We do realise this is rather a long blog post, so we’ve distilled the proposition into one paragraph (how very “marketing” of us!):

Help Gavin Bate promote his charity and help promote yourself. Send all promotional ideas directly by Twitter to @gavinbate or @cybercom (using #cyb10). The owners of the actioned ideas will be promoted themselves on the very summit of Mount Everest by Gavin!

The background:

Stephen Murphy follows in the footsteps of fellow Cybercom employee Richard Fitzgerald, as he departs today for Kathmandu and ultimately Everest Base Camp. What’s it all about?  Well basically any company 10 year old birthday is a bit boring and irrelevant.  So we’ve linked up with Gavin Bate and his Irish Everest Expedition to try and bring a bit of digital marketing magic to some charity fundraising.  We’ve built him a site and taught him how to use twitter but now he needs your help :

Gavin told us last month ….”I climb mountains and raise money for charity. Simple really.  As for this blogging & internet stuff, well lets just say I should stick to mountaineering!”

So Gavin needs help and has asked us to see what ideas the Irish digital community can come up with to PR & promote his current and 5th Everest summit bid.  Why would you help him do that…..?  Stick with us for another minute…..

The previous 4 summit attempts have been eventful to say the least and it is not an overstatement to say that Gavin has looked death in the eyes a couple of times.  However this unfinished business needs to be sorted this year, 5th time lucky with Gavin standing on the summit of Mt Everest sometime between the 10th and 30th May, weather permitting.

So what help does he need, how can you help and how can Gavin help you in return?  He told us today that ….

* “Unlike many of the climbers out here I don’t really need to stand on a bit of real estate over 5 miles up in the sky. My sole reason for doing this is to raise money and the profile of my Charity www.movingmountains.org.uk ”

We told him …….

* “Gavin you need killer ideas that will help me promote your website and donation page and we don’t have all the answers.  In return you need to do whatever you can from the top of the world to promote an Irish blogger or 10! They aren’t going to help you out for nothing however!

Gavin replied…….

“No problem, I can do this at the top of Everest by way of a picture with anyone’s blog name on it or even potentially via an audio blog mentioning both the blogger & blog by name. (temperature & wind permitting – hopefully I can take my gloves off to use the Satellite phone!).  I climb mountains and raise money for charity. Im only learning this digital game thanks to you lads teaching me about the web & twitter etc.  So my idea might not be any use. I really do need help from all the wiz kids out there to come up with a killer idea which can benefits them and much as it does me.  What that idea is to be honest I haven’t got a clue!”

So here we are, one birthday, one man at the foot of one very big mountain and a world of opportunity.

We are in the middle, doing the logistics, feeding through ideas to Gavin via his personal email to Everest base camp etc.  So please tweet either Gavin direct via his satellite internet linkup (@gavinbate : pls #cyb10) and/or fire us (@cybercom : pls #cyb10) a link to your blog along with your idea to help out.  Gavin will select one or more idea to action so lets see how much noise we can make.

Gavin sends his thanks in hope and anticipation.

The Links:

• Post from Everest #2 – Back From Base Camp
• Post from Everest #1 – The Roof of the World!
• Cybercom 10 year Celebration
• Everest Challenge
• Moving Mountains
• Twitter
• Pix.ie
• Gavin Bate
• Cybercom Blog

Bank of Imagination
http://www.bankofimagination.com
Explore banks of imagination, and feel inspired to add your own safe.

RESN
http://www.resn.co.nz
Really nice animations, with an abundance of exploration to do, brought to you by Resn, online interactive agency.

Benjamin Moore
http://www.paintwithben.com
What is the colour of your imagination? Find out what colour means to them at Benjamin Moores.

ARK+
http://www.ark-plus.com/#/En/
Discover exclusive materials by Porcelanosa in this conceptual and interactive world for architectural projects.

Following our recent win at the Digital Media Awards, for Best Advertising / Digital Marketing Agency 2009, our Managing Director, Jonathan Forrest, was asked by Business Ireland for his view on the changing marketing landscape. Jonathan gives a concise overview of where the industry is, and how Cybercom has prepared for the market shift.

The article, Anticipating the Change, is available here.

Who says the Catholic Church is out of touch with the youth of today?

First there was PopeBook, and now in another attempt to spread the Lords digital message, in this case the power of prayer, a cardinal has asked people to use ‘twitter’ and ‘text messages’.

During a mass in county Mayo in last Sunday, Cardinal Sean Brady asked of congregation to “‘ m ake someone the gift of a prayer through text, twitter or e-mail every day” . The story was picked up by the BBC and The Telegraph, with the Twittesphere reacting in kind. So where did it all start, did someone Tweet from the church?!

We’ve all seen the horror stories of the guy that pulls a sickie and uploads photos of himself out partying to Facebook, only to have his employer find out. Of course it may just be an urban myth but chances are it is based in some level of fact. Even without this, however, we’re always amazed by the amount of freedom people exercise in their online communication and social media use. Between Twitter, Facebook and YouTube alone, you can probably find out everything about a person from their favourite movie to where (and with who) they spent their last holiday.

This fact hasn’t been lost to the legal professionals out there and this access to a person’s life through videos, photos, and stories about themselves is fast becoming a first stop in their research of potential defendants and plaintiffs. Philip Anthony and Christine Martin (both active trial lawyers) point out in a National Law Journal article that lawyers are way ahead of most businesses in tapping into the power of social media.

The article states, “Litigators, now have unprecedented access to the conversations, attitudes and opinions of millions of Americans”, adding, “[many people] have traded personal privacy for greater access to information and individually tailored news feeds.”

Taking this a step even further, some lawyers in the US have even posted depositions on YouTube in effort to influence public opinion.

When your girlfriend announces to the world that she is now ‘Single’ via Facebook, it may come as a surprise to you, but it would probably be an even bigger surprise when she adds her tennis instructor ‘Ivan’ as a “friend” just minutes later.

So before you start changing your relationship status, check out this video on Facebook Manners. This video highlights a list of 5 simple rules aimed to mediate and diffuse the situation. Its a ‘complicated’ relationship!

Cinema 21:9
http://www.cinema.philips.com/?ls=gb_en
A truly cinematic experience and behind the scenes insight for the world’s first cinematic proportion TV. Click on the hotspots along the timeline to discover more.

Ford: Fiesta Movement
http://fiestamovement.com/agents/
This is a slick site for a really cool campaign. Why let several thousand people have a 30min test drive, instead give 100 people a 6 month test drive! Then let them tell the world about your car.

26000 Vodka
http://www.26000vodka.com
Explore the purity of New Zealand vodka made from 26000 year old water. An expansive 3D experience that will immerse you in the finest of vodkas.

Rated Rookies
http://www.ratedrookies.com/
Simple. Easy. Nice. But never ever boring. This is perhaps the perfect showcase and online shopping experience for a T-Shirt Company. Go forth and explore.

For most advertisers, Google is about one primary thing: Search Marketing. Mostly from a PPC point of view but also the operations necessary to manage and enhance a site’s SEO. So it may come as a surprise that Google’s latest whitepaper claims that display, video and text ads on its “content” network are just as effective as search.

Last year Google conducted a case study to ascertain the performance and effectiveness of its content network. The following results were released:

• The content network was more cost-effective for advertisers than search, with the cost of a click coming in 2.6% less on Google’s content network than in Google’s search results.
• 51.6% of Google advertisers got better returns from the content network than search
• Search still drove the majority of total clicks, but nearly 20% of all clicks came from ads on the content network

Lexi Reese, Google’s director of the content network, said “The perception has been that ad networks in particular don’t perform as well as search campaigns, but this shows people looking for performance right now benefited when they extend their search campaign into the ad-network space.”

As one of, if not the most, hard-working digital vehicles available to advertisers, there is no doubt that Search Marketing will continue to excel and drive significant ROI. This will be equally true whether it’s against an uncertain economic backdrop or during a more stable financial period. However the question over the content network’s effectiveness and performance is still not answered. As an Irish and UK agency, we will only begin to understand its effectiveness when localised and comparable case studies start to emerge from this side of the world. For now, however, it’s worth reviewing Google’s whitepaper yourself and seeing what’s happening in the US marketplace.

Download Google’s ‘CPA Performance Trends on the Google Content Network’ whitepaper here.

Please note that a click refers to a clickthrough and not a conversion.

Little did two Domino’s employees realise that when they filmed a prank in the kitchen of their franchise  and posted it online that it would spark such a catastrophic response. The employees, who posted a clip of them contaminating a tray of prepared sandwiches with nasal mucus on You Tube, now face criminal charges and unemployment, while the Domino’s brand faced a PR crisis.

This is a great example of how social media now has the reach and speed to turn tiny incidents into crises. The offending video was viewed over a million times on You Tube over a two day period before being removed, while discussions spread throughout Twitter from concerned consumers seeking a brand response.

Initially Domino’s opted for a non-aggressive response, hoping the controversy would simply disappear, but as it continued to escalate they were quick to act and, within two days of the controversy emerging, they had created a Twitter account to address concerned consumer comments  and they presented their US President, Patrick Doyle, in a video response on YouTube.

The initial non-response of the brand failed to take into account the far reaching mushroom effect of a viral sensation and a strong demand from social active consumers to know specifically what was being done. However their fast acting recovery is quite impressive. The video by the company president now ranks as the top video for brand searches. The Twitter account has acquired over 1,200 followers in less than a week and is now an active community for the brand, whom are using this new channel to create individual conversations with their consumers.

And within the search engines, the Domino president’s YouTube apology now sits above the offending clip!

Imagine being able to interact with your environment to access all your day-to-day digital utilities. Imagine reaching out in front of you and checking your email in thin air or taking a picture with a hand gesture. SixthSense is the latest technology brought to light through TEDTalks. A mobile, wearable, augmented reality based digital interface that is with you all the time. Plus, the device is entirely self-contained (onboard camera, projector, wi-fi, mobile phone etc.).

Here, Pattie Maes, Associate Professor of Media Technology at the MIT Media Lab, desribes the inspiration behind the device and what the prototype is already capable of.

For those unfamiliar with the TEDTalks; TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and the Talks are a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference. The TED Conference attracts the world’s leading thinkers and innovators to talk for 18 minutes about how they are changing the world or the way we live in it. Speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child and “Lost” producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery.