Twitter, revisited

Currently, following people is the true extent of my Twitter use. But Ian Schafer makes a convincing argument of how for certain conversations Twitter is more effective than email or instant messaging.
read it here

Consumer Generated Movie

This contest is run by Paulo Coelho, the author of a book called," The Witches of Portobello," which is told from multiple perspectives. This consumer generated contest is unique in that he asks his readership to choose a character from the book and film the segment of the book in which that character is the narrator; theres 15 in total. The winning segments are professionally edited and the film is told from the multiple perspectives. The entire movie will then be submitted to film festivals.

Another interesting aspect of this is contest is that Coelho attracts the specific talent he's looking for by hosting his contest strictly through the social network MySpace. Here he asks the users to enter the contest by uploading their work through their MySpace account. The music for the feature film, is also via MySpace inviting musicians from this venue to enter their work for some notriety and a paid fee of 1500.00 euros.

I think this contest lends itself well to being consumer generated in that it will actually be told by many different voices and the fact that he draws his talent from a social network makes it feel more authentic or home grown.

Companies are realizing that to build their brands, they need to build relationships

In the dark days of advertsing--in the pre-interent ages, brands were able to prosper on the inabilty of people to get information. The only things consumers had to go on were
logos, spokespersons and slogans.

With the limitless access to information the power is now back into the consumers hands and brands like Zappos and Google are making decisions to invest in consumers over advertising. Havas Media Lab director and London economist Umair Haque on Harvard Business Online writes," Google is a living example of a deeper truth: The future of communications as advantage lies in talking less and listening more."

read the Adweek article here

Arby's tries their hand at Social Media

Arby's first crack at leveraging social media involves a video contest and facebook app. The winner becomes the next member of Arby’s Rescue Brigade whose sole mission is to save the world from ordinary fast food.The Facebook app lets you send virtual Arby's menu items to friends.



via AdFreak

Coke's alter ego

Coke's new facebook app, is CGC done right.

Posters that talk

The concept aptly named," Giving Everyone A Voice" is a United Nations awareness initiative for people whose "plight normally goes unseen and unheard."
A campaign which engaged users by leveraging some amazing mobile phone and digital image recognition technologies, posters with images of faces instructed people to,“Photograph my mouth with your mobile. Send it to 0428 641 658. Within a few minutes your mobile will ring and you’ll hear my story.”

All in all, there was no better way to make this emotional connection then hearing the stories first hand. This campaign also had a natural ability to segue into the online space where the original seven voices sparked numerous if not thousands of conversations.
via the inspiration room

Tampon Crafts

Tampon Crafts
How not to do C.G.C.