Advertising Archive

Travelling the world ain’t all that glamorous ya know!

The jet lag, interrupted cash flow (I’m getting better at doing expenses more regularly now), the late nights, rich food and being away from the wife (although some see that as a bonus – I don’t though, because she reads my blog), all balance out the nice hotels, air miles and exotic passport stamps.

I’m certainly not moaning. Not at all. But at the end of the day I realise I’m in a privileged position and make sure I pay for it through sheer hard work. At a 3 day conference I’ll be up working at 7am and rarely stop until 10.30pm or……much, much later!

This morning I’m off to Seattle to see the family, spend a couple of days in the office in Redmond, and then it’s off to LA for the Digital Hollywood conference.

I was just covering the show on the blog and through Twitter, but I’ve now been asked to speak on:

Advertising Accountability: Metrics and Analytics around Video, Social Media, Broadband and Mobile

With my background in adCenter and the work we’ve been doing recently on multi-screen advertising, Engagement Mapping and LookingGlass, I should be able to contribute intelligently to the conversation. One hopes.

I am looking forward to staying at the hotel – Lowes Santa Monica – photo above.

And I’ll be meeting up with my friends Dave and Ilyse Mckimmie who work in the movie business for Fox and Sundance.

Dave actually got me on the set of Austin Powers Gold Member to watch Mike Myers doing his thing. I’ll never forget it!

I’ve written about our participation on the blog. There are 15 of us speaking which is great for Microsoft.

In the last 5 years we’ve come along way from being that software company that dabbles on the internet, to being recognised as one of the leading players in digital.

As Ashley Highfield told me recently, we really are getting our Mojo back!

Just been told that the Icelandic volcano that’s causing so much trouble for flights in and out of the UK, was under a glacier we visited last year!

We were in Reykjavik for an internet marketing conference and our gracious hosts NordicEMarketing took us on a 4×4 trip into the icy wilderness.

Me in front of the glacier

A wider perspective

That’s us all on a bridge that doesn’t exist an more!

Fffffrightening stuff!!

Like many people interested in maintaining a healthy online reputation, I have a Google Alert set up for my name.

It helps me keep pace with what people are saying about the work I do for Microsoft, and enables me to quickly respond to blog posts or articles that feature something I may have said or written.

Sometimes – shock horror – Google gets it wrong and I get sent some irrelevant randomness.

This morning’s was a random but nevertheless funny alert containing this video.

I’m not sure where this couple are, but rest assured, she won’t be sidling up to a palace guard ever again!

Just got back from India and loved this ad at the baggage claim carousel at Bangalore (Bengaluru) Airport.

For the short-sighted, the strap line says “Just how much did you miss your daughter?”

We spotted a number of witty marketing goings on – Ashley and I were attending a friends wedding – although the fake gear below could do with an overhaul given the gushing nature of the brand faux pas!

This raised a smile this morning. Spotted just outside our offices.

Now then, now then!

Just back from holiday having missed this, so just taken a peek.

So pleased Danny got to finally quiz Steve B and, as someone who’s been at Microsoft for 5 years talking about search and adCenter, so pleased to see our CEO up there so eloquently explaining the problems we have with search, and what Bing is setting out to achieve in solving those conundrums.

Last week, to coincide with the launch of the rather swanky MSN Video Player in the UK, I interviewed Ashley Highfield who heads up our Consumer & Online division here in the UK.

Just seen the new Robin Hood movie trailer in HD!

This is really a very cool development for the MSN UK, built on the back of Ashley’s experience at the BBC with the iPlayer, now you can watch full time TV shows with no sign up or login and all in the beauty of Silverlight.

Not going to get much work done today now are you?

Just posted a video interview with Ashley over on the adCenter blog on the new Bing UK TV Ad and what it all means!

Did you see it? What did you think?

Remember this is a campaign……there’s more on the way!

Really very proud of this bit of writing.

The paper tells how our team came about and how we’ve worked over the last 4 years with social media – blogs, forums, Twitter & Facebook – to support, educate and listen to advertisers all over the world.

Download from our ad site using the link below and let me know what you think!

Learn & Earn – a B2B White Paper on Social Media

You can read a fuller explanation on out blog about our approach to social media and the paper.

P.S. Only last week we were called out as B2B Social Media Winners – must be doing something right!

I’ve just been writing about Spatial Search and Bing Maps on the work blog and have just been sent another example of Deep Zoom technology put to good use.

Last month I wrote about some snow pictures submitted to MSN which was awesome, but this Michael Jackson installation is Thrilling!

“The image on this page is your entry point to hundreds of photos of Michael Jackson, his life, his work, his fans and tributes to his career as King of Pop.

Click and roll your mouse to zoom in or move around the images easily. Please ensure you have installed the latest version of Silverlight in order to make the zoom function work. It is quick and easy to install from here if you haven’t yet done so!”

Check it out: http://www.msn.michaeljackson.shoothill.com