Gamification of dieting? Points mean prizes, not.

The whole world seems to be obsessed with gamification these days. Is there nothing advertisers/marketing gurus can’t apply the principle to? Apparently not. I heard an ad on the radio yesterday on my way to work which informed me that the chirpy, happy lady on the Weight Watchers programme was now not joining Weight Watchers or “doing” Weight Watchers but are “playing” Weight Watchers”.

I get it. Let’s make this challenging and fun instead of challenging and difficult. Let’s use the ideas that already exist – points and treats – to create a game like feeling. But
I’ll be gobsmacked if this approach makes any difference to either numbers signing up or numbers succeeding in the programme. Why? Because it’s just a reskin so there is no new news to inspire joining, the play element is just a word change. There are no new apps, content and information.

Facebook Timeline goes global

So we have been told. The new Facebook timeline will become mandatory in the next couple of months. I am particularly pleased about this because I was talking with a client only this morning, recommending ways to work with the timeline and advocating that we do something fun with it. Now it’s no longer optional I just have more grist to my fun-mill.

I like the timeline, it makes the experience of using Facebook more visual, more personalisable, far more interesting and engageable. And I’m someone who loves their words more than their pictures.

I am most interested to see how it translates to mobile, if at all. That and the explosion of creativity that’s going to surround the cover image. That could make a tumblr all on its own.

Beautiful installation at Osaka station

This is a beautiful and useful installation. All physical experiences have the potential to combine the two, but too often clients want one or the other. It’s our job as agencies to ensure that our physical work is both delightful and purposeful and in this way we will bring real value to our clients and to the audience.

A collection of predictions for 2012

I have been mulling over what I might usefully write at the turning of the year. I feel the need to mark the completely arbitrary distinction between 31st December and 1st January in some way. And the easiest thing would be to prepare some predictions for you to display my foresight and unbelievable genius. And my talent for sarcasm.

The fascination with making predictions about what the coming year will deliver online/in social/on mobile is a bit like the prediction frenzy that goes on in women’s magazines. Not so, you say. We base our predictions on understanding of the market, new developments we know about and our own razor sharp insight, you say. Hmmm. Who remembers the predictions around the Year of the Mobile? 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005…

And what about the various woolly predictions from last year? Here is one I read about Google+, and I kid you not,

“Someone will do something interesting with Google+”

Well strictly speaking there’s no way you could fail on that one. The writer didn’t say they were related to Mystic Meg…

Anyway – rather than attempt predictions of my own I thought I’d point you at some interesting ones on a variety of topics. If nothing else maybe you’ll get a laugh. Happy New Year!

What 2012 holds for social media on thenextweb
5 predictions for the Chinese mobile market in 2012 on Forbes
Online video predictions for  2012 from ReelSEO plus some good tips and info on searching and marketing on YouTube
*&%@#! and Other Ads Trends for 2012 from The Wall Street Journal
9 Facebook predictions for 2012 that don’t suck from NorthSocial

And finally, almost as accurate and certainly more amusing

What does the year of the Dragon hold for you? from gotohoroscope
Mystic Meg’s money predictions for 2012 from The Sun
Gung hay  fat choy! (phonetic chinese)