Cherryflava

The motivational video that inspired FC Barcelona to victory

When FC Barcelona beat Manchester United to win the Champions League recently, they didn't do it without external motivation.
Josep “Pep” Guardiola had obviously been going through a well-used copy of The Secret and decided that he wanted his team to visualise winning the tournament and lifting the trophy. So he showed his team a video he made together with Catalonian TV featuring the best moments of their season mixed in together with scenes from Gladiator. [via]

When we recently won the Grand Daddy Potjiekos competition, half way through we snuck away and watched this...

Then we came back and kicked some ass.

Wonder what Bafana was watching last night?

Monday's Marketing headlines - whoop whoop

- Amsterdam has 'socially unsafe areas' which they're now making safe with interactive LED lights in subways. Just staring at them makes you want to shelve the crack pipe and put your life in the hands of Jesus. Dezeen
- Coca Cola destroys one of the coolest UK brands in one easy move. It buys a stake in Innocent Drinks. Expect to find Innocent Drinks at a Pick n Pay near you. Telegraph

- The SABC announce their involvement with the 2010 world cup by putting giant stickers on buses. Oooo aaahhh. Our excitement just went visual. Bizcommunity

- We make choose-your-own-adventure urban games, but now there are choose-your-own-adventure videos on YouTube. The TIme Machine: START HERE.

- Listen up marketing people! Smart marketers advertise during a recession. And here are the numbers to prove it. Adrants.

Headlines: All the local marketing news...you need to know [Friday edition]

- Miniature, traffic light billboards with an 'underground' meaning continue in the Claremont area. This one, a clear follow up to the previous 'Coke Cat' cereal killer is now a little old and weathered, but still commands the power to keep us guessing.

- Oh dear - Virgin Mobile have announced that the status of the upcoming Virgin Festival has been marked as 'postponed'. [Tsk] According to the press release...

'The festival has been postponed to early 2009 in order to secure the international line-up that is more in line with what Virgin Festival stands for throughout the different countries.'

Apparently...

“Some of the bands that South Africans kept asking for were simply not available at that time of the year.”

- Bushmills, one of the premium brands we hold dear in the Cherryflava bar, [which by the way goes very nicely with a splash of red Grapetiser and a large Cuban] are running a new online campaign where you can win a 1966 MGB Roadster. The car is busy being restored to its original glory, which you can follow online at www.bushmills.co.za

- Eat Out magazine and Soweto have turned to The Grid [the Vodacom location-based cellphone social network] for some added value. Mobikasi is South Africa’s first geo-tagged documentary for cellphones, which explores youth culture in Soweto. Check out Soweto Youth Culture on your cellphone at [http://www.thegrid.co.za/mobikasi], which goes live Wednesday 5 November.

- Don't forget...the month of Movember is upon us! For those not up to speed with the term...

'Movember (a portmanteau of the words 'Moustache' and 'November') is an annual month-long event involving the growing of moustaches during the month of November.'

So if you've always wanted to look like Magnum - now's your time buddy. Grow that 'stache...blame the tickler on a good cause. See: Movember

Globalisation on show thanks to 'The Box' from the BBC

The BBC have launched a year-long project where they will be tracking the journey of a standard shipping container [unsurprisingly called 'The Box'] via GPS tracking around the globe.

Already the container has already travelled through Scotland and is picking up whiskey in Ireland.

When it arrives in South Africa it'll probably be turned into a spaza shop, so enjoy the interesting show till then.
Would be cool if the site could also have a carbon footprint counter to indicate just how much carbon this thing's journey actually causes.

Read: Box takes off on global journey -  BBC

Today's dodgy headline

Enough cannot be said about the art of well-chosen words to grab some attention.

This headline from today's Mail & Guardian certainly commands serious cringe value. But made us read it looking for a bit of dirt. [tsk]

See: Mail & Guardian

Cherryflava moves into a new home

Our last abode was getting a little cramped, so we have relocated to plush new offices (ex-Adult World HQ) in downtown Claremont, which has a bit more space for our alternate media design and production activities.

New office 'hotline' is 021 683 6668 - the comes complete with bowling alley, an old cinema version of Laserquest and weather pattern-tracking views of the mountain.

Loerie Awards 08: Give your agency the bird

South African ad industry lovefest, the Loerie awards, is set for party time in July. But before you can get smashed on free Klippies and grams of coke in Margate...you have to enter something creative in order to get your hands onto a little metal bird, and the new deadline is approaching faster than another petrol price increase.

Lucky for you, the submission deadline for The Loerie Awards has been extended to 31 May 2008.

If you think you've done work worthy of praise and high-fives, submissions are via: theloerieawards.co.za

[thanks Simone]

2008 South African Blog Awards: Many thanks

We have to firstly say that we dropped the ball last night, by completely forgetting to thank the awards ceremony's primary event sponsor.

BrandsEye, the innovative new online reputation management tool [well worth checking out if the public perception of your brand is important to you] from they guys at Quirk, kindly sponsored the venue, the sound equipment, the DJ and the tables and chairs. Without them there would not have been an awards evening.
Big thanks to Julia and Tim for all their hard work and bucket loads of time.

Thanks again to:

Butlers pizza for the awesome large pizzas they sponsored for the evening - that's yet another good reason to live in the Cape.

Liquid Alchemy who took care of keeping the event well lubricated. The company specializes in bar catering for smaller events, so keep that in mind for the next poker evening.

Warwick for a bottle of Three Cape Ladies for each one of the winners. Lovely.

Stodels who sponsored the trophies for this year's awards. We decided to go green - so each category winner took home an indigenous tree as their trophy.

Dell for their generous sponsorship of brand new monitors for 4 category winners. Those are going to come in very handy for the winners

Cerebra for their offer of an IPod Nano which goes to the winner of the Best Undiscovered Blog. Thanks Mike.

XBox for their kind sponsorship of an XBox 360 console, which will be fought over at the Thought Leader offices. Book your Gears of War spot now.

Mad props also to the awards team who produced this year's event - Miguel dos Santos, Rafiq Phillips, Shane Dryden, Andrew Smith and Dave Duarte. Your work and time is much appreciated by all.

The Top 10 of just about everything for 2007

What are the top 10 photos or the top 10 TV ads, or what about the top 10 websites of 2007?
From eco-sensitive clothing line trends to socially networked e-commerce ideas and 'bangs', Time magazine have got all the answers for you in their 50 Top 10 lists of 2007. That's one 'year in review' feature that should keep you busy for a bit.

See: Time magazine's 50 Top 10 lists of 2007

The 70 best ideas of 2007

From Braille tattoos to Electric Hockey skates 2007 was another year of weird, but potentially usable invention ideas.

The New York Times Magazine has kindly gathered a list together of the best ones.

See: The 7th Annual year in ideas - NYTimes