As the date for Africa’s largest advertising awards show looms ever nearer the zany guys and girls at Ogilvy Cape Town decided to make an African Cliché style commercial to help remind everyone that the time is near. The awards in question are of course the Loerie Awards and will be held again this year in Cape Town. Last year was great fun, so am hoping for more of the same this time around. Coverage of the awards highlights will of course will be made right here just for you. For more info go to http://www.theloerieawards.co.za. Tickets are now available. Hat tip: Amy Maybin

Yesterday Microsoft announced some seriously game changing news for the console industry. The launch announced that Kinect (formerly known as “Project Natal”) will be available worldwide on November 4th. Kinect (pictured right) is a gaming motion sensor device that is compatible with all Xbox 360’s, and allows you to use your body as the games controller ! see the video above for some examples. At release there will be at least 8 Kinect games available but expect that number to rise quickly as developers get to grips with the new technology. The new revamped Xbox 360 console (see pics) was also announced at the E3 expo at the Wiltern Theatre, Los Angeles. It’s now slimmer, virtually silent, and comes with built in WiFi for easy access to online functionality such as Xbox live, and has a 250GB hard drive as standard. The new Xbox 360 will be available this week at $299.99 RRP. Last but not least Microsoft also announced and previewed epic upcoming games launches of “Halo: Reach,” “Call of Duty: Black ops”(exclusive Xbox levels and maps) and “Gears of War 3”, and “Fable III”. Also if Xbox Live (now 25 million users strong) is your kind of thing, and you currently live outside of the official supported zones, good news, it will be coming to South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, and Russia by Christmas 2010. Cant Wait to give Kinect a go and get my hands of some of those epic games later this year.     P.S. To read the full press release click here, and hat tip Steve Clayton, for reminding me about this and to MajorNelson’s Flickr site for the pics.

Hyundai and Jupiter Drawing Room, Cape Town have come up with a fun way to get the upcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup matches underway. They have erected a huge 114-foot-long Vuvuzela on one of the unfinished flyover roads above Cape Town and attached several air horns to the mouth piece, when blown it makes one hell of a noise (see the test video below to see for yourself).

The giant Vuvuzela will be blown at the start of every World Cup game as a call to action for the City. It looks like the Hyundai Vuvuzela may also get into the Guinness Book of Records for largest Vuvuzela in the world !

Great campaign and thanks to Livio Tronchin, Creative Director at Jupiter for the heads up.

On a side note best of luck to Livio and Mark Stead (former King James Creative Director) for their new upcoming agency “&Co”.

     Last week I got chatting to a fantastic chap called Aiden from Lexus Helderberg about cars and online marketing. The two go together very well but most car companies still shy away from it. Aiden however, been a more forward thinking legendary kind of chap (and former head of Lexus marketing in Ireland), decided we could have a go, so we created the Lexus A-List. Lexus in South Africa at the moment is seen by some as a brand most suited for the older generation and has been confused with being “just an expensive Toyota”. The reality is far from the truth as we see with the Lexus brand image in the USA and UK etc. Our aim was to get a select group of peers from the online media / marketing word and get them into the driving seat of some of the new Lexus range of cars. In exchange Lexus Helderberg provided the candidates with everything they needed to write a little something about their driving experience. The cars we picked for the day were the IS 250 Cabriolet, GS 450h (Hybrid) , RX 450h (Hybrid),  and an IS-F (as a prize drive). The group met up at Lexus Helderberg and we then had a brief about Lexus and what sets them apart from the other car brands (on a side note their service bays look just like Aston Martins !) . One thing I didn’t realise is that when you get a Lexus pretty much everything is standard, think iPod docks, Bluetooth, heated/cooled electric seats, touch screen sat nav, parking sensors etc etc. Next we drove out to the luxury Arabella Western Cape Hotel on one of Cape Towns most incredible coastal roads (click here to see the Map). Once there we had tea and two lucky people got to drive the IS-F on the return trip. Along the way we swapped cars to get a good feel of the range and then headed out to the fabulous 96 winery road restaurant for a wonderful late lunch, followed by a short drive back to the dealership, where we each received a surprise coffee table book, a great baseball cap, and then had to get used to the shameful reality of driving our own cars back to Cape Town. Most readers will know I’m a bit of a die hard Audi fan but even I was blown away by the cars. My brief view of the models we tested are as follows (click here to see Henk Kleynhans thoughts) : IS 250 Cabriolet: Incredible cabin, and very smooth ride without being too soft, Great with the top down and fantastic standard features (iPod dock, 7”touch screen sat nav, reverse camera, electric heated seats etc), overall a great car to cruise in.   GS 450h (Hybrid): At first I thought it was going to be a bit boring but then I touched the accelerator ! 0 to 100 km/h in 5.9 seconds and it keeps going to over 240Km/h. The cockpit panel needs a bit of aesthetic work but then this is due for an upgrade soon I hear (no one else said anything negative about it though so maybe it is just me). A great performance hybrid with a ton of standard features (Bluetooth, 7” touch screen etc). Basically a wolf in sheep’s clothing. RX 450h (Hybrid): My favourite car of the day, I have driven the equivalent Audi, Merc and BMW, and I promise you non of them are as good as this. The acceleration is great (0-100 km/h in 7.8 seconds), it truly corners like a car (the handling was epic), If you’re a bit of a geek the cockpit is like the inside of the enterprise (great looking, not complicated), best of all it has similar fuel consumption to a 1.6 litre hatchback. Have a look at the pictures to get an idea of the day at large. Huge thanks to Lexus Helderberg and Aiden, if you’re keen to try Lexus out give them a call on 021 841 8500, trust me you won’t be disappointed. P.S. If you would like to be considered for the Lexus A-List day drop me a mail at chris@huddlemind.com and will see what I can do or follow them on twitter at @LexusAList     

      Recently the kind chaps at Shelf Life invited me to the Cape Town Launch of a new Nike Sportswear range made for the 2010 World Cup by local popular designer Kris Hewitt Aka Kronk. Nike chose 6 countries and 6 designers to design an exclusive limited edition range entitled “Bleed your Colours”. The countries chosen were USA, Holland, Brazil, France, South Africa, and the UK. This is the first ever Nike Sportsware collaboration with a South African artist and personally I found Kronks range to be the best, I even bought one of the shirts myself. If you like the look of the Nike Kronk range you can buy it for a limited time at Shelf Life, the range starts at R499 and goes up to R899 depending on your choice of attire. The party was fantastic; free drinks, street fashion, Kronk signings,  and some fab intriguing company (including a talented American photographer named Jared) Shelf Life is an incredible store based in the heart of Cape Town that sells exclusive limited ranges of street wear clothing and sneakers from the worlds top brands, they have been featured in Elle and Vogue magazine, and many other international publications. Shelf Life also happens to be a great graffiti supply store if that’s more your thing. If you’re in the Mother City click here for directions and have a look around. Check out the brilliant video below made for the launch of the range featuring Kronk himself (check him at 35 sec in)

  My good friend and fellow gentleman Seth Rotherham over at 2oceansvibe.com is giving away a fantastic prize that has to be  won by this coming Monday ( 3rd May ! ). The prize is from Sony Ericsson South Africa and consists of 2 world cup tickets to the Brazil vs Portugal match, including Flights and accommodation ! All you need to do to enter is send in a picture of “Football Madness” in South Africa, this could be you or your friends dressed up, crazy football merchandise, pictures of the stadium, kids playing football etc etc. To enter just head over to 2oceansvibe.com (click here) and send in your entries to editor@2oceansvibe.com with the subject “Sony Ericsson 2oceansvibe Football Mayhem.” Keep up to date with Sony Ericsson on Twitter here, and Facebook here. (If you haven’t already be sure to check out their new stunning Google android phone, the X10 here) T’s and C’s: Open to SA peeps only.  The winner will be required to leave his place of work/home on the 24th of June till the 27th of June. Winners will be announced on Monday 3rd May (this coming Monday!).

Last week my good friends Vincent Maher and Nic Haralambous,invited me to a sneak peak at a new mobile game developed by Vodacom called Legends of Echo. Vince and Nic just happen to look after Vodacom’s Social Media, and together re-launched the Grid (a mobile location based social network) last year with great success. Legends of Echo is the first mobile phone location based online social game to be made in South Africa. Basically you play the game in a parallel virtual universe based on the South African map. Instead of cities and skyscrapers, however, players will find rolling green fields and rocky outcrops to explore and establish their base. From there players choose a tribe (Fire, Water, Earth, Air, or Industry) and can battle each other to gain “Legend points”. Players can trade and purchase weapons, armour and other items, as well as chatting to players live whilst in the game. Players locations in real life are duplicated in the game using Vodacom’s location based services. Live score boards of all players “Legend” points are kept, the aim being to top the score board. Prizes and bonus items etc will be given out periodically to top players. At present the game is only available to handsets that play Java games, i.e most Sony Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung phones. No smart phones like iPhone, or Google Android handsets are supported for now, However a Blackberry version is in the works so expect other mobile devises to be covered in the near future when the game takes off. To download Legends of Echo for free just visit http://legendsofecho.com ( The Game will work with any network provider, your normal data charges apply). To read the full press release just click here To read the game facts sheet click here.   

For the last few weeks TomTom have kindly let me try out one of their new GPS devices called the Go750. Normally I carry around a Garmin, so it was interesting to see the differences between the two major brands.

There are a several things I really like about the Go750 that I will miss when I have to give it back.

• The first and main advantage is that it takes about 5-10 seconds to lock onto a GPS signal.
• I have no idea how, but the TomTom started giving me much better short cuts to my destinations, in one case the time saving on a local route was over 5 minutes compared to the Garmin route I was given.
• Bluetooth integration worked very well. I tried with a Nokia X6 and Sony Ericsson Aino, and X10, each time the phone paired easily and offered to import all my contacts. The speaker is incredible but you sometimes have to speak very close to the microphone for callers to hear you.
• The Go750 has over 140 voice commands available; in addition to navigating to an address you can also avoid a roadblock, zoom in and out of the map, increase the volume, or even call a number if you have your phone paired with it.

Overall the TomTom was very logical to use, the suction dock worked much better than other GPS docks I have tried, and it looked very nice in the Audi R8 V10 I got to take out the other day too. It certainly helped me with the built in speed camera maps, not that I would ever speed in a car that does 0-60mph in 3.9 seconds and then goes up to 197mph !. TomTom have also told me they will shortly be releasing IQ Routes™ in SA, basically this will take the time of day and common traffic areas in to account, so that you can be routed more efficiently at all times.

TomTom by default have to be one of my favorite brands at the moment, recently the wonderful Avish from TomTom South Africa (See picture to the right) very kindly gave me two VIP tickets to the Taste of Cape Town event. What followed was a night of excessive fine food and wine consumption, I especially loved the VIP tent, complete with free bar all night and a great mix of people.

Thank you TomTom, I love you