oh god how did this get here I am not good with computer

Me: "Click the 'Home' button in your browser & tell me which website you go to?"
Her: "What's a 'browser'?"
Me:"The thing you use to access the internet"
Her:"Oh, I don't use one of those"
Me:"What do you use?"
Her: "I use Google."
Me: .jpg

This Post is Not About The Atheist Bus Campaign*

*well, not quite.

Whilst I let out a silent cheer on behalf of my fellow free-speech-enthusiasts every time I boarded an “Atheist” 73; I have to confess that I eagerly awaited the reactions from the God-fearing folk amongst us. Disappointed I was not…

Clearly, the BHA were onto a winner with their justgiving fundraiser page, hence it was only a matter of time before a company like Alpha International threw their hat into the ring.
Rather flatteringly, Alpha opted to go for the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach & set up their own justgiving page. Unfortunately for Alpha International, justgiving have a handy little shout box mechanism which allows donors to add some form of encouragement to their sponsor - or not, as Alpha International were soon to discover. With a minimum donation fee set at £2; anti-Alpha-ites flocked to mock the pre-empted failure of a counter campaign via the handy little "taunt" box.
At present, overall Alpha donations stand at £2,004, compared to overall Atheist donations at £151,661.
More than ¾ (£1,510) of Alpha donations have been made by 6 key (mostly anonymous) individuals.
15% of donations were in the form of “paid taunts”.
I haven't seen an Alpha bus poster yet; maybe they're waiting until they hit their target of £100,000.
- At the current rate of donations, Alpha will hit their target in c.1,000 year's time.**

I was dozing on the 73 last week when out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of an old friend... I'd become so accustomed to the trusty Atheist bus ads that I'd developed "consumer blinkers": I'd seen the ad; taken in the message & thus had no intention of reliving the experience.
But hang on a second...

"THERE DEFINITELY IS A"-WHAT?!
On further inspection I realised that the ad was actually an exact clone of the Atheist ads, albeit with entirely different copy. I practically went through the seven stages of grief whilst contemplating what exactly had compelled someone to commit such a heinous crime against the advertising world.

I mean come on; surely any marketing pro worth their salt ought to realise that repeated stimuli lowers one's intensity of consciousness = NOT PAYING ATTENTION, therefore rendering the entire campaign - for want of a better word - shit.

Oh, and God only knows what the ASA are going to have to say about this one, copyright implications aside.
BUT WAIT A MINUTE!
- Our nation of complainaholics:
(a) probably won't notice the ad.
(b) are probably too busy complaining about something more topical.

Maybe those Christian marketeer fellows knew what they were doing after all...

**Credit: Malcom Dodd

Thought of the Day #4

More boys should paint their toenails black.

The Widget Midgets Versus The Bigger Boys?

Facebook kick-started the roaring success of the widget; from propagating your own zombie army to giving your friend a puffer fish for their virtual aquarium. Unsurprisingly, the allure of one's idea virus spreading like wildfire amongst thousands of users proved irresistable to advertisers: concepts were simple; investments seemed minimal & the notoriously difficult to target social networkers were finally captivated.

The widget “gold rush” reached saturation in a matter of months, yet advertisers still wanted in on a piece of the action; from early-adopters Red Bull Roshambul (May 2007) to the somewhat more cautious TopShop Fashion Fix (December 2007). On paper, both advertisers have achieved a reasonable user base, with c.50k Roshambul & c.26k TopShop installs respectively (http://adonomics.com - 7th January 2009). Yet on closer inspection these figures paint a different picture: less than 1% of the above application users are actually actively using the brand’s application.

Building a branded application is relatively easy: mix 1 x PHP developer with 1 x reliable hosting service service & beat until you lose the will to live. Oh, & don't forget to season with 1 x bottomless pot of cash to taste.*

Once prêt, a hired helping hand of display traffic drivers, social ads & PR (not to mention the dark art of cost-per-install media buys should generate initial traction - but - the application/widget in question needs to be able to hold its own amongst its "unsponsored" peers...

Consumers love a gimmick, yet the main hurdle for advertisers is to hold their audience captive: the key to widget success is the continual renewal of a successful - yet focused - proposition.

Further still, what happens after a successful campaign? Is it sensible for a brand to make “friends” with thousands of people on Myspace or build a useful application, only to take it away from their newly-built fan base at the end of the campaign? A living application needs to be nurtured; if a brand is unwilling to invest in the ongoing management & updating of their widget, how much will brand perception be affected by out of date, stagnating content?

Slide Inc’s SuperPoke! is a great example of an application that embraces the fickle nature of the social networking audience; new “pokes” are constantly springing up, some limited to several thousand or appearing over several days in celebration of a public holiday. Users regularly check-back in search of new actions to “poke” their friends with, hence the active audience is kept engaged & active users are retained.

If an advertiser is able to piggyback an existing application’s success & vast audience reach, why go to the trouble of taking on the big boys at greater cost? In a cross-media sense, brands aren’t asking consumers to watch their bespoke TV Channels or buy their branded magazines from their local newsagent; so why should they expect a busy social networker to utilise & endorse a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” piece of advertising when they could be engaged in a realtime virtual Mafia showdown?

*NB cooking times may vary & will most likely take longer than specified.

The "bonding weekend" away with the parental units #2

Day Two

I awoke the next day somewhat confused & a touch traumatised - having spent most of my sleeping hours wavering between nausea & outbursts of maniacal laughter whilst trying to work out how & why a horse's leg could randomly fall off.

Breakfast entailed my dad getting irate about smoking indoors & phallic-shaped mystery meat sammiches which were unnervingly delicious. I never did find out what they were but they certainly gave Mr Brain a run for his money.

Our guide turned up a bit later & chaperoned our aged party (everyone else was over 60, bar the skeletal fatspo girl of indeterminable age) on a magical mystery tour of The Bahia Palace, The Koutoubia Minaret, a cat-infested garden & assorted doors along the way.
I'm still collating photoshopping the crap out of the some 400 photographs I took; they'll be uploaded on Flickr when I have time.*

Highlight of the day: getting chased around the souks by an enraged street seller for "bartering wrong".

*ETA never.