Turning viewers into users

We watched this video in the session we attended yesterday and found it really interesting. It is part of the larger discussion about the way people watch TV. These days, people watch TV whilst doing other things, particularly whilst being on the internet.

So areacode created The Sopranos A&E Connection, a sync-to-broadcast game that makes watching the repeated series more engaging.

"When the episode of The Sopranos premieres on A&E, the players' online gameboards come to life and animate synchronously to the TV signal. As the characters, settings and objects of the Sopranos appear on TV, the corresponding pieces animate and score points. This represents the first time a game was ever designed wholly for synchronous two-screen entertainment." (http://www.areacodeinc.com/work/sopranos/)

We were told by a famous adman not so long ago that the way we watch television is about to change. With this idea of turning viewers into users, it definitely seems something to be excited about.

Birmingham B-Hive Competition

It's that time of year again; the Birmingham B-hive competition is back!

We entered last year and bagged ourselves 2 paid placements in the Midlands, gaining a lot of experience and some good contacts. It was it's first year last year and didn't get that much support from universities, but I'm sure it will be bigger this year. They've got a new website, more briefs and more agencies involved, so if your a design, advertising or PR student/grad I strongly recommend you enter! It's a lot of fun and a great way to get your foot in the door. I also have a nice little guest appearance on the site.

http://www.bhive-creative.com/

Employment

On a lighter note, we signed our contracts today,
We'll be working at Wunderman until Christmas eve.
Woop!

Words of Wisdom: advice for young creatives

At the start of our placement at Wunderman they encouraged us to do something in the agency to get ourselves noticed. We went through a few crappy ideas but in the end decided it would be pretty fun to make a video. So we bribed people (with a selection of cakes) in the agency to take part and give us their best bit of advice for a young creative in advertising. This is the result and we quite like it. We hope it encourages other creatives on placements to record their own experiences and get involved.

Sold!

Fantastic news for Lemon today - we sold our first idea!
The design process begins next week which means we get to see the whole thing through. It's also a great thing to add to our ever growing book of ideas.

Our first week here at Wunderman has been wunderful (ha) Great people, great brief and really great atmosphere. Oh and free beer on Thursdays and Fridays and also ice-cream and sweets today!

Anyway, onto the next brief we go, a tough one, but then again what brief is easy? Life is treating us well here in Camden and later tonight we will check out some of the delightful delicacy available to us and get even fatter!

Happy Lemon

Museum of Brands

Thought I'd put a few images up from when we went to the Museum of brands, packaging and advertising in Notting Hill. It was pretty cool walking through the different ages of brands and getting a feel for the era. Some of these 3D ads for Smarties and Polo also seemed well ahead of their time, as did some of the Cadbury's Roses boxes. Anyway it's a cool little place to visit and they have an exhibition on at the moment about sustainable packaging sponsored by Tesco.