one.point.zero - Colin O'Brien's weblog
February 17 2010
Over-sharing your life online“any benefits to the user from a complete abandonment of privacy are minor compared to the benefits they bring to corporations - the social networks themselves and their advertisers”
July 23 2009
And more Tron 2 viral: tokens and a site for Flynn’s Arcade.
The Tron sequel viral marketing begins: Flynn Lives.
June 19 2008
How buying things ceased to be a chore and became a fun day out.
November 25 2007
It's all about the message“if you care about climate change forget about saving the planet”
March 11 2007
Interesting insight into how top spots get bartered on the iTunes music store.
December 24 2006
December 11 2006
French examples of how many companies/agencies basically prostitute the environment in their advertising messages.
November 28 2006
French guerilla promotion for the film Fast Food Nation. The text translates as: Help yourself! You don’t usually ask yourself so many questions.
November 03 2006
Timothy Leary had a marketing streak“Leary's pitches for psychedelics oversold their benefits just as the media's scare stories oversold their dangers”
October 16 2006
Viral or non-ethical marketing?
A supposedly new bank has been doing some heavy promo throughout Brussels for a while. First with bill posters in the usual places and some advertising in the free press, now with an “office” on the Place de la Monnaie/Muntplein.
This outfit is basically selling itself as a non-ethical investment bank. Placing your money in such great causes as weapons trade, post-war/disaster reconstruction (Halliburton), Wal-Mart, etc. Appealing to those people who like to be different by giving society the finger, or those who just don’t care. I don’t know…
Hell, most banks do that anyway. They just don’t use it as a key selling point.
For what it’s worth, the design just looks too hip to be a bank to begin with. The only phone number is a Belgian mobile one, pretty strange for a Europe-wide organisation. And they’ve made sure their origins are difficult to trace.
It smells of viral marketing from a mile away. I don’t know who’s behind it or what they’re promoting, but there’s a lot of money being thrown at this one.
update 17/10: It’s a stunt by Netwerk Vlaanderen to expose unethical investing by Belgian banks.
September 11 2006
What News Corp doesn’t want you to know about MySpace.
August 24 2006
Has Coke become the new McDonald’s?
June 10 2006
Someone get Europe a proper marketing department or, better still, actions that speak for themselves and don’t necessitate one.
May 31 2006
I think my previous employer purchased at least 3 inverted blade-center uptime matrixes.
