Other Stories Archive

Hot off the press – we’ve done a deal with Viacom.

Topline:

“Microsoft will license, on a non-exclusive basis, long- and short-form television and theatrical content from across Viacom’s cable network and motion picture businesses, including MTV, Comedy Central, BET and Paramount Pictures, for use on Microsoft properties such as MSN and Xbox 360.

Microsoft’s Atlas division will become the ad server for Viacom’s U.S. Web sites and Microsoft will have the exclusive right to sell remnant display advertising inventory on Viacom’s U.S. Web sites.
 
Microsoft will buy advertising on Viacom broadcast and online networks over a five-year period and the companies will work together on promotions and sponsorships for MTV Networks and BET Networks award shows.
 
Viacom will work with Microsoft on opportunities to become a preferred publishing partner across Microsoft’s casual gaming platforms.”

Deals like this are only possible when you have a portfolio of services for PCs, TV, Web, gaming, and phones!

Just the beginning… 🙂

This is Abbot Christopher Jamison from Worth Abbey, a monastery deep in the Sussex countryside. Author of the very popular book – Finding Sanctuary – he’s actually my old headmaster as I went to the school the monks run down there, but he’s now moved on to a loftier role, and is a bit of a celebrity here in the UK, having let cameras in for 40 days and nights to film a kind of reality TV show a couple of years back.

The Monastery saw a group of guys from different backgrounds enter the monks’ inner sanctum and live like them with some stunning results.

At the time Christopher had asked me to promote their website while the show was on TV, so I set him up with a Google Adwords account. He was especially keen to appear on keywords to do with vocation discernment for which they run spiritual retreats as well as a  special course called Compass. All these quickly became oversubscribed.

A few weeks back he called me up and said they’d hit the jackpot! Not sure what he meant as I’m pretty sure Do Not Gamble is the 11th commandment, but he went on to explain that because of our search campaign, a guy had come along to one of the retreats, found some kind of “calling” and was now going to become a monk!!!

He even wrote down a testimonial which went something like this:

And so I began to feel that God might be
 calling me to the priesthood.

I felt I really needed to talk to someone,
but I had no idea who to turn to.

Well, I turned to Google. I think I typed in something
like ‘retreat’ and ‘religious vocation’.
Top of the list was “The Monastery” website.

If it hadn’t been for THE INTERNET…
I would probably still be a software engineer!

So what is Microsoft or Google’s loss is God’s gain……

Just goes to show that it’s not all about cheap loans, holidays and digital cameras. People are actually using search engines to find a completely different way of life.

Read at the weekend that Stephen Fry thinks Tim Berners-Lee is the greatest living Englishman.

Who do you think is? Ian Botham gets my vote every time!

Also he makes an interesting point as to the .co.uk domain extension for our websites.

Why do we not just use .uk?

Sue Unerman’s column last week in Media Week: Is direct mail facing redundancy in a digital world? is most timely….

A couple of months back I posted on my Media Week Blog I was having trouble with The Royal Mail posting rubbish through my letter box.

Well now an estate agent in the area has found a cunning way around the “no flyers” policy in my apartment block. Last week I received not one, but two hand written envelopes bulging with offers to sell my flat.

I used to put all direct mail in the post box at the end of the road, but now I’m saving it up to give the manager of this estate agent a less than green Christmas present.

If I’ve asked for it, then fine. If I haven’t, then expect a “dialogue”.

Passing through Phoenix airport on the way to Las Vegas for PubCon, I was stopped at customs, and when I said where I was going, they asked me whether I gambled for a living!

Let the mayhem begin!

He’s not related to me!!!

Now I’ve got my own blog I thought I’d throw this up there as it’s caused much mirth over the years!

August 1997 I got a call from my agent asking if I knew who Joe Cocker was. I said I did and was a fan. An hour later I was in a studio in Soho auditioning for the part of “the young Joe Cocker” in this pop video for the song N’Oubliez Jamais from his Across From Midnight album.

I didn’t realise till I got to Paris with the lovely Claire from Wales, that Catherine Deneuve was going to be in the clip too.

When we arrived at Gare Du Nord, the director asked us to go to the cinema while they shot Joe and Catherine’s scenes because he didn’t think they want to be reminded of their youth! We declined and spent 2 days stopping traffic all over Paris shooting hours of footage.

It was a huge hit on the continent, I’ve never met anyone from France or Belgium who can’t sing the chorus, and it made MTV & VH1 as well.

On first viewing I guess it all looks kind of cool but watch when I step out of the garage and get tangled up with the exhaust pipe on the floor. The scene where I’m trying to kiss Claire in the moonlight is punctuated with her pulling away – she said she had a boyfriend and it wasn’t in her contract! Lastly watch me smack my head as I get into the VW Camper Van 🙂 The band scene was filmed in a pub in Camden and took an entire day!

10 years later, this past summer, I saw Joe Cocker perform a gig at The Tower of London.

He didn’t play the song because no one over here has heard it, and I was asked to keep quiet by an orginal Woodstocker, as me and a friend were apparantly talking too loudly!

Rock & Roll!

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBpyuYgfCWA]

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYEf8XZKlUU]

I was in the US last week on holiday in Cape Cod (stay in Chatham – it’s gorgeous!) and while watching the plethora of ads on TV for all the medicines Americans seem to think they need, I had a thought…

They should all tell the TV companies which allergies, conditions, diseases and idiosyncrasies they have in order to filter out ads for medicines they shouldn’t be seen dead taking.

The final few seconds of the ads drive me mad! –“If you have angina, tuberculosis, warts (of any kind), breathing difficulties, issues with tissues, a walking stick, a wheel chair or a stair lift, this medicine may not be appropriate for you”.

The extra airtime must cost these companies millions, so why not give them an opportunity to target the ads to viewers who might not blow up if they take them. This is all part of the wider story with digital advertising regarding publishers needing to help advertisers to target ads better, and users wanting to personalise their ad-viewing experience to make it more relevant.

I hate soccer with a passion and I loathe tapioca and carrots – I never want to see another ad for any of them – so where can I go to stop getting bombarded by ads to do with stuff I’m not interested in?

If the ad doesn’t get served to me, the advertiser’s ROI goes up, no? Digital will address this…….one day…..