Activism > Training | Effective Living > Life Mobility

20091031sa-volkswagen-the-fun-theory-initiativeSummaryThe Fun Theory, at TheFunTheory.org, is an initiative of Volkswagen that demonstrates how the enjoyability factor is an essential element in designing products that will inspire and motivate people to use them.

InnovationVolkswagen is to the automobile industry what Apple is to the world of computers and gadgets. Volkswagen vehicles include innovative design elements that are of little or no benefit other than making their cars more fun and enjoyable. For example, the VW Beetle includes a flower vase (pictured below) to bring color and and additional beauty to the inside of the car.

20091101su-vw-flower-vase-captain-oblivious-flickr-photostreamInspirational Marketing. The Fun Theory campaign itself is an example of innovation, creativity, and fun with marketing. It is similar to the funny eTrade baby commercials, where a business will create a non-traditional advertising campaign that entertains or inspires while also spreading brand awareness and affinity. The Fun Theory campaign has the grass roots social action elements of the music video, If Today Was Your Last Day by Nickelback. The campaign proves that, with a little creativity, people can be inspired to do good.

Videos. Below are some of the videos demonstrating The Fun Theory principle. The cost of advertising to reach a targeted captive audience of millions would be very expensive. However, like the eTrade funny baby commercials, these videos have had millions of views on YouTube alone.

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Technology > Apple | Video

20090617we-adobe-flash-video-flv-iconSummary. This page describes how to convert video from the Adobe Flash Video format (FLV) to some other format such as AVI, DV Stream, Image Sequence, iPhone format, MPEG-4, QuickTime, or Windows Media.

Instructions. If the video needed is on YouTube, read our instructions for getting FLV videos from YouTube. Otherwise, follow the instructions below to convert an existing FLV already on your computer.

  1. Purchase Apple QuickTime Pro for $30 (soon to be free in Snow Leopard).
  2. On the Apple website, download and install the free Perian 3 Video QuickTime Codecs Player Plugin developed by Christopher Forsythe.
  3. Now your QuickTime Player will play FLV videos and export them to any of the available QuickTime export formats.

Thanks. Thanks to Perian.org for making this possible. Unfortunately, as of 20090617we the Perian.org website was non-responsive. However, the download from Apple’s website (linked above) seems to work fine.

20090617we-perian-logo-knife-quicktime-video

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Effective Living

20090601mo-etrade-baby-commercialSummary. The E*TRADE Baby Video Campaign (www.etrade.com/baby) has been hugely successful. Rather than pushing traditional uninspired ads out to consumers, E*TRADE has created an advertising campaign that’s so funny, people take the initiative to seek them out on their YouTube channel where over 4 million people have viewed their latest video, the E*TRADE Baby Outtakes featured below. Another example of this kind of advertising is the cute Vodafone Commercial Campaign in India with a cute dog who faithfully helps a girl. This kind of advertising is fun, funny, effective, and it’s a form of cultural social activism that attempts to shift us away from past trends of boring and unimaginative advertising.

Golf Baby. Here is another example from the E*TRADE Baby Video Commercial Campaign.

Never Too Young to Trade Stock. Here is another example from the E*TRADE Baby Video Commercial Campaign.

Rent a Clown. Here is another example from the E*TRADE Baby Video Commercial Campaign.

Mobile Trading Baby. Here is another example from the E*TRADE Baby Video Commercial Campaign.

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