FRANKthoughts

Our good friends at carsales.com.au & Lookout Mobile have teamed up to bring sports fans the ultimate AFL and NRL iPhone applications for free in 2010.

Last year both apps were available @$3.99 and were the two most downloaded sporting apps in Australia. Aussie Rules live was also the 3rd most downloaded paid app in 09!

All the popular features of 2009 have returned like goal score updates and live text commentary, through to your team’s ladder position and fixture, with the inclusion of in-app integration of footytips.com.au and detailed player stats for the last 10 years.

The carsales.com.au sponsorship is the first of its kind in Australia, in which an iPhone application is available free, in return for sponsorship – “we are huge supporters of both sporting codes and innovative technology solutions and this was a way for us to show support to both mediums”, said Shane Pettiona, Chief Operating Officer of carsales.com.au.

The 2010 Aussie Rules Live & Rugby League Live apps are now available for download so hit the Apple iTunes App store today.

Enjoy & GO PIES!

Well it’s over for another year and big thanks to anyone who contributed in any way. There are masses of photos on Movember’s flickr showcasing the gala parties from around the globe. My favourite set is “Brushes with Fame” where mo bros and mo sisters have their photos taken with celebrities. Here’s Melbourne’s Man of Movember.

Back in June we first spoke about Guvera . Well  it’s finally launching in a few weeks…15 December we’re told. The Guvera model is based on engagement in favour of the classic advertising-interruption model. From their eDM “Instead of advertising being perceived as disruptive or annoying, Guvera allows the advertiser to align their brand with their customers passions, allowing the brand to become the hero that provides new ways to find and get music, for free.”

If you think about your own experiences in meeting people you’re more likely to end up talking with someone who is approachable and listens rather than someone who just wants to talk about themselves.

 The Guvera approach allows brands to be able to fast-track engagement via an understanding of consumer preferences across a range of crieteria. Registering with Guvera is like speed dating for brands. To register you’ll be asked about your prefences on holidays, sport, music, gadgets & things, web activities, countries, books, films, food and charities. Just the kind of topics any one might ask in getting to know you.

I’m currently reading Mike Walsh’s excellent book, Futuretainment. In this he says “The challenge/opportunity for brands to benefit from an engagement-approach is to shift their brand strategy focus and to start behaving like media companies. Great brands engage consumers through telling stories. By learning more about the stories that surround a brand we can form our own impressions of their products/services and what they mean to our own lives and experiences. As audiences fragment one of the few ways for brands to achieve mass awareness is for their message to be compelling enough for consumers to do the distribution for you.”

It’ll be interesting to see how brands manage this opportunity with Guvera. In this emerging era of brand engagement it is clear that some brands (just like some people) are socially inept and there are likely to be degrees of sensitivity between the one-night stand approach and building longer term relationships.

As Mike says “the future of entertainment is not advertising- the future of advertising is entertainment.”

I’m in Singapore for a few days as one of the judges of the inaugural Nuffnang blog awards. Great result for the Aussies, we have about 1% of the bloggers that make up the 100,000 community and picked up 25% of the awards!

 Congratulations must go to everyone who was nominated and who made the event such a success.  More about the winners later.
On my strolls around Singapore i came across a new twist on reflexology which involves hundreds of fish nibbling your feet to remove the dead skin. Check this out 

It’s been about 3 months since Vizeum launched in Australia through FRANk media, in Melbourne, to become FRANkVizeum. Finally we have Vizeum’d up the building with the global yellowness and the tree as seen here on the London site.

We’ve put our own spin on the ‘look’ with an intricate stencil on our walls thanks to signaction who have done an awesome job. Here’s a short movie using our new flip video camera which gives you the general idea. Enjoy.

It’s nearly that time of the year where facial hair plans its return across the country as the mo’nth formerly known as November, Movember, is soon to roll around again for a mo’mentous 2009. Things have kicked off very well this week with the new look 2009 Movember website.

Last year enthusiastic Mo Bros & Sista’s raised more than $20 million in Australia for Movember, supporting the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and Beyondblue – The national depression initiative.

There has been great media support again this year which will include TV, radio, outdoor, street posters, cinema, online support and much more.  We look forward to seeing the campaign progression from the official kickoff on October 12th. Stay tuned…

A year ago, I hadn’t heard of Nuffnang and yet next month I am very honored to be on the judging panel of the inaugural Nuffnang Asia Pacific Blog Awards.

All thanks for our partnership with Nuffnang must go to David Lee, my fellow Director in Nuffnang Australia. Dave approached Ming and Tim, Nuffnang’s co-founders, about our potential involvement, about 11 months ago and since November 2008 we have been building Nuffnang’s blog advertising community in Australia. Today we have over 1,000 bloggers who have signed up to our network with ads seen by 90,000 people daily.

However our numbers are dwarfed by the collective might of Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines who have over 100,000 blogs with ads seen by 3 million people daily.

The awards have created a frenzy with over 400 bloggers, plus partners, being flown to Singapore for a grand Gala Dinner and accommodation at Nuffnang’s expense. The sponsors are Pringles and The Singapore Tourism Board.

There are 12 blog awards in total Best Blog Shop, Best Food Blog, Best Fashion Blog, Best Parenting Blog, Best Travel Blog, Best Geek Blog, Best Celebrity Blog, Best Entertainment Blog, Best Original Blog Design, Most Influential Blog, Best Hidden Gem and the top award of Region’s Best Blog.

Nominations have closed so now it’s down to the serious job of judging.

As the need for sound social business strategy becomes more apparant in Australia its fascinating to observe how brands are trying to engage with bloggers. Australia is at a relatively early stage of development in terms of engaging the blogosphere and it’s good to be at the forefront of the understanding process. The key consideration in social media is to originate and sustain a healthy dialogue with the view of building a long term relationship.

The challenge for many brands is to recognise this and not to approach the blogosphere with the intent of ‘taking’ or ‘using.’ The opportunity is to give and share, as with any healthy relationship.

The inaugural blog awards is part of Nuffnang’s commitment to our blogger community and i can’t wait until i visit Singapore for the first time in October to witness first hand the raw energy of our Nuffies.

As Friday afternoons go in the FRANkVizeum Melbourne office, this was just like any other. We were sitting around discussing the week in retrospect……helped with a few beers and debating whether Collingwood could beat Adelaide on the weekend. Deep stuff!

When the question was posed – Has anyone heard of the lying down game? While most shook their heads, those that were familiar with it took us through the concept.

The game itself originated in the UK by two guys from Somerset and has caught on around the world amongst the online social community thanks to a dedicated Facebook page & official website.

The concept is designed for all those who enjoy the sport of lying down in random public places to confuse people.

There are two aims:

1) The more public the better
2) The more people involved the better

Please be aware that the palms of your hands must be flat against your side and the tips of your toes pointing at the ground. Just as if you were standing, but vertically challenged.

This of course sparked one of those ‘FRANKVizeum’ moments, and so began the challenge. Lying face down outside our office and without getting cleaned up by passing traffic; we successfully created the company initials ‘FV’ using eight human bodies (Exhibit A pictured above).

With the photo uploaded here, we were now part of this growing craze, why not try it yourself!

Keep your eyes out tonight for the start of The Ashes cricket on SBS.  VB will be debuting their 2 minute branding campaign ad before the first ball, with their irreverent take on the types of ‘blokes’ we should be celebrating as a nation – ‘The Regulars’.  Pup Clarke, Molly Meldrum and other famous Aussie ‘blokes’ feature in the ad.  Outside of the AFL/NRL Grand Finals, it’s probably as close as we’ll get to a ‘Superbowl half time ad‘ this year.

VB are doing a great job with their site, with online content mirroring the campaign, and plenty of fun gadgets to engage the average beer drinking Aussie.  It’s hard to follow up ‘A Hard Earned Thirst’ which has gained the brand so much mileage through the years – but this isn’t a bad follow up.

C’mon Aussie, C’mon!