I bet you haven't heard all the excuses.

I see this is back on air. It's not a bad ad in fairness. Comprehension is very clear. There is a story and I'm sure there is no doubt after the first watch what this is about. Job done.

Wouldn't it be nice however if they built on this? And asked consumers to suggest their own excuses? There is an element of fun or cheekiness in this already. They get it - we don't like to pay. So why not have a bit of fun.

At the moment, this is the classical one-way message from RTE to us. But it could be more. How about we text in our excuses, and the best ones are used in future ads or the one with most votes get their TV licence paid for?

People will only spread your virus if there's something in it for them

As marketers, we sometimes forget this in our desire to make stuff go viral.

Why will they send it on to their friends? "My mates will like this, and think this is very cool / clever / funny / interesting - and in some way, I get kudos for telling them about it first"

Isn't this one reason why we share on blogs?

Found via Hugh MacLeod.

Levi's Jeans viral ad.

I stumbled onto Guys backflip into jeans on Youtube this morning. It is one of the top videos in the 'featured videos' on the homepage and had racked up 1.7m views in the past 5 days. I wondered whether they used camera tricks but I honestly didn't realise it was a Levi's ad.

Gawker did though and investigates the similarities between this and last year's Ray Ban viral. More here.

18% of online users in South Korea write blogs

Josh Bernoff, co-author of Groundswell, posted this table from his book. Over half of online users in Japan read blogs - compared to just 10% in the UK.

Interesting to see the ratio of reading blogs to commenting on them or writing them. Is it odd that 18% of online consumers in South Korea write a blog while only 5% watch User Generated videos? More info here.

Wonder what Ireland stats are?

Spike Lee + Nokia = mobile movies

Image courtesy of Federica Acosta

I see Spike Lee and Nokia are joining up to create a User Generated Movie for mobile phones, which will premiere in LA later in the year. Amateur film makers will be invited to send in their short movie clips through their phones. We get to vote on the best ones and Spike Lee transforms his favourite into another 'Spike Lee Joint'.

I like it.

More info about it here and full story at StrategyEye.

Korean baby sings 'Hey Jude'

"Korean baby singing Hey Jude" video was discovered 3 days ago. It has been viewed over 3.7 million times so far. Source: Video Viral Chart

If you want something to go viral, make it interesting, entertaining or different.

This video is all three.

Teenager creates Apple ad

This happened last October but I only heard about it this week, so apologies, but I like the story and think it is worth sharing.

This homemade itouch video was created by Nick Haley, a teenager in the UK. Apple execs liked it so much, they flew him over to LA to shoot the ad professionally. You can see the end result here (which didn't change much at all).

More info here.

Ford invite fans to be in TV ad

I was writing about Unilever making their current 'Sure Girl' ad look like User Generated Content.

Ford on the other hand have got it right. They offered fans an opportunity to feature in a TV ad during the Uefa Champions League Final. They were invited to send in video clips of themselves and friends doing football tricks.

More info here

Don't make it look like UGC

"Tell me and I will forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I will understand" - Confucius

There is a new tv ad for 'Sure Girl' deodorant - featuring a few girls singing along to a Girls Aloud song in the back of a car. The ad is purposely made to look as if shot through a handheld camera or possibly a camera phone.

The brief must have been 'make it look like user generated content, something you might see on youtube'.

But is this not missing the point of UGC? We enjoy watching real people doing stuff instead of actors. It's more authentic.

Wouldn't it be more interesting if, instead of making the ad look like a video that ordinary kids made, it actually was a user-generated video? Let them join in and maybe see themselves on tv.

This would then no longer be a one-way message from Sure. It would be more involving and according to Confucius - more involving.

New report on UGC, social media + advertising

The IAB have produced a 15-page document titled 'User Generated Content, Social Media and Advertising - An overview' to help marketeers and agencies understand the landscape and the opportunites.

There is some decent information here and useful if you are new-ish to social media.

One point I found interesting was the Nielson research from last Oct which claims only 34% of consumers trust search engine ads. Another I hadn't heard before was that the average LinkedIn user is 39 years old with an annual income of $139,000.

Thanks to Alan Moore for original post.

Download the report here at IAB's site.

Brands need to think like Radiohead

I love this. I really do.

So firstly Radiohead allowed fans to decide how much to pay for their 'In Rainbows' album. Now they're getting fans to buy their new track 'Nude' in its raw format, making it easy for fans to re-mix themselves. Fans can then upload their re-mixed tracks onto radioheadremix.com and we can all listen to and vote on the best tracks. Radiohead will listen to the best tracks.

I mentioned here that I planned to talk a bit about brands and their online strategies. It feels that for many brands, this means pumping out some advertising online. Sure, advertising may be necessary, but the real opportunity is figuring out how to use the closeness of web 2.0 to engage customers. Everybody is so close. Fans can talk with their favourite author, actor, sports athlete and of course their favourite band.

Make no mistake, Radiohead want to sell music and this latest bit of digital marketing will help them do this a lot more effectively than a suite of banner ads. I see that there are literally thousands of people voting for the mixes they like.

It would be great if they stepped it up a notch and allowed the re-mix with the most votes to be sold on itunes - and gave a kickback commission to the talented fan.

Thanks to Matt Dickman for original post.

Consumer Creativity

I know this is a couple years old now, but just in case people haven't seen it.

I'm open to correction, but I believe this was the winning entry to a creative competition where people were asked to take a classic movie trailer and play around with music, voice over etc to see if it can depict a whole different genre. This guy played around with The Shining. This is wonderful stuff and a great example of consumer creativity using web 2.0 tools.

Starbucks involving customers more

I do like this.

I know IBM and P&G have understood for a while now that ideas can come from anywhere. In their book 'Wikinomics', Don Tapscott and Anthony D.Williams quote P&G CEO A.G. Lafley - "Someone outside your organization today knows how to answer your specific question, solve your specific problem, or take advantage of your current opportunity better than you do. You need to find them, and find a way to work collaboratively and productively with them".

Starbucks are getting in on the action with My Starbucks Idea. The site looks good. Pity they don't reward the individuals that produce the best (implemented) ideas.

Also, I saw some of the more popular posts were about how to reward people with a free coffee every now and again. It would be nice if they found a way to link in the amount of participation online with a coffee instore?

I came across the My Starbucks Idea on Jeremiah Owyang's blog.