Blog upgrade went wrong – this blog is now officially half-assed. New one can be found here.

… and grabbing our money today. Unfunny jokes aside, this new marketing campaign from Intel, “Sponsors of Tomorrow”, just kicked off this week, and I am already absolutely in love with the whole campaign! Check out the following ad, it’s soooo well-done.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqLPHrCQr2I

“For more than 40 years Intel has been delivering tomorrow’s ‘normal,’ and our new marketing campaign is a way for the world to be made aware of this fact,” said Deborah Conrad, Intel vice president and general manager, Corporate Marketing Group. “We’re hoping to convey that we’re not just a microprocessor company, but a move-society-forward-by-quantum-leaps company.

“Our image, our brand are far too powerful to just be a microprocessor when, in fact, the greatest strength of the Intel brand will always be what is still to come. What Intel develops today leads the path toward a better tomorrow.”

The multi-million-dollar marketing campaign is the largest for Intel since “Multiply,” the September 2006 campaign that supported the then-new Intel Core 2 Duo. “Sponsors of Tomorrow” is expected to have a lifespan of 3 to 5 years, and was created by Venables Bell & Partners in San Francisco. It is the first campaign for Intel by the agency since being awarded Intel’s master brand account in January.

“Most of the world knows Intel as a huge, multi-national chipmaker, but the company is much more than that,” said Paul Venables, the agency’s founder and co-creative director. “The more we learned about Intel, the more we realized how narrow our perception had been. This company is forging the future in so many unfathomable ways, and what a shame it is that the general consumer has no idea.”

Follow the discussion thread here (ignore the blatant trolls).

Been monitoring with extreme interest the debacle surrounding AWARE’s power-grab by supposed Christian conservatives (I refuse to use the word fundamentalists, it’s just too strong).

Most discussion revolves around the as-yet-unknown agenda of the new AWARE exco, (in particular their stance towards GLBTQ issues), along with the way they muscled themselves in.

This mini-putsch has highlighted the severe danger faced by key organizations being similarly grabbed by right-winged Christians. Today it might be AWARE, tomorrow it might be CASE, next month it could very well be SPCA itself.

AWARE is the first battleground, and while some have argued for old AWARE members to give up and go form another group, I am adamant that this must not come to pass. If AWARE falls so easily, it opens up the very real possibility of the hijacking of other groups.

Having worked in 2 Christian companies in my career, I have seen first-hand how it disrupts processes and focus on what should really matter – an organization’s objectives. If AWARE stands up for all women, it should remain a secular organization because not all women are Christians. It should bring a broad range of opinions and perspectives from the leaders who are from all walks of life – not limited to Christian women.

AWARE, because it stands up for all women in Singapore, must not fall into the Christian right-wing camp, exactly because not all women are Christians. And the same goes for any other organizations who champion the causes of groups of people.

And what is particularly infuriating, is the way that Christians who claim to do good, should know better than to just grab power. It’s tactless, and it’s tasteless.

Ms. Josie Lau, the new president for AWARE, will be giving her first TV interview since taking up the president post, 10:30pm tonight 19th April 2009 Talking Point, Channel News Asia.

As Adam Frucci says simply on this Gizmodo article – “Well, this about sums up the internet, doesn’t it? Wow.”

The Internet’s supposed to make us smarter, but looks like dumb is still winning.

Everyone (well geeks on the Net anyway) are fervently discussing about this video.

NOTE : Have you watched the video yet? Please do so, because the rest of this post contains spoilers.

—- SPOILER ALERT —

Did you get it yet? Pretty much everyone is saying that there is no mirror, it is actually a window to another similar room, and the chick has a twin.

Then they (the discussers) go on and say it’s a pretty lame trick, yadah yadah, another Sammy viral ad that FAIL (the zeitgeist word of our time)…

… but to me, the bluddy ad was a success! It got everyone peeking at details in the HD video to make out how was it done, and that was the whole point of the ad (shot with the Samsung I8910). It was not about some lame magic trick, it was not supposed to be impossible to discover how it was done.

The trick of the ad was to get people investigating in HD, and I bet my last pants Samsung’s going to come out and say ‘GOTCHA! It’s because our phones shoot in HD that is why you folks can pinpoint so many evidence to support your theory.’

So… pretty cool from a advertising standpoint, though viral or not, yet to be seen. Good going, Sammy.