How looks of a brand was changed in a day - Old spice guy

Month ago, when word Old spice would have come up, I would immediately think of older men, who have put bit too too much fragrance in morning. No offense to Old spice users, but that's just how I did see the brand still month ago.
Then end of last month they pulled a trick from their pocket and gathered group of social media and advertising experts together and launched new "campaign" in YouTube and Twitter etc. First ads were funny and got lot of views on the web, but when they started to answer with video commercials to tweets almost real time, then they really hit the spot.

Here's one for example:


These ads worked at least for me. Next time I'm searching for new fragrance, I at least will check Old Spice out.

If you wanna know more how they worked it out, there's and article in ReadWriteWeb on it: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_old_spice_won_the_internet.php  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Worst decicion of Fifa 2010 - Fifa stopped showing replays of unclear situations

There came couple of referee errors in the early phase of the games and Fifa reacted to those immediately. They made ridiculous decision of not to show replays for unclear situations. So what actually happened was, that when something interesting happened, you couldn't see a replay if TV.

When there was a tackle and it looked liked someone might have faked and dived, replay didn't come. When it actually hit someone, then there was a replay showing that. Same happened with offsides. If there was an offside which wasn't blown, there wasn't a replay. For correct calls replay was always shown. And this list extends to playing with hand, tearing and corner and free kick hassles.

Someone in Fifa might have had the idea, that people are so stupid, that if we don't show the replay they don't notice there was an error. They hugely underestimate capabilities of football fans. Referee errors are part of the game and all possible replays should be shown. That's part of the excitement.

Biggest problem with this decision is that now the Oscar nominees of football will not be exposed to viewers. Fifa decided to reward the guys who can trick the referees the most. Only real way forward would be to show all the acted stuff happening in the field and let people to judge those. No one really likes those actors and if football fans would really properly see who are the worst actors in the field, they would start to hate those. That would eventually start to affect to the game. Take Premier league as an example, there those guys who fall too easily are not appreciated at all and there you don't see that much acted falls.

Best what Fifa could now do would be that they would make statistics with videos of referee errors and faked falls and let the people to learn and judge themselves. Organisation as flexible as Fifa, I don't really believe this happening.

Day my dad joined Facebook

I knew this day would come some time, but still I wasn't properly prepared. My dad joined Facebook and asked to be friends with me (of course). I'm quite knowledgeable of my privacy, so my concerns are not about there being inappropriate material about me on FB, but something else.

I really love my parents and think they are great. Still I've somehow thought that FB and others are my private area :) I get this teenish feeling that parents shouldn't be doing the same stuff I do. Or at least liking it. I get this feeling that somehow dad is watching me. Truth may be that my dad couldn't care less about what I'm posting there. I do have kids of my own and I should understand that parents can have life too, but I don't. Something just doesn't feel right. Generations just shouldn't mix like that. Damn Facebook.

Maybe I just need to let go. Maybe I can continue using the service as I'm used to. Maybe the problem is just me and how I wanna overanalyse things. Maybe it's just about me trying to control too much. Maybe I can get over it. Maybe this is the way world will go.

One thing for sure, it's been the friend request that made me think the most. There's many "friends" I barely know or care, but those are still easy to accept or ignore. I guess what makes this so hard is the fact I care. I guess at the end I just need to go and accept the invitation. It's too much of problem, if I don't and try to explain why.

I promise here, that I won't do the same for my daughters. I'll let them to invite me their online social networks if they like, I'll never invite them. Luckily that time is not there yet. Some years still to wait.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen