PHD added to its charitable events repertoire on Friday January 30^th with the company’s first annual PHD Ski Day. The 1980’s ski theme event, held at Georgian Peaks Ski Club in Collingwood, brought out a total of 55 skiers and boarders from PHD and media suppliers for a day of fun on the slopes, raising $2500 for the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies. The conditions were fantastic making the experience all the more enjoyable.

PHD would like thank all of its sponsors – Onestop, AOL, CTV, NewAd, Stockhouse, Fan 590, Canwest, Rouge Media, Adcentricity, Rogers, MLSE, Heavy.com, Transcontinental, Canoe, Facebook, and Clear Channel – we couldn’t have done it without you!  

A special thank-you as well to the Georgian Peaks Ski Club for being terrific hosts for the day and for putting up with our antics during the après-ski!

See all of you next year for the 2^nd Annual PHD Ski Day.

Thanks,

Geoff Glen, Sean Cunningham, and Paul Paterson

This past Friday August 29^th, PHD successfully hosted its first golf tournament – the PHD Golf Invitational – at Maples of Ballantrae Golf Club. What started as a small company gathering developed into a fully sponsored charity event with 44 golfers, raising $4500 for the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies. The response from suppliers was remarkable, especially with the short lead time given to get on board. With the risk of thunderstorms, Mother Nature even cooperated, allowing us to stay dry throughout the day.

PHD would like to thank all of its sponsors– Cineplex, AOL, CTV, NewAd, Yahoo, Canwest, 24/7 Real Media, Globe and Mail, MSN Sympatico, Auto Trader, Fidelity Investments, Rogers, and some of our very own clients Boston Pizza, Home Hardware, and Hershey – this day would not have been possible without your contributions!

Thanks again! See you next year for the 2^nd Annual PHD Golf Invitational – it’s going to be even bigger and better!

Cheers,

Geoff Glen and Sean Cunningham

It’s Cuil (I think pronounced Cool), a new search engine built by some of Google’s former brain-trust and lots of funding.

Its simple, easy to use and follow, seems to have a better grasp for what you are looking for, and is currently completely underutilized.

It will:

Search 121,617,892,992 web pages!

which is 3x as many as Google.  Or, perhaps 3x more irrelevant?

To find out more about them, click here.

For fun, I Cuiled myself, “Brian Wylie PHD” and it froze solid.  Better get those kinks worked out…

Has anyone else wondered, during the lull of the day when you really know you should be doing something more productive but instead you start trawling the Internet for info and checking blogs, that perhaps your time could be spent to better serve others?

Here at phd we have phenomenal initiatives such as phd sustain, and annually we work closely with the United way. But does anyone have any idea of how we can match charity and sustainability to ensure that some of the swag we receive and some of the leftover food we have can be donated to the less fortunate and those who are more in need?

Thoughts anyone?

In the spirit of sharing some stunning creative for one of our clients (and to give myself a kick-start into our blogging world here!), please have a look at this British television ad for Honda/Acura. For those of you who haven’t yet seen it, prepare to be dazzled! The description accompanying this video reads as follows:

If you thought that the people who set up a room full of dominoes to have them knocked over later was amazing, you haven’t seen anything yet. There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in these images. Everything that you see happened in real time exactly as you see it. The recording required 606 takes and in the first 605 takes there always was something, usually of minor importance, that didn’t work.

It was necessary for the recording team to install the set-up time after time and it took several weeks working day and night to achieve this effect. The recording cost 6 million dollars and it took 3 months to finish, including the engineering design of the sequence. The duration of the video is only 2 minutes, but every time that Honda shows the commercial on British television, they make enough money to support any of us for the rest of our lives.

However, this commercial has turned out to be the most displayed in the history of the Internet. Honda execs think that it will pay for itself simply because of the free showings (as Honda is not paying one cent for you to see it). When Honda senior execs viewed it, they immediately approved it without hesitation-including costs.

There are only six Honda Accords built by hand in the whole world, and to the horror of Honda engineers, the recording team disassembled two of them for the recording. Everything you see in the sequence (besides the walls, floor, ramp and untouched Honda Accord) is part of those two automobiles.

The voice is that of Garrison Keiller.

The commercial was so well received by Honda execs when they saw it, that their first comment was how amazing the computer graphics were. They almost fell out of their chairs when told that the recording was real without any graphics manipulation.

By the way, about the wind shield wipers in the new Honda Accords, they are sensitive to water and designed to start working as soon as they get wet.

Enjoy!!

A message to everyone working in a marketing related field - expect to fail.  Why?  Because if you do not fail, you will not learn and will become complacent.  Companies and people need to embrace this notion.

Here is a quick case study on how expecting to fail can lead to success…

In the early ’90s, the BBC was getting killed in the market by the competition, funding was being cut, staff were leaving for bigger and better opportunities, and the near future was very grim.  Enter a new CEO with a pioneering spirit who created a “Gambling Fund”.  No, this did not mean creating a bunch of successful Texas Hold ‘em players, but a fund that would only be given to projects that were destined to fail.  In a time where budgets were short, they recognized that they first had to fail to become a success and focused financial effort to do just this.

Guess what came from it?  Only the biggest hit in BBC history, now a world-wide phenomenon, and one of my favorites:

Catch a clip or two here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/

Creativity week is almost here and we will have another opportunity to rejoice around our mistakes, I’m looking forward to it.

We recently pitched the business of a client who has very strong values when it comes to health and the environment.  We felt we needed to cater as much of the media plan with sustainable media as possible and thus was born “The Living Board”.

Don’t get the wrong idea - the board is really not alive, it is not organic in anyway.  The concept is simply that the material is a recyclable vinyl and then transformed into shopping bags and given out to consumers when the campaign is over.  It is also bio-degradable for the time down the road when the shopping bag is no longer needed.

Great idea Michelle and Jonathan.  No word yet on if we won the assignment, stay tuned.

I just stumbled across this on Trendhunter, which follows the above to a degree - recycled movie posters.  And no, I don’t nor do I ever plan to own one…

These pretty bags will delight many environmentally conscious women and if they happen to be film buffs, they will be doubly delighted. The bags are made of recycled movie billboards. Films such as Mission Impossible, The Bourne Ultimatum, Pride and Prejudice and a whole lot more, are featured on these unlikely canvases.

Outfitted with an inside zippered pouch and an elastic-over-metal closure, the Billboard Bags are one of a kind according to Ecoist. They sell for $48.00 and if you’re curious about which movies are represented in the gallery, here’s the breakdown:

1. Thunderbird
2. Pride and Prejudice
3. Bourne Ultimatum
4. Superbad
5. Mission Impossible

           

How will you be reducing the carbon footprint of your next marketing campaign?

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