Sometimes these communication elements in a commercial are combined with creativity in a way that just nails it. These two commercials I saw this week certainly did, in very different ways:

1) Geico Piggy

The pinwheels!

This short commercial already has nearly 2.5 million YouTube views, which brings up another point: a perfect commercial that nails it can employ all the other communication tools in the digital marketing world… a perfect commercial can take off through social and traditional marketing.

2) ornge medical transport… Propelling Life

Goosebumps… besides peeing your pants like in the first video, goosebumps are the most amazing reaction you can get when a message is nailed.

This commercial is brilliant because it transforms the high drama of a helicopter medical rescue into something peaceful… the commercial just sort of floats. The powerful wind of the helicopter propellers is conveyed as a gentle life-giving breeze that effortlessly blows away the sadness of trauma. The noise of the helicopter and the flurry of human activity in a rescue are stripped away.

And then the tagline captures the build-up of changing the propellers from things of power to things of angelic beauty.

Propelling Life

One of the items on my “stuff I’d always like to do” list (young man’s bucket list? Maybe my attempt at living “The Buried Life??”) has been to do a fashion model photo shoot.

Check!

Through the magical networking power of Twitter, I connected with Erin Lang of Transitions Photography in New Hamburg. Erin is a talented photographer starting up her new studio. She was building a website and portfolio, and needed a model for studio fashion-type photos. I jumped on my chance to do something I’ve always wanted.

So now I can say I’ve been a model for a fashion shoot. Cool!

Had the time of my life in the studio, and can’t believe the results. Thanks so much Erin!

view the rest of the photos from the photo session

• check out Transitions Photography website to see Erin’s talent
• Follow Transitions Photography on Facebook or Twitter

I think my next goal from my “stuff I’d always like to do” will be to act in a cheesy corporate training video.

Never have a war of words with anyone who buys ink in barrels

This is one of my all-time favourite quotes from the public relations world.

Despite the fact that social media and public journalism are ever more important in our world, the media has a lot of influence… and I believe that no matter how far down the path of self-reporting we go, we’ll always value the opinion of media.

That’s why you never, ever attack the media. No matter what, they wield power. That’s why you work with them, help them and give them information to do their jobs. Because they’re still a conduit of information to your public. Your public will listen to them no matter what reputation you have. You can’t presume that if your public likes you that they’ll ignore what media has to say about you… so you can’t blame the media for reporting negatively about you.

*****

Unfortunately, Steve Jobs and Apple have slipped afoul of this cardinal rule in their press conference today about the iphone4 signal strength issue. Read this awful quote… it makes me cringe:

Jobs also lashed out at the media for making a big deal of the reception issue, which some have dubbed “Antenna-gate.”

He said that since Apple has been around for 34 years, “haven’t we earned the credibility and the trust of the press? I think we have that from our users. I didn’t see it exhibited by some of the press as this was blown so far out of proportion.”

“Maybe it’s human nature — when you’re doing well, people want to tear you down. I see it happening with Google, people trying to tear them down,” he said.

“And I don’t understand it … what would you prefer? That we were a Korean company, that we were here in America leading the world with these products … maybe it’s just that people want to get eyeballs on their sites.” (via CBC News… read the full article)

This is arrogant to the extreme, to presume that media will ignore things you’ve done wrong just because “you’re awesome and media should be nice to you.”

Apple has a major risk here, and I don’t believe they’re playing it well. They’re taking their public good will for granted and squandering it. Instead of using their adoration as an opportunity to show their customers the full extent of their care (i.e. even growing their loyalty by taking full ownership of their product error, which I’m sure everyone would applaud them for); Apple is betting that their goodwill means that customers will forgive them. Why would you even want to play that bet when the potential of increasing the goodwill is so huge?

*****

But, at least upset consumers can now get a free iphone case (at least Consumer Reports confirms the case fixes reception issues). <sarcasm>That should sweep everything under the rug… </sarcasm>

Read why the guy behind @BPGlobalPR set up the satirical Twitter account, why the public support behind the cause is so important, and its significance for the world of branding.

If you’re not familiar with what happened here, in response to the environmental crisis posed by the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico - and out of frustration by BP’s all-too-typical highly filtered public relations messaging - this member of the general public decided to impersonate BP’s public relations department, satirizing them as a laughing stock.

This is a textbook example of what happens when the public turns its back on a brand they no longer respect; and how ultimately a brand is always owned and controlled by the public… not pr professionals.

This speech is called the “Last Lecture,” and is a tradition at many universities stemming from a famous, inspiring speech professor Randy Pausch gave at Carnegie Mellon.

At Guelph-Humber, one professor, one graduating student and one alumnus are chosen each year to deliver some inspiring words to send the graduates off on their life’s journey. You can watch my speech in the player below (or view the speech on vimeo if you can’t see the player). It runs 19min15; so pour yourself a coffee.

You might know that I’m a writer and have done speech-writing before; but not many of you have seen me deliver a speech. I hope you like it, and I hope that the speech might be inspiring to you as well. I’d love to hear your feedback.

For a little while I had been going to conferences and seminars to learn more for my career, and it slowly started to hit me… this question of “how do I get to the level where I can start speaking at conferences?” I have always enjoyed public speaking and thought it would further my own skills if I started sharing at conferences. So I set a job goal with my boss: within the year I will become a conference presenter.

This weekend I achieved my goal at the PodCamp London unconference. I took what I’ve learned through my job as web producer at St. Joseph’s Health Care, London about building content for the Web and produced a talk:

“Writing for the Web - plain and simple”

watch the “Writing for the Web - plain and simple” slideshow
(Quicktime… press space bar to watch the slide transitions)

or view the slideshow without the nifty transitions:
(save/print this presentation)

I was amazed to see the level of interest around a presentation about web writing best practices. I booked a room for my talk for 40 people since I didn’t figure I’d generate a huge turnout compared to the other awesome presenters at PodCamp. Much to my surprise, I had a standing-room crowd spilling out into the hall.

I hope that the audience gained something from my talk, and will use some of this knowledge to enhance their online writing. Writing online is a lot different than writing for print… mainly because of the way humans look at screens. Short, simple sentences that capture the viewer’s attention are challenging to compose; but lead to successful web sites.

I certainly gained a lot from my experience presenting. I also gained a lot of inspiration from PodCamp - a gathering of truly intelligent people with great ideas and a willingness to share. Jeff Sage wrote a great post about why the unconference model of PodCamp was so innovative.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on writing for the web, PodCamp, or any feedback on my talk.

This gives me a bit of pause to reflect on my involvement developing the campaign branding and marketing during my time working as United Way’s communications coordinator. The work I was proud to develop for this past campaign will always be a career highlight.

Actually, proud isn’t the right word at all. The personal significance of my involvement with the campaign branding wasn’t the work itself; but rather the experience of discovering the marketing stories and the people behind them. I was inspired by the three story subjects, and deeply touched as I worked with them to nurture their stories into powerful messages to share with the public.

In the posters above are Colton, Bernardine and John. You can learn more about them through the campaign brochure (462kb .pdf download) or meet them through the campaign video.

Each of them are individuals from the community whose lives have literally been transformed from periods of challenge to great success. But none had previous experience being in the public spotlight… so in working with them I was actually able to be a part of another transformation.

I worked over several months to learn and write the stories of how each of these three amazing individuals’ lives changed for the better. Each of them was also developed into confident public personalities: I arranged their first-ever studio photo and video shoot and coached them in public speaking. Soon, they were ready to stand in front of their community as the public faces of United Way.

Not only was I very touched to see their stories develop into messaging that inspired the public… but we were all moved to witness how much Colton, Bernardine and John also gained from the experience. John sent me several emails over the course of the campaign telling me of the thrilling experiences he had speaking to the public on behalf of United Way. The audience was gaining inspiration by hearing his personal story… and yet John kept on saying: “thank you for this opportunity… this has changed my life… this is really my passion.” John is going on to a clear path of public speaking: his employer TD Canada Trust has invited him to speak to national audiences and profiled to his journey as the public face of United Way.

The three story subjects gave a lot to United Way to create a powerful and inspiring branding campaign… but the transformation they all experienced as we worked together on building the campaign has touched my life forever. It’s really the finest type of branding: truly inspiring stories of people’s lives who have changed. And the fact that their lives changed again through their involvement in the marketing project is the finest legacy I could ever wish for any communications work.

This project was hugely supported by the creative agency I worked with, Vivid Communications who developed the visual identity and campaign video, Jackie Nobel who took the beautiful portraits, and my former colleagues Nathalie and Johanna who continued telling these amazing stories to the public after I moved on to my current employment.

As a result, they approached me this year to put together some “tips for a successful award entry.” I was a little uncomfortable being called upon to offer advice, so I responded with some humour. At least I’m not afraid to make a fool of myself. Watch the video below:

As in: it was a display of Canadian pride… past tense, now over, what next?
Talk and thoughts like this alarm me. All that we achieved in building something so special for our country cannot stop here… and, frankly, I don’t think it will stop here.

Because this is our moment to be proud of ourselves!

*****A golden conclusion to a golden Olympics for Canada

Yes, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games have now come and gone - and concluded in a way that was truly breathtakingly triumphant, euphoric… GOLDEN. It was entirely appropriate that the final gold medal and closing ceremonies would be filled with such suspense and excitement, for the games themselves were filled with all the most extreme human dramas, from grief to jubilation:

as The Globe and Mail’s Christie Blatchford perfectly explained, “These Games were everything a human can feel.”

Or as IOC President Dr. Jacques Rogge said at the closing ceremony, “Together, we have experienced many strong emotions. We have shared the grief of an Olympic dream cut short… we have shared the joys of dreams fulfilled. We have been moved by tears of elation and tears of disappointment.”

The final day of the Olympics was personally quite an exciting afternoon: after competing in an indoor rowing championship, my teammates and I rushed home down the highway back to London… eagerly listening to the live coverage of the final men’s hockey game on the radio. I returned in the nick of time to join my friends at a downtown bar, just before the start of the overtime period where Canada scored an epic overtime goal. Immediately, the bar began a spontaneous chorus of O Canada. A golden moment indeed; just look at the excitement in this clip I shot with my phone:

The crowd started spilling out onto the streets with thousands of other revelers; and in so doing we became a part of millions of revelers across Canada and many more people around the world… all of us connected with this moment.

*****The sum of a million golden moments

… but not just this gold medal hockey moment. The magnitude of what we’re all feeling in our hearts (the joy, the relief, the countless other emotions we can’t really put our finger on), can’t possibly all be tied up in that gold medal hockey shot or the public euphoria. No, what we’re feeling now is the culmination of many very special moments over these last 17 days:

• Like the pitstop that my rowing team took on our drive back to London, at the highway rest stop in Woodstock. With Tim Horton’s sign in the background, a hundred highway drivers were glued to the televisions silently watching the hockey game.

• And at the same pitstop a beautiful display of how our country is a special blend of vibrant multiculturalism and national pride: the father and two young daughters in line in front of me… he clearly a recent immigrant from India with Hindu attire, ordering a double double with a thick Indian accent while his tiny daughter (with an event thicker accent) suddenly asked, “daddy, are we winning the hockey game?” [we... OUR country; where else can newcomers feel this sense of belonging?]

These are just two richly patriotic moments that I observed in the span of a minute on the final day of the Olympics. Every one of us felt, saw and heard many more profound moments that touched us over these 17 days.

So many intense memories… though probably the greatest moment of all was not so much a moment; but, rather, a groundswell. I’m talking about the most beautiful turnaround story a country has ever pulled in front of an international audience.

*****Canada stands up to show just what we’re made of

You know what I’m talking about: our Olympics were basically sputtering. The organizers and volunteers did everything and more to “save” the games (the continuous online dialogue I shared with my friends working at the Olympics made me so proud of their Adam vs. Goliath spirit! Way to go guys!!); but that was only half of the story.

Without even realizing there was this desire within ourselves, we discovered that we needed these games to be a truly great Canadian moment. So we did something about it… all of us did.

VANOC CEO John Furlong nailed it (as he always did… he’s probably the most eloquent spokesperson I’ve ever heard!) when he described what exactly took a good Olympics and made it unforgettably great: it was every Canadian making it a personal mission to show the world that we are incredible. Screaming our anthem at the top of our lungs, turning curling into a loud spectator sport. Showing we’re confident, cool, proud and happy. We’ve always been proud to be Canadian, but perhaps we took it for granted; now we needed the floodgates to open for the world to see… and out poured more pride than we probably even knew was built up inside us!

“A beautiful kind of patriotism has broken out across the country,” Furlong said. [from The Globe and Mail]

Or: “The swagger was already there… we were just looking for the opportunity to show it!” [from Stephen Brunt's beautiful video montage of the Olympic's dramatic turnaround CTVOlympics.ca]

*****My generation’s time to be proud Canadians

With the games’ conclusion, I said I was alarmed by people asking, “Where do we go from here, Canada?” I’ve also been perplexed by so much media coverage saying that Canada is prouder than ever before, coming out of its shell, showing a new confidence.

I think we clearly know where we’re going from here… and it’s where we’ve been before! Canada has been proud before in its short history: I’ve heard about the national spirit behind the centennial in 1967 and Expo 67, the Montreal Olympics in 1976 (financial mess aside), Expo 86 and of course the beloved Calgary Olympics in 1988. Canada has, indeed, displayed this modern and young excitement several times before.

The thing is, my generation and I don’t really remember much about any of these previous international-scale national celebrations. And that’s why the 2010 Vancouver Olympics are so important to us. My generation of Canadians is showing that we’re talented, engaged, eager, friendly, energetic, creative and open-minded.

And now we’ve finally had our major international chance to shine. In so doing, not only did we pull off a stunning achievement of a truly magnificent Olympic games… we grew a sensational level of national pride.

We’ve seen what we’re capable of. And we’re truly made of gold!

I watched the State of the Union last night online. As would be expected, whitehouse.gov was streaming it through their website… but they went one step beyond that in the realm of online engagement:

They set up a Facebook live app where Facebook users could log in and watch the live video. Then, beside the video was a live chat area where anyone watching could post their thoughts about the speech as it was happening! It was unfiltered and live; so you got a lot of interesting opinions back and forth [interestingly, there was a disclaimer on the page that read "all messages are subject to the presidential archive legislation!"]

*****

Reflect on this. What we’re seeing these days (and which this live event executed incredibly well) is pretty dramatic in terms of history: our experience of events is transforming due to social media.

Now even events that you’re not literally *at* are social events: you don’t just react to events anymore; you interact with them. For years people would just watch an event on tv or read about it; now we actually become a part of the event because we’re inserting our thoughts and reading other people’s thoughts on the event.

Concerts, conferences, speeches, and in particular worldwide news events are not just things you react to any more. Now you react, share your thoughts and read others’ thoughts. The dialogue and shared experience defines the event as much as the subject of the event itself.

******

The limit of this was pushed even further when the actual State of the Union speech was over. Immediately after, four White House staffers went on camera responding directly to a selection of questions and comments that were posted on facebook during the speech or that came up on twitter related to the speech.

It’s not just watching an event any more… it’s engaging in the event. We’re a part of the event.

*****

P.S. The online audience was 1 million people!