One of the many things I love about social media is the way it enables us to re-imagine how we use old media. This year I’ve seen Nike do this brilliantly twice – first in Vancouver during the Olympics, and now in Johannesburg for the World Cup – using the same technique of integrating social media with giant outdoor spectacular ads to create ’socialised spectaculars’.

In Vancouver, as part of its ‘Force Fate’ campaign, Nike leveraged Canadian hockey fervour and its sponsorship of the Canadian hockey team, by inviting fans through Facebook to create their own inspirational ads featuring their favourite player , and then running giant projections of them onto the Sears Building on Robson Street in downtown Vancouver throughout the Olympics. Here are a couple of pictures I took of the executions.

They became a must-show for Canadian TV and a must-see, must-photograph and a  must-share for fans – Nike took pictures of the projections and sent them to the people who created them so that they could share with their friends.  Does it get any more social than that?

Four months later and 10,000 miles away in Johannesburg, Nike has repeated the trick at the World Cup as part of their ‘Write The Future’ campaign, but made it bigger in every way.

‘Write The Headline’ has global appeal by featuring Nike’s stable of football icons from around the world. The social media element is much broader too – fans can get involved through Twitter (#writethefuture), QQ (a Chinese chat programme) and Mxit (a South African IM app) as well as Facebook. And the ad is state-of-the-art – a dynamic LED installation that dominates the Southern Life building which towers over Johannesburg and can be seen for miles. Up to 100 headlines are selected each night and transformed into player animations, and when a fan’s message is used Nike sends them the animation.

Give it a try in the Write the Headline Facebook app, and check out the promo film.

By Tim Crow on June 24th, 2010

Tags: Advertising, Default, Digital marketing, Facebook, Football, Olympics, Vancouver 2010, Winter Olympics, World Cup

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By Tim Crow on June 11th, 2010

Tags: Default, Digital marketing, Downloads, Facebook, Football, Football Sponsorship, New Product Development, Olympic sponsorship, Social Media, Vancouver 2010, Winter Olympics, World Cup

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It’s a very exciting time when the mascots are announced for any Games.  Admittedly, this excitement is normally reserved for those aged under ten, and rightly so.  However, I feel very fortunate that I’m blessed with an inner child and can appreciate similar feelings of anticipation that I did back when I was six or seven years old. The more exciting thing this time though, is the fact I might actually get to meet the London 2012 editions.  If you’ve yet to see them, take a look at the Telegraph’s comprehensive explanation of their design.

As you’ve probably guessed I like them.  I think they offer something that will inspire and engage young people across the UK.  They have a thrilling adventure ahead of them and they’ll be able to interact with their audience like never before in the history of Olympic Mascots.  The speed in which both technology and young people have developed in recent years is astonishing.  The digital children right across all corners of the UK will have the opportunity to follow, like and play with Wenlock and Mandeville however they choose, whenever they choose and wherever they choose.  Surely this is amazing? They will take them on holiday, take them to school and probably in the bath too, and more often than not this will be through the digital channel.

I think for brands involved as Official Partners of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games this offers a unique opportunity.  The mascots will play an important role in connecting with the young people, not only in terms of promoting the Games, but also as an educational inspiration.  I remember how engaged I was when taught about the Olympic movement, having something so real and tangible on the door step will have an enormous impact, particularly for young boys who commonly have learning challenges in certain subjects of the curriculum in this age group.  Tapping into to this market to help develop and extend the Olympic experience and involve our young nation in the Games is a fantastic opportunity and we’ll be looking to develop programmes for our clients to maximise this exciting development.

So, I hope you to get some excitement from seeing the new mascots unveiled.  If they’re not for you don’t worry, but I urge you to just ask a small person their opinion in two years time, as this will be the true judge of the success of Wenlock and Mandeville.  Get involved yourselves and follow them on Twitter @iamwenlock and @iammandeville and see how the story unfolds in the build up to the ever nearing London 2012. And keep your eye on this blog, as if I do get the chance to meet them the pictures will be here first!

By Ben Wilkinson on May 20th, 2010

Tags: BOA, Brand marketing, Branded content, Digital marketing, Experiential marketing, Facebook, London 2012, London 2012 sponsorship, London 2012 sponsorship consultants, Olympic sponsorship, Olympic sponsorship consultants, Olympics, Online communities, Social Media, Sponsorship, Sponsorship consultancy, Sponsorship consultants, Synergy, Team GB

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Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

- Ferris Bueller

Sentiments borne of teenage frustration and a need for escape, rebellion and self-expression from the master of the ‘80s genre, the late great John Hughes. A simpler time, one might argue: the days before the web, wi-fi, information aggregation and real-time status updates live-streamed from a virtual community of billions.

Nowadays, information overload is well-documented, but to put things into context, it’s worth reviewing a snippet of the review of web use in 2009 from the legends at Pingdom.

So, in 2009:

- 90 trillion emails were sent…of which 81% were classified as spam (that’s 200 billion mails a day)
- A total of 234 billion websites were catalogued…with a further 47 million added last year
- There were 1.73 billion internet users worldwide…an 18% increase on 2008
- 126 million blogs were tracked by BlogPulse…with 84% of social network sites with more women than men
- Microblogs weighed in with a hefty 27.3 million tweets per day…although 57% of Twitter’s user base is in the US
- Facebook reached 350m users…50% of whom logged on every day
- 4 billion images were hosted on Flickr…however, 2.5 billion per month were uploaded to Facebook
- 1 billion videos were viewed per day on You Tube…with the average user watching 182 videos per month

And breathe.

In an age where the relentless pace of technological change means that many of us feel like we’re running to stand still, how do we find the time to stand and stare? If only there was some kind of machine that could take you back, pre-tipping point, or at least let you remember what things once looked and felt like…

You’ll be needing the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Whether it’s for research, curiosity or simple nostalgia, this is a really fascinating resource. Type in whatever website you’re interested in and the site will offer you glimpses of archived pages from as far back as the mid ‘90s.

Just to get you started, how about:

Hotmail circa 1997

Google circa 1998

BBC.co.uk circa 2000

Sky Sport circa 2001

You Tube circa 2005

Granted, hardware, software and coding changes mean that not every page works perfectly or looks exactly as it used to. However, it’s a great way of frittering away a couple of minutes online, and even acts as a would-be stomach pump for the reclamation of forgotten morsels of data that Google, like a virtual sarlacc, has swallowed up but is now unable to regurgitate via organic search, such is the ceaseless growth of cyberspace.

Whether you find what you’re looking for or not, such online time travel confirms that LP Hartley knew what he was talking about…the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

By Jonathan Izzard on April 12th, 2010

Tags: Blogging, Content, Default, Facebook, Media, Online communities, YouTube, community

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Yesterday I was pointed in the direction of an article on social media that suggested brands should choose a targeted Facebook ad campaign to promote their product(s) to fans of a sport or sports team, rather than through any official partnership with the sport or team in question.

The article’s main argument was that by advertising to fans of a club on Facebook, the brand could save itself 99% the cost of a sponsorship and have more measureable results than a ‘traditional sponsorship’.

The writer signed off by saying: “If I ran a business that made its dollars (the article originates from Australia) raising sponsorship funds, or was highly dependent on sponsorship for revenue, I would be very concerned about now”.

I’m undecided as to which irritated me more, the writer’s lack of understanding of marketing, social media or sponsorship.

There is no doubt that social media is changing the way we communicate globally. As an industry, sponsorship has embraced social media with brands, teams, sports stars and the media are all creating reams of content that is giving fans multiple additional ways to consume their sport.

Granted, a brand that marketed itself in this way may see a return, but I would argue that this return will mirror their investment – minimal. As part of a wider sponsorship activation strategy, Facebook advertising could drive significant traffic to your website or product, but only if the brand has established a level of credibility with its target audience. Shoe-horning a traditional communication tool like advertising into the growing medium of social media and expecting it to be an instant success is just a little bit ludicrous.

Brands that sponsor a sports team build an affinity with the fans who appreciate the investment that the brand is putting into their club to help them progress. Fans are unlikely to show loyalty to a brand that hangs on the coat tails of a team without giving anything back.

I for one cannot recall a single ad that has appeared on my Facebook page – if I’ve not signed up for it, I’m not interested. Sponsorship is proven to benefit brand recall and in many cases leads to a positive shift in brand preference.

Facebook is aiming to have a billion users by December 2010, but when you drill down into the specific audience that you want to speak too, the numbers may not be so impressive.

The thing with Facebook is that not everyone lists their hobbies and interests. Take me for example, I haven’t listed Formula One as a hobby on Facebook but my friends and colleagues know that I post updates or tweet about F1 every day, so you would not be targeting as many people as you could through sponsoring a team.

Associating officially with a club will not only give your brand visibility in-stadia, but also online via the club’s website, access to supporters clubs, advertising in event programmes and, depending on the sport or team, possible television exposure – and that’s before you throw in access to tangible assets such as players, club representatives, tickets or replica kit.

Any good sponsorship agency will find a deal that offers opportunities to meet the brand’s objectives and which doesn’t involve ‘paying a premium to the club’.

Facebook may appeal to those marketeers who don’t really understand social media but for those that do, social media offers so much more than just advertising. Engage with your target audience through competitions or promotions, give them access to exclusive content, ask their opinions and create a dialogue that enhances their experience rather than interrupts it.

Whilst writing, a saying sprang to mind which really sums this up for me, ‘if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys’. Concerned? I’m not.

By Nick Mott on March 26th, 2010

Tags: Default, Facebook, Social Media

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When people find out I work in sponsorship, I always get asked two things:

1. Do you have any decent tickets?
2. Do you have any decent gossip?

There was a time when I had plenty of the latter and little of the former. Unfortunately these days my gossip is about as revealing as a Tiger Woods press conference. The reasons for this are twofold due to changes that have happened over the last few years.

Firstly, the lines between sportsman and celebrity have blurred. Any star worth their salt should now be able to change their first name to ‘Brand’ and sound believable – think Brand Beckham, Brand Murray, Brand Schumacher. Could you ever imagine Brand Botham or Best?

The worlds of sport and entertainment celebrity, or ‘Sportainment’ as it’s naturally called in America, are now firmly linked and in more then a few cases by marriage (or separation). This means you become a front page story rather then a back page one, especially if it’s for the wrong reasons.

Secondly, and this is the significant recent change, with the rapid rise of digital and social media our appetite for instant news and our ability to create it has never been so strong.

Sports stars and clubs themselves are in on the act – basketball player, Shaquille O’Neal has a whopping 2.8 million twitter followers, while Barcelona FC has 1.3 million Facebook friends – but the real control lies with the person on the street.

After Tiger’s conference (streamed live on YouTube), we didn’t need to wait for the papers’ reaction the next day to gauge public opinion – in just the hour after there were over 93,000 tweets about it.

The headlines of Messrs Cole, Terry and Woods show us that the sports stars haven’t really changed – in fact the only surprise is that Tiger kept it quiet so long. The change is that now they are considered fair game by both a salivating media and an unforgiving public able to influence and drive the agenda. This means there few secrets that don’t come out eventually – or in other words not a good time to be straying from home.

Oh and before you ask – no I don’t have any tickets to the World Cup, Wimbledon or The FA Cup Final. No change there then.

By Dominic Curran on March 2nd, 2010

Tags: Andy Murray, David Beckham, FA Cup, Facebook, Public relations, Sponsorship, Tiger Woods, YouTube

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A year ago Engine took part in the annual NABS netball tournament.  I wrote a blog about it and signed off with ‘I make a pledge here and now that by the time London is hosting the greatest games on earth you’ll see Engine’s name engraved on the NABS netball trophy.’ 

Well, in true Synergy and Engine style we have delivered and three years early as well!

Engine's NABS netball team

The Engine girls took to the court and despite taking awhile to warm up, we sailed through to the plate section of the tournament. Success in the quarter and semi-finals took us through to the Plate Grand Final against RKCR/Y&R. It was a close run game but a storming performance by Natalie Parish of WCRS – later voted player of the tournament -secured Engine their first NABS netball title. Congratulations ladies and here’s to another win next year!

For those who read my blog last year, you may be interested to know that the number of supporters campaigning for netball to become an Olympic sport on Facebook has more than quadrupled with over 40,000 members.

By Caroline Ayling on August 3rd, 2009

Tags: Commonwealth Games, Default, Employee engagement, Facebook, London 2012, Olympics, Sport, Synergy

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In one of the most touching tributes to celebrate the life of children’s TV presenter Tony Hart, over 200 fans gathered outside London’s Tate Modern at the weekend. In recognition of Tony’s much-loved sidekick, the animated character Morph, a flash-mob of plasticene Morphs were displayed on the Southbank, drawing in large crowds throughout the day.

Hart’s legacy touched generations of children who were encouraged to paint and draw over a TV career that spanned 50 years, before his death, at the age of 83, earlier this year.

‘Morph Mob’ was a compliment to Tony’s unflappable “you can do it” approach to art and creativity. Morph was certainly capable of extraordinary feats of metamorphosis and spoke an unintelligible language that only he and Hart seemingly could understand. None of this mattered on Sunday. The event, organised on social networking website Facebook, involved members of the Hart family with Tony’s daughter, Carolyn Williams, invited to judge Best Morph in Show.

Fantastic; flash mobbing at it’s best and in true Tony Hart spirit; the doyen of DIY art.

PS. I’d love to say that Tony Hart inspired me to draw brilliantly from a young age but I have always been a rather hopeless artist and never quite made it into The (infamous) Gallery. I think I tried at least once, as did 6,000 other kids a week apparently. I had no chance.

PPS. One question and I do hope Tony will forgive me. Was Morph a man or a woman? Very difficult to tell on closer inspection…

By Stephanie Branston on March 3rd, 2009

Tags: Facebook, Flash mobbing, Television, The Arts

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