Intelligent Idiocy

Rather nicely done integrated campaign for Compare the Market, one of the 13000000 car insurance comparison sites currently vying for the attention of UK drivers. Difference is, this one has a bit of fun with it all.

The telly spot does a loopy Compare the Meerkat riff featuring "Russian" meerkat Alexsandr Orlov. (Do they even have meerkats in Russia? Who cares? Me, obviously - I checked - they don't).

And lo! There it is on the internet, complete with a functioning meerkat comparison system, all wrapped in LOLkat-style speaks. Nices.

Most impressively they've got a Twitter account with almost 2000 followers, and - almost unbelievably - someone is actually tweeting regularly, and responding to followers' tweets. In my long experience, this is the thing that clients can never be bothered to do for themselves, and are too tight to pay agencies to do for them. Well done, you lot.

Even more amazing: the Twitter stream isn't full of corporate promotional bollocks - in fact, our little furry friend refuses to discuss his paymasters because "it cause him great pain". Instead he prefers to post crudely photoshopped pictures of him stuck in a lift with Stephen Fry and bicker amicably with the general public. This sort of behaviour usually makes Marketing Managers twitch uncomfortably and mutter about USPs, monetization and driving sales. Bravo!

They've got Facebook too, but I can't be bothered with that nonsense.

My friends used to tell me I looked a bit like a meerkat. I don't talk to them any more.

I'm not joking.

[Peripherally interesting aside: The real Alexander Orlov turns out to have been an NKVD man who managed to survive Stalin's bloody purges and defect to the West. Coincidence? I think not...]

[Pedantry: No self-respecting Russian would call his site "comparethe..." anything, cos Russian doesn't have articles - "a" and "the". Isn't that fascinating?]

Jack Bauer gets around a bit

New 24 episode - w00t!

Just as w00ty as the show itself is the way the trailer page gives you so many ways to do their marketing for them: check this out.

Another example of "make it easy for fans to spread the love" marketing. Difficult to imagine why more brands aren't doing this sort of thing on every piece of marketing they put out online.

Nicely done, DAMMIT!

Whatcha blogging for?

I completed the survey for Technorati's annual State of the Blogosphere report a while ago, then forgot all about it. Then I stumbled on it again. Nice the way my rambling trails around the internet manage to remind me about things like that.

Blogging is something my clients ask me about:

"Ben," they say, with a puzzled look on their face, "what is a blog, and why would anyone want to read one?" 

"Well," I begin... and pause, so I can kick off with the most important bit. Do I lead with the incredible power of samizdat ("self-publishing"), or simply say that it's shorthand for a new section of the human race suddenly getting very excited about and involved with the internet, or do I just give them a sly wink and say, 'I could tell you but I'd have to kill you'... ?

But before I've decided, they butt in - clients tend to do that, I've noticed - "No really, who are all these people and why are they important?"

Why not read the report and find out for yourself. It covers: Who Are the Bloggers? The What And Why of Blogging, The How of Blogging, Blogging For Profit, and Brands Enter The Blogosphere. If you like, check the previous ones and see how they compare. 

This, for me, is a telling quote from the Introduction: "Company information or gossip and everyday retail experiences are fodder for the majority of bloggers."

In other words, "whether or not a brand has launched a social media strategy, more likely than not, it’s already present in the Blogosphere." 

That, in short, is why "blogging" is important for brands. Because it's already happening, with or without the brand's permission - so the smart thing to do is tie your shoelaces and run fast to catch up with that bandwagon you can see disappearing over the brow of the hill.

I'll spare you the extended rant about how it's all basically just "the internet"... or if you prefer, "communication". Plain and simple - a fundamental shift in the way all types of social entities now relate to each other. If you're very good, I'll do that one later.

Apologies to Bill Hicks for the blog title mash :-)

Books and bullies

I had a great idea - use Bookmooch!

I saw someone present about this book swapping service at Reboot 9 - great idea! It reminded me of the unwebbed version called Bookcrossing where you just put a sticker in a book then leave it anywhere e.g. a train for anyone to pick up. Cultural dissipation via serendipity, randomness, etc. Awesome! Bookmooch turned not to be such a great experience.

Debs and I had just repopulated our bookshelves after our travels, and I discovered that I didn't want to read a single one of my beloved detective books ever again. Well, maybe one or two Chandlers and McBains, but as for the rest of you: Crais, Parker, Moseley, Dibdin, Leonard, Lehane, Rendell, Vine, etc... inc some awful crap I'm ashamed to include here - begone!

We went into it full speed, upping 70ish books to our inventory. You get micropoints for every book you list, and proper points for each one you send out. then you can spend your points mooching books from other users. "What fun!" we thought.

Within minutes of listing our inventory, we were being deluged with requests for mooches from all over the world. But after 1 week of membership, nothing on my wishlist had popped up anywhere - except for 1 book of Chekhov shorts, whose owner in Israel didn't bother to respond to my request.

Meanwhile, about 50% of the population of the Philippines wanted our Harry Potter hardbacks. 1 dude was practically offering to have my babies if I was willing to send him both the adult and the kid edition of the Half Blood Prince (no idea why I have both) via his Bookmooch Angel in Amsterdam...

A quick look at postage prices revealed that we 'd be out at least EUR 5 per book to anywhere outside Europe - EUR10 per book for hardbacks - so we edited our profile and added a little note to say "sorry, but postage is ridiculous", and rejected pretty much all the requests. Most people were very understanding.

Except for one dude in the USA - a Reverend no less - who made a royal pain in the ass of himself by trying to bully me into posting him a Pelecanos novel. Wrong move, padre. If I'd been Clint Eastwood, I woulda spit my cheroot out and fixed the twit with a pitying glare, before shooting the dog collar off his neck.

Instead I politely explained that I participated on my terms, not his, so there really wasn't any need for me to "review the terms of my agreement" with Bookmooch. Seriously, the guy was a total dick. I'm very glad I'm not one of his flock, if indeed he is a practising pastor, not some Subgenius wonk (highly unlikely! I only mentioned them so I could link them).

Two days later, I deleted my account. Real shame. The system could work, but it just costs too much, and the asshole encounter ratio was more than I could be bothered with.

As a result we have about 100 books we don't want any more, in a box in our utility / storage room.

Who wants one?