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The Trouble with Twitter

Markus — Wed, 13 May 2009 07:03:51 +0000

Supernews made a “sequel” for their massively popular video Trouble with Twitter and since Twitter has been in the frame constantly now, I thought I’d post the video here for people to catch up what it’s all about.

If you already don’t, you can follow me at Twitter as well!

Swine flu terror show continues

Markus — Tue, 12 May 2009 07:11:51 +0000

Yesterday I posted some thoughts on Swine Flu and I bumped into Supernews‘ great video on the topic, for your viewing pleasure – here it is:

Check Current.tv for more Supernews!

Our rock stars

Markus — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:30:08 +0000

Went to see some rock stars doing stand-up comedy at Manala’s English Comedy Club and it was well worth the 7 euro admission and I guess I’ll be spending more time there and I was even asked to go and try out on their English open mic night coming soon… Scary thought. I know.

But to the point:

Sometimes an Ad agency gets it and they are able to push out something that is relevant to its target audience. Here’s a brilliant advertisement for Intel and their freshed up brand.

Love it! I order you to!

The week on Varha.com 27th April – 3rd May

Markus — Sun, 03 May 2009 10:24:23 +0000

Whew, what a week! We had an excellent Vappu weekend with good weather – so if you’ve been boozing for the last three days, here’s something for you to do while lying on the sofa going cold turkey.

eBooking it up

The amazing tales of eBook reading continues, part two of a continuing series.

Good Advertising – Makita Drill Ad

I started another series title Good Advertising, because I see too much bad advertising. We start with a Makita ad from South Africa.

The Butt Race – YouTube’s no.1 from 1965

If your parents and grandparents are giving you trouble for doing funny videos show this to them, if not only to shut them up.

Stand by me played by the world

If you have been drinking for three days, here’s some world-loving, all-hugging, life-saving music to soothe your pain.

How to make your video viral!

If your boss is giving you a hard time with your marketing, this might be a way to make you seem smarter.

Stand by me played by the world

Markus — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:04:17 +0000

I love music, and there’s something inspirational about when people unite in song. Even the cliched ones like the American superstar songs did with We are the world (video below). What comes first, is a video from the Playing for Change project that raises funds to build schools. It’s inspiring and awesome!

From the award-winning documentary, “Playing For Change: Peace Through Music”, comes the first of many “songs around the world” being released independently. Featured is a cover of the Ben E. King classic by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it travelled the globe. This video and “Don’t Worry” will be available at iTunes 1.27.09 while other songs such as “One Love” will be released as digital downloads soon; followed by the film soundtrack and DVD in stores on 4.28.09.

Now that we’ve got the peaceful thing going on, let’s add some flair from the 80′s – here it is.

We are the world (sung by Americans, how ironic.)

The Butt Race – YouTube’s no.1 from 1965

Markus — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 05:30:28 +0000

If Youtube and some other technologies required by Youtube, such as the Internet were around in 1965 we would be watching videos like this. Videos directed by 14-year old kids, that are original and funny – and most importantly, have a very catchy name to get those viewers in.

See? The next time your parents tell you that no one did this kind of thing when they were home playing with pine cones and skiing 20 miles to school every morning tell them that they would have, if they would have had the equipment to do it.

Evelien Lohbeck’s notebook

Markus — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 14:00:34 +0000

Again, the web delivers something awesome to my retinas – this time the awarded movie / animation by Dutch artist Evelien Lohbeck titled the “Notebook”. Her style reminds me of the incredibly simple Google product animations done by Commoncraft (for example, here’s the Google Docs animation)

Noteboek from Evelien Lohbeck on Vimeo.

Totally beautiful and took my mind of the spring cleaning after the renovation – which is hard work. Especially after celebrating ANZAC day.

Check out Evelien’s other videos at Vimeo and she has a website as well.

The week on varha.com April 20th to 26th

Markus — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 09:13:55 +0000

Oh boy, what a week! So many things to do and so little time to do it. The sun is, like, totally shining and summer’s coming and it is super schweet! Spend your Sunday afternoon reading these, after the sun has set!

A lot of interesting articles again this week, here’s what you watched the most:

1. The Facebook Etiquette

A well-done, well-produced video about the behavioral etiquette in Facebook. Definitely worth the watch!

2. Gorilla Viewing Glasses

Those darned Dutch people are again inventing crazy stuff, this time it’s glasses for gorilla watching! Who doesn’t need those!?

3. How to make your video go viral!

The holy-grail kind of answer to the most tricky marketing stunt ever thought on! CLICK FOR MORE!

4. Cops vs. Clowns fighting Matrix-style

Here’s a very, very pretty video that you should watch. Totally. Watch it. It’s pretty. Do it. Click. Click.

5. The Beckham terminator

More idiotic ads, that don’t tell anything about the product or its benefits and that’s just crap!

Also, I’ve been reactivated for a few weeks now and I’d like to hear if anyone actually reads this stuff and what you think about it? More of something or less of something? Leave a comment or mail me so I can know what’s up and stuff, thaaaanks!

How to make your video viral!

Markus — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:45:44 +0000

How to turn lead into gold! Here’s how Advertising Age starts their article:

How to Make Your Online Video Go Viral
Here’s the Magic Formula to Get Your Push Embraced, and Avoid Being Stalled at the Gate

The emphasis on the topic is mine, but it tells an amazing story. Does one of the leading authorities in the advertising field really, honestly think that viral videos have some magic formula to make things work? And of course you can’t read the article without subscribing to it, hence I’m not linking to it either.

A few months ago I met a game researcher, who we took up the topic of viral marketing and what it actually means. Wikipedia says:

The buzzwords viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet.

Well yes, that’s the theory and the mechanism. Then again, everybody knows that viruses are not sentient. They don’t keep spreading because it’s fun or because they really want to hit Ebolas totally hot sister. They do it, because they are genetically designed to do it, it’s nature’s way of controlling populations and helping evolution. So, we came into the conclusion that viral marketing is not really viral, it just sounds more effective that way. That’s why it’s a buzzword.

So, what is a viral video or a viral campaign?

It’s something good, funny, stupid, dreadful, passionate or cute enough to pass around – because we like the content of it.

Why is it happening now? With web 2.0, which is built on the idea of:

Sharing data
User-generated content
Aggregated content
Basic socio-psychology

You see where I’m going here? We are given tools to share data very easily, recommend them to our friends, who in turn recommend them to friends etc. We usually do that with user-generated content, because it’s usually something original, passionate and something we can relate to. This content is, through recommendations, aggregated into web sites that collect other peoples’ stuff on their site to satisfy their visitors to make advertisement money. Then you just put them on a list on relevance and tell people that other people like this video and leave the emphasis out of “… so you should watch it too.”

So how to really make a video go viral?

Make good videos. Not what you want to tell to the people, but what the people want to see. Sometimes these match, but the reality is that showing your tits in a party while being crazy high with Michael Jackson and Madonna’s Malawian kindergarten will be more successful than you filming your quite mediocre stamp collection in the dark while listening to Babylon Zoo‘s “Spaceman“.

Also, if some of you readers work for “marketing agencies” that sell “cool stuff” to cool brands:

Putting people on skateboards and adding some grunge filters on videos will not make them viral.

Unless you’re Tony Hawk. But it’s still not guaranteed.

Cops and Clowns fighting Matrix-style

Markus — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 05:30:59 +0000

I knew you just can’t resist looking at that topic, and the best part of it is that it is actually true. Here’s a video by Stink Digital they made for some TV company promoting some new technology, but I’m unable to say which those are since this “ad” doesn’t mention neither of them.

So, without further ado – cops and clowns, fighting in a really cool video.