eROI NYC Interactive Agency

Hey Nation….
As expected Obama’s speech rocked the political world last night. What’s so interesting is his use of the internet and SMS to mobilize supporters and non-supporters alike. Through out his campaign he has leaned on technology to separate him from the crowd. Considering his opponent doesn’t even use a computer its a great strategy to reel in the youth and get them fired up. He blew up twitter and the internet again last night.

Wired reports:

“Traffic on the micro-blogging service Twitter immediately surged in the wake of Obama’s speech, in which he officially became the first African American to win the nomination of the Democratic party.

More than 6,500 tweets poured through the service in just 20 minutes Thursday night — most of them brief, two-line assessments of Obama’s performance on a historic night, the 45th anniversary of civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. (Obama is the most popular person on Twitter, according to the tracking service Twitterholics.)”

Nation…
The internet in all its vastness is essentially a giant storage device for the thoughts, progress and development of human kind. How profound. Because of this and unlike any other period of time we have access to almost any kind of information you need. Now with that intro…
I wanted to share this site with you as it is truly a portal to a ton of information. The site isn’t pretty but it sure is effective. Utilizing WIKI technology, this site is a huge book repository. It has everything from Shakespeare to Poe. I mean you are not going to find any thing contemporary as these are old books….well past the shelf life of copyrights.
I like this site because its no nonsense, its information for information’s sake. No ads…no sign ups…they don’t even want your email address. They just want you to have the info you need and want you to have it in a format that works.

There…I just found every volume of Mark Twain’s Letters available in plain text or Plucker. I also found Thomas Paine’s…Common Sense. Perhaps one of the greatest American works of all time. This is not to forget that if you are ever looking for a plain text copy of the Constitution you now know where to go now.
So I give Project Gutenberg the website of the week. I will leave you with the opening line of Common Sense:

“Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET
sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit
of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of
being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of
custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than
reason.”

Wow. You rock Thomas Paine.

There is a new splash this week in the ever murky waters of “the company spokesman”. Apparently, working on the heels of the newest Apple campaigns, Microsoft the big daddy of them all is hiring Jerry Seinfeld as their man. And Bill is the man behind the man so to speak.
It always amazes me how huge brand’s pick their company mascots. Sometimes the choice hits the mark like Subway’s Jared or the legendary Jordan for Nike. Choices like that seem to resonate with the brand’s mission and somehow fills in another piece of the puzzle for where the brand is headed. Jared works because he lost weight eating only fresh Subway sandwiches….thus Subway = Healthy and Jared serves as proof. The Michael Jordan Nike marriage is one made in heaven. Jordan is a champion and he wears Nike….thus Nike = Performance.
I can’t seem to make the same positive correlation with the latest Microsoft choice. This latest move seems to be a forced play to battle Apple’s growing image as being the hippest and coolest. Brand’s of all sizes should always be aware of their competition, but this latest move seems like a reaction and not an inspiration. What does Jerry have to do with Windows? What’s the message? Jerry has an apartment with Windows and he is funny….thus Windows = Funny. Weak move Bill. With 1 trillion dollars to spend you could have done better.

The Wall Street Journal:

Microsoft Corp., weary of being cast as a stodgy oldster by Apple Inc.’s advertising, is turning for help to Jerry Seinfeld.

The software giant’s new $300 million advertising campaign, devised by a newly hired ad agency, has been closely guarded. But Mr. Seinfeld will be one of the key celebrity pitchmen, say people close to the situation. He will appear with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates in ads and receive about $10 million for the work, they say.
[chart]

The new ad effort is expected to use some variation of the slogan “Windows, Not Walls,” according to several people familiar with the matter. Those people say the point is to stress breaking down barriers that prevent people and ideas from connecting. The campaign, said to debut Sept. 4, is one of the largest in the company’s history.

So I am a sucker for look a likes. It’s like a rubber chicken….I don’t know why but its always funny. On my way home the other day I swore I saw Garrett taking pics of some party. Dude was a dead ringer for our super Art Director. Pardon the small pic but its hard to get up close covert pics with out looking like a total creep. Garrett is that you?

So I am a sucker for look a likes. It’s like a rubber chicken….I don’t know why but its always funny. On my way home the other day I swore I saw Garrett taking pics of some party. Dude was a dead ringer for our super Art Director. Pardon the small pic but its hard to get up close covert pics with out looking like a total creep. Garrett is that you?

Hi Nation….
So when Dylan was here we were talking about clever ways to shamelessly promote Crosspixelnation.
I wanted to share a couple of them and see if we are totally off our rocker or if this is cool. I can’t quite tell yet….there were some liquids involved in the brainstorming session.

Idea 1: Fold up like 500 – 1000 origami cranes printed with an eROI/Crosspixelnation logo and URL pointing perhaps to a landing page for the event. The folded messengers would be strategically placed around the Madison Ave and Soho areas in the hopes of catching the eye of the passing creative. Free Origami….free blog fodder.

Idea 2: Inspired by Idea 1, Idea 2 assumes we fold one of those kid paper chance games – see below. You remember “pick a number” was followed by the same number of flips before the paper was unfolded to reveal your fortune. Do you like me check YES or NO. Ah grade school. But I digress….so Idea 2 would take more planning and writing as every combination would have something witty in it. So when someone finds it they remember when they played and they play it.

So that’s it…start small….see what happens. What do you think? We can always hide ninjas.

I am pleased to share that the viral campaign we did for The Dessy Group is getting some traction. It was picked up by Martha Stewart’s wedding BLOG. Not bad….

Hi Nation…..
I am feeling a bit strange today. Its a familiar feeling but certainly one that I don’t enjoy. For as much as I love this city one can tend to feel like an itty bitty grain of sand in the Beach that is New York. Most days its the supreme motivator but on some days its the mad overwhelmer.
Here is a snipit from good old Wikipedia that is relevant:

” Loneliness frequently occurs in heavily populated cities; in these cities many people feel utterly alone and cut off, even when surrounded by throngs of other people. They experience a loss of identifiable community in an anonymous crowd. It is unclear whether loneliness is a condition aggravated by high population density itself, or simply part of the human condition brought on by this social milieu. Certainly, loneliness occurs even in societies with much smaller populations, but the sheer number of random people that one comes into contact with daily in a city, even if only briefly, may raise barriers to actually interacting more deeply with them and increase the feeling of being cut off and alone. Quantity of contact does not translate into quality of contact. ”

Now don’t get me wrong…I am totally happy in the city and still super stoked to represent the EROI. But some days you miss the shared laughter and overall sense of belonging you get from working in an office of your peers and in my case friends.
The only solution is to keep to the grindstone and work it out. In fact, I feel better after writing this…:) Till next time….

Hi Nation,
My wife, Tatom, soon to be starting at Parson’s, showed me this sweet artist today and I have to share.
Her name is Yujo Shimizu and she works out of NYC. She is also an instructor at the School of Visual Arts.
It always amazes me the amount of talent inside this city. Click the pic to check out her site.
She rocks!

In the NYC the subway cars are littered with advertisements.  Usually a campaign buys out the whole car so all you see are variations of the same ad. I have seen some cool executions. But on the Subway a few days ago something caught my eye at the end of the car and it was a stand alone ad compelling you to “Be Kanye”. I thought the campaign online presence included was a great idea. Be Kanye!