Unless you have been living in a dark room with no access to any type of media, social networks or office gossip you’ll probably be aware of the recent super injunction scandal concerning a certain footballer’s indiscretions.

In early April, a story about serial WAG, Imogen Thomas’ six-month affair with a footballer famous for his ‘family-man’ image was leaked via Twitter. Ordinarily a story about yet another footballer having yet another affair with a glamour model would barely raise an eyebrow, so why did this one cause such a stir?

Because the footballer in question had a taken out a super injunction – the highest level of legal gagging order – to ensure Ms Thomas kept her mouth shut and his identity was kept well and truly out of the public domain. This led to a bizarre situation where the national press were legally prohibited from printing the player’s name but social media networks buzzed with speculation. Within days a Twitter user had revealed all: the mystery man was none other than ‘squeaky-clean’ Manchester United star, Ryan Giggs.

Read more…

I have to admit, even though I’m professionally still unsure about Twitter, there are some quite interesting people whom you can follow and get some great updates from. Personal favourites include Jonathan Ross, Stephen Fry and, one that I shouldn’t really admit to, Tori Black!

For guaranteed slices of comic gold, though, you can’t beat the updates by some of the many fake profiles that people have set up on Twitter. Now there are a few fake profiles on Twitter that are just not funny and some that started out funny but haven’t been updated in ages (like this one for George Bush), but the ones I have listed here are wonderfully written and beautifully play upon your perceptions of the person they are pretending to be to give you the odd wry smile and even a few belly laughs.

Read more…

Whilst browsing a gaming news site I came across a little gem of a game that works both as a social experiment and a zombie gore-fest. How? By posing an interesting moral question: In a zombie holocaust would you join the community and fight for the good of the people? Or enjoy the little time you have left at their expense?

Point your browser to www.die2nite.com, sign up and see how long you can survive… in my case, not very long. The basic premise is this: It’s day one and you’re a member of a surviving town, food and water are very limited. You get one water ration per day and must scavenge whatever food you can. You have a limited amount of ‘action points’ a day that you must use to search the zombie-infested wasteland for building materials, or build structures that will benefit the town.

Read more…

As marketers we don’t expect things to stand still. We’re always searching for new trends and ready to try new channels and methods to get our client’s brands out to the consumer market.

Facebook is one of those channels that doesn’t stay still for long. 2010 saw the launch of Facebook Places. Now not far into 2011 and we’ve already seen the launch of Facebook Deals, with the likes of Debenhams, Starbucks and Mazda all jumping straight on the bandwagon. But I think one thing every marketer should be keeping a close eye on over the coming months is the new Facebook Messages.

There has been much speculation since Mark Zuckerburg announced his plans in November 2010, both as to what this means for Facebook users and more importantly for us, how it is going to affect the way we market to them. Some think it won’t make much difference, yet others are heralding it as ‘the end of email’. Whatever your personal opinion or business agenda, it is now gradually being rolled out to all Facebook users, and a few of us at Red C have been testing it out.

Read more…

Ok, I’ll be honest with you. Spending an evening in a bar surrounded by ad-industry types while some bloke dressed as a kitten gives a talk is pretty much not high on my ‘fun things to do on a Tuesday evening list’. But the promise of meeting some advertising-types who have a passion for the web kind peaked my interest when Rubber Republic invited me to attend the first KittenCamp in Manchester.

KittenCamp is a monthly meet-up for web-loving ad industry type people to chat memes and drink beer. Why is it called KittenCamp? Well I made the guess that because meme rhymes with creme that’s how the name came about. Sadly after chatting with Chris Quigley, from KittenCamp organisers Rubber Republic, I found out that actually KittenCamp is just the result of a brainstorm in a pub over a few beers.

Read more…

As fellow marketers it can’t have escaped your attention that the marketing landscape in which we work is changing at an amazing rate.  The way we communicate with our customers isn’t the same as it once was and it is certainly going to continue changing over the forthcoming years.

Traditionally, we have spoken to our customers via direct mail, email, tv, radio and the telephone.  However, due to the boom of social media this one-way communication flow is changing into a more dynamic two-way conversation.

In my view, the major change that has occurred is social media is giving our customers a voice; it’s giving our customer’s power.  So whereas the customer was only able to affect our business through their purchasing behaviour they can now have the power to influence our future by what they say about our brand, product and service offering.  However, although these are undoubtedly exciting times they are times that should be treated with caution as we have very little control as to what our customers say about us and we have even less control over who they speak to.

Read more…

Last year, like many brands and organisations, London Fashion Week flirted with Social Media by having event details, links to stories and comments posted on Twitter and Facebook… so far so very 2009!

This year, though, sees London Fashion Week take a great leap forward by embracing even more Social Media technologies and making London Fashion Week open to the masses rather than the privileged few… and they’ve done it in some predictable and also some surprising ways.

Read more…

Ever had a cheese, jam and Nice ‘n’ Spicy Nik Naks sandwich? Sounds disgusting? How do you know if you’ve not tasted it? I mean you like cheese don’t you? You like jam don’t you? And everyone loves Nice ‘n’ Spicy Nik Naks… so what’s the problem! Are you not curious as to what it might taste like?

Being curious about everything is essential if you want to be anything better than just a good Creative. Back when I was 17 I loved cheese, jam and Nice ‘n’ Spicy Nik Naks sandwiches… I also read an Encyclopedia from cover to cover and in my early twenties I happily listened as my best friend (who’s an incredibly bright bloke) explained Cosmology to me… all because one day I knew this stuff would be useful.

Read more…

I stumbled upon a book recently which I simply had to buy for the sheer inventiveness of the images inside it. Mixing sharp humour with a delicious edge of melancholy, ‘Little people in the city’ brings together the collected photographs of Slinkachu, a street artist who for several years has been leaving little people in the bustling city to fend for themselves, waiting to be discovered.

Flicking through the pages of this book is like discovering a whole new miniature world around us… think Land Of The Giants meets the Borrowers in the modern world. As you see page after page of these miniature statues going about their daily lives, whitewashing graffiti and moving into new homes… you really do get the sense that there could actually be miniature people living amongst us.

Read more…