18th September 2015
1) Lots of brands involved with the Rugby World Cup that started yesterday. You will no doubt have seen Jack Whitehall in Samsung’s – School of Rugby series; but O2’s animated campaign has received especial praise by including and engaging with women and children – audiences traditionally ignored in much sports advertising. Echoes of the children’s story The Big Friendly Giant, here?
2) Two pieces pieces on Creativity in a digital world The importance of Keeping Work Weird and a great interview with Moby – ‘In the olden days of 30 or 40 years ago people didn’t just make things, so people would go to photography exhibitions, they would go buy records, and there were professional artists…Because in the old days you’d think “woah these people who made a record I have no idea how they did that” and now someone listens to music and thinks to themselves ‘Oh, they use the same software I have.’
3) We have all heard that the Dark Web is a fruitful field for narcotics transactions – Ross Ulbricht was recently sentenced to life imprisonment for running the Silk Road website ; but have you ever wondered why this territory is so fertile for this trade? Well, here is the user-friendly way to be a little drug lord: economic secrets of the dark web.
4) Lots of talk recently about adblocking and the impact on advertisers and agencies. Seems that ,surprisingly, they are not worried. ‘…most brands still just care about hitting numbers, so if impression goals are hit and there’s a decent-enough CPM, they probably won’t notice.’
However, the very real victims in the battle between Ads (Google) and mobile browsers (Apple) will be small independent publishers that can’t invest in proprietary platform distribution, native advertising, and the type of media wining-and-dining it takes to secure favourable distribution deals on proprietary platforms. ‘It is going to be a bloodbath of independent media’
5) The Sharing Economy is Dead. It appears that start-ups had not taken the apathetic nature of people’s characters into account – Most of these (sharing) platforms soon discovered a discomforting incongruity between enthusiasm for the concept and actual use. ‘Everybody loved the idea. It was like, Oh, this is great. I would love to use it, …’Then I launched the thing, and it was super-slow adoption.’
6) Facebook are launching a dislike button? That should be fun. Here are suggestions for 17 other buttons that Facebook should provide ‘Keep it to Yourself‘ looks like a goodie.
7) What emails reveal about who’s on top – and on the bottom – at work.
8) Don’t we have too many photographs in the world already….? Interesting idea from Camera Restricta – a speculative camera design by Philipp Schmitt that won’t allow you to take photos if too many have already been taken by others at that location.
9) We don’t normally do politics on this newsletter. But I thought this would come in rather handy. A simple quiz to decide whether you do, or do not like Jeremy Corbyn.
10) Clever. This is not a video of two large trucks driving through the forest. You think it is …until you come face to face with a gigantic cat.