1. O2 Academy TV

Having recently become a Dad, it’s been difficult to get out to see many gigs in 2011. O2 Academy TV has been a useful substitute - showcasing the best of live gigs from the various O2 venues via a bespoke youtube channel. There’s a great understanding of the audience and what it means to be a music fan, with plenty of additional content to fuel the excitement pre- and post-gig, and some unique features that really add value to the experience; such as the ‘fan cam’ in which users’ own mobile phone videos of a gig are compiled into an edit over the official soundtrack - creating a very immersive film both for those that were there, and for those who were ‘almost there’.

http://www.youtube.com/user/O2AcademyTV

2. Ford - Sync/OpenXC SDK

Ford continues to demonstrate its increasingly-impressive technological credentials with extensions and open-source developments of its in-car systems.

One of the projects this year, has seen Ford partner with medical monitoring and technology companies to adapt the in-car entertainment ‘Sync’ system to allow diabetes sufferers to monitor themselves whilst driving. The system allows users to plug their own blood sugar monitors into the Sync interface and then notify the driver if the levels become abnormal.

Another initiative sees developers creating customised apps to work with Ford’s in-car hardware: an open source policy that was initiated some time ago, but is now beginning to take hold, with a number of add-ons now being developed, including a ‘Ford Fuel Economy Challenge’ app (by Buglabs) which plugs into a Ford car to show how fuel-efficient the driver is being and connects the other drivers taking the challenge to encourage some eco-healthy competitive driving.

3. Xbox Kinect

Microsoft have started to capitalise on the interest in the motion-control Kinect system beyond the world of gaming. The announcement of an official software development kit, a Kinect Effect page on the Xbox website and the focus of the global TV ad celebrating the various ways that the Kinect has been adopted shows that contrary to what might have been expected, Microsoft are ready to fully embrace the crowdsourcing potential of the technology.

Click here to view the embedded video.

4. Life In a Day

A great example of the creative potential for crowdsourcing, and how technology has dramatically reduced the barriers to entry for self-expression on a mass-scale.

Life In a Day - IMDB

5. DC shoes - Ken Block Gymkhana Four: The Hollywood Megamercial

The next jaw-dropping film in the phenomenally-successful series.

Click here to view the embedded video.

6. KLM - Live

KLM is demonstrating how social media can be used to best effect in order to improve customers’ relationship with the brand. Recent initiatives include a policy to answer every Tweet and Facebook post in person within an hour - promoted with a campaign which over a 12 hour period featured a team of 500 cabin crew answering online questions by holding up an alphabet of letter boards.

Click here to view the embedded video.

7. Tesco/Home Plus

A lovely piece of service design from Korea, in which commuters had the opportunity to save themselves a trip to the supermarket and place a grocery order for home delivery by scanning QR codes of products, on an interactive 2-D shelf in a subway station.

8. John Lewis - the Long Wait

Despite the speculation about what is really contained in the box, and questions surrounding how the young protagonist managed to get hold of the present from the department store by himself, this is one of my favourite TV ads of 2011 - continuing the series of emotive stories based on charming and authentic insights into people’s hopes, feelings and memories of Christmas. No need to over-think it!

Click here to view the embedded video.

9. Intel - Museum of Me

Self-centered and perhaps a little creepy, but still an entertaining demonstration of re-purposing existing content in order to drive engagement and help position Intel as a more human-orientated brand. According to Contagious, within 3 days of the launch more than 440,000 people had created their own museums using content sourced via Facebook Connect, and more than 21 million impressions were recorded on Facebook. So kudos to Intel for tapping into the collective ego and ensuring that the experience was worthwhile.

Museum of Me

10. Budweiser - Ice Cold Index

An example of a branded app that is genuinely rewarding to the consumer and an innovative way of driving sales. The free app links daily weather feeds with a discount system at 2500 participating pubs so that the hotter it is, the less you pay (for the duration of the summer campaign).

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Key take-outs from Simon Thompson’s presentation

·       Agencies sometimes slip into a manufacturing mentality: make ads, then sell them to the client.

·       Buying work can be terrifying for clients. Fear of making a decision that leads to a mistake that is out in the world for everyone to see.

·       If you make a mistake in a client organisation, you certainly know about it – MD comes knocking, as does FD, HR etc.

·       Money is all the client really cares about. Discussing brand image, favourability etc is a means to an end.

·       But the marketing client operates in a difficult internal culture: Finance hates marketing as it costs money, Sales hate marketing as it deflects budget from discount offers they can provide. HR hate marketing as it’s difficult to measure success. Everyone in the organisation is a ‘marketing expert’ and will have an opinion about the work.

·       Easy to sell work to clients if there is a clear strategy linked to business objectives: demonstrate how an idea solves a business problem and the work is generally bought.

·       Most clients come from a finance/sales background and aren’t necessarily instinctive when it comes to evaluating creative work.

·       Often easier for the client to say ‘no’ than ‘yes’ - e.g:

·       Awards are important for motivation – both for the client and the agency, however it’s not important to the client when they are first being presented work. Their main priority is a successful business result, as that is what will give them fame in their organisation. You certainly don’t want to give the false impression that you just want to spend the client’s money simply to make the agency famous.

·       As a client, would never award business to an agency if the strategy is right, but the creative idea is wrong. Need the whole solution.

·       Never get the client involved in the creative process. It is important that there is a clear divide of roles.

·       The reality is that agency and clients operate in different worlds.

·       There is a clear distinction between ‘client speak’ and ‘agency speak’. It is important that both parties learn to speak eachother’s language and have aligned goals.

·       Trust is the building foundation for everything. If you have a solid relationship built on mutual trust it will foster a culture of taking risks, as in the event of things going wrong, it’ll still be OK.

·       Remember that a client’s ultimate motivation is money: ambition is to sell more product and sell it at a higher price.

Key take-outs from Russell Davies’ presentation

·       Biggest crime by agencies is failure of empathy.

·       Agree that client priority is money, but less the organisation’s money, more the individual client’s money.

·       Need to remember that this business is all about people – and it is therefore important to understand and be sensitive to people’s individual motivations.

·       Important to remember the simple human stuff – e.g. from the impact to the individual of an agency team being late to the career ambitions of an individual client to do something different, successful and get noticed within their organisation.

·       There is not an amorphous group of clients. Clients respond in different ways and getting attuned with the culture of who you are dealing with is critical in establishing a long term working relationship.

·       In pitches clients will ask themselves “what would it be like to be in a meeting with these people?” Are they engaging, friendly, personable, and attentive? Could I work with them? This human factor can often be more important than the strategy that is being presented.

·       It is easy to fall back on exiting agency processes. The key is to align agency processes and working styles with those of the client.

·       Big mistake by agencies is to pretend that the business is a science. The industry has created a pseudo science culture around itself, perhaps at the expense of the culture of charisma and creative ideas, which are the real currency.

·       Clients shouldn’t be buying work, they should be making work with you.

·       Try not to put the client in a position where they are having to make a decision every day: creates a highly pressurised and unproductive environment.

·       Agencies can be very secretive. Being open and working with a client can be more productive in the long term.

·       It takes time to build a relationship with a client, establish trust and ‘bed in’ a strategy before the best work starts to materialise. Agencies should be more patient and allow the relationship and the work to develop together.

www.thejohnnycashproject.com

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Set to the band’s track “We Used to Wait”, the project is not only a showcase for Google Chrome, Streetview, Maps (and HTML5), but is also a very nice example of how the music industry is embracing tech to create richer audience experiences. It prompted me to consider which other bands have experimented with interactive videos recently, as very few seem to have struck a similarly powerful chord as this previously (sorry). Here are a few that are worth a look, though I have to admit not all the songs are necessarily my favourite tracks…

1. Arcade Fire - “Neon Bible”

Users can use their mouse to ‘puppeteer’ lead singer Win Butler. Ever want to make a rock star throw an apple and summon celestial lights? If so, this is the video for you.

2.  Labuat - “Soy tu Aire“

Users can create their own visuals to accompany the music using their mouse - designed to let you bring to life the feeling of the music with your own gestures.

3. Cold War Kids - “I’ve Seen Enough”

Users can create their own version of the track in real time with a click of a mouse; either by muting or changing the track being played by each of the four band members.

4. MGMT - “Electric Feel”

Click here to view the embedded video.

The online equivalent of an LSD trip, users were able to click the buttons underneath the main visual content of the video to change colours, backgrounds, effects.

5. Robyn - “Killing Me”

A 3d music video in which Twitter comments posted to #killingme appear in the same style as the other things that are ‘killing’ Robyn. I like the simplicity of the mechanic at least…

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