Google recently announced that it has  designs on Facebook’s social media crown by launching its  own rival site.  In spite of rumours that it’s going to be called ‘Google Me’, we’re not sure how much of a chance it has.

Since February 2004, when Mark Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com, Facebook’s early predecessor, few could have predicted the speed or the level of impact it would have on the online advertising community. With the imminent launch of ‘The Social Network’, it seems interest will continue to grow, but now, a mere 6 years since it has been available to the public, how do we feel about it?

It has given marketers all over the globe a new medium for communication based on the traditional aspects of word of mouth or referral marketing. It allows advertisers the ability to target an audience by the information they have provided about themselves – information varying from merely their age and gender to their likes, dislikes, favourite films, music and literature.

Adverts on Facebook can be relatively cheap and available to the majority of businesses, allowing nearly everyone who wants it to have the opportunity to advertise themselves online. It begs the question; ‘If everyone can do it, does it lose its effect? Does it become spam and easily ignored by users?’

Facebook was said to have generated between $700 million and $800 million in advertising revenue in 2009, a figure higher than was expected. With Facebook’s 500 million users browsing the site’s pages, it seems the chance to reach that large a number is attractive to advertisers, regardless how many click on their ads.

With its users spending 700 billion minutes a month on the site, such a concentrated amount of people actively swapping information about themselves online has never existed before. But it is the information swapping that made Facebook both brilliant and controversial.

In its short lifetime Facebook has been no stranger to controversy, attracting a number of lawsuits and a wealth of criticism over those who use the site and how they use it. With ever growing reports that Facebook has been used by adults to groom children, schools reporting accounts of cyber- bullying and with tribute pages being set up for people such as Raoul Moat, it could make you begin to doubt Facebook’s future.

Over the past year Facebook announced regular changes regarding its privacy policy, one of which was that it planned to share information with a third party. It’s constantly changing privacy settings have left some users feeling exposed. With Facebook allowing people to display as much or as little personal information as they choose, with as many different people as they choose, the controversy seems unfair. If you don’t want someone to know your phone number, don’t put it on the internet, right? But should the default settings on Facebook be that everything is shared and to hide information so it is only shared with your ‘friends’ and you have to manually change it? This may have been acceptable when Facebook’s members were confined to one campus, but now its users are spreading across nearly the entire globe, is it not time for Facebook to reflect that?

It seems comparing Facebook to Twitter, LinkedIn or foursquare is a little pointless as none have reached the same level of popularity or even offer the same service. Although each are information- sharing social sites, they don’t offer the level of depth Facebook can. Although, as reported recently in The Guardian (23^rd July 2010) it is possible to follow and make contact with a stranger (as one journalist proved) just via their tweets and foursquare updates. So they are still viable for the level of criticism usually reserved for Facebook, if not the success it seems. Even with on-going privacy squabbles, it seems advertising on Facebook shows no signs of waning, and especially as socialmediatoday.com (2010) has predicted a 39% increase in advertising spend on the site this year.

So with nearly a billion in advertising revenue, 500 million users, an MD that goes to meetings in his PJ’s and its own Hollywood film, it seems we may still be a while off asking people we just met in the pub to ‘Google me!’.

Reports released this week (21 July 2010) state that Amazon has sold 143 eBooks for the Kindle (Amazon’s own specifically designed e-reader) to every 100 hardback books in the past three months. Amazon has gone on to claim that over the last month sales of eBooks have continued to creep, now reaching almost double that of hardbacks.

This may be a reason for Amazon to celebrate, but not everyone is over the moon, book lovers have hit back at Amazon by pointing out that the low cost of eBooks leaves them lagging behind in terms of quality compared to hardbacks.

The US market surrounding e-readers is starting to look decidedly saturated as interest in the technology grows, with new e-readers being introduced by Barns & Noble, Borders and Sony over the past few months.

Strangely, the biggest threat to Amazon and the Kindle is not from any of the existing e-readers, but from Google. The internet giant has announced that they plan to bring out their own e-reader in an attempt to take a bite out of Apple and Amazon. With Google already having access to over 12 million books scanned into their database, their virtual bookshelf will already be far superior to any of their competitors.

The question we all want to know the answer to is, “Will this growing trend of e-literature reach as far as the UK market?” A London publisher is quoted in this week’s Guardian as saying that even though the US market is 2 or 3 years ahead of the UK market, there is no reason why the same trend could not be replicated here.

As the Kindle is still only available on Amazon’s US site, an aspect that is putting some UK buyers off, it seems we may have to wait a while to see if our predictions were totally correct. But for the next few months we will definitely have a keen eye trained on the growing interest in e-readers … that and trying our new found talent on the National Lottery.

Funnily enough yesterday evening I went to pick up my second iPhone 4 from Orange.  I returned my first one for being faulty. Nothing to do with the signal issue, (although that is pretty bad!  But then again I am on Orange!) but because of its shocking battery life.

This is the first Apple product I have purchased. I own an Apple 2^nd generation iPod Nano but I did not purchase this myself.  I did rush out to buy the new iPhone release a couple of weeks ago, partly because I wanted to be cool and hip, and also because I was due an upgrade, so it seemed the natural choice.

The signal issue was first made public on the 24^th June when the phone launched, so I knew about the problem surrounding the antenna issue, but this did not put me off selecting the iPhone 4 as my upgrade, and seemingly it did not deter the other million or so people who ventured out to get their hands on the new handset. 1.7 million units were sold in the first 3 days of its release!

The great thing about Apple is that they have built up a real brand and relationship with consumers. Despite hearing all these terrible things about the iPhone 4 we are so accustomed to the positive values of Apple (innovation, quality, ease of use) that most of us have probably dismissed the fact that the tangible product (the phone) is full of faults and have ventured out to buy an iPhone anyway. This is because we trust the brand values associated with the name Apple.

My personal thoughts were exactly that. Sure I thought the negative press was bad, it made me question whether to purchase an iPhone but then I thought, “Hey it’s Apple they are renowned for great innovative technology, so I will ignore the critics and get one anyway -  in the hope that I do not have any problems with it“.

There is no doubt that there is a signal issue with the new iPhone 4, this is both disappointing and disheartening to the millions of customers worldwide who have shown brand loyalty and rushed out to buy one.  The issue was brought to light when the phone first went on sale, and it has taken Apple almost four weeks to realise something needs to be done to address this issue. You only need to search online to see the mass of negative reviews from analysts, consumers and critics. This week consumer reports, which are pivotal to the success of new technology releases, claimed they could not endorse the phone or recommend users buy it because their own tests found a problem with reception.

Should Apple care about the negative PR’s potential to damage its ‘market leader’ reputation?

Personally, I think Apple’s reaction to the consumer uproar has been shocking and is an embarrassing example of reputation management to say the least.

Until now Apple was a brand synonymous with cutting edge technology, innovation, quality, good design and ease of use. I am not sure how long these brand credentials will remain unless we see a positive outcome from the Apple conference tomorrow.

Will all customers be given a free bumper case? Will Apple take a leaf out of Johnson and Johnson’s book and recall the iPhone4? The iPhone 4 may not be killing consumers but the bad press is certainly killing Apple! Or Will Steve Jobs just come up with another ridiculous excuse?

Maybe in years to come the Apple iPhone 4 scenario will become the Exxon classic textbook case of poor crisis/reputation management.

Well I am off to play with my iPhone 4!

Our work demands and clients are growing and we need a senior / lead PHP developer to take command of all our LAMP projects.

We are looking for someone who:

• Knows that LAMP is not what sits atop a lamp post
• Writes specifications that a monkey could follow
• Can make their dinner object oriented
• Sees HTML and CSS the way Tank sees the Matrix
• Eats open source cereal for breakfast
• Has lived the Digital Agency high-life for at least 3 years
• Can order a pizza from a Linux command line
• Knows their ASP from their elbow
• Can hold an entire conversation in SQL
• Debugs code like a hungry ant-eater

It would be great if you:

• Are familiar with Zen Cart & Word Press
• Know how to implement a slick version control and release system
• Can write a bit of ActionScript when required
• Have real experience with iPhone and Android Apps
• Like to get blood on your hands with cutting edge technologies

If this is you – and you’re up for getting into bed with one of the best agencies since sliced bread – then drop us a line.

Our head office is based in Poole, Dorset: just 10 minutes from Bournemouth and two hours from London. This is where you will spend most of your time working. Although you may have the opportunity to work in our London office from time to time.

We also have a dead friendly team that is fanatical about everything digital. They’re a lovely bunch and will make sure you feel right at home. They’ll also make sure you get everything you want out of your sparkly new job.

Did we mention money? We’re offering a competitive salary plus bonus and benefits depending on experience – and you get free breakfast and as many cappachinos as you can drink. Make sure you let us know your salary expectations so no-one is left disappointed.

We’d guess you’ll have some good experience in doing the things mentioned above. We’d also imagine you’re extremely ambitious and hungry for a role that grows quicker than you can say “Digital Superstar”. You may have a degree, but we’re not that bothered really. We just want to know you eat, sleep and breathe web development; with extra points for having a penguin tattoo (OK, so that might be going a bit too far).

If you’re still reading then we’d love to hear from you. Send us your CV, but make sure you mention anything you think we’d like to know about you in your covering email (especially the items on our nice-to-haves list) and don’t forget your salary expectations.

Send an email to careers@zeta.net.

Rogers Estate Coffees is the UK subsidiary of Rogers Family Company – a coffee roaster from San Francisco, USA. As one of our longest standing clients at Zeta we absolutely love working with them.

Challenges and Considerations

Rogers Estate Coffees came to us with a product – ecoffee. The brand and the packaging had been developed by branding agency Red Brick Road. Zeta worked closely with the team at Red Brick Road to understand the brand attributes and personality which had already been assigned.

It was clear that we needed to make a strong powerful statement to showcase the brand’s credentials online. The story of ecoffee has a real narrative journey – from where and how the coffee farms are set up, to how green coffee beans are sourced right through to the packaging and distribution of the coffee here in the UK. We needed to get across the complex but important brand story in a short amount of time to keep users engaged, interested and keen to find out more.

Showcasing the brand story

With a plethora of information to convey in a short time space, whilst in parallel keeping users engaged and interested, the Zeta team decided a motion video would be the most innovative way to achieve this.

In this modern day of screen based media, motion and animation is used greatly to portray messages, meanings and stories quickly. Across a range of different media, from film title sequences, TV advertising and interactive web applications – motion brings together creative excellence with marketing engagement resulting in a medium that power punches all the right messages.

The first step was to condense the brand story down. Cutting down the mass of information to the absolute core of the brand was quite a challenge, but essential to create that emotional connection with consumers.

In short, ecoffee is organic, rainforest alliance certified and socially responsible. These key messages needed to be represented. The Zeta editorial and creative teams worked hard to cherry pick the key brand messages and put together a short narrative story to communicate these whilst incorporating some of ecoffee’s amazing achievements.

While Aimee Carmichael worked on the story content I (Aswad Charles) sketched out hand drawn illustrations to complement the narrative. Inspired by ecoffee’s green and brown credentials which were introduced to the brand by Red Brick Road, Aimee created the starting line for the story “Your coffee can be black or white, but is it green and brown?” This line allowed me to experiment with various different ideas and sketches and to narrow these down into a style I felt best represented the message.

So after various different sketches, I maintained the concept of “natural” and “organic” in a hand drawn sketch style based around the ecoffee type face. Zeta also produced some research into the target market which helped with direction. The video needed to have an earthy look and impersonate the eco friendly feel of ecoffee.

Everything about ecoffee is pure and the brand is proud to be able to control the coffee roasting process from start to finish. We wanted to mimic this in our design approach so it was decided that we would create our own alphabet. The alphabet would appear to have the realism of being hand drawn in its rawest state.

Testing was an important determinant in creating the video. Choices of fonts, colour schemes, illustration styles were put through various audits in order to create the perfect combination. Each letter contained three elements to make up the final shape. When the three elements are processed together as one, a smooth transition is made showing exactly how three dimensional typographic characters are created. The letters are based on the type face used in the ads and packaging created by Red Brick Road.

To complement the typographic style I illustrated objects to be used at key moments in the narration. These were illustrations which best represent the care for wildlife, social improvements made to the farming areas and of course the great tasting coffee.

The illustrative combination of type and key objects were working well together but as with all motion projects we were lacking the emotional ‘glue’ that is audio. From that moment a voice over was sourced quickly. The voice over would read out the ecoffee narrative over the visuals, but we needed a sound track to really strike an emotional bond with viewers – something that would take viewers on a journey back to the roots of ecoffee.

After many heated discussions we agreed on trying to source an independent South American artist for the sound track. Two weeks later and everyone at Zeta was dancing the tango – we found Fabian Velez (http://www.myspace.com/fabianvelezmusic) on MySpace. Columbian born Fabian moved to London five years ago as a student and an aspiring musician in his spare time. As soon as we heard his song “Heme Aqui” (behold here I am) we knew that was the one. Whilst Heme Aqui was the perfect song, we needed an instrumental-only track to ensure the voice over could be heard and understood. The team put this forward to Fabian and he was only too happy to help us, recording a bespoke version of the track exclusively for ecoffee. Visit Fabian’s MySpace profile to listen to all of his songs.

So we had the ecoffee credentials turned into narrative, created our own alphabet and illustrative objects and found a beautiful soundtrack all in two months. Not bad!

To see the final video watch the clip below.

eCoffee – Is Your Coffee Green and Brown? from ecoffee on Vimeo.

The reach of eBook stores will continue to grow as the increasing competition pushes down prices in the eBook reader market and more people upgrade to smarter phones. Amazon has already done amazingly well to sell an estimated 3 million Kindles considering it is only available online. Super-secretive Amazon now appear to be rolling out bricks-and-mortar retail distribution with US chain Target announcing that the device would be available in its 1740 stores.

If the claims of many avid eBook fans that reading on ‘ePaper’ screens as found on dedicated devices like the Kindle and Sony Reader is vastly superior to the back-lit displays found on multi-purpose units like Apple’s iPad are true, then Amazon and Sony might be able to wrestle market share from Apple when consumers hold the devices side-by-side.

ePaper or electronic Paper is a display technology designed to mimic real paper. The screen is not back lit so it reflects light just like a book would. It is capable of displaying text indefinitely without drawing any power, so ePaper devices tend to have very long battery lives. ePaper displays can be read in direct sunlight making them ideal for ebook readers however they are only available in black and white.

Sales of the ebooks are also looking very healthy. In November 2009 an Amazon spokesperson claimed that the company sells 48 kindle books for every 100 physical with sales of Kindle books expected to “double in 2010″. In January 2010 Jeff Bezos trumped that claim stating that “When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books. This is year-to-date and includes only paid books — free Kindle books would make the number even higher.”. Furthermore, over the 2009 Christmas period sales of Kindle books exceed sales of physical books.

While no unit figures are released, according to Reuters 25% of Amazon’s $25.5 billion annual revenue comes from selling physical books. If the 48/100 claim is to be believed then the company must be selling 212 books per device. (Based on a notional average price of $10 an estimated 3 million devices). Clearly this cannot be accurate, but we can see that ebooks are moving off digital shelves rapidly. A report by Forrester has found that people who buy e-readers have increased their book purchases 50 percent.

Many digital titles are only marginally cheaper than their bound counterparts at the moment. But competition in the eBook marketplace from Apple’s iBookstore may drive prices down to a point where digital editions are priced aggressively enough to make consumers switch. Once this point is reached one would expect a surge in sales of both titles and devices capable of reading them. Apple requires that pricing for e-book versions should be less than a print version if one is available, and there are limits to the maximum iBookstore price for the first 12 months after release depending on the price of the print edition.

Some authors are now questioning whether they need publishers at all. Thriller author Joe Konrath published detailed figures of his Kindle and eBook sales from last year demonstrating that if he had electronic distribution rights for his books he could easily be earning far more than the royalties from his print contracts with publishing houses. He concluded by saying ” I don’t think I’ll ever take a print contract for less than $30,000 per book, because I’m confident I could make more money on it over the course of six years than I could with a publisher over six years.”

This nicheification of book publishing is similar to the one we have seen with music and news(papers) over the last decade and also looks to be on the horizon for TV and Video. Old business models based on scarcity of supply are being rapidly eroded by unlimited choice with content producers connecting directly with consumers in a low cost digital world.

If I could write I might consider publishing a book myself.

Have you ever tried to register a domain name for your business, brand or company website only to find that someone else has beat you to it?

Are you constantly looking for a dot com only to find they are ‘dot GONE’?

Here at Zeta we know the scenario only too well – when clients come to us with a name they want but simply cannot get.  Very often they have to pay thousands to purchase their preferred domain from a reseller or domain squatter.

Well forget .com the name on everyone’s lips will soon be .co.

Yes in 22 days, 01 hours, 56 minutes and 05 seconds (20th July) general availability for .co domain names arrives. And .co is set to be BIG.

Do I need one I hear you ask? Well are you a company, corporation or a commerce website? Or maybe you’re a collaborative tool, content or community website? If so the new .co domain is something you NEED to get hold of before someone else does.

As featured in: TechCrunch, Wired, Mashable, CNBC and the Wall Street Journal the new .co format is rumoured to be the coolest domain yet – and remember it means you can get the Name you WANT.

Short, easy-to-remember .co has been designed to relieve the shortage of.com domains. And Twitter has just announced it will be adopting the .Co domain.

“Unlike other extensions that may have launched in the past, we know ours is something very unique,” said .CO Internet Director of Marketing Lori Anne Wardi (published on the Internet Council of Registrars) “Before we even launched this extension we did a lot of research in the market to get an understanding of what the perception of the public to .co would be.”

“.co is unique because it is universally recognised. After surveying thousands of consumers and interviewing 600 of them, cointernet.co found that 75% of respondents equated .co with “company”, “corporation,” or “commerce. It is a popular abbreviation in the United States, but also abroad. In fact, over 20 countries use .co as a second level domain name (i.e. co.uk, co.jp) because of this. ”

Cointernet.co is labelling this the .CO era where short and memorable domains are once again available for brands. With all the hype and an obvious rush to purchase these domains securing yourname.co should be a top priority.

OK well everything went to plan apart from England actually winning, but the point I am trying to illustrate is we spent a huge amount of money and not once did anyone question our actions.

This is why I wasn’t surprised when IMRG/Capgemini (read the full report) announced yesterday (21st June 2010) that online retail sales have has increased by 22% in May 2010, becoming the highest growth rate since June 2008.

Beer, wine and spirits experienced a massive increase of 23% and electrical goods also jumped up by 13%. Online shoppers spent £4.5 billion during the month of May which works out as an equivalent of £73 per person in the UK.

So, during a recession and with an emergency budget being announced today (which will be a pivotal moment for the country) we have managed to spend a staggering £4.5 billion online during May, the highest spend for two years.

How is this possible? National pride of course. When it comes to football and the greatest prize of all, the World Cup, nothing will stop us from getting behind our team with a crate of beer, 3D experience at the pub and a brand new 42” flat screen to entertain our friends. Of course the weather and that summer feeling have helped but it is the World Cup which strikes a common bond throughout the nation and boy do we need it!

Thank you Mr Capello for getting us to the World Cup, now get us to the final so we can drink ourselves out of the recession.

The sun is out, the world cup rocketing so let’s stock up the fridges, buy the flat screen we have wanted for the last year and cheer on our team in our brand new football gear.

Picture this; a group of beautiful women, glowing the colour orange, surrounded by a group of footballers and boisterous men.

Don’t be mistaken I am not talking about a night out with my fake tanned friends, I am talking about the latest ambush marketing stunt at the 2010 FIFA World Cup by Dutch beer company Bavaria!

It was not instantly obvious that the 36 women wearing tight figure hugging bright orange dresses at the World Cup game between Denmark and Holland on Monday 14^th June 2010 were advertising for the Dutch Brewery.

(And let’s not forget ITV pundit Robbie Earle who is said to have provided Bavaria with the free tickets to the World Cup Match who has since been fired!)

The Cup’s authorised beer is Budweiser which pays millions for the sponsorship. The stunt went slightly wrong as not only were the women ejected by FIFA official stewards at half time. Two are now rumoured to be facing a jail sentence! It has also been revealed that FIFA has also started legal proceedings against the Dutch brewer.

Was it worth it?

Well the resulting publicity from the stunt has heightened the popularity and awareness of the brand. Ironically the publicity sought by the brands who undertake ambush techniques usually arises from the general public and / or official outcry and attempts to stop the activity from taking place. This actually further draws attention to the situation, which of course is exactly what the brands hope for.

Think, if the FIFA officials had ignored the women and let them stay for the whole match …But they didn’t and low and behold, the name Bavaria has been plastered all over the national press and if you perform a quick Google news search for Bavaria beer there are pages of articles reporting on the incident.

Why Use Ambush Marketing?

Ambush Marketing is a term often frowned upon in industry circles. It is used to describe a marketing technique; often using guerrilla tactics that occurs around an event but does not involve a sponsorship fee to the event and annoyingly for the event organisers rarely breaks any laws so cannot be legally enforced.

A brand or company will abuse the publicity value of an event to gain an unfair publicity or marketing benefits despite having no financial or sponsorship involvement with the event.  For events with a large significance and a high profile such as the FIFA World Cup there are often a few selected sponsors who pay a huge fee to hold the exclusive rights. Details of the official World cup sponsors and partners can be found here:  http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/organisation/partners/index.html

But why did FIFA act this way

Well FIFA like many large world sporting event organisers takes its sponsors very seriously.  Understandable when over a third of their revenue comes from commercial sponsors. Budweiser is the official World Cup beer and have paid millions for this right. Therefore FIFA vigorously peruses anyone trying to associate themselves with the tournament – doing everything in their power to prevent other brands directly or indirectly associating themselves with the World Cup.

Sponsorship of major sporting events like the World Cup attracts large-scale publicity and is an effective and lucrative vehicle for the promotion of brands. Sponsorship is a million dollar business, and the fees paid for exclusive rights are the backbones of such events.  Ambush marketing undermines events integrity, so if FIFA simply ignore such stunts, the value of sponsorship will diminish and large commercial sponsors will remove Sports sponsorship from their marketing mixes. Without the financial backing of sponsors and partners there would be no World Cup.

A Win Lose Situation

The main issue surrounding sponsorship of events like the World Cup is that the less established brands and companies with a smaller international presence will wish to expose their brand on an international scope, that only such large events like the World Cup can promise, but may never be able to maximise from the opportunity as they do not have the budget to invest the millions of pounds that sponsorship contracts demand. What ambush activities gives such brands is a snippet of the World Cup benefits for a fraction (or at no cost) of the price tag.

The companies who make use of clever, creative tactics to get noticed and self associate themselves with such international events are by far the best in my eyes. Yet, brands must be weary. As highlighted in today’s G2 supplement of the Guardian, ambush marketing can seriously backfire. If brands are associating themselves with a sport like Football they need to be able to demonstrate a long term strategy and benefits, rather than a here today gone tomorrow approach. The brand’s values, credentials and meanings must share a parallel with the event in order to create the emotional attachment between the brand and the events stakeholders.

Not the First Year for Bavaria

In the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, Bavaria beer also tried a similar tactic, making orange trousers the cult outfit by giving bright orange coloured lederhosen to Dutch football fans.  FIFA officials were not impressed and fans of the Netherlands were made to remove Bavaria Brewery’s orange trousers because Budweiser was the official beer sponsor. In one of the most surreal experiences reported, the stadium officials in Stuttgart made the supporters remove their Bavaria branded attire – leaving many to watch the game in their underpants!

I wonder why they didn’t get the women this year to remove their dresses instead of arresting them?

Ambush Highlights

Here are some notable events over the past years and Brands that embarked on Ambush Marketing techniques to get themselves noticed. Highlights include:

• 1984 Olympics – Kodak sponsors TV broadcasts of the Olympic Games as well as the US track team despite Fujifilm being the official sponsor.
• 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona – Nike sponsors press conferences with the US basketball team however Reebok were the official sponsor. During televised events and ceremonies the players covered up their Reebok logos.
• One of the greatest ambush marketing stunts of all time is when Nike ambassador Michael Jordan, Mr Air Sponsorship himself, accepts the gold medal for basketball and covers up the Reebok logo on his shirt.
• In the 1996 Atlanta Olympics; sprinter Linford Christie wore contact lenses embossed with the Puma logo at the press conference preceding the 100 metres final. Reebok was the official sponsor of the game. How much Christie was paid for this is unknown.
• During the 1996 Cricket World Cup – Pepsi ran a series of advertisements titled “nothing official about it”, whilst it was not directly attributable the message was covertly targeting the official sponsor Coca Cola – very clever.
• In 2000 Sydney Olympics – Qantas Airlines’ slogan “The Spirit of Australia” sounds strikingly similar to the Games’ slogan “Share the Spirit.” despite Ansett Air being the official sponsor.
• In 2008 Beijing Olympics – entire countries were tuned into the Opening Ceremonies, and worldwide, millions more saw former Olympic gymnast Li Ning light the torch and learned that he owns a shoe company with the same name, a direct rival of Adidas and quite famous in China, but not an official Olympic sponsor.
• 2010 Super Bowl XLIV – Canadian gay dating site ManCrunch is accused of ambush marketing when it submits a controversial advertisement to CBS for air during the game. The theory is that ManCrunch produced the ad knowing that it would never be accepted and hoped the controversy would drum up the intended attention without having to pay the nearly US$3,000,000 price for an advertisement during the game.

Of course we took Fabio’s call seriously, but due to a last minute project involving Unicorn Media and global media giant IMG world to produce a video skin for a world cup news player, Henry had to tell him to take Michael Dawson.

The project Unicorn approached us with sounded really interesting, an opportunity too good to pass up. They had developed a player which would carry video advertising before and after world cup news reports produced by IMGs network of sports journalists. It worked perfectly but needed some creative input to make the interface seem as polished as the reports being beamed from South Africa.

This is where Zeta got involved. Unicorn had seen the quality of work we are capable of since they host the main video on www.ecoffee.co.uk and we were more than happy to be involved in the biggest show on earth, so we set to work.

With sites like www.independent.co.uk and www.nuts.co.uk ready to offer space to the 2010 world cup news player we set about turning the project around on schedule. Working with Unicorn’s developers couldn’t have gone better and a solution was in place a mere 48 hours after the project had begun.

If you want to keep up-to-date with all the latest football news from around the rainbow nation here’s some sites where you can find the world cup news player:

www.independent.co.uk/sport/
www.nuts.co.uk/worldcup
www.soccerlens.com
therepublikofmancunia.com
tottenhamblog.com
arsenalfcblog.com
overthebluemoon.net
trulyreds.com
thechelseablog.org
anfieldred.co.uk
soccerlens.com
manutdtalk.com
footballfantalk.com
football-talk.co.uk