Believe!

Brought to you by Austin Walsh Photography. And, because I can't say it better, here's Jetpacks' tidy take:

Dolls with messed up eyes are the stuff of nightmares, but obsessed old men from the suburbs of KC who believe in Santa Claus are the stuff of Disney. And it's nice to see a studio/collective/agency just telling a story instead of putting antlers on the office dog and acting cute.

I guess I'm into this because for me a great story has both the dark and the beautiful mixed in. That's the kind of stuff that captivates you as a kid, long before your head's all washed out with industrial sized Fight Club-looking soap. Isn't that basically the business we're in? To captivate, to make that inner kid feel at ease poking his head out again?

Well, maybe not for nose clippers or Chia pets.

MAKE TRUCKER JACKETS, NOT WAR

I give you The Evolution of the Levi's Trucker Jacket, part of its Ready to Work campaign.



A slow starter but pretty, especially if you're into that self-effacing folksy indie aesthetic that was cool back when it meant all those things, and is occasionally still cool when it still does/passes for it.

Not that I mind in this case. The ambiance and the Levi's brand leaves the lingering burnt-cherrywood smell of American mythology. We're a young country but on a quest for legends to remember where we come from; what better look and feel? (And what better medium than Levi's?)

This is a Community Management Scenario Map.

See full size +/or courtesy-of.

Most of this should be common sense, but it helps to have a visual to cut through all the ambiguity. Best, perhaps, if used alongside the Air Force flow chart for blogging engagement...?

A Whirled Christmas Story + a Premature Toast

I've become a big fan of Whirled since yonder days of Every Cigarette Smoked in Mad Men. Their holiday greeting is light fare but it will still make you crack the wee-est of wee little smiles.

Today is Christmas Eve. It's around this time that I get sentimental for things past and anxious about what happens after the 31st. I measure my life in these links to a new year.

Whatever you celebrate, I think our thoughts are moving in the same general direction: toward trepidation and hope, an eagerness to not waste time or people. They're hand in hand, drifting toward the ether.

Here's to this strange and wonderful period of exponentially-improving technology and the memes that bookmark our mastery of them. Here's to us and what we'll make.

AdVerve Episode 59: Psychedelic Curation Station

Play the show now.

Guillaume Decugis (@gdecugis) of Scoop.it joins us to talk about the curation age, what makes the HuffPo model “special,” protecting journalists while serving users’ desire to share, and Silicon Valley versus the French tech scene. (Email us for a Scoop.it invite: advervepodcast [at] gmail [dot] com.)

That’s a lot to cover in 30 25 minutes. Hold onto your hats, cowpokes.

(Image.)

Beancast 2010 Wrap + 2 Agency Holiday 'Cards' for the Road

'Tis the season for year-end wraps and agency holiday greetings. Though my hands are currently tied eating my weight through California, I wanted to pop in to point you in the direction of some cool it-shay.

Luckie & Co needs help deciding where to donate $6K. Help 'em out by casting your vote for puppies, children or creatives. Luckie's done a solid job of demonstrating its talent for sparking engagement and real American enthusiasm for old-school brands like Little Debbie; this effort feels no less authentic and in-right-place-hearted.

If you're a holiday hater, no worries, there's room for you too. Celebrate the 12 days of grouchmas with Traction, who's fueling your fire with an explosions-laced video every day for 12 days. Expect copious helpings of a creepy The King-reminiscent Santa figure who effortlessly gives us childhood trauma:

For an exhaustive wrap-up of 2010, listen to No More Rockstars, The Beancast's two-hour year end special. It features Ken Wheaton (his blog is the excellence!), John Wall, Bill Green, and me. This show is a tribute to Bob's organisation, tenacity and tireless effort to keep opinionated people on-track. Plus there's an unmissable awkward joke or two. (Three? Four...?)

Eggnog at the ready. AdVerve listeners out there, never fear: our holiday special's coming to town next week. Miss it at your peril.

Google Zeitgeist’s 2010 in Review

At the end of every year, Google Zeitgeist releases an intuitive report about how the world searched over its course. The lists are impressive data sheets of golden calves ("world cup," "chatroulette," "swine flu," "slum dog millionaire") dearly departed: a tribute to how quickly time moves, and we with it.

This year they gave that information an extra touch: a video illustration that manages to promote the existence of Zeitgeist, serve Google's Search On manifesto, and strike the nostalgia key pitch-perfectly. (A thin tightrope, artfully walked.) We give you the world's collectively shared 2010, neatly packaged in less than three minutes:



The video's remained within the top five of the Viral Video Charts for the last handful of days. It also got a tributory tweet from @ericschmidt hisself - that can't hurt. But more importantly, it left us with the sense of having witnessed and shared an important blip in time with millions of others. Was 2010 really that epic? Are all years like that?

Brought to you by Whirled, the mashup madmen behind Rockmelt's demo vid, Every Cigarette Smoked in Mad Men and - curiously - this random zombie speeding ticket effort. Damn, those people give us rainbow face.

Trapped in Meeting Hell? BUZZWORD BINGO TIIIME!

One agency that never half-asses its holiday card is Modea (see last year's Santa iPhone). It doesn't just look to be cool, it shoots for contagion.



As a tongue-in-cheek way of steeling itself - and your precious ears - against the ubiquity of buzzwords (the audio variant of HFCS), it's developed Buzzword Bingo, an app that lets you, uh, play the hand you're dealt if you're being forced to listen. In the unlikely instance that you don't score "synergy" at the next marketing meeting, just go for the low-hanging fruit: "strategy," "brand," "leverage," "buzz." There's no way you can't win.

The game is free for iPad users. An iPhone variant is in the works for those of you who want to score some under-the-table action. Nice way to get Modea's culture and name in the hands of plenty of phones - particularly those of creatives in competing digital service agencies. (Like this one.)

To its happy holiday message, Modea also wishes you a buzzword-free year. That ain't gonna happen, but it's a very pretty hope.

Wrappin' Le Web 2010.

It's over and I'm still in recovery. Here's where I can direct you for the good stuff: my wrapup for Frenchweb.com can be found here, but note that it's super French tech-centric. (No worries though, at least it's in English.)

Scoop.it has a sassy little curation of videos, articles, sessions and other media.

What else...?

Humor me ››

AdVerve Episode 58: How (Not...?) to Get Ravished at Tech Conferences.

Play the show now.

Aka, tech conference date rape. We had other things on our minds what with the wrapping of LeWeb 2010, but as often happens one big topic dominated the score: those whose hands traverse the endless expanse of your inert spinal cord after a watered-down cocktail or two. What to do? Do you out them? Or do you play it cool, like Sam L. Jackson?

Second big topic: we WikiLeak all over the place on why Julian Assange is both hero and villain.

That, and myriad little else, in another superfast 30-minute show. (Are you liking this BTW? WE GOTTA KNOW.)

Humor me ››

BP vs the Internet: Anatomy of a PR War (ENG/FR)

A few months ago I went to work at distilling how, over the course of the oil spill, BP tried and failed to control the story of what was happening on-site. Funny thing was, it was on all the right media; it just had no idea how best to use them.

Here's what I put together. It's a walk through on how BP used Twitter, YouTube and crowdsourcing ... and how users used them to hijack the story and do what BP couldn't: engage, express emotion, try cleaning up that mess. There are also examples of how other companies in a tight spot handled their situations with more grace.

The presentation in English:

BP vs The Internet

Et en français :

BP vs Internet (version française)

Feel free to use 'em and share, with appropriate credits, as you like.

If You're Gonna Copy...

...It might as well be from your own archives. (Again. And again. And again.)



Saves on a lawsuit or two, yeah? (And a creative! Or three or four!)

Thanks Atif for passing this ovah.

The Juxtaposition is the Message.

My friend Bertrand, who runs the blog VOTW ("vision of the world" - his, that is), sent me this picture of a book stand at a Border's in New York.

I can't make out whether this is a blow for W. or for the Star Wars franchise. But I suppose it merits taking into account that where we are in US politics is in part a result of the various states of WTF thrown at us over the course of the Bush, Jr. administration. We're all half-awake, kids like Skywalker, going, "Did the Force help us through that? Is it still with us? Was it ever...?"

Reflection to be continued, hopefully with scrolling text and epic background music.

A Flash of Light ... a Marketing Opportunity.

Prepare for the colonisation of the land behind your eyes. :P

I still a little wiped from Le Web, but I wanted to pop out of my coma for a sec to post this BMW execution in Germany. (Among other things, like eat and pee.)

The brand used flash projector technology to reproduce what happens when you look up at the sun, or see a flash of light: when you close your eyes, you see the contours of that light slowly fade away.

In a recent cinema ad, a really intense racer, all high off his follow-your-dream juice, asked people to close their eyes following a flash of light at the end - and when they did, what they saw were the sharp contours of BMW.

How it was done (and the ad itself):



Sly work that quite literally gets under the skin. Who says you can't bewitch an audience while ravishing it of one more safe place ... all at the same time?

Find similar executions on the Scoop.it page I built for advances in projector technology in advertising. (Recommendations welcome, too.)

Dentsu London, BERG's 3D Light Painting iPad App

Dentsu London has been experimenting with design consultancy BERG in lightplay and filmmaking. The first collabo film they've put together, "Making Future Magic," demonstrates the curious and amazing characteristics of an iPad application they've just produced.



Dubbed Penki (Japanese for paint), the app enables you to use your iPad to create 3D light paintings, revealed in long-exposure photographs. But this is neither here nor there. Seriously. Watch the film, and if you're precocious but technically undereducated like us, you'll be like, "Why are Sony and Panasonic making me deal with 3D glasses...?"

A book of stills from the film is also available over at Blurb. Support creative innovation by snapping up a copy and parking that bad-boy on your hip asymmetrical coffee table. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.

AIDS is Still Out There! Get Tested.

Today is World AIDS Day, and in days past we've seen plen'y of lead-ups prepping us for the advertising melodrama that comes with. (There's also a great spirit of joining-together-in-solidarity, but in advertising you see mostly melodrama.)

Case in point, this piece for AIDES by TBWA\Paris.



Among other celebratory/supportive activities, you can add an AIDS Day Help! Picbadge to your Facebook profile picture (which we did). You can also give props to This Prick, which is using ironic paper/digital "litter" to remind us of the dangers of this invisible killer.



Hats off to cleverness that scathes! Those naughties.

And on the topic of invisible killers comes our favourite execution du jour. It's for Canada's One Life to Live and it feels very art house cinema-meets-Degrassi. The idea follows that not ensuring you're protected, and getting regularly tested, is like permitting yourself to be attacked unawares by an invisible tormentor.



Thass some stylish messaging right there. Happy World AIDS Day, guys. Support a sufferer near you, and for Chrissakes, pick your balls up and get tested already if you haven't been since changing unprotected partners. Don't be gross and lame.