Kookmeyer Institute

I wish I had a client like Burberry. Everything it does is slick, from the behind the scenes content and tryvertising on Facebook to the 178 videos on its You Tube channel. Here’s the Burberry bigwigs’s take on social enterprise, courtesy of a promo video for one of its suppliers.

Public toilets can be a true test of your ability to squat and hold your breath at the same time. So kudos to two New Yorkers who have created a network of private loos you can access via CLOO (it’s short for community loo). Payment is made using quick tap phone technology. And ‘suppliers’ even get free loo paper to stay stocked. While I’m on the subject, what do the cubicles in office loos always have that gap at the bottom? The last thing I want to hear is somebody machine-gunning last night’s vindaloo!

Hyperlocal in a marketing context refers to information and advertising created by local businesses for consumption by local residents in small, well-defined areas. It’s the antithesis of mass marketing and globalization really. I first started to think about hyperlocal when I wanted to launch an online magazine. But it’s equally relevant to small businesses that rely on locals for much of their turnover. So if you run a small business check out Street Fight , a website dedicated to  the latest developments in hyperlocal marketing.

This is quality advertising. Engaging viewing. And great casting. Rocky Taylor, a stuntman who nearly lost his life on the set of a Bond movie, is the star of a new campaign that asks people to remember a charity in their wills. The creators have extended the idea to a Facebook poll (vote for the size of the flames in Rocky’s last stunt) but the stats after two weeks are pretty underwhelming (922 views and 1288 likes). It makes you wonder about the seeding or lack of it.

Tesco is the second largest supermarket chain in Korea. The challenge for its agency was to improve market share without having to build more stores. Their solution: a virtual store in subways based on QR codes. The campaign results sound impressive – impressive enough to win Grand Prix in Media – but what were the baselines? I also wonder if this experience is any better than buying groceries online (less scrolling but more walking). I guess it’s just another channel some customers may prefer. Good idea.

This Coca-Cola campaign, which uses Facebook Places to encourage recycling, reminds me of the good digital can do, at a time when we are surrounded by loads of ‘addy’ stuff (I nearly said crap). Kudos to Coca-Cola for extending its CSR beyond lip service on the pages of an annual report!

You can pirate music all you like but if you really love a band – really – wouldn’t it be kind of cool to produce their album, design your own artwork in a few easy steps and take a royalty from each subsequent sale? This is essentially what the Kaiser Chiefs, with a little help from W+K London, is allowing fans to do with the launch of their latest album, The Future Is Medieval. I can’t think of a much better way for fans to take ‘ownership’ of their favourite band’s work. Big idea. Will it catch on though? The most popular album has sold 95 copies so far.

This isn’t ‘digital’ but it’s so good I had to put it in. Reminds me of the spoof of Guinness’ epic ‘White Horses’ TVC by a rival UK beer maker that had guys running round in the surf on lilos.

I spend most of my time trying to drag clients into the online world but here’s a cool idea that goes the other way! Social Memories is an app that lets you publish a very nice hard copy book based on your Facebook activity. Could be a good present if you can somehow access your friends’ Facebook login details. (Would you want a book about a friend?)

Friskies has launched a series of iPad games for cats which I was going to say is ‘new’ but, as Aden Hepburn points out in his blog, looks remarkably similar to this one. It would be pretty cheeky if Friskies simply re-skinned what the other crowd had created. But they’ve actually taken it a step further, developing the games in HTML 5 rather than as an app. Some people like to shoot down campaigns on the basis that they’ve been done before but so what? It doesn’t mean you can’t do it better or simply leverage ideas (via sponsorship etc) that are already popular. That’s not to say you should ever steal ideas though. There is a difference.