Tag: Video

Place your bets please…

While digging around in the archives earlier this evening, I found this old footage of an aborted vlomo from last year. I remember filming it at the time and feeling unsure if I had the takes I needed to edit together the idea that I wanted, which is why I don’t think I got ’round to publishing anything it all. Perfectionist that I am.

So tonight I thought I’d try again with eyes that were a year older and ears a year wiser and it turns out, I had what I needed after all; inspired by BANZAI! I give you:

Big friendly hat tips to Dom and Joel for being such great sports. Sorry it took me so long to make you internet famous guys…

Antigua -> St Maartens

The Caribbean - Sep 13th

Molekskine entry: September 12th, 2009

No call lights on this flight, we have to wave our hands to get the stewardesses’ attention, like school children. Heh. Star trek is on the film selection screen. In fact all the options are pretty damn good on this flight. But I’m drawn to Star Trek, again.

It is a great film.

I’m reminded of a clip I once saw with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy —

Brilliant. It’s a nice thought as we approach our final trip. Our final Lucozade Challenge.  Friendship is for life.

44yrs on and they’re still best of friends.

Perfect.

1000heads: Word of Mouth Optimisation

I screamed at the TV this weekend. Twice.

Here’s why:

They did it. They finally did it.

After imploring them just over a month ago (and then watching Ikea getting in on the act), Homebase finally went and decorated a (very) public place, Carlisle Train Station to be precise, with all their latest furnishings.

Good job.

Photo via 28Gywn

According to some of the photos that can be found on flickr (which I can’t show you, as they’re not under Creative Commons but we’ll come back to this later), Homebase shot the ad above on February 10th. A mere two days after our post recommending they do so.

Just call us 1000-psychic-heads…

Joking aside, it’s good to see this kind of friendly disruption. Interruptive yes, but not combative. It looks like it was all rather enjoyable and fun and it would also seem that Homebase aren’t just stopping there either.

According to their latest promotion ‘Transforming the Nation‘ Carlisle Station won’t be the only place in the UK to get such a makeover. You too can get your community involved and nominate a public space near you to get ‘the Homebase makeover’.

While we applaud the over-arching theme and campaign mechanic (disrupting schemas and getting local community involvement; breadth and depth), we still can’t help but think that there are a few missed opportunities here.

Scott Gould recently spoke at the WOM Espresso about SPREADABILITY vs REACH and in doing so touched upon the key point of GUIDANCE vs GOVERNANCE.

This sign, posted by the Homebase film crew at Carlisle station reminded me of just that:

Photo via 28Gwyn

I’ve worked in television, I know that the above ‘waiver’ is a legality box that must be ticked. However, there are ways and means, surely? Why not have two signs? One with all the legal spiel on it and another…

Oh I don’t know, maybe one like this one:

So I’d like to give a gentle nudge in the direction of the content creators out there – and I don’t just mean those Flickr fanatics or YouTube aficionados, I mean content creators in their purest form: those that create conversation, those that will get to work and actively seek out their friends and peers to amaze and share with them what they have seen.

At the time of writing there are 139 photos on Flickr tagged with ‘Carlisle’ and ‘Homebase’ but only FIVE that are actually licensed under Creative Commons and are therefore spreadable.

Yes, this may have happened already. Of course it did. But there really is no harm in lending a guiding hand along the way.

Homebase shot a TV commercial that happened to take place in a train station.

What else could they have done?
Off the top of our ‘Heads:

  • Where’s the digital component?
  • Have we invited any bloggers along? (Trainspotters? Home Decorators?)
  • Should we invite the local staff along to meet and greet?
  • Is there a twitter feed or a hashtag for this?
  • Could we blog the progress of the build?
  • Should we set up a Facebook page: ‘My town was Homebase’d’
  • What about Easter Eggs? Can we make it more than just a sofa?
  • Is this driven by insights? i.e.: are the products on show there for their popularity?

Here at 1000heads we call this (and a whole lot more) ‘WOM Optimisation’, as in – what are the word of mouth triggers that we can put in place to make this event/activity/content as shareable as possible?

Next time you’re attempting anything like this, take a moment and think:

What can I do to to make this really spreadable?

1000heads: London Fashion Week

While a number of ‘heads are still recovering from a few days out in Austin after this weekend’s SXSW interactive conference, we’re taking a moment to look back at another recent event we attended – London Fashion Week.

Jaeger Autumn Winter at LFW

Photo credit – Swamibu

London Fashion Week – aka LFW – hit The Big Smoke in February and if you weren’t there, it’s the kind of event where it’s OK to wear barbie shoulder pads and underwear as outerwear. But how does this effect us?

Some of you may have seen the drama going on where bloggers are now bliggers and eating all the Danish pastries – all of this is giving our favourite blog-folk a bad name.  Not. Good.

We decided we wanted to big these guys and girls up again so we sent 1000heads’ biggest fashion fan, Camilla Brown, down to LFW ask the attendees a very important question…

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=10234316&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00adef&fullscreen=1

And one last thing from Camilla:

“If bloggers were so bad, would the awesome Nat and Jenny be featured in this months Company Magazine?  I think not!”

So come on, who is your favourite fashion blogger, and why?

Cruisin’

Moleskine entry: August 10th, 2009

Cruisin’ through the Zimbabwe highways (strips of tarmac laid through bare and dry surroundings), Chemical Brothers on the radio (thanks Nokia), the African outback goes pretty well with The Salmon Dance, who knew?

Today we’ve been out rafting on the Zambezi.

Hungover like you wouldn’t believe (we got in at 4am), we left the hotel at nine to traverse the gorge back down to The Mighty Zambezi (to give it its rightful name) which as well as being some 2500k long, also doubles up as the border between several countries, including this one that we’re driving on, Zimbabwe and that one over there – Zambia.

We start our descent 750ft up…

August 10th was a pretty special day for lots of reasons. But bizarrely I haven’t mentioned it anywhere in my Moleskine. Maybe I’ll put it together for another post. Yeah. That’s what I’ll do…

For the record, Zimbabwe is one of the most beautiful countries I have ever been to and I would go again in a heartbeat.

No need to be afraid. No need at all.