t the Superbowl 2011 (or XLV as it’s affectionately known), Volkswagen released their Passat ad featuring a young boy dressed as Darth Vader.

Greenpeace however came back with a response, piggybacking the ad’s success to highlight Volkswagen’s resistance to cutting their CO2 emissions. They released their own video ad that went viral across the internet featuring the Darth Vader boy being met by Luke Skywalker, Princess Leya, Yoda and the gang. In addition to this, Greenpeace were extremely clever in using social media and the power of the internet to gain support for their cause by allowing users to ‘Join the rebellion’ on their website as well as connect to their social media channels on Facebook to voice their opinions.

And then, just when everybody was getting excited with where Greenpeace were going with this, LucasFilm, copyright owners to all that is Star Wars, stepped in to ruin the fun and used their force (sorry) to make Greenpeace remove all videos for copyright breach.

Now that Greenpeace have shown that they aren’t afraid to attack big brands on a big scale, we can only wonder who will be the next target. It could even be our own Kate and Wills for all their recent jetting about!

At the end of last week the Kaiser Chiefs launched their innovative take on releasing an album in this digital and user-generated age. Fans are able to create their own 10-track DIY album whereby they can choose their favourite Kaiser Chiefs songs from a list of 20 on the band’s website.

Not only this, but users can then create their own microsite and sell their album for a £1 personal profit. This seems awfully generous of the band considering all the hard work they probably put into it!

I think that this is an ingenious way of keeping up with the way their fans are now buying music as well as offering a unique way of engaging them. I’m not sure every band will go down this route of offering their entrepreneurial fans financial remuneration for bothering to choose 10 of their favourite tracks however I think that innovative ways of releasing albums such as this will keep the money going back to the artists and not lost somewhere in cyberspace.

Reports are saying that Amazon is set to release a new version of its e-reader, the Amazon Kindle in the US. Where’s the difference going to be you’re probably thinking?  Will this one have more than a year’s battery life or a capacity of greater than 2 million books? You would be wrong.
This time around, the Kindle is allowing banner ads to feature at the bottom of the home screen and full-page ads to act as a screen saver. I wasn’t entirely sure how Amazon realistically think this product will sell to a market of people who have opted against reading on the increasingly ad-heavy tablets and smart phones until I realised they planned on offering the product for $25 less.
Personally, I’ve never quite understood the appeal of the Amazon Kindle or any other e-reader for that matter. I like the feeling of satisfaction when you are reading on the train and everybody can see that you have read at least 300 pages of a book and they are probably thinking “Hey, that guy has keen interest in literature and is probably very intelligent.” I also worry that if I reached an insufferably boring part of a book I was reading, it would be all too easy to just leave it and move onto a new book.
That being said, Amazon now sell 6 e-books for every 10 paper books sold and so despite my reservations, this clearly is a popular product. This new ad placement does also present a good opportunity for advertisers to target an ABC1, tech-savvy audience. I will certainly be watching this space to see who taps into the potential of e-reader advertising.