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If you haven’t seen this week’s Campaign or today’s brand republic as yet then you won’t have read about our appointment by Adstream.

We’ve been selected to help develop their communication strategy which will be launched through an integrated communication campaign later this year for the Adstream 4.

Thanks to all those that worked on the pitch and helped us win this business – you know who you are.

Yesterday I was one of the judges on the Campaign BIG Awards “Digital” category panel. The panel itself was an interesting mix of agency peeps (Albion, Dare, VCCP, CHI), clients (Coke, Google) and media agencies (Mindshare). Although I can’t talk about the actual work or opinions on specific pieces, I can talk about some of the themes which consumed the judges.

Face recognition
There were quite a few entries that used face recognition technology either within banners or within branded experiences to give surprising, intuitive experiences. We are just scratching the surface and when you imagine a world that can detect not only your face, but your mood, we are headed towards some exciting stuff so long as it is used for good, not evil.

AR mobile apps
Holdy-uppy-printy-outy webcam AR codes are last year’s news. Mobile apps overlaying info and visuals went down well with the judges. This feels like the future, but expect a “seen it before” reaction from judges and the public if you put the technology before the experience when developing branded AR apps. It needs to be genuinely useful or entertaining to make the cut.

Facebook Connected films
We’ve nearly reached saturation point with customised films that import photos from Facebook profiles. Expect punters to be feeling the same fatigue as yesterday’s judges after a plethora of wonderfully executed “OMG I’m in a film with a famous person” pieces. There’s still plenty of life left in Facebook Connect though.

Branded alternate reality games
ARG’s were big news yesterday and some very iconic brands were forging ahead creating games that captured imaginations on a global scale. Some of the games entered were awe inspiring. Some were just down right unusable and a monumental waste of marketing budget.

Online/Offline mash ups
Many entries explored online participation that drove real world activity. There were some hugely ambitious projects offered up. The main challenges for entrants seemed to be A: Can you drive scale and genuine mass participation? B: With the costs associated with this kind of activity, can you build enough buzz in a short period to create something that people remember? A couple of entries did both questions fared well.

iPhone Apps
It’s clear that from a judges perspective the mobile app is here to stay as a media channel. Unlike some of the other technologies we saw, apps remain as fresh and engaging as the execution.

But is it “digital”?
Is a linear piece of film on a page digital? Does something need to be interactive to be defined as “digital”? The room weighed heavily towards thinking that interactivity defined work as being digital. I disagree. Why the freak do we keep saying “digital”? Is it any good? Did I engage with it and remember it? Was the content most suited to being viewed online? These are the questions for me. Work foremost needs to engage people and some linear pieces of content we saw clearly did a better job of engagement than pieces that struggled with complicated, nonsense interaction.

Is it viral?
Should effectiveness stats be provided for a viral piece? There was heated discussion around pieces that were effectively TV ads without a TV spend entered as viral entries. Around one piece we checked the Youtube views and were staggered to see 12 million hits for something that we all considered to be just a quite nice ad that shouldn’t be called “viral”. Should viral entries be judged on views or number of shares? I think not. As awards Chairman Damon Collins eloquently put it “Beavers on trampolines get hits.”

Is it relevant?
The most fundamental question of the day. Many of the entries put relevance down the list behind interaction. If it’s easy to make a 30 sec TVC that defies comprehension, this can be multiplied for digital experiences. Too much of what we judged was trying to be clever clogs instead of making the user feel something for the brand. And by the end of a day spent in a room with no windows, the lesson was clear. People aren’t robots. We don’t just get off on “new”, we get off on being entertained, informed, moved, educated, persuaded. Digital work that does this effortlessly, defies even being labelled as “digital”.

Tickets are now available for Gen Y – Activists & Entrepreneurs and the death of teen rebellion, the next Albion Society breakfast taking place on the 23rd September 2010.

This Albion Society brings together a panel of gen Y gamechangers – a group of very special 16-25 year olds; Eliza Robeiro a young campaigner and Emi Gal an entrepreneur. Both demonstrate that this generation understand how to take on big challenges, that they are opportunists, positive and hopeful for the future.

Robin Klein Venture Partner at Index Ventures and founding partner of The Accelerator Group joins to give his expert advice on Entrepreneurism and how Gen Y are shaping the future. And Sam Ashken, Albion’s Planning Director will wrap up the event by presenting some fundamental research that determines that this generation are already making a big difference. These are the people that will shape ‘The Big Society’ and they are using every possible modern marketing technique to negotiate their ambition.

Places are strictly limited and will run out fast. Reserve yours by entering your details here

So if you don’t know the story, here it is:

26th April. FIBA announced that, unlike the rest of Team GB, the British Basketball team had to win a series of games to earn their spot at the 2012 Olympics. Even though we’re the host nation!

We’ve got the best team in years. So with Sam Neter of Hoopsfix and Sillky Slim, hype-man, Albion are on a mission to fill those games with the biggest, loudest crowds ever. To inspire and give GB the boost they need to qualify for the Olympics.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks with British basketball. Sam and Sillky are running around the country. Meeting people, charming the public and going to games. Whatever they can. And people are starting to get behind the campaign. Including Lenny Henry, Keith Lemon and Jamelia!

Crowds at the game are growing steadily and are getting louder. People are joining the Facebook group. We’ve sold out of T-shirts – but are ordering more. The website backbritishbasketball.com is going strong, There are loads of interviews and videos and more importantly people are buying tickets.

And it’s working.

GB are 5 wins for 5! And it really feels like the fans are the one’s giving them that extra boost to win, what are very close games. The pride, energy and GB love is electric. Especially from Sam and Sillky. We have one final home game left in Liverpool. Thurs 26th August. Not long to go. But GB are playing better than they ever have. They’re the underdog team and they’re showing their worth.

We’ve created a film about the exploits leading up to the first game. And to introduce you to the players – they are top blokes, who clearly love representing the country. For anyone out there with a cinema we’d love for you to screen it.

We’ve started our own noise-makers with the Balldogs. People who receive free tickets to home games in return for creating an atmosphere. Something GB games have always sorely lacked. They even reside in the Dog Pound. And you can clearly hear them during the highlights, led by Sillky on his trusty megaphone.

Channel 4 even interviewed Sam and Sillky and it was broadcast on Sunday. Against the backdrop of a great win by GB against the Ukraine. With Deng pulling out all the stops during the final quarter. You can clearly hear the Dog Pound shouting the “Deng” chant, created during our campaign. And for eagle eyed amongst you, this handsome writer even pops up in the crowd. Skip to 25:48 for the BBB interview and 43:50 for Luol Deng’s clutch performance.

Also, Sam and Albion’s Creative Director Andre Moreira even got a mention in the Wall St Journal. Exciting. In an interesting article about the state of the British game. “British stink at basketball”? Well, we’ll show you. You big American journal of Wall. “Balls St” to that! Ha ha hum.

What we are seeing is that there are very passionate fans out there for British basketball. And people that are simply passionate about our nation and want British sports people to do well. Even President Obama is a fan of Britain’s Deng. Why isn’t our Prime Minister getting behind our team? Or the Olympic committee? Or even the UK press? Basketball could be the next rowing or cycling if we get into the Olympics.

So if you still have time after reading all that. Watch the film or buy some tickets. Or just click “like” on the Facebook page. After all, with our football teams cocking it up over the summer we should at least show some respect for the underdog GB team who are battling their way to an Olympics they should by rights already be in.

Our Team. In our Olympics. By any means necessary.

After the thrills and spills of a highly entertaining production, tomorrow sees the launch of our fantastic new ‘Middleman’ campaign for Betfair.

It’s Betfair’s biggest ever marketing campaign to date (see this article on Brand Republic)  and we’ve been really lucky to work with a cracking international client team in Hammersmith and Malta in our bid to position the brand as ‘The World’s Biggest Betting Community’ (yes, we’ve even got that claim through those lovely people at Clearcast).

The idea’s a simple one: on Betfair, you cut out the middleman which means you bet direct against 3 million other people. And that of course means better odds and much bigger wins (than all those traditional high street bookmakers).

As you’d expect for a brand like Betfair, it’s a fully integrated campaign with a massive online push that kicks off this weekend with the first ever YouTube takeover by a betting brand. A massive coup for all of us involved and a nice little cameo from Andy Gray of Sky Sports, so watch out for that from midnight on Saturday…

We’re also going to be on TV throughout the season’s live sport coverage (football, horse racing, golf, cricket, you name it…) with a couple of hilarious ads showing how middlemen (yes, it’s those traditional bookies again) get in the way of people trying to betting and add no value.

A big well done and a massive thank you to everyone involved at Betfair, all our partners and of course here at Albion (too many to mention in this post, but you know who you are).

Look out for it over the weekend.

Here’s a sneak preview for you: