What we do

We work with entertainment brands, and brands that use entertainment as part of their brand strategy.

• Entertainment brands such as Paramount Pictures, the BBC, Sony and Warner Music own and distribute content. They call on us to engage audiences with that content, sharing and spreading the desire to see a feature film, TV series, or to buy a game or album. We also create insight, helping them shape their businesses and content.
• Brands such as Triumph Motorcycles, JVC and Gilette have identified entertainment as part of their brand strategy. They use sharable entertainment to build loyalty, reach new customers, and create brand positioning. They call on us to create awesome entertainment experiences that will be spread and shared.

And that’s what we do. It’s simple. And we know it works. Want to know more? Give Ness a call on 0845 680 1220.

For agencies, our sister company Viral Ad Network has put together a handy guide in four parts:
- why to commission a video
- how to do it
- how to set and manage expectations with your client
- how to grow the idea further and create an ongoing video strategy

If you’re thinking about commissioning awesome online film and video we can help…give Nessa or Katrina a bell on 0845 680 1220 We love this stuff.

That’s a neat summary of how too much information can accidentally destroyed the mystique of something. It happened to me recently with the song Solsbury Hill. I just wanted to fit the song into a narrative of ‘I live close to Bath and would like to go to Solsbury Hill’. A quick wikipedia visit gave me way too much backstory, and know I now what the song is about. Previously I made up my own interpretation. Frankly my interpretation was more fun

It’s not all one way though. I like knowing the backstory to Iggy Pop’s The Passenger. Maybe it’s because I’ve ridden around Berlin on the S-Bahn at night. Connecting the narrative to my narrative maybe makes it more resonant – for me.

This post is about transmedia, but I don’t have a pithy planning insight to share All I can tell you here is that extending a narrative has a really strong emotional impact. We live with these fictional narratives in our thoughts, in our hearts, flowing through the narratives of our own lives. It’s simple to extend this for the better. But how should we go about it?

Information sucks the joy out of some things. Sure, I love that I can find this stuff on wikipedia. No argument there. And it’s informative to know more about Peter Gabriel. I even learnt a few small things about myself.

Sometimes it’s better to be less and informed and more wonderous

‘New’ is addictive. Here’s some stuff that’s not new. Don’t matter though, try em anyway.

I should just fricking put these links on Twitter where they belong instead of saving them up to try and add some useful insight. Whatever.

1. Faris Yakob and some other blokes talk about interesting stuff in 2008. Seems a long time ago now. Still, nobody knew anything then, nobody knows anything now. If anybody does know, send me a postcard, ta. And if you don’t know (and nobody does), give it some interesting chat instead.

2. BJ Fogg on Simplicity. If I say more, you won’t bother clicking. Then you’ll miss out. Go on, click. It’s worth it

3. Five ways to ruin your industry reputation. Seems pretty retro and obvious, now right? Surely everyone knows Facebook is for baby pictures and debauchery; business networking is for linkedin and twitter. Or do they? And who’s ‘everyone’ anyway. Get ‘everyone’ to send me a postcard, see how many I get.

4. John Kay. If you don’t like learning about business and economics at all, well, whatever. If you do like business and economics and you don’t like reading John Kay, you’re just wrong, and I’ll fight you. Unless you are (a) bigger than me, or (b) better at fighting than me or (c) nah.

5. “Viral marketing may also be limited by the virtue that most people are actually only talking to small groups of people online.” HP Labs research from 2008. So talk to lots of small groups, right? Or – get this – make sure you start a conversation with one person, repeat that n times. Don’t just arrogantly broadcast your views out at people…hmm. Irony fail. Kzzzpttt. [end]

-’meta’ posts (like this one). These are about the practice of blogging / tweeting / sharing itself. How it’s done, how to do it well, the tools, the top tips.
- agency culture stuff: ‘who are these people?’, ‘what do they think?’
- memes: stuff that’s getting shared, inspiring work

These can all be great: good value, enthusiastic, passionate and insightful….but some of us have a little monkey on our shoulder, and the monkey whispers “I’m worried about navel gazing”.

Two things I’d like to see more of:
- advice that clients can just follow. How to commission better, how to measure value, what’s better done in-house, and what should go to an agency.
- stuff about people and the world. Thinking. Insight.

These do get shared, but I reckon there’s room for more of it. Surprise me, astound me, bring me things I don’t already know (‘cos people want to laugh and people want to learn).

Anyway, me and Adam and Ally got to talking about it – does it apply to advertising?

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What’s Postr?

For being the first, I sent Tim a Postr two-fer

How does it work?
I write something interesting and useful on a 2″ sticky note and send it to you by post. Character limit: whatever fits (not a lot, unless I write teeny-tiny).

Coming soon:
- Postr Pro – uses Royal Mail Special Delivery, guaranteed before 12pm next day.
- Postr Mobile – using pigeons.
- Postr Lite – smaller sticky notes, and I don’t bother mailing them to you. I just write them, then put them in the shredder.
- Postr API – allows you to slice and dice postr for mashups, archiving, integration with other services etc. To get started, signup for our developer kit (developer kit contains scissors, tape, pritstick).

Postr is currently in private beta. To signup, send a stamped self-adddressed envelope (SAE) to ‘Postr’, 35 King Street, Bristol, BS1 4DZ.

Latest feature: ‘repost’. Share *my* thoughts with *your* friends. Simply pop the sticky note in a new envelope and send it to the friend of your choice. Want to send it to more than one person? Ask the first one to pass it on when they’re done.

(If you’re interested in the details, it basically creates the effect of a tilt-shift lens, but in the camera’s software. It looks cool).

So what happens when I take pictures of tiny toys with diorama mode? I have on my desk a whole load of Bruder Key Ring toys. These are awesome little trucks and construction equipment from Bruder – a really nice toy company based in Germany.

“These little keyrings are great, well made, detailed and seem quite substantial for there size.”

– Amazon review.

I wonder how Bruder could make more of social media – sharing, talking, recommending. They’ve certainly got me talking about them. They have a facebook group, but I’m sure more is possible

Meanwhile….pictures! The abilities of the Olympus PEN 2 are impressive – these vehicles are about as long as my thumb and these shots were taken from a couple of inches distance.