Inkfruit : Design Democracy

It's been a week of meeting interesting people. After Aviator Simon on Monday, I met the IITian Navneet today! A designer and the co-founder of inkfruit.com.

Inkfruit is a web-based, T-shirt design co-operative!! Anyone can upload their T-shirt designs on the site. The winning designs get a prize and the designer gets his name printed on the T-shirt when it gets manufactured. You must check out this interesting site/ concept!

Am glad Navneet got in touch with me about a week back and today we met at the Inorbit Mall,Malad. I have been interested in design for close to a decade now. Well design and of late co-creation and community. So, I was happy that Navneet approached me to brain-storm on his project!

Every time I have stepped out of my little planning world, it's been very rewarding. Am sure, engaging with Inkfruit would be a similar experience...

Thanks Navneet for the free T-shirt(captioned Disco Fever '82)...

In the ride back to Bandra I also thought about my idea of starting a virtual creative content company based out of Mumbai, a book on co-creation, doing a design course(sometime soon)...

Earlier in the day wrote an article for Mint on the 'media snacking culture'. Turned out well...And a while back told Ram and Shyam story to Neo(the 20th sequel in as many days. More about it in some post soon:-)

Aviator Simon Wants to Fly

When we(my colleague Andee and myself) reached Mysore today, this Emirates Airways tag-line kept whirring in my head - "When was the last time, you did a thing for the first time"!

We were on a strange mission. We had come to Mysore to meet a young man who wants to build India's first home-made air-craft all by himself!

About a month or so back, he had sent an e-mail to Andee outlining his dream to him! Andee shared the mail with me and together we believed in the sincerity of his goal.

Many mails and phone calls later, here we were at Aviator Simon's city. He took us through his blue-print, his make-shift garage and the old decrepit air-craft in his college campus!!

His passion was infectious...I hadn't heard a voice quivering with excitement in quite some time...

Let's see how it shapes out. Simon doesn't need much cash for his experiment. All he needed was somebody to believe in his dream!

Later, Aviator wanted us to go to some happening disc. But instead we opted for ABHYANGA the Ayurvedic full body massage, followed by drinks at the Road, the theme bar at our hotel, funnily named - Sandesh the Prince!!

End of a memorable day...forever etched in our memories...

Voyeur : BBDO NY's work for HBO

One of the year's biggest integrated campaigns in the US, BBDO, New York's "Voyeur" project for HBO, picked up its second Grand Prix at Cannes today in the outdoor category. "Voyeur" has now won two Grand Prix in as many days after scooping promotions honors yesterday.

Part of an integrated-branding campaign many are expecting to also do well later in the week in the cyber category and in the titanium and integrated group, "Voyeur" involved projecting a massive video onto the side of a building in New York's Lower East Side.

Multiple points of focus existed within the projection, which imagined the building was cut away, revealing an interior rife with dramatic action that prompted viewers to visit the campaign website.

You can read the full article on adage here.

Jai Jagdish Radio - Cycle Agarbatti

Mudra got 2 Cannes Bronze for this radio spot for Cycle Agarbatti! Really cute and simple stuff!

Cannes Lions 2008 : Envy, Jealousy, Humility

The Lions have roared. And JWT India got the Grand Prix for Direct for the Lead India Campaign(TOI). Congratulations to Aggie and Team JWT. Great show!!

Here's the viral video by Craig Davis built-for-Cannes'08. I like his advice to the jury to trust their instinct while judging -"If you feel envy, give bronze; if you feel jealous, give silver. And if you feel humbled, the work desrves a Gold!"

What do we have today?

Summertime Rocks

Russell - from our old David Gang(now an agency left only in memories! Officially buried by Bates 1By1 last month)LOL, mailed me this link - a new song by Kailash Kher and a band called smoke! Quite kewl. Enjoy!

Youtube Insights : Applying Science to the Art of Viral Marketing

First read this article in HT Cafe Mumbai. Traced it to the original at Michelle Quinn's blog on LA Times. You can read it here.

After Google Analytics comes YouTube Insights - A feature introduced in March, gives YouTube account holders who have uploaded videos to the site a range of statistics, charts and maps about their audiences.

The data bring a little science to what has been the art of viral marketing, and the potential for big changes in how bands, television shows, movies and consumer products are promoted on the Internet.

Welcome to DIY marketing on the web. Insight is part of a trend on the Web. The social networking giant Facebook offers account holders a weekly report that, like Insight, is free -- and has a similar name, Insights. The information it provides is used by individuals and companies that have Facebook pages and want to hone their marketing.

-YouTube is becoming the world's biggest focus group.

-What's distinct about YouTube Insight is the immediacy of the information and the discovery element -how viewers found the content

-Ideally, the data provided by YouTube Insight will help identify better who true tastemakers are. What really sparks a viral campaign? What is the match to the flame?

P.S. The picture above is from Neemrana Fort, built almost 600 years before the youtube:-) About 100 odd km from Delhi where I was last week digging some insights on OOH communication.

Creativity 2.0, In-Game Advertising & TeliBrahma

I have to make a presentation to a bunch of creatives(of the ad agency creative department variety) on creativity 2.0 on Sunday!

Well have a host of ideas. Can share with anyone for a 'beer' and good conversation:-) While on the subject, read this article on in-game advertising in ET today. Chk out here...

Some nuggets from the same:

1. Gamers notice the brands that catch their eyes in online games. Music, chocolate, pasta or noodle lovers are likely to try the brands they see in the games they play.

2. The Zenith-Optimedia study says in-game advertising of various products contributes as much as 35% of the total revenues for gaming sites! Popular gaming portals like Zapak.com, Contests2win and Kreeda are looking at the model more seriously.

3. In-game advertising offers the advantage of understanding the profile of the gamers, which further helps in highly-focused communication with the right message to the target group.
Mental post-it - "I need to sit with a gamer over coffee once again".

4. The study found that all the gamers do take note of the brands being advertised in the games, but in-game advertising is influential for trials only among the chocolate, noodles and music lovers!!

5. Though online gaming is predicted to be $7-billion business by the end of 2008, it still remains a higher SEC phenomenon in the country. Of the total population of gamers, 41% belong to SEC A2, 20% to SEC B1 while just 9% belong to SEC C. Predictable.

6. If you think it is just the college going youth that is hooked to games, think again. The major chunk of gamers belong to 22-25 age group followed by those in the age bracket of 26-30 years. Apparently, women have no interest in the virtual gaming world. The study notes that 99% of the gamers are male while only 1% are female gamers.

7. Cricket is the most popular on-line game followed by chess, road fighter, boxing, FIFA, counter strike, pacman and football.

Does anybody have more bytes from this report??

The other early morning conversation I had was with a VC interested in Telibrahma! Got some understanding about localised blue-tooth marketing...

Must create a space for blue-tooth marketing in the creative brief from now:-)

CEAT : Born Tough. Died Unceremoniously

It's the season of random logo changes(or so I feel). First Shoppers Stop, then Godrej, then agencyfaqs and of course CEAT. And all of them have been big disappointments!!

CEAT has been the most beguiling, bewildering of all the logo changes. Ray & Keshawan have produced another characterless dud. My favourite Rhino has been killed!!

Of course the company cites some insipid research where consumers have said the logo is old and the rhino slothful. Alas the consumers were projecting their impressions of the company on the logo!

Anyways, once again Change is for the worse, Change is bloody expensive(apparently CEAT is burning 10 crores on the Ogilvy made ad campaign and Change is confusing as hell...

The Rhino and Born Tough were iconic emblems of brand CEAT. They could have been easily contemporised...

These days many clients brief design agencies independently on corporate brand changes without keeping the ad agency in the loop. The end result is often a disconnected change bereft of the brand history and context!!

You can read Harish B's related post on the subject here...