Chaos ensued as only two group members were allowed to star in the video and the other person had to film – inevitably this ensured that the point of the challenge was missed. Instead of spending the eight hours available to them coming up with a creative concept which might warrant spreadability, they bickered about who would be front of camera.

The results were pretty woeful. One group did a skit on Prince William and Kate Windsor (nee Middleton) on their honeymoon night, another also centred on the sex sells theme and spent the afternoon dressed as nuns flashing anyone that passed by and the third took the comic route of having someone dressed in a sumo suit exercising on the edge of a pond who was given a shove by a very Jim Carrey Riddler-type character. Despite being allowed to send the clip to one contact per group to spread the word and get the metaphorical ball rolling between them they didn’t manage even 1,000 hits. As one of the judges waspishly commented: “About as much buzz as wasp flying into a window”.

This just goes to show that creating a viral isn’t easy. What you may consider funny, isn’t to other people. The key is to think about what would make you forward something onto your friends. The programme rightly said that ad agencies (and indeed PR agencies) are increasingly turning to viral as a medium as it is a cost effective route to gaining wide scale awareness – however it is only cost effective if it does create wide scale awareness – otherwise it would probably be cheaper to place an ad in Downstream magazine (a specialist title for the Oil and Gas industry) which has more reach.

Viral isn’t easy and it just goes to show that not everyone with a camera can generate buzz; it is all about understanding how to get the clip correctly seeded out so that it does get those all important views. It is here that PR comes into its own. We have the skillset, the contacts and the heritage in creating conversations – both online and offline.

Currently you can’t talk about community without tipping a nod to “the” wedding but now the bunting has been taken down, the trestle tables packed away, the chairs borrowed from the local village hall restacked, will that be it until another national celebration?

Not if David Cameron has anything to do with it. Not only did he flex his muscles in April by publically berating bureaucrats who were concerned the humble home-made scone could cause a pandemic of botulism, he also continues to promote his Big Society premise despite media derision over the last week.

Irrespective of whether the Big Society is working or not, consumer sentiment towards brands with a more societal mindset that goes beyond CSR is evident. Half of the people surveyed by G2 Joshua believe that companies have a key role to play in maintaining community spirit. Moreover, five of Trendwatching’s 11 Crucial Trends 2011 are related to consumers wanting brands to stand for something positive.

It’s not just consumers, but agency folk too. We’ve been working with ex-Proximity founders Elly Woolston and Duncan Gray to help them launch their new agency {United}, which is the first belief-driven offering that will work with brands that we’ve coined “not just for profit” – organisations with a distinct social conscience that want to give something back. {United} is based on Elly, Duncan and Steven’s (Dodds) conviction that a brand’s beliefs are a valuable marketing asset and their desire to help organisations unlock these for mutual benefit to the company and the consumer.

Another of our agency clients, gyro is also getting involved with community spirit by supporting BITC’s Give & Gain initiative which takes place on 24th June. It is the UK’s only national day of staff volunteering where employees of a company can donate their time and expertise during work hours to help support local communities in need. gyro will be designing and building a sensory garden and are also donating their PR budget, so during the rest of May and June the Eulogy! gyro team will be working closely with BITC to help publicise Give & Gain Day to help sign up other businesses.

We have also got involved with Start (Prince Charles’ sustainability charity), The Marketing Society and BITC’s Meteorite-devised campaign One Day. One Day is a mass call to action to consumers driven by the marketing community to initiate behaviour change. The aim of One Day is that on 1st November 2011 (1/11/11), all marketing communications should embrace one central consumer theme: Think about and do something sustainable today. The initiative aims to get a community of one million consumers to pledge to change their lifestyle in one small way that will make better use of natural resources. It hopes to have more than 100 top brands engaged from the outset to demonstrate the persuasive power of the UK marketing industry. It will be our job to help promote the initiative and we’re really excited by it.

The One Day initiative clearly shows the potential power that tapping into community can bring. With the might of the marketing industry awakening to these benefits it seems likely that our lives as consumers will be positively supplemented by brands as community focused campaigns become more prevalent, which in my mind is no bad thing.

Festivals are a notorious hot-bed of brand experiential activity. Everyone from Sony to St Tropez were doing the rounds this year peddling their festival wares and getting mud-laden consumers to engage with the brand. The alcohol sector in particular was saturated with brands trying to create fresh festival activity and vie for media attention.  But none (in our opinion) was so clever as the Monkey Shoulder Tree House.

The Monkey Shoulder Tree House is a giant tree house bar crafted from reclaimed whisky barrels. It plays host to tree stump chairs, tables with board games carved into them and banging DJ sets to have it large to (believe me I did!).  This year we also enlisted the services of the Graffiti Kings to tag free Monkey Shoulder t-shirts for punters. This went down an absolute storm with people queuing all the way down the gargantuan Big Chill hill to get their hands on theses beauties. Key learning: giving stuff away free attracts the crowds; making it personalised brings in the masses.

As well as the free stuff, the MSTH offered a cool place to chill out, enjoy a drink and generally set up camp. What really appealed to people was the inviting nature of the MSTH. Everyone from the bar staff, the security guards to us PRs were all on hand to help muck in by way of getting people drinks, entertaining small children and dancing with bleary-eyed festivalgoers. It was a great place to hang out and had a hedonistic vibe that no amount of money can create.

It wasn’t just us who enjoyed it though…check out some of these great reviews, check out some of the amazing coverage we were able to secure. It just goes to show that a really good idea can make it across consumer, b2b, trade, regional and online all quite easily.

The Daily Star
Birmingham Mail
Marketing
The Drinks Business

and even RyanAir’s magazine

Intel and Vice Magazine have partnered to create a new hub for innovators and artists called The Creators Project.

Focusing on artists, musicians, film makers and writers in the digital age, the project is aimed at championing all manner of creative talents, and has the backing of famous names such as Mark Ronson and Spike Jonze.

Intel’s philosophy is clearly that if it promotes the good things that can be done with digital technology, then more people will be encouraged to buy their stuff, while the more creativity Vice sources, the better it is for the magazine.

In the meantime, we get some interesting content, videos and interviews to take a look at: everyone wins. Along with the site itself, Vice and Intel are also holding loads of events across the world. Make a note in your diaries for July 17th, when The Creators Project hits London – no doubt some pretty exciting stuff will be going down.

TUACA is a delicious Italian spirit that has been part of the Eulogy! portfolio for several years. Our latest PR campaign initially focused on achieving product placement in consumer magazines with recipes for the signature serves, but eventually we found ourselves within the online space – a new foray for the brand.

The key messaging behind TUACA has always been about ‘discovery’. This is reflected in TUACA’s UK launch. Initially discovered by a Brighton snowboarder who tried it on the slopes of Colorado, and then returned to tell all her friends about it, TUACA is all about word of mouth.

Since then, TUACA has always been the darling drink of the snowboarding community. Admittedly it’s a very niche audience – but while other brands may try to shed cult status and go for a more mainstream approach, TUACA uses this to its advantage. Because it’s a drink for the type of person who likes to discover a secret and pass it onto their friends, online PR and word of mouth is a perfect platform.

In the last year, TUACA has built upon this notion of discovery and word of mouth by launching the first-ever TUACA Traveller competition.

The competition offered one person and a friend the opportunity to win a two-week snowboarding trip undiscovered slopes across Europe. The site was hosted by snowboarding enthusiasts’ site Mpora.

To support the campaign, team TUACA launched the TUACA Traveller Blog. The blog is written by the winner and was supported by video content of his adventures picked up by sliding sports sites like  Gone Boarding and Life’s a Beach.

We are now looking forward to further cementing TUACA’s presence with the sliding sports industry for 2010, including regional activity in our key cities.  So watch this space because TUACA may surf up on a shore near you soon.

For a majority of consumers, 3D has always been about film, but a recent series of media developments have thrust into the mainstream.  Whether it be sport,  television or even the first-ever 3D catwalk at the Burberry’s  London Fashion Week show, I think we can safely say that nothing is off-limits from being ‘three-dimensionalised’.

Without question, the success of Avatar has had a huge impact, so much so that I wonder how long it might have taken the phenomenon to catch on if it wasn’t for the 3D James Cameron epic. Could we still be fumbling around with dodgy old novelty glasses with the lenses cut out and replaced with cheap blue and red cellophane? Probably not, but I don’t think that would be miles from the truth. For the general public, Avatar made 3D cool.

But the million-dollar question is where the technology will take us. The explosion of excitement around 3D makes it seem like anything is possible. Who knows, with the pace of technology in ten years’ time, 2D viewing might be as archaic as the gramophone. It’s even been mooted that 3D contact lenses could be the norm.

All this seems very exciting. But at the same time, I have to wonder if there’s going to be a bit of a backlash.  How much do we really want to see a close-up of a sweaty rugby player as he grapples with four other guys in the scrum, or a malnourished model limping towards us on her way down the catwalk?

Whatever your opinion, 3D is upon us and this time it would seem well and truly here to stay.

Eulogy! had been nominated for three PRCA awards, Agency of the Year, Specialist Agency of the Year and Best B2B campaign. Our sister agency Onlinefire was shortlisted for Best Technology Campaign for its work with Virgin Mobile and its 30p tariff.

We took home two almighty awards: we are now crowned Consultancy of the Year 2009 and Best B2B Campaign for our work with Mortascreen.

It was a spectacular night. And I can’t lie, it was made all the more wonderful by our two award wins. Throughout this year, Eulogy!’s board, executive committee and team – from the graduates to the directors – have worked exceptionally hard to make a difference to every aspect of the agency, from things like training and internal comms, to client service, marketing and team structure.

It’s been worth all the hard work. These accolades are a great demonstration of the agency’s excellence. Our growth proves we’re a leading agency that delivers creativity with media insight – a formidable combination.

And, as you can see, we really know how to party! Apologies if we deafened anyone sitting near us. We were the noisiest and most fun-loving crowd in the room!

The moment we found out we had won PRCA Consultancy of the Year 2009!

The Eulogy! team recently took part in a flash mob at Liverpool Street station for our client Zanussi. Now I have to admit, I was slightly embarrassed at having to strike my best model pose while walking backwards up an escalator in front of hundreds of bemused commuters. However, watching passersby stopping to call their friends to tell them about the madness they’d just witnessed made me realise just how effective such stunts can be.

When times are tough and the papers are full of doom and gloom it makes sense to give consumers something to smile about, and though they may not be able to save the universe, making people smile is something I’ve realised flash mobs are pretty good at.

There has been a slew of TV channel rebrands in recent years, from the now ubiquitous Dave to the more obscure Alibi and Yesterday.  There’s even a channel called ‘Really’ – really?

Eulogy! client Comedy Central was one of the more recent rebrands.  Formerly Paramount Comedy, a name that said safe, US comedy, the rebrand to its bigger, badder and bolder parent channel from across the pond meant audiences knew exactly what they were getting – a modern comedy channel, dedicated to delivering top-notch comedy.

So do channel rebrands work?  Well, viewing figures certainly say so.  Dave has recently recorded a record 2.66 million viewers for its resurrection of Red Dwarf and Comedy Central’s viewing figures have shot up by 59%.  What’s most important though is making sure your proposition is clear and unmistakable.  It needs to be more than just a gimmicky name – the programming needs to fit with the brand values already associated with the new name, so viewers understand exactly what you stand for as a channel.

While broad consumer audiences can allow greater scope for creativity, ‘big’ thinking or new ideas, in the eyes of many people corporate or B2B PR tends to equate to churning out endless news releases or lengthy statements of end-of-year financials. To me at least, this actually sets the PR industry a challenge of a change in mindset. Just because you personally may not be fascinated by annual results does not mean the clients’ target audience isn’t.

And yet in many ways, if you can find a way of making it fun for yourself, as well as interesting for those you want to read or experience it, campaigns tend to be much more successful. Good examples of corporate PR may be harder to find, but I guarantee they’ll work harder for you in the long run.