Last Call is the first interactive horror movie which allows the audience to communicate with the on-screen victim and become responsible for the impending horror/happy ending on screen. To participate, audience members submit their mobile phone numbers when they buy a ticket. When a scene appears where the protagonist takes out their phone, the film’s controlling software contacts one of the audience to personally guide the victim to safety – should they choose. Every choice the viewer makes shapes the film’s fate, leading to a different film and outcome every time. While a film controlled by the audience blurs boundaries between game and film, surely it extinguishes the potential for horror by eliminating the fear of the hidden and the uncontrollable?

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As men’s role in society becomes more ambiguous and uncertain, the concept of ‘brotherhood’ is resonating as a source of familiarity, support and guidance. Film has been preoccupied with such a question for decades, offering various sentimental, anthropological studies examining the meaning of brotherhood, from Some like It Hot to Grumpy Old Men. More recently, buddy films have been rebranded as ‘bromances’. Todd Phillips’ The Hangover documents the angst and indecency lurking beneath the surface of adulthood decorum and the importance and even beauty, of male bonding. Looking back at the 90’s evolution of the Loaded Lad, to the Beckham-idolising metrosexual depicted by GQ, we seem to have gone full circle to a stage where men need the rituals of being men and hanging out with their mates more than ever. Our hunch is that The Hangover’s portrait of man will be remembered for capturing the zeitgeist of Noughties Man.


Thanks to Matt Hardisty and http://iheartgum.blogspot.com/#mce_temp_url# for this story.


References
Time

Alcohol, for all its benefits, has many drawbacks. Now, Korean researchers have found a way of tweaking alcohol to limit the fallout without cutting its potency. Doctors Kwang-il Kwon and Hye Gwang Jeong of Chungnam National University, studied the properties of oxygenated alcohol – booze with oxygen bubbles added – a popular concoction in Korea. In these drinks, oxygen is added the way carbonation is added to soda, and scientists have found that it sped up how fast drinkers got sober and cut back hangover time.

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Women will happily ask random women on the street where they got that lovely top from. This is seen as far too gay or awkward for the average bloke, so could Nerdboyfriend be the Sartorialist-style solution to where did you get your cardigan from, mate? A picture of an iconic male look is posted everyday on the site, which could range from Neil Young offering his take on the denim shirt over a polo neck look, to a pervy, mac-wearing Eric Idle. This is helpfully accompanied by real-life products you click through to buy to ‘get the look’.


Thanks to Paula Bjork and Matt Hardisty for this story.

Walt Whitman once said of masculinity: “I am large, I contain multitudes.” Advertising and pop culture has mostly been guilty of stereotyping men, but right now, we’re seeing something genuinely quite new and interesting which attempts to portray the ‘real man’. The Old Spice ad has caught everyone’s attention, shifting from macho man to centaur man. Then there’s the new male Dove campaign, which is a very planner-y rollicking ride through modern manhood. According to Unilever, 3/4 of men find it difficult to identify with the men they see in advertising and feel stereotyped and misrepresented. In turn, Dove attempt to tell men they don’t have to be 16 and desperate for sex, a buffed model or a sporting titan to want to smell better. Instead, they can just be themselves. It’s a nice sentiment and conversation-starter. At the heart of these ads is a mockery of macho masculinity used to sell anything feminine. The gag about the subservient man whose life is controlled by a woman is tackled in Dodge’s recent Man’s Last Stand campaign. We are introduced to emasculated men with defeated faces and patronised taglines like, ‘I carry your lip balm’ (sorry paddy!), which are then used to justify the purchase of a Dodge Charger as an act of male rebellion. Of course, when you take on gender you get a reaction and Dodge certainly has with the official female response: ‘Woman’s Last Stand’.


Thanks to Gavin Cumine and sarah rabia for this story.


References
The Independent
The Globe and Mail
Chatting to Ed Warren and Matt Hardisty

“We launched Manzine because I and the guys who make it, got the feeling that men’s magazines, infact, most media and marketing that attempts to communicate with us, are based on audience archetypes that haven’t been revised for ages,” says editor Kevin Braddock. “Most are either puerile or patronising: we aren’t ‘lads’ or ‘metrosexuals’, nor do we aspire to be James Bond (and I can say for certain that none of us have the kind of abs you’ll see on the cover of Men’s Health anytime soon).” The point of Manzine is men talking about life as it actually is, rather than how it’s supposed to be: Simon Mills writing about his air dog, Mark Hooper raving about trees and gravy boats, Alex Bilmes and his psychogeographic shopping trip to Westfield have been big successes so far – plus photos blokes have taken, poems they wrote, drawings they’ve done and other ephemera from the somewhat furtive, Seinfeldian side of the modern male experience. “Men are eccentric and complex today, and often life doesn’t have any grand meaning, narrative or outcome. Manzine reflects and celebrates that.”


Thanks to Kevin Braddock for this story. Kevin is the editor of MANZINE and a Contributing Editor for GQ.

NASA has released its first iPhone game in which you can drive a Lunar Electric Rover through space. Whilst steering your fictional vehicle over the sea of tranquility, you’ll be able to see images from proposed lunar outposts and learn more about what life on the moon might be like. NASA has obviously, been quite up to speed with new media, such as when @Astro_Mike tweeted from space. In a time where Americans are losing their enthusiasm for the space race, this was a very strategic move. However, with this new initiative, it was apparently simply a case of wanting to make “a cool game”, according to NASA’s Chris Giersch. The game is free and available through the iTunes store from Monday.


Thanks to Rob Hughes for this story. Don’t talk to Rob about feminism.


References:
Wired


Image Credit

On Wednesday night, Mother gathered a group of interesting experts from the worlds of sport, teens, and culture, together with an intimate audience, to discuss the issue of how to create a teen legacy from the 2012 Olympics for our client Coca-Cola (the main Olymic sponsor). Chantelle Fiddy, editor of CTRL.ALT.SHIFT, set the tone for the evening, astutely stating that teens feel more like “observers, than participants” in the Games. Mat Locke of C4, said lots of clever things too, including something worth sticking in your next Keynote on ‘participation’. If you want to create participation, he says, you should never see your audience as less than 2 people. It is not about the brand and the consumer, but rather about the consumer and their friends. Teens are driven by self-interest, immediacy, and doing stuff with their mates, as we all know. The conclusion of the evening is that brands don’t need to invent participation, but simply bring their marketing muscle to stuff already out there that needs a leg up. The highlight, however, was definitely the hilariously misjudged monologue from a particular audience member : )


Thanks to sarah and Gavin Cumine for this story.

Instead of the usual big-bucks 30” Superbowl spot this year, Pepsi have decided to give $1.3m to good causes. The recent Refresh Everything campaign allowed consumers to vote on who should get what, with the results to be announced on March 1st. Pepsi follows the example of TripAdvisor, who in 2008, had more than a million people vote on how they should give away $1m in their More Than Footprints campaign.


This is a major move for a brand like Pepsi and very different from the usual big budget Britney ad and could be a sign of a shift in society’s attitudes towards advertising. The think-tank Compass published a report this week called The Advertising Effect, which argues that advertising fuels our voracious consumerism, which doesn’t really make us happy. It’s the old AdBuster’s thought, but it’s gaining academic weight: the report pulls together Dr. David Myer’s studies on happiness, as well as work by Prof. Richard Layard and of course Oliver James. There’s also interesting input from organizations such as The Children’s Society.


A factor leading to rising mental health problems is the increased degree to which children and young people are preoccupied with possessions; the latest in fashionable clothes and electronic equipment etc. Evidence both from the United States and the UK suggests that those most influenced by commercial pressures also show higher rates of mental health problems.


Against this background, Pepsi’s decision to ditch their usual Superbowl as looks a progressive move – but will the new approach delivers sales. Such a move challenges all of us to find positive ways to drive sales for our clients. Interesting that all this coincides with some very encouraging comments by PepsiCo’s Chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi talking to the FT about the company’s “license from society”:

‘We’re constantly watching the changing societal trends and looking at the interplay between corporations and societies… [In] Davos, both this year and last, everybody is talking about the new rules of capitalism, [which] are, don’t just think about the company within the four walls of the company, think about your obligations to society.’

The Compass report starts from a marketing-is-evil presumption. They want to ban lots of advertising. That’s just a lack of imagination. The answer isn’t no advertising, but good advertising. The real challenge is to find positive ways to engage consumers, which enhances their lives and builds business for clients.


Thanks to Jon Miller for this story. Jon is visiting a job centre next week.

New York street artists Faile and Bast have a new hyperactive exhibition at London’s Lazarides gallery: Deluxx Fluxx Arcade. The space will be transformed into an interactive arcade game installation, with the games themselves bespoke to the show and covered in the artists’ signature pop-comic-advertising style of murals, collage, and urban interventions. The attention to detail the artists have paid to the exhibit is revealed in the arcade game tokens, which are specially minted for the occasion with Bast rocking a Darth Vader mask whilst carrying a baby on one side of the coin marked Lon 2010 and Faile’s side marked ‘86.


Watch a video from the show here.


Thanks to Gavin Cumine for this story.


References:
Arrested Motion
PSFK