Guinness 250: New Year's Eve

Two weeks ago I wrote about Guinness's plans for New Years Eve. To mark the end of their 250th Birthday year, Guinness are planning a spectacular live TV ad to be broadcast on RTÉ 1 at 17:59 on New Year’s Eve. Little is known about the ad except that the 60 second event will feature a visual recreation of Arthur’s famous signature in a 'dramatic way'.

Funny thing is, in the last fortnight I've heard so much speculation and talk as to what this will be. Some folk have said it will be trained toucans flying in synchronised formation, while others have suggested a giant artificial cloud in the shape of Arthur's signature. Personally I just don't know what to expect, but I'm definitely excited.

Regardless of what fantastic thing Guinness produce, it's worth remembering that the entire year of celebration hasn't just been about Guinness's 250th Birthday and the famous signing of the 9,000 year lease on the St James’s Gate Brewery. This year saw the establishment of the Arthur Guinness Fund. A fund established as a thank you to the people of Ireland, which will be used to create opportunities for communities throughout Ireland by supporting social entrepreneurs.

You have to admit, that that's pretty decent.

So........ To Arthur!

-----UPDATE-----

I spotted this on RTÉ and thought it was well worth sharing. This is Guinness's 200x200 island placement from it's New Year's Eve advertising campaign. Essentially it just a simple countdown, but how extremely appropriate. Great idea, great execution.

Blue Moon Partial Eclipse

Every New Year's Eve I like to get out of Dublin, or at least out of the city centre. Usually it's just nice to be able to see the stars and the sky and be outside when you're ringing in the New Year. This year, however, there's an especially good reason to be outside looking up at the stars.

On December 31st 2009 there are a number of really cool things happening. Not only is it the end of the decade, not only is it New Year's Eve, but it will also be the night of a Blue Moon Partial Eclipse.

As the Lunar Calendar is shorter then the Gregorian Calendar (the standard calendar that we use), every 2.7 years there is an 'extra' full moon. There are 13 full moons during the year instead of 12. The exact timing of this changes and there is much debate as to which full moon during a year should be classed as the Blue Moon.

In this regard there may be those who would say that next week's full moon is not a Blue Moon but the romantic in me has made up his mind. Considering that it's such a rarity to get see a Blue Moon and a Partial Eclipse (it's happened just 4 times in 20th century), I will happily defend my position based on nothing other then my own ideas.

The Eclipse shadow will peak 7:22pm (Greenwich Mean Time) and will be visible in most of Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia, as per the following rough guide:

• North and South America: Blue moon, but no visible eclipse.
• Europe, Africa and Middle East: Blue moon, visible eclipse
• Asia and Australasia: Full moon (not blue), visible eclipse

On one final point, if this rare lunar event wasn't special enough as it is, you may find it a little weird to that December 31st will be the final day of the International Year of Astronomy.

Check out this video of the 2007 Blue Moon Eclipse...

A Day In The Internet

This is a really cool visualisation by Søren over on RoBoilr.dk, showing a day in the internet and exactly how much data we move and create (via the always excellent Nick Burcher).

The Perfect Christmas Story

This year for Christmas Vodafone have launched a huge online campaign centred around Facebook and three cool apps: the Pressie Picker, the Selection Box and the Perfect Christmas Story. Basically they're just fun little apps that work out who you are from your Facebook profile and come up with some quirky insights into you and your friends. They work around Facebook Connect.

The Pressie Picker pretty much does what it says on the tin, and will analyse who you are and suggest the best pressie for you or a friend. Of course you have to let it know if you’re naughty or nice. The Selection Box is a fun collection of gadgets to help you count in Christmas and prepare for whatever may be in store ;) Finally then, there’s the Perfect Christmas Story. If you’ve seen the Vodafone Christmas ad then you’ll get this – no point in spoiling it though, pop over and have a quick gander.

This is a Cybercom campaign so if you have the time I'd love to hear what you think.

Augmented Reality: Adidas

The next few months will see Adidas release a new range of shoes. What sets this range apart is that Adidas has created a virtual 3-D world that is accessed through the line of five men’s shoes. On top of this, Adidas will also introduce three Augmented Reality games as part of the new virtual world. Each pair of shoes will give the owner access to the virtual world and act as the controller for interacting with it. All you have to do is go to the Adidas website and hold up a code embedded on the shoes tongue to your webcam. The virtual world then pops up on your screen as part of the shoe.

“The foundation of augmented reality lies in adding a layer to the real world,” says Chris Barbour, head of digital marketing for Adidas Originals. “That’s what we have done. We have taken a real world item and added a fantastic virtual world on top of that. We are not trying to mimic a real-world look, we have a more stylized, pop-up book creative approach,” says Barbour. “The neighborhood is displayed on a two dimensional computer screen, but you can use your shoe to control the angle and depth of view and zoom in and out, giving a 3-D sense of perspective.”

The campaign will offer a skateboard game, played around the virtual city’s alleys, a Star Wars-like game and a music-based game. The games have been developed for Adidas by xForm.

LBi: Mobile Mobile

Mobile Mobile is described as "a joyous seasonal story of re-cycled phones, collaboration and derring do".

Basically, after LBi upgraded all the mobile phones in the agency, they decided something should be done with their old handsets. They came up with the idea to re-cycle, or “up-cycle” as they described it, the phones in the form of an interactive sculpture.

Each phone was assigned a tone and tied into a computer to each play a single note. The following video demonstrates their favourite but you can also create your own personalised version through the campaign microsite using your keyboard.

The Best Agency Christmas Card Ever?

Just watch this...

Smirnoff 'Be There': The Carnival Experience

During the last month I've been very excitedly covering Smirnoff's various activities around there new 'BE THERE' campaign. Not letting the momentum slow for even a moment, Smirnoff's next competition is already up and running, and this one is seriously cool.

How would you like the chance to take 3 friends and go to Carnival. You could be spending 5 nights in Rio de Janeiro with all your hotel and travel expenses covered, during the biggest party in the Brazilian calendar! Even if you're not the main winner there are runners up prizes, and every single person who enters get s a free download of the Layo & Bushwacka! track The Longest Day, from their Shake It Brazil compilation.

So what do you have to do? Just pop over to the Smirnoff Facebook page and enter your details. Done. Like that.

The closing date is the 9th January 2010 and you can find all the details about the competition and the prizes here.

Meteor Ireland Music Awards: Most Promising New Artist 2010

December isn't over, the jolly fat man hasn't come down your chimney, and not a single chorus of Auld Lang Syne has passed a pair of lips, but even so there are many people already thinking about January. The music community will shortly be gearing up for Ireland's annual celebration of national and international musical artists. This year, however, there may be a slightly longer list of nail-biters when it comes to the big night.

Today, Meteor announced that there's a sunny January for one lucky unsigned artist in search of their big break. Next year's Meteor Ireland Music Awards are introducing a brand new category, the Most Promising New Artist 2010. The brand new category will celebrate the best original song from an individual or group, who is currently not signed to any record label (small independents excluded) or publishing house.

The winner will be determined by composition, lyrics, melody and originality, and will receive the prize a host of seriously, seriously cool prizes, including:

• Live performance on the New Band Stage at Oxegen 2010
• One day of recording in Grouse Lodge Recording Studios
• One day of Mastering in Masterlabs
• 150 copies of the CD single
• Designed CD sleeve and photo shoot with top celebrity Photographer Barry McCall
• Radio/PR distribution

On top of all that, the lucky winner of the new category can also look forward to being presented with a gong, as the winners of The Most Promising New Artist for 2010 award at the award show in January.

Entry is simple and all hopefuls have to do is upload a video of themselves performing their song to www.themeteors.ie. From there it's all down to public vote for the top 10 shortlist, then on to an industry panel to select the top 5 acts to become the official nominees for the Most Promising New Artist 2010 award.

The closing date for applications is January 11th 2010 so if you're interested get cracking now!

Augmented Reality: Avatar iTag Toys

James Cameron's new film, Avatar, is without doubt one of the most anticipated movies of the year. Between Cameron's own goliath status and ability to make record-breaking movies, Twentieth Century Fox Film's global marketing activities, and the overall promise of new, never before seen, ground breaking fully immersive next generation special effects, this movie is going to be BIG. There has been more talk and speculation about this film then probably any other in the last 24 months. Special extended trailers were shown to select audiences around the world. Strategic partnerships were developed with leading technology providers. Basically if there was something that could be done to promote this, it was.

So with the film now in the cinema, what's next?

In my opinion the coolest thing coming next is the Avatar toy line. Mattel’s Avatar toy line is set to revolutionise toy play. The Avatar range of toys marks the industry’s first range of toys to incorporate i-TAG technology. This is essentially Augmented Reality enhanced toys. When held up to a webcam, each toy's unique i-TAGT creates a three dimensional, Augmented Reality image on your computer screen.

Here is a video of exactly how the system works...