katy lindemann | kitschbitch.com » 2008 » March

Archives - March 2008

The Real Toy Story

31.03.08 | Permalink | 0 Comments

Being a huge kid and a massive devotee of retro toys, robots, collectibles and the like, I was instantly entranced by this amazingly colourful window display at Liberty’s. However on closer inspection, it’s not just a showcase of kitsch playthings - it’s actually part of an installation by Michael Wolf, called The Real Toy Story, promoting the China Design Now exhibition at the V&A.

Over 75% of the world’s cheap mass-produced plastic toys are produced in China: the installation showcases 20,000 of these alongside photos of the factory workers who produce them.

The project was conceived when the artist bought a huge sack of c. 600 second hand toys from his local charity shop as a surprise for his son - and discovered that every single one was made in China. His son was not only amazed by the fabulous array of toys, but surprised to learn that toys weren’t in fact made by Santa and his helpers!

Powerful stuff.

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Muxtape Madness

27.03.08 | Permalink | 2 Comments

Web app of the day = the wonderful Muxtape

It’s been doing the rounds over the last couple of days - delivering that most delicious combination of social media with the charm of the mixtape. Simple, beautiful, lots of fun.

So, since there’s nothing like hopping on board, for your listening pleasure - and to get a glimpse into my, er, somewhat eclectic (others may say highly dodgy!) musical taste - check out my contribution

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We Tell Stories

19.03.08 | Permalink | 1 Comment

I love digital storytelling, and the latest innovation by Penguin is an absolute corker - exploring the intersection between literature, the web and gaming.

We Tell Stories was conceived by Penguin as a digital writing project, challenging selected authors to create new forms of fiction for a digital audience.

The project claims it will “create new fiction and offer a unique, immersive and innovative experience to readers everywhere” - and on first inspection it looks like they’re bang on brief.

The first story, ‘The 21 Steps’ by Charles Cumming, uses Google Maps technology to literally take the reader on a journey as they navigate through the story - its utterly delightful, and such a creative and different way to read a story.

Over the next 6 weeks, writers such as Mohsin Hamid, Naomi Alderman and Nicci French will be publishing their own interactive tales, with the added bonus of a hidden seventh story:

But somewhere on the internet is a seventh story, a mysterious tale involving a vaguely familiar girl called Alice. Readers who follow this story will discover clues that will shape Alice’s journey and help her on her way. These clues will appear online and in the real world and will drive readers to the other six stories where they will have the chance to win some wonderful prizes, including The Penguin Complete Classics Library, over £13,000 worth of the greatest books ever written.

I love the way that Penguin have embraced the digital space to bring together the age-old pastime of storytelling - the bread and butter of their business - with the modern world of digital interactivity, alternate reality gaming, and user participation. They’ve already dipped a toe in the water with their wikinovel experiment A Million Penguins - I’d predict that their willingness to explore this space further can only be richly rewarded, if other sectors are anything to go by - as the early adoptors begin to generate new avenues for revenue via digital channels and leave their slower moving competitors struggling to eke out revenues from their existing offline ventures.

Update: Check out Behind the Buzz for a full rundown on all the other many varied ventures Penguin have embarked on - they’re clearly absolutely committed to exploring the best ways to navigate the digital landscape to best connect with their consumers, and as far as I’m concerned, are doing a bloody great job…

[ Full disclosure - this has been produced by Six to Start, the company started by my friend Dan Hon: Dan’s past work totally rocks and this is no exception - I urge you all to check it out ]

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Patrick Bateman would approve

17.03.08 | Permalink | 1 Comment

I’m now totally coveting the beautiful business cards that the guys at Altogether have - standard information on the one side, puzzle to solve on the other.

The photo is taken using a cameraphone so you might not be able to see the detail - but there’s a sudoku one, a crossword, a wordsearch and a maze.

I love it when things can be useful and playful.

Genius.

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Taking care of your beaver

14.03.08 | Permalink | 1 Comment

The ever-wonderful Copyranter brought this Australian TV ad for Kotex to my attention (or rather my boss Geoff said there was this fab thing on copyranter today and had I seen it yet?):

Finally we have a sanpro ad which actually references the fact that it’s do with women’s bits, in a delightfully amusing way - never mind singing dogs, this has a sunbathing beaver!

We all know the cliche of the ad with the girl in tight lycra, rollerblading through fountains, followed by a demonstration of absorbancy using the ubiquitous bright blue liquid. Which of course give a completely representative picture of the wonderful world of menstruation and sanitary products.

So it warmed my heart to see that not only was Australia taking care of its beavers, but that France has actually acknowledged that periods involve bleeding!

Lest we forget what a staggering leap this is, let’s just take a walk down memory lane….

Courtney Cox broke the mould when she was the first person to actually say ‘period’ on TV!

Whooooooaaaaaaaaaaah Bodyfoooooooorm!

Periods are great!!

Oh no, it’s actually a tampon, silly me, I thought it was a sweet!

Golly, aren’t periods FUN!

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The Tipping Pot

12.03.08 | Permalink | 0 Comments

Great Pot Noodle Viral, spoofing the much-hyped Guinness Tipping Point ad:

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The twittering masses

12.03.08 | Permalink | 0 Comments

Sarah Lacy’s keynote interview of Mark Zuckerburg at SXSWi offers a fascinating insight into the impact of real-time social media conversation - and the perils for those who attempt to engage with an audience who are deeply entrenched in this world, without fully comprehending how that world works.

For those who haven’t seen this dissected in minute detail elsewhere - or watched it here - the root of the problem was that Lacy gave a long and rambling interview, from a very business-focused perspective which was totally out of sync with the expectations of her audience - a room full of developers, designers, techies and geeks who wanted to hear about the API, platform and how Facebook was going to develop going forward. The interview went from bad to worse, as Lacy meandered around recounting anecdotal stories about her subject rather than actually interviewing him, leading Zuckerberg to retort “You have to ask questions!”.

This didn’t just lead to heckling (although there was plenty of that as well) - as the interview progressed, the increasingly hostile audience were twittering their rising discontent about its conduct (and the interviewer), with their live micro-blogging offering a clear and decisive real-time response to how the session was going down.

As Jeff Jarvis points out far more astutely, the simple fact was that she wasn’t listening. The world of social conversation offers journalists, speakers - and brands - the opportunity to research what an audience wants, and to assess how they’re doing. A week prior to the keynote, Lacy could have blogged to ask SXSWers what they would like to see discussed with Zuckerberg. Even once things started going downhill, she could have opened up the discussion to the floor to ask them what they wanted to know there and then.

Now, by way of excuse, this may be the fault of the conference organisers rather than Lacy herself, as it appears her brief was to focus in a specifically business-centric direction, and not to take audience questions, since there was a separate Facebook developer-centric event for this purpose.

But what was clear was that the audience at SXSW are savvy digerati who are used to publishing their thoughts and views via blogs, Twitter, Meebo, Facebook and so on. They’re active prosumers who are used to having their say and weren’t content to passively listen to the conversation taking place on the stage - they expect to partake actively in both online and offline conversations. On the one hand this is nothing new - anyone who’s ever presented to an audience will know that interaction is the key to getting people engaged and involved, yet on the other hand I think the growth of active participation in social media and personal publishing tools will mean that active participation will come to be expected as standard.

Equally, this demonstration of how badly wrong things can go when you simply don’t listen to your audience should serve as a salutory lesson for brands/agencies about the perils of ignoring what your consumers are saying about you, and of failing to ask them what they think and what they want. If the customer is king, shouldn’t they be involved in the conversations right from the very start?

See also (amongst others):

Wired | Scoble | All Just Words

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Free Magenta!

11.03.08 | Permalink | 0 Comments

Phew, back in the land of the living. Must do better at keeping blog updated!

Anyway to get the ball back rolling, the latest wheeze by T-Mobile to protect their branding totally horrified me, and thought it was worth highlighting.

In the Netherlands, Deutsche Telekom (parent company for T-Mobile) has registered “magenta” at the European Brandoffice as a trademark- thereby aiming to prevent any other Dutch company from using this colour in any of their communications, logos or even their stationery.

Clearly the notion of a brand registering total ownership of a colour is utterly ludicrous, but unbelievably Deutsche Telekom have succeeded in making this a reality, and are allegedly starting to threatening to take legal action against other companies using the same colour.

The Free Magenta site has been set up by an Amsterdam design agency to galvanise the campaign to fight for magenta to be free for use by all - and it’s got some fascinating examples of the repercussions this could have, such as the Pink Panther in blue!

I really hope this decision gets revoked, as it’s a frankly ridiculous attempt at protecting brand identity - and the notion that a single business could own total exclusivity rights on a given colour is a hilarious - and terrifying - notion.

Free Magenta!

[ see Reclaim Magenta for more info ]

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