Rob and I will be taking a break for the next couple of weeks. We’ll be back in full force on January 5th, but for now we’re going to enjoy a well earned rest.

We’re happy that you came along for the ride in 2008 and we hope you enjoyed reading TMTYL as much as we enjoyed writing it.

We wish you the best this holiday season. Have a wonderful and safe New Year’s Eve celebration as well!

For now we’ll fly off in our odd sci-fi advertising space wagon and dream of odd new things to tell in the new year.

Sincerely yours,

Freddie and Rob

At best, people have ambivalent feeling about clowns.

On one end of the spectrum, there’s the relatively benign Bozo the Clown, a historic television favorite whose name implied entertaining, well-meaning buffoonery. There’s also the sad beauty of the crying clown of the opera Paglicci. Then, at the other end, the worst nightmare of anyone suffering from full-blown coulrophobia — the “scary clown.”

Pretty much any way you look at it, there’s not a lot of upside to being called a clown. So imagine my feelings when my PR firm sent me this post they found on Twitter about my company’s recent attendance at an Adobe trade show:

“I thought Sapient was a mgmt consulting co? They’re the booth next to us at Adobe Max and they’re complete clowns” –Message posted on Twitter by [name withheld], November 19, 2008

Read the rest of this article at AdAge.com.

My friend Jeff Arbour from Hyperfactory scooted in at #1. I’m glad to see I’m in such good company!
Congrats guys!

Read the full list here.

I have to questions whether I think this was worth pulling down for the brand though. I’d be interested to see what percentage of the 300 blog posts (301 counting this one) are from marketing or social media blogs/sites. I think this is a hot subject right now in marketing, but was it really that big when you look at it’s impact on pop culture. Only a couple of hundred thousand people viewed this ad on YouTube. I feel like this might be media going nuts again and making a big deal out of a small fire.

Maybe there was a more intelligent way to respond to the community then issuing a very corporate apology, pulling your site down, and pulling this commercial. Based on some very interesting conversations I’ve been having with our own corporate communications department I’ve been thinking about the best ways for businesses/brands to respond to feedback in the social media space.

This could have been used to engage all of the naysayers into a bigger conversation and in the long term turn them into vocal brand advocates. They should personally message each of the people that commented on Twitter and ask them to get involved on their next ad (in terms of early feedback). Imagine the groundswell of buzz they’d be able to create…

* The TV ad was shot using 200 Toshiba Gigashot Cameras: the highest number of moving image cameras ever used in a film sequence
* This particular technique, viewing looping action in 360 degrees, has never been done before
*The time spent processing footage from 200 cameras was over four weeks - 24 hours a day seven days a week!
* In terms of data, this is one of the biggest jobs a post-production house has ever taken on - 20TB of data
* New offline and online editing software had to be specifically built for the job
* Soundtrack is provided by Crystal Castles
* Integrated campaign to promote Toshiba’s new range of upscaling products - TV, DVD and laptops - that convert standard definition TV and DVD images to near high-definition quality  [Cinematical]

Lively allows you to create your own virtual worlds, customize avatars, and then embed them in web pages. What’s so interesting about this concept is that you could effectively use these virtual worlds (or glorified chat rooms depending on how you look at them) to interconnect online communities that span multiple websites.

I have embedded a room below for you to tinker with that has quite a few people in it so it should be easy to test out the user experience. I found it to be a bit clunky, but I also appreciate the fact that it’s running in a browser and is a Gen 1 product.

These ideas aren’t always the most sane (yet again, reference Trevor The Mentos Intern) and in some cases they’re not particularly politically correct. The fashion company Diesel seems to have a really good grasp of how to make these press friendly viral campaigns. They did it very successfully last year when they had two models “kidnap” a sales person and the company’s primary website while interacting with visitors via a live web cam.

VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP.

I think they’re about to do it again with a unique spin on some carefully edited 70’s porn that apparently reflects what Diesel’s 30th birthday celebration party was like…

Use with skill and caution....

In my previous post I talked about the concept of micro-celebrities. Where are some of these micro-celebrities and how do we use them help us launch products.

Look to Personal Blogging, Fanfiction Writing, Podcasting, Video Blogging, and even the profile pages of your friends on social networking sites. (The other option is to create your own micro-celebrities like Trevor the Mentos Intern, but we’ll get to that in a second.)

It’s about connecting with key influencers who seem ultimately more believable, more sincere, and more likely to be like “you and me” and not big corporate companies that want more of your money. Sadly, I am frequently compelled to remind our clients that most people don’t like advertising right before I ask for a raise in their marketing budget, but we try our best not to make traditional ads.

The internet provides a voice that cannot only be heard, but can be specifically targeted. There are hundreds of examples of on the web where a single individual has created a voice for themselves, and hundreds have gathered to listen.

We use bloggers and all different forms of micro-celebrities to help us promote our client’s brands. Our relationship with these communities and the new ones we form everyday help us to continue to build brand relevance, but we do it by treating these people like, well, micro-celebrities. We respect them, we praise they’re work, and through strong bonds we typically don’t have to pay them to reference our client’s brands.

Beau Bergeron, a senior at FIU, has gained national fame for starting the Great Underwear Dash, an event celebrated annually on campuses across the country. He’s also gained fame for a double-album he produced himself.
This is an example of one person whose voice is heard all over the country. He’s not spending hours campaigning, or spending time throwing his name up on every wall he can find. He’s just publicized his personal projects on his blog, and has gained national attention for it. This year, he’s even turned the underwear dash into a charity event. By encouraging people to donate the clothes they take off to run, a single individual is able to make a huge influence.

The ad shows a variety of people representing PC’s, which is part of the new image Microsoft is pushing for: Windows is everywhere, every person, every medium, every device, using a few new tags lines like “Windows without Walls” and “Windows: Life without walls”.

windows: life without walls. Another facet of the campaign tries to play up the notion that Windows works across multiple devices, from desktop PC, to laptop, to phone.

The print portion of Microsoft's new ad campaign characterizes the Mac vs. PC debate as an epic struggle between "Windows vs. Walls"