Last week I was having a bit of trouble finding a station in Osaka so I asked a lady for some help in finding the station. She didn’t speak much English but gestured for me to follow her and started walking, assuming she was getting to a better position to point out the station I followed her. However, to my surprise she was not simply pointing me in the right direction, after a few minutes of walking (through some impressive underground shopping centre) it became clear she was actually talking me to the station. She walked me all the way to the station as if it was her duty to do so, accepted my thanks, smiled and walked back the way we came.

Now that’s some great service and definitely went above and beyond my expectations. Consequently from this one event, I was given an extremely positive feeling about Osaka, and Japan. This feeling was not just towards the people and their behaviour, but to the country as a whole. This single event had largely defined my opinion on the personality (or brand) of Japan. If I was to have left Japan that day that’s the experience and opinion I would have taken with me and shared with other people.

The point here is that just one event can define a person’s attitude to all that event represents or can be associated with. When it comes to brands, just a single customer service situation could determine how people define your brand. Customer service tasks are not just a box to be ticked, but a real opportunity to exceed expectations and benefit the brand as whole. Exceptional or unexpected levels of customer service will alter the perception of the individual involved, but it can also alter and determine the view of others. Word will spread (particularly quickly these days) and if it’s positive it can provide some very powerful promotional material.

Getting back to Japan, I’m glad to say that this was not an isolated incident, the people of Japan are some of the nicest and most helpful people I’ve ever met. Just the other day someone offered to cycle round part of the city to look for our hotel!

Here’s a little picture of the toilet in my last hotel room that can be found across Japan. Some very interesting buttons and it was also a little odd to see a power cable going into the toilet seat!

Can’t see these appearing any time soon in the UK, more due to reasons related to the desire to use them rather than any lack of  technological knowledge. It’s just one of the many examples that show the importance of culture in any form of technological advancement.

Even if I can’t use Hootsuite to read tweets I can still use it to send them. So here’s the top ten tweets from last month.

1. Good insight – 10 Principals for Engaging Teens/20 somethings. http://ow.ly/pq90

2. The Ultimate List of Niche Social Networks – http://ow.ly/tjB0

3. Losing To The Social Web: Visualized – http://ow.ly/t6Vg

4. GoodMorning! Twitter visualisation. http://ow.ly/vk9S

5. What brands can learn from Cheryl Cole – http://ow.ly/wclW

6. How 20 popular websites looked when they launched – http://ow.ly/nRUg

7. A great way to see Twitter trends: Trendsmap – Real-time local Twitter trends http://ow.ly/qrZq

8. Outdoor Augmented Reality without the hassle (but still fun!) – http://ow.ly/ub6b

9. Apple finally gets on Twitter – http://ow.ly/vsEx

10. Why Facebook could be the next big news publisher (if they want to be) http://ow.ly/tVjU

It has been widely reported that QR codes are common place in Japan. In my short time in the country so far I can confirm this to be true. In fact I got one put in my passport as soon as arrived. Since then I’ve seen them all over the place, from hotel information posters to chopstick packaging.

We might think that we are pretty obsessed with our mobiles in the UK, but Japan really takes things to another level. Over here the mobile Internet is nothing new or clever it’s just something they use like phone or the Internet. Consequently people do use QR codes over here, all they do is make something they already do that little bit easier and quicker.

Walking round Osaka city you find a phone in the hand of everyone, young and old, whether they’re with friends or riding their bike. One thing of note is that very few of these phones are what we would necessarily call smartphones in the UK, I’ve seen a few Blackberries and although I’ve seen a fair deal of promotion for the iPhone I’ve not seen many being used. Nearly everyone seems to have a flip phone, none of which are particularly small, but come with a camera and a decent size screen. It appears that Japan’s mobile Internet infrastructure works so well that there is limited desire for change. Their mobile websites work just fine so they don’t need apps, they don’t need 3G because they’ve already got it, and who wants to buy a phone that doesn’t even come with a QR code reader as standard.

The iPhone has a lot to do to convince the Japanese to abandon their flip phones, and the UK still needs a bit more time before we are using are mobiles to obtain services and information at quite the same level as they do over here in Japan.

With my current travels in mind I recently jumped on the netbook bandwagon and got myself a very nice little ASUS 1005.

It’s pretty good and it can do most things a normal laptop can, however, there are a few drawbacks when viewing the web. The annoying thing is most of these drawbacks can be easily avoided, the problem is people haven’t considered netbooks.

A few years ago this might have been excusable but now with netbook use so widespread (yes I can confirm it appears their use is widespread in Japan) people need to consider making their designs netbook friendly or having netbook versions when the the usual version is too big and the mobile version too small.

Thanks to these issues I’ve had to stop using Hootsuite to view twitter posts as I just can’t see enough on the screen. All they need to do is let me hide a few sections, but I can’t so Thwirl it is for now.

Unlike Steve Jobs I don’t think netbooks are going away any-time soon (they will one day, but not for a few years yet) so people best start considering them if they want to deliver a good web experience to their entire audience.

Image: jpm

The latest technology has opened up a whole new world of possibilities, and in turn these possibilities have brought with them new expectations. It doesn’t take us long to adjust to the benefits of new technology, and what starts out as a luxury or perhaps novelty can soon become a necessity.

Not many of us can live without the Internet or our mobiles, and soon the Internet on our mobiles. Furthermore, our expectations or not context specific,  when we experience a service in one context we expect it in another.

I had this experience not so long ago when I was searching Tesco supermarket for plastic cups (as you do). I had no idea where to look, and neither did any of the staff around me. Of course on the Internet I would simply do a search and find them in seconds. Furthermore, I knew that Tesco would have all the information stored on a system somewhere. 5 years ago I wouldn’t have been bothered, but the problem was with my iPhone in hand I new we had the technology to solve my problem.

It appears Tesco were well aware of the possibilities and the very next trip to Tesco I was able to use my iPhone to find my nearest store, instantly see what services they offered, and exactly where everything was. Good work by Tesco, however my feelings were (perhaps unfairly so) more of ‘about time’, than ‘great job’.

As peoples expectations change at the rate of technological advancement, it’s going to get harder to meet them and even harder to exceed them.

Thanks to the Internet it’s now possible to discover trends, technology, and advertising from around the world. However, there really is no substitute for first hand experience, so from next week I’ll be leaving the UK for a few months.

I could go pretty much anywhere in the world and be sure to learn something new, but with our emerging digital world in mind there are a few stand out locations.

It’s hard to talk about the latest technology without mentioning my first destination, and it’s certainly a place that is frequently mentioned on Trendplanner. From next week Trendplanner will be coming to you from Osaka, Japan, and in the following weeks from other various locations across the country.

Following Japan, I’ll be heading the the country with the largest Internet population in the world, that of course being China. Then time dependent I’m hoping to visit various places including Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand.

Hopefully I’ll be able to share my experiences and new insight via Trendplanner while I’m away and in person when I return.

If anyone has any advice on where I should be heading (In Japan, China, and beyond), or would like to meet up in any of these locations to talk digital and advertising just send me an email or just comment on this post.

Image: JVK

The location based social network (and game) Foursquare should be in London in the next “few days” according to co-founder Dennis Cowley.

I was actually lucky enough to have a go on the trial version last week (cheers @dens). It’s all coming together nicely and looking just as good as previous city versions, but as with all social media it’s all about the users, so hopefully any day now we’ll get see what Foursquare London really has to offer, and if it can take off in the London like it has across the US.

No word on any other UK cities yet, but if it’s a success in London then I’m sure it will get rolled out across the UK like it was in US.

Using the power of Hootsuite here are the most clicked links from the Trendplanner Twitter account for September. For other useful Twitter links on similar themes, check out Qapture which collects links shared by various interesting people on Twitter.

1. How 20 popular websites looked when they launched – http://ow.ly/nRUg

2. PUMA Pitcrew Builds Ferrari Car Out of Clothes – http://ow.ly/rnop

3. The Twitter Times – A personalised newspaper created from your twitter account – http://ow.ly/pY9x

4. Latest official update to ’shift happens’ – Did You Know 4.0. http://ow.ly/ppPA

5. A great way to see Twitter trends: Trendsmap – Real-time local Twitter trends http://ow.ly/qrZq

6. Life is just one big game – Social Media is no different, so why not make a game of it? http://ow.ly/qQ6X

7. Useful list here: 10 Youtube URL Tricks You Should Know About – http://ow.ly/pPeS

8. The Evolution of Apple Ads – http://ow.ly/pAEv

9. 10 People You Won’t See on Twitter Anymore – http://ow.ly/paWX

10. Good insight – 10 Principals for Engaging Teens/20 somethings. http://ow.ly/pq90

Image: carrotcreative

There’s a lot of hype around right now about the mobile service called foursquare. For those that don’t know foursquare is a location based social networking mobile application. The first element of Foursquare is a friend locator; it allows users to share and see the location of their friends that are also using the service (similar to Google Latitude), users can share their location (check in) by sending a text, or by logging into the application on a location aware handset such as the iPhone. The second element of foursquare is a city guide; it lets users rate and review places in their city, so others can use the application to help them explore their city. The third element to foursquare is a game; users are rewarded points for checking in outside of regular working hours, with more points gained when check ins are in different locations.

Foursquare is currently available in 20 cities in the US and Amsterdam, it is getting a lot of attention and lots of people are using it. Foursquare users love being able to see where their friends are, and learn more about their city, but perhaps surprisingly they are just as passionate about the third gaming element of the service. What might appear at first as a slightly trivial function that will get overlooked by the majority of users appears to be extremely popular and is likely to be the function that is driving it’s success. The success of social media services is entirely dependent on people using service and doing so regularity, Twitter and Facebook wouldn’t be much fun if no-one else was using them. What the game function of Foursquare has done is given people an incentive to make regular use of the service, it provides a competitive element, and a reliable measure of success. Foursquare points cannot actually be converted into any real currency, but the same human desire for respect and status that largely drives our desire for money (and with what it can buy) drives our desire to gain status points that money can’t buy.

Foursquare is not the only example of how ‘worthless’ points monetary speaking can drive participation. Microsoft Xbox users gain points for achievements they make across all their xbox activity, these points are then displayed as part of the players online profile. These points are essentially worthless, but it doesn’t stop users playing and buying games to earn more points, and trying to out do the people they know. Furthermore, if you look closely other less obvious examples exist. Take Facebook and Twitter, although neither explicitly has a game element both have been driven by competitive elements that have a reliable measure of success. A major drive for many Twitter users is to gain a large following, and many Facebook users are driven by the desire the have lots of ‘friends’ or upload as many pictures of themselves as possible.

Social media is largely driven by human competitiveness and desire for status, if people want to make a game out of social media make sure there is a game to be played, and as Foursquare and Xbox have taught us it doesn’t always hurt to tell them they’re playing.

Image: Roomjosh

Here’s my August Twitter round-up.

Using the power of Hootsuite here are the most clicked links from the Trendplanner Twitter account for August. For other useful Twitter links on similar themes, check out Qapture which collects links shared by various interesting people on Twitter.

1. Nike: “We don’t do advertising any more. We just do cool stuff” http://ow.ly/kGup

2. The Portable Social Graph – the next big thing in social marketing? http://ow.ly/j1he

3. What playing Poker can teach us about using Social Media – http://ow.ly/krqz

4. 41 Shockvertising Campaigns – From Deplorable PSP Posters to Powerful PETA Ads http://ow.ly/lmIo

5. First iPhone Augmented Reality App Gets Past Apple and Appears in the App Store – http://ow.ly/lmLS

6. Ebay wicked sick BMX – Does creativity work? http://ow.ly/jxaX

7. “Don’t make digital strategy a speciality, make it cost-of-entry to all planners”(via @benshaw) http://ow.ly/lxfj

8. Everything You Never Knew About Facebook – http://ow.ly/j2q1

9. Steve Jobs on why Apple doesn’t do market research – http://ow.ly/iyXN

10. 10 ways musicians are embracing digital – Not everyone is fighting change. http://ow.ly/loT9
Image: Wiselywoven

This demo has been available for viewing on the official Yellowbird site , however, it has  been taken down in preparation for the next set of examples. For those that missed it I thought I’d embed it above.

Yellowbird lets you watch video in a complete 360 degree view, that you control. Think of it like Google street view in video form.

Could this the be the future of video?

I’m not sure people will always want to control the view of the video they’re watching but I can imagine it would be perfect in many contexts. Hook this up to some motion sensor technology that knows where your face and eyes are pointing, add some 3D and it really will be just like being there.

When this technology becomes accessible to all, it could create a whole new genre of video, with a whole new way to capture the world around us. We might have the written word, the photo, the video and the 360 video, with the 360 video not actually taking any-things place but simply creating a whole new world of possibilities. In our digital world where we are sharing are experiences more and more through social media, this technology could really take things to another level.

Furthermore, at a professional level the technology will require a whole new set of skills, a whole new way of thinking, and many many opportunities. Imagine integrating the technology with live sport, viewers could see the main feed with others through a TV but perhaps they could have a personal 360 view via their laptop or mobile. Or perhaps even a feature length film being filmed using this technology, perhaps you watch the film as the director indented on first viewing and then in subsequent viewings you get to explore the film however you wish (of course this really would require a whole new way of filming).

Whether the technology takes off we’ll have to see, but it’s certainly another step forward in the world of consumer controlled media.

Update: It appears Yellowbird aren’t the only people developing 360 video technology, another company called Immersive Media has also been developing the technology. Check out their website for some more amazing 360 video examples.

Whether record companies like it or not the music industry is changing. They can try and ignore it, perhaps even directly fight the change, or maybe they can embrace it and actually benefit from the changes brought about by our new digital age.

Currently much of the music industries’ efforts have focused on the option of resistance. It appears that many people want the model to stay the same, and will fight against change. In response to file-sharing the majority of activity has focused on short term action to solve the problem. Such action might appear so show some success, but when you look at the bigger picture a policy of resistance is destined to fail. Remember Napster? The music industry managed to shut down their illegal activity, but as soon as this happened people just moved on to different technology such as torrents. Now it appears they have been able to shut down torrent search engine The Pirate Bay, but chances are this will do little to help, people will just use something else.

All resistance appears to do is speed up the rate of technological progress and actually worsen piracy issues. Shutting Napster, inspired people to use torrents which enabled them to get much more content in much less time, closing The Pirate Bay could easily do similar. Recently as a response to the forced closure of The Pirate Bay someone actually uploaded a copy of the entire Pirate Bay site for people to download and in theory run their very own version of The Pirate bay. Closing down The Pirate Bay could actually result in hundreds more versions, which when closed down can simply be restarted somewhere else.

It’s not hard to see how future technology can only make it easier for users to get hold of digital content. As more and more people start to store the majority of their data online in the ‘cloud’, placing restrictions on how and when people can share this content will become increasingly difficult.

The consumer of the future expects to get a large amount of content for free, however there are plenty of things they are happy to pay for and they are not adverse to being exposed to advertising as a form of payment. Research actually suggests that people who source content for free online actually spend more on paid content online than those that do not. The policy of resistance could simply alienate their audience in a time where it is more important than ever that they make use of the technology available in order to engage their audience.

However, not all efforts have been directed towards resistance, some musicians are making the most of all things digital to help engage their fans and spread their music.

1. Radiohead – Pay what you want

In 2007 Radiohead decided to launch their album online, with users able to download the whole album from their site for whatever price they chose. More recently they’ve decided to release the latest single from their forthcoming album as a free download.

2. Muse – Let fans piece together the song

This year Muse released their single ‘United States of Eurasia’ by planting USB sticks all across the world containing 5 second bits of the track. It was then up to the fans to go out and physically find them, work together to upload them onto the web and piece it together to create the final track.

3. P Diddy – To succeed you’re going to need a great Facebook page

This year P Diddy launched the latest MTV star finder programme, and this year he was keen to point out the important role the Internet and specifically social media now plays in the industry. He stated “You have to understand how to be able to brand yourself,” he said. “Before, it was just at live shows, now you have to be able to do a great live show, you have to be able to do a great online interview, you need to have a great Facebook page, you have to have a great television performance.” He practices what he preaches and you can find P diddy all over social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

4. Coldplay – iPhone app

Recently Coldplay have released their very own iPhone application to help promote their latest single. Created by Babelgum the free mobile application includes the brand new Strawberry Swing video along with the Coldplay video catalogue, a Coldplay news feed and a videogame.

5. Mos Def – The album on a t-shirt

For his last album ‘The Ecstatic’ Mos Def decided to release it as a T-shirt. The T-shirt contained a tag on which was a unique Mp3 download code for album, furthermore the t-shirt had the Ecstatic Killer of Sheep-interpolating cover art printed on the front, and the song titles on the back.

6. No Doubt – Watch them live, get free music

No Doubt are letting people who buy top tier priced tickets for their latest tour download the entire No Doubt back catalogue for free. A great example of encouraging fans to buy experiences they can’t just download as well as rewarding their biggest fans.

7. Bloc Party – Crowd-sourced music video

For their music video to their single ‘Ares’ Bloc Party asked fans to send them their own video clips of the band performing live. These clips were then simply stitched together into a great music video, made for the fans by the fans. This is a great way to engage fans that makes great use of the material available thanks to the ease of video recording via mobile phones, and the ease that this material can be brought together through the power of the Internet.

8. Nine Inch Nails – Band uploads to torrent sites

Back in 2008 Nine Inch Nails put the first volume of their album ‘Ghosts’ onto torrent sites under a creative commons licence. Fans could enjoy this basic version for free and if they wanted more they could go to the official Nine Inch Nails website to download the extended version or go out and buy the standard CD or a variety of special limited edition box sets in store if fans wanted a physical product. A great example of freemium, giving away the basics for free and making the money on the upgraded versions.

9. Simian Mobile Disco – Augmented Reality mixer

Simian Mobile Disco have recently been promoting the release of their new album ‘Temporary Pleasure’ by creating the “first ever-human augmented reality music and visuals mixer”.  The piece was installed at the ‘Temporary Pleasure’ shop on Carnaby Street, London. The installation was an interactive augmented reality experience, which let people interact in a totally unique way with a never-heard-before content.

10. Grum (UK Dance music producer) – QR code posters

Grum has been making use of QR Codes technology as a way to promote his music. He has put up QR code posters up round the UK that people can scan to instantly hear his music on their phone or listen to it with the radio function on the phone. As well as promoting his music the campaign can also generate revenue, as people can then buy full version of the tracks directly from their mobile phone.

Brands are finally starting to enter social media channels, and those that are yet to do so will have to in very near future. Social media provides some very real challenges for brands, but with these challenges comes some amazing opportunities.

It’s a complex game that requires some serious attention, skill and knowledge. Not unlike a game of Poker (yes Poker!)…

So what can Poker teach us about successful use of Social Media?

If you’ve never played before it’s a good idea to spend some time observing before you get involved. At the early stages of using social media, the best thing to do is simply observe. For one this process can aid learning about the various environments, on the other hand it can provide vital information. People are talking about your brand and you need to know what they’re saying. Find out what people think about your latest campaign or product, and take the feedback on-board. You can go to great lengths and at great cost to get feedback from customers, be sure to make use of the feedback that’s right at your fingertips.

When you start playing, you don’t play in one big high risk game, you go for lots of smaller low risk games where it doesn’t matter if you lose. You can’t just enter a social media environment and assume that as long as you spend the money and time you will be successful. You test the water with small campaigns or better still get involved at a level not representing the brand, set up twitter accounts, youtube pages, blog, find out what works and what doesn’t. It’s vital that you’re using these tools day in and day out if your going to be able to take things to the next level.

At the end of the day it’s always a gamble, but you often your chances of success will be higher than others. These days everyone wants to know the ROI, they want a guaranteed return on their investment. Unfortunately you can never guarantee success but you can use knowledge of what has worked and not worked in the past to inform your choices. It’s vital to keep track of other social media activity to help build this knowledge.

Timing is key. What will work within social media is completely context dependent. What might have worked a few months ago might not work this month, the right environment last week might not be the right environment this week, just because it worked yesterday doesn’t mean it’s going to work today.

Knowledge of etiquette is essential. If you don’t observe the un-written rules people won’t want to play with you, and you can’t play if you’ve got no-one to play with. There’s plenty of rules to follow set by social media sites such as copy-write rules on youtube and promotion rules on facebook. But just as important are the many unwritten rules which you can only discover by getting involved and actually using the tools. For example, Habitat learnt that you could use hash tags on twitter improve visibility in twitter search, but they didn’t realise the kind of backlash they would receive for mis-using these tags. As well as negative consequences not knowing the unwritten rules can also result in missed opportunity. For example, it’s generally considered unacceptable to communicate with customers via facebook, however the same cannot necessarily be said for some contexts within Twitter (in the case of an @reply). Assuming all reply options are out of bounds could result in a missed opportunity to communicate with your audience.

You have no control over the cards you get dealt and the decisions other players make, only the decisions you make. As much as you might wish you could control peoples behaviour and reactions to your decisions you have to accept that you can’t. Instead you need to be prepared to every reaction and learn how to respond when things don’t go the way you planned. For example when Pepsi were in hot water earlier this year over a potentially offensive ad they got straight on twitter to explain and apologise directly to those involved.

If you don’t play a hand at some point you’re not going to win. This game is happening, it’s going on right now, nobody is going to force you to get involved but if you don’t you will miss out.

You might get lucky once, but if you don’t know what your doing you’ll soon get found out. It’s not that common but sometimes you can just get lucky, the viral nature of the Internet means that content can almost come from anywhere. But hype dies even quicker than builds on the Internet, and unless you harness the power of any activity you won’t be seeing that success continue.

However…

It’s not all the same. Don’t think you can bluff your way through social media, bluffing can win you a game of poker, but it will only get you so far in social media. Transparency is essential, so lets see those cards.

Image: Kimberlyfaye

Like me, you might have got sent a link to an eBay item description a few months back. The item was a pretty standard BMX, but the description was anything but.
For example:

“Once I did a boom gnarly stunt trick on it and a girl got pregnant just by watching my extremeness to the maxxxx”

“Basically if you buy this bike you will instantly become a member to every club that was ever invented, worldwide, because you will be awesome.”

Turns out the item was actually posted by Australian agency George Patterson Y&R, and was an ‘experiment’ to see if creativity actually worked. They simply bought the BMX off eBay then re-sold it, but added some ‘creativity’ to the item description. The bike sold for 500% more using the second technique. It’s a great example of the power of creativity, original content, and of course the Internet.

Source: Pigs Don’t Fly

Another month – another twitter round-up.

Using the new and improved Hootsuite here are the most clicked links from the Trendplanner Twitter account for July. For other useful Twitter links on similar themes, check out Qapture which collects links shared by various people on Twitter (including Trendplanner).


1. Steve Jobs on why Apple doesn’t do market research – http://ow.ly/iyXN

2. Placement is key: Just look at these 15 Unfortunately Placed Ads http://ow.ly/gmbm

3. graffiti archaeology – brilliant. http://ow.ly/hBXu

4. Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality http://ow.ly/h6Uv

5. Mobile Phones let us change our plans – Geo-location could stop us planning altogether: http://ow.ly/i0Kz

6. Top 10 Augmented Reality Adveritising Campaigns so far. #ar #tech http://ow.ly/dsHv

7. Nike LIVESTRONG – Chalkbot. A great idea from nike for the #tdf http://ow.ly/gEQU

8. Freaky AR business card – http://ow.ly/hjiT

9. Lego:Pretty cool for a 50-yr-old. How has Lego succeeded where so many have failed? http://ow.ly/hmc7

10. Spotify iPhone app: 10 things you never knew. http://ow.ly/ihfR

Image: Monstro

Remember the days before mobiles (some of you actually won’t!)? Plans to meet friends were made days in advance, there was no changing plans at the last minute, you had to be where you said, when you said. In theory this sounds great, no last minute cancelling, no slack time keeping, however, it’s not much fun when it all goes wrong and you’ve got some poor guy waiting alone in the rain for a friend who isn’t going to make it!

But now thanks to the mobile phone you need never wait alone in the rain again. Plans needn’t be made days in advance, and times needn’t be so strict. Now we wonder just how people found it possible to ‘play things by ear’ before they could put a mobile phone to that ear!

But now the latest Geo-location mobile technology could further change the way we live our lives.

One such application of this technology is Google Latitude (see above). Google Latitude enables users to let their friends know where they are by sharing their location via their phone. Users simply open up Google maps on their mobile to see where their friends are. Users can turn the service on and off as they please and choose exactly who they want to share their location with. No longer do users have to tell people they’re running late, because they can see for themselves. In fact there might be no need to plan at all, just take a look who’s out and about and go and meet them.

The service has been running since February this year, but only on a limited number of handsets, real change can only occur when the service is available to the majority of mobile owners, but this might not be far off with smartphone ownership rising and new versions planned for the near future. The concept is nothing new, people have been sharing there location via twitter and facebook status updates for years now, but the key here is the ease of the process. Social tools are only useful when other people are using them, and things only get used by large numbers of people when they are easy to use. The simplicity and effortlessness of sharing your location automatically could be the key.

Google was by no means the first to be offering this kind of service, we’ve already got location based twitter clients such as Twinkle and location based social networks such as BrightKite, FourSquare, and many many more. But Google might just have the reach, the technology, and perhaps most importantly the financial resources to take the technology to the mainstream. The service has been available for a while now on Google android phones, Blackberries and a few other devices, but its when it finally gets released for the iPhone (Google says ‘coming soon’) we might just see the service brought back into focus.

But of course, as much as the power of Google can work for the service, it can also work against it. Many people are sceptical, or even fearful of Google’s motives, and the last thing they want is for Google to have information on exactly where they are. But then, whenever you’re signed into Google on your computer they have a pretty good idea of exactly where you are anyway. Perhaps a bigger worry is who else might be able to get their hands on the data, and whether this is just another step towards Orwellian society.

Its unlikely Google will start pushing users location based ads directly at users through the service. Latitude could help establish the role of Google maps as the local mobile search service. If you’re using Google maps to find your friends chances are you’re also going to use it to find everything else as well such as the nearest pub.

Services such as Google Latitude and other location based social networks are another step towards a real time web. People are getting more used to having access to real time information at their finger tips wherever they might be. The more that people use these features the more their behaviour will be dependent on them. Just think how essential mobile phones have become, and how frustrating it can be if you or someone you’re meeting doesn’t have it on them (or perhaps doesn’t even have one). Perhaps soon it might be the case that if we are not sharing our location with our friends, we’ll go back to waiting alone in rain.

Update: As of today (23/07/09) Google Latitude is now available for iPhone, however it’s not a downloadable app as expected, but can be accessed via the Safari browser. Obviously this makes it a lot more effort to share your location as you need to access the browser each time, furthermore, users will not be able to get Google Latitude services via their iPhone Google maps application. This move might take latitude another step forward, but it might not be until the next version of the iPhone that we really see the power of this technology be it using Google Latitude or even a similar service from apple.

This month Lego turned 50, you might have seen the brilliant ‘making history’ ads created to mark the occasion. It’s hardly surprising that a toy based around small plastic blocks has been around for 50 years, what is a little more surprising is the fact that 50 years on and in the digital age these small plastic block are as popular as they have ever been. Toys come and go, some even come back (yo-yo anyone?), how has Lego avoided being just another one of those Toys people used to play with?

Obviously Lego is a toy of many peoples’ past, but this needn’t be a negative thing. Lego has used it’s history to create a whole new audience for it’s product – people who aren’t kids any more. Lego is retro, retro is cool, so now you’ll find the Lego brand in some rather unexpected places. So people are loving Lego again, but perhaps they feel they’re a bit too old to be making things out of blocks? No problem, Lego has teamed up with fashion label Paul Frank to bring you Lego products that you can wear. You can also get your hands on a section of Lego accessories such as cameras and mp3 players, not all of these are official Lego products, but all go towards keeping that Lego brand in fashion.

It’s all very well appealing to new audiences, but this is no good if you end up neglecting your original and still primary audience. Lego are still providing products aimed at children, and key to this is the work they do around these products. Toys such as Lego face serious competition from digital content such as computer games and various online activities. Many brands would try and fight this digital technology, fortunately for Lego they are not one of these brands. Instead of working against digital technology, they have worked with it. Lego can’t stop kids playing computer games, so Lego have made their own, Lego can’t stop kids spending their time online on social networks, and online games, so once again they have made their own online content, and put themselves in the places people already are. More brand collaboration has enabled Lego to turn competitors into partners with the likes of SpongeBob Squarepants and Harry Potter Lego, and take the brand into new markets such as their recent tie in with Kickers school shoes.

Lego have not just been getting involved with the technology their audience are currently using, but they are heavily involved in developing the technology they will be using in the future. Augmented reality appears to be starting to take off, and Lego are one of the brands at the forefront of developing the technology and essentially directing the path it takes into the lives of their audience. Lego has used the technology to complement and assist the current product. Lego has installed AR terminals into their stores (above) in which customers can hold up a box full of Lego pieces to get a 3D image of what the product will look like when it’s finished. Then when the customer gets home they can even use AR to help them build the product.

Lego haven’t been doing the hard work by themselves, some of the best content has been done by Lego fans (see above) and can be found all over YouTube, and other Social Media sites. But then that’s what happens when you’ve built a brand people are happy to associate themselves with and most importantly when you’ve got a great product that lets your audience be creative.

Key to Lego’s success is synergy, isolate anyone element of the Lego offering and its very unlikely to perform at the same level, but together each element works along side one another which benefits the individual elemetent and the brand as a whole. Lego have managed to expand and evolve their product offering while staying true to their brand, be it amazing theme park rides or augmented reality experiences you can always trace it back to those original plastic blocks.

Stop-motion videos are hardly new, it’s thanks to stop-motion that we got the likes of Wallace & Gromit and those amazing nature videos of growing plants. But even though they’ve been around a while it seems they’re as popular as ever.

One reason for the current popularity could be due to the fact the technology required is now so readily available, you can pick up a digital camera for next to nothing these days, and the software required is affordable or even free, and then when you done the hard bit you simply upload it to youtube (or perhaps vimeo) for the world to see.

Of course it not all about affordability, it might be that stop-motion videos let you do the impossible such as make a plasticine man walk about or watch a tree grow in 30 seconds, but then this is all pretty tame compared to the special effects coming out of Hollywood these days. Perhaps the key to the popularity of stop-motion video is the appreciation that people have for the effort that goes into making them, often each individual frame will have been painstakingly prepared and captured.

There are some truly great stop-motion videos out there, here are 6 of them.

Niagara Falls in Motion

Deadline post-it stop motion

MUTO – a wall painted by BLU

Light – Paint piano player

PSP Advert

Stop motion – with wolf and pig

Advertising is becoming more and more focused on the getting the consumer involved in the process, it’s no longer a one way broadcast model but a two way communication model where the audience play a vital role in any brand communication.

We might assume this spells the end for many traditional advertising channels such as billboards and TV, not if necessarily.

They just need to evolve.

Below is nice example of a billboard which is completely dependent on audience interaction. This digital billboard was recently installed at Brussels airport by the energy company Electrabel, and as people pass by it provides a thermal image of the heat energy given off by each person. A great idea based on what their brand is all about, and as the video demonstrates it clearly engages the audience.

Source: Blogilvy

Another great example of audience interaction in what is traditionally seen as a one way communication context will be provided by O2 in cinemas across the UK in the coming months. Prior to watching the latest ice age film, cinema goers will be able to participate in an interactive 3D game where their hand movements will determine the path of the spaceship O2 through an on coming 3D asteroid storm.

With the latest technology the audience can interact in communication channels that might never have seemed possible. The key of course is giving them the reason to do so. In the examples above the audience is drawn in by the new technology, but when this technology becomes established brands won’t be able to rely on the wow factor of the technology to engage the audience. This of course is true of all marketing using the latest technology such as Augmented reality and QR codes, it’s only so long the technology itself can be used to hook in the audience. Brands will either have to take the technology yet another step forward or they could concentrate on making the most out of the evolved channel and provide a genuinely entertaining or useful experience to engage their audience.

Once again using the magic of Hootsuite here are the most clicked links from the Trendplanner Twitter account for last month. For other useful Twitter links on similar themes, check out Qapture which collects links shared by various people on Twitter (including Trendplanner).

1. Agency site – made in YouTube – BooneOakley.com – Clever. http://ow.ly/altG

2. Top 10 Trendplanner tweets – May 2009. http://ow.ly/al1z

3. Google: Expect 18 Android Phones by Year’s End – Am sure some will be great but problem is they wont be called ‘iphone’! http://ow.ly/akF6

4. Consumer Psychologist: How Cool Are You? The 5 factor cool test… http://ow.ly/akEw

5. The Living Book: The book written entirely in QR codes. #qr #mobile #marketing #advertising http://ow.ly/cM0m

6. 5 Digital Music Trends. Things are changing whether the record companies like it or not! http://ow.ly/akEf

7. Red Bull gives you wings – Paper wings that is. Red bull paper wings weltfinale. http://ow.ly/an4w

8. 10 trendspotting tips in 10 minutes. nice slideshow from @jon_howard http://ow.ly/aCuI

9. Do you really want your TV ads to make your audience mad? http://ow.ly/e7xr

10. Top 10 Augmented Reality Adveritising Campaigns so far. #ar #tech http://ow.ly/dsHv

Just watched a great clip over on FreshCreation.com of Steven Johnson the Author of ‘Everything bad is Good for you’. Johnson is asking us to consider if games had been invented 500 years ago and that books had only just been invented and were gaining popularity amongst young people. He argues that books would come under the same amount of criticism that is currently facing the computer game. One point to take from this idea is that society tends to a have bias towards the traditional and show fear towards the new. Consider the invention of the printing press, people feared that it would reduce the quality of the written word as it allowed access to many more people, or the calculator which was feared to stop the youth building their numerical skills, and now the Internet with is apperently stopping us from thinking for ourselves and turing our brains to mush. Things that force people to think and act differently will always be met with fear and negativity, but  it’s often the things that make us think and act differently which have the power to really change things, and more often than not change them for the better. It’s important to approach everything from every possible perspective and make sure we don’t let the fear of what is new get in the way of progress.

Qik is a great service that lets you use your mobile as a live webcam and create a live channel for others to see on the web. Of course it is already possible to stream live on the web, but allowing people to simply do this form their mobile makes it more accessible than ever before, the key as with so much new technology is that it takes away previous elements of commitment, effort and cost.  Believe it or not this isn’t a particularity new service, Qik has been running since 2007. Furthermore, Qik is not the only mobile to live stream service there is a similar service called Kyte, but unlike Qik it is not free for all users. Up to now it’s been a pretty unheard of service, but it might not be long before the service starts to gain a bit of mainstream attention.

Of course back when qik was first released 3G phones and unlimited data packages were somewhat a rarity, so not many people could really make use of the service. But now 3G phones and unlimited data packages are much more accessible so is the possibility of using qik. Of course when we talk unlimited data packages, 3G, and mobile Internet we’re often talking about the iphone 3G, unfortunately Qik is not actually an app you’ll find in the apple app store. This is thanks to no video recording function on the iPhone 3G and various app store rules and regulations, however Qik is available to those who ‘jail break’ their iPhones. It’s also available (legitimately) for over 40 other phones, from manufactures including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Blackberry.

Qik has just announced a potential break through move that Qik will come pre loaded on the Latest Nokia smart phone the N97. This move could bring Qik to many people who would otherwise not heard of the service, and it also breaks down a major boundary for all mobile applications of actually making users find and download the service themselves (this has been a major boundary for technology such as QR codes). With the video enabled new iPhone 3GS release just round the corner, there is a chance it might even get an official iPhone release, this is far from certain but if it becomes disadvantageous to apple to not allow the app I’m sure they’ll let it through.

Of course making it effortless for people to stream to the web from their mobile will provide many issues, but also opportunities. For example people will be able to stream the content of live gigs to the web without even having to think about it. This brings up various copyright issues, and won’t exactly sit well with whoever has any rights to the live broadcast. Who knows we might no longer see that now familiar sight of hundreds of camera phones in the air if rights holders decide they want to try and stop people broadcasts their content. Another example would be live sport, currently a small minority chose to broadcast live content such as live premier league football to which they do not have the rights, due to their low numbers many can be stopped by the rights holders, and those that don’t are unable to get their stream to many people. But imagine when people can create a live stream by simply holding up their phone, think of the amount of potential streams, they can hardly stop an entire stadium from using a mobile, and as youtube have found that when you have such a high number of users, you take a video or live stream down but you’ll just find another two put in it’s place.

As we continue to see with issues such as  file sharing resisting technological change is not a long term option, the right thing to do is to prepare for these potential future scenarios and look  as to how we can embrace the opportunities that mass live streaming can provide.

Here’s a great quote I saw over on the DigitalAgencyBlog.com the other day. Taken from the blog of a managing partner at a US technology firm, it provides a rather interesting view on agency life. Funny for those of us who know better, but hardly surprising when this is the image so many agencies try to portray. I would expand on this but I’ve just fallen off my skateboard.

Here’s the latest TV ad for TV advertising, which I ironically saw on youtube.

Don’t get me wrong I thoroughly enjoyed the ad, it brings back memories of some great ad campaigns of the past and the context and comic timing does raise a smile. This ad would have been perfect before the emergence of digital media channels, but then of course back then there would have been no need for such a campaign.

The message of the ad is that TV can get through to your audience like no other medium, you can use it to push your message and it will get through. When the psychiatrist delves into the patients ‘deep subconscious’ he discovers nothing but classic TV ads. The context of this ad seems to represent the old way of approaching marketing, as a one way communication channel, where brands simply push their messages at their audience. However in our new digital world things are changing and as so is the  model, the brand audience now have the option to communicate with the brand, and with other member of the actual and potential brand audience.

The audience will no longer be satisfied with one way communication aimed at them (they might not want to be a a gibbering mess on a psychiatrist’s couch). Furthermore, brands should not be satisfied with this approach. No longer are they limited to aim at simply trying to push their messages into the audience subconscious, they can now truly engage with their audience, and can aim at building a relationship with can be of benefit to both brand and consumer. I’m not saying TV advertising doesn’t have a part to play, just that its approach will have to change, and integrated properly with other mediums it can play a key part in many campaigns.

The evolution of communication channels means that the brand audience can easily talk to brands, and to fellow audience members, and with a bit of luck they won’t have to talk to psychiatrists.

I recently got sent some information about a very interesting marketing campaign in Brazil, for an online book store called Editoras. The campaign was looking to raise awareness of Editoras in Brazil, modernise the brand, and help the brand appeal to a younger audience. With these goals in mind DDB Brazil created a campaign that featured mobile, Twitter, crowdsourcing, and QR codes.

DDB set up a system that pulled in messages of love or hate from Twitter, they then put up QR code posters around Sao Paulo which when read by peoples mobile phones displayed one of the messages of love or hate. Their next step was to create an actual book full of these QR codes and sell it on the Editoras site, as with the posters people could use their mobiles to translate the QR codes to messages of love or hate. DDB made use of the fact that QR codes can simply provide links to online content and therefore you can change what information a QR code links to by simply changing the content at the end of the link. After every 7 days all the codes in the book provided different messages of love and hate, and ‘the living book‘ was born. (See video above for a better description)

By the sounds of it the campaign was a great success. The use of mobile, Twitter, and QR codes was perfect for strengthening the associations of the brand with modern and innovative traits, and in turn will have helped them connect with a younger audience. Furthermore, the campaign actually created a product that gave people a real incentive to visit the online store.

The campaign looked to the extremes in the use of QR code and this was appropriate in regards to their objectives and the fact that the use of QR is still regarded as new and potentially exciting outside of Japan. I don’t think we’ll be writing all our books in QR code but maybe if QR codes can establish themselves outside of Japan they can play some role in the enhancing the communication channel based on some of the principles seen in this campaign.

Perhaps QR codes could be placed on book covers so users can make a quick and easy check that the book is the latest version, or maybe QR codes could be placed next to various facts or figures to provide a quick link to the latest data. Taking things to the next level, print media could be produced before all the information is available, for example create a poster for an event before details such as the time or cost have been decided, simply put a QR code in place of this information and people can get the information when it’s available by scanning the QR code. Of course, the successful use of QR codes in entirely dependent on  the content they deliver, after all the QR code is simply a link and a way of bringing that content to the audience. What ‘the living book’ campaign demonstrates is just how we can use QR codes to merge communication channels, allowing us to bring new types of digital content (i.e. updated information from Twitter) to various non-digital mediums (i.e. books).

The Living Book

Once again using the magic of Hootsuite here are the most clicked links from the Trendplanner Twitter account for last month. For other useful Twitter links on similar themes, check out Qapture which collects links shared by various people on Twitter (including Trendplanner).

1. Disturbing but effective poster ad. http://ow.ly/6oy6

2. New Roles in advertising. “there are new kinds of jobs out there… which require new kinds of skills” http://ow.ly/6onm

3. Did Google just sneakily launch a Facebook killer? http://ow.ly/51L6

4. Nice brand collaboration – Mr Bump and yellow coke bottles. http://ow.ly/6pxT

5. So you’ve got a great brand website, but is that really where your customers are heading? http://ow.ly/6Deb

6. Great Print ads for… Microsoft Vista. Thanks to Apple?? http://ow.ly/7wC9

7. Banner ads can be entertaining: Great Apple banner ads. http://ow.ly/7Qmo

8. Will the QR code ever take off outside of Japan? http://ow.ly/7ABH

9. Google to Run Its First TV Advertising. Interesting… http://ow.ly/6aJy

10. Social Media: Do you need to reinvent the wheel? http://ow.ly/6pa1

If you’re in the UK (and many other countries) and you go to the standard Google homepage today this is what you’ll see. The Google logo change today refers to the announcment yesterday of the discovery of a  fossil that provides evidence of the “missing link” between today’s higher primates- monkeys, apes and humans – and more distant relatives. Click on the logo and it will cleverly link you to search results for the ‘missing link’.  It’s certainly not the first time we’ve seen the Google logo changed, but as far as I’m aware (correct me if I’m wrong) it’s the first time it’s been changed in relation to news such as this.

Changing of the logo is usually reserved for non controversial significant dates such as Shakespeare’s birthday or St Patrick’s day. I wonder if the direct referral to Darwin (in the hover over text on the logo) will upset any creationists visiting the Google homepage today? However, I guess it’s only fair as you will see Google logo changes for Christmas and Easter. A while back I heard that brands had tried to buy the chance to rebrand the Google logo for a day, but were told this was against Google policy. Does this move demonstrate the that the Google homepage is becoming less sacred, or that Google might potentially influence users through its logo redesigns?

Millions of people will see the Google logo every day and Google could exert some serious influence (intentionally or unintentionally) based upon what ever message they choose, as well as the message they choose not to deliver.  However, if Google make a habit of pushing information via the homepage (intentionally or unintentionally) they might end up harming their brand and consqently lose their potnetial influience. There is no denying Google has huge power and potential influence, but maybe thanks to the digital world google itself has helped create abusing this power might only result in this power being taken away.

‘Great banner ads’ is not something you hear often, but in this case it really is true. Potentially pretty annoying if you’re actually searching for information, but if you’re just browsing this example on the New York Times site is pretty enjoyable.

It just shows that if they’re creative enough even banner ads can be entertaining.

Now just to make sure they are relevant to the user so they can actually be effective!

Source: Adrants

QR codes have been ‘big in Japan’ for years now, and back in 2008 Trendplanner posted about the possibilities of QR and how it might not be long before the QR code was common place in countries other than Japan. But now well into 2009 the QR code is yet to really take off outside of Japan in countries such as the US and UK. With benefits for both brands and users, why is this so?

Chances are since 2008 a lot more people have come into contact with QR codes. Within the UK major brands such as Pepsi and Volvo have been experimenting with QR codes, and although not common place many people now have some understanding of what these strange little black and white boxes are. But even with improved understanding, QR codes are not being used regularly within the UK.

QR stands for ‘Quick Response’ and many of the reasons for the lack of success can be brought back to the fact that activity within the UK does not satisfy this definition. The point of a QR code is that it offers the user a way they can save time and effort, it allows them to be  ‘quick’. For example, users see a advert and they want to know more, they don’t need to wait till they get to a computer they can use their phone, and they don’t need to go to the effort of searching for the content or type in a long URL, they simply scan the code and the information is delivered. But the majority of campaigns seem to have forgotten this and are assuming people will scan the QR code just for the experience of scanning a QR code. This might work for a few curious first time users, but the majority will require an incentive.

Another major issue that interferes with how ‘quick’ the service is that in the UK the majority of phones do not have an inbuilt QR code reader. Users have to download an application in order to use their camera as a QR scanner, and for some users these applications are not compatible with their phones. Either there will have to be some major incentives to get people to download the application or it needs to become standard issue on new mobiles.

It seems that the technology that the average person has access to in the UK does not make using a QR code a viable option. What’s more many uses of the QR are based around internet access and the majority of people in the UK still don’t have the handsets and the data plans to make make accessing the mobile Internet a regular activity.

So it seems for the QR code to take off firstly we need an improvement in the technology available to the average user, preferably all new phones will have an inbuilt QR code reader and then just as important is that the QR codes produced actually provide users with an incentive to use them. This might be years rather than months away, and by then there might be other technology available. Currently there are some very similar alternatives to the QR code, these include the datamatrix code and the Microsoft Tag. Either a single code needs to be established or code readers need to be able to read all types of short code.

Furthermore, there are other similar services becoming available which use a similar concept but take things to another level, such as Snaptell and Nokia Point & Find. These services work in a similar way in which relevant content from the Internet is delivered to the user in a quick and easy manner, however in this case users don’t need to scan a code they simply take a photo of the relevant content. Snaptell can provide a product price comparison just by the user taking a photo of the product in question, Nokia Point & Find can be used to show the user a film trailer just by them taking a photo of a poster for the film.

So it seems the UK is not quite ready for the QR code to take off, and when it is it might not be the QR code we see being used, but a more advanced service based upon the concept of the QR code . As accessing the Internet via a mobile device becomes more popular so will these technologies that can save the user time and effort. Brands need to be ready when their target audience reaches this stage but need to remember that such a service simply acts as a gateway and is worthless unless users actually desire the content to which the gateway leads.