You might want to go to youtube and check out more of this guy’s videos.
As you can imagine he got a tone of responses and now he’s starting a video crusade to prove his point and to continue the conversation.

I believe we are causing global warming and that we need to act on it so I will love to watch how this guy’s saga turns out…

OK, it’s been a long time since my last post, mainly because I started a new job as the digital strategist at FRANk media. The first thing that I’ve done was to start the FRANk blog and I’m thinking about keeping digital underwear as my personal blog.
I believe working at FRANk will be lots of fun - it’s a small and friendly crew, just off Greville st. in Prahran - with a great rooftop for having a few drinks.
I will send invites soon, when Melbourne summer is finally here…hmmm…anytime now…

Last night I’ve seen a familiar ad on TV.

It was an ad for “Think TV“, a campaign designed to attract advertisers and convince them to put their money on some good old TV ads.

After thirty seconds of expensive air time, there was the “Call to action” and I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now. The call to action was to visit a link. To a website! On the internet!

I can’t really blame them. There isn’t much brand engagement in passively watching 30 seconds of scripted crap, you can’t show all the important pdf’s you have and you can’t get anyone’s email.

By now, even TV is acknowledging that on the web, engagement, information and measurement are pretty much part of the deal without forking out a small fortune.

In one ad, John Symond from Aussie home loans says: “When we launched Aussie fifteen years ago television was the number one choice”. You’re right on the money Aussie. It was the number one choice fifteen years ago!

The “think TV” ad tells us there is no change to the status quo.

After that, they ask us to visit their website.

In the past I’ve written about Optus and their use of animals in their ads.

I emailed them asking to take steps towards compensation of animals and letting them know about the animal copyright initiative.

Finally, it’s nice to see someone in Optus is thinking/listening.

Here it is straight from Adnews:

Optus secures wildlife deal

As a part of the sponsorship, Optus will provide funding to assist with projects protecting endangered species in their natural habitat, and raise public awareness through the Optus customer network and on a new website.

Although the site is pretty simple and you have to register to play, it’s great to see more brands jumping on this great PR opportunity (and helping animals). I never thought I’ll say that but: nice work Optus.

I just got back from my holiday in Tel-Aviv a few days ago.

I’m telling you, this city never sleeps and you can actually hop your way from bar to bar. (Trust me I tried, you don’t even break sweat in this weather, there’s a bar every 10-15 hops).

It was great catching some family time and some sun (even tried surfing again) but it’s also good to come back to a Melbourne spring and enjoy some spring cleaning.

A couple of months ago OMG.tv started to go through some changes with Keren doing some amazing work for SLCN and I’m going solo as an online creative strategist.

So, if you want to talk about creating some extra ordinary web experiences, we should catch up.

On a more sober note, this month we lost our friend Liam Cody to cancer.
We used to share office space with Liam at E2E4 and he was also part of our Mobile Monday community with his mobile application Earl the monkey. Liam was a funny guy and done some brilliant work both on and off line as part of the Gorskys Comedy act.

Liam made the world a better place and I want to believe another Gorsky was born the day he passed away.

A few months ago Keren started working with one of our friends on a fascinating project.

It’s called SLCN and it’s the Second Life Cable Network broadcasting live from Second Life to the world.

You don’t even have to be in SL to watch it, just go to the website to get the live feeds.

One of their shows is a “what’s on” show called: “That S’Life”.
The presenter Starr Sonic is roaming SL to bring you the most interesting events and things to do twice a week on Mondays and Fridays.

After watching their coverage of the best practices in education conference (read about it here) and the new die hard 4 Q&A session, I believe SLCN are destined to become something huge.

We just moved 100% of OMG.tv’s electricity and gas to be sourced from wind power.

To tell you the truth it has been a long slog to get this done and I wonder how many people who really want to use environmentally safe products will go through the trouble.

It seems many of Origin’s customer service people were not ready to answer questions about these new products. We got more confused with every call and didn’t seem to get any closer to be connected to the service.

But finally after emailing a request on Origin’s website I had a chat with one of the nicest sales people I have ever talked with.

The process was simple and I found out that it doesn’t cost much more (about $40 per month – this goes back into friendly energy infrastructure) and now, it actually feels really good to switch on the light.

It’s a shame that Origin’s TVC (that cost a lot of money) neglects to mention the product they are trying to promote.
Hey, If you’re spending more then 30 seconds talking about children how about saving three seconds towards a call for action? Give me a phone number or at least a product name so I’ll know what to ask for!

Change is something you want to think about - especially if your business is big, organised and professional.

I think one of the reasons big companies change slowly is that no one is in charge of change.

How about creating a new position?

Let’s call it a “Change Agent”.

Get someone new, fresh, not from the organisation.
Someone who’s not involved with the office politics and doesn’t share the corporate mind/frame.

Why should you? Take a look at this presentation:

This presentation is based on a slideshow by Karl Fisch, a Director of Technology at Arapahoe High School.

Presentation design by Jeff Brenman of apolloideas.

I can’t get my head around Optus branding. (Or the lack of)

I wanted to write about the latest ad annoying old style and the arrogant voice over, or about their website being full of black and white poorly designed monkeys - but then I thought about the reason for it all.

Well, as they didn’t change their advertising in the last four years I guess that’s what they know. They feel comfortable with the talking animals so they stick with it.
Being comfortable will damage your chances to achieve amazing results.
Add lack of decision making and you’ll get a faceless, emotionless brand that means nothing to anyone.
What do you think about when someone mention Optus?
I’m thinking: Oh, wait, isn’t that the brand that compares it’s customers to monkeys?

Here is one option: (thanks Techcrunch)