I’m no fan of Coca-Cola. That said, their television ad running throughout the Olympics is quite clever. It features British DJ, producer and musician Mark Ronson, who sampled sounds produced by five Olympics athletes doing their thing. There’s the thud of a taekwondo competitor kicking her opponent, the thwack of a table tennis paddle connecting with the ball, the throaty breath of a track star exhaling.
These and other sporty sounds are weaved into a percussive dance beat, some vocals are tossed into the mix, and the end result is Coca-Cola’s “anthem” for this year’s Olympics games. While the song provides the soundtrack for the TV spot, the visuals show the athletes producing this music, seemingly (yet inconceivably) orchestrated live.
As all this action is happening on screen, a small blue graphic in the corner of your television set urges the viewer to “Shazam Now”.
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August 1, 2012
My time in Saskatoon has come to an end. My partner and I will be moving to Vancouver on April 1 — no joke!
Since arriving from Montreal three and a half years ago, I’ve experienced both the great warmth of Saskatchewan people and the deep freeze of prairie winters. I’m honoured to have met so many kind, wonderful folks, to have spent my days with the amazing staff of the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival, and many nights with fine specimens from Saskatoon’s ultimate frisbee community.
But I’ve always known that my stay here was destined to be temporary, and now we’ll will be returning to a major metropolis for the next stage in life. I know some of you have questions, so I’ve taken the simple (and presumptuous) route and compiled this brief FAQ.
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March 9, 2012
Disclaimer: I’m not talking about direct mail campaigns here. I figure you can come up with much more interesting ways to waste money on your own.
I was listening to the always interesting Spark radio program on CBC Radio yesterday, and they were discussing A Month of Letters, an open challenge to send a piece of mail every day for one month. Sending snail mail is not a particularly novel idea, but it is one that is highly underappreciated.
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February 16, 2012
During the month of November, vanity will take a backseat while I grow a moustache for Movember to raise awareness and and a few bucks to fight prostate cancer. And I’m offering you a once-in-a-lifetime deal.
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November 5, 2011
Having returned from vacation, I’m spending more time digging through data from this year’s Saskatchewan Jazz Festival, and reflecting upon what lessons I can glean from my marketing campaign. Besides the introduction of our iPhone and Android app, one of the most interesting changes this year was the amount of buzz and activity on Twitter.
In past years, I feel that Saskatchewan lacked a critical mass of Twitter users, and our involvement on the social network wasn’t particularly fruitful. This year, however, the festival’s follower count jumped, people were tweeting about the shows, and we successfully used Twitter to engage the public, promote our events, and listen to what people were saying about us.
Looking back on the campaign, there are many takeaways from the festival’s activity on Twitter, but I want to highlight three that I thought would be most helpful for other arts organizations.
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August 31, 2011
