Right here goes with our quick review of the best stuff of 2008. We came up with around 30 great ideas, ads and trends pretty quickly which shows what a year it was. There are bound to be some great ones we missed so suggestions please...
Media: iPlayer and Hulu in the US (soon to come to the UK?) brought TV over the internet to a wide audience. All the hype around Twitter (blogging and social networking in less than 144 text characters) in 2007 saw it being realised in 2008 - and brands started using it too - either in their marketing or through bloggers in their company. Mag Cloud allowed us to create our own magazines (Toby blogged on it here) and we loved Penguin's We tell stories (where they experiemented with technology and prose). Elsewhere in media CitySense (where using GPS technology users could spot the population density of streets in San Francisco)and lots of cool iPhone applications and Google's Android open source operating system (and phones) gave us a clue that mobile had finally lived up to years of hype and Nokia's LifeVine looks like it'll be a hit in 2009.
Ideas: First some work from OMD UK: Vodafone's LiveGuy created a treasure hunt to try to find him in action blogging in a city near you - if you caught him you won his notebook, The SingUp! campaign got radio stations around the country to help inspire schools to start singing - the chance to win a singing slot for your school on-air on their local radio station being one of the incentives - it brought out the true strengths of local radio - making great local content - we even got a short-list at Cannes for this one. We got the nation making ads with Doritos' You Make It We Play It and helping out Walkers' npd department with Do us a flavour initiative (With over a million entries there's no wonder my caviar and truffle idea didn't make the 6 shortlisted flavours). Elsewhere Sam and I were big fans of Whopper Freakout, ColaLife which uses its vast distribution network to help distribute much needed medicines to hard to get places in developing countries and Alex was lucky enough to see The Killers at the MTV Europe Awards, where they brought spectacle to a tired and often immitated format.
Best virals included Tiger Wood's Jesus shot the Tiny people viral for the Samsung Omnia (i900), The return of Wassup , Transport for London's Awareness test and that Diesel viral
Strategy & Thinking: Russell came in to present to us and told us that brand's need to be Blurry, Interesting, Useful & Always in Beta and Toby came back from OMD's Vegas conference the best bit being the 3 boxes.
Books: Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody which Toby blogged about here. Nudge which looks a current ideas on how people make decisions - it was even on David Cameron's recommended summer reading list for Tory MPs. Predictably Irrational was probably the best book that wasn't a huge hit - it took us through a number of research studies to show just how true the book title is in describing human behaviour. Our favourite chapter was on Free (Remember that Free Guns and Gas promo? - genius!). The Brand Bubble introduced us to the looming crisis that brands are facing, as factors such as trust have been decreasing since around 2001 and as markets become more commoditised (fuelled by factors such as better quality own label brands). It also highlights those few brands that stand-out form this crisis and helps to explain why (the key is that they are different and keep on being different).
And Misc stuff included: Obama's election campaign which led to him becoming Adage's Marketer of the year, and Google's Streetview which is coming to the UK in 2009 and Cesc Fabregas losing his cool.
I'm sure we missed some other gems and they along with these 30 or so favourites show that I guess a lot happens in a year in marketing these days...
Stephen
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