Archive for May, 2008

I feel like I once heard or read somewhere that one of the most excruciating sounds for the human brain was that of their name being mispronounced.

This is pretty interesting seeing that our names are one of the first elements of our identity that we are given. Before we are tall enough to even look into a bathroom mirror and see what we look like, we associate the sound of our names with our sense of self.

The question, then, is what does this visual counterpart look like?
How about this, for example:

or

As a Giants fan, such as myself, I can tell you that this is NOT okay. Hit me up sometime, I’ll explain.

But this got me thinking about intentional “misBranding”…and how effective a strategy it is. It causes us to do a doubletake at logos and brands that have become embedded in our subconscious, we absorb them through our periphery, both visually and consciously. And then I came across the following (thanks TechnoGad for the Random Pic of the Week), which should hammer the point home:

Okay, so it’s not visually repulsive…well, the Mac “Finder” logo with “Microsoft” written underneath comes close…but I think serves to prove the point that not only have logos and branding become embedded in our subconscious, but so too have their products/corporate philosophy. Had the “Microsoft” simply been replaced with some company name that we’d never heard of, sure it’d look out of place, but for me the visceral reaction of conflict stems from knowing Microsoft and Mac are polar opposites. Same for the Adobe logo (1st column/3rd down) and Apple text. Or the revamped I Heart NY/Sony logo (IMO the most clever misbrand). Here a Japanese manufacturer of technology meets blue-collar patriotism for tourists. Wha-huh? Unless the “heart” were to be replaced by the letter “U”…SUNY…in which case it still would be a damn clever logo for the State University of New York. However, I get the feeling that the designers of these misbrands weren’t quite aiming for D&AD awards so much as eliciting that feeling of “something’s really wrong here”….

like…a Giants hat branded as that of the LA Dodgers or Oakland A’s.

Alanis Morrissette, take note, THAT is “ironic”.

Today’s post is about incredible marketing devices that are literally at each of our fingertips…

Daft Punk: “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”
One guy + One Sharpie + One camera + Two hands + Hours of practice= 19.8 MILLION hits and several spinoffs. Take that Rick Roll.

The following video is another hand-based concept, also clever in its minimalist design, yet contains subtle nuances of complicated, well thought out transitions (and a large, looming shadow of plagiarism possibly lingering overhead…but more on that later)

The HTC Diamond is one of many responses to the iPhone that are about to surface on the market, if they haven’t done so already. The challenge with marketing this particular product is getting people excited about touchscreen phones…not an easy task considering that Apple blew that challenge out of the water—A YEAR AGO. Microsoft has encountered the same challenge in marketing their portable music player, Zune. How do you try to appear like your product is a worthy adversary when your opponent (the iPod) threw a knockout punch before you even realized the bell rung??
Well, the fine folks at 180Amsterdam wisely avoided trying to “wow” their audience by highlighting an interface that, quite simply, directly mirrors that of the iPhone. By creating this dreamscape of fingertips scrolling through various settings, they’ve refocused their marketing effort to identify with their audience’s sense of escapism/day-dreaming.

Whereas the genre of Apple ads seem to steamroll their viewers under texture-drenched hyperdesigns and a score of hip tracks that scream “this is what your imagination SHOULD look and sound like if it were progressive, trendy and design-savvy,” this HTC spot strives to say “slow down! technology is a means, not an end. It’s here to respond to and be a vehicle for your imagination.”

Unfortunately, it seems someone else said it in the exact same way first (for a different purpose.) – courtesy of Motionographer

In fact, the final shot of the HTC spot is eerily reminiscent of the iPhone ads where the iPhone rings and the hand exits frame left to answer the phone call (revealing the logo).
But we’ll save my two cents on the boundaries between appropriation and plagiarism for a later post.

Not many companies have the brand to pull off a commercial based on the infamous walk of shame. However, BBDO New York felt their client AMP Energy Drink would bite on this viral/traditional spot. The result is a really funny spot that gets across the idea that AMP will help you “push through the day.”

The folks over at TV Week have an interesting web video on the cost to produce web video (I wonder what it cost to produce their web video…).

Keep in mind that the numbers thrown out in this series have to do with “narrative” style programs (like a traditional TV program), so don’t let them scare you away from producing web video for your company, product or service! When the program is a narrator on a background (such as the one you’re about to watch below), it can be produced for considerably less than what TV Week quotes.

As a matter of fact, Groovy has an economical web video package to get you started in online content. If you’d like information about that package, contact us!

Even though I’m pretty flip at times here on the site, I can occasionally put out some relevant writing.

For proof, go take a look at bizSanDiego for an article about how multimedia can actually improve your bottom line.

Just to show my personality, I’m glad the choose that particular picture!

By Elyse the Great Molina

Hello, all! Since it is film festival season (CANNES!), I decided to see what other film fests are out there. While searching around imdb.com at current film festivals, I discovered that there are a lot of interesting ones. I thought I would share my findings with you! Enjoy.

The International One-Minute Film Festival (online)
http://www.filminute.com/

Docufest Atlanta (Atlanta, Georgia)
http://www.docufest.com/

Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival (Austin, Texas)
http://stage.agliff.org/index2.php

San Diego Women’s Film Festival (San Diego, California)
http://www.sdwff.org/home.html

Big Bang Film Festival (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
http://www.bigbangfilmfestival.com/

Intelligent Use of Water Film Festival (Los Angeles, California)
http://iuowfilm.com/

Freak Show Horror Film Festival (Orlando, Florida)
http://www.freakshowfilmfest.com/

Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival (Hong Kong, China)
http://www.hkjewishfilmfest.org/

The Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival (Nevada City, California)
http://www.wildandscenicfilmfestival.org/

The Almost Famous Film Festival (Phoenix, Arizona)
http://www.thea3f.net/

North Texas Sci-Fi Short Film Festival (Irving, Texas)
http://northtexasfilmfest.com/sci-fi/

The “What the hell did I just watch?” Comedy Video Festival (Seattle, Washington)
http://whatthehelldidijustwatch.com/

More festivals can be found at www.imdb.com/festivals

As content creators, we’re very concerned with copyright, and we work closely with all our clients (and potential clients) to be sure they understand what can and can’t be legally used in projects. With the proliferation of sites like YouTube, copyright is becoming one of the key legal issues of this century. The current system needs to be updated to properly reflect the modern era while still protecting content creators and intellectual property owners.

Today, the team at TechCrunch pointed to an interesting site put together by a group of students at MIT called YouTomb. YouTomb is a research project by MIT Free Culture that tracks videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation.

As of right now, YouTomb is monitoring 219,092 videos, and has identified 4395 videos taken down for alleged copyright violation and 13,348 videos taken down for other reasons. Pretty interesting stuff!

Read the article here

Just on a side note, I originally titled this post “headstones for evil videos”, but I thought “evil” wasn’t quite the right word, so I made a trip to my Mac’s thesaurus and I had this list to choose from:

wicked, bad, wrong, immoral, sinful, foul, vile, dishonorable, corrupt, iniquitous, depraved, reprobate, villainous, nefarious, vicious, malicious; malevolent, sinister, demonic, devilish, diabolical, fiendish, dark; monstrous, shocking, despicable, atrocious, heinous, odious, contemptible, horrible, execrable; informal lowdown, dirty

Don’t know why I added this… I just thought all the synonyms for evil were kinda funny.

This new commercial for Nike’s Jordan brand is simple, elegant and very powerful. I’ve now watched this spot 3 times, and it gives me the chills every time. This is a great example of the importance of a good script. Click on the “read more” link below to view the spot.

read more | digg story

I got an email from my friend (and talented VO artist), Jeff Gelder. He did some voice work that got placed on the home page of ESPN. Just another example of local, San Diego-based talent doing great work for large, national audiences.

Congrats Jeff!

This video (found at Good Mom / Bad Mom) shows the power of suggestion, hints and innuendo. By being clever with what you show (or don’t show), you can tell a powerful story.

Or in this case, by being clever with what you hear and don’t hear, you can tell a completely different story from what the original creator intended!

With apologies to my childhood, please enjoy…