In the unlikely event that you’ve missed the coverage of Nivea’s amazing sun care advertising campaign, here’s a reminder of just how blooming clever it is.

It featured an ad that ran in a Brazilian magazine promoting Nivea’s sun care range. The ad also included a solar powered mobile phone charger – suggesting that readers could bake in the sun, safely protected by Nivea sunscreen, while their mobile phones charged up.

Created by Giovanni+Draftfcb, it really ticks all the boxes for great advertising. It has talkability, obviously; it’s as far from being an ‘interruption’ as possible, in fact consumers will seek it out; the brand synergies are perfect; and it gave the agency a legitimate excuse to create a film explaining the campaign that features young women in bikinis. A film which is being watched and shared far beyond the reach of the original ad.

Might as well get in now with the rash prediction: if this campaign doesn’t scoop every international award going, including a few for which it isn’t even eligible, then I’ll eat my (sun)hat. Read More »

Consumer resistance to Google’s Project Glass will last “six months to a year”, according to mobile agency Somo’s global innovation director, Maani Safa.

In the video below, Saafa describes how previous technologies have suffered “people reacting a little bit cold” to them before the technology hits the mainstream, up to a year later.

Previewing the new, prototype product, which featured in last year’s New York Fashion Week, for Marketing, Matt Chapman, senior reporter, comments: “I was cynical at first but I can really see there might be a place for this”.

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I am about to start a new business venture, or to be more precise, I am going to re-launch a niche branded product, that I first put my heart and soul into in the 90s. Way back then I designed, commissioned the manufacture of, packaged, promoted and then sold this ‘niche product’ reasonably successfully in a number of retail stores and via mail order. All of this was done on a shoestring. This time around however I’m hoping for and expecting a better commercial result. The BIG difference between ‘the first time’ and ‘now’ is the advent of globalisation and digital marketing – and specifically e-commerce. Read More »

Last week Microsoft launched the Xbox One. It not only integrates TV, Internet and gaming, but will also measure your heartbeat, recognises your voice, and has social incorporated throughout. Xbox sees the future of gaming to be home console entertainment, the best way to fight off the trend of mobile and social gaming.

There is an argument to say that mobile and social is where the future of gaming is as 70% of casual gamers are young women, who have a disposable income or control the family wallet. You can see why many companies are focusing their attentions here. In fact one of the fastest growing gaming companies is Supercell which focuses on mobile gamers and attracts 8.5 million daily players who play their games an average of ten times per day. Read More »

Historically, trust has been an important social commodity and today, this is certainly the case for brands. Without trust how can you hope to be loved? According to the Edelman trust report there are five key areas that a brand must focus on to become trusted: engagement, integrity, products and services, purpose and operations. I wanted to take a deeper look at the technology playing a key part in each of these areas. Read More »

Part 1: If at first you don’t succeed” - Let me introduce myself with a much over-used and abused term. I am an entrepreneur.

I have had my share of modest success and even failure – mostly within small and medium sized creative enterprises. And along the way I have been fortunate enough to pick up an array of enriching skills and experiences – plus a few scars.

I am about to start a new business venture, or to be more precise, I am going to re-launch a niche branded product, that I first put my heart and soul into in the 90s. Read More »

Bricks and motor retail business is under huge pressure and technology sometimes seems to be its enemy. But in fact technology could be offline retail’s saviour.

A challenge is to know what technology to invest in when it everything changes so fast. In such circumstances, it is a great help to root oneself in the way consumers make decisions and consider how technology can best be used to persuade them. There are three key principles of persuasive decision interfaces and in each case digital technology can give the offline retailer an edge: Read More »

Travel has changed a lot from the days of the family trip and the only entertainment being “I spy” to post 9/11 and long(er) security lines. Frequent traveler or once a year family vacation – to borrow an over-used term – there’s an app for that.

Technology and more precisely mobile phones have been game changers for travel, from the early mobile days of just being able to call from anywhere to now bringing information right to you and in some cases even food to your gate. All this is making the travel experience an easier one, or at least a bit more palatable (and sometimes downright fun). Read More »

Education, inspiration, connection, innovation and celebration. That is what I was told to expect when Advertising Week Europe (AWE) started on Monday and I must admit they pretty much kept to their word. There were a few things that stood out to me throughout the week most notably how we are on a slow move to Web 3.0 and the death of the TVC and rise of the six seconds of story telling. Read More »

You can’t help but come away from SXSW without a feeling of positivity, of excitement about the future and where technology is going to lead us.

As I’ve mentioned before, just being there gives you an idea of what the future is going to be like – checking into Foursquare becomes useful again, people pay at tills with the Level Up device 3D-printed by the Makerbot, while treats can be downloaded from Samsung just by tapping your NFC-enabled phone.

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