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21.01.2010 by Zoltan 
Make your own Cameron poster
Very funny little Cameron mash-up from Andy Barefoot that allows you to make your own campaign poster for the upcoming UK general election. I especially like the fact that you have full control over the logo – some much needed respite for Cameron’s unashamed re-hashing of Obama’s ‘hope’ message which I simply can’t stand!
Whether you love or loathe the Tories, this provides endless fun.
via @mattyboomboom
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21.01.2010 by Zoltan the UK open the doors to public data (finally)
Following both the USA and London, the UK government has just released data.gov.uk – a whole tranche of public data free to all, and importantly including commercial applications. A great move in the right direction! Can’t wait to see the output generated from this…
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06.08.2009 by Zoltan Visible Tweets
Visible Tweets is one of the better Twitter visualisations I’ve seen. It is a very soft, very gentle presentation of data. There are 3 different views or animation styles, but to be honest the only one the matters is the rotate one.
As stated by it’s creator The Man In Blue, “[Twitter's] beauty is the cacophony of the masses – a sea of voices that gently washes over you and allows you to savour the zeitgeist in 140 character canapes.” Indeed…
With all the constant buzz about the service, its strikes me as strange that no one has created the ultimate Twitter-viz. No doubt its in the works as we speak, maybe even by yours truly… Anyone want to help?
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04.08.2009 by Zoltan Tru Blood Is Much More Than a TV Show
Until now, Tru Blood was nothing more than a good idea on an addictive TV show called True Blood. In case you’ve been stuck under a rock recently, Tru Blood, the drink, is the central conceit of HBO’s wildly popular series: a synthetic blood-drink invented by Japanese scientists that allows vampires to enter mainstream society without fear of them gorging on hapless humans.
But all that changed last week at Comic-Con, when Tru Blood was launched as a real product – a bona fide drink made of blood orange (naturally) though sans haemoglobin, for the non-vampires of this world. Available from September 10 in your local bar and for pre-order online now, although only in the USA.
Obviously the fanboys and girls went wild at the chance to mark their allegiance. But when you consider that HBO is not historically in the drinks business, Tru Blood the drink suddenly stands as a watershed moment in the advertising and marketing industries.
It is a stroke of marketing genius mixed with a healthy dollop of business acumen. It inverts the traditional notion of product placement, and becomes all the more coveted because of its previous non-existence. Dare I say it: Tru Blood the drink represents the very future of advertising – unpaid media.
Imagine all the fake vampirism this drink will spawn: Facebook pictures, Youtube videos, and endless blog posts. Why buy media space when you can sell something that people will willing create content around, all the while turning a tidy profit for HBO?
Now this strategy is obviously not going to work for every fictitious product ever invented for TV and cinema. But it does prove that HBO realises that they are no longer confined to the screen. Creating culture in today’s world means being present in people’s lives in whatever way you can, even if it means entering the drinks business.
Pasted from the original article penned for blogcritics.org
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29.06.2009 by Zoltan BillieTweets
I promised myself I wouldn’t do a MJ tribute post, but Billie Tweets is just too good…
Its definitely the coolest use of twitter I’ve seen in ages – basically a mashup of we feel fine’s keyword search and twitter’s real-time-y-ness with a good dose of MJ-rhythm for good measure – in short, Billie Tweets searches Twitter and then pushes the resulting tweets out word-by -word to the beat of Billie Jean.
Very very very good and brought to us by the talented kids over at 9astronauts
I wonder how long they were sitting on this idea before poor MJ (R.I.P.) kicked the bucket and they thought fuck it its now or never! Like the truth about MJ and those kids, I guess we’ll just never know…
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07.09.2008 by Zoltan Out intellectual-ise your mates with bkkeeper
I’m not really a big twitterer yet (but I think my new iPhone will change that), but I just came across this ingenious bolt-on idea called bkkeeper, which turns your twitter into a broadcast of your book reading habits.
But apart from sharing the titles you’re currently reading, they’ve also built a system which allows you to digitally dog-ear / bookmark pages. Its a great way of sharing with people in real-time what was previously only a solo experience.
Apart from the fact that I haven’t figured out how to get an account there yet (am I just completely stupid/blind?), the only thing that could improve this would be some webcam integration to read the ISBN number for you – you know, like Delicious Library.
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07.09.2008 by Zoltan Lateral thinking
In Australia, Stella Artois is the king of premium beers. But like any brand, they wanted to sell more (of course). They needed to up their game, and created a new sales team to focus on it. And of course, they needed some marketing materials to help them do the selling. So far, so traditional.
But the sales team didn’t really know about the legacy of the brand and the long association with film, especially in the UK. Instead of a series of sleep-worthy PowerPoints, they were each given a customised PSP loaded with film content. Not only could they educate themselves, but they could educate the bar owners as well. And importantly, have some fun doing it.
And it worked (from after the jump) – “analysis has shown that every sales representative who was given a PSP met all their sales targets for the relevant quarter. Anecdotal feedback also confirmed that without exception, the PSP was regarded as the best sales presenter ever received. As a result, Foster’s is now reviewing further rollout of the tool.”
This is a great example of an agency, in this case Lowe Rivet, stepping back from the brief and thinking about what needs to be achieved and by whom. Again, in digital we’re often too proud to offer clients ready-made solutions. But custom is not always king. Often – and increasingly more so as every single facet of digital possibility has a web 2.0 offering – it just makes sense to take something pre-engineered, and tweak it as required.
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12.07.2008 by Zoltan Through the eyes of a master
4Creative are simply awesome. To advertise the Kubrick season beginning this week, they’ve recreated the set of Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’ with mind-boggling attention to detail. The ad becomes a behind-the-scenes romp via all the main characters, resolving on ‘you’ being handed the script as the famous tricycle scene is about to be shot.
Its compulsive watching if for nothing else but to appreciate the sheer scale of a feature film. The ad itself was shot in one take as well which makes it all the more beautiful and breathtaking. Unfortunately its not embeddable, but you can watch it here.
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23.05.2008 by Zoltan GTA4 Staying Alive
User-generated (in its loosest sense) GTA4 mashup, which is only really a new soundtrack. But it fits so perfectly that you wonder why the agency didn’t think of this? Surely the rights couldn’t be too much for Rockstar? Just like Cadbury’s Gorilla, spend what you have to spend on the track. After all, there’s no talent cost is there?
via digital examples
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25.02.2008 by Zoltan PicLens
PicLens is something very very special. Quite simply its a better way to search for images. A browser add-on, it uses the metaphor of a never-ending wall to display image results from google (or flickr) in a more natural way than simply by ‘page’. The infinite non-space of PicLens makes the act of searching for images a joy.
I think their brief must’ve been to re-create the experience of lightbox – where there is nothing apart from the image to distract your attention – and mash it up with everything that’s beautiful about digital.
And its surprisingly FAST! Actually its faster than normal because of the way it constantly grabs the forthcoming images. So by the time you want to see more, they’re already loaded. Brilliant! FYI its heaps better in Firefox.
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31.01.2008 by Zoltan Obey Obama
Yesterday Obey released his endorsement poster for Obama (left). Which is great, as I love Obey’s style and I certainly hope that Obama wins – because he might actually change the rotten institutions of American politics rather than just keep the status quo.
But then today, quick as lightning, someone has gone one step further and created a text-generator using the very same image (my version, right). You can only guess at what’s going to happen when the Clinton’s get their hands on this, but at the end of the day it will be Obama’s campaign that wins, because no matter what anyone writes underneath, it’ll still be his face that everyone sees first and associates with Obey’s original messages of “Hope” and “Progress”.
And while we’re on the subject YouBama has just launched which is essentially a user-gen video endorsement site for the main man. So get upping and add to the groundswell of opinion for a (radical) change in USA Inc.
obey obama – via CR yesterday
obey generator – via yacco today
youbama – via ad lab -
11.01.2008 by Zoltan Louis Vuitton stairs
What do you get when you mash-up a staircase with thousands of LED’s? None other than this staircase at Louis Vuitton on Via Condotti, Rome. Imagine the possibilites!?!?! All they need to do is integrate an SMS shortcode onto the window and they’ve got a super-sticky branded experience with massive PR appeal. C’mon, its not like LV is short of cash…
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17.12.2007 by Zoltan God’s eye view
Mash-up Google Earth and the Bible and what you’d end up with is something along the lines of “God’s Eye View”. These deceptively simple, yet immensely powerful representations of the biblical stories we all know bring them aesthetically up-to-date for the internet generation. Fantastically simple work from Australia’s Glue Society.
via CR
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11.10.2007 by Zoltan Nike Retail 2007
Check these awesome Nike Retail posters out. They very impressively create the illusion of flat 3D space favoured by the Russian Constructivsts but actually using 3D objects to begin with, but then photographing them back into 2D… Ahhhh, its all a bit too po-mo for me… The short story is they’re lovely :) Photography courtesy of Maurice Scheltens, art direction by Liesbeth Abbenes.
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11.10.2007 by Zoltan A few good creative men
Although I find the concept of writing ‘ads’ to be slightly prehistoric (or at least pre web 2.0), I’ve certainly felt like this a few times towards the ’suits’ of our industry. lol :)
Mash-Ups Archive
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