Creativing

OK, who put acid in the coffee over at Forbes. I jest, but this is great. Shortly after posting about their Office Pranks site here, I see the Forbes Halloween Masks.

Not sure if this is at all tied to the tanking economy, but it does give you a sense that cooler heads are prevailing at Forbes.

W+K's Far East office reintroduces itself.

Step inside the office of all things Ecko.

This is a blog site targeted to the Mens XL demo. It's difficult to bond guys over fashion, so this is a good idea, aggregating content around what has to be a strong, shared experience.

What I don't agree with is launching this as a new content site to align with their other brands, for everything from brand recognition to SEO.

Really great site from the New Zealand Reading council. Similar to the Sex and the City site I posted a few weeks ago only 100 times more amazing. Read at work disguses reading great literature as working, and they really really nailed the windows OS. Unfortunately I can't use this in my all mac office, even if I claimed to have installed boot camp people would suspect something if all the sudden I couldn't wait to open powerpoint.

A good article on how tough this business can be, irregardless of success. One note regarding how Office Max is evaluating the 'Elf' series: OfficeMax plans to measure the success of this year's promotion based on brand metrics. Last year, according to the company, 40 percent of those who created elves associated the experience with OfficeMax. Over 30 percent said it made them more likely to shop there.

When the facebook beacon disaster hit I thought to myself, why didn't Blockbuster just create it's own app with easy opt in if they wanted? why spend all that money on a "new" facebook intiative when all the tools are there. The only reason was to force it on users, and look it blew up in everyone's face. Gamefly is doing this the right way, looking it as brand awareness, and starting soft and easy so consumers build trust. With really cool social networking features to come later.

Funny reality check by Dave Sarno at Web Scout. Too many on her case already, but reading the site, and then their comments, it's hard to disagree. Lesson 2.0 here: Honesty in social media is good, but maybe not right for every brand personality (and yes, celebs are perhaps the ultimate in 'brand personalities').

On the other hand, the metrics aren't in yet on this one.

Viral video site for Disney Interactive's Ultimate Band game, for Wii. I saw these videos on Skateboard.com. 15 second spots. The vids are funny, but there's no reference to the brand anywhere on the site, and the site looks very (maybe intentionally) low-fi. Even the Meta Tag page title misspelled 'instruments' in the site's name. The lead forwards to the Ultimate Band profile on IGN.