ICM - Leeds Design Agency

It has become popular over the past few years for the red-tops to serialise and brand an ongoing news article. This current trend of branding a news story that appears in the paper seven days a week, such as the perpetual antics of Amy Winehouse, Shannon Matthews, X-Factor rejects and ailing D-list celebrities now seems to have made it’s way over to television news.

Not just any old television news, the BBC news. Their ‘Downturn’ brand is now plastered behind every newsreader waiting for the day they can officially call it a recession.

I feel the Beeb have lost a bit of direction with this one, taking cues from the tabloids, and concentrating on drama rather than information.

My gran used to say there’s never any good news on the news, unless it’s one of those and finally… pieces. She was right in a way. The way the media is concentrating on the downturn/credit crunch/recession, call-it-what-you-will bad news, isn’t really delivering quality news.

Ironically, we can all sleep easy with the knowledge that the BBC clearly didn’t spend much money on the ‘Downturn’ branding exercise.

Please BBC, sobriety rather than sensationali…

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Last week was Leeds Digital Week and I had the opportunity to meet and see speak to Stuart Bruce of Wolfstar, as well as attend his excellent seminar. Wolfstar are a unique PR company, in that they have a fantastic understanding of the web and how people interact with it.

What particularly impressed me was how they used bloggers and how they played to the strength of bloggers. A fantastic example of how they had done this was in the new Sony Ericsson Xperia. Traditionally Sony Ericsson phones have been at the bottom of the mobile pile and this is their first venture into the top end phones. Wolfstar created a forum/blog called inxperia, which would allow people to discuss the new phone and actively encourage comments. They also contacted some key technology bloggers and began to change the old perception of their client.

Following the build up to the launch they built a site www.bethefirstx1.com.

This is pure genius and so simple. The seminar was fascinating and really made me think about how brands can utilise the natural conversation that is happening online.

Check out this picture of the phone as well, very beautiful.

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The videogame medium is, depending on when you start counting, roughly 46 years old this year. Still relatively young compared to other forms of media, but it’s now old enough to start preserving the industry’s rich and sometimes turbulent history.

Launched earlier this month, the UK’s first official National Videogame Archive will house a wealth of consoles and cartridges ranging from the simple beginnings of 1972’s Pong, to the blockbusters of the 21st Century.

The archive has been formed by academics at Nottingham Trent University, in cooperation with the National Media Museum in Bradford. The archive will be located at the National Media Museum, and managed by Nottingham Trent University’s Centre for Contemporary Play.

Along with games and consoles, the archive will also include an array of game-related media, advertising campaigns and artwork.

The Archive’s official launch will take place tomorrow to coincide with Nottingham’s Game City festival.

So what games would you like to see preserved for all-time?

For me (yes, it’s another indication of my age) it would have to be some of the early Spectrum games, Commodore 64 games and, my all-time favorite, Marathon – a Mac-based first person shooter with a great storyli…

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