FRANKthoughts

Apologies for the blog inactivity… it has been a busy week for FRANk with the move, pitch, projects, etc.

So a tiny post today to keep things interesting!

Diesel is celebrating their 30th aniversary with a big XXX party running parallel across 17 countries (not Australia unfortunately!).  It will be featuring stars such as Soulwax, N.E.R.D., Pete Doherty, Ed Bangers, etc.  Check it out Diesel XXX.

To promote the event, check out this viral video inspired by Safe for Work Porno work!  Diesel has taken images from 70s porno films, replacing “private” parts with well-thought out designs:

We are moving on the 25th and 26th of September to our great new office just around the corner.

Our new address will be:
28 St Edmonds Rd
Prahran VIC 3181

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All our contact details will remain the same.

We’ve lost our balcony but picked up four!

 Being in Melbourne, the Capital of Coffee, we pay homage to the Vietnamese Weasel. Weasel coffee has been eaten and regurgitated by the rare Vietnamese weasel. The weasels’ gastric goings-on radically alter the taste of the coffee and the result is a stronger, smoother, heady flavoured coffee that will appeal to serious connoisseurs of the mighty bean. Once ‘evacuated’ by the bean-loving fur balls, the coffee is collected by eagle-eyed villagers, who then market the stuff directly to the manufacturers. Wiki does its job and provides that shot you’re after… freshly regurgitated beansYou’d think that with this incredible collective endeavour that it deserves much better treatment than this. A bag of weasel coffee to the first person who can correctly identify the logos we’ve used to spell brandwars.

Last week we took our table top bbq for another test drive - This time with veggies! It was even yummier than usual cause Shen came out with this very professional presentation (Cheers ShenZ:) Take a look at the photos and leave us a comment if you want to get hold of one.

On Sunday 31.08.08 myself and a million other runners in 25 countries participated in a 10k run organised by NIKE+. NIKE+ started with a product - A small chip in your shoe that talks to your ipod nano, tracking your distance, time, pace and calories burned. The product led itself to a community of runners with NIKE offers support, tools and coaching.

Nike plus is a business/product/marketing solution that proves you can achieve great results with an holistic cross business approach. NIKE is so good at that, building an experience that extends marketing buzz words, leaving you searching for new ones to describe it. All elements work seamlessly together supporting one strong mantra: help the participants kick ass.

This is how I felt and my feelings, memories and experience were brought to me by NIKE. How strong is this bond? Wondering how this whole thing came to life (going back to some behind the scenes boardroom) I find it hard to believe it started from a strategy line like: “we want to sell more shoes”. I believe the single thought that started this project was more in the line of: “how can we make our users happy?”. Nike proves that putting your users in front of the bottom line will pay dividends.

Being part of the human race made me think again about the power of brands.

This time Nike pulled off the world’s biggest race. What will they just do next? Here is one answer:

Its time to remove the scarf and hang up the beanie as spring is only days away and we all know what this means…warmer weather, Spring fashion, racing and much more!
Among these many loves is Melbourne Spring Fashion Week (1-7 sept) which we will see showcase the latest looks for spring/summer with more than 100 events to choose from including runway shows, panel discussions, workshops, luncheons, film, exhibitions, racing and parties.

To celebrate Melbourne Spring Fashion Week, Melbourne’s GPO will be racing into spring with a fabulous promote of shopping offers and fashion shows.  To help showcase these exciting events, we thought it would be a good idea to have a dedicated event page. There are some cool things to check out like special offers, competitions and the option to book tickets to some events in advance.

On WEDNESDAY 3 September join the Melbourne’s GPO “Racing Into Spring Fashion” Shopping & Shows, including:
- GPO Trading til 9pm  - Exclusive Retailer Offers & Specials
- Complimentary bubbly - 3 champagne bars - DJ Sean Wise
- 12:30PM & 1:30PM @ Alto Event Space located on Level 3.

SHOW 1: WEDNESDAY 3 SEPTEMBER, 12:30PM
AG Clothing, Akira, Ben Sherman, Fat, Hussy & Madame Marie, im, Leona Edmiston, Lisa Ho, Nicolangela
SHOW 2: WEDNESDAY 3 SEPTEMBER, 13:30PM
AG Clothing, Christopher Chronis, Digbys, Georgiadis, Gorman, Karen Millen England, Lella Smith, Max & Co Rodd & Gunn, Veronika Maine.

Entrance is free and seating is limited, so to secure your place please go to the events page and use the “Book Tickets” button on the right menu.

It’s all well and good to sit at your big desk in the corner office and advise your clients on how to sell their brands, products and ideas BUT, have you ever tried it yourself? Have you ever tried to do it with a $2,000 budget?

The FRANk Crew has decided to conduct a little experiment.  We’ve imported 2500 Vietnamese Table Top BBQs and are trying to sell them using a grassroots strategy that relies on WOM and good old fashioned hawking, backed by a website because, lets face it, everyone has a website these days.  We’ve also taken the initiative to commit 5% of sales to The Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange Trust, a charity that will use our money to purchase cows for communities that have been affected by Agent Orange.  Remember my post on the Girl Effect?  It’s a bit like that.

If reading this is making that little hamster in your brain hop on its wheel and start spinning then we’d love to hear from you.  If you were in our position what would you do?  Have you got any advice that fits our budget and will sell BBQs?   Let us know and if it sells we’ll send you your very own Table Top BBQ to say thanks!

Okay, Lipton has come up with one of the most engaging ideas I’ve come across in a while.  You may have seen one of their yellow print ads that challenges the reader with a visual mind puzzle or riddle - you know the ones, “How many noodles are there 2 or 3?”  or “Remove nine letters to reaveal a single word”.  No?  Basically, they’ve created a campaign that leads consumers to one of the most sticky websites of all time!  I have probably spent at least 2 hours on it this week and the effectiveness was demonstrated this morning when Tamir noticed that I said the words Lipton Tea 20x in one conversation.  Talk about awareness.  I even turned my nose up at the Tetley bag in my cup, feeling that it is now somehow inferior to the brain-cell-boosting Lipton.

If you want to know what I’m talking about go to Brain Train.  You won’t regret it!

WARNING:  This site is extremely addictive.  Be prepared to get NO work done for at least the next hour.

It’s a war out there. Brands are throwing themselves at our feet vying for attention and money investing $Billions each month. The thing is though brands are only as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ as we perceive them, despite their best efforts to shape our views.

Brandwars is designed to elicit our innate opinions towards brands in the form of a tag cloud–a format in which the size of the word corresponds to its frequency among responses. Frequently submitted words are shown in giant type, while rarely-submitted ones look tiny on the screen. Brands rotate on a random basis to minimise competitor-abuse.

We have taken the concept of brands beyond the norm and have included personalities (politicians, media personalities, sportspeople etc.) media (tv networks, newspapers, radio stations etc.) sports clubs (AFL, NRL, A-league etc.)

Brandlove allows us to track overall brand sentiments along the scale from ‘love’, ‘good’, ‘neutral’ or ‘bad’ to ‘hate.’

In a climate where the impact of every dollar tries to be accountable the tried and tested brand awareness (aided and unaided) & brand preference continue to be viable benchmarks. Brandwars adds another dimension after all just because we’re aware of a brand it doesn’t mean we necessarily ‘like’ it.

If you become aware of this then how does this change your perception of Coca Cola? Has your attitude towards the Olympics become just a little more cynical?

The current list of quintessentially Australian brands can be found here. If you would like any brands added just let us know.

Brandwars was inspired by a similar initiative in the US called brandtags created by Noah Brier for which we are thankful.

We spend a lot of time discussing how brands can create ‘buzz’ online; SO, as the newest member of the FRANk Crew I thought I’d use my ‘blog-power’ to create a little buzz of my own.

If you haven’t heard of The Bamboos you’re missing out on a Melbourne band whose album, Rawville,was described as the best funk album of the modern era. I recently had the pleasure of spending a day with The Bamboos and feature vocalist Megan Washington at the filming of their debut video-clip “King of the Rodeo” (cover of the Kings of Leon original).

The day was rainy, the light was moody, the sounds were soulful and a few stars were born. Check it out and and tell your friends!

“King of the Rodeo” was directed by James Teh and produced by Beat Production. The video coincides with the release of The Bamboos third album, Side-Stepper, out September 1.