A weekly roundup of media news and talking points, sans effort

Thought for the Week

 
“Shortly we will start see more connected cars, fridges, wearable tech – we believe the devices you buy in five years time – if they are not connected they won’t be bought… …This all opens up lot of info for advertisers. If you can’t crack big data now will have no chance in 10 years. But the same goes for mobile – if you haven’t cracked it today how will you crack wearables – you must future proof. If you don’t have a mobile strategy you don’t have a future strategy.”  Ian Carrington, Google’s head of performance for Europe, speaking to The Drum.
 
 

Weekly High

Arguably the best advert for an Internet Service Provider we’ve ever seen is this gem from Ume.net, part of the Swedish company Umeå Energi. To advertise the brand’s super fast connection candidates were chosen to wear high tech virtual realty headsets, configured to show what’s happening around them but with a few seconds delay. The point begin, we wouldn’t accept ‘lag’ in real life, so why accept it with broadband?

Weekly Low

One of the UK’s biggest summer events came unstuck this week during preparations for the annual Parklife Festival here in Manchester. Those in positions of responsibility woefully misjudged where ‘the line’ was when they decided to send out text messages to their public database that showed up on mobile phones as coming from ‘Mum’. The information therein focused on a series of after parties selling out, but whilst it was clearly meant in jest a backlash quickly began from recipients of the message, who pointed out that people who had lost their mothers could find the action highly objectionable. An apology was issued, albeit the damage was already done.

 

Stories to keep an eye on

*David Axelrod, the chap some say was responsible for getting Barrack Obama elected stateside, is now working with Labour leader Ed Miliband in what’s being pegged as ‘not a makeover’, but a communications overhaul. 

*Anti-World Cup protests have been taking place in Brazilian. Organised rallies were held in Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Sao Paulo, with a spate of violent crime in Recife- all host cities for the tournament. 

*Bear Grylls has come unstuck thanks to his latest series, The Island, which features a bunch of men left to fend for themselves on a desert island, with female survival experts labelling the show as sexist. 

Just in case you missed it…

New EU legislation due to come into action next year could mean that brands using data capture within their digital marketing will have to ask the public to ‘opt-in’ to marketing messages, as oppose to the current system of opting out. Read our advice for staying onside here. 
If there is a success story, blunder, or news event you’d like to see included email helloATsmokinggun.co.uk or tweet using #blaggersblog. Happy Friday!