Support your favourite for I'm a Celebrity on Twibbon - One over on Big Brother

This is the first of a couple of upcoming posts featuring Twibbon, which allows you to nail your colours to the mast of any number of causes, institutions, or in this case attention-seekers, via the medium of your Twitter profile picture.

Yes, when the new series of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here kicks off, erm, imminently, you can support a celeb on Twibbon.



I'm a Celebrity was reasonably quick off the mark as a TV show on Twitter that offered genuine engagement, as I blogged a year ago when they followed me after I mentioned the show. They continue to be conversational, and will no doubt be active during the show chatting away and making extensive use of the 'official hashtag' #imacelebrity.

Now they've extended their Twitter involvement into this year's TV show, updating their Bio to read:

The official I'm A Celebrity...Twitter feed. @replies may be used on I'm A Celebrity...NOW on ITV2. Full terms at www.itv.com/terms

Incidentally the I'm a Celebrity Twitter profile features two things I haven't noticed before: Terms and conditions (as in the Bio) relating to its use, which seems very forward-thinking; and sponsorship, from Iceland, who I assume have renewed the deal they had last year.

Extending out to Twibbon is a good idea which has not been done on an official basis by I'm a Celebrity's main rival Big Brother. Several causes were added by different users during the Big Brother series just gone, but none of them gained much traction except the 'Save Big Brother' cause which has 50 supporters.



There's also the obligatory Facebook fan page which is cross-promoting with the Twitter profile and the show's homepage.



To be perfectly honest I don't think I'll be watching this year's show, although I did say that last year. There's no Dani Behr for a start, and our heating has broken so I'm likely to be spending as little time as possible at home until it's fixed, which will necessitate someone returning my phone calls (hello British Gas I'm talking to you). I'm more of a Big Brother man anyway, despite their relative infancy against I'm A Celebrity in being officially social.

Promoting Bic Pens with a hand-drawn Magazine

Here's a great piece of promotion for Bic pens from TBWA Uruguay. It's an issue of Freeway magazine hand-drawn in Bic pens.

Bic pens can't be the easiest thing to promote creatively, but this is beautiful. I believe, however, it may feature adjacent to the word 'painstaking' in the dictionary.



This is the second piece of work I've seen from South America recently that I have really liked, after the Axe Day and Night campaign. Here's a video of how they did it.



HT to PSFK

Stewie Griffin uses Twitter - That Windows 7 Family Guy Clip

Microsoft pulled out of sponsoring Family Guy in the name of Windows 7 recently, but this clip purports to be the product tie-in. In it, Stewie Griffin uses Twitter on his laptop, with Brian the family dog shoe-horning in a load of features he could be using.

I'm a fan of Family Guy, but this is a bit out of kilter with the general tone of the show, and is also alleged to be a re-dubbed scene that was already used in a previous episode.



I can't vouch for the veracity of this clip, and it seems pretty lazy and tacked-on to be a genuine Microsoft endorsement, whether they followed it through or not. Having said that, they enlisted one of my favourite comedians, Jerry Seinfeld, a year or so ago and that was widely derided.

Stareatthegoat.com - The Men Who Stare at Goats online

There was a little ad in the G2 section of The Guardian yesterday, so I took a quick piccie on the iPhone:



I recognised the colours and obviously the whole staring at goats thing as to do with The Men Who Stare at Goats, an imminent film release based on a book by British journalist Jon Ronson. I checked out the stareatthegoat.com site out of interest, and guess what.



Yep, it's a crazy, staring goat. It's actually a LoveFilm microsite, although I'm not sure of the connection between the DVD rental company and a cinema release, at this stage. Unless they imagine it's going to be a slow burner.

Stareatthegoat.com also links to the Facebook Fan Page, which has a total of 163 fans. Not brilliant testament to tremendous engagement with the ad, but it is absolutely bursting with content and even demonstrating wider social listening by highlighting things like that Queen Rania of Jordan had tweeted to her over 1 million followers about loving the film, and various other bits of PR, interviews, clips and the like.



There's also a Twitter profile, @stareatgoats, tweeting the same sort of stuff as is on the Facebook fan page, and retweeting the odd comment. Not especially conversational, which might explain the fact it's following far more people than are following it.



The main site www.themenwhostareatgoatsmovie.com is the movie's main site, all slick and featuring downloads, trailers, even a couple of mind-bending games.



There's also, and it may not be official but it doesn't seem entirely personal, Stareatgoats.com. It is a two-post blog done on Wordpress.



It's intended to explain more about the story behind the movie, and is written in a bloggy style. There's an introductory post that emphasises the role of spoonbender extraordinaire Uri Geller in the inspiration for the book. There's a second post, posted on the same day at the end of September, about Telekinesis, which is related to the theme of the film. The post links to You Tube videos and encourages you to look into telekinesis yourself. And that's it. It also mentions how funny the film is, aside from Ewan McGregor's accent. Just self-effacing enough to make me think it's designed to catch a bit of buzz. The url is my main clue, though.

There's no You Tube channel from what I can find, although there is some LoveFilm PPC activity on You Tube to direct to that crazy goat again.

I'm quite excited by the film, and can't be the only one. I think all the activity has been well branded, and I've seen the branding for a while now. It's difficult for films to engage without forcing things, and this seems to have made an attempt without forcing things. Someone has obviously put some time in, and if you want information about the film, there is no shortage of official resource, wherever you look.

80s Icon Barbies - Cyndi Lauper and Debbie Harry

Barbie is an enduring brand, celebrating her 50th birthday in March this year. One of the reasons she has endured for so long has been continued re-invention and innovation, and they're now going back to the 80s for their latest twist.

Debbie Harry Barbie - Glass Heart not included

Debbie Harry and Cyndi Lauper strike me as pretty much the opposite of Barbie from their heyday, but these things mellow with age. It's good for a brand when someone who may previously have been considered contrary comes on board even in a small way. Hence Debbie Harry Barbie and cyndi Lauper Barbie, part of the Ladies of the 80s Barbie range. It also includes someone called Joan Jett, who I am less familiar with but looks like Suzi Quattro.

Lego is the main toy brand from my youth, and it amazes me to see some of the applications they continue to find for the brand, recently encompassing a Lego Camera, Lego iPod speaker and Lego MP3 player.

Here's the Cyndi Lauper Barbie. The description on Entertainment Earth where you can reserve them for $34.99 (they're out at the end of the year/ start of next year) uses the word 'spunky' several times. It made me giggle because I am a child.

Cyndi Lauper Barbie - 'Spunky'

HT Retro to Go.

Sunderland striker Darren Bent gets Twitter username on his boots

Sunderland and sometime England footballer Darren Bent has provided something of a nadir in celebrities and their obsession with Twitter - he has had his Twitter username, @DBTheTruth, stitched into his football boots.

I was first tipped off about this by @conkinho, who had seen it on Soccer AM, but have only just come across the image below to back things up.

Picture from The Spoiler.

Bent, who previously endeared himself to former employers Tottenham Hotspur by swearily Tweeting his frustration at delays in his transfer, is probably the most infamous footballer in terms of Twitter use.

On the back of Bent's rant, Spurs banned players, who had previously included Jonathan Woodgate, from using Twitter and implemented a Social Media Policy. Bent himself took a break but came back with a vengeance and started a follower race with a journalist, who won.

Darren Bent's diplomatic transfer negotiations

Along these lines, Bent recently Tweeted an 'Important Announcement' - that his 20,000th follower would receive a special prize. Might I be the one to point out, Darren, that you are over 5,000 followers short of this target, and that people who might care about the prize are likely to wait until you're a bit nearer the goal (no pun intended) in order to stand a chance of winning.

Darren preaches to the crowd

Fellow North East footballer Jozy Altidore also got himself into a bit of bother when he let slip that he had been dropped from the Hull City team because he showed up late, incurring the wrath of his manager Phil Brown. Given the content of the majority of footballers' Tweets, and their capacity to cause strife, I'd say Twitter as sporting self-promotion has a limited shelf life.

Is this Augmented Reality? Axe Day and Night

I saw one part of this Axe Day and Night Campaign ,from Lowe in Uruguay I believe, over on Brand DNA. I thought it was quality on its own terms, in a bit of a more accessible twist on Augmented Reality where all you need is a mobile that can text. Have a look:



Basically you text the number after 9pm and get the image to complete the rather sexy ad. A great way of getting some interaction into an outdoor and a press ad, and playing on the Day and Night theme.

I was even more impressed when I happened upon a TV ad for the same product, which fits in perfectly. Called 'Squares', it works on the same theme of the 'Night' aspect having elements that aren't suitable for the watershed.


Squares - Axe Day & Axe Night Commercial - For more funny movies, click here

Love it, love the extension of it.

What have Christopher Walken, Eric Cartman and Lady Gaga got in common?

No, not that. I found these two clips today completely independently of each other.

Lady Gaga's Poker Face, whatever you think of it, has to be considered pretty much the song of the year, and it will get a new lease of life having been given two very different but equally powerful new makeovers.

On Jonathan Ross' show, Christopher Walken, storyteller extraordinaire, read out the lyrics of Poker Face in his inimitable (well actually lots of people imitate it) style. Have a watch:



Second, and this might alert some people to the fact that South Park is actually still going (like Channel 4 maybe, hint hint), is Eric Cartman singing Poker Face. The wider episode has the guys playing a lot of Guitar Hero, so this is a ringing pop-culture endorsement in the back-handed South Park sense for both Guitar Hero and Poker Face.



These clips haven't had millions of hits yet, but I expect they'll get there (if all the South park clips don't get taken down) as it has been the weekend. Sports brands have shown the power of getting personalities to do different things that will be shared virally. Cash4Gold's Superbowl ad featuring MC Hammer and Ed McMahon had them both sending themselves up and was brilliantly funny:



The likes of Christopher Walken and Eric Cartman are maybe a bit edgy, especially the latter, but I'd love to see more of this sort of thing from brands. My own personal wish would be for a version by John and Edward or Susan Boyle.

HTs to The Inquisitr and Videogum.