Idea: Temporary “friend list” swapping on Facebook.

Imagine you have an opportunity to find yourself surrounded by complete strangers and see how they interact, their interests… and maybe if you like someone you can invite them into your own circle of friends!

i.e. You have 150 friends. For 1 day your list can be swapped for 150 random strangers. If you have only 30 friends, you get 30 strangers.

This idea probably needs to be done with cooperation of Facebook, which is most likely because this project promotes more connectivity within the social network.

Idea: FB Fantasy Friends

Why not develop a widget that would allow to create personal fantasy friends list? Or people you really admire and wish to become friends with?

Here's my personal FFB list:

Politics and social media

The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.

Idea: McPorn

Anti fast food guerilla project idea: large stickers over McDonald's outdoor ads featuring naked obese models:

Idea for a reality show

Reality show: Weekend Liar

You are not allowed to say a word of truth for a whole weekend. Your deliberate lying has a special purpose: to raise money to support your favorite charity.

The idea:

In order to be on the show members of the public have to sign a contract that forbids them to say a word of truth for a whole weekend. (The setting of the show is private life of the contestants and for safety reasons won’t interfere with their professional lives, which is the reason why we film them only on their weekends.)
The participants have to compete in lying their ways through the whole weekend without raising any suspicions from their friends and families (who won’t be aware about the contract until the end of the weekend).

For example:

John is 26 years old and lives with his girlfriend Anna. He is known as a hardworking and honest man. Nobody from John’s friends and family knows that John is under obligation of not telling truth. The filming is done with hidden camera.

The weekend of lying can spontaneously be set off something like this:

Anna: John, do we have some eggs for breakfast?
John (knows there are some!): No, none left.

(a bit later)

Anna (looking in the fridge): There are some here! Why are you lying to me; John?
John: I am not lying… (note: this is right answer because he is obviously lying that he is not lying!)

As the day develops so does the challenge to stick to the rules as more lies create even more lies as well more stress on the participant and more fun for the audience.

We always have an option to manipulate the events to make it more challenging, for example to let Anna find a secret love letter to John from Ann’s mother(!) So, when Anna confronts John with the letter, John cannot deny it (otherwise it would be like telling the truth and immediate disqualification), but to play along… in other words to invent lies to get out from the situation.

There will be lots of naturally created funny situations. Like, for example, John is going to the shop to buy some eggs. When asked what is he going to buy he has to say anything… but the eggs. Now John comes back with the eggs. “But John, you said you weren’t going to buy the eggs!”… etc. Everything will get even more confusing.


We can also create special events for John’s weekend to make it even more dramatic. For example we arrange that John and Anna visit Anna’s parents (for the first time). Prior to that we make Anna’s parents suspicious about John’s past (i.e. a friendly call)… just to make sure that John gets lot’s of questions when he meets them.

Motivation and rewards:

Audience (on and offline) has to vote who is the most skillful liar. The winner gets a prize, i.e. long nose made from gold and some cash that he would have to donate to a charity. (He gets to keep the golden nose though!). Lying for money takes a new perspective here.

“Lies For Good” could be an alternative title of the show.

Chris Anderson on economy of sharing

Content is close to costing nothing to distribute and the costs of doing things being nearly zero...this will revolutionise our business models.

Idea: News on the news

We all know that different news media push different political agendas. Why not to create a news channel that would make it even more obvious? Let's say a daily (or weekly) "news on the news" tv channel (or a web portal!) that would tell us how most popular news media covers the most important daily world news .
For example, if the news are about the conflict in the middle east, the presenter of News on News tells us what FOX, CNN or Aljazeera reported about it (i.e. what part of the story is emphasized, what are the political accents, what part of the story are not reported, if there are any other differences of the coverage, etc.)

The benefit for the general public: it will not only provide a more objective picture of the world news, but will also make news media manupulation more transparent for the viewer.

Below are some visual moods of the idea:






Related idea from my previous post: Good News vs Bad News

Review: Content is everything.

This is an excellent slideshow from Uwe Gutschow blog on the future of advertising. His main point is that marketing new content will replace classic advertising. My point is that this new content has to be created in the first place (and to be creative enough to catch the attention of consumers). To me the word "marketing" equals "technology" and marketing by itself doesn't create the content (at it's best it can creatively use new forms of distribution channels). So, I don't think that marketing will replace advertising (as a prime content creator), but maybe the word "advertising" will be replaced by "lovertising" (ideas that spread love)? :)

| View | Upload your own

Idea: Good News vs Bad News (2)

Following my previous post, here's an idea for a news media channel that devides the news into two main categories - Bad News and Good News. Readers can decide what kind of news they want to read by clicking on the category buttons on the banner.

Below is an example for BBC:

Idea: LAUGHING FOR HEALTH CAUSE

This idea is inspired by this simple and yet brilliant idea (from CHI & Partners advertising agency) - Thebigask.com where people are invited to join a vertual march to show support for Friends of the Earth. To join you have to upload your video which shows you marching.

Why not to ask people to send their laughing videos in support, let's say, Cancer Research?

so maybe the project can be called laughforcancer or something like that.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

they say laughter is contagious and promotes good health (article)



and while we are on it, why not kissforpeace or shagforaids... ?

sorry, i do get carried away sometimes...


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
here's an idea I was playing with a few of years ago, which is kind of relevant ...

Idea: Good News vs Bad News

why not to create a special widget that would show a statistical balance between the bad and good news that are being broadcasted by most popular news media channels?

benefit # 1: you don't have to actually listen to the news media thus sparing yourself from the negative vibes... and still have a rough picture of the state of the world (besides you can always turn the sound on if you really need to know the details).

here's a video explaing how it might work:



benefit # 2: the widget will make it more obvious what kind of political agenda this news channel is pushing, i.e. being more (or less) negative about a particular news event in comparison to other news channels.


------------

watch this video that shows the semantics war in news coverage:

IDEA FOR RESPONSIBLE SHOPPING GAME

(the title and the program's logo are in the working process)


BACKGROUND INFO:

Consumers, governments and business leaders are finally feeling the pressure to confront and act upon the fact that unbridled production and consumption comes with mounting pollution and at a significant human/animal/earth cost.

Now that carbon footprinting has become a household term in mature consumer societies, expect consumers' desire to find out about the environmental responsibility of a brand to become a given. Questions no one ever asked a few years ago will become an integral part of the purchasing process. How was the product made? By whom? What effects on the environment will it have after purchasing?

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- If you don't stand for a cause, consumers may stop buying your products.

Carol Cone, chairman-CEO of Cone, said 72% of employees wish their bosses would push for social issues to be part of the companys' business plans -- a 38% increase since Cone's last survey in 2004.

That's according to the 2007 Cone Cause Evolution Survey, which finds that fully two-thirds of Americans consider a company's business practices when deciding what to buy. It also found that 87% of U.S. consumers would switch from one brand to another if the other brand was associated with a good cause, up 31% since 1993. According to Cone, 92% of consumers value companies that promote social issues, and 83% say companies have a responsibility to help support them.

"[Consumers] want to be affiliated with a company that is good," said Carol Cone, chairman-CEO of Cone, a Boston-based strategy and communications agency that specializes in cause marketing. "If consumers see companies behave badly, consumers can move to a company that is a neutral corporate citizen or a proactive corporate citizen."

No matter what cause a company stands behind, Ms. Cone maintains it's one thing that will never go out of style with consumers. "Good is the new black today," she said.

THE GAME IDEA:

"SPEND-IT-RIGHT" TV Shopping Game's main objective is:

To educate general consumers about more conscious approach to spending money as well as to promote socially and environmentally conscious brands in an entertaining and playful fashion.

How it works:

Contestants of the game are given considerable amount of cash to spend on consumer goods of their choice in one day.

The point of the game is not to spend all the money, but to spend it right, i.e the amount close to the randomly chosen budget number (similar to a lucky draw). Players have opportunity to earn special bonus points that will help them to win.

The winner gets to keep everything he/she has bought.

With every game round the budget and risks get higher. Altogether there could be 3 rounds in different locations:

1 ROUND: 1000 € cash to spend in big supermarket like Wal-Mart. If you win, you have a choice to withdraw from the game and keep 25% of your shopping. If you lose – you leave the game empty handed.

2 ROUND: 10.000 € cash to spend in a shopping mall. If you win you get to keep 50% of your shopping or keep it all and play on in the final round. The loser of the second round leaves with 25% from his shopping.

3 ROUND: 25.000 € cash to spend in a city. If you win, you get to keep everything you bought during these 3 rounds plus 50% of the loser’s shopping items (products worth 48.500€). The loser keeps the rest 50% (12.500€ worth)

To make the shopping experience more competitive we introduce special bonus points.

Players can earn these points when they choose products from socially / environmentally friendly brands. The more you know about “wholesome” brands, the more advantage you have over your competitor. Each bonus point equals to 100 €. For example:

1. Donating 100€ to a charity of your choice would earn you 2 points (200€)
2. Buying a product that is environmentally friendly – 1 point.
3. Buying from a socially responsible brand – 1 point. (Shopper should be able to provide this information while being filmed during his shopping spree.)
4. Buying for a good cause, i.e. for the benefit of others, like computers for school kids, would also earn you 2 points.
5. etc.
   

Here’s an example of the 1 round game score:

Two contestants are given a special shopping location and 1000 € to spend in the same day.

One contestant spends 750€ and the other one – 500€. The winning budget number for this round is 600 (€). The second player’s budget is closer to 600, so he/she wins.

Players will have to earn bonus points to help themselves reaching their best score. i.e. If you’re over the budget - you subtract the points, and if you’re under the budget – you add on.

Benefits for all:

• For brands the show could be a good opportunity for self-promotion.
• For the players it’s a shopping goldmine.
• For the viewers it is an entertainment as well as product information.
• For marketers it will provide deeper insights on different consumer demographics and their shopping patterns.
• For the world - another step towards the better future.
  

Idea: Loser TV

click on the image to enlarge.