One of the most popular videos on YouTube in education circles is the 2009 Did You Know video based on Jeff Brenman’s infamous “Shift Happens” presentation. To help publicise UCT’s internationally acclaimed Graduate School of Business’s Executive Education courses, Saatchi AtPlay, Cape Town, have created these great similarly themed custom course pages. Each page gives a brief overview on the course outcomes, why its relevant, and comes complete with a custom made factual YouTube video.

Click on the pictures above to see the relevant course videos and landing pages etc etc

I managed to get the below quotes from Elaine Rumboll, head of UCT’s GSB Executive Education, and Allan Kent, head of Saatchi AtPlay, the interactive division for Saatchi & Saatchi .

Elaine Rumboll : “The videos are a wonderful way to get our ideas of leadership out viscerally, and simultaneously create free content for people to use in their organisations.”

Allan Kent : ”The idea with creating the landing pages is to give people a snapshot of what the course will give them.  The video builds the curiosity, then the rest of the page gives 3 key pieces of info:  why this is relevant / important now, why this course specifically answers that, and then what practical outcomes you’ll learn from it.”

Great work all round, and so nice to see universities being innovative in the digital realm.

Levi seem to have embraced the online viral space by recently sponsoring a group of  young filmmakers at Conscious Minds to use 2,750 pictures to create a film of a gent called Mike walking across America from New York to San Francisco.

The clip on YouTube has so far reached over 600,000 view and is growing fast. In a letter to AdFreak the young filmmakers said  "We came up with the concept and idea ourselves and pitched it to Levi’s to get a sponsor to help fund the project," said Blake Heal, VP of Development for Conscious Minds, "They loved the authenticity of the project and our pioneering spirit and provided us with a sponsorship to execute our vision. [Levi] covered gas, food and production resources – and of course 501s for the whole crew."

Great work and love the soundtrack. If anyone is wondering what the song used in the “Guy walks across America” clip above is it’s “Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

HatTip: Adfreak for the Letter info

BrewDog has just produced one of the worlds most expensive, and strongest beers called “The End Of History”. The fine Scottish ale is 55% Alcohol and comes bottled complete in a taxidermied rodent (choose from stuffed stoat or grey squirrel. See pictures below !).

If you want to stand out from the crowd this is one way of doing it. BrewDog describe themselves as “A beacon of non-conformity in a increasingly monotone corporate desert”. They certainly nailed the non conformity with this above promo clip for their new crazy beer. Please let me know if anyone has tried this, as at £500 per bottle I’m intrigued to find out if it tastes like beer heaven.

Just thought I would share this fantastic presentation with you as personally I found it a very interesting read. The slideshow was made by Paul Adams from Google and talks about real life social networks and the problems associated with trying to duplicate them online. Paul works as a Senior User Experience Researcher at Google and has become a bit of a legend at understanding how people interact in the digital domain.

Hat tip to Sir Steve Clayton’s Blog

Fantastic bit of creativity from Grey, Barcelona, for Pilot pens new Extrafine range of pens. This is one I’m pretty sure a friend of mine called Richard Mulholland would love (who wouldn’t like Lego with custom tattoos).

Click on the images to enlarge.

If you love MadMen, get ready because advertisings favourite TV series is about to start its 4th season on the 25th July. To help promote the series AMC have created an online job interview. After answering a series of questions you will be told what position you would most likely fill in the Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce agency. Personally I was chosen as a copywriter! What MadMen are you? Click on the image above or here to take the test.

After 184 personalised videos from Old Spice there was bound to be some great parody video clips, and this one from students at the Brigham Young University is my personal favourite. The clip is for the main campus’s Harold B. Lee Library. Enjoy (“Monocle smile”)

AlmapBBDO, São Paulo, Brazil have produced this clever Print and online ad campaign for the new VW Fox interior. The online flash ad was placed on YouTube and can be seen by clicking here (Just scroll the VW logo to see the car turn inside out)