Etisalat sell the water not the plumbing...

Etisalat have really gotten their stuff together lately, been seeing nicer and nicer work from their end.

Promoting the medium hasn't been worked too well in the past for mobile TV adoption, but etisalat have started to do things the other way around by promoting the content on the medium.
The saying goes 'sell me the water not the plumbing'

The Line-D'angelo

I've gotta tell you, tell u about it
Ive been gone for so long
I just wanna sing my song
I know u been hearin
hearin a lot of things about me

oh I know, I know
I've heard, i have heard it all to clear
this is what I am going to do

(chorus)
I am goin to hold, hold on to my pride
I'm gonna stick, im gonna stick to my guns
I'm gonna put my finger on the trigger
I'm gonna pull it and we gon see what the deal
I'm for real, i just wanna put it, put it on the line
I've gotta put it on the line
and we havent got much time
I've gotta put it on the line
know what im talking bout this evening
I've gotta put it on the line

I've got a bullet in the chamber
and im not afraid of the danger
we've gotta go down to the wire
ill go through the fire with you
kill and die with you
I know everybody watchin me
the pressure is on
from every angle
political 2 personal
will I hang or b left hangin? will I fall off?
or will it be bangin?
I say its up to the man upstairs

I am goin to hold, hold on to my pride
I'm gonna stick, im gonna stick to my guns
I'm gonna put my finger on the trigger
I'm gonna pull it and we gon see what the deal
I'm for real, i just wanna put it, put it on the line
I've gotta put it on the line
and we havent got much time
I've gotta put it on the line
know what im talking bout this evening
I've gotta put it on the line

REAL MEN OF GENIUS

So the day has come when i finally pay for advertising...I just got off amazon.com where i placed an order for bud lights real men of genius collection...

Here's to you Mr realmenofgeniusddbccopywriiter....

Brands in facebook

In a recent interview, i was asked about brands entering social networking sites...my answer (far from rocket science) was simply brands need to create relevant content that people would want to seek out and engage with.

This is a gift on facebook is a pretty good example by axe...

Who killed the insight...

Lets be realistic, we all use words we aren’t exactly unequivocally clear about the meaning, it’s normal and we do it on a day to day basis…not to say we use words we don’t understand, but we do use words on a daily basis that if asked to drop everything and throw in a proper definition of, we might struggle with. This results in the loss of a specified meaning through broadening of meaning. The signifier remains the same, (the word) but the signified is in a minor state of flux, assuming slightly different meaning in each context it’s being used…thus the loss of it’s original meaning and a words expansive connotation.

’Insight’ is one of those words. We use it so often in our industry; it tends to be on our corporate websites as a means to building business and unlocking growth. But you ask people in the industry and I’m pretty sure many would struggle to define a word they use in almost every meeting, you ask research arms and they’ll throw the lame and mundane obviousness that had been drilled with a Black and Decker into everyone collective consciousness, ‘youth want to express themselves’.

What once started as a beautiful word with some sort of virgin epiphanic magic to it, has been beaten, raped, slapped and abused in boardrooms into an unrecognizable state that means everything and nothing…

Ask 10 people in our industry what the difference between an insight and an observation is, I’ll be willing to bet that half haven’t a clue…

Nike 'Kicks' for Lebanon

'Unlike Adidas, Nike have chosen to completely ignore the Middle East. Until now. Here are the Nike Blazer Lebanon.

Unfortunately, they've decided to drop them only in SB (skateboard) joints. And the nearest one is E. Europe.

They are fine. Check the box and the insole. These will cost an absolute mint in the future.'

Simon Raffaghello

Beautiful clip that will without a doubt get ripped off somewhere someplace, if not already...

Alex Gopher track...

The sacrificial road to mobile gaming...

So I got back from a new media conference in London last week. Manal Khater, the superior planner in the agency, always asks when new media stop being new…

Anyhow, going to have the next couple of posts as refreshers of the conference sessions…here is the firt accompanied with my thoughts

Ad Funded Mobile Entertainment

So the mobile phone’s importance has gone up a couple of notches in a marketers priority gauge to say the least…It now just falls short of 1'keeping their jobs' and 2'making consumers miserable.'

The reason obviously being, the phone is ubiquitous thus should their annoying ads and offcourse this benevolant cause lends itself quite nicely to priotity 2...

So up until today when discussing mobile gaming, there usually tends to be 3 stakeholders…


1The content providers…the guys who make the games and sell them to the…
2 telco operators…the guys who buy the games then sell em to…
3 The consumer…the guys who pay to play the game
…
But now there is the introduction of a 4th stakeholder, the ubiquitous marketer who wants to advertise, on, inm through and possibly around the game…

This is where it gets a little complicated…

So now the dynamics with the 4 stakeholder has changed a little…

The content providers make the game…
They sell it to the telco operators…
which then gets bought by the marketers who then pass it on to
the consumer who get to play the game for free so long as they watch the ad preceding the free game they just downloaded…
Offcourse, the hope being that the last standing screen between you and your free game that says (more info?) will divert your decision and make you want to find out more about a biscuit instead of playing Desert Rally 4.


If you have read up this far, thank you for baring with me, I have no hypothesis at this point…Other than…someone, who goes through trouble of logging on to the telco portal, or web to download a game is most likely not going to have any further interaction with the ad they are forced to see with the exception of stimulated annoyance, which would most likely (looking for the antonym of halo) have a horn effect? I.e piss em off.


On your way to the park, some guy who steps in your way and kicks off on a sales pitch is not going to engage anyone...

It’s not a difficult equation, brands should provide entertainment, not obstruct it (even if they are bringing it to you for free)…and this my friends, is the eternal dichotomy seperating good brands and bad brands…

Good brands entertain bad brands obstruct...