After yesterday’s twitter rant, I discovered this. The Wi-Fi Body Scale from Withings. The first bathroom scale with the ability to send your your weight directly to your Web page, iPhone and Twitter account. Further confirming my fears about a future with the twitter generation in charge.

Click here to purchase it for about $200.

Source: Los Angeles Times

David

I have a facebook page, I get my RSS on with a few blogs, but I’m not really an active social networker, I have never tweeted, I’m a little bit old school, I leave that for the birds.

I don’t believe that Tweeting and following twitters has any substance, it’s hardly revolutionary in my view, it’s called conversation, we’ve been doing it for a long time now. Of course, everyone’s interested in the marketing potential, Twitter is apparently worth a billion dollars despite not having turned over a single cent. I’ve always thought that my generation are a bit self obsessed and see Twitter as a way to talk about themselves even when there’s nobody else around, so it doesn’t surprise me that the most Tweeted topic is Twitter itself, iPhone is high on the list too. I imagine there are a lot of tweets along the lines of “just using twitter on my iPhone lol”.

Below is a list of brands mentioned over a 24 hour period on Twitter, it’s kind of a boring list, mostly computer/internet related stuff – mostly, it seems, people are getting on there computers and mobile devices to talk about their computers and mobile devices. I don’t really know what to make of it, there’s no mention of whether or not the Tweeters (Twits?) are saying nice things about these brands or not.

If you’re a tweet follower, someone sent me this a while back, it worth following, if you follow such things.

And now I’m going to get my old school on, with some old school goodness that you can’t find on your MyFace and SpaceBook pages…

This is still the most on-target advertising I have ever seen:

This is excellent old school exaggeration in advertising from Atari:

Cover Art…

Actual game play…

And here’s an ad for a 15MB Hard Drive for only $2495:

Moonwalk, electric boogie, head spin and top rock to that.

David

…or otherwise known as Parkour (PK), is a physical discipline of French origin in which participants attempt to get from Point A to Point B using the human body and objects in the environment around you.

It didn’t take long for PK to become a global craze and move from the urban setting of 13 boulevard du Temple, Paris to mainstream America…

Richard

The start of my NHRA career?…(this is my staunch look…certainly ain’t no Blue Steel)

Hamish McDonald

Tony Schumacher

I have met Tony several times as TZO continues to create the US Army NHRA collateral.  Tony is a great guy and loves a good joke (and tequila shots)

Tony Schumacher is an American drag racer, currently competing in the NHRA Top Fuel class, of which he is a six-time champion winning the last five years consecutively (2004-2008). In 1999 he was the first driver to exceed 330 mph in competition.  He also has the world record for fastest 1/4 mile top fuel run: 337.58 mph, earned in 2005 at Brainerd, Minnesota. On September 14, 2008 at the inaugural NHRA Carolinas Nationals in Charlotte, N.C., Tony surpassed Joe Amato as the winningest driver in NHRA Top Fuel history with his 53rd career victory.

Schumacher has been sponsored for several years by the U.S. Army and his intense personality and buzz cut hairstyle has earned him the nickname “Sarge.”

He enjoys playing guitar. He also co-owns and operates a home brewing and winemaking supply business called Perfect Brewing Supply. He is a distant relative of the 7 time Formula One world Champion Michael Schumacher.

Hamish McDonald

Adrian Peterson

I met Adrian Peterson on the set of the Army All America Bowl photo shoot TZO undertook.  He was the consummate professional but I will remember him most for his CRUSHING hand shake – even when you are expecting it he still manages to bring tears to your eyes…

Adrian is a professional football running back for the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League. Peterson was selected by the Vikings with the seventh overall pick in the first round of the 2007 NFL Draft. He played college football at the University of Oklahoma.

At Oklahoma, Peterson set the NCAA freshman rushing record with 1,925 yards as a true freshman. As a First-Team All-American, he also set a freshman record by finishing as the runner-up in the Heisman Trophy balloting. Peterson finished as the school’s third all-time leading rusher.

Following his stellar first pro season, Peterson was named the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year. In the 2008 NFL Pro Bowl, Peterson rushed for 129 yards and two touchdowns, achieving the second highest rushing total in Pro Bowl history. Peterson was awarded the MVP award for his performance in the Pro Bowl, which led to a 42-30 victory over the AFC. Peterson is only the fifth player in NFL history to have more than 3,000 plus yards through their first two seasons.

He is currently regarded as the best running back in the NFL – and this season his team (with Brett Favre) are undefeated at 6-0.

Hamish McDonald

Celebrity endorsements…an effective way to promote your product.  I get to meet several celebrities during the course of a year here at TZO.  More often than not – these are stars of the sporting arena.

Over the course of the next 3 blog posts I am going to introduce you to 3 of the biggest stars in their respective sports.

Cuauhtemoc Blanco

Cuauhtemoc Blanco is a spokesman for Safeway Auto Insurance.

Blanco is a Mexican professional soccer player who currently plays for Chicago Fire in Major League Soccer of US.

Blanco is the only Mexican football player with an award in a major international FIFA competition, as he won the Silver Ball and the Golden Shoe awards in the 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup. He has been awarded the MVP of the Mexican First League Division five times.

Although Blanco plays mostly as an attacking midfielder, he is tied with Ronaldinho as the leading Confederations Cup goal scorer. Blanco is the second leading goal scorer for the Mexican national football team and his debut team Club América; he is also Mexico’s second top scorer in both the FIFA World Cup and the Copa Libertadores tournament.

Blanco is currently the second highest paid player in the US Major League (behind David Beckham).  He is THE star of the Mexican national team and will be at the World Cup in South Africa.

Blanco remains remembered for the Cuautemiña or Blanco Trick, which he performed notably at the 1998 World Cup. In the trick, Blanco traps the moving football between his feet and jumps over an opposition player’s attempted tackle, landing with the ball under control. The trick is difficult to perform but is eye-catching and has been incorporated as a special skill into the FIFA series of football games. 

Blanco is currently on the cover of FIFA 2010.

I did not get to chat to Blanco too much as he does not speak much Englsh.  He did a great job recording new spots for Safeway Auto Insurance which will be on air here in the US next month.

Hamish McDonald

Folksey

The Amazon Kindle is starting to become a new and exciting trend as a replacement to books and the traditional newspapers.

For those of us who still like to feel and touch newspapers and books this is sad to see.  However, the Kindle is a cleaner, environmentally friendlier option that also eliminates the clutter of books.  For our generation and our parent’s generation having bookcases of books, magazines, encyclopedia britannica and journals was something you cherished and even bragged about; nowadays the clutter of these material things is increasingly becoming less within the younger generations.

Thou it is hard for me to say lets embrace the Kindle as this is the sign of things to come in our digital age.

Folksey

 

Attention shoppers of Walmart : you’re the subject of a new blog that has gone highly viral. The site People of Walmart is the latest user-submitted photo blog to take off. It has had hundreds of thousands of hits already, as Walmart shoppers around the country send in photos of the weird and the wonderful that make up this retail chain’s unique clientele.

The founders say they draw the line at people who are handicapped: “We don’t make fun of people who can’t help their appearance. … Let’s face it; we all have seen the people who obviously don’t have mirrors and/or family and friends to lock them in a basement, and they all seem to congregate at Walmart.”

To some this may be a quick joke, to others the potential for way for brands to build a little fun into their social media strategy that appeals to the masses…time will tell how Walmart will react to this. Meantime we’ll keep these wonderful people in mind as we work on the next shopper marketing campaign.

Murray Grossmith