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Articles from The GottaQuirk eMarketing blog

Quirk Applauds 2007's Top Youth Innovator 2007-11-19 06:48:47 The QuirkStars would like to congratulate one of their own, Rafiq Phillips, on leaving the 9th Annual ICT Achievers Awards Ceremony with the Top Youth Innovator Award for 2007. This prestigious award was in recognition of Rafiq’s contribution to ICT in Africa; and more specifically was for Rafiq’s part in developing and marketing the site, iDRIVE.co.za.  The iDRIVE site is a portal to the driver education and training industry in South Africa. A mobile platform that was started in 2005, it is a driving instructor search engine that hosts only certified, reputable driving schools and can be accessed by anyone using an Internet-enabled cell phone, MXit or a computer. Users are able to search for a driving school, and contact them either via the telephone, or and sms or email. The innovation of which Rafiq is particular proud is the automated communication platform, used in conjunction with MXit. The first of its kind, it ensures the ultimate convenience for users wi ...

iThink Therefore iGoogle 2007-11-19 00:34:21 Rob was quite taken aback recently when he noticed that I use the iGoogle personalised desktop. Not that he disapproves, but he was curious as to what I liked about it. Firstly, it’s great for news. I get both sides of the story, local and international through CNN, News24, Time and various other news feeds covering a variety of my interests. There are tons of gadgets from which to make up your own “information desk”, alternatively, if you don’t find the exact gadget you’re looking for, you can always create it yourself. You can also subscribe to your favourite blogs and have them sent straight to you. I can keep abreast of the current top searched terms with my Google Hot Trends feed, learn a new word a day (one off my favourite functions), see what free downloads iTunes is currently offering, monitor my Gmail account, enjoy classic “Art of the Day”, see what’s on at the movies and keep an eye on the phases of the moon (one of the ...

Nike - Leave Nothing 2007-11-17 23:31:35 Looking back at the various virals that I've posted, most have a single element that persuades me to pass them on - a surprise ending, an absurd context, a larger than life concept, tongue-in-cheek sexual connotations, etc. However, the ones that I've passed on the most to my friends, and continue to do so, are those that just kick-ass. If a commercial has enough quality then viewing it becomes a pleasure and it doesn't need to rely on some gimmick to ensure that it spreads. Take today's clip as an example - directed by Michael Mann, it's set to the music from the final chase / action sequence of his own Last of the Mohicans. In my opinion the scene is one of the  most underrated uses of music in film that I've come across and Mann's Nike advert uses the music to much of the same effect. It really draws the viewer in and gets the adrenaline pumping, fitting in perfectly with the manufacturer of sports apparel's brand. Comment on "Nike - Leave Nothing" ...

SOS - Rethink the shark 2007-11-17 02:23:24 Over dinner this week Andrew decided discussing a recent shark attack, or nibble as he put it, would be a good pre-dinner topic - typical ; ) Anyways, the conversation, as they tend to do over good wine, went from shark attacks to responsible sushi eating to “did you know?” questions like - 'more people die from chairs than shark attacks every year?' So on that note here’s a blast from the past from The Save our Seas Foundation: They also did: Last year 791 people died from faulty toasters – 4 by sharks and Last year 358 people were killed by kites – 4 by sharks. SOS cleverly crafted this campaign to have a common narrative which then cuts to one of three final scenes and in doing so creating “new” campaigns within one production budget! Nice one – I love a bargain ; ) Comment on "SOS - Rethink the shark" ...

Interaction in a Digital World 2007-11-17 02:21:25 During my daily wander through my Google reader I went of on a tangent and ended up discovering some super-cool, interactive technology. To backtrack a little…I saw a mention of the upcoming ‘leweb3’ conference taking place on December 07 in one of the world's most appealing cities (well in my opinion at least)...Paris! Whilst checking out the official website www.leweb3.com I spotted that vpod.tv - a French ‘video publishing on demand’ site, which encourages users to create their own TV channels, was an organisational partner and clicked off in that direction. Once I had watched a few “arb” clips which were listed in the ‘most rated section’, I finally found a clip which I rated and decided to go forth and share my findings - a crucial element in the viral marketing  process. The holographic technology which enables a space such as a museum to come alive and really offer an interactive visitor experience is called th ...

Don't blame the technology... 2007-11-16 03:32:18 Please bear with me on this one… I have a few stories to tell - they’re all pretty random but there is one common message. So here goes: Story 1: Recently, while waiting at O.R. Tambo International for my flight home, a happily married couple (well so they claimed) decided that I looked like a nice, friendly person to share their life story with (mental note: take a book and never look up). They went on to tell me about their wonderful life together, how long they been married, blah, blah, blah - must be honest I almost Dave’d in my mouth! To cut a (very) long story short they had no kids of their own but did have 4 “wonderful” godchildren aged between 7 and 15. Then, out of the blue, they announced that the Internet is evil and it is corrupting our children … well, as you can image I/new age mum choked on my drink, all the blood rushed to my head and for once I was speechless (thank God cause I would have been rude, had I been able to breathe). ...

US National Guard Invades the Internet 2007-11-15 00:45:20 For some or other bizarre reason, I was watching videos for US National Guard recruitment yesterday, and decided to take a look at the recruitment website to see how they marketed themselves – specifically through the use of extramural media. After all, it’s a tricky thing to sell these days. After browsing the site for only a few minutes I realised that the website was rather well orchestrated. From the word go, the site used every angle to cover every base. For instance, the URL cleverly includes the recruitment telephone number and a call to action (www.1-800-go-guard.com).   The site features: National Guard themed movies A 3 Doors Down music video tribute, Citizen Soldier (the YouTube version of which has been viewed 42,287 times in two weeks) A one on one chat option with a “Hero on Call” Forums for past, present and future soldiers Top 100 high school football rankings Event guides, including Guard Fishing and Racing even ... Internet

IMDB's Top 10 Over the Years 2007-11-14 05:39:42 I’ve had social aggregating and user reviews buzzing around my mind for a couple of days now so I decided to compare IMDB’s chart of its top 250 movies against the same chart from 2007. Using www.archive.org I pulled this top 10 list from 2000: 1)    The Godfather 2)    The Shawshank Redemption 3)    Schindler’s List 4)    Casablanca 5)    Citizen Kane 6)    American Beauty 7)    The Godfather: Part II 8)    Star Wars: A New Hope 9)    Shichinin no samurai (Seven Samurai) 10)  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest  And the current top 10: 1)    The Godfather 2)    The Shawshank Redemption 3)    The Godfather: Part II 4)    IL Buono, il brutto, il cattivo (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) 5)    Pulp Fiction 6)    Schindler’s Lis ...

This is FNN 2007-11-11 02:12:56 I normally have tight reigns in place to ensure that I don't let my Facebook addiction get the better of me. Nevertheless, I do always find myself wondering what the latest social developments are and I can't say that I enjoy feeling left out of the loop. As such my Facebook interactions are normally limited to me jumping onto my home-page and browsing through the latest items in my news-feed. The following 'Facebook News Network' clip pokes fun at how seriously we do take the social network, and just how big a part it plays in some of our lives: I like the fact that it makes us laugh at ourselves and our own silliness in assigning so much importance to such a constructed form of social interaction. Pretty much all summed up by the last line, "Or just hit the refresh button again and again." The clip has decent production quality, and was made by Train of Thought Sketch Comedy. The Facebook fan page can be found here. Comment on "This is FNN" ...

In the Arms of Another Beer 2007-11-10 00:50:59 I remember earlier on in the year when SAB lost its Amstel license and the golden goodness got pulled off of South African shelves. To say that I was heartbroken is a gross understatement. I was lost - a helpless soul in the darkness without a light to guide me. I moped around for a few weeks. Didn’t shave for two of them. Eventually I found comfort in the arms of another beer - Hansa Marzen Gold. Now I am happy to report that Amstel is back in stock, and my liver is currently in a very enjoyable polygamous relationship. Comment on "In the Arms of Another Beer" ...

Online Marketing: Is the Plot Lost 2007-11-09 04:59:05 Earlier this year, director of the Emmy Award winning show Lost, JJ Abrams, launched the trailer for his upcoming movie - the name of which has not yet been released (or even thought up yet, knowing Abrams), but has been tentatively titled “Cloverfield” as well as “18-01-08” (the release date). With much secrecy surrounding the movie, the viral video shows a party being interrupted by explosions and fire coming from the New York City centre. Filmed in typical Lost style (a kind of stylised cinema verite), the teaser draws you in completely while revealing almost nothing. But here’s the twist; hardcore Lost fans have speculated that the party-goers seen in the trailer are unwittingly linked to the survivors of the crash of Oceanic Flight 815 by a common antagonist. Is the new movie a way for Abrams to link the island mysteries together? Or is the secrecy behind the production just a massive (or minimalist, I haven’t quite decided) marketing ... Marketing

Remember remember the fifth of November 2007-11-07 02:15:02 The 5th of November marked quite a day for Ron Paul. The US Republican presidential candidate, known for being one of the few members of his party to oppose both the war in Iraq and the Bush administration’s security methods, reportedly pulled in over $4.2 million in under 24 hours due to a inundation of  web-based donations. Although Andrew, Smallz and myself have blogged about the US elections before I thought that the sheer magnitude of the figure warranted another post. For two months Ron Paul supporters ran a YouTube campaign centred around Guy Fawkes and Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta. As with the following example users posted submissions showing compilations of scenes from the film coupled with stirring messages designed to motivate online donors to contribute to Paul’s campaign on the 5th of November. Having raised $5 million in the past three months Paul had risen from relative obscurity to become one of the main Republican candidates. Monday saw t ...

SynthaSite beta launch 2007-11-06 05:12:04 TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington and Read/WriteWeb’s Josh Catone might have blogged about SynthaSite first, back when it was in early alpha, but this QuirkStar was the first person outside of SynthaSite to have a look at SynthaSite beta, before it was released yesterday :-P. Grainy cell phone pic of a SynthaSite developer hard at work (taken 27Aug 2007). In a nutshell you are able to do the following with SynthaSite: Build your website in minutes with no programming knowledge! Get started quickly with our growing template library Over a dozen site templates to start building with Free hosting & free domain name Download your site & host it yourself if you want! I signed up for a new SynthaSite account and created a website quicker than you could put a Squidoo page together - impressive! I spotted a few bugs and sent the SynthaSite support team an email. Within a few minutes I had received a reply from Vinny Lingham, SynthaSite’s CEO ...

Plush... Peg it on 2007-11-06 04:10:05 Last night I went to watch a top notch South African band (Jules and the fools) and ended up chatting with an old mate, Ben Peters, who has subtly been re-launching his band ‘Plush’ in South Africa. I mention this because of the ingenious way Ben has gone about generating buzz on a shoestring budget… With a marketing budget of about R150 Ben took matters to his washing line and bought 3000 pegs (about 3c each) and two stamp pads saying “Plush” and “www.plush.us”. After the understandably “gruelling” process of stamping all the pegs they were left with the following marvel of the marketing world: But, it didn’t stop there. Ben, the rest of the band and his representatives in other cities then started handing these pegs out by subtly pegging their target market in public places. Imagine that, getting home with a peg on your clothes and not a clue where it came from (yes, it happened to me). Next, Plush created a “Hav ...

Sprinting Ahead 2007-11-04 04:29:11 Tim sent the QuirkStars an email regarding the viral campaign for Sprint Ahead, a US telecommunications company. I must admit I am a little jaded from all the links that get passed around at work and often skip them when it is not something I actually have to action. However, I decided to open this one immediately and I was not disappointed. This viral campaign is awesome with clever use of video for really smart ideas one can use in real life (as opposed to fake-Internet-video-life). The synergy with the brand is immediate due to the name of the company, Sprint Ahead and the concept of "fast forward though the boring parts of life" being synonymous with each other. I rate these types (synergy of brand and message) of viral campaigns highly, due to the recall value of the brand name (i.e. awareness) it achieves. Before Tim sent me the link I had no idea what Sprint Ahead was. I viewed the campaign once for about 3 minutes and then left it at that. When I was at lunch, thin ...