Scion: Little Deviant website

No time for love Dr. Jones... Been a little busy, but came across this today courtesy of adverblog and the section transitions are worth the price of admission alone.

More after the jump...

Crisis in Darfur

Having just wrapped up a project with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum I got peek another project, which is now live - Crisis in Darfur. If you don't have Google Earth, you'll need to download it, which you can do for free here. Google Earth alone is worth the download, but the USHMM extremely rich presentation built into the foundation of the program is remarkable. Not to be preachy, but this isn't just a remarkable interactive piece it is also a cause - take action.


here

More after the jump...

Crowdsourcing with the interweb

With the ushering of Web 2.0 and giants like Flickr and YouTube, the hot thing in interactive advertising is user created/generated content. Merging entertainment with utility, the companies launching these sites have managed to create low-overhead by placing the onus of fresh, engaging material on their own user base. The fact that this even works in the first place is pretty impressive, considering cited malaise of internet users, and moreover is exciting in the fact that it demonstrates the millions of online users want something to do. No one has been more successful at converting this desire to "do something" into direct profits than Threadless. On the online t-shirt retailer solicits designs from their user base. Every single t-shirt Threadless produces was designed by a member of the site, who was rewarded with $1,500 in cash and another $500 in merch.

Today's Post, which can be woefully out-of-date in reporting the goings on in the interactive front, has a decent article chronicling Threadless' rise as well as tracking how other companies are trying to leverage the burgeoning internet work force into doing all of the work for them. For each company that achieves wide-spread success there are a dozen more that failed miserably attempting the same.

What separates one campaign from another?
Clearly, to achieve some kind of success with user-generated content your offering needs to fall into one of two categories:

1. pay money for winning submissions

2. provide content that is intrinsically desired by online users ~ which probably has a traditional market analog (video, imagery, video games)

The idea of paying for the material is becoming even more dominant as firms look to pay at least a small proceed to producers of ideas, video and imagery that contribute. By paying a premium for fresh content from your users, you in turn drive up traffic, which results in higher advertising returns. It's akin to banking loans. The bank pays you a small amount of interest to keep your money in the bank, which they are then able to loan out at higher rates. Banks are really profitable. An model that follows a bank's model is good. Ergo, paid user generated content is good.

Simple. As. That.

Incidentally, my buddy Eric designed a shirt that Threadless produced. It's almost out of print though, so better get it now.

More after the jump...

Interview with Lee Clow

It's pretty hard to not recognize Apple's 1984 Mac advertisement as a fundamental shift in advertising communications. It was (and still is) evocative, rich and even has a narrative. The man behind that ad was the legendary Lee Clow who at the time was working for Chiat/Day. Anywho, Ad Age interviewed Lee. And when Lee speaks you really might want to listen. Read the full article (.pdf).

More after the jump...

BFI: Abolitionists of C-Clamp Websites

You'd have to really dig to find out that Big Fat Institute is actually located in sunny Kentucky, which is probably a wise secret to keep, but these guys do a ton of things right. They coined the term "C-clamp" websites; C-clamp sites being those generic, two-column, way-to-pervasive sites that are locked in that all-to-familiar header, left nav, footer layout, which resemble a 'C', hence "C-clamp". The term not only captures the visual semblance, but also the utilitarian aspect - utilitarian, but no value added.

Question from audience: Isn't this a C-clamp site?
Answer: No. no. This is a C-clamp blog. Check out the site if you're looking for user experience.

The site itself plays out like a 50s instructional video, which is pretty well done, but also reminiscent of WDDG's site that uses a WWII-themed instructional video. Anywho, these guys currently hold the campaign for iRobot and a couple other national brands and are definitely doing justice by their clientele. More importantly, they're killing the enduring C-clamp sites one at a time.

"So you're in Kentucky?"

"Yeah! Have you heard about the burgeoning creative towns coming out of KY?"

"No."

"Hmm. me either."

* not an actual conversation. just assuming how each client meeting must start out.

More after the jump...

"Sam was once a unicorn from outer space"

When that's the opening line of one of the founder's bio you know this the site's gonna be unique. The site is a portfolio site for FriendsWithYou, which is collectively Samuel Borkson and Tury Sandoval. With a manga style of illustration the site is insanely sticky. It's pretty ease to burn 5 minutes just messing with the navigation header alone. For tech heads, it's a great mix of Flash and AJAX - again proving you can use both and not be flamed at the WWDC.

More after the jump...

Cicatriz - Hipster Clothing that Moves

I guess it's fair to say Hillman Curtis started the concept of shooting video of hipsters and other classes of vintage New Yorkers standing nearly still for visual effect, but Cicatriz actually applied the same concept to actually make money. The simplicity of the e-commerce function, with real-time product quantity availability is wicked cool and the music selection is perfect. Aww damnit. Guess this ended up being a fanboy posting. Oh well, the site is still really imaginative - especially the interplay between the models stuck in the cubes.

More after the jump...

Captive Interactive Advertising

I love me some Lost. Occasionally, I actually miss it. And because I don't own a DVR and refuse to pay for it on iTunes because it's free on abc.com, I watch it there. ABC's online distribution is top-notch. More importantly it generates advertising revenue. Even more importantly, some advertisers have gotten very smart how to capitalize on the 30" of time you are captive waiting for your streaming clip to start back up. The first that made me take notice was from Fidelity. Correct, the stodgy old Fidelity got smart with their rich media interstitials.

As you watch an episode of Grey's, Lost, Desperate Housewives, etc, ABC presents the episodes in a handful of blocks. In between said blocks, they break for 30 seconds of commercials. As a viewer, this is a pretty fair trade. You get to watch the videos on demand, and only have to suffer through three or four commercial breaks of 30 seconds instead of five or six at 3 or 4 minutes in length. With that comes a certain appreciation for the advertiser who is "presenting" the episode for your viewing entertainment. I find myself slightly (just slightly) more willing to pay attention to their ads to see what this is all about.

So. I'm watching a missed episode of Lost, which was presented by Fidelity and was shocked by their intelligent use of the interstitial. They know they have you for 30" and that you have little interest in launching a new window to view their ad. So they came up with the "Wheel of Easy". Requiring all of the intelligence mustered up from a Wheel of Fortune contestant you click "spin wheel" - you don't even have to spin the wheel yourself. Be lazy. Then you get a Ze Frank-ish video showing someone doing whatever totally easy, lazy task need be performed.

Once ABC's 30" countdown clock ended I proceeded immediately to the nearest "skip" button so I could finish watching my episode. However, the effect was achieved. For thirty seconds, not only did I watch a Fidelity ad - I engaged in it - the holy grail of advertising experiences. Not to mention I'm writing about it weeks later :/

The step Fidelity has taken is an important one, for them and for other companies trying to navigate the muddy online delivery model. Allow people to engage at a superficial manner in a captive environment and you'll grab their attention.

More after the jump...

Michel Gondry's HP Commercial

Nothing like ignoring your blog for a couple weeks, then dropping in with a totally thin link out to youtube. I'm a sucker for most anything Michel Gondry, save for the Kanye video that Plympton redid (better). Anywho, this commercial for HP's series of 'Personal Computing' ads is classically awesome Michel. It's okay to laugh because he has a girl's name... And because he's of the French persuasion.

More after the jump...

Web 2.0 != (does not equal) AJAX

As an agency moves into developing a new interactive marketing/advertising campaign or website the term thrown around with reckless abandon is "Web 2.0". To many firms, this simply means the incorporation of AJAX. The presence or absence of AJAX is not the salient distinguishing feature. It's the social networking aspect the site creates amongst its user. This is not a new complaint. Tim O'Reilly, who's smarter than your mom, has lamented this nexus as a requirement for a while now.

And not to be misunderstood, I'm a big proponent of AJAX, I use it in a lot of projects because the project demands it. However, AJAX was the missing piece of the puzzle that allows HTML to behave like Flash. The ability to read data, refresh the display in a light, quick manner without having to reload the entire page has been around since Flash could parse XML files. So, to say that only an AJAX-driven site can be 2.0, is to also have your eyes closed to the available technology.

The point is simply to remember that Web 2.0 is a concept. One that involves people interacting with each other - that have been empowered to engage in the process of transactional conversations with the user base and with the site itself. A hallmark of a 2.0 site is the ability to *give* content to the site. It's about content assemblage and ownership. Google, Flickr, YouTube, WuFoo, etc - they all provide great, free services, but in turn they are all collecting massive amounts of data.

So what does this mean for companies seeking creative services? Forget about the tools - AJAX, Ruby, whatever. Spend more time finding the creative firm that has a history of developing campaigns with effective response rates. They're in a better position to determine what the right tool is to bring the concepts of Web 2.0 to your campaign.

For developers/designers - remember AJAX is only half of the equation. Granted it's the half that is the user experience. However, AJAX can't write or modify data. You're going to need a programming language (at a minimum) to manipulate the XML files. Oh and yeah, while you're at it, remember your application is going to need to do something useful and can't be dog shit ugly. Inserting AJAX doesn't immediately unscrew a horrendously designed site that serves no purpose.

Now go out and build something with AJAX, because it's a hot shit tool.

More after the jump...