I gotta say, I was a big fan of the “History Will be Made” NHL Playoff ads.  As a hockey fan, seeing Mario and Bobby in slow-mo gave me goosebumps.  But in light of the new Nike “Write The Future” spot, I’ve come to reconsider them.

In fact, all the NHL spots led me to do was reminisce about those great heroes of the past… and not really think to much about watching the current NHL Playoffs (not that I needed a reason anyway).

The line, “History Will Be Made” is technically nodding to the future tense, but really, it’s all about what’s already happened, whether 30 years ago, or 1 week ago.  Reminiscing about great moments in history is always nice, but daaaaaamn does contemplating the future instead come across way better, as Nike recently proved.

Yes, Nike had 100x the budget, executional ridiculousness and star power, but the insight is also supremely better.  Daring to dream about the future and predict the ripples in people’s lives and pop culture – it’s gold.  And more importantly, it invites people to watch what’s coming, be there live to watch the future unfold live, which is way more inspiring and fun than remembering what they already watched.

Nike, this round goes to you.

It’s not often I get warm and fuzzy feelings for big brands like Coca-Cola, but there are exceptions. This video has made the rounds, but as always there are people who haven’t seen it. Posted for them, enjoy.

I’ve been following the antics of one Johnny Cupcakes for a few years now. This guy impresses like no other, his passion for what he does rivals only Gary Vaynerchuk in my book, and that’s a good thing.

Recently Johnny did something you never see from the face of a company, a throwback to his early days of hustling t-shirts out of his suitcase while on tour with his band. Johnny along with his crew of people have embarked on a “Suitcase Tour” visiting bake shops, galleries and toy stores nation wide. Check the video below for the full story.

So what? Some guy you’ve probably never heard of decides to pack up some t-shirts into an old suitcase and document their antics of all the tour stops along their journey. Why is this important at all? Why take the time? The effort? Proof of how awesome this whole concept is for the JC brand is immediately evident if you watch any of the tour stop videos. The lineups alone show the dedication of people to the cupcakes brand, their love for Johnny and his shirts. But it extends further. People tell their stories about how they first found out about Johnny, how they randomly connected with somebody over a brand of t-shirt. Like VW owners giving each other the friendly nod when they drive past. This brand has captured its fanbase and is actively participating with it, seamlessly, honestly and transparently. Even before the tour you might find Johnny tweeting out and posting to the Facebook page that if you just showed up to a spot that night with a cupcakes shirt on you could get a free icecream sandwich. (see below)

All of this does wonders for the people that love Johnny Cupcakes. The fans are rallied together to create a memorable experience that they’ll share with their friends and family for years to come. That kind of experience is seemingly simple to accomplish with a little bit of planning and the desire to meet with your fans, interact with them and give a part of yourself back. How much is that worth in the end? Johnny success relies heavily on his dedication to his fans. He lives out his brand to everybody doing that requires guts and persistence and you have to admit that seeing what hes accomplished is nothing short of awesome.

Skip on over to the JC blog and watch some videos, get inspired and figure out how this type of thing can be incorporated into the work your doing now. Yet another example of brands who understand their fans.

Sometimes being “the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be” just ain’t enough.

Many of you by now have seen our man, El Tabador, but you haven’t seen him like this…

Visit out our new Koodo YouTube channel  for a unique opportunity to “Get in the Ring” with El Tabador himself and make your move against the evil Bloatimus Contractimus.

Also check out “Man Behind The Mask”, a documentary about who El Tabador really is with never-before-seen interviews with the one-and-only Bret “the Hitman” Hart.

Check it out at  http://www.youtube.com/koodo and become fans of El Tabador on Facebook! www.facebook.com/koodo

Pop culture news and commentary, fans send in their version of “come on son” that can be chosen and included in the latest video, there’s a website where you can join the blog, buy t-shirts (currently sold out) and iPod cases, there are twitter and facebook groups a radio show…Ed Lover gets himself out there big, and on the cheap. Tiger Woods? Come on Son!

http://cmonsononline.com/

You’ve seen it. You’ve shared it. You’ve quoted it. Hell, you may have even blogged about it. But do you know how he ended up on the horse? Check out the interview with the creative team behind the ad to find out.

Just as a follow up to our TAXI stand presentation, here’s the Pilsner video again, (make sure you switch to watch it in HD) Also, here’s a link to the Flickr gallery with some behind the scenes photographs – you can check out the garage of guy who built the model, that’s where we filmed it.

Amazing talent – the power of Autism.
(The embedding is disabled, so click the image to watch it on Youtube)

I saw this after searching out the music track on it.   It gets a bit redundant, but still interesting to see even the subtle evolution.

As for how this might relate to what we do…. The composer/artist is Carly Comando, has also done some work for commercials.  She wrote the track specifically for this video so given the right project, would likely write something original.

You like?

A co-worker just passed this to me. the mashable article does a good job of explaining it all. Kudos for this project as its one of those 20% of your time projects. Google employees get 20% of their time to dedicate to whatever they want. Similar projects include Google news, Gmail and Google earth.