#Scream@Me!!!!

By Enoc vt (File:Botón Me gusta.svg) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Full disclosure: The writer is a Millennial.  Carry on.

Millennial — “Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation,^[1] is the demographic cohort following Generation X. There are no precise dates for when Generation Y starts and ends. Commentators use beginning birth dates from the latter 1970s, or from the early 1980s to the early 2000s.” (Wikipedia)

I have heard from folks (including a few relatives of mine) that millennials are selfish and truly don’t understand the way of the world.  That they’re entitled and often don’t believe in the value of hard work.

I highly disagree.

On the whole, I believe millennials to be highly compassionate.  Many of the millenials I’ve met put a greater focus on service, family, and friends than gaining accolades at the workplace.  Perhaps this is where this misguided notion comes from.

Rather than the “me” generation, I have instead realized that millennials are the “look at me” generation.

Inspired by a recent interview of Aziz Ansari by the AV Club, I have wondered if technology has been ripping us apart rather than bringing us together.  Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram promise an experience in bringing people together when they instead have people fused to their computer monitors, often being envious of others and wondering/worrying about what they’re *not* doing.

The intimacy and spontaneity from personal interactions is not replicated through digital contact, nor will it ever be.  More so than ever, advance planning and weighing is now a prerequisite for interacting with others.  Facebook is particularly guilty of providing too many choices, eventually leading to potential decision-making paralysis (A New York Times article had an interesting take on choice and its ability to paralyze in 2010).

Further, social media has often acted as a funhouse mirror wherein people attempt to show a side of themselves that should be private, rather than public.  It is now an unwritten rule that on social media, we should show our best side and be inherently positive.  Those who complain repeatedly on social media or talk about how bad things are going for them are often ignored or worse.

This leads me to a particularly ugly use of social media.  A few days ago, a video went viral that contains a woman berating a Dunkin Donuts employee and basically verbally holding them hostage in order to get free things.  The woman repeatedly mentions how she believes the video will make the company look bad.  Quite the opposite.  Link via the Consumerist. Beware – the link has NSFW language.

While I have my problems with social media, it must also be noted that there can be some great things.  These sites provide an invaluable service in connecting individuals to potential resources they may not have otherwise known about.  Twitter, in particular, is incredibly powerful in providing information in realtime and has helped cultivate the Arab Spring and many other forms of large scale organization.

Social media is incredibly powerful and we must be careful in wielding its awesome power.

“With great power comes great responsibility.”  – this quote was used in a superhero film.  It could as easily been used when describing social media.

A Father’s Day tribute video from FamilyShare encourages people to “take the time to notice all the wonderful things your father does for you.”

Today’s post is all about shock advertising.

The Department of Transportation teamed up with creative agency Leo Burnett London, using shock tactics in their new THINK! anti-drunk driving campaign.

A witty YouTube commentator spoke for me when he posted: “Less killed in traffic accidents, more deaths from heart attack!”

Even though it is known that the three dudes in the bathroom are actors, I think the video has a very disturbing effect on the viewer.

Released about a week ago, this has gained over 6 m views so far. Furthermore, the hashtag #PubLooShock is setting Twitter abuzz.

Tell me what you think about this campaign! Does this work on you?

The world’s first flying bike is here. If you don’t believe us– its test drive, or fly, was all caught on camera. Check it out above!

Read more here.

You’d think a conversation with a 2-year-old about a cookie would be pretty innocent.  Well, when reenacted by two grown men, it gets kinda weird.

I’m really pleased to have had the opportunity this week to attend the Torino Film Lab and their Writer’s Room workshop here in Vaasa, Finland. The workshop – focusing on two transmedia projects – bring together the two creators, three experts and three people representing the TFL itself, for some quite intensive workshopping around the two ideas. This week we – i.e. the company I work for, MediaCity Finland – act as hosts for the workshop.

Yesterday we held a MindClub (a quarterly conference and networking event for the media, marketing and IT industries in the region), this time featuring TFL and focusing on multiplatform storytelling and transmedia. It was thoroughly interesting and gave a lot of food for thought. One discussion that I was especially intrigued about was brought up by one of the attendants at the MindClub, Euan Scott, trade commissioner at the Canadian Embassy in Stockholm.

Adam Sigel had been talking about audience engangement in a multiplatform setting, exemplifying with Hitchcock’s campaign around and before the release of ”Psycho”. Euan’s point was that audience engagement is absolutely nothing new. In fact, in the middle ages, audience interaction was vital to any sort of theater performance. It was only with the birth of the Author that audience engagement became less and less wanted and needed.

This, to me, feels like where we are at right now. The TV and the movie industries (and why not the publishing industry as well) have been focused on the Author (or the Director) for decades, telling the stories in the fashion they have decided, to a more or less passive and consuming audience. But with the rise of the Internet, of smart phones, of gigabyte connections, of tools on the level of professionals in the hands of anyone, of direct connections to a global audience on the press of a button… with all of this has come change.

The Author is no longer in control. No matter if audience interaction and participation is planned for or not, if the content is great enough and make people relate to it enough, people will start to engage and co-create .

I’ve been looking into theater for a while, since so many interesting things are happening within that art form. In theatre, audience participation is in some cases a part of the experience (the Japanese kabuki-theater for example) and in other cases used to in a sense rebel against ”traditional” theater. One conclusion that rings true for me, which was mentioned in the publication ”Meeting Theatre’s Challenges”, is that ”unlike film audiences, theatre audiences choose their focus”.

This is very much true for the active and interactive audience we encounter and work with today. Over on Adweek yesterday, Zach James had done some digging on fans, brands and YouTube content, and found some astonishing figures. Fans beat brands hands down when it comes to online content. Take make-up brand Cover Girl for example – out of 251 million YouTube views, 249 million come from fan-created videos. The same goes for a long list of brands, and just goes to show that if you have something people can relate to and be engaged by, the only way forward is to give them the tools to create good stuff and reasons to do so and to share their creations.

No, the best approach is to write for just one person. Make an impact on just one person. Even better, make it so they can’t sleep that night unless they choose to make a difference for just one other person by sharing your message with them.

The rest will take care of itself.

Reblogged from: here

His wife, Racquel, recently had a baby – and the Laguna Niguel couple was selling a few things to welcome the newborn. Eric saw a watch box in a closet that they hardly ever use – so he sold the entire piece as is.

They say the ring has been missing for 11 days – and they hope the person who bought it will bring it back soon.

Click on the video above for the full story. To read more on CBS Los Angeles, click here.

Viral campaign for Hellman’s with the intended message to learn customers that their mayonnaise can be used for more than just sandwich spread presented in an original context by using a slot machine to attract attention.

YouTuber “StephenClaybrook” posted this video on June 9, 2013 saying “My brothers mission call came while he was at the Joplin, MO Stake youth conference which was a pioneer trek this year. So we brought it to him and had it delivered by pony express!”

The Department for Transport are known for their shocking “Think!” campaigns, and this new advert doesn’t fail this when promoting “Don’t Drink and Drive”. We are faced with (what looks like) CCTV footage of a pub toilet, where a few men are seen coming out of the toilet and washing their hands. When they do so, the mirror shatters in front of their eyes as it appears to be hit by something from the other side. A face appears and blood spills, showing the image of what a person could potentially look like if their face smashed through a car windscreen. I would be absolutely horrified if this happened to me, and I have a fear of using public restrooms on my own for this exact scary reason.

I think this concept was played on well in the development of this, because the bathroom is probably one of the most vulnerable places a person can be, and the unexpectedness is what brings the “shock factor” to this advertisement. With nearly 6 million views on YouTube, this viral awareness advert with it’s hashtag #PubLooShocker has definitely sent out the sensory message to not Drink and Drive.

Agency: Leo Burnett
Client: Department for Transport
Sector: Awareness/Government
Place: United Kingdom