Mobile

You work at an agency, and for some reason you have the word ‘executive’ in your title. This causes you alarm because you’re only 23, but let’s not get mired in details. You need to impress the boss, a goal that is only hampered by the fact that you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing (don’t worry, neither does anyone else), and that every time you talk someone threatens to fire you. You better get some tools, fast. Luckily, you have a smartphone. Here’s the quintessential app list for you, Mr./Ms./Mrs./pansexual advertising account executive.

1. CNBC Real Time

As an advertising person, you make decisions (haha, no you don’t) based on real time info. Strategy, research, data; these are more than just words you remember from high school and sometimes hear in meetings, they’re actual things people create/do/collect as part of their jobs. But not you, because you’ve got CNBC Real Time.

Fire up this app when you need to impress that client with your counting skills (standing record for an account exec: 147) or when the boss lady walks by. Read the words you find in this app, and literally repeat them verbatim during meetings for an extra dose of savvitude. Whip out CNBC-RT in the elevator when you want to make that girl from strategy think twice about letting you have her digits, because nothing says “Do Me” like quarterly earnings reports and IPO valuations, am I right? I’m right.
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Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

With the season of self-congratulation gearing up, it’s time to start rehearsing that awards acceptance speech. But, as you practice bursting into tears while holding your CLIO triumphantly above your head and thanking your intern for doubling as a designated driver, it’s only natural to wish that your moment in the spotlight lasted a little longer. Hey, the Emmys, Oscars and Golden Globes all get televised, and every MTV awards show gets repeated at least 50 times after its initial airing. Don’t you wish you could let everyone (who wasn’t in attendance) know that you won something? Better yet, would you like a portable validation of your braggadocio?

Luckily, we now have Awards Candy, the “essential creative resource app for anyone in the ad industry.” Claiming to be the “world’s first app designed for the ad industry” in the above iMovie-produced intro video, Awards Candy not only compiles lists of award-winners. It also displays the award-winning spots on your iPad or iPhone, convenient for boasting about your accolades wherever a 3G connection exists.

Of note is Award Candy’s creator, Wallace Seggie, and his arduous journey in bringing the app to life. As he says in his email to us, “I invested (when I say invested, I mean flushed down the toilet) the little money that I had into the idea. Three months later the developer sent me the final version of the app and my heart sank… It wasn’t what I had envisioned. With no one to turn to, no money and my second child on the way, I knew that if the idea was ever going to be realised, I would have to do it on my own. I taught myself how to design, build and publish apps. Error after error I pushed on.” Should you feel compelled to reward Seggie for his hard work, you can purchase Awards Candy for £1.99 ($2.59 USD) from the App Store.

If you work in advertising, you know the drill: A brief chat between a creative and an account person begins. Then, a second creative shows up with an opinion and some insight on the topic at hand. The account person, overwhelmed, decides that the discussion calls for a meeting.

Suddenly, meeting invitations go out to copywriters, art directors, ACDs, CDs, GCDs, account execs, account coordinators, account managers and assorted interns. The issue at hand is resolved. But, someone feels compelled to belabor a minute detail. By the time the meeting runs over an hour late, 30 people have had a large part of their days wasted. Just think, you could have been doing actual work instead of playing around on your iPhone for three hours! Do you need to convince your agency to stop wasting its time? Well, LBi that’s why created COMA, the “Cost of Meeting App” for mobile devices.

Now, you can be the agency’s MVP in three simple steps:

Step 1: Start the app.
Step 2: Casually point out how much money has been wasted already.
Step 3: Meeting adjourned.

Way to go, hero!

It’s been in beta for a couple of months now, but today marks the official launch of “Crash Corsage,” an app that lets you, yep, play wedding crasher. How it works: The app, which is the brainchild of former Tribal DDB NY/current R/GA ACD Eric Schlakman, collects data from open directories of wedding website providers, then creates a filtered lists of nearby festivities and includes specific information (attire, etc.) for each.  The fun part, we suppose, is that Schlakman and crew encourage users to battle fellow crashers, create galleries of their exploits and more.

We’re not sure who exactly would be that into bringing a fairly amusing Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson vehicle to life (and when have we described any of these guys’ recent movies like that?), but if that person is you, feel free to sign up for “Crash Corsage” here. Full credits below:

 

A few months back, we briefly mentioned a call for entries for the Original iPhone Film Festival, which featured a panel of judges ranging from Maroon 5 and director Lasse Hallstrom to ad folks such as Chuck McBride, Court Crandall and Regina Ebel. As you can deduce from the title of the inaugural competition, the OIFF was launched by obvious Steve Jobs fans Matt Dessner and Corey Rogers to show how the iPhone 4 can serve as a powerful filmmaking tool.

Anyhow, the 12 winners in categories including Music Video and Brand Film have been announced and below, you can see two examples of how the “mini-film studio” that is the iPhone 4 was put to good use. With the dozen top entries in tow, the guys behind OIFF are now asking you to pick a Grand Prize winner by liking you favorite film from the winners showcase here. The Grand Prize-winning effort will be announced at the MacWorld/iWorld Expo in San Francisco on Jan. 26.

2011: The year that “Instagrapher” became an actual job title at General Electric. I wonder what Jack Donaghy would think of this hip, social media-motivated development at the ol’ “General.”

From SF-based digital creative agency Mekanism comes the above video for GE’s “Be the Next Instagrapher” contest. It might seem a little odd at first for an old-timey brand like GE to create a contest based around hipsters’ favorite mobile photography app, but if you’ve ever seen GE’s Tumblr page, you already know that the General has been using Instagram and the social network to add a youthful, vibrant spin to its 120-year-old brand. After all, at 120, you’re not old, you’re “vintage.” And, don’t forget that GE was co-founded by the Steve Jobs of the late 19th century, Thomas Edison. (“Light bulbs were the original iPhones, bro.”)

Anywho, the best photographer Instagrapher gets a ticket to the UK to photograph a “world-class jet engine facility.” Interested parties can submit photos based off of GE’s designated themes on Twitter using the hashtag #GEinspiredMe or by posting them on GE’s Facebook page. And, though this idea may seem a bit ludicrous to the skeptical eye, realize that GE is actually doing better at engaging with a social media audience than the vast majority of comparable megabrands. Don’t believe me? Just wait and see how many people actually participate in this contest.

No digitally savvy shopaholic’s visit to his or her local mall over the next month is complete without a new holiday-themed mobile app for download. Fortunately for patrons of Westfield Malls, they now have access to the “LOLiday App,” courtesy of the minds at EVB, who are no strangers to holiday projects.

After downloading the app for iPhone, Android or iPad2,  shoppers can then visit the “LOLiday Card Set” at their local participating Westfield Mall. Here, using the magic of mobile technology and augmented reality, shoppers can insert images of themselves into wacky holiday scenes. Why would the nation’s consumers want to insert themselves into a photo that depicts them kissing a buff, shirtless Santa Claus? Well, ladies and gentlemen, they do it for the LOLZ (see also: “lulz”). And, for those avoiding the mall completely or still incapacitated after suffering injuries from a Black Friday Wal-Mart stampede, a completely new silly photo experience awaits on the LOLiday Cards website.

Remember, a new iPad starts at $499 retail, but LOLZ are free. So, this holiday season, give the gift of laughter, and you might even win $10,000 as part of Westfield Mall’s “Laughing All the Way Sweepstakes.” Participating malls and credits follow after the jump.

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With the holiday campaign onslaught now upon us, here’s T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom’s little “Christmas surprise” for fans of pop diva Mariah Carey that took place nearly two weeks ago in Europe. The new mom, or at least a hologram incarnation of her, was able to “perform” an Xmas show in five countries for an audience that couldn’t care less that she wasn’t actually belting out holiday favorites in the flesh.

As an aside, having worked at Barnes & Noble many moons ago, yours truly was required to include Carey’s Christmas album in the musical rotation for nearly six weeks each year. So if you will, please pardon us if we watch this on mute while sympathizing with Paul Rudd‘s Michael McDonald-hating character in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Anyhow, at least this Deutsche Telekom effort beats the hell out of ads we’ve seen from other pop divas as of late.

Ahhh, November. For ad agencies, it’s a time to start planning for SXSWi before every hotel in Austin fills up. It’s also the month where advertising pros suddenly realize, “Whoa. We gotta figure out our agency holiday card before it’s too late.”

For some creative inspiration, look to Starbucks’ and digital agency Blast Radius’ use of augmented reality to make a simple coffee cup come to life. Though AR is one technology-focused marketing practice that still carries a lot of “wow” factor, it can also be one of the least practical ways to interact with customers. For a recent example of where this can be tricky, look to VW’s recent use of AR to promote the new Beetle. Awe-inspiring? Definitely. Enough to make a consumer whip out his or her iPad on a busy city street? Maybe, but would you?

Now, think about someone who gets a Grande Pike Place every morning from Starbucks before work. (I know it tarnishes my hipster-cred, but there’s one close to my office, alright? Haters to the left.)  From the comfort of an office, where a mobile device can be accessed without being stolen, this is something with a payoff greater than the effort needed to download the app. And, the wonderful thing about this app brimming with Christmas cheer is that it’s available for both iOS and Android devices, something that, due to the necessary development time, most brands aren’t willing do with their mobile content. So, cheers to Blast Radius for creating an augmented reality experience that consumers can easily take part in from the comfort of just about anywhere. The app will be available from the App Store and the Android Marketplace on Tuesday.

It’s been just over a year since Narrow Design’s Nick Jones showed us how agency websites are completely unfit for mobile devices. Well, Google is looking to change that with the launch of GoMo, a service that aims to make it easier for businesses to build mobile-friendly sites. To help accomplish its goal, the online giant enlisted the services of Mullen, which handled the site design and user experience work for the GoMo project. If you’re looking for background on GoMo (aka “Go Mobile”), you can check out a Google blog post here.