Posts from date: April 2011

Video of the week #57

Well the royal wedding is with us tomorrow so here's how not to act as the best man.....

A pioneering 3-D erotic comedy outsells Avatar…

"Sex and Zen" - a remake of a 1991 Hong Kong movie featuring  full nudity and camouflaged lovemaking has attracted viewers from Hong Kong and mainland China to cinemas for their “popcorn surprise”. 

Set in the Ming dynasty, the film tells the tale of a sexually frustrated scholar, who after being introduced into the world of an aristocrat, realises his ex-wife is the love of his life.

The saucy production took £219,852 on its first day, eclipsing the previous record for Hong Kong set by James Cameron's 2009 3-D sci-fi epic Avatar, which earned £207,638 and nearly seven times the total Hong Kong take so far for Scream 4.

According to producer Stephen Shiu the film “met people's expectations” so if you’re eager to duck flying body parts, you need to get yourself over to Hong Hong and join the steamy queues.

Will the X-Factor be the same without Si-Co?

After weeks of speculation it has been confirmed that the X Factor returns again later this year minus its one real star, judge Simon Cowell.

Cowell's famously high trousers, tight t-shirts, bright white teeth and acerbic tongue have been a fixture on all of our Saturday (and Sunday) nights for years, so how will the nation cope?

The X Factor is ITV's biggest hit with as many as 20m viewers each week in the run up to Christmas. Cowell now sees the opportunity to translate this success into an even bigger cash cow across the water in the USA where American Idol has been a roaring success for years and made Cowell a household name. Fans should know that the US incarnation of X-Factor is due to start in September on Rupert Murdoch's Fox Network but repeats will no doubt appear on ITV 2 at some point.

So with Cowell gone (and no replacement named as yet) we are left with a beautiful shampoo saleswoman, a M&S model and sweet but stupid Louis Walsh to keep us entertained. So we wait on the edge of our seats to see who will is big enough to fill Mr Cowell's trousers.

Video of the week #56

Well golf is a bit of a media past time and a way to seal a deal and to cement relationships. Here's a really well shot film on golf from India though which owes a great deal to the ingenuity of people with a slum dog millionaire twist. Enjoy

Mumbai Golf - ESPN E:60 from Evolve IMG Films Ltd. on Vimeo.

London Marathon: Doing It For Charity

Hearts are racing, palms are sweating, nerves are shot.  Now, when many of you hear these words the first thing that comes to mind might be the thought of an upcoming pitch or deadline. Well, to other non-Maxusites it could- just maybe- be referring to the London Marathon. I don’t know much about marathons, which could be due to the fact that I have never attempted to run one -  I know, shocker. This might be a good thing though since I would probably spend more time picking out my running outfit rather than actually training. That being said I didn’t really know anything about the London Marathon, except the obvious of course, until just recently.

Since 1981, the London Marathon has raised over £500 million, making it the biggest annual fundraising event in the world. This has drawn much attention to the event from many different companies. In fact, as the main sponsor, Virgin Money is aiming to help runners raise more than £250m within the next 5 years.  Other companies such as BT are also setting up charity services to help marathon runners raise even more money. BT’s MyDonate makes it easy for the public to contribute to different charities while also not taking out any cuts of the donation.

Social media is also becoming a major influencer in this year’s race. Many charities are trying to incorporate social media sites in their PR strategy as much as possible in order to help raise large sums of money. Diabetes UK for example, plans to send out a large number of local emotional stories on their social media pages to promote the charity’s key messages and encourage people to donate towards their cause.

Raising money for charities is very important for companies because it not only helps their image in the public eye, but it also actually is a pretty good thing to do. The London Marathon is helping many companies reach out to individuals and optimise on raising large amounts of money.

Amazon Kindle: Will Banner Ads Work?

Reports are saying that Amazon is set to release a new version of its e-reader, the Amazon Kindle in the US. Where’s the difference going to be you’re probably thinking?  Will this one have more than a year’s battery life or a capacity of greater than 2 million books? You would be wrong.

This time around, the Kindle is allowing banner ads to feature at the bottom of the home screen and full-page ads to act as a screen saver. I wasn’t entirely sure how Amazon realistically think this product will sell to a market of people who have opted against reading on the increasingly ad-heavy tablets and smart phones until I realised they planned on offering the product for $25 less.

Personally, I’ve never quite understood the appeal of the Amazon Kindle or any other e-reader for that matter. I like the feeling of satisfaction when you are reading on the train and everybody can see that you have read at least 300 pages of a book and they are probably thinking “Hey, that guy has keen interest in literature and is probably very intelligent.” I also worry that if I reached an insufferably boring part of a book I was reading, it would be all too easy to just leave it and move onto a new book.

That being said, Amazon now sell 6 e-books for every 10 paper books sold and so despite my reservations, this clearly is a popular product. This new ad placement does also present a good opportunity for advertisers to target an ABC1, tech-savvy audience. I will certainly be watching this space to see who taps into the potential of e-reader advertising.

Video of the week #55

Some mind boggling mobile stats, enjoy:-

Fairy Tale Wedding=Advertisers Paradise?

There’s no doubt that you have all either caught on to or noticed the Royal Wedding frenzy that seems to be taking the world by storm. You’ve surely seen the souvenirs at every tourist spot in England (which guiltily enough, I may have collected a few myself) as well as seen an increase in news coverage regarding the event. So, as you can probably guess, this is affecting the media industry in a huge way. According to Google, searches for phrases such as “royal wedding souvenirs” and “royal wedding collectibles” have increased by 25% in just the past two months. And that’s not all, online searches regarding Kate Middleton’s wardrobe have also increased since the announcement of the engagement. Unsurprisingly Advertisers have noticed this increasing trend and are jumping on the “William and Kate” bandwagon, and for good reason.  According to Brand Republic, during the weekend of the wedding “77% of females” will be spending either the same amount of time or more “reading magazines, newspapers or watching TV.” Coincidence? Definitely not, it’s clear that this increased interest in media is a result of the wedding.

Vogue is an example of optimising on this advertising opportunity at its finest. This year the May edition of Vogue has increased its advertising pages by about 36% or 40 pages in order to allow for more space to keep up with the increase in media attention. In addition, for the first time Vogue is offering three separate covers for this issue in order to commemorate the wedding. By focusing on royalty, weddings, and romance, it will be interesting to see just how many additional readers Vogue will attract come April 29th. Maybe it’s just the American in me, but what could be better than combining magazines and weddings with royalty? I know that I’m hooked.

 Everyone loves a fairy tale, and as we can see, the advertisers are taking full advantage of that.

Maxus: Come Cake With Me (week 5)

Our master, our creator, our mentor Mr. Luke Hills was cake club supremo this week.

As the producer of Cake Club, we expected good things. He didn’t disappoint.

Brought to the table this week was an orange and poppy seed cake with the added extra of melted terry’s chocolate orange pieces. I know, it was a surprise for us as well. The cake was moist and not too sweet. The only downside was, we all agreed, not enough chocolate pieces. Those little delicious extras really made the cake and unless you were lucky enough to have a  big chunk in your slice the cake could have been lacking. More Terry’s we cry!

All in all, a very good effort. We ate, we drank milk and we were indeed merry.

Well done Lukey. On to next week.

Video of the week #54

Interesting video on the top predicted trends for this year amongst consumers and advertisers. Not all of them are media related but some interesting food for thought.