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128 Beats Per Minute: Audio+Visual Inspiration

…especially when the product being sold is a show about advertising.

“Trust Me” took over the front page of Yahoo! Sports today to not-so-subtlety remind us the show premieres this evening. This is really bad. Both of the flash banner ads display the same text and animations, which is a total waste. And the full-body shots on the sides of the page? No comment.

When electronic instrument manufacturer Roland created the TR-808 Rhythm Composer and TB-303 Bass Line in the early 80’s, they marketed the machines as practice and demoing tools for guitarists. Almost serendipitously, the machines ended up in the hands of the producers that would become pioneers of techno, electro, acid house, and trance. Today, vintage Roland models command prices surpassing their original price tags of the early 80’s.

Last February, Hobnox, a German web entertainment and publishing platform that describes itself as “created for artists by artists,” introduced Audiotool, a Flash-based attempt to recreate Roland’s legendary machines on the web. As you can see in the image, they certainly got the visual appearance down, including some strategically placed stickers over Roland logos and model numbers.

I have no idea whether the covering up of the logos was done preemptively to prevent a lawsuit from Roland, or if Hobnox contacted them regarding a partnership and got rejected. But in my eyes, this should have been a no-brainer cross promotion. The association with Roland and their highly sought-after machines could attract new users to Hobnox, and the virtual recreations of the Roland 808 and 303 could appeal to new generations of producers who use software instead of or in addition to hardware. Roland co-develops software suites with Cakewalk, so perhaps the Hobnox Audiotool could help promote those products. But until some kind of partnership happens, I see this as a missed opportunity, especially for Roland.

In what could either be a landmark use of social media or a public showcase of the pitfalls of hosting an open forum on the internet, the Office of the President-Elect announced the Citizen’s Briefing Book as the newest feature on the Change.gov transition website. After signing up for an account, you post your policy ideas you would like Obama to consider and comment and vote on the ideas of others. The most popular ideas will be presented to him after the inauguration. While some of the most popular ideas have been great so far (for example, the construction of bullet trains and light rail systems), it won’t be too long until some of the more out-there, conspiracy theory ideas start moving up the popularity rankings, like this one.

Change.gov: Citizen’s Briefing Book

Have you noticed the recent trend spots using kinetic type? You’re not alone. My friend Brian is fed up with them, and has decided to start a collection in order to name and shame those who are abusing Adobe After Effects. Offenders include The Girl Effect, Motrin (and the brilliant Motrin ad parody), Ford, Starbucks, and TOMS. With budgets getting tighter, it’s no surprise we are seeing a ton of these spots that are relatively cheap to produce. But they all look the same. And they also look like the movie quote kinetic type videos that popped up on YouTube almost two years ago.

The above video is an early example of kinetic typography, way before After Effects. “Nothing But Flowers” is a song from Talking Heads’ 1988 album Naked. Great video for a great song.

Everyone’s hating on Microsoft Songsmith but you know you want to try it out.

Microsoft Songsmith

If you were to read only CNN Money’s report on the 2008 music industry sales figures, you would probably come to the conclusion that the industry is dying and no one will ever pay for music again. The article describes the business as “ailing” due to “internet piracy and competition from other forms of entertainment” competing for our dollars.

What’s true is album sales have dropped for the seventh time in eight years, down 14% to 428.4 million units and since 2000, album sales have fallen 45%. While this has happened, digital sales have risen 27% over last year to 1.07 billion units. In total, the 1.5 billion units of total music sales – including albums, singles, videos, and digital tracks – is the highest ever. The article nonchalantly includes that figure as the last sentence with no explanation how this can happen if the music industry is, as they say, “ailing.”

The explanation is simple: the way we choose to consume music has changed with the advent of digital stores. Note the word “choose.” Prior to iTunes, if we wanted to purchase music we were forced to pay for albums if we wanted to get the singles pushed to us by the record labels through radio and MTV. $15 for the one or two songs we really wanted. If we were lucky, the whole album was good, but that was often not the case. But with iTunes and other mp3 stores, why are we going to pay $15 when all we want costs $0.99? See, it’s not piracy that’s “killing” music – in fact, people are willing to purchase music more than ever – it’s the fact that what we are buying costs less and results in less profits for the labels. Until they figure out new ways to make up the difference in profits, the trend will continue, and most likely so will the finger-pointing and false accusations.

Sour note: Music sales down in 2008

Didn’t we learn our lesson from the Orville “Deadenbacher” spots two years ago? Digital dead people in ads are creepy. In Gatorade’s G commercial, a computer-animated Jackie Robinson is one of a dozen sports legends featured in an impressive lineup. He’s the only non-living athlete featured. And then we have a spot for the One Laptop Per Child foundation featuring a digital John Lennon telling us the significance of giving laptops to children in developing countries. His message is powerful, but is he really the only one who can deliver it?

It begs two questions to be asked. Can we say for sure these guys would endorse the products they are pitching post-humorously? And what is wrong with using one of the seven billion living, breathing people here on earth?

Instead of offering predictions for the year to come, I’m going to write about some things I would like to see in 2009. They’re kind of like predictions, but if they don’t pan out by year’s end, at least I can come back and say “Well, they were only suggestions, not predictions, so technically I wasn’t wrong.”

1. Brands Forget Facebook and Try Twitter
When Facebook opened up it’s application development platform and subsequently allowed brands and celebrities to create their own “Facebook Pages”, there was much talk about how great it would be for brands to connect with people on the 150 million strong network. But that never really happened. There are more virtual tumbleweeds on branded Facebook Pages than meaningful conversation. And no one ever created a branded Facebook application that caught fire. Burger King’s recent Whopper Sacrifice is promising though, at least they understand the medium and use it in a clever way.

The problem with Facebook is that conversations happen all over the place. I can post info in my profile, write status messages, leave comments on a friend’s wall, leave comments on photos, and have discussions on group and event pages. For brands on Facebook, they don’t get to see the majority of these conversations; they only get to see what I’m posting on their branded Facebook Pages.

And then there’s Twitter. With the simplicity of everyone getting one centralized feed in which to “tweet”, it’s a lot easier for brands to monitor the conversations to see what people are saying about them. Twitter has made it simple by creating a search engine so you can see what others are saying about a topic of particular interest to you. This allows an opportunity for brands to engage with people in ways that they could not on Facebook. Brands that have already got in on the action include Zappos, Dell, and The Home Depot.

2. For Online Videos, Check Out Vimeo
Tired of all the teenagers and grumpy old men ranting on their webcams? Get off YouTube and check out Vimeo. While YT has a stranglehold on streaming web videos, I think 2009 will be the year in which competitors start to make some strides. Vimeo has better HD video and audio quality hands down, making it perfect for short films, comedy sketches, and music videos that depend on higher quality audio and video.

3. Obama Marketing Machine Takes on America
Imagine if the team behind Obama’s successful and impressive marketing campaign tackled the challenge of re-branding America. The country’s image has taken a tumble both internationally and domestically – some say it’s because of the past eight years, but it has been going on longer than that. Whatever the case is, we all saw the reactions at home and abroad to the election results. Massive amounts of people gathered and the show of support for Obama was overwhelming.

If people could show that much support for a political candidate, could they do the same for America? Should there be an Obama-led effort made to promote the great things about our country and convince the world and ourselves we are not a bunch of overweight, privileged, arrogant war-mongers? I think so. And I think it needs to be done.

We’re right in the middle of college football’s bowl season, and if the fact that more than half of the 119 Division I-A teams get trips to the post season isn’t ridiculous enough, we now have 10 bowl games named after the title sponsors. It’s both lame and genius at the same time. These are mostly lower-tier bowls that won’t gain significant audiences, but brand-name-as-bowl-name ensures every time a reporter, fan, or commentator talks about the game they will mention the sponsor. So now I present to you, for reasons only out of spite, the logos of those bowls minus the brand names.