Following the success of its Write The Future campaign (32 million views digitally since its launch less than a month ago), they’ve now launched the "Write The Headline" campaign – an interactive digital communications experience which basically involves a giant LED sign on the Southern Life Center building in Johannesburg.

The ambitious interactive installation allows fans to submit personal messages to inspire their favorite players, and then see their headline transformed into a huge player animation that will tower over the city of Johannesburg (through a giant LED sign on the Southern Life Center building).

Fans can submit a 57 character personal message (in 12 languages) through Facebook.com/nikefootball, Twitter, Facebook, Mxit (South Africa) and QQ (China) to over 50 of Nike’s athletes from around the world. Up to 100 headlines are then selected each night and transformed into digital player animations that are projected across Johannesburg. When a fan’s message is used they receive a personalized notification showing them a picture of the headline and the animation created from it.

     

Click here to download:

Nikes_Write_the_Future_Campaig.zip (230 KB)

This lively RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink's talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.

Totally worth the 10 minutes.

Hat Tip: Anusha Pinto

Portfolio Night is a great concept and it’s finally coming to India (thanks to Ogilvy India). It’s sort of like the Auditions round for American Idol (or MTV Roadies), except for creative talent working in the Advertizing industry.

I’d love to go – just to see other people’s work being critiqued by the experts – but they don’t allow passive participants it seems. L I wish they’d do a showcase of some of the best talent and work, at the end of the event – now that I’d be able to attend.

Some of their ads are pretty funny. Here’s the good ones:

Here’s another Thinking Out Loud moment.

Branded Caller IDs:

Branded Caller IDs are when you see the Name of the caller, instead of a random number flash on your phone when they call. And this is despite you not having that number stored on your phone contacts. So when Citibank’s Helpline calls you, you’ll see Citibank Helpline on my screen instead of a random phone number.

Background:

So the other day, I got a call from a random landline number in the middle of a working day. Now I (like a lot of people I know) get lots of calls from tele-marketers every day selling insurance, credit cards, charity-sponsorships (yes from NGOs – and they have the balls to say, “But don’t you want to help the children?!”, but more on that later). Obviously, I let the call go to voicemail.

Later in the day, when I checked my voicemail, I realized the call was actually from Citibank’s Helpdesk. I’d raised an issue and was expecting (and looking forward to) a call-back. Now I’d have to call them, navigate through their IVRS and find a loophole that allows me to talk to a real human being. I cursed myself for not picking up the call when I had the chance – I saved the number on my phone to ensure that I don’t miss it if it ever comes again. Problem Fixed. Or so I thought. The next day I got another call from them, and the same thing happened. Didn’t pick up -> went to voicemail -> checked my voicemail -> cursed myself for not picking up. Reason – they called from a slightly different number. Damn.

That’s when I thought – Citibank should have a way for its name (Citibank Helpline or whatever) to flash on my phone irrespective of whether I have the number stored or not.

Here’s a small write up of some of my thoughts on the business model, pros and cons, consumer acceptance, etc.

Read the rest of this post »

It’s direct with its message – no pussyfooting around the core idea. It’s also reaching its exact target audience directly  and that too at the perfect place and time. It’s extremely simple to setup anywhere in the world with minimal resources and not to mention very little cost. Brilliant stuff.

So a few friends (Aviraj, Maneesh, Sahil and others) have been planning to start Ignite in Mumbai and have asked me to be one of the presenters.

For those of you who don’t know what Ignite is about – it’s a gathering of people (generally entrepreneurs, technologists, DIYers, creative professionals, and enthusiastic knowledge-seekers) where individuals can present something. The presentation can  be about anything – just has to be interesting. The catch is that the talk should be exactly five minutes long and must use no more than 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. Not easy.

While I haven’t decided what I’ll talk about, here’s a super cool video of a recent Ignite presentation, presented at the Ignite chapter somewhere in the UK I assume.

Tom Scott presents a near-future sci-fi story called Mob. It’s got this Douglas Adams feel to it in its setting and its humor – which makes it a total stand-out. Enjoy.

Mob (a near-future science fiction story) by Tom Scott from hurryonhome on Vimeo.