The Future Place Blog

What's Opera Doc?

In great seasonal spirit Cognitive Edge has a YouTube link to one of my favourite cartoons, a Bugs Bunny episode, called What's the Opera Doc, from Merrie Melodies (Warner Bros), made in 1957. The cartoon is loosely themed on Wagner's opera, check out "Kill the Rabbit" to the tune of Ride of the Valkyries.

Great BBC Trend Programme

I have recently discovered the BBC World Service programme Culture Shock, which is billed as covering "The latest global trends and ideas driving human behaviour". This edition, broadcast on 26 November 2007, covers the use of Social Networks by women in India and the rise in Slow Fashion.

Given I work from home most of the time, I find the abiltiy to listen to BBC prorammes via the Internet a real boon.

Is the Cadbury Gorilla the most parodied add?

The recent Cadbury Gorilla ad has been winning praise and attention for a few weeks now (see below).

One of the things that struck me about the ad when it burst on the scene was the way that people were saying "have you seen the Cadbury gorilla?". That's great branding, unlike say the Sony Bravia ads which tend to be called "the bouncing balls ad" or "the flats and paints ad".

Another way of assessing the way an ad attracts popular attention is the way it is parodied. If you go to YouTube you will find masses of parodies. Many of them consist of adding different tunes, such as this one.

Others try a more full-blown parody.

Outdoor ads target air travellers

Springwise report that UK-based Ad-Air Group has taken outdoor advertising to a new level. The picture below shows an illustration of the idea, showing an advert from Dubia.

Ad-Air Group plan to have about 30 of these mega adverts, with prices in the range £20,000 to £40,000 a month.

Parodies of adverts

YouTube (and similar sites) are giving people a chance to create  parodies of TV commercials. Here are a few which illustrate the ceativity at the other end of the TV screen.

M&S

Citroen

Another Citroen

Listen to William Gibson's coolhunting story

Starting Thursday 11th October 2007, the BBC are broadcasting William Gibson's novel "Pattern Recognition", the story about Coolhunter Cayce Pollard. You can find BBC Radio 7's Listen Again page here. The broadcasts are available for six days after they are initially broadcast. The story is being broadcast in 5 half-hour episodes.

Al-Jazeera's English broadcasts reach 100 million homes

WARC report that Qatar based Al-Jazeera's English language service, Al-Jazeera Inernational, is now being watched in 100 million households, just 11 months after the service was launched. Al-Jazeera was first launched 10 years ago as an Arabic only service. Last year Al-Jazeeraa Internation, which is head-quartered in London was launched.

The growth and sucess of Al-Jazeera International is another sign of the fragmentation of power, from a small group controling the world's media to a more diverse group.

Ricky Gervais - street survey

Spotted this YouTube video on the Rock Research blog, check it out. The video is funny, but are some of the ridiculous questions too close to what we sometimes do?

BBC criticised over misleading poll report

The BBC has had a complaint upheld that it misrepresented polling information. Back in January the leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party, Alex Salmond, was being interviewed by the BBC. During the interview the interviewer, Jeremy Paxman, said the BBC had conducted a straw poll with the 25 largest companies in Britain and the 25 largest companies in Scotland and none favoured independence for Scotland. The clear implication being that there was no support for independence amongst leading companies.

However, the interviewer did not tell Mr Salmond that most of the 50 companies had declined to answer, which left open the possibility that some or even most did favour independence. A viewer made a complaint at the time and this has just been upheld.

In one sense this story is a reminder of the classic logic fallacy, just because we can’t sall all the balls are red, it does not mean all the balls are all non-Red. The SNP also take it as a reminder that the British media is very much a Southern media, for London and the Home Counties (for non-Brits the Home Counties are the areas around London such as Kent, Surrey, and Middlesex).

For the BBC report click here, via Research Magazine.

Ps sorry for two stories about UK regional media bias in two days, I will try to look for something more global tomorrow

TNS videos, getting weirder

Full marks to TNS for the sheer volume of videos they are uploading to YouTube. This one seems very weird to me, but the more they experiment, the faster they will discover what works and what stinks.