Real Blog

  • Oculus Rift
    May 16, 2013 | Written by Aaron Tyler

    I remember going to Sega world in Sydney at the age of 7 and playing a much-hyped virtual reality boxing game. And it SUCKED. Clunky graphics, delayed reaction times, and a feeling that I had just ported into the Dire Straits ‘Money for nothing’ music video. Wasn’t impressed.

    Coming forward almost 20 years, I have a feeling the Oculus Rift is going to change things as far as virtual reality is concerned.

    In a nutshell the Oculus rift is a decent crack at a Virtual Reality headset that plays video on a manipulated pixel display.

     

    The Horizontal 110 degree field of view means you don’t see the screen when it’s strapped to your face, resulting in an ‘immersive’ viewing experience. What appears to play inside the headset seems to be dual video screens, which kind of resembles the viewfinder of the ancient Stereograph.

    Palmer Lucky, the creator, set out to create ‘Matrix’ experience, where you could ‘plug-in’ and feel like you’re in the game.  And if he pulls it off, it could change the way films are created and the video games developed. Possibility a set towards  combining the two.

    The people developing the headset have raised $2.4m from their Kickstarter campaign. This crowd sourced money is being used to create a developer kit. You can be pre-order one from the website.

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    16.05 2013
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  • Putting the 'real' in retail.
    Feb 25, 2013 | Written by Alex Fenton

    Anyone who has had to go through the process of buying designer glasses will know that, whilst you might look cool in the mirror,  the invoice doesn’t make for pretty viewing.

    Enter Warby Parker, an eyewear retailer that has an online retail offer with real appeal.

    They even offer to send you five sets of glasses to try out free of charge, and you simply return the ones you don’t want, free.

    There’s a lot more to their approach that is very appealing, I really hope they come to Australia, real soon.

    Check it out here.

    Alex. 

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    25.02 2013
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  • Keeping it Real with Gamification
    Feb 08, 2013 | Written by Alex Little

    In a massive Internet binge on Saturday morning I stumbled across some interesting stuff that's got me pretty excited. It's all about 'gamifying' (ad talk) real world events.

    The first example is a game called Endgame: Syria, and it caught my attention because Apple has just blocked it from entering the app store. Why? Well it allows users to act out the Syrian conflict and make military and political decisions based on what's unfolding in the news. E.g. If Russia sends tanks to support the Syrian Government in reality, then you must respond by seeking support with a neighbouring country like Turkey.


    A shot from Endgame: Syria.

    Which in itself is pretty controversial idea, but to make matters even tenser you play on the side of Rebels – a side marginalised and largely portrayed as the aggressors by major news networks. A risky strategy, but one that has given me a unique understanding of the Rebels rarely told story. 

    My Saturday morning binge continued when I stumbled upon more examples of taking really complex subjects and ‘gamifying’ them for the Average Joe.

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    08.02 2013
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  • Google Chrome 25 to decrease visibility into search
    Jan 23, 2013 | Written by Joey Dorrington

    Google Chrome searches from the URL bar from Chrome 25 onwards will be secure searches via SSL.  Many cynics within the analytics and SEO fields say that this is Google's attempt to get more companies to do Adwords rather than spending money on SEO.  The reason for this is that searches that come through via Adwords still pass on the keyword information into Google Analytics but those that click on organic, SEO links have the keyword information supressed.

    not provided percentageCurrently, the percentage of searches that come in via (not provided) is between 10% and 30% depending on the client, but this change could lift this number to60%.  This will essentially make marketers lose 60% of their visibility into which search terms perform the best.  There are some techniques that we use here at Fenton Stephens to unscramble the egg, but there is still no perfect way to measure this traffic that has the keywords removed via SSL.

     

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    23.01 2013
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  • Attending DMA – Part 1: 5 Key Trends
    Dec 20, 2012 | Written by Josh Collins

    At Fenton Stephens we have a strong interest in the latest trends in the international marketing world. What better place to go and learn about the latest than…Las Vegas. We were sent over to attend the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) conference, and while it was mandatory to enjoy the black jack tables, excessive amounts of beverages and fine cuisine of greasy Buffalo wings, we felt we had a large responsibility to come back and share findings from the conference with the rest of the agency.

    If you’re not at least familiar with what the industry leaders are doing and have no desire to change your approach, then I would suggest you get comfortable at the bottom while your competitors blow you out of the park, if in fact you remain in the game at all. More importantly, as ‘agencies’ for our clients, we have such a responsibility to continually introduce them to emerging trends and innovative ideas. The traditional approach is feeling pressure.

    While we learnt about many new and emerging practices, it was heartening that as an agency a lot of this was at least very familiar, if not already part of our approach.

    This article will be broken into and posted in two separate parts. Firstly we will discuss 5 key trends which seemed to be on everyone’s lips at the conference. The second part will be specifically what we think the Advertising Agency of the future could be.

    5 Big trends / talking points

    1. sCRM 

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    20.12 2012
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