Copenhagen bus driver Mukhtar probably won’t forget his recent birthday for a while. A surprise party captured on film and used as a part of the campaign “Bedre Bustur” (Better Bus Rides) made the unsuspecting bus driver’s day quite special.

Transport service organisations Arriva and Movia are behind the viral campaign, which has been shown on You Tube more than 330.000 times since the launch 13 May.

The overall purpose of the campaign is to show people that lots of stuff can happen on a random bus ride – it is more than just a ride from a-b! Mukhtar probably agrees!

Watch how more than 100 friends, colleagues, musicians and production people took Mukhtar by surprise.

Bedre Bustur campaign site (in Danish): www.bedrebustur.dk

The internet is free, but music and TV are not. Games are not free, and neither are magazines. People pay for quality content. Now the internet has moved from mere information to entertainment – and consumers are now willing to put up with online advertising if it means they can watch or play for free.

Nowadays, ‘consumers in control’ simply means that consumers can have ‘this much for free, and a better experience for a price’; whether that price is increasing broadband speed or buying a Hi-Def movie on a disc. If consumers can get a better experience in return for being exposed to advertising and being able to continue to play, watch or consume for free, then the trade-off is no longer forced upon them; they actually appreciate it. And even more so if the targeting is relevant and somehow enhances the overall experience.

If you want evidence of advertising enhancing entertainment, take a look at all the TV ads on YouTube that people search for and discuss across social networks. Even Obama worked this medium to his favour! See the lists that people put on Facebook about their favourite films, books, or music, and think of the reaction not so long ago when Amazon first ’suggested’ books to you. Things change and people soften.

Check the research on gaming advertising. If you want a hardcore bunch of modern geeks to crack, then gamers take no prisoners. The fact is, they appreciate the advertising trade-off that gives them free game play, and they feel that brand placement enhances game reality.

Up until 2005, connection speeds prevented quality advertising from being pushed in real-time. The advertising hindered people. But broadband brought online entertainment that is now challenging the TV and music industries. And it has also provided quality content that people are willing to trade for advertising – especially fun, entertaining advertising. We used to forward funny videos around by email. We used to call that ‘viral’. Now we are posting these videos to our Facebook walls – and most of these are centered around a brand.

Thanks to Dean Donaldson
This is based on a blog post written by Dean Donaldson. Dean is Director of Digital Experience at Eye Blaster and has more than 20 years of advertising and digital experience. You can read more of Dean’s thoughts at www.deandonaldson.com or hear his views on the future of digital marketing.

How will digital campaigns develop in 2010?
Dean Donaldson will be speaking at Poets & Plumbers’ half-day seminar on how digital campaigns will develop in 2010 on 11 November 2009. The seminar is almost sold out, but you might be able to get on the waiting list. And if not, there’s plenty more going on at Poets & Plumbers.

Annual report. These two words are top of mind for many communications managers right now – so what’s hot in the world of annual reports?

More companies have realised that their annual report is an essential company profile, read by customers, competitors, employees and shareholders – and they are increasingly creating annual reports that are like company brochures, highlighting the best that the company has to offer. And over the last couple of years, the format of annual reports has changed, too.

PDFs online
Most companies still produce a printed version of their annual report – and make the PDF available on line for people to download. But last year Hempel took a more radical approach. The company decided to produce a compact annual report that’s only available online. It can be emailed to the relevant people and anyone can download it from the website. For Hempel, it saves money in printing and distribution costs – and shows that the company puts its money where its mouth is when it comes to cost cutting.

Online annual report sub-sites
Novozymes went one step further, and created a complete sub-site for its annual report. Each section of the report had its own webpage. You navigate like a normal website – and it can be updated throughout the year with the latest news.

Online interactive annual reports
But this year, perhaps the big move will be interactive online annual reports. TDC took the plunge last year, with an online CSR report that included embedded video and expandable tables and maps. (If the link doesn’t work, you can find the report here.)

Many companies seem to be interested in doing something similar this year. Why? Online interactive annual reports are new, and make your company seem cutting-edge. And they are exciting – so they grab attention. The skill, though, is making sure they hold attention once the bang of the moving images has died down.

Spotted any other trends? If you think something will be big in annual reports this year, let us know.

This story about Neils Yard Remedies (NYR) is a valuable lesson in online PR, especially for companies with green credentials. NYR is a British company that specialises in natural remedies and organic skin and body care products - and a company that should, almost by definition, score highly on the green stakes.

NYR agreed to take part in a Q&A session on the Guardian newspaper’s website - part of a series called You Ask, They Answer. The line of questioning soon focused on NYR’s stance on alternative medicines, in particular a previously withdrawn homeopathic malaria remedy. Amazingly, NYR refused to answer questions on the topic and eventually pulled out of the debate. But this did nothing to calm the flames.

The silence left by NYR was filled with negative comments from readers - and soon other blogs, like this one, had picked up on the situation. NYR’s stance is surprising, not least because it leaves the debate one sided, fanning the flames of negativity.

But more importantly perhaps, green credentials go hand-in-hand with honesty. Companies are like people. If they make a mistake and ignore it, you may not trust them again. But if they make a mistake, and show us that they have a way to remedy it, we tend to trust them even more in the future.

We choose a ‘green company’ because we trust it to be doing the right thing - and for that trust to continue, the company must be open, especially about mistakes.

Perhaps not.

At least not according to Apple. And now a study, run by the Future Laboratory and Nokia, is inclined to agree. As the devices in our hands become more powerful, it’s the impact they have on our life experience that sells them, not how many Giga hertz or Mega pixels they boast.

G is not for Geek

The new approach to marketing is called ‘G-tech’ - short for ‘girl tech’. Though not 100% politically correct at first glance, G-tech is really just about designing and writing about products in a way that appeals to the right side of the brain. That means moving away from literal and logical messages about the way gadgets work and emphasising their empathic and intuitive qualities - how you experience a product, and how it can enrich your life.

What boys and girls want

It’s worked wonders for Apple - the iPod is the archetypical G-tech product. And now other manufacturers are following suit. At Eye For Image we’re finding more and more of our clients are responding very positively to our ‘demystify the tech’ approach. At first they were worried about talking down to (geeky) customers. But now they realise that the boys like the right brain approach just as much.

After all, boys, as well as girls, just want to have fun.

Here’s a short video in which the boys talk about G-tech (in quite a geeky way!). Most of the meat is in the last minute and a half.

Check out this article about advertisers’ creative attempts to keep print ads alive. And a bit on how the web has changed the way the industry thinks about print ads.

Just earlier today, I saw an online ad for anti-wrinkle cream. I got to drag a bottle over a woman’s face and watch every imperfection disappear. With online ads engaging viewers in a whole new way, I can see why it’s hard for print ads to keep up.

Have you seen any great ads in your magazines lately?

I know I’m looking forward to hearing some new tunes when I open my next issue of Eurowoman.

Most people (above a certain age) will recognize Dylan’s iconic 1965 video Subterranean Homesick Blues. To promote the release of Dylan’s greatest hits, the cue card sequence has been adapted so users can generate their own messages and send them to friends. Try it - it’s very neatly done.

So, will it work? My gut feeling is no. The average Dylan fan is around my dad’s age – and not computer savvy enough to send messages to friends through a pop video, however old the video is. No doubt the greatest hits album is aimed at new fans and people who simply want some Dylan in their collection, so the target audience for the ad campaign is not die-hard Dylan fans. But still, I’m not convinced. There are plenty of artists out there whose videos would be ripped by the million - but we’re looking at another generation.

By the way, I found out about this at MediaSoon – a great place to find out how the advertising industry is using new media and adapting old.

A new site from The Nielsen Company could mark the beginning of a beautiful friendship between the public and movie, TV and music producers. The social network site gives users the chance to comment on, review and rate entertainment. The site then collates the reviews and general media buzz to produce star ratings for the shows, films and songs.

There’s nothing new here, until you look a little deeper. The beauty of Hey! Nielsen is its promise to unite the public with decision-makers in the companies that produce entertainment.

The Hey! Nielsen website claims:

“…the exclusive access and power of Nielsen means that your opinions not only reach millions of people via the web, but may also reach the media moguls who decide what goes on the air and on the web. The more heat your postings generate, the greater the chance your opinions will land on the most influential inboxes in the biz…”

The site is supported by Nielsen’s sister sites Billboard.com, HollywoodReporter.com, and BlogPulse.com, some of the most influential sites in the industry. So there’s a good chance that users’ opinions will be read by powerful people.

Could this collatable SMO approach be beneficial for other industries? Sure, few things create as much public interest as entertainment. But imagine having such a simple, one-stop barometer for consumer goods. Apple might have benefitted from this kind of feedback before locking down the iPhone (which led to numerous bad reviews, like this one from Gizmodo). Or in other industries, from paint coatings to switch manufacturing, a tool for collating public opinion could give producers insight into what people want, like, dislike and need – like easy to manage focus groups – enabling them to create the right products to suit their customers.

Sound neat, huh?

While working on our recent WordSpin article “Can SMO help you grow?”, I thought a lot about the reasons for and against using social media to promote business.

Much has already been posted about this – concerns over secrecy, consistency, control. But another factor that might prevent a company from jumping on the social media bandwagon could also be – understandably – employee resources. It takes time, energy and planning to create and maintain all this stuff!

But here’s an argument to consider: starting a blog or forum – or simply producing more reader-friendly, useful, link-worthy web content – could actually be a great way to motivate employees both in and outside of your communications department (and as Aaron has already argued, an important factor in recruiting new people). It can be an easy outlet for having a little more fun at work. Happier employees = more motivated employees = more stimulated, productive and satisfied employees. A priceless side benefit of using a new tool to boost your brand.

As long as you don’t get too carried away – you shouldn’t expect your employees to blog around the clock – it could be a win-win.