ON: Digital+Marketing

ON: SHUT UP & SING Ads

Just a smart ad with great functionality.

ON: .Mac Mail App

Leave it to mac to push the envelope right off the desk with their web mail application. It is simple, clean and gives me all the comforts of my home mail client. 

More importantly, it gives me all the necessary luxuries with out gaudy graphics and blinking lights.

Perfect. Simplicity.

ON: PhilTube

...now there's PhilTube.

"The Office" meets "The YouTube Generation". Or something like that.

I would expect to see more of this stuff in the future: cheap, easy to produce, creative, with no TV execs, huge budgets or mainstream ad agencies to have to go through. Some will make loads of money, some won't; some will be artistic masterpieces, some will be utter crap.

PhilTube got me laughing this morning...  It is a great parody of the crap i see large agencies trying! I like it.

ON:Sitting around the Campfire

Last week I had the opportunity to visit Steve Wax and folks at Campfire Media.

They subscribed and practice the same “story-telling” methodology of viral marketing, I noted in an earlier post about convergence marketing.

“A virus catches on only if it forms a community where none existed. The infection feeds on fascination. Viral is the opposite of brute force. The more force you use, the less viral it becomes."

See the Fast Company article >>.

Technorati Profile

ON: Walmart.com's Facelife

Overall, Walmart.com’s redesign is a great improvement over their old site.  It brings them on par with Target.  However, I’m really surprised that Walmart didn’t implement some form of faceted/guided navigation (e.g. Endeca).  Perhaps they’re prepping this up for their next iteration as they move from redesign to design optimization.

From the press release:

The site redesign is a sweeping overhaul that touches 1,000 categories and more than 2 million pages at Walmart.com, with dramatic new designs of the Home, Apparel and Electronics departments. It also includes the following upgrades and innovations:

• New Look & Feel - Features larger images, clean, bold design, and clear, crisp messages.
• Fewer Clicks - Allows for fewer than 4 clicks to product checkout from any starting point.
• Rich Interactive Content -Interactive elements on more than 5,000 site pages allow users to easily obtain information without going to another page. For example, a new “peel to reveal” function marries the online world with the way customers use traditional magazines by allowing them to click a “peel” option that reveals additional content.
• Smart Home & Apparel Solutions - Comprehensive home and apparel collections tell an inspiring story, and enable users to shop by room collection or apparel outfit.
• CNET Information - Industry-leading CNET buying guides were added so that customers can research information online and make more informed purchase decisions

ON: Consumer Generated Content

Even when you do not what the consumers interaction, you get it.  I was in the subway last night and was admiring the Bob Dylan special poster and noticed that two consumers had begun a handwritten chain of comments on Mr. Dylan’s music and his contribution to American culture.

 
It just goes to show you that consumers think that have the right to create, comment and propagate their thinking on your campaign, brand or promotion.

Graffiti or consumer generated comments?

ON:Mediaplex, EyeWonder Integrate Services

ValueClick's Mediaplex has entered a deal with EyeWonder to offer integrated services related to ad serving, rich media and video ad technology, reports iMedia Connection.

 

Mediaplex clients will gain access to EyeWonder's suite of rich media and video ad products; advertisers and agencies will have access to video campaign metrics through one centralized system. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.

"This new relationship is a unique combination of the industry's most comprehensive online ad server technology and the internet's leading rich media and video ad products, reporting and services," Tom Vadnais, ValueClick president, is quoted as saying.

ON: A great player

Here is an example of a great player... Where are the ads?

ON: AI for Search

http://www.msdewey.com/

This is an entertaining take on the traditional search engine and great use of flash video. This is by no way unique or new.  check out thebar.com

ON: A burst of New Agencies

Watch the burst of new agenies opening in 2006 and 2007.

crayon is a mash-up of the best of the agency, consulting, advisory, thought leadership and education worlds rolled into one shape-shifting package. Crayon's  motto or mantra is: "Conversation and Transformation above Communication