Clag'd

Ok something’s going on.. I've heard a few rumours but now its getting silly. I think they're shrinking the Big Mac.

Seriously, I have been watching it get smaller and smaller and now it’s become little more than a Junior Burger. When I was a kid the Big Mac was a monster of a hamburger, being a growing boy I practically had hollow legs back then and i would struggle to get through one, it was HUGE. 

Then last weekend while on a road trip I thought I might reminisce a little and order a Big Mac purely for nostalgic purposes. What appeared in front of me was a shadow of the burger i once knew and loved. It's become a SERIOUSLY TINY BURGER.. WTF McDonald's ? and what a massive disappointment that was. 

 I guess everything looks bigger when you're a little kid, but come on McDonald's.. this is you trademark burger, your flagship, your hero, the foundation on which you built the empire, what’s going on?

After researching a little I found a video in which a Big Mac lover came to the same conclusion that I did and then sought to get to the bottom of it. He uses 1986 video footage of a Big Mac to compare the size of the burger to today's portion. 

McDonald's deny that the burger has changed at all. Damn those corporate fat cats and their ruthless profiteering. 

Examples of clever marketing campaigns that have been successfully activated through Twitter are few and far between. That said.. when they do work they can very effective to help the brand secure a receptive audience and help promote a youthful and edgy brand personality. A few of my personal favourites include the I Spy Levis @iSpyLevis campaign (in which i scored a sweet pair of Levis 501s’) and the Coke Machine Fairy @CokeMACHfairy campaign run by Coke late last year, the latter which combined both the Twitter and Foursquare mediums to create some fun social media madness. So this morning I came across an interesting story about a U.S campaign that has successfully used Twitter to generate hype around a new range of shaving creams. Edge shaving products opted to utalise twitter to seek out irritated twitter users and help them solve their irritations. They then contacted these traumatised souls and sent them gifts and solutions to help them solve the issue. The team has given out everything from iPads and computers to megaphones and dancing panda YouTube videos in their efforts to solve users irritations. Since September 2010, 234 people have benefited from random acts of kindness via the @EdgeShaveZone Twitter account. It’s just another great example of how some creative thinking has turned twitter into a perfect PR and marketing vehicle to seek out and create a strong and fun brand image.

Full story at http://mashable.com/2011/01/18/edge-soirritating/

JAPANESE researchers will launch a project this year to resurrect the long-extinct mammoth

Apparently researchers will try to revive the species by obtaining tissue this summer from the carcass of a mammoth preserved in a Russian research laboratory.

Mammoth cells will be inserted into an elephant's egg cells from which the nuclei have been removed to create an embryo containing mammoth genes. The embryo will then be inserted into an elephant's womb in the hope that the animal will eventually give birth to a baby mammoth. Sounds familiar huh..

http://bit.ly/hdpjEF

I was recently surfing the net and ‘stumbled upon’ a new and very cool internet tool.  StumbleUpon is a website and browser plug-in that makes surfing the internet in your free time simple, fun and helps you discover and share great websites.

When using the browser plug-in you just enter a few details about yourself and your interests and then boom you’re away. As you click stumble, the site delivers web pages matched to your preferences. The site has a search mechanism built around a user based rating system, meaning that you and 8 million+ other websurfers like you are the ones deciding if the content is ‘stumble worthly’. This allows a personalised filter to be applied and it results in some really cool content being driven straight to you.

Check it out and download that plugin..  http://www.stumbleupon.com/

BOOM. The Canon Photo5 competition is back!  If you aren’t familiar with this fun little event then get busy..

Each year Canon send out a few hundred boxes containing items which represent 5 separate photographic briefs. The challenge is to answer the 5 briefs with the most creative and imaginative images you can think of. The edges of your imagination are your only limitations and some brilliant work has been produced in the past. All skill levels can enter and you can shoot with anything ranging from semi professional gear to point and shoot camera’s or even an iPhone. It’s time to get snap happy people.

See previous winners here:  http://bit.ly/c9asIY

This is such a clever execution and one of the few times I’ve seen YouTube being used effectively for advertising.

Terms that I’ve entered so far include:

Plays soccer   Drinks with    Eats

Cuddles         Fights           Tipp-Ex

Shoots          Dances with

Have fun and drop me a line on twitter if you find any good ones.

VB’s New the ‘real’ beer campaign

I think it’s great that the guys from Droga 5 finally noticed the shift in perceptions around the masculine persona and that really most blokes just think it’s all a bit funny.

 According to the Carlton & United Breweries press release:

“The new campaign was developed from insights pointing to an increasingly superficial society, and asks men to take  an honest look at themselves and pose the question, have I gone too far? From photo-shopping Facebook profile photos to skinny jeans and plastic surgery, the campaign showcases that, while superficiality will always exist, men  have a real desire to be authentic.”  

A massive shout out to Phil (high pitch dream) for this find.

A friend recently introduced me to the '12 Words' short story writing contest. In this case short story writing is really just that, as contestants are limited to using just 12 words to express themselves. It's a great creative outlet and puts an interesting spin on story writing, plus if you live in Sydney then there are some great prizes up for grabs.

I had a crack at it last night and entered via Twitter:

Chests out. Hard stares. Broken egos. One kid is always picked last. #12words @12words Let me know what you think. It's actually surprisingly challenging.
For more info check out:
www.12words.com.au or search 12words in Twitter.

I recently purchased a Snuggie for my Mum for Mothers Day and was quietly impressed. For those that have been living in a closet, a Snuggie is pretty much a small fleece blanket that has been altered to become a one piece fashion statement. When wearing one you look pretty odd – That said, they are really really warm. I’ve been thinking of organising a Sydney Snuggie pub run this winter, I’m not sure that its cold enough, but the thought of 50 people wearing multi coloured Snuggie’s roaming the city and sweeping through pub after pub is pretty cool.