Operation Tourneo in Geneva Old Town

Imagination’s Team Tourneo have been popping up around Geneva to spread the word about the new Tourneo. It’s been great fun to work on and I think you’ll agree the acrobats are impressive!

Strange goings on in Geneva…

Twitter and Vine

So, as we all know, twitter has purchased Vine, the 7 second film creation app. Cue a slew of brand discussions about “how we can use Vine” . Not surprising. And not surprising either that twitter bought Vine in the first place. After all, twitter is the home of short form content, so short form visual content just makes sense.

It also makes sense when you consider that tweets with content associated are retweeted more than tweets that are not while tweets with infographics (the ultimate short form!) receive 832% more retweets than normal articles and images. (Well, the ones on Bitrebels do anyway).

It’s also good to see twitter doing something to take them to a new level. Weibo, the Chinese equivalent(copy/clone), of twitter has evolved way past its 140 character origins to include all sorts of longer form content and as a result it’s incredibly engaging, dynamic and popular. In fact, having played about with Weibo a bit (via a Chinese friend – I’m good but I’m not that good!) I think Weibo is more engaging than twitter.  If Weibo follows the lead of Tencent which is pursuing an aggressive overseas expansion policy via its free chat app, WeChat , the twitter will have to look to its guns. But with properties like Vine under its belt it seems to be moving towards a more content reach space. And that can only make it a more social and entertaining space for the likes of us.

For some great examples of Vine in use check out the following:-

 

Calvin Klein had actually prepared a whole evening of Vine entertainment with model Matthew Terry
However, when the lights went out they tweeted this image of him doing sit ups. Great use of the moment.

285 Retweets and 121 favourites
Vs
Average of 30 retweets and 13 favourites for the other films they loaded up

 Mr Porter shows a clip of their show, but rather than it just being about models, it demonstrates some technology they were using at the show too. Which is very nice experiential technology based on the insight that actually you would rather the models walk more slowly to let you actually see what they are wearing!

And for some non-twitter related Vine fun check out http://www.vine-comic.com

 

 

Socialising the Internet of Things at New York Social Media Week

Some of my Imagination colleagues have been over in NY for Social Media Week. Jealous, moi?

They took the model we developed over here for Social Media Week in September 2012 stateside to our NY office.

Great speakers at the event and a nice piece from Alex T about whether the internet of things will compromise our ability to lie…

Nah. (But am I lying? follow this link to find out.)

Some mind candy for the New Year

Here are some fun and interesting things I noted recently that I thought you might enjoy:-

Digipills - download an app with a hypnotherapy basis to help you deal with what ails you. No I haven’t tried any yet but based on how my first week of 2013 is shaping up…

 

 

Ingress - A new game from Google in Beta at the moment requires you to choose to either fight or embrace a mysterious, intelligent data that seems to have the power to control human thought. Use your phone to reveal the portals where this stuff leaks into our world and group together to solve the game. I have just started playing and I’m off on a “training mission” at lunch time to find my first portal. Brilliant, nothing’s better than a game and one that uses social and mobile is the bestest.

Social gaming does not pass Go – Ok so that’s an exaggeration but in the spirit of The Sun I thought it might get your attention. Zynga the social gaming giant has closed 11 games including Petville and Fishville – yes Zynga are the evil geniuses behind Farmville. They still have 30 games left so it’s not the end of the world for them, but it is for the gamers who have pumped their money, time and emotion into these games.

Ford Fiesta Studio

Our latest report from Paris 2012 is the Fiesta studio.

Things, films and going live in social – Part 2 Killa Kela

As you know, t’s been all go for social media at work recently. Not least because in around 2 weeks flat we filmed edited and launched a film with the sounds of Killa Kela,the beatboxer, and the Focus ST.

Why a beatboxer with an ST?  Well, cars lend themselves so well to videos of “hooning” beauty shots and the engine revving. But this car has a special “sound symposer” that has been developed from Mustang technology so you can see why we’d want to make a feature out of that. And then of course there is the target audience magic that has to be applied which makes Killa Kela’s vocal stylings a perfect match to demonstrate precision and power.

Enough of the strategy stuff already. It’s a great film! Hope you enjoy it. And of course, if you do please don’t feel backward about coming forward to share it!