get paid for your ideas. no, really.

there are a lot of dodgy companies around that ask ‘consumers’ to come up with ways for companies to improve their products / services. usually these companies take these ideas and present them as their own and then give you 150 bucks and a few slices of pizza for your time. not ideabounty, which allows you to submit ideas in a closed system, and if your idea is used you get paid $2 500 (yes, that is a dollar sign). i’ve signed up. i’ll be answering my first brief once i’ve finished the golfing headlines i have to write.

calling all South African T-shirt designers (yes, that means pretty much everyone)

The call to entries for the Uniqlo T-shirt Grand Prix 2009 – ‘The Olympics of T-shirt Design’ – ends 21 September 2008. which means you have just under 2 months to get your most designy design to them. i know they are very keen for South African designers to get involved so don’t have that ‘I’m just a South African therefor I won’t win’ attitude. seriously, send your stuff through. you could be big in Japan. plus, the prize money is something stupid like R200 000. for a t-shirt. for real. this could be your lucky break.

T-shirt by SA designer Rikus Ferreira

Addictlab: accelerating talent and generating innovation

Addict Lab

okay, i might be a million years late here, but i have just been introduced to Addictlab by a reader. From what i can tell, Addictlab is another creative gathering, except it’s got a lot more purpose than some of the stuff that’s out there. one might compare it with a property like Pecha Kucha, except it does a lot more than showcase opinions via an aggrandised brainstorm.

it has 2 sides to it: a creative side and a business side.

if you’re a creative, you sign up and put your work and inspiration on the site. depending on the needs of the active projects, you will be called upon to brainstorm and work in a freelance capacity. if you’re a business looking for a creative solution, you browse through the work that’s been done and can use what you like as reference. you then brief addictlab, and they brief their creatives, and together you come up with a solution. the solution can be anything from a first-phase brainstorm to a fully executed ad campaign to a street squad who hit the town with stencils to the development of a new product entirely. it connects brands with young, creative people who offer a very real service: they engage with your brand and make it their own. Addictlab also offers research and insight services, which makes complete sense.

i would love to see how this works in South Africa, where it seems to be now open for business. i’m signing up as we speak. watch this space.

consumer collaboration tours (Colab)

we do some fantastic work with brands that want consumer input right from New Product Development stage through to marketing, and our latest project took Priscilla and I to Joburg, Pretoria and Durban. I love working on projects like these because it means getting to meet all the crazy cool people in our grass network, and actually spend time with them while still getting creative on some very forward thinking brands.

here’s one of our grasses at our Cape Town session:

and this is at Bean Bag Bohemia in Durban

i don’t have very many other photos because i was running the sessions but i’ll be getting more from our photographer.

Phrase of the week: Digital Native

“Digital Native”: someone who has grown up with technology, a market you won’t reach anywhere but in the digital arena. In other words, the next generation. Thanks Jeremiah.

i’m on The Grid

so roundabout monday one of my twitter pals sends this:

“SMS the word ‘Grid’ to 33313 to get an invite’.

doesn’t sound exciting if you live under a rock, but i got pretty amped and started flapping around the office as i normally do about new technology, and everyone just ignored me, as they normally do when i do this. but truth is Vodacom’s offering to the SNS (social networking site) market is not only cool, it’s a first in that it tracks where you are in relation to your friends. here’s what they say about it (believe the site went public on Friday):

“When you use TheGRID it immediately shows your approximate position on a street map. This is done by utilising network-positioning systems that map the location of your cellphone. If you are signed-in, the profiles of your friends in your immediate area will be displayed, allowing you to share content with them in a number of different ways.
TheGRID users can leave “blogs” around the city: virtual notes to share experiences with other users, for example, a review of a meal at a restaurant. These notes may include anything from basic text messages to photos and even video clips. TheGRID will also show users which of their friends are in the area – they are then able to make contact with them through IM, and, for example, invite them to lunch.”

their official site can be found here.

i’d recommend signing up, you’ll only really get the benefit of this kind of thing if all your friends and associates are on it. you can also use it as a personal navigation system – came in quite handy for me twice this weekend. go forth and embrace the future, south africa. happy stalking.

websites that have been eating up my time.

Creativity Online is like the Daily News for anyone who works in and around the ad industry. Filled with interesting snacks of marketing related info.

Stormhoek’s just won an award for doing some innovative marketing. This is their blog, which is good reading. It’ll make you relook how you approach your product’s positioning, and rightly so. Big up to these guys and the work they’ve done with Cerebra.

Mike Stopforth’s blog is always worth checking out, especially if you’re confused by the whole web 2.0 thing (what does that really mean? etc etc). Dig around here for some easily accessible information and case studies, in normal, non-tech speak. Super cool.

There’s been talk of RCRD LBL  for a while now but it’s finally up and running. If you’re single and lame like me you’ll want to set aside a friday night – okay, a sunday afternoon – for this gem. For those genuinely interested in the music industry.

And then I’m still twittering. This program is something you’ll only get into digging once you bother to sign up and use it. But it’s making marketers all abuzz at the moment since the word ‘micro marketing’ came onto the scene.

And lastly, Superfuture is not new, but it keeps me coming back. You’ll see why.

dear sony

please make it so that i can download the songs i choose to sing on singstar. please make the songs cheap, and also please make it compatible with your PS2 console because the PS3 one is just way too expensive, plus i have already bought Nintendo Wii and i just don’t have it in me to buy another one.

thanks, Alex

more wine on the move

looks like the cloop – as the sound of a cork leaving the bottle is called – is soon going to be one of those things we tell our kids about while they look at us funny. here’s some new packaging for arniston bay and versus.

3 cities, 3 flights, 2 days

snapshots from a whirwind brainstorm tour of joburg, pretoria and durban. also, proof it’s possible to get jet lag in one timezone. will upload more from the pics once i get them from Nosisi.

spur at durban airport. to me, spur embodies that feeling of beginning or ending a journey.

tourbuddy nosisi. she used to be the singer in Kwani Experience.

somewhere along jan smuts going into town. and below, nelson mandela bridge. i love taking driving shots.

below is kulula’s camo plane, as we landed in durban. it got the passengers in my plane all talking and gawking.

after our session we went to Society in Florida rd in durban and had some drinks and danced a bit. good times. here’s Lavanya, Timmy and Nosisi. and then there’s me and Lavanya in the bathroom