FRANKthoughts

In a time where anyone can have their own show (thanks mogulus), it’s no wonder we see a flood of online content produced by individuals and brands.
SMOSH have reached greatness with the number two most watched video (at all time) on youtube for over a year with their Pokemon theme song which got more than 30 million views worldwide. Since then they have a youtube channel which is the most subscribed channel on youtube and every single video they release gets watched by 1-2 million people. Not bad for two college guys and an HD camera.
Rockstartup is another reality web show telling the PayPerPost story. The series is showing the life of a start up, the relationship with their community and the office culture.
Take The Apprentice, put 2.0 after and you’ll get The Next Internet Millionaire (Hosted by Joel Comm). The same voice over, same game plan but with a few internet types instead of Fifth Avenue cut throats. I might not follow it regularly but their production value is pretty high and I’ve got a few laughs out of it.
The IT room is a show about… you guessed it. Going live on November 11, five IT heroes (including a little monkey) will try to save their company from an IT disaster. (I suspect this is sponsored by Dell). There you have it. If you’re still in doubt and think TV is going to stick around for much longer just go and read what Bill Gates thinks.
Gee, and if you still think Bill is wrong just watch hulu.

Here’s the latest branded widget going around – lonely planet trips.
It’s pretty cool as you can plan your trip, check out friends trips, find out about hotels and even watch videos from lonely planet tv straight from the app. Lots of people love LP so I think this one will take off in no time.

Every now and then we see, hear or experience something that really makes us stop and think. Often these experiences are chosen to be kept to ourselves, however when I attended a very heartfelt and inspiring charity event early this week, I was so moved and inspired that I see no better way of sharing this with you.

Shoestrings came from the experiences of Emma Gee, who is currently going through rehabilitation post-stroke after being diagnosed with a congenital AVM (arteriovenous malformation).
“(Shoestrings definition of AVM: Em’s brain was like a heap of shoelaces…one just had a knot in it! All the blood pumped into that…instead of flowing through her normal laces…and the pressure of all that blood going into the one knot meant that surgeons had to clamp it to avoid it bursting!)”

The event I attended last week was to raise money for the stroke foundation who is backing shoestrings 100%. Photo’s were displayed of several people’s shoes & feet, and attached to these were their comments on how stroke has affected them, sometime and somehow – whether this be from their own experiences or of those around them. It was amazing to read of some people as young as seven years of age who have suffered from stroke. A silent auction of donated products was also included to raise additional money for this amazing cause.

It wasn’t until Emma Gee spoke so passionately & positively about her experience that really hit the spot. Not a dry eye in the room, but not for sympathy…for admiration. Overcoming challenges, seeing that the glass if half-full and embracing the fact that life is not ruined, just adjusted accordingly.

“like the trillions of ways one can tie their laces, our journeys have been made up of our individual ways of jumping different hurdles and however we learn to tie them we all end up laced-up and shoestring tight! And shoestrings, are the brilliant way of keeping shoes together”

Keep an eye out for Emma’s book – will be on sale at end of this year.

Steve outing, publisher and co-founder of Enthusiast Group LLC, has an interesting post today called: word of mouth trumps traditional advertising. This is not a surprise but more of a stamp of approval from Nielsen.

A global Nielsen Internet survey confirms that new fact of life. The company surveyed 26,486 Internet users in 47 markets around the world and determined that word of mouth is the most powerful selling tool.

An even more surprising fact is that newspapers are in the positive second place. Who would have thought?

Simon and Andrew from The Portable Film Festival are friends from way back (FRANk was supporting the first PFF) and in the last few months they’ve been trail-blazing into digital media with new initiatives supported by ACMI and AIMIA.
They’re doing so many cool things it’s worth getting their portable informer straight into your inbox (excuse me for the blunt promotion but it’s really good stuff).
This November, as part of The Portable Symposium Series 2007, they bring us the creators of LonelyGirl15. It will be interesting to see if they can duplicate the mass hysteria with their new venture “KateModern” , a series they developed for UK’s leading social network Bebo.

“The Portable Symposium Series 2007″ will present members of creative team behind the world’s most infamous and celebrated online serials lonelyGirl15 and KateModern. Created by Miles Beckett who serves as Co-Creator and Executive Producer, lonelygirl15 and KateModern , lonelyGirl15 received international attention in 2006 when fans discovered that the popular online serial was in fact a well-executed online drama. Bree, the 16-year old girl who presented the cult video blog, was revealed to be a trained and scripted actor cast by the talented team of creative producers. Now in its second season, the show has over 70 million combined views.
KateModern’s Creator and Executive Producer Beckett will be joined by Head Writer Luke Hyams in their presentation. The interactive online serial is the story of a hip, British University student and her group of friends as they endeavor into the types of mysteries, adventures and interactive elements that have made lonelygirl15 an international success with almost 17 million views since its launch this summer. The show is a collaboration with Bebo, which offers an attractive alternative to traditional TV. Learn about the ground-breaking online entertainment trend, as “The Portable Symposium Series” brings these innovative international practitioners to the Australian creative community.

See you there.

FRANk’s core mantra is that advertising is only interesting when it’s relevant, in turn generating advocacy and positive word of mouth.
Well we’re claiming a world first here by advertising on ice cream vans for kidspot targeting predominantly mums with pre- teen children.
With this intent we discovered the Chief Scooper community scoops, courtesy of google, and after a visit to an industrial warehouse in Melbourne’s suburbs we agreed on a couple of panel sizes placed just to the right of the window where all and sundry queue up.
The stickers arrived today and we’ll be up and running on a number of “high-profile” vans by Nov1.
We’ll post some photos of stickers in situ soonest.

One of the privileges of working in communications is being part of the change. The iconic Australian brand of Moonlight cinema is launching moonlight tv with the Becker relationship paying dividends in sourcing the broadband rights to great content.
On demand web TV is at an embryonic stage (think joost & babelgum) and it’s great to be able to help launch this Australian initiative in December.

Everyone loves fun and if you can put it in funerals you can basically put it anywhere.

How about putting some fun in search? Google image labeler is a game in which you and another random player have two minutes to come up with words to describe a number of images. When you both come up with the same word it will be added to google image search for that image.

This genius move shows that we can turn any old boring assignment into a fun activity like this video is doing.

It takes the boring website instructional piece and turns it into an entertaining experience, with an hilarious product demonstration for slingshot, a device that will let you watch TV on your laptop or mobile. (Thanks to Faris from “Talent imitates, Genius steals”)
I think fun is becoming more and more valuable as an offering to consumers and when fun creates word of mouth, stickiness and emotional connection maybe it’s time to start taking it seriously.

Monday is a great day to do some free-style websurfing.
It’s pretty much like treasure hunting - you start by googling some semi obscure website (place) and follow the below links (clues) from there.
This Monday I hit Jackpot - a blog called 1%, which is a co-written blog full of great posts on a range of topics like web, culture, design, art and advertising.
1% founder Jason Theodor is an online consultant who’s also writing a blog called: There Is No Box.
I especially liked his presentation about tweens called “TweenLand” - Presentation on Tweens to Ogilvy and Kraft: The Trends and Media Environment of Generation Net.
So if you’re after some pointers about what kids are doing these days you should check it out.

One of the conflicts I struggle with in this business is the inherent nature of waste and excess so when we teamed up with ‘haul’ part of my struggle was sated.
Positioned as pop culture recyclers Scott Kilmartin, haul’s founder, saw the opportunity to recycle billboard skins in to bags and so much more
I love it. Each bag is unique, being a small part of a massive billboard. You can even go to the site and check to see which ad campaign your bag came from.
We’re popular with Scott because we have very distinctive colours we provide from our client base (seek.com.au – pink, carsales.com.au – blue and unwired wireless broadband – green).
Channel 31 in melbourne shot a segment on haul recently for their excellent “making the switch” programme. Please enjoy.