A decade ago, in 2001, BMW unveiled a series of short films, collectively known as The Hire, but commonly called BMW Films.
High production values and big name actors and directors highlighted what the cars could do in dramatic situations and kick-started the burgeoning world of online branded content.
Since then, the world has shifted, ever so slightly…
Alex Marks wonders about the ASA’s new plan to monitor digital marketing material when consumers are already doing a pretty good job of policing the internet by themselves.
A collection of interesting things from the web this week from gladverts, to BMW films and pop-up malls in East London, by The Marketing Society’s editor, Elen Lewis
The world’s first pop-up mall is opening in August this year on the old Bishopsgate Goods Yard between Shoreditch High Street station and Bethnal Green Road in London.
Marketing Society editor Elen Lewis caught up with Google’s Yonca Brunini, who revealed a secret connection with Miles Davis, and a hope that an unusual project she worked on 10 years ago might still have its time in the limelight.
Today I’m raising the profile for biologists and social scientists. I find tangential things spark new ideas and inspire fresh perspectives on life’s niggling issues.
Biologists look for natural patterns and divide us the bigger picture to take us out of our little world, which perhaps explains why Mervyn King brought in biologists to cast their eyes over the city’s financial devils.
A collection of interesting things from the web this week by Marketing Society editor Elen Lewis, from propoganda posters to bad shopping habits and time capsules.
Someone tweeted!
Brian Lane Winfield Moore has retrofitted WW2 propaganda posters for the modern world. They warn citizens of the dangers of Google and Twitter.
someoneelsewillputitback.com
Dissecting the meaning behind the moments when shoppers discard a box of chocolates in the freezer cabinet with the Ainsley Harriot Croutons or dump a bag of diced beef near the popcorn. For all those readers who like to rearrange their products on the supermarket shelves when out shopping.
Send a message back to your future
And submit a video to ‘In 25 Years’a collaborative time capsule; deadline extended to 11 February.
A collection of interesting things from the web this week by Marketing Society editor Elen Lewis from entertaining yoof to what the future holds according to IDEO and listening to pocket cinema.
Pocket cinema
Take 30 minutes to listen to a fascinating Radio 4 documentary about how mobile phones are changing the way we watch and make movies. There’s important implications for marketing too.
The Social Entertainment Age
An article in Contagious reveals that the prime motivation for 16-24 year olds to engage with brands is to entertain them (66%).
What will drive innovation over the next decade?
The Daily Beast asked three experts including Tim Brown, president of IDEO, what the future holds. Here’s an extract. “We’re now into the new economy and the new central actor is not the worker, the person who produces, nor the person who consumes, but a new economic actor who does both things at the same time. Now there are words like pro-sumer and everything else out there—my preferred term for it is ‘a creator economy.’ …I don’t mean a creative economy—those creatives are elites. Creators are ordinary people like us—in the ordinary course of our day, we may think we are engaging in the act of consumption, but in fact we are producing something..”
Happy New Year (I know I’m either late (Christian-influenced calendars) or early (Chinese/Asian)) and Happy Burns Night (here’s a nice whiskey sauce recipe for those of you hunting Haggi this coming weekend) – OK, so that was yesterday as well.
Seems like I’m running just to keep up so far this year. Probably why this little nugget from Intel caught my eye… see how many digital genres can be spoofed in one promotional film! I’m sure the soundtrack should be from Yello, though…
Speaking of yellow… (what a segue) it’s nice to see the return of SEGA. Makes me nostalgic for uni days playing on the Megadrive just writing their name! Not sure this latest game would have been good for the living room carpet, though. Think the inspiration for that came more from junior school “crossed streams” (admittedly this analogy is more for the guys – I don’t want to be unintentionally lumped into the Andy Gray bucket here) than more advanced gaming storylines. Only in Japan. (One hopes).
This time of year sees the single biggest annual American sporting jamboree, the Super Bowl. For those not keeping up, this year’s event (the 45th, on Sunday February 6th – live on BBC1, Radio5LX and Sky Sports) is between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers after one of the most topsy-turvy seasons in recent history. These are two tough and fairly equally matched teams on paper – should be a good game, and will be a boon to the ad industry in America (even with the price of a 30” spot falling for only the second time in the games’ history, despite the two most supported teams in America, after the Dallas Cowboys, playing). The morning after review of TV sports is almost as much of an event as the game. For some great journalistic coverage of this sport, and the build up to the game, you can do worse than follow Peter King and his Monday Morning Quarterback column on Sports Illustrated.
Finally, couldn’t resist a bit of mobile intel, I’m afraid. This nugget from Nielsen, blew my mind.. Before I share it, just for comparison, in the UK on average we’re sending about 6 text messages a day, or around 180 a month. American teens are now sending 3,339 texts a month. THREE THOUSAND, THREE HUNDRED and THIRTY NINE. That’s more than six for every hour they’re awake. And they get often get charged to receive SMS. Some serious RSI and carpal tunnel cases coming in the next decade or two, I suspect. More distilled mobile goodness from Nielsen.
Paul Hood, Digital Marketing Director at Mirror Group Newspapers Ltd and a new member of The Marketing Society Digital Network gives us a quick interview.
What are your three favourite bookmarks?
Goodness me – that makes me realise I don’t really use bookmarks anymore. Delicious (and Instapaper on iPad) takes care of ‘Favourites’
I have to start with my favourite online ad campaign. The ‘Tippex’ video is by far the best example of online marketing I’ve seen so far.
Relevant, funny, engaging, interactive, and very ‘human’. Definitely worth checking out http://bit.ly/bearinwoods.
My other two favourite sites are BusinessInsider.com, and NMA.co.uk
Both provide hugely relevant digital insight information and news. Both are invaluable to my working week.
3am.co.uk is my guilty pleasure. (Disclosure – it’s one of ours, but it’s jolly good). I fully expect that recommendation not to make it past the editor. #fatandshamelessplug
Paul Berney, CMO of Mobile Marketing Association gives us a global view on mobile marketing.
Throughout 2010 I did a lot of travelling around the world helping MMA members build mobile marketing in their countries. My role has given me a unique neutral international perspective. Throughout my trips there has been a common but odd theme to my conversations with marketers everywhere who kept telling me ‘of course we are way behind what is being done in (insert your own country or region here)’. The consistent and prevailing view is that mobile marketing must be bigger and better with someone else.
The funny thing is I have heard people tell me this throughout the world over the last three years. Is this just a mobile view? A digital one? Or do we as marketers always think that someone else is doing ‘it’ better no matter what ‘it’ is?
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A decade ago, in 2001, BMW unveiled a series of short films, collectively known as The Hire, but commonly called BMW Films.
Alex Marks wonders about the ASA’s new plan to monitor digital marketing material when consumers are already doing a pretty good job of policing the internet by themselves. 
Marketing Society editor Elen Lewis caught up with Google’s Yonca Brunini, who revealed a secret connection with Miles Davis, and a hope that an unusual project she worked on 10 years ago might still have its time in the limelight.
Happy New Year (I know I’m either late (Christian-influenced calendars) or early (Chinese/Asian)) and Happy Burns Night (here’s a nice 
