Aleksandr Orlov the meerkat recently stopped by Great Ormond Street Hospital to visit with everyone and to spread some holiday cheer by handing out Aleksandr Orlov stuffed toys generously donated by Harrods. Everyone was so excited to meet him!

Are you searching for a limited edition Aleksandr Orlov meerkat toy? They are not available in stores so why not bid on one on E-bay from the comfort of your own home! There are 6 days left to bid and it’s so easy!

What makes this even better is that 100% of the final sale price will go to Great Ormond Street Hospital. The money will help fund pioneering research, life saving equipment and help refurbish the hospital. All of these are vital for the hospital to function efficiently.

By purchasing an Aleksandr Orlov meerkat toy on E-bay you not only make the recipient smile but everyone at Great Ormond Street Hospital smile. Start bidding today!

If you don’t fancy your very own Aleksandr Meerkat this Christmas but you would still like to help out the Great Ormond Street Hosptiatl Charity, you can of course just make a donation here….. Simples!

So Aleksandr the meerkat has had a little chat with David Hasslehoff (btw he is NOT a national hero in Germany) and you can listen to it here: Meerchat
I did enjoy comparethemarkets’ TV campaign. It breathed live into the ever so dull and repetitive insurance market, but was this podcast really necessary? Yes it creates another reason for people to go online to comparethemeerkat and there might be that slight chance, that they might actually go and compare a car, but isn’t the podcast a bit far fetched?
I listened to it and it is over 10 minutes – and not even very funny. As a next step, after the great TV creatives, I would have liked to have seen a great online advert, taking online adverts to the next level. But I guess I’ll have to wait a little longer for this…

Lennard

Virals can be anything, a game, a video, a website, an email, anything really that gets people talking, or rather spread through word of mouth or sending it on to someone else…

This is what I am basing my creative project on this year. Not sure exactly how or where to go with it yet, but just looking at the virals out there at the moment is getting me excited! There are endless possibilities. Yes really. Imagination can take us anywhere…

But the greatest phenomenon that has helped catapult virals even further is social networks. Advertising in general is becoming so integrated into everyday lives, just using this medium helps so much in creating a persona for a brand. And this could be viral itself.

Just looking at our friendly little character, Aleksandr Orlov of comparethemeerkat.com fame, he is a viral in himself. Apart from having the microsite, he has his own facebook, a twitter page , as well as his own doll and all this helps to keep people talking about him despite appearing at the beginning of the year!!  Amazing.

He is probably the viral of the year in my opinion. Great character.

x

I was talking the other day about the brilliant Aleksandr, as I was asking for advise on motorbike insurance with a friend.

I Want Aleksandr

Now i’m not one for cuddly toys, but have to admit, i’m really quite taken by this little guy.  I’m even following him on twitter (@Aleksandr_Orlov) but hey, please don’t hold that against me.  I think this guy is cool, and now just waiting for the other insurance company’s to copy and come up with their own version.  But would it really take off like this little dude?

I’ve heard they are going to sell these at Harrods, and their is a waiting list already, so how do you get one, as they have announced that you can’t even add your name anymore as the list is already too long.

But i’m a good customer of my insurance company, as i’ve had my motorbike insurance with them for over 5 years, and I still have to beg, borrow and steal for one of these little guys.

If it were down to loyal customers, I think they should give one of these little dudes with every renewed bike insurance policy taken.

If you have one of these Aleksandr’s then please let me know how you managed it.

This week saw PA Photocall work with Frank PR on an exclusive launch of a limited edition ‘Aleksandr talking toy’ due to arrive exclusively at Harrods in time for Christmas.

An Aleksandr Orlov meerkat 'talking toy' in the meerkat enclosure at London Zoo ahead of them going on sale exclusively in Harrods in early December. David Parry/PA Photocall

To read the rest of this post click here TNR Communications Blog

Meet Aleksandr, he is the founder of CompareTheMeerkat.com, which is a nice play on words on the business angle of this company, CompareTheMarket.com. Both sites offer something of value, the ability to find cheap car insurance through an aggregated portal (that’s the Compare the Market Site) the other is a site where you can compare meerkats, ‘cuz quite honestly, who doesn’t want to do that?

Sound crazy? Yes, but check out the results. According to AdAge.com, the word “meerkat” through search engine cost per click programs only costs $.08 (cents) per click. Pretty good when you think about how popular the word “market” is through traditional search engines.

The popularity of the Russian accented Aleksandr can’t be understated. 500,000 plus Facebook fans and 26,000 Twitter followers can’t be wrong. AdAge reports that “despite having the lowest marketing spending of all its competitors (around $25 million), traffic to the website increased by 400% and there was an 80% increase in the number of quotes given out.”

Wow!

So what’s the story here? Well, CompareTheMarket.com went from a relatively unknown brand to one of the more interesting companies doing business online. Sure they want your car insurance business, but if you aren’t looking for that and you really dig on meerkats, you are going to be quite pleased. You can compare meerkats by size, hobbies and location. I prefer my meerkat to be large, into martial arts and residing in Bankok.

Here’s my meerkat of choice:

Now, I can send this to my friends if I want, or download a larger image, although I am not sure why I would do that. What I do know, is that if I am looking for car insurance (and I’m not so please don’t call) I will check out CompareTheMarket.com.

The message here is that something as off the wall as Aleksandr Orlov the Meerkat can be productive. This is a business that took a huge risk and is reaping the rewards. Kudos to VCCP for putting a crazy idea in front of their client. More kudos to the client for listening to their agency.

Do you see any other insurance companies doing anything remotely close to this? Nope. CompareTheMarket.com has raised the level of play in the insurance category and has done something many have been trying to do for years; make insurance cool!

Author: Josh Fleming
www.lessingflynn.com

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Markus,  Rolandas, Vidas, Leonardas, Remigijus, Leonas, Aleksandr, Matas, Sigitas, Vaidas, Dmitrij, Darius,

Aurelija, Ina, Ana, Kristina, Janina, Dalia, Diana, Edita, Jolanta, Juzeta, Anatanina, Vida, Zaneta, Renata,

Klemens, Jonas, Jaroslav, Miroslav, Giacomo, Mac, Zivile, Julius, Linas, Ingo, Aurelijus, Aleksej, Leos,

Gitana, Slava, Ieva, Lena, Zuzana, Shira, Jana, Elena, Lineta, Veronique, Ingrid, Loreta, Liudmila, Simona,

Artur, Audrius, Berto, Darin, Edward, Clayton, Pieter, Marshall, Steven, James, Daniel, Liev, Tomas, Iddo,

Milda, Anastasija, Johdi, Victoria, Alisa, Alexa, Sascha, Klara, Emereta, Natasha, Cloe

Iben, Jacek, Jonjo, Jakub, Leonid, Osvaldas, Evaldas, Arion

Stalker – 1979

Director – Andrei Tarkovsky

Starring – Aleksandr Kaidanovsky, Anatoli Solonitsyn, and Nikolai Grinko

The most arresting part of the film Stalker, is by far its fantastic imagery.  I’m sure there will be naysayers who will say that Tarkovsky’s thoughtful narrative takes center stage, or perhaps the subtext of the movie analyzing our relationships with both each other, and with nature.  To this I say…Bah!

Stalker does in fact have these other strong qualities, but the fact remains that it’s greatest asset is it’s striking use of color (or the lack of it), composition, visual continuity, and impressive use of and between the positive and negative space in the frame…however.  To fully explain the use of these visual elements, we must give at least a pre-cursory look at the films plot.

In an un-named country, on the outskirts of an un-named city, an event happened 20 years ago.  The details of this event are un-confirmed, but it is rumored to be a meteorite, or a UFO landing.  Either way, the event in question has left the area un-inhabitable by people.  The government of the city sent their armed forces in to investigate, and they disappeared, leaving behind their tanks, and weapons to moulder and become overgrown.  Afraid that this sort of devastation could extend into the confines of the city, the government restricted all access by the citizenry to the “zone”.

So problem solved, no one goes in…end of story, right?  Wrong.  Supposedly, within the “zone”, there exists a room.  If you were to enter this room, you deepest darkest wish would be granted.  These aren’t the wishes that you’d be proud to tell everyone (ie: world peace, end to poverty), instead these are the most base and selfish things that the person craves (ie: somebody dead, wealth, notoriety, etc…).  So the desire to get into the “zone” is evident, but the problem is that the natural elements and the landscape of the “zone” have acquired a consciousness, and they don’t like to have intruders.  It is the job of our main character to be a Stalker, or a guide into this treacherous wilderness.  The Stalkers are able to interpret the conscious landscape, they can navigate the changing whims of the “zone” and deliver people to “the room” and to their innermost desires.

The city, in which we start the story, is a highly dilapidated, nearly deserted industrial looking place.  Smoke stacks and rail yards dominate the scenery, and there is an ever-present haze that prevents us from seeing too far into the distance.  Everything is in ruin, and everything has a very solid, real quality.  This city actually exists somewhere.  And the production value that comes from it helps us to believe the characters and the fantastic nature of the story that much more.  It ceases to be a science fiction movie, and starts being a document of an alternate reality.

From here we can talk about the imagery…The opening of the film, and all the scenes taking place within the city are filmed in a luscious black and white photography that takes on a very distinct sepia tone.  So even though it is in black and white, it, like the rest of the city is decaying and falling apart.  The lighting is very, very harsh and high-key, like the noir films of the post-war era, they evoke a clear feeling of one way or the other, no shades of gray only absolutes.  Now, juxtapose this harsh reality with the scenes shot within the “zone”.  Shot using color,  rich greens, browns, and blues, the “zone” is less absolute, less certain, and though it is more dangerous, it is also more free.  

Here, we see what happens when we leave nature to it’s own devices.  Whatever is left of human existence is being steadily eroded by nature.  In the “zone” people hold little sway, and unlike the city, there is life everywhere.  Water is a particularly connective theme in the “zone”, it is everywhere, and our main characters are constantly in contact with it.  Our characters are given more room to breath here, both literally as well as in the composition of the images.  We are given less close-ups, and instead linger more often on longer shots.  Since we are now further away, and robbed of the facial expressions, the characters need to do more to convey emotion, and show motivation.  This results in a more languid, slower pace to the movie.

While the set up to the film sounds like an action movie, I assure you that it is not.  Tarkovsky takes his time, and gives his characters time to be still and reflect their situation (this is where all the introspective, man versus nature, man versus himself type content comes into play).  As a result, Stalker is definitely not for everyone.  If you are fond of the slow, deliberate nature of the films of Stanley Kubrick, you will probably get something out of watching this film.  On the other hand, if you find yourself infuriated with meandering action, and sullen introspective characters, you’ll probably wish it was more of an action film.

An article this morning from our beloved Telegraph spoke how Adverts fail to engage majority of social networkers. But social media can, and should work even harder with a generation cynical and largely immune to traditional advertising. And the solution? Well it’s pretty seemples. It’s a cheap gag, but one which has become the biggest viral advertising buzz in recent memory. Unless you’ve been hiding out in an Afgan cave for the last few months, you’ve been doing well to avoid both the ads, and people quoting “seemples” and “Please be seat”.

What began as a brainstorm around the work comparethemarket, has turned over an 80% increase in traffic to comparethemarket.com since January alone when it launched. Now the now celebrity Aleksandr Orlov has a runaway 500,000 facebook fans, and a 23,16 strong twitter following, most of which have been converted straight to hits to the functional comparetheMARKET ’sister’ site.

That’s quite some statistic  when you consider recent research of over 2,000 consumers which found that “just four per cent of those polled had ever clicked on an advert on a social network and only nine per cent found them useful tools in assisting their purchasing decisions on the web.” Add that to the fact that 83 of the top 100 ad spends in the US now use facebook as part of their media spend, and you begin to  wonder what the hell they’re all doing wrong given Alex’s success.

CTM though, ran their campaign to build for the end of exam season, knowing that a humerous, socially provocative campaign would be a big hit with students passing exams, car tests and heading off to uni over the Summer.

It just requires thought. Top brands are all to keen to plough cash into online advertising citing “we need to be on there”. Remeber back when the net became popular in the 90’s? Many simply created onlilne pamphlets, the smart knew we’d interect in a whole new way. It appears that lesson is being learned all over again.

In a recession hitting spend hard, using online and social advertising just because it’s cheap could fail your brand, and your career. Hat’s off to Steve Vranakis at VCCP and his team who created it, and especially to Amelia Torode, their Head of Digital Strategy, who had the wherewithall to rationalise it. Social media represents the biggest value marketing spend you could ever make. Get it wrong though, and you become  another shitty banner, sitting there flashing like a broken traffic light in the dark.

It makes me mad sometimes. Because great advertising is, really, quite seemples.

Lots has been made recently of the popularity of Youtube clips featuring “Britain’s Got Talent” contestant Susan Boyle and the clips created by VCCP for Comparethemarket.com, featuring a Meerkat. Articles such as the London Metro’s, ( http://ow.ly/3MEv ) describing Susan Boyle as “more popular than Obama” and the Telegraph’s revelation ( http://ow.ly/3MGk )that Aleksandr the Meerkat is bigger than Wayne Rooney on Facebook paint a picture of easily attainable fame, with the sort of coverage that would normally cost millions. We need a new way of measuring popularity though, don’t we?

Susan Boyle can sing quite well Are we all agreed on that? Us Brits appear to be hugely snobbish in being surprised about this. To quote Marcus Brigstocke (I think) on the Now Show, “non-pretty women can sing too shocker!”. It’s been enough for millions of us to spend a few minutes of our day watching a clip of an unattractive woman (I’m speaking subjectively here, you may find her irresistible) sing a song. The clip, the nature of the voyeurism involved in watching it and the gentle feelgood outcome is popular – Susan Boyle isn’t what we’re watching though. A lot of people have watched it, but it feels to me like the difference between looking at someone and staring at someone. If I see a pretty lady in the street and I look at her, I’m going to assume that the pretty lady likes to attract looks from passers-by. If I stare at her, I’m guessing it won’t be the reaction she hoped for. The analogy is limited of course, but Susan Boyle simply isn’t more popular than David Beckham. Nobody is going to pay her hundreds of thousands of pounds to do what she does. The description of her being more popular than anything is massively skewed. And anyway, how can we compare a singer to a footballer?

The Meerkat however can back up his popularity in other ways; mad.co.uk is reporting that comparethemarket.com is seeing a 400% increase in web site visitors year-on-year. That’s actually going to worry comparethemarket.com’s competitors. The measurement used in the popular press does VCCP no good though – I can’t imagine a price comparison company sitting down to discuss how to become bigger than Wayne Rooney any more than Rooney will be worried about being usurped by a Meerkat. The comparison (which seems mildly ironic considering the company in question) is redundant. VCCP’s follow-up work to create a fake “blooper-reel” of Aleksandr’s filming might push it too far, the talking toy, planned for a Christmas push ( http://ow.ly/3MNe ) will certainly be beyond my cut-off point.

It’s nearly impossible to compare Susan Boyle to a Meerkat in any useful way. Similarly, David Beckham and Wayne Rooney won’t be worrying about the singer or the mammal’s impact on them (there won’t be any). These pointless, useless statements serve only to increase the level of voyeurism about the clips in question. People might be looking, but it feels more like staring.

I’m not naive; Britain’s Got Talent will see a boost in audience figures and Meerkat’s will be selling price comparison for a while. This huge over-reaction however, doesn’t tell us enough about why it happened, or how to replicate the effect. These are freak results in a saturated world of “hilarious” clips and off the wall ad campaigns. Hopefully at some stage we’ll stop being amazed that once in a while, people will watch the best and worst of these clips in their millions. If unpretty women and wacky mammals are the best we have to offer, we’re not quite as good at this marketing malarkey as we think we are.

To relax I collect MIDI files transcribed from the manuscripts of classical music composers which are obtainable off the Web, and arrange them in my small and old Windows 98 PC, record them, and convert them into mp3 files. Well, it keeps me from getting into trouble! Here they are (I hope!):

Polovtsian Dances, by Aleksandr Borodin, who once said that for him ‘music was a pastime, a relaxation from more serious occupations’. Those ‘more serious occupations’ were the disciplines of science and medicine, in which he also achieved international fame and success.

Cuckoo – A masterpiece by Frederick Delius. The masterful work of the string section in this piece led me to create this catalogue.

Danse Macabre – Saint-Saens.

Piano Concerto No. 3 – Edvard Grieg.

Piano Concerto No. 3 Movement 1 – Sergei Rachmaninov.

Piano Concerto No. 3 Movement 2 – Sergei Rachmaninov.

Piano Concerto No. 3 Movement 3 – Sergei Rachmaninov.

Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini – Sergei Rachmaninov.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – Paul Dukas.

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis – Ralph Vaughan-Williams.

Mercury – from the “Planets Suite” by Gustav Holst.

Venus – from the “Planets Suite” by Gustav Holst.

Mars – from the “Planets Suite” by Gustav Holst.

Jupiter – from the “Planets Suite” by Gustav Holst.

Saturn – from the “Planets Suite” by Gustav Holst.

Uranus – from the “Planets Suite” by Gustav Holst.

Neptune – from the “Planets Suite” by Gustav Holst.

Brujo - Manuel de Falla.

El día de hoy participará en un conversatorio sobre el controversial escritor ruso Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn mi compañera de trabajo Adelaida Loukota.  Junto a ella estarán compartiendo distintos puntos de vista El Dr. Armando de la Torre, el Dr. Roberto Bloom y el Dr. Antón Tursinov.

Solzhenitsyn es el autor del famoso libro Archipielago Gulag (aún no lo he leído) y relata la historia de cientos de muertos y desaparecidos en los tan temidos campos de concentración rusos.  El conversatorio será el día de hoy 27 de agosto de 6pm a 8pm en el Centro Cultural de la Universidad Francisco Marroquín (Plaza de la Libertad, salón CS-101) en la 6a. calle final, zona 10.

¡No se lo pierdan!

“For a country to have a great writer is like having a second government. That is why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.”

“El que un país tenga un gran escritor es similar a la existencia de otro gobierno (democrático).  Esa es la razón por la que ningún regimen (totalitario, dictatorial) ha tenido grandes escritores, sólo ha tenido escritores mediocres.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Mientras veía la entrega de ramos a los voluntarios de los JJOO, me despisté un momento y en vez de fijarme en lo monín que era el coreano Moon Dae-Sung o en la presencia de mi siempre admirado Aleksandr Popov, retirado o no, me fijé atónita en la camisa que llevaba este último. Juro que le habría reconocido a la primera sino fuera porque no me esperaba el modelito:

Más que ruso parecía británico

 Siempre acostumbrada a verle de sport o en traje, semejante modernidad me descolocó. Todavía no me he decidido si me gusta la camisa para entes masculinos… mmmm… no sé no sé…

Pero qué más da. No por eso voy a dejar de recordarle como mi nadador favorito. x-D

TJX, which owns TJ Maxx, was one the firms whose records were hacked

A former informant of the US secret service has been accused  of being the ringleader in the country’s biggest and most complex identity theft case.

The US Department of Justice claims that Albert “Segvev” Gonzalez and 10 others stole, and then sold more than 40 million bank card numbers.

They allegedly got the data by driving around, finding vulnerable internet networks, and accessing shop records.

Prosecutors said the alleged fraud was an “international conspiracy”.

“During the course of the sophisticated conspiracy Mr Gonzalez and his co-conspirators….hacked into wireless computer networks of major retailers,” said the US Department of Justice.

The method, known as “wardriving”, involves tracking down vulnerable internet wireless signals and using systems to decipher credit and debit card information from a retailer’s system.

While technology has made our lives much easier it has also created new vulnerabilities Michael Sullivan, US secret service director How secure is your card info?

The Department of Justice said that companies affected included TJX Companies, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Boston Market and Barnes & Noble among others.

MasterCard spokesman Chris Monteiro told the BBC: “If a cardholder is concerned at all about the security of their account they should immediately contact their issuing financial institution.”

‘New vulnerabilities’

While the Department of Justice has not put a price on the scale on the scam it says it is the largest and most complex identity fraud to date.

“While technology has made our lives much easier it has also created new vulnerabilities,” said US secret service director Michael Sullivan.

“This case clearly shows how strokes on a keyboard with a criminal purpose can have costly results,” he added

He urged consumers, firms and governments worldwide to develop further ways to protect sensitive personal and business information and detect those that “conspire to exploit technology for criminal gain”.

Perry Tancredi, senior product manager for fraud detection at payment security company VeriSign said that: “Regardless of how strong the security measures, and how vigilant, the weak part of the chain is there is always a human who is responsible and who has overall control over the information.”

Charges

Mr Gonzalez of Miami has been charged with computer fraud, wire fraud, access device fraud, aggravated identify theft and conspiracy.

Mr Gonzalez, who is in New York in pre-trial confinement, now faces a maximum penalty of life is prison.

Charges were also listed against Christopher Scott and Damon Patrick, both of Miami.

The other named individuals in the case were Maksym “Maksik” Yastremskiy of Kharkov, Ukraine, Aleksandr “Jonny Hell” Suvorov of Sillamae, Estonia.

Charges were also levelled against Hung-Ming Chiu and Zhi Zhi Wang, both from China, and someone known only by the nickname “Delpiero”.

Sergey Pavolvich, of Belarus, and Dzmitry Burak and Sergey Storchak, both of Ukraine, were also charged.

La vârsta de 89 de ani s-a stins din viaţă autorul operei “Arhipelagul Gulag” – scriitorul rus Aleksandr Soljeniţîn

Agenţia de presă Itar – Tass a transmis că decesul scriitorului a fost cauzat de “o insuficienţă cardiacă severă” şi a survenit la domiciliul acestuia din Moscova

În 1970, Soljeniţîn a primit premiul Nobel pentru literatură. Scriitorul a studiat fizica şi matematica la Universitatea din Rostov şi a devenit ofiţer în armata Sovietică, după invazia trupelor gemane din 1941.

În 1971, după publicarea operei în trei volume “Arhipelagul Gulag”, publicat la Paris, în care a dezvăluit realitatea groaznică a sistemului concentraţionar sovietic, lui Soljeniţîn i-a fost retrasă cetaţenia sovietică şi a fost expulzat din URSS. “Primul cerc” şi “O zi din viaţa lui Ivan Denisovici” sunt alte două opere în care scriitorul relatează ororile gulag-urilor sovietice, în care a petrecut opt ani din viaţă.

După o perioadă petrecută în ţări precum Germania de Vest, Elveţia şi Statele Unite ale Americii, Soljeniţîn s-a întors în Rusia în anul 1994. Anul trecut, fostul preşedinte rus Vladimir Putin l-a decorat cu prestigiosul Premiu de Stat.