The 3D Tipping Point?

There's something about 3D that fascinates me? It's something to do with it feeling brilliantly retro, however cutting edge it's becoming.

We've been hearing about the 3D tipping point from studios for years now, so I think there's a real scepticism about what it's really going to deliver and when.

However, next year promises some big milestones:

- the role out of 3D screens will reach a critical mass

- Real-D technology will mean we get a genuine experience which doesn't give you a headache!

- bluray enables studios to go over their back catalogue and convert all CGI based scenes back to 3D, creating a real supply of content at last

- the studios are releasing some huge made for 3D productions, most notably James Cameron's hugely anticipated 'Avatar'

If all of these planets align, 2009 finally promises to be the year of 3D.

And that's just cinema.

Sky are making noises about 3D TV next year and Philips have already put a screen into production that doesn't require glasses. I was lucky enough to be invited by Orange France to see the Roland Garros tennis being filmed in 3D this summer and I can confirm that it's pretty impressive.

Finally, mobile; Korea already has mobiles with 3D cameras built in. The beauty of this is that with screens that small, you don't need glasses, as the brain is tricked into seeing a 3D image.

So, for the brand that's willing (and brave) enough to make the first move, there's huge opportunity next year.

TV turmoil

This story never really got picked up to any great extent, but I think it's the clearest illustration yet that from a production point of view, the year ahead promises to be a bit grim if you're reliant upon the terrestrial broadcasters for the lions share of your commissions.

However, what I think is more interesting about this industry turmoil is what it means for brands and the creation of branded content.

Only last month I was sitting with a colleague trying to manage expectations about the lead times and scheduling issues surrounding the creation of TV content, but you have to ask whether such traditional rules still apply?

With commissiong editors having budgets frozen and ITV issuing a mandate that demands in-house production, the brand funded route seems suddenly far more attractive.

From a scheduling perspective, with less original productions it should be easier for brands to break free of the poorly performing dayparts. Linked to this, from a production perspective we should be able to see quicker turnarounds as slots become available on a more short term basis.

My old colleagues at drum have announced one of the highest profile projects to come out of ITV1 recently, with the prime time return of the Krypton Factor (SAGE computers licensed the ITV owned format) and we've just completed a series for Coke Zero with Wayne Rooney on Sky1 (important to note that Sky are in a great place and will surely become the indies best freinds this year?).




The shape and scale of things to come? Let's wait and see, but let's also hope that we don't see a plague of shitty, poorly thought out content making it's way into our homes, because that won't help anyone in the long-run.

The blog of doom ..

No sooner than I post about the wonderful site that is MixWit, I get this email:

"We regret to announce that Mixwit will cease to exist at the end of the year.The website and profiles will be turned off around Dec 27th and all embedded widgets will stop playing before the end of December."

Heaven help the others unlucky enough to have been written about over the past week, especially the Greek Feta Cheese crew (who I noticed were in Metro again today - clearly metro readers index well as heavy consumers of soft cheese?).

RIP Mixwit.

Seasons Greetings from M&C

http://www.mcsaatchi.com/christmas/video/video.html

Not really a balanced point of view considering I work for an M&C group company - but I really like this. Nice to see real thought go into something that could have so easily have been mundane and predictable.

Happy Christmas.

Ad' of the day

Spotted this in Metro this morning.

I for one will now be making Feta a key ingredient in my family's Christmas celebrations.

You can't quite make it out in the photo, but I particularly like the tagline:

"It's all Greek. To me - to you - to everyone."

Did the copywriter have an issue with commas?

Spreadable media

Faris Yakob has been very vocal in his belief that it's impossible to "produce a viral" and that we should instead be talking about "spreadable media" - content that is produced with the intent to make people voluntarily propogate it:

"Further, as I've endlessly pointed out, if you let people mess with your content, it gets more spreadable - because people suddenly have a personal stake in its propagation - this insight was at the heart of propagation planning"

The new video from ex-Roll Deep Crew member 'Wiley' (and notoriously fickle label jumper) is a fine example of this theory - it just begs to be messed with and the early signs are that it could become a bit of a phenomenon ... with a really unusual audience of office workers:





Not only is this a very clever bit of production and an idea that builds on the "single take" heritage of some classic videos (Massive Attack's 'Unfinished Sympathy' and The Verve's 'Bitter Sweet Symphony'), but it's also quite blatant in it's invitation to be ripped off by fans (last frame).

So far the crazy kids at Atlantic have posted their attempt, so we're yet to see if something with such a blatant call to action delivers results?






Of course, it helps that this is a great tune produced by Mark Ronson and featuring an incredibly catchy Daniel Merriweather vocal.

Vodafone run-out

Vodafone have just announced that they're pulling out of their sponsorship of the England Cricket team when the current deal comes to an end in January 2010.

This is quite a surprise having worked on Vodafone in a past life (albeit briefly) - there always seemed to be a real belief in what was their only real 'local' sponsorship?

At the time of renewal, I seem to remember that this was being reported as £12m for 4 years, so it's one of sports larger and more high-profile partnerships.

It'll be very interesting to see how the ECB approach this as an brand opportunity, with their search for a replacement sponsor being set against the back drop of a global recession. Cricket has traditionally targeted a very upmarket audience and the financial sector has played a major role in providing much needed funding.

The big question will be how long they can get a new partner to commit for? You have to ask yourself which brands are in a position to make long-term commitments in the current market and linked to this, at what point the EBC will fold and decide to take the money that's being put on the table?

From a sponsorship market perspective, we have to hope that they do find a good partner who's willing to make a long-term commitment. Seeing such great opportunities fall prey to speculative deals out to exploit a short-term brand exposure opportunity will only reduce the future value of the property (and other similar properties).

The LTA managed to replace Stella, although we're yet to see quite what AEGON have up their sleeve in terms of activation (and whether they'll be affected by the current turmoil?). So it's not impossible, but it'll certainly be tough?

It's going to be an interesting year for sports sponsorship - we just have to hope that the market doesn't make too many short-term decisions that will hurt their long-term game?

Twittering on

I fear my obsession with twitter, or at least the potential of twitter from an entertainment perspective, is winding my colleagues and clients up? About a month ago I stumbled across the idea of using it as a platform for fan engagement around something I'm working on. Since then I've been reading around the whole area of "fan fiction" and the role that twitter is starting to play.

First came this from Fallon in the US

http://www.slideshare.net/akispicer/fallon-case-study-for-sarah-presentation?type=powerpoint

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: smbmsp fallon)

Then this fascinating report about the twitter mad men phenomenon.What's interesting is that with the sci-fi channel series, the tweets were broadcaster sanctioned and generated, whereas the mad men community was a fan creation.

To the best of my knowledge this hasn't taken off around any more mainstream productions in the uk - however the BBC did get into a heated "responsible journalism" debate around the use of twitter around the mumbai terrorist attacks a few weeks ago.

That in itself is interesting. If the creation of fan fiction on twitter is driven by love for the content, what motivates twitter's use in news journalism? Is it that web 2.0 desire to deliver the "fresh and the new and previously unknown" that I mentioned in my "fear of blogging" post? Or is it simply the knowledge that the technology itself offers the opportunity for an instantanious dialogue on the move?

All I know from observing my wife's behaviour whilst watching X-Factor is that TV still has the ability to generate enormous shared moments, moments that will cause otherwise sensible 34 year old women to phone each other and debate the relative merits of Alexandra's performance vs. Eoghan's. She's doesn't tweet, but it's not a stretch of the imagination to see why she might and therefore to see how powerful this technology could be for broadcasters and production companies.

What I'll be interested to see is which TV "event" manages to break twitter into the more mainstream? I'd lay money on the BBC being behind whatever it is. Having watched the final episode of "Spooks" last night, I think I could even take a guess at which show it might be best suited for.













Sir Harry - do you tweet?

Why blog?

My hangover is receeding and Carnaby Street is working it's hypnotic powers once again.

I've been thinking about the phenomenon of blogging and what has motivated me to finally start?

I have to admit that for a long time I was in the "why the hell would I feel the need to share my inner-most thoughts with a universe of strangers" camp. Having said that I've been quite an avid reader of a (limited) number of planning blogs for a number of years now - especially since starting at BBH and working with a bunch of seriously big thinkers.

So what's changed? I'm now in a new job and a very different role and I guess what's nudged me over the edge is to opportunity to aggregate and share thinking from the wider planning/marketing/comms/cultural landscape and figure out how to apply it to what myself and my team do on a day to day basis?

It's pretty daunting though. I think the thing that's stopped me from blogging in the past is the feeling of pressure to be insightful, entertaining and most of all the pressure to deliver the "new".

An old colleague of mine (who has a fine blog of his own) always used to take the piss out of me at BBH because I had a habit of circulating Guardian Media stories that caught my eye. How very archaic - using a news site as a source of information, and how quaint, using email to distribute what you've found!

So, I've got a clear philosophy for this blog experiment - as long as I find it interesting, it gets in. No faux intellectual masturbation and no aspiration to be the next Faris, Russell, John, Richard or Simon.

Mixwit

I'm working on a brief at the moment which is all about "humanising technology" and for me, this says it all. I stumbled across this site in a post on Jonnymalbon.com - which is tracking the progress of said sailor in the Vendee Globe.

I love the idea of a family tracking a loved one as he navigates around the world, but I really love the idea of them being able to send something as personal as a mix-tape.

What a simple idea, executed in a really simple way.

This was my first attempt - as the title suggests this morning is particularly fuzzy after our client Christmas party at Century.

My first post

I have a desk which affords a great view down London's Carnaby Street, a view which is more than conducive to the generation of random thoughts.

It had to happen.

I've become a blogger.

Bear with me as I learn the ropes.