It’s apparently pretty highly sought after based on my searches… so I figured, why not share it here in hopes that it helps someone else find the music quicker! I think that’s the great thing about ads using real music, when you pick the right track for your ad, people are going to remember it for a long time. Never discount the power of music!

The track to the William Hill ad is called Rival Consoles by Kid Velo.

William Hill are pretty good at choosing the right music for their ads, another one of theirs that I was looking for about a year ago and found was this:

The first time this every happened to me was for a Toyota car back in Summer of 2005… the ad was original aired in theaters, which I remember because I saw about a dozen movies that summer and that ad was always one of my favourite parts of seeing a movie. I spent months trying to find the track with a little recording I had made on my cellphone at the time…

Here’s that ad…

What about you? Any ads in your memory where the music really connected you to the brand/ad?

Back then I was a teenager, heavily into punk rock (Anti-Flag, Casualties, Protest The Hero, to name a few, but also lighter stuff like the Bouncing Souls, Thursday and Taking Back Sunday. Ehh, punk is a complicated genre, I guess some of that is metal, ska, emo and punk. Whatever.) and saw Rise Against play live at I believe it was the Phoenix. So to have an opportunity to remind myself where I was at a decade ago with a familiar band, seemed like a cool experience.

Sitting in my seat, lower bowl adjacent to the Chairman’s Platinum Club, was a wild experience for this kind of concert. But, I enjoyed it. Rise Against are a really great band, and their music is real music that you can actually get into. It’s not this bullshit Disney music we’re all being fed (with exception of Call Me Maybe, that’s just awesome.) But there I was sitting and enjoying the sounds of live music. Should have been no problem right?

Well, it would have been no problem if I wasn’t sitting behind the naggiest of naggy women. This woman was insistent that I wasn’t properly enjoying the concert. She, on several occasions, felt the need to lean over her chair to make sure that I heard that I was supposed to be doing something different. Then as the concert was coming to it’s end, I went to the washroom and found her approach me directly in the quiet of the Platinum Club hallway where she laid out all the things I did wrong.

Without further ado, allow me to give you her 7 Simple Rules for Going to a Concert…

1. You’re not allowed to sit down. It’s music you need to be on your feet to listen properly and see the music.
2. Clap to the beat. That’s what a concert is for.
3. You should be smiling the entire time. A live concert should be making you smile non-stop.
4. Wearing a band tshirt is a requirement. If the singer sees you at some point and you’re not wearing a band tshirt, that’s not cool.
5. Wearing a jacket at a concert is silly.
6. Concerts aren’t about the music, it’s about the experience.
7. If you don’t buy any merchandise from the bands, you’re an ass.

So there you have it! If you’re planning on ever going to a concert, these are the 7 rules you must follow according to a naggy ninny of a woman.

PS. Rise Against was awesome!

Oh it’s true, the social media scene in Toronto (and naturally I assume in other markets as well) is broken. (PS. Bands, please don’t call yourselves Broken Social Media Scene). Why is it broken you ask? Well, it’s actually quite simple… some human beings are inherently evil, greedy, have an overinflated ego and have careless disregard for anything other than to prop up their sinking social media dictatorship regimes. (Ironically, by being honest and calling out bullshit – that’s usually the title I’m associated with.) In the real world, if these people were given any power, they would be corrupt, abusive and lack any kind of moral compass. Maybe we should start calling some of these social media stars “Social Bankers”, because they seem to stop at no end to try and fix the system to their benefit.

So what am I talking about exactly? I’m saying a lot of words, but have yet to really point out the issue and why social media influencer marketing is becoming a scam… Here’s an image of a popular social media character’s twitter following.

 What does this chart say? Well, it shows that for 2 months a persons following on Twitter was organic… it grew at a steady pace. Gaining 2-3 followers per day on average. Then on one day, a single day… that following doubled overnight. Now, in the wise words of my grandfather “If something smells fishy, it means there’s a dead fish around.”

The scene has reached a point where even the most ‘influential’ are so corrupted by their own greed and inflated egos that they have decided it’s the right time to pay for followers. Make no mistake, the only way to gain that kind of following overnight is to have content that went viral (but even then it’s a steady slope over days/weeks, not all at once), or they paid for them. Yes, we are now at a point where the reigning social media influencers, who try to sell their services to companies pointing out how many people they reach with a tweet, how many impressions they can get… aren’t satisfied with how much they are getting. An investment of buying followers doubles their following overnight, which means they can ask for twice as much from dumb companies and PR people who don’t do enough research.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, social media influencer is not a job and the ‘end game’ to being a social media influencer is working at Starbucks until you’re 67 and retire. There’s  no major payout. You’re never going to live on the income of being an influencer. It’s a dead end road, and we’re approaching the cliff.

Want another example? This one is a little more cleverly done, but it’s using a ‘follow train’ system. You follow one person and 10 people follow you.

We’re now at a point where social media influencers can’t be trusted. Hell, I’m not sure they ever could be… but especially now. The reality is, social media influencers understand that the social media influence market is getting more and more cluttered. People who would normally get ALL the invites and products are probably starting to get less…  Something has to be done, and paying for followers seems like a good step. A Hail Mary to try and reclaim the glory of a crumbling career. Hoping maybe to help build that Klout score up a little more.

Unfortunately the writing is on the wall and everyone is waking up a little faster. For a while now I’ve been pointing out the ridiculousness of working with some of us social media influencers, and very quickly more and more people are coming to terms with the truth and being vocal about it (something I wouldn’t have thought would happen a year ago). Trying to recapture some glory by paying for followers is the final nail in the coffin. Integrity is clearly only as valuable as whatever product a company is willing to provide.

Be careful of the scam, Influencer marketing is no longer honest.

Now, I could drone on about all the different elements of the movie and talk about plot and Loki (the bad guy, who is certainly a very underdeveloped character – perhaps I should have seen Thor to understand him more.) But I won’t… because I really enjoyed the movie! The action was fantastic, the script was good and very funny too! Every character had a chance to shine and really show their stuff. I was actually surprised how well they managed to ‘share’ screen time. I was actually concerned that the movie would become Iron Man 3 with the strength of Iron Man’s personality, but they even managed to tame that beast a little bit.

One thing I won’t recommend though, is 3D. I absolutely HATE 3D. I swear it’s turning our eyes into pudding. It’s the worst thing ever. In high action movies it’s especially bad because it’s difficult to focus and see what’s going on. So if you do see it, avoid the 3D at all costs. For the times where it was cool, there was far more times where it was just annoying.

Oh and piece of advice… stay past the credits. ;)