What followed will surely go down as another key event in the mainstreaming of Twitter. For some reason Brad Keselowski, driver of the Miller Light Dodge was carrying his iPhone with him during the race. As the race was red flagged he took this picture of the scene out of his windshield with the message “Fire! My view”.

While track repairs went on, Keselowski continued to tweet, responding to fans and taking more pictures of other drivers, reporters and NASCAR officials. By the time the checkered flag fell for the ultimate winner Matt Kenseth, Brad who had been sidelined in a crash but was sitting just short of 200,000 Twitter followers.

Keselowski is one of the most social media savvy drivers in NASCAR, and recently featured the names of 5,000 of his Twitter followers on the bed cover of his Dodge truck during Friday night’s Camping World Truck Series race.

Moviegoers at Cinema City, Israel’s largest theatre complex were left scratching their heads in confusion as the lights went down and the movie started. To their surprise, what appeared on the screen was not the movie they were expecting. Soon, some moviegoers began looking at their tickets and a few even began to leave.

What the audience didn’t know was that the film had been switched on purpose and what they were experiencing was a demonstration of the feelings and confusion and disorientation that 100,000 Israeli Alzheimer’s patients experience every day. By the reactions shown in the video, the message was received loud and clear.

The campaign was created for the EMDA Israeli Alzheimer Association by ACW Grey, Tel Aviv.

For more information on Alzheimer’s
Canada: Alzhemier Society Canada
U.S.: Alzheimer’s Association

via Ads of the World

A scene from Podcamp 2010, photo by EvaBlue

My Podcamp TO Tips
1. Arrive early-ish, the registration tables open at 8:30
2. Plan your day in advance using the session schedule posted at the PodCamp Toronto site
3. Know the official hashtag, it’s #pcto2012
4. Why not leave the laptop at home? Unless you’re presenting, I really don’t need to see you playing Solitaire during a session
5. Do write your twitter name in large letters on your badge. Add flare or glitter is you have it. Seriously; go ahead and pimp that name tag out
6. Don’t hesitate to introduce yourself to your Twitter and Facebook friends in person. Capture the moment with an awkward photo
7. Make your lunch plans in advance – nothing sucks more than spending two thirds of your lunch break standing in line somewhere. Also, friends don’t let friends eat alone
8. Don’t friggin’ talk through the sessions. If you are not getting something out of the session you are in, use the ‘Law of Two Feet’, leave and find something else that interests you. Or create your own session (see next point)
9. Don’t complain that there are no sessions suited to your interests. Create your own session; find some folks, grab some floor and start a discussion (and invite me)
10. Make sure you thank your hard-working Podcamp Toronto organizers in person, this is what they look like.
11. Spruce up your social media profiles with an awesome picture taken by @photojunkie
12. Come out to the Saturday night social at The Ram. The conversation will get lively as the social juices get flowing.

Here is a list of the sessions I am most looking forward to. What sessions are you looking forward to?

SATURDAY

10:00am

1st Choice: Jumpstarting Digital from Inside the Belly of a Traditional Publisher: Andre Gaulin
2nd Choice: 6.5 million stories: how Canada’s largest museum is moving online: Mark Farmer

10:45am

1st Choice: Multiple Channel Disorder: Brooke Robinson, Sarah Long
2nd Choice: The Bout to Knock the Other One Out: Search vs. Social: Steve Taylor, Danny Brown, Laurie Dillon-Schalk, David Jones, Daryl Peddle, Hessie Jones

11:45am

1st Choice: Social Psychology of Social Media: Brian Cugelman
2nd Choice: Content may be KING… but without Context no one will pay attention: Josh Muirhead

2:00

1st Choice: How to Talk to Journalists: Pixels, airtime and ink: Saleem Khan
2nd Choice: The Evolution of Democracy: Richard Pietro

2:45

1st Choice: Sincerity is Everything: Kathy Buckworth, Adria MacKenzie, Theresa Albert, Sharon Vinderine, Eden Spodek
2nd Choice: The Great Canadian Latency: Julie Tyios, Hessie Jones

3:45pm

1st Choice: Track, Measure and Reward Social Sharing: The Gamechanger for the next 10 years: Jon Cogan
2nd Choice: Facebook’s Open Graph: The Semantic Wallet: Jonathan Laba

4:30

1st Choice: Getting the Insiders Onside: Working with Bloggers and Influencers: Dave Fleet
2nd Choice: A Live #SMmeasure Chat: Sheldon Levine, Rob Clark

SUNDAY

11:00am

1st Choice: Marketing in the Flow: Content Marketing and the Attention Economy: Leona Hobbs
2nd Choice: Social Media ROI: The Kirk Gambit vs the WOPR Maneuver?: Rob Clark

12:00pm

1st Choice: The Technological Singularity: Rapture of the Nerds or the Next Step in Evolution: Nikola Danaylov
2nd Choice: Transmedia, Fandom, and Housewives: Renee Mitson, Veronica Heringer

Cheers, and see you around the hallways.

Queen’s rock classic ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ has been recorded over it’s 37 years by everyone from the Flaming Lips to The Muppets; was featured in Wayne’s World; and is the holy grail of classic rock karaoke performers everywhere.

Now in 2012, the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody are being featured in a new TV ad for luxury resort and casino, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. The ad is the latest installment in the resort’s ‘Just the Right Amount of Wrong’ campaign, launched in 2010 with this memorable spot.

The spot features the antics of a young man buying a drink for an attractive woman at the end of the bar, but his advances are quickly noticed by her boyfriend and his thuggish associates. As the events escalate, the young breaks into a falsetto and soon after the entire pool area of the hotel breaks out in a fury of singing and head banging.

The ad was created by Fallon, Minneapolis and directed by Steve Ayson of The Sweet Shop.

Official social media profiles of NASCAR teams and drivers are commonplace on established platforms like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, but few driver’s have ventured onto Google+ yet. Since launching the accounts on February 15, the five drivers have been added to roughly the same amount of user’s circles. 2011 runner-up Edwards leads the group at 27074, Biffle at 26942 Kenseth at 26662, Bayne at 26510, and 2011 Nationwide Champion Stenhouse added to 26276 circles.

The team will be using Google’s Hangouts to host 4 interactive video chats, starting with a multi-driver Q&A session on Wed, Feb 22 at 7pm, followed by a Daytona 500 eve chat with Trevor Bayne on Sat Feb 25, a race-day Hangout with team owner Jack Roush, and a race re-cap with Greg Biffle. It’s great to see an organization step up (assisted by their digital agency of course) and create a coordinated strategy to take advantage of the full features of a new platform like Google+.

Roush Fenway Racing continues to maintain official team profiles on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Google rarely disappoints when it comes to creating a custom version of their logo for special days, and the Google doodle for Valentine’s Day is no exception.

A young boy uses the search engine trying to find that special something to impress a little girl. I really thought she’s go for that dinosaur sweatshirt, but she returns to her skipping unimpressed.

The animation was co-created by Michael “Lippy” Lipman with Google designer Willie Real, and features Tony Bennett’s 1951 recording of Hank Williams’ ‘Cold Cold Heart’, a number one hit on Billboard.

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone

It’s been a little over a year since Columbus Dispatch videographer Doral Chenoweth stumbled across the then homeless Ted Williams standing alongside traffic with a hand-written sign asking for donations.

Now the smooth talking Ted Williams is ‘The Golden Voice of Love’ in a new Valentine’s Day campaign for Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.

From February 12 to 14, Williams will be creating personalized videos in which he reads the best of user’s Valentine’s Day Tweets tagged with #VoiceofLove. The video will then be posted to Kraft Macaroni & Cheese YouTube Channel and tweeted to Kraft’s Twitter profile.

For every tweet tagged with #VoiceofLove Kraft will make a donation of 100 boxes of Macaroni & Cheese to Feeding America, up to 100,000 boxes.

The campaign was created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

It seemed like just another day at the Bay & Bloor location of Indigo Books, until a young man carrying a bouquet of roses began singing ‘Happy Together’ to a what seems like an Indigo employee. The people at the store may have thought they were about to witness a very creative engagement proposal, until the man jumps up onto the counter and another half dozen performers join in on the performance.

Just as things seemed to be over, a performer disguised as an author signing books stands up and begins singing the Stevie Wonder classic ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’ as he hands out gifts to startled shoppers. The performance with Calvin Harris’ ‘We Found Love’ and wraps up with Roy Orbison’s ‘You Got It’.

It’s too bad that the ending comes off sounding so commercial with the song’s lyrics changed from ‘You Got It’ to “Anything You Want, We Got It”. But in the end it’s a promotion afterall.

When the guys from Les Amigos and the Toronto Generals showed up for their recreational league game at the Port Credit arena (capacity 700) back in December they had little idea what was in store for them. The two teams had been told that a documentary production crew was at the rink was there to shoot footage about rec league hockey.

During the second period, 500 fans in team colours, costumes and bodypaint rushed into the tiny arena to the surprise of the players. As Budweiser banners around the rink were unfurled the fans were followed by costumed team mascots and a play-by-play crew and soon gave the quiet rec-league game an NHL atmosphere, including kerfluffles.

Tied at the end of regulation time, the Generals came out on top 4-3 after an overtime goal. I suspect both teams had ample opportunity to celebrate with a few Buds after the game.

It’s a thrill to see the local Port Credit hockey arena featured in a national ad. The 52 year-old arena had only recently re-opened after over a year of extensive renovations.

The ad will be seen this Sunday during CTV’s Super Bowl broadcast.

It looks like Kia America is going for the dude market with their 2012 Super Bowl commercial (the extended version is embedded above).

In the ad, Mr. Sandman enters the bedroom of a sleeping couple. He lightly sprinkles dream dust to the woman and instantly she’s riding across grassy hills on white horse with a well groomed guy in a puffy shirt (basically a romance novel come to life). But as Mr Sandman rounds the bed, he trips on a pair of slippers delivers a overdose of golden dream dust to the unsuspecting sleeping man. The next thing you know all hell breaks loose as the man finds himself in a white Kia Optima. Brazilian supermodel Adriana Lima drops the flag he speeds off (closed course, professional driver, blah blah blah) in front of a grandstand of cheering bikini-clad women as Motley Crue rock out on stage to ‘Kickstart My Heart’.

But no sir, it’s not over yet. The random awesomeness continues with a cowboy riding a bucking rhinoceros, lumberjacks sawing a truck-size sandwich and Chuck Liddel kicking a guy until he explodes. Soon the man and woman’s dreams cross paths in a more tranquil happy ending.

The ad was created by Kia’s ad agency David & Goliath and directed by Noam Murro of Biscuit Film Works.