For years agencies have offered and clients have demanded advertising campaigns that will “go viral”. Roughly translated as we have money for a creative execution but no budget for media. Agencies and clients don’t decide if videos go viral, audiences do that. Here however is a real ‘viral’ clip or more accurately ‘bacterial’. It was created to promote the film Contagion.
Crowd Sourced Gig Video – The National
31 08 2011Last week I made the trip from my native Manchester all the way to Edinburgh for a gig. The National is Brooklyn based an indie rock band formed in Cincinnati, Ohio and despite a series of European festivals this was a short tour. I’ve seen them three times before and they never disappoint.
I had my iPhone 4 with me so took a few video clips and images as reminders of the experience but the highlight was the acoustic rendition of Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks, with the audience singing along and singer Matt Berninger leaping into the crowd. I was so captivated I didn’t video it, but at least five other people did. With some cheap video software I edited the clips together and produced a crowd sourced video. With the increasing quality of videos on phone this will become ever more possible and bands without the cash to hire a crew will still be able to have multi camera live video footage.
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Categories : Media evolution, User Generated Content
Abercombie and their PR Situation
18 08 2011
A clothing brand pays a celebrity NOT to wear their clothes. It made the New York Times. Surely that’s PR genius.
Abercrombie & Fitch Chief Executive Mike Jeffries set the story ablaze during a conference call with financial analysts when he asked ”is no one going to ask about The Situation?”. Thus prompted to pose the question, the analysts were told “last Friday … someone came up and said, ‘Mike, I have terrible, terrible news. Last night on ‘Jersey Shore’ The Situation had A&F product on.”
For the uninitiated ‘The Situation’ is a “star” (in a Warhol sense) of faux reality US TV ratings phenomenon ‘Jersey Shore’.
A&F decided to pay the cast not to wear their product, Jeffries said. We can deduce that the cast are not A&F’s target demographic. ”We’re having a lot of fun with it” Jeffries added. He may as well have just said “it’s a stunt”. What on the face of it is generating a lot of media mileage maybe be bad for the brand.
In the first instance generally most customers don’t like having the wool pulled. Secondly what A&F has actually done is created a powerful association between their brand and ‘Jersey Shore’. The 9% drop in the company’s share price may be as much to do with the CEO saying in the same briefing “into 2012, it is clear that we are entering a period of greater uncertainty”. It could equally that what seemed to be a clever PR ploy was actually his Ratner moment.
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Categories : Uncategorized
Did foam plate #hackgate attacker tweet his plan?
19 07 2011
Self styled comedian and UK Uncut supporter Jonnie Marbles (pictured here) was tweeting live from the culture media and sport select committee session immediately before the bizarre attack on Rupert Murdoch with a foam filled paper plate having enquired about the order of appearance he tweeted at 15.01 “I’m actually in this committee and can confirm: Murdoch is Mr. Burns.”
At 10 to 5 just seconds before the incident he tweeted; ”It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat”. He hasn’t tweeted since. I think that’s a bit suspect.
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Categories : Social Web, Twitter
10 other reasons for ‘The News of the World’ closure
12 07 2011
Although the hacking scandal was the catalyst for the closure of the News of the World, it was far from the only reason. Here are 10 other factors that probably played a part in the News Corporation decision to the stop the presses.
1. They had been planning a 7 day a week tabloid anyway and The Sun is a more powerful brand than The News of The World. A managing editor for the 7 day combined paper was already in place before the scandal broke.
2. To reduce claims about competition and help the BSkyB bid. Even just a week ago the most likely barrier to the bid for full control of BSkyB was one of media plurality. By ditching a huge circulation title they provided a counter to the claim that they controlled too much of the UK news media.
3. Money The title paid half a million in compensation and costs in the Max Moseley case. There have also been a series of out of court payments over hacking and other matters in recent months and there’s little doubt these were escalating. Perhaps there was a fear that the paper despite its circulation would make ever-increasing losses.
4. News Corporation is a global concern and its global reputation is more important than the fortunes of one British newspaper.
5. To deflect attention from the embattled Chief Executive on News International, Rebekah Brooks. It may have been a motive but it didn’t work.
6. Showing muscle. Murdoch is ruthless and wanted to seize the agenda and demonstrate that he was in control. It showed they were capable of changing the game.
7. It was no longer the UK’s biggest selling newspaper. It’s circulation had fallen below 3 million and for the first time in decades The Sun was on average outselling the NOTW.
8. To protect friends in high places Andy Coulson’s associations with convicted criminals was already on record. Further discussion would be uncomfortable for the prime minister and the Murdochs.
9. It’s over for newspapers. An exaggeration maybe but consolidation of UK newspapers was long overdue. Media experts have been predicting that titles will go for years. News Corporation is a bigger company.
10. They know there were far worse transgressions and the brand was toxic. Now we know that too.
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Categories : Brands, Journalism, Media evolution, Newspapers, Politics, Top Ten
Murdoch and the News agenda
7 07 2011
The shock closure of the ‘News of the World’ might be seen as a major PR offensive designed to bring the debate on the phone hacking scandal to a close but it could well be an opportunity for Murdoch junior to kill several birds with a single stone.
Those that think that twitter is one of the birds in question would be guilty of an oversimplification.
The closure certainly seizes the news agenda at least for a time. It changes the direction of the media storm and perhaps is intended to give Rebekah Brooks some breathing space but dig a little deeper and there’s another angle.
It was reported well before the latest storm broke that the were management mergers at the top of the Times and the Sunday Times but also at The Sun and the News of the World. Rebekah Brooks was on record saying “We will take a comprehensive look at where there is common ground across our titles …where there is common ground we will find ways of implementing efficiencies to editorial systems and processes and, where appropriate, we will find ways of introducing seven day working.”
Tellingly the web addresses sunonsunday.co.uk and .com were both registered two days ago by a UK individual using the name Mediaspring and who opted to have their address omitted from the registration. Would it be too cynical to imagine that Murdoch has used the situation to cut costs at Wapping and retain an integrated Sunday red top tabloid using the Sun brand?
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Categories : Journalism, Media evolution, Twitter, Uncategorized
Twitsophrenia – Split Personality Online
23 06 2011
It began with a conversation in the Blackdog Ballroom with Dom Burch. He is about to take a six month sabbatical from his role as Head of Corporate Communications at ASDA and he has a new twitter profile to mark the occasion. I then saw on twitter that the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg is moving to ITV and will therefore cease to be @BBCLauraK; re-emerging in the autumn as @ITVLauraK.
The border lines in social networks are commonly understood if sometimes blurry. Facebook for friends and frivolity, LinkedIn for work and Twitter…well for either, or a bit of both, or neither. Twitter is nothing if not versatile but if you tie your twitter account to one aspect of your life, in this case your working life, then you may find yourself in need of multiple on-line personalities. The other downside is that if your circumstances change you’ll lose the network of followers that you have lovingly built.
For journalists, their personal following online is becoming more and more important. Speaking in Cannes this week Piers Morgan claimed that a single tweet added up to half a million viewers to an interview he conducted with Charlie Sheen on CNN. The value of a personal online network is not solely the preserve of the press. So I guess we have to decide. We can have different accounts for the different aspects of our lives or we can have an account that reflects the varied aspects of who we are and what we do but isn’t tied to any of them. The choice as they say, is yours.
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Categories : Facebook, Journalism, LinkedIn, Twitter
