Europe's just got closer

For a long time now there's been a political debate rolling on about Europe, largely around the questions of its relevance to modern Britain and what exactly it does? (and of course why are they so bad at golf?!)

Clearly there's no easy or simple way of addressing these issues.  Europe, as a political body, is undoubtedly a complex body - yet, as complex as it is, it also has a clear role and benefit for Britain in today's global society.

One step the European Parliament has made to tackle the "what the hell do we do" question is launch a new online TV station called "EuroparlTV".  EuroparlTV provides an insight into the workings of the European Parliament by broadcasting debates, interviews with politicians and citizens views.

From a service delivery perspective, the project looks like a success - with a nicely designed site, and some interesting content - though interesting only if you have a PC - as the videos don't run on Macs!

The key to its success is the question of whether anyone will actually use the service.  However, with over 20 languages catered for, its pan-European appeal may well be the key to its success - very much like the European Union itself . . .

Wear and share

We're helping launch 4mations.tv - Channel 4's new website venture billed as "the centre of your animated universe".

As I'd mentioned previously on my blog, I had planned to run a kind of "diary of a social media campaign launch" - to let the world get a view of what it's like to launch a social media campaign.

However, rule 1 of social media campaigns - they're a lot of work and never go to plan!  This is mainly because they mix both technology and people - both of which are pretty unreliable . . .

In this case it's been technology that's been the beef.  Anyway, the good news is that our campaign is underway + we're in the midst of merrily spreading the word and hopefully getting the people of the interweb to embrace 4mations and "wear and share" its shiny new content.

One of my favorite 4mations' toys is the "Cursor Cleaner" - a pointless (but fun) widget that cleans your mouse - check it below (rollover for cleaning to kick in!) + get your own from our launch goodybag . . .

The credit crunch's latest victim - Manchester United

I've got a mini-theory about the relationship between sponsors and football teams:
poor performance in the markets = poor performance on the pitch.

  Here we go:
- Man United have one of their worst ever starts to their season.  AIG teeter on the brink of collapse (propped up the US Fed).
- West Ham lose their manager.  XL goes bust.
- Newcastle United have one of their most troubled years in their history.  Northern Rock goes *** up.

QED!

Anyone else got any more evidence to support my crack-pot theory?!

Viral books

Every once in a while we do something nice for our industry friends - we send them books.  And we don't just send them any old books - they're usually books our team are reading and being influenced by.  And we don't just "send" books to our friends - we "share" them.

This difference is an important difference for a couple of reasons:

Reason no. 1 is because sharing is at the heart of who we are as a viral agency.  Our underlying ethos is based around sharing stuff - content, ideas and even books - not broadcasting.

Reason no. 2 is because we're keen encourage other people to do the same.  Sharing as a basic tenet has benefits for both sides of the contract (or un-contract) with the sharer gaining social capital, and the sharee gaining whatever capitals being shared - in this case a book, or at it's core the currency of knowledge.

So sharing is at the heart of the Rubber Bookclub - and it seems to be working.  One of the first people to publicly espouse the joy of book-sharing is blogger Amelia Torode @ Life Moves Pretty Fast - who's asking for takers for our latest book club book "Cluetrain Manifesto" once she's finished with it

Anyone up for it???  . . . Bueller . . . anyone anyone . . .

Welcome film 2.0

It was almost ten years ago that The Blair Witch Project first harnessed the power of viral marketing to elevate what was a low-budget indie film into a $248 blockbuster. Earlier this year, ‘Cloverfield’ made the most of the Web 2.0 zeitgeist with its use of fake YouTube clips, Myspace pages and blogging.  Cloverfield highlighted the use of online content to not only market films, but also extend the viewers overall film experience by layering content before and after the films cine release – creating a “multi-layered experience”.

The latest, and perhaps most ambitious, example of  web 2.0-styled multi-layered films is Paramount’s Tropic Thunder – a kind of Apocalypse Now meets Spinal Tap action comedy featuring Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. as a set of prima donna actors making a Vietnam War film.

Multi-layering is at the heart of  Tropic Thunder – affecting its concept, plot, characters and marketing.  Conceptually the film’s a Vietnam “making of” style movie – with a ton of Apocalypse Now references.  Within the plot of the film, there’s also a “making of” (or should that be “making of making of”) documentary.  On top of this, there’s a whole host of back-stories for each of the main characters, including actor’s microsites and fictitious film trailers.

Each of these layers are then given depth online using a mix of video, interactive and microsite content, creating a whole web of cris-crossing layers that the fan can get absorbed in – helping extend the film’s overall experience, and providing powerful viral marketing fuel.

As a quick guide, here’s a few of Tropic Thunder’s layers explained:

Layer tactic 1: Faux trailers of the main characters past films have been created and distributed on their own personal websites.  Paramount spawned an official site for star Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller’s character) as well as sites for some of his films like ‘Simple Jack’ (an action star going for an Oscar by playing a handicapped farmhand). Tugg’s favourite charity even has its own site - www.pandarelocationfoundation.org

There’s also a site for the fictional company that turned Downey’s character into a coloured man in Tropic Thunder.

Layer tactic 2: A faux trailer and blog for the mockumentary ‘Rain of Madness’ have been released as a parody of Apocalpyse Now's ‘Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse’ – a layeriffic documentary on the making of a movie within a movie.

Layer tactic 3:  One of the greatest facets of the viral campaign is a star-studded attempt at the creation of a viral, which was originally aired during the MTV Movie Awards but can now be found on YouTube generating millions of views. The video showed the three lead actors on a mission to create a viral video for the Internet that could promote the movie. Cleverly it is also filmed with a mobile phone camera to give it an authentic look.

Layer tactic 4: Paramount has bizarrely reversed the conventional product-placement route by distributing a product that’s featured in the movie called Booty Sweat - an energy drink.  They even went as far as making an ad for the product.

With all this layering and inbuilt “talkable content”, Tropic Thunder’s a really great example of how film-making and marketing can be integrated together to ultimately create a self-marketing “social” film.  Welcome film 2.0.

[N.B. thanks to Rebecca @ Adfreak for Tropic Thunder commentary inspiration] 

Moving on to join the big fish

This may not be obviously interesting, however I'm gonna blog about it anyway . . .

We've just done a mini re-brand for our Opinion research company Delib.  It's not a major move, as over the last 12 months we've been slowly repositioning ourselves away from the e-democracy market which it was clear people (and importantly clients) didn't get what "e-democracy" was.

So as good listeners, we've done the do, and moved on to the heady lands of opinion research.  It's nice to be positioned in a market where your main competition is the likes of MORI and YouGov.

It's kinda interesting to be a small company in a pond full of big fish.  Whenever we're pitching for opinion research work, we're mainly pitching against the likes of MORI-Gov - big listed company's with massive cash piles to scuttle the likes of us.

It's not just interesting, but also kinda fun in a David vs Goliath way.  As an ambitious company, we have plans (as you'd expect) to fell the likes of MORI-Gov, with some deft moves.  Our agility and lower cost-base should hopefully be useful in the upcoming cash-squeezing years.  So watch-out big bungling research boys - you've got a tiddler to contend with . . .