Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In response to client interest, we’ve started running cross platform TV workshops, looking at how to create online components of TV shows, and market those programmes socially / virally online in elegant and cost effective ways.

We tailor these days for the specific production company or broadcaster in question, but a standard approach might be a 1 day workshop in which two or three of our team come to your offices and work with your team.

Process:

The Social Web: We give your key team a 1 hour “crash course” in how the social web works, from blogs, to forums, to YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. And then explain how these elements come together to allow audiences to explore their interests, discover content and share it.

Worked examples: We pick 2 or 3 example shows from your slate, and look at what you’ve been doing, what you want to achieve, and how from our experience of the web, and your experience of TV, it might be possible to get there. We particularly focus on the specific challenges of your shows, and on how these shows might fit with the “social web” discussed in the first session.

Ideas banquet: We work with your team to brainstorm ideas for audience engagement with your shows, either during TX (as cross platform content) or before launch (as attention grabbing marketing). These will be top line ideas, but they might be useable, or give ideas for things to explore more in future.

Summary: We then wrap up and summarise all of what we’ve discussed in a snappy report which we send to your team after we’ve left.

We can either run this workshop for your whole team at once, or if they can’t spare a whole day, we can take the groups around each show or channel for a few hours at a time.

We’ve run workshops for companies including BBC Comedy & Paramount Pictures.

We’ve also worked to create and seed content for Endemol, Marvel films, Channel 4 & Tigress Productions.

If a workshop day interests you drop Lottie a line at Lottie@RubberRepublic.com

If you happened to be in or around Trafalgar Square early this morning you may have noticed an enormous glowing sun suspended underneath Nelson’s column.

Installation artists Greyworld created #TraflagarSun as part of Tropicana’s ‘Brighter Mornings’ campaign.

On Instagr.am and Twitter #TrafalgarSun has been trending all morning. Flickr is filling up with some stunning pics (sadly none of them mine). And our friends at Freud will be uploading a video to YouTube very soon which will do the installation far better justice than my first attempt at time-lapse (though the iPhone app is pretty cool).

The Trafalgar ‘sun’ has a brightness of 4 million lumens and will bring some summer warmth to those who near enough to enjoy it, including the overnight queues for the final days of Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the National.

But if art and sunshine aren’t enough to get you down to Trafalgar Square today, Tropicana are also giving away loads of free juice which you can enjoy in one of their deck chairs : )

London date: Mon Feb 13th – the start of Social Media Week

and a special Manchester #KC in Feb too (date tbc)

Expect the usual *viral shenanigans*, further *meme-battling* and free beer courtesy of VAN

To get (free) tickets, check the following Eventbrite for London

http://kittencamplondonfeb.eventbrite.com/

and keep a look out for news on the Manchester event

Get involved: suggestions for the best memes you’ve seen recently to #KittenCamp

@rubber_republic

@ViralAdNetwork

Kaythxbai

Here’s a quick round up of some of our top clips:

You might have seen Fenton, the slightly over enthusiastic dog terrorising deer in the park. With nearly 4 million views online the naughty little mutt has become an overnight YouTube sensation, fans can even order their very own Fenton T-shirts! Now there’s now a ton of hilarious Fenton mashup clips circulating the net, this is one of our favourites…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ok, so apparently the latest craze to follow on from planking is Batmanning – cue the Batman themed spin off clips…

Big thanks to everyone who made it along to the party and all our #KittenCamp regulars, plus a special shout out to all the folks who came in meme costumes, we loved them! Look out for more viral mayhem in London and Manchester soon!

Here’s what had us lolling.

Ugly Renaissance Babies

Kim Jong Il dropping the Bass

Texts From Bennett

Photoshop Looter

Accidental Chinese Hipsters

Things Real People Don’t Say about Advertising

Animals Being Dicks

Literally Unbelievable

Kitten Camp

‘Race Against Time’ isn’t Tate’s first venture into mobile apps. Last year ‘Tate Trumps’ won acclaim from the industry (Media Guardian Awards) and has now had an update in the form of “Tate Trumps Everywhere” which as the name suggests can now be enjoyed anywhere.

You can download ‘Race Against Time’ here

Even Sad Keanu is feeling festive.

In late October we launched a fantastic project from Tigress Productions, Endemol and Rubber Republic for Channel 4. Tigress had created a great show in 2010 called “Life After Death”. The idea was to film a carcass on the plains of Africa, find out who came and had a chomp, and follow the food chain to understand the “Circle of Life”. Kind of like the core concept of The Lion King only with more maggots.

(In case you wondered what that would look like, I’ve visualised it here):

The 2010 show featured this incredible clip which got a decent amount of traffic of its own accord, and while the show was live, twitter lit up with people fascinated by the fairly blunt view of nature at work – rather different than the more edited approach they are used to seeing in more traditional nature programmes.

Click here to view (but not if you’re eating) >>

This organic interest in the first show meant it was an obvious choice for going all “crossplatform” in 2011, so we collaborated with Tigress and Endemol to create an online version of the project; Hippo: Wild Feast LIVE.

Viewers could watch a live stream of the show 24 hours a day (well as it turned out, about 22 hours a day, as the heat between 10am and 12 on the African plains topped 50 degrees C and repeatedly melted some of the kit). A live dashboard kept viewers up to date with temperature and other conditions on the ground, and live updating infographics showed them the percentage of the carcass being devoured by different types of wildlife each day.

Interaction was handled on Twitter allowing viewers to talk directly to the expert members of the shoot team in real time and ask them questions about what they were seeing. A daily diary was posted showing experiments in progress and edited highlight videos were posted to the site and Facebook.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Taking storytelling into new spaces like this by blending traditional techniques and social innovations is an exciting evolution of the work we’ve been doing for Paramount Films and the BBC for the past 3 years.

The biggest thumbs up for this project came from the dwell time. The site had dwell times of 19 minutes 04 seconds (which is all the more impressive given there was a time out on the tracking at 15 minutes which ruled out anyone who loaded the site, then left it untouched in a window for more than 15 minutes). Visitors were not only coming, but staying directly engaged for what in web terms is longer than some newfangled pop stars careers.

The only downside of this project is that it was live, so…rather than show you the mildly broken stony cold lifeless remains of the website, abandoned like a hunk of dead internet thing, here’s a picture of it in its prime:

Check out the video below as Tom explains it better than I could.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve just turned my notes from the recent (and excellent) Vision Bristol creative conference into highlight quotes. It was a great event and hopefully these snippets might prove inspiring:

1: Andrew Keen - gave the opening keynote, and a profound rallying cry for some deep thinking on how we evolve our thinking as we move from the industrial age to the knowledge age.

“In the digital age, ironically, the physical space becomes more valuable not less. It compounds the value of physical location. Hence the concentration of talent in silicon valley etc.”

“The intimacy the Internet offers is a trick. It’s not lasting and it’s bound up in the cause and effect of loneliness in the modern world.”

“To maintain our humanism, we need to have the courage to withdraw from the network and rediscover our private lives. That is the new courage. Going with the flow of this new norm of radical transparency and narcissism is easy. It takes courage to find the balance. Although we need to build our brand in the digital age, we need to build in time for our private lives.”

2: Steve Henry – spoke about “Innovation in Creativity”:

“Break the rules”

“Do that in a way that connects emotionally with your audience”

“Think of what would no-one else do? What do you think would be unique and different.”

“And put some of yourself into it. Make yourself vulnerable.”

3: John Grant (from Ecoinomy)- on sustainability and innovation:

“How to inspire change? One scheme tried putting a light in people’s kitchens showing energy grid overload and people started using high energy devices when it was off just by being nice. They saw a 12% shift away from peak hour use.”

“I loved the Toyota Sweden “A glass of water” iPhone app. Put a glass of water on your dashboard. Tell drivers that if they don’t spill it they’re driving economically. They then converted this idea to an iPhone app to prevent wet dashboards.”

3: TV Convergence:

Jen Topping: Channel 4:

“The Internet bomb for tv world hasn’t gone off yet. Convergence of computer and tv, which is coming soon, is that bomb.”

“So we’re thinking how does tv look on an Internet enabled tv?We’re spending 2 million this year on research into this question.”

“Digital co’s need to learn to be originators not service co to make this work.”

People are the media (ie remember the human aspect of what you’re doing)

Gestalt: be different (so that you aren’t part of the 90% who never get heard at all)

Opinion formers multiply your budget and lead to virality

Clarity in clarity out.

I’m currently reading Dave Trott’s excellent book “Creative Mischief” which is a stunning and insightful read.

There were plenty more. It was a fantastic conference, and great work to @DSloly for programming the speakers, and the rest of the team for a fantastic event.

On Friday we launched our second project made for Endemol and Channel 4. The Bank Job is a new cross platform game show.

A head to head quiz played in a bank vault, the show is innovative in that all contestants on the TV show need to have won at least two games of the exact same head to head quiz played live against other real people on the internet.

The idea is that the TV show will be all the more exciting, as the contestants will know exactly what they’re doing, having already proved their mettle in order to get to the application form.

Click here to view site >>

Its surprisingly addictive, fueled by the fact you’re playing against real people. Its been a relatively complex build, but I found myself screaming for a chat window to shout “take that you cad!” when I got one right, and to er….sheepishly say nothing in when I was roundly beaten twice in a row.

Take a look!

Check the site out here >>

..or jump directly to the game here >>

(Site built by Rubber Republic. Game built by Chunk Games. Live game: Monterosa. Production company: Endemol. Commissioner: Channel 4. Thanks to Thought Den for cracking coding support.)