Greenpeace take a bite out of Apple

So why do Macs, iPods, iBooks and the rest of Apple’s product range contain hazardous substances that other companies have abandoned?

Greenpeace have cloned and edited the Apple site to help spread this message and are using viral marketing to get this message out. Nice work.



So my big question is should Apple let their lawyers lose or not? If they don’t they look stupid and open the doors for much more of this type of behaviour. If they do, they pour rocket fuel all over Greenpeace’s campaign, guaranteeing increased press coverage whilst keeping the issue in the public eye for longer. Tough decision.

Personally I would resolve the hazardous material issue as quickly as possible in a very public manner. Therefore my suggestion to Apple is that they employ someone (or a team of people) specifically to look into and resolve this problem. This person should have a public blog and place daily reports on his or her progress on there till the project is completed. I would also ask Greenpeace to link to this blog from the cloned site. What is good for the goose…

What would you do?

My congratulations go to Greanpeace for a stunning and inevitably award-winning piece of viral marketing. This campaign is infinitely better then their previous viral video of hijacked plane crashing into a nuclear power station. Please leave scare tactics to the government.

As requested I have tagged this article greenmyapple

Thanks go to Viral Monitor for pointing this campaign out.

NBC viral on YouTube.com

One for Friday afternoon - NBC using viral marketing on YouTube.com and ripping into themselves for doing it. Well worth a watch.

The Zombies are coming

4T2 have just finished our first campaign for BBC Worldwide. The first series of Zombie Hotel, a children’s cartoon by Alphanim, is due to be released on DVD on the 16th of October. We have created an online game to promote this fact.



The campaign goes live on the first of October but can already be accessed by visiting www.zombiehotelgame.co.uk

We are hoping this campaign will be a great success because:

1)It’s a good game (based loosely on Defender for any retro game fans)
2)Alphanim’s art work is fantastic and this game really brings it to life
3)We’ve linked the campaign to the cartoon as much as possible by introducing each of the main characters individually and including as many ZH backdrops as we could. Therefore ZH fans should love it.
4)Banners on AOL and Nick promote the game – not the DVD. As 4T2’s catchphrase goes - Fun first, message second.
5)It is a seasonal campaign – Zombies at Halloween. Therefore many sites will be looking for such content in the very near future.

If you’ve got any ideas how we can improve the campaign we would love to know. Have fun.

1000 reasons why word of mouth works

During my on going Business Link presentations I refer to the recent success of www.onethousandpaintings.com. If you don’t know what I talking about then this site is well worth a look and should inspire any would be online entrepreneur.


The very moment 300 more people decide I am completely mad
Therefore my thanks go to Sala for providing me with the best possible demonstration of how any product, no matter how bizarre, can become a huge success if you capture the attention of enough opinion leaders and get them talking about your product, brand or message.

The Art of Draw is on the road

Do you live in the South West of England and want free tea, coffee and cakes? I'm involved in a series of talks for Business Link on viral marketing. During the break you get fed!

Thursday 7 September - AFC Bournemouth
Tuesday 12 September - Royal Chase Hotel, Shaftesbury
Thursday 14 September - The Corn Exchange, Dorchester (Best cakes!)
Tuesday 19 September - University of Southampton
Thursday 21 September - Quay Arts, Newport
Wednesday 27 September - Basingstoke Country Hotel
Thursday 5 October - Hilton National Portsmouth

Amongst other things I’ll be demonstrating how a furniture company could use viral marketing to it’s advantage. This was a challenge by a previous guest who claimed that online games were of no use to his business.



Contact Business Link Wessex for more details. The event is called E-Technology – Maximising your potential. All events go from 17.00 to 19.30.

Some events may be full. Contact me and I’ll make sure you get a ticket.

Noah's bad hair 2356 days

Noah has taken a photo of himself everyday for the last six years. He’s then converted this into a video and placed it on youtube.com. Why not take a look or visit his website.



Now come on, be honest. Wouldn’t you like to pin him down and shave his hair or an eyebrow off? Surely there is a hair stylist somewhere that can see the PR opportunity here! Give the man a noticable haircut and some new clothes and perhaps he’ll get laid. He may even start smiling then.

Nice work Noah.