15th July 2017
Fabulous idea from Volvo. A partnership with photographer Barbara Davidson, presented an exhibition of images shot by the camera in its XC60. The images on display were shot with the car’s safety camera, programmed to detect cyclists, pedestrians, large animals and other vehicles.
Good news for fans of pen and ink – according to The Telegraph, E-books sales drop as a bookshelf resurgence sparks a ‘shelfie’ craze.
But wider pressure on the written word (and journalists) is coming from the rise of video content. ‘There’s a sense of dread that the move into video is fundamentally different from the advent of digital and that writing jobs may disappear permanently. The shift to video is a convenient scapegoat. With the rise of digital, print writers could reinvent themselves as online journalists. This time, they don’t have that option.’
At this year’s Cannes, David Droga gave an emotional speech accepting the Lion of St Mark award for creative excellence. ”I would put down everything in my career to the fact that I cared—about what I do, who I work with, what I make,” he said. “Caring makes you want to work harder. People can’t pay you to care. People can’t teach you to care. …All I’ve tried to do in my career is care.”
Also from Cannes, here are 3 key advertising takeaways courtesy of Digital Content Next – ‘Brand safety’, ‘trust and accountability,’ ‘and immersive experiences.’ A somewhat longer Cannes summary from Digital LBi (eighteen slides) – Trends,Takes and Winning Works.
Will emoji search ever catch on? Kayak, the online travel search engine, has recently announced a new feature that allows users to search for a specific travel destination by emoji. While the concept itself is nothing new – we’ve already seen the likes of Google and Yelp launch emoji search – Kayak is one of the first travel brands to get on board.
From warc.com, ‘What is The Future of Strategy?’. ‘ The fragmentation of strategic roles – into communications planning, social strategy, mobile strategy, and so on – was also a big theme in the survey. To some respondents, this fragmentation offered a threat to the future. “We are specialising ourselves into irrelevance,”
A couple of lists worth considering. From Buzzfeed – 27 podcasts you could listen to in 2017 and from Adweek, the best Ads of 2017, so far.
From www.hbr.org, an interesting chart indexing countries digital competitiveness. The 4 quadrants are Stand Out, Stall Out, Break Out and Watch Out.
Gangnam Style is no longer the most-played video on YouTube. This accolade now goes to Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s See You Again. The song was written for the action movie Furious 7, playing over the closing credits in tribute to the actor Paul Walker, who died in a car accident before the film was completed. Currently standing at 2,914,411,059 views and counting…..
‘Last year, the family made about $1.3 million through sponsored content and collectively have over seven million followers. AJ, the self-proclaimed “man of three accounts,” …is hoping to secure a strategic partnership with Starbucks. AJ and his wife are trying for a third child. They hope that the pregnancy will bring “nine months of pretty solid content.’ From CBC Comedy – Meet the ‘Insta Family’.
And finally, according to the Italian magazine l’Ultimo Uomo , this 20-second slice of a soccer game played out by two Premier League teams in the UK in 1993, is the most inept display of professional soccer ever captured on film. Enjoy.