Sorry, but this deserves a blog post. Dance Pony Dance!

For anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, the #DancePonyDance advert from Three Mobile is absolutely amazing. Combining the upbeat melody of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Everywhere’ with a moonwalking pony – who has a grin as wide as the moon – is just comedy gold!

The video, which has since gone viral and notched up more than two million views in a matter of days, was showcased on Friday night in the Corrie ad break and was promoted across Twitter by the mobile operator. So far Three’s ‘debut’ tweet has gained more than 1,200 RTs and 380+ favourites.

The whole campaign celebrates the nation’s love of sharing funny, quirky and categorically ‘silly stuff’ we share on the internet and across social media. To complement the video and to encourage the general public to get involved and inspire in the act of sharing even further, Three is hosting a web-based ‘Pony Mixer’ where we can customise our very own moonwalking pony, Socks.

So far all I have seen is praise for this advert – it’s a huge mood lifter and definitely associates positive emotion with the brand. I think it’s succeeded in its goal of promoting ‘silly stuff’, as its target market (I’m assuming) of teens and young professionals are talking about the brand and tweeting about/posting this video on Facebook. It’s also sparked discussion on marketing sites and even gained national coverage in the likes of The Express.

A simple, yet loveable video like this just goes to show that clever advertising can create news and will make headlines. The widespread support for the video will also make it easier for the company to promote their campaign via other methods such as traditional PR, publicity stunts and social media, now that Socks has turned into the celeb pony!

Last Night I watched…

Black Mirror – the dark and edgy satirical drama created by Charlie Brooker. Despite the constant whining of my mum saying: “Eugh, turn this off. It’s sick, Bry. You’re a sicko for enjoying it” (nice one mum), I was again enchanted by Brooker’s twisted programme which is pretty much a waking nightmare.

Although I won’t go into details for every episode, the gist of Black Mirror is about the potential future of digitalism, technology and the media. If you dare to watch both series you’ll be pleasantly presented with the likes of: the walking dead, a creepy Nazi-like X Factor camp, and a Prime Minister doing a pig (not even joking).

Although each episode is focused on the frightening reality of our contemporary culture and it’s obsession with technology (in other words – we’re addicted to it), it’s a bit of an oxymoron that Black Mirror itself doesn’t even have a Twitter page!

Utopia. They’re watching you!

Last week I started watching Utopia – Tuesday, Channel 4 @ 10pm. It was only the first episode but it was epic! I was totally clueless throughout the duration, but who cares – it’s about a weird comic book (or manuscript), government genocide, and a guy with some raisins who needlessly shoots people. Yeah, I’m into that.

I was also impressed with Channel 4′s PR team, some seriously creepy social media stunts going on there. Mysterious yet engaging, completely illustrative of the six-episode show.

#susanalbumparty

Earlier this week the nation discovered something new about Susan Boyle. No, not especially that her new album is coming out… But that she likes to experiment in the bedroom? (After all we did see what she was like on BGT towards SyCo and Piers Morgan.. Susan, you saucy minx!)

Ha ha, I joke. But seriously. #susanalbumparty. What the hell happened?

As soon as the hashtag was made public, Twitter was set alight with cries of laughter towards the mistake. Some were so unconvinced that claims of “hoax” and even “marketing genius” were thrown about.

What do I think? I kind of agree with the latter… Surely the hashtag would say #susanSalbumparty. SusanAlbumParty just doesn’t make sense!

There are a few marketers commenting on sights like The Drum, saying it literally was a hashtag fail. How would this hilariously risky hashtag grab the attention of those who’re likely to buy the album – grannies and mothers? (No offence, I know I’m stereotyping).

While SuBo’s demographic of mums and grannies may not be racing to the shops on the success of this hashtag, why would they respond to Twitter anyway? They clearly already know that they like her music. If they were to be promoted to specifically, it would be through TV and traditional advertising, surely?

Everybody knows that Twitter’s main demographic is the savvy, up to date, young-middle aged networker. If this hashtag was supposed to cause excitement in anybody, it certainly wasn’t the grannies. We all know Twitter isn’t the best platform for them.

In my opinion, the hashtag was used to create a buzz around SuBo with a demographic who doesn’t really give a s***. This hashtag campaign MAY have ruined SuBo’s reputation or gained attention for “all the wrong reasons”… But let’s be honest, it’s made headlines in the run up to Christmas and got recognised within the younger generation who don’t have a clue what to buy their gran!

Maybe making an arse of yourself is the way to do it?

PR: Five reasons why I love agency work!

As some of you may know, I’m currently on my placement year working for two AWESOME Leeds-based PR agencies, Umpf and The Right Agency. I’ve been working with them since May 2012 on some amazing yet challenging accounts (Seven in total, plus other smaller jobs I do to help out with others)! Both agencies share the same offices and some of the same accounts – Umpf is a consumer PR agency while The Right Agency is B2B and trade.

Last week at the PRide YL Awards, both agencies won a collection of Gold and Silver awards (in fact, Umpf cleaned up with five Golds and one Silver)!! It really does prove that some of the best quality PR agencies are in the north – just take a read through this to find out why.

But anyway, here are a few reasons why I love working for these two agencies and agency life in general. I admit I’ve never worked in-house before so I’m not comparing the two, but I do recommend agency work to any young PR practitioners wanting to get a great start.

I’ve also snapped this up over a couple of train journeys so it’s in no way perfect!

The dreaded P word.

WARNING: If you’re a male, this might be too much. Look away now. This post talks about the ‘P’ word – no, not penis, but the dreaded PERIOD!

…Girls, you’ll love this!!

This is an awkward introduction to a blog post but here goes: Have you ever seen those wonderful adverts for tampons, sanitary pads and other various female necessities? Yes, the women are having the time of their lives – exercising, visiting theme parks, bike riding, swimming, etc – but how realistic this is? We all know this is an optimistic desire for the female race, but one unhappy customer (hmm, maybe that’s the wrong word) really took offence to this ‘false advertisement’.

#LDC2012

Leeds Digital Conference

Last Friday Tom and I attended the Leeds Digital Conference. For anyone who couldn’t make it, there were spokespeople from the likes of BBC, Spotify, Sky, Asda and loads more (sorry to make you jealous!)

I’m a proper digi-newbie so this day was a great initiation! Here is a relatively short summary of the most memorable pieces of advice I learned from the day.

SOCIAL MEDIA: Dom Burch, Head of PR and Social media @ Asda

Being a supermarket giant like Asda, it’s slightly different. It is a media owner in its own right – having its own magazine, website and radio station (which actually has more listeners than Radio 1 and 2!!), Asda’s press office don’t have to work too hard to ‘put a spin on things’ to gain national coverage. They can target their most important audience when they visit the shop and website online.

Dom said: “People look at Facebook and say, “wow, how can I use this to sell more to people?”, but this isn’t the right attitude; people don’t like being sold to!! For this reason, Asda is not a collector of fans, but a connector which will only succeed if it wins the trust of its customers. They wish to connect customers with the brand and with each other, creating a community atmosphere. I found a nice example of this here.

o2’s in da hood, u get me… fam?

It be a hard ting growin up in da hood, espesh when ur workin for o2 n dat. Who knew o2 fam be such a softy on haterz?

(dis made me laugh init) – funny use of customer service – I just hope it wasn’t a guy working, and that he didn’t send a picture!!

Charlie’s Legacy!

Did you know the YouTube and Internet phenomenom, ‘Charlie bit my finger’ video has been viewed over half a billion times?!

I love it – it never fails to make me laugh and I’d recommend it to anyone who needs a little pick-me-up.

Since 2007 when the video was uploaded to YouTube, the Davies-Carr family made more than a whopping $500,000 in advertising revenue (which I think should be saved for Harry given the pain he went through, poor guy!)

Here’s a meaty stunt to put you off your dinner!

Product launches in the gaming industry are becoming weirder and weirder – woohoo! I love weird stunts and it of course makes great PR.

I think it’s safe to say that Resident Evil has really spear-headed its rivals with this one. I love a bit of gore, but even this killer stunt would have me freaked out. Considering I screamed in my teddy’s face when I thought there was a person in my bed, I think the butcher behind the counter would probably get a beating before I run to safety!