Guy catches glasses with his face

Posted by Joshua Barber, Creative Director - June 13, 2009



Yet another installment from Ray-Ban's Never Hide Films where a guy "catches glasses with his face." This is an older video, but I enjoyed how the up the ante with each face catch. Enjoy.

Can Google Predict the Winner of the Virginia Democratic Primary?

Posted by David Saunders (Research by Will Trible) - June 8, 2009

Polls open early tomorrow in Virginia to decide the Democratic Primary race and it's still too close to call, unless you're counting keywords on Google.
Terry McAuliffe, has enjoyed early exposure and ample funding, in part due to his fundraising work during the Clinton administration. According to Google, however, Creigh Deeds has made a big push in the closing days of the primary campaign.

We'll just have to wait until tomorrow to see if Google called this race correctly.
See the data below....

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=Brian%20Moran%2CCreigh%20Deeds%2CTerry%20McAuliffe&geo=US-VA&date=today%201-m&cmpt=q

Using this and several other new media metrics, you'll recall we predicted 48 out of 50 states correctly during the Presidnetial election, at about 2 pm EST on November 4th, 8-9 hours before the networks called it. >>> http://madisonmain.blogspot.com/2008_11_04_archive.html

Lesson learned: social media and measuring tools like Google Trends can help companies, but also can take the instant pulse of a society, and sometime predict the future (at least on election day).

Cow gives birth to a dude

Posted by Joshua Barber, Creative Director - June 6, 2009



Here is the "Cow gives birth to a dude" video I discussed previously from Ray-Ban's Never Hide Films. I enjoyed the "never hide" placement spray painted on the side of the trash bin. I'm pretty sure the gross factor of this particular video had a hand in it getting so many views.

Monster Yarn Ball Rolling in San Francisco

Posted by Joshua Barber, Creative Director - May 31, 2009



Never Hide Films AKA Ray-Ban's viral online presence created a video of a very large yarn ball unwinding down San Francisco streets. Great edits and locations. There are over 10 different videos covering all sorts of topics of a cow giving birth to female body builders. More to come.

Talking New Media Via Old Media

We all know that new media is the best thing to hit the world since individually wrapped slices of cheese. Social networking is here, it’s here to stay and it continues to captivate droves of people kind of like flip-flops and Pabst Blue Ribbon captivate your typical everyday hipster! While we all entertain each other through endless status updates and Twitter posts, the old media lions, radio, television and newspapers are doing everything they can to remain relevant. Despite saying it wouldn’t last like rockers and pop stars once dismissed hip-hop, old media is now turning to new media to keep the boat afloat. Naturally, when you have new media questions you turn to Dave.

Dave appeared on Virginia’s number one radio show this morning, Richmond’s Morning News with Jimmy Barrett, to talk about Facebook, Twitter and our upcoming New Media Seminar. I know Jimmy, having worked for him over a two-year stretch at Clear Channel Richmond. He’s an old-school guy from Michigan, the former Public Address announcer for one of Major League Baseball’s oldest franchises, the Detroit Tigers, and he’s definitely a man that believes in the power, validity and future of radio. One other thing I know about Jimmy is that he’s sharp! Not much gets past him and the power of social media isn’t something that he has ignored or dismissed. Now he’s a Facebook machine! Knowing that his audience represents one of the largest groups of people flocking to Facebook and Twitter, Jimmy brought Dave onto the show to talk about how they work, what they can do for businesses and why we’re all so wrapped up in our social media communities.

To hear Dave and Jimmy talk shop about the latest and greatest in social media, click here.

If you feel like you need to know more about social media and how it all works, there are still a few seats left for our next New Media Seminar to be held Tuesday, May 26 from 10am-2pm at the Holiday Inn Select Koger South Conference Center. Oh yeah…we’re knocking down the price too! If you purchase your ticket by 5pm Friday, May 22, we’ll give you a $100 discount off of the normal retail price.

For more information or to buy your ticket, log on to www.NewMediaSeminars.com/special.

Confessions of a Conditioned New Media User

Posted by Jeff Smack, Art Director

Madison+Main, we're the New Media folks. We not only drink the Kool-Aid we are stakeholders. We believe in where it's taking our world and our role in that process. With this stated, I have noticed some unconscious training in myself that I would like to point out. I'm calling it New Media Conditioning and I'm siting some examples in hopes that some of you will have something to add.

1. I'm at the magazine stand in a big book store and I'm flipping through the pages of a thick little magazine called Wax Poetics. I come across an article I enjoy and my brain immediately begins scanning for an RSS button so I can book mark the author's "stream."

2. A friend tells me of an article in Wired before I get my copy. When I get home I see it on the floor with the mail as soon as I open the door. I pick it up thinking about the article he mentioned and impulsively scan for a search feature in the Table of Contents.

3. I'm on a non-Facebook website enjoying an article or photograph and I impulsively scan for the "like this" button.

4. My iPhone is set to vibrate when I get mail and also when I get a call. If I get email while I'm at my computer my phone buzzes to tell me and I log in on my desktop to check it. Now sometimes when the phone rings I start to reach for the mouse to answer the phone.

These are all things that I recognize as FAIL operations as soon as I do them but the impulse is hard programmed through well caffeinated and rigorous "practice."

Here's a joke that illustrates the same type of observation from the opposite angle. When my brother's cell phone rings he jokingly and loudly shouts to the room, "I'll get it!" An ironic throwback to the days of having one telephone line in the home. All of this illustrates the rapidly progressive and almost seamless integration of technology in our moment to moment existence.

The Beautiful Word - Yoga

Posted by Joshua Barber, Creative Director - May 10, 2009

The final piece to the Scrabble campaign, "The Beautiful Word" by French agency, Ogilvy & Mather.