Find your future you...

I always like finding campaigns that allow you to have a little fun in your lunch break and that’s exactly what I just did on the ‘Find Your Future You’ website from Svedka vodka.

Why have a ‘future you’ website you might wonder, well, it’s based around the company’s claim / tagline that Svedka is “Voted #1 Vodka of 2033”, quite a random year to pick, but at least they have 26 years to try to live up to it. And both the ‘future you’ website and the official company website are suitably futuristic and entertaining so the company has started their campaign in the right direction.

Given that it’s only available in the US I very much doubt i’ll be buying a bottle any time soon though, but otherwise i would have been tempted to try it, if only to reward their brightening up of my lunch hour. I picked the ‘No Sunscreen You’ for my future self, not that I don’t use it, but I preferred that to being a down-and-out.

Meet My Future You - Find Your Own Future You
Have a go yourself here, and, if you’re making a trip to the US in the near future, maybe pick up a bottle on your way home. And, if you like, also feel free to drop one into the office here afterwards... It is coming up to Christmas after all.

Blog Action Day

Hola todos, estoy espalda. A little browner than before, but just a little (I was spending half my time in a classroom after all – and it was also Feria time in Malaga...).

But now it’s back to business. And back specifically to the business of exactly why you should love marketing. Even more specifically today, why you should love this side of marketing - blogging. The reason? Well apart from the obvious, such as allowing you to keep up with the trends and news in your industry, giving you and/or your company a voice worldwide and being a great source for inspiration; it also allows for people to unite for a good cause – in this case, Blog Action Day.

And what exactly is Blog Action Day you may ask. Well... “On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.”

Simple, easy to do, and hopefully it will be fairly effective. I think it’s an issue that everyone is interested and concerned about, and even if not, like to make rumblings as if they are so as to look PC. Regardless, with an initiative like this, it again brings the issue into the public eye – this time minus the carbon footprint of the celebrities using their private jets to fly from venue to venue.

I know of course that in the grand scheme of things one day is nothing; it takes a concerted effort all the time. However, it’s yet another platform to discuss the issue through. Also, it’s a chance for us to share any knowledge or opinions that we have through a medium where it can be viewed at any time and long after October 15th. The more we know about the issue and the more we learn about what we can do to combat it, the better – this is a perfect way to do it. Saying that, I’m not sure yet what I’ll be blogging about and whether I’ll be adding anything new, but that’s not the point, the point is to join in and draw attention.

I found out about the initiative through Nicola Davies, who in turn found out from Mashable. The website can be found here and signing up can be done here. I’m going to go and do it now. I hope all you other bloggers join me!

Protest and Survive

If, like me, you were unlucky enough to go to school in the 1980s, you'll probably also be familiar with 'Protect and Survive'. I was introduced to it during Modern Studies class in high school and I'm pretty certain that the only reason they showed it to us was to give us nightmares and remind us that our lives as we knew them, in 80s Cold War Britain, could end at any given moment in a fiery inferno.

'Protect and Survive' was a series of twenty different Public Information Films which the government produced to show us what to do in the event of a nuclear war. Unfortunately, all of the advice is worse than useless and the only thing that soon becomes clear is that there are no good ways to completely protect yourself and that your odds of survival are miniscule at best. Thankfully, they never did show the films on TV, probably for fear that it'd cause civil unrest, tinned food famine and mass suicides.

Anyway, whilst doing a little internet research into the subject this week, I came across this:


At first view it's somewhat hilarious! The often disturbing cartoony animation of the Protect and Survive films sits askew with the upbeat soundtrack of Fred Astaire giving us a jolly rendition of "Putting on the Ritz". The fact that the images seem to dance in time with the music makes the whole thing all the more comic and fun!

But as the film progresses, the comedy gets blacker and you soon realise it's communicating an altogether serious message. The happy-go-lucky music begins to fade out and eventually the only soundtrack which remains is the wind of a nuclear winter. After all that jollity, it seems they're protesting about the government's plans to replace the country's trident nuclear missiles.

Of course, what you've just witnessed is a very clever piece of viral marketing. It seems the approach is, "make them laugh then make them think." And, in my opinion, it works incredibly well.

I know today's post is all a bit grim but there's a reason to love marketing hidden in there nevertheless. With the help of some inspired marketing communication, you can start to strike a chord with people who ordinarily would have no interest in what it is you're advocating. In fact, what happens is you begin to resonate with people in ways *they* never thought possible, changing their attitudes and their ideals in the process.