working

Call 686 Man shouts 'you're gorgeous' to woman

Call 795 Report of man not walking a dog in popular dog walking spot

Call 810 Man requesting information regarding motorway parking charges

Call 814 Call from a man who hadn't recieved his benefits

Call 846 Dog in carriageway of M60

Call 898 Report of man asleep in toilets in theatre when asked he left

Call 926 Report from Kearsley of threatening messages on Facebook

Call 1412 Query about a council parking fine

Call 1436 Tent erected on church grounds in Rochdale

Call 1517 Threats made by via Facebook

Call 1568 Threats made via Facebook and letters in Gorton

Call 2204 Man masturbating in public toilet, Trafford

Call 2494 Call about indecent Facebook message on son's account in Stockport

What’s quite disturbing is that these tweets are coming in too fast to actually read. Over three accounts and on average about three or four calls a minute; these updates show the scary reality that the police have to cope with on a regular basis.

And, to add a little twist to this very serious matter, as always, there’s a fake account. @gmp24_7 is highlighting the funny side of possible phone calls.

Call 23 Chav found sexually abusing a car exhaust

Call 22 Angry man upset. GPS directed him to Yorkshire

Call 17 Complaint from elderly citizen that we are tweeting too fast

Call 6 Greggs on Oxford Rd has run out of donuts. Alert. Dispatch all vehicles to alternative stores

I'll stay on the lookout for any suspicious activity and keep updating when I can. Blues and twos.

Virtual Redcar

How do you sell a place to live when it looks like a dump? Simple. Pretend it's something else.

That's what the council in Redcar, Teesside, have done. They're hoping that by turning the real estate to 'unreal' estate they can attract desperately-needed business investment to an area devastated by the recession.

So now alongside genuine stores, there's a virtual restaurant, bookshop, gift shop and two fashion stores. This is part of an £80million regeneration plan, that's "attracted plenty of interest" and given people "a flavour of the kind of businesses which could be set up."

Here's all the pics I could find.

Casually throw a panda in there. 

And even a house. 

What's the easiest way to make an online portfolio?

Over the last few weeks, many people have asked me this question. And to be honest there are a few ways. But as a designer/copywriter/art director/creative team you're meant to be "creative" when it comes to how your online portfolio looks and/or works.

Obviously nowadays an online presence is vital. And anyone and everyone (that you need to show off to) has the internet. Meaning you can always show people your work without needing to be there.

In this post I'll attempt to take you through a few things that you should do. And ways to save you money by doing it too.

1. Custom URL.

Probably one of the best ways to market your team is by having your own unique web address. A something.tumblr.com or something.carbonmade.com just shows you haven't cared about the way you come across.

Custom URLs cost pennies. I'm talking £2.50 a year for .co.uk or a few more quid for a .com. Think about it. And have a look around too. For instance there's a DanAndAdam.com, not to be confused with AdamAndDan.com.

Two very different sites but both creative teams. This could be the difference between a rival team getting a page view by a Creative Director, our a rival getting one instead.

Obviously ours is wearecrap.co.uk, which helps with stand out. But we also have a reason for the name. Don't over egg yourself either. shithotcreativeteam.co.uk probably won't do you any favours in the short term.

2. Hosting.

This is my biggest annoyance. Everyone asks, where can I get decent hosting? The answer is. You don't need it.

I host this blog on blogspot and yet, without looking very hard (or in the source code), you'd never know.

There are so many blogging sites out there that will host a custom URL for you. And then if you know a bit of code. You can remove all knowledge of them hosting it.

Blogger and Tumblr are my favourites for this. Wordpress everyone will scream is better. And yes, if you know code, it is. But, if you want to use a custom URL on Wordpress, you need to buy hosting!

Behance offers a place where many designers have a site, but you can't add any creativity to your page. While Carbonmade, offers a great portfolio hosting site. But, it's just that you're limited to how you can show off your work.

There are more ways to showcase your portfolio here, but they all require a monthly fee or less creative ways to showcase your work.

3. Flash or not?

Now the reason I've mentioned the above sites is that they are all built using HTML. Not Flash. Don't get me wrong, Flash can be great. But it can also ruin a users experience. I've seen too many young team's sites that use Wix. I hate it. It ruins the whole purpose of Flash. It's trying to be obvious. And ends running slowly and making work look naff.

We use Flash, because we currently don't have the skills to produce the same in HTML5. The downside to our site is, you can't look it on an iPad and an iPhone. And, with more and more people getting these devices, it upsets me greatly when I try and look up someone online and get greeted with a blank page. That's why my personal portfolio site is in HTML, and built with Tumblr.

Yay... and nay.

If I've persuaded you to stick with HTML, go to point four.

4. How do I make blogging format a portfolio?

Simple. There's a range of "portfolio themes" out there. Just Google them for Tumblr or Blogger and see which one you like the look of.

My Tumblr uses Cargo Theme, but here's a lot more great themes for Tumblr. Blogger is slightly limited on great easy to implement themes. If you're good with code though, here's a few to get you going. My honest opinion is that Tumblr offers the easiest and best way to create a different looking portfolio. Without any technical knowledge.

5. Yes but how do I make a standard theme different?

Easy. In Tumblr there's a customise (to us brits) tab which then takes you to a range of pages that you can change just the way you want. 

In my theme, you can change the only a few things in appearance. But, I've always been one for simplicity and clean lines. 

Tumblr also makes it really easy to link loads of things too. As it's my hub of all things me, I've got links to all the other sites I'm on. Simple really.

Tumblr also makes it really easy to publish any new content you create. By linking up your Facebook and Twitter to your folio, you can let all your followers know you've added more work. Always a good thing in my opinion.

And finally, you add your title. description and change your something.tumblr.com to your custom domain. I bought andymarkpeel.co.uk and andymarkpeel.com from 1and1 for a mere £10(ish) for two years. These won't become active instantly. They'll take about 24 hours to be usable. Then to activate your own url, just go to point six.

6. Transfering your .tumblr.com to your own url.

If you're struggling, there's some helpful info here, but I'm hoping these screenshots will do nicely. I order my domains off 1and1, so firstly you need to edit your DNS settings.

Simply change your IP address/ A-record to 72.32.231.8 this will point your custom url at Tumblr.

Then head back to Tumblr and point your 'blog' at your custom url.

And hey presto. A freebie portfolio blog with your own custom name. And it won't cost a penny (other than renewing your domain name).

Hope that made sense. Give me a shout if you want any help.

X Factor moving with the times

For once, I have to commend Simon Cowell. How can you make even more money out of a franchise that's basically already pushing the limit. Well, now you can enjoy the song from every Saturday night by downloading them via iTunes, straight(ish) after the show. And each one for a cool 99p.

I thought this was genius, for one reason. You could have a number 1 song from now until Christmas from any of the acts. Now in my head, that's brilliant. But unfortunately, that won't be the case.

There's a little catch.

"To protect the integrity of the X Factor competition, sales information in relation to the live contestant performances from the current season of X Factor will not be reflected in any sales charts."

Dammit. And there's that great idea crushed. So who's starting another #RATM for Christmas number one instead?

The Scottish Ad Awards - Results

Our first ad awards ended badly for us, but brilliantly for our agency.

The big award went to Leith for the irn-bru Bruzil campaign. A great campaign by Chris Scott and David Grenfell. We were up cheering again for best press: financial, professional or trade advert by Mike Maxwell and Ian Fletcher. Swiftly followed by best use of outdoor advert on a mobile medium by Guy Vickerstaff and Phil Evans.

We were then delighted that Steve Allsopp and Alfie Hayward won best use of animation for their knife crime viral. Leith Records picked up best self promotion too. And the big winner was Bruzil, which received more than a few.

We missed out on winning creative team of the year. But, Leith won agency of the year, which is what really matters. To see all the work and winners, just hit this link.

Honestly I'd love to hear some of your opinions. Personally I thought there were a few iffy winners and some deserved a lot better than they got.

And, after last night, I want to win one of those shiny awards even more now. Whoever said it's all about the taking part, clearly didn't know what they were talking about.

Same concept, same airtime.

Oh no. This can only be described as everyone's worst nightmare. A BBH and Mother London face-off. Two different clients. Same idea. And both aired for the first time during X-Factor.

The ads in question are Yeo Valley and Ikea. Both go for a little rap number to tie in with the media buy. The first one to appear on TV was the two minutes long Yeo Valley one, and was pretty funny. The second was only a minute long. The trouble is though, when it first started to air I went, it's another Yeo Valley ad. Then went... oh wait, hang on. No it's not.

I really feel for the creatives that made these two ads. Neither would've had any idea there was something similar being thought up just a few miles away. And now, their idea will always be remembered as the copycat ads.





However, the real question here is, which one do you think is better?

Captain Blackadder on Twitter

Ah, that's cunning. Captain Blackadder will send you a lovely little tweet if you mention the word "cunning" in anything you say. Pointless, but if you're a Blackadder fan like I am, it put a smile on my face.  

He'll also from time to time talk classic nonsense.