Politics in 2008. It's interesting they need to do a campaign to get people to vote. Here in Australia it's illegal not to.

Sarah Silverman is working her ass off this election.

Even the The Simpsons get in on the act. Note: Sarah Silverman does not feature in this Simpsons clip.

But does Obama have McCain space? I think not.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 7:59 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Interesting Promotions

I have no idea why there are 5 bands playing inside a banner space in the aptly named Banner Concerts but it looks like a fun shoot. This is by Boondoggle in Belgium after I found a Flickr set from the shoot.

I initially thought this was a bands album sampler piece (like Arcade Fire's from last year) but there are different bands so I'm assuming its a music related festival/competition thing. Or it could be a way to get bands to submit their songs and the winning bands make up the empty spots on the banner board. Either way it's an interesting execution.

What's missing from Banner Concerts is the ability to embed a chosen band on my site. This is much more fun than embedding a Myspace player. If someone can tell me the exact purpose of the site I'll revise this post.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 7:37 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Interesting Promotions

When writing a press release in the advertising industry its hard not to claim something using the following terms

"First, largest, oldest, most successful & viral"

and sometimes using more than one of these in the same release.

What I want to know is does everyone believe what they read or do they do as I do and call bullshit? If so why isn't there any fact checking being done? I've seen some claim to be the "most successful online campaign for XXXX" and agencies call themselves "largest XXXX XXXX agency" or "the first XXXXX agency in XXXXX".

Blatant use of the word viral is the easiest to put a stop too. If you are writing the press release before the campaign has been launched then describing it as viral is like calling it award winning before it's won any awards. Julian mentions this here and here.

I'll admit I've done it myself with both Bannerblog and Soap. Each time I knew it was bending the truth. But I'e made sure to put and end to it lately. I guess we work in an industry build on deception (read: BS) and there is no honour among thieves.

If you see a blatant exaggeration of the truth from an advertising agency please send it my way and we'll try and make this a regular fixture.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 6:40 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Interesting Articles

The combined effort of the blog community harnessed to raise money for students. More info on this here on DonorsChoose.org

We're a little late to participate and I'd prefer to donate money to local or international charities rather than US based ones. But it is still a nice idea. These ideas always go better the second year as people capitalise on what worked last year and also last years late comers are on equal footing.

As of writing sport blogs have raised only $155. That's pretty sad.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 5:53 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Interesting Promotions

Everything you wanted to know about the Blogosphere (hate that word) and more. Technorati release their State of the Blogosphere 2008 report.

Reading this series of reports will let you fake your way through any conversation on blogging even if you think a Blogroll is something you find at a Yum Cha restaurant. Anyone out there fluffing their way through a digital strategist role at an above the line agency should have hard copies of this too.

The report contains not just sexy graphs (like below) on blogs but also insight as to why we blog and the people who blog.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 5:38 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Industry News