Robert Gourley

Meet The Ungiftables

Robert Gourley — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:52:10 +0000

Every holiday season they come out in full force to disrupt the gift buying process. They are the gift givers’ most formidable recipients. Legends of frustration Inventors of the re-gift. Return policy extraordinaires. And when their powers combine gift lists everywhere tremble in fear. They are the Ungiftables.

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Post from: Robert Gourley

Meet The Ungiftables

Meet the Ungiftables

Robert Gourley — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:47:22 +0000

The Ungiftables. We all have them. Those people in your life who are seemingly impossible to shop for.

At Mojave, we played off this universal truth to create a series of fun, interactive characters for CafePress. From the Emo Nephew (played by Jake Bern) to the Critical Mother-in-Law (Kelly Hazen), the site lets you interact with video and sort through CafePress’s 150 million gift ideas to find a perfect gift. Mojave wrote, cast, shot and built the entire flash application.

Check it out, you might just find the pefect gift for your own ‘ungiftable’.

The Ungiftables

Title: The Ungiftables
Client: CafePress
Agency: Mojave Interactive
Creative Director: Robert Gourley
Art Director: Andrew Betlyon
Copywriters: Jeremy De Forge, Daniel Mandel, Robert Gourley
Agency Producers: Joseph Braswell, Steven Barry
Field Producer: Naomi Kasa
Lead Editor: David Holechek
Camera Operator: Manuel Quintanilla
Flash Development: Larry Legue
Performers: Jake Bern (emo nephew), Cindy Clark (nosy neighbor), David Powledge (conspiracy uncle), Annie Mackay (vege-liberal activist), Joe Sanfelippo, Natalie Avital (annoying cutesy couple), Kelley Hazen (critical mother-in-law)

Post from: Robert Gourley

Meet the Ungiftables

Interviewed for Advertising site

Robert Gourley — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:54:23 +0000

A typical day for creative director Robert Gourley is filled with client meetings, consumer research, presentations, art directing — you name it. Here, typical almost sounds overwhelming, hectic. But not to this online advertising savant. No, to Gourley typical means a challenge. Typical means excitement. Typical means life at Gourley’s own ad agency, Mojave Interactive.

Online “Green Teens” Show for Whole Foods Market

Robert Gourley — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:01:19 +0000

Post from: Robert Gourley

Online "Green Teens" Show for Whole Foods Market

Cannon XH A1

Robert Gourley — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 02:38:06 +0000

I’ve been pricing “prosumer” HD camcorders and I think I’ve settled on the Cannon XH A1. I looked at the Sony, but with the 20x Fluorite lens and the ability to shoot in 24p, I think the XH A1 is a better buy. Of course, I’ll buy it for Mojave, but since we already have a Sony HD field camera for client work, I’ll use the Cannon for viral videos and podcast production.

From Cannon:

“ The excellence of the XH A1 begins with its Genuine Canon 20x HD zoom lens with Professional L Series Fluorite. Super-Range Optical Image Stabilization corrects for a wide range of camera movement and vibration, and Instant AF (Auto Focus) ensures ultra-quick, accurate focus. The DIGIC DV II HD image processor then ensures improved color reproduction and noise reduction - for a final result that is the zenith of image quality.”

XH A1 Website

Post from: Robert Gourley

Cannon XH A1

Why walk when you can fly? The problem with Second Life marketing

Robert Gourley — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:12:21 +0000

Second Life, The once-touted promised land of interactive marketing has taken a beating as marketers wonder if their investment there makes sense. Recent studies have shown poor recall, low impressions and general apathy towards marketing in Second Life.

The problem lies not with Second Life, but in the real-world marketing approach to a world without rules. People in Second Life want to escape the boundaries of life, not duplicate them. Brands that ape real-world strategies like billboards and showrooms filled with 3d products all suffer from lack of interest and tepid response to their marketing efforts.

A better way to engage users in Second Life is to empower them to play. Instead of rendering your product as in its in real life, play off the fantastic, fun elements that will entertain and engage the user. Work from your brand promise, not just the attributes of your product. What ONE idea do you want the customer walking away with after interacting with your brand online? That’s where you Second Life marketing should start, not showcasing the color your widgets come in.

An easy example of this would be for Red Bull. Instead of distributing cans of product (yawn) in Second Life, allow users to sprout large wings to fly around and share with friends. Instead of Nike recreating a specific running shoe, they could give out rocket shoes in that re-enforce a promise (speed). Sunkist Soda could run a big-wave surf contest with live bands playing and beach bonfires to capture the spirit of summer, 24 hours a day.

I might not be interested in driving a virtual Austin Martin, but I might want to try living a James Bond lifestyle online, complete with expensive suits, moonbases and sharks with lasers. This is where marketers need to stretch their creative wings, forget gravity and the leave real world behind.

Sell the virtual sizzle, not the virtual steak.

Post from: Robert Gourley

Why walk when you can fly? The problem with Second Life marketing

Technorati Tags: Second Life, interactive marketing, marketing, 3d, brand promise, brand online, Second Life marketing

Cloverfield end credits: Glitch Art design

Robert Gourley — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:58:39 +0000

Over the weekend, I went and saw the new American monster movie, Cloverfield. I won’t review it here, there are already plenty of reviews out there for you to check out.

From a design perspective, I found the end credits interesting as they were inspired by a design technique called “glitch art”. Glitch art explores unplanned errors created by computer or electronic devices that are captured and manipulated by the artist. I started experimenting with glitch art several years ago when I was working on a temperamental mac. I found some of the frozen screens to be absolutely fascinating - layers of geometric shapes and lines overlapping my current desktop and work.

I can’t find any examples from the Cloverfield credits, but here are a few links to examples of Glitch art:

Post from: Robert Gourley

Cloverfield end credits: Glitch Art design

Technorati Tags: Cloverfield, Glitch art, art

Hasbro vs Scrabulous

Robert Gourley — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:27:44 +0000

How to damage your brand with one easy lawsuit

Hasbro and Mattel, the makers of Scrabble, have slapped Facebook with a copyright infringement lawsuit over the wildly popular “Scrabulous”. Scrabulous is an multi-player, online clone to the 70-year old Scrabble word game.

Hasbro has gone after Facebook and the creators of Scrabulous in a misguided attempt to “control the brand”.

In my opinion, this is because Hasbro doesn’t understand the true seismic shift that has happened as a result of interactive media. You no longer “control” your brand via one-way, authoritative communication. Your customers now discuss, remix and share your brand with each other in today’s interactive marketplace. You can try to sue them all (like the failed record industry) or you can embrace this new reality and create a strategic platform that allows customers to share within a framework of your choosing.

Hasbro’s outdated thinking will only backfire as it faces waves of angry customers, bad press, and a shift in brand perception.

Scrabulous already has more than 500,000 daily players - that’s 500,000 people who now think Hasbro is a bully. An unofficial “Save Scrabulous” group has sprung up in response, with at last count over ~~8,000~~ ~~31,000~~ 53,594 members. One rabid fan posted “I’ve burnt my Scrabble board in protest!” another, more pointedly: “Do these greedy fools not realize that they should be paying the creators of Scrabulous for all the damn fans of the game they created?” Is this the kind of conversation you want about your brand?

Of course, Hasbro deserves it full share for creating Scrabble, but instead of suing the developers that created the new media clone, it should thank them for innovating when the company couldn’t. By striking a deal or buying out the creators of Scrabulous, Hasbro could ride a wave of online popularity and reach new customers without risk. Hasbro could then use the online version to market the offline game or add premium features that would allow them to charge micro-payments (How about $1.99 a month for customized tiles, or personalized leaderboards). The platform is there, the customers are there, so why not plug in, instead of shutting it all down?

My Advice to Hasbro:

1. Negotiate a fair deal with the developers of Scrabulous, understanding that they took a risk when you wouldn’t.

2. Honestly explain Hasbro position via the “Save Scrabulous” group and other online communities, not through a press release or legal brief.

3. Develop guidelines of how your brand should be presented online, with enough flexibility to allow innovation and growth.

4. Create the internal structure for innovators to contact you and work with your products to develop new ideas.

5. Datamine your online version to find your most loyal players. Treat them as heroes and empower them to spread the word for you. Offer them insider information and special offers that they can disseminate to their network.

“Business-as-usual doesn’t realize this because it continues to conceptualize markets as distant abstractions — battlefields, targets, demographics — and the Net as simply another conduit down which companies can broadcast messages. But the Net isn’t a conduit, a pipeline, or another television channel. The Net invites your customers in to talk, to laugh with each other, and to learn from each other. Connected, they reclaim their voice in the market, but this time with more reach and wider influence than ever.”
- The Clutetrain Manifesto

Photo: Ella’s Dad from Flickr

Post from: Robert Gourley

Hasbro vs Scrabulous

Design Police: Visual Enforcement Kit

Robert Gourley — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 18:05:05 +0000

As designers, we tend to look at everything with a critical eye. How many times have you seen a poster with terrible typography or bad stock photography? Now you can do something about it with the visual enforcement kit from Design Police. They offer 5 templates of stickers to address almost any design flaw from “Comic Sans is Illegal” to “Hire a Copywriter” to “Use a Grid”.

Get the templates at Design Police

Post from: Robert Gourley

Design Police: Visual Enforcement Kit

Papervision 3D Resource List

Robert Gourley — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 01:16:00 +0000

Papervision3d is an open-source 3d engine that is fully scriptable in flash. We’ve been working with it at Mojave and I’ve pulled together a list of resources below.

Papervision3D Code:
Latest Release

Papervision3D documentation:
Getting Started Guide
Papervision3d Documentation
Papervision3D Public Alpha 2.0 by Paul Tondeur

Papervision3D Tutorials
Papervision3D tutorial from the ground up
Paper Visions Come to Life in 3D Flash
PaperVision3D Hands On
Simple Papervision3D Tutorial
Lee’s Papervision3D tutorial
Papervision3D Materials Tutorial
Flex Your AS
Papervision 3D Tutorials with Videos