Because this is the first day of Christmas, I am very happy to present you the most wonderful photos made by Reuters in 2011. The magic of photography in a magic day!
Source: Fubiz
Better tomorrow and Happy Christmas,
PR Pret-a-Porter.
Britain has a special sense of Christmas. Article via Adage.
Santa has gone digital and is now settled happily in a virtual grotto, tweeting with good girls and boys, and posting personalized messages on his very own YouTube channel.
To facilitate communication with the new era Father Christmas, Telefonica’s 02 has created the hashtag #02santa. Followers can tweet him a message that they’d like read out, and Santa will create personal video clips in response. Twitter users can then alert their friends, followers and family to the existence of the personal message by tweeting or emailing a link to it on Santa’s YouTube channel.
The campaign, created by pr agency Hope & Glory, is running for a week, and wireless provider 02 promises that any messages received by Dec. 15 will be delivered in time for Christmas.
Alex Pearmain, head of social media at 02, said in a statement, “We felt that we should create something fun as an integrated aspect of our Christmas digital campaigning — something that gets consumers involved with us and allows 02 to deliver a bit of entertainment during the festive period. Our social-media channels seemed the ideal platform to do this on, and we hope this campaign will help to cut through some of the current consumer gloom and spread some festive cheer.”
Santa’s introductory message on YouTube explains how the process works: “I am broadcasting live from the North Pole…I’ve decided to take a break from making and wrapping presents to take to Twitter and YouTube this year. Oh-ho yes, social media has come to us all…so if you would like me to send a little message to your family, friends or followers, just tweet the message you’d like me to read out. My elves will spot your message and pass it on to me.”
Many of the messages so far are from adults, but aimed at children. @katiehayward sent a typical tweet, “Please wish Edie a very Merry Christmas, she’ll leave a mince pie for you to help you on your Christmas Eve journey.” Others are from grown-up believers, asking fr messages for colleagues and loved ones. @Eva4Eva tweeted, “Can you give my boyfriend Mario a big nudge about my present and you may as well wish him a happy Christmas whilst you are at it ;)”
On day two of the campaign, Santa had already created 400 personal messages in response to thousands of tweets received. He has had to brush up on his linguistic skills, after getting requests from non-English speaking tweeters. Jo Carr, a founder and managing partner of Hope & Glory, said, “It’s less about the metrics and more about the surprise and delight. We’ve had lots of lovely comments by parents who’ve made films. This is ticking the box of being relevant to our key customers.”
I’m gonna tweet Santa now just to thank him for the magic Christmas he gave me.
Better tomorrow,
PR Pret-a-Porter.
I didn’t intend to write my 100 post on 24th December while I am baking goodies for Christmas. But, it happened and I would like to thank you for reading my blog for the last 99 posts, for your comments and shares. This is my gift for you. Happy Christmas everyone!
In this Christmas Spirit, I’m presenting NORAD tracking Santa, their history and their media focus. Enjoy!
NORAD Tracks Santa is an annual Christmas-themed entertainment program, which has existed since 1955, produced under the auspices of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Every year on Christmas Eve, “NORAD Tracks Santa” purports to follow Santa Claus as he leaves the North Pole and delivers presents to children around the world.
The program is in the tradition of the September 1897 editorial “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” in the New York Sun.
The program began on December 24, 1955 when a Sears department store placed an advertisement in a Colorado Springs
newspaper which told children that they could telephone Santa Claus and included a number for them to call. However, the telephone number printed was incorrect and calls instead came through to Colorado Springs’ Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center. Colonel Shoup, who was on duty that night, told his staff to give all children that called in a “current location” for Santa Claus. A tradition began which continued when the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) replaced CONAD in 1958.
NORAD relies on volunteers to make the program possible. Each volunteer handles about forty telephone calls per hour, and the team typically handles more than 12,000 e-mails and more than 70,000 telephone calls from more than two hundred countries and territories. Most of these contacts happen during the twenty-five hours from 2 a.m. on December 24 until 3 a.m. MST on December 25. Google Analytics has been in use since December 2007 to analyze traffic at the NORAD Tracks Santa website. As a result of this analysis information, the program can project and scale volunteer staffing, telephone equipment, and computer equipment needs for Christmas Eve.
The NORAD Tracks Santa program has always made use of a variety of media. From the 1950s to 1996, these were the telephone hotline, newspapers, radio, phonograph records and television. Many television newscasts in North America feature NORAD Tracks Santa as part of their weather updates on Christmas Eve.
From 1997 to the present, the program has had a highly publicized internet presence. As mobile media and social media have become popular and widespread as methods of direct communication, these newer media have also been embraced by the program. The layout of the NORAD Tracks Santa website and its webpages have changed from 1997 to the present due to changes in internet technologies, and changes in partners and sponsors for a particular year.
Between 2004 and 2009, people who visited the NORAD Tracks Santa site were told they could “track” Santa in Google Earth. They were given a link to download Google Earth, and then a KMZ file to download. Since 2009, the tracking in Google Earth has been done from the NORAD Santa site, and there is no KMZ file for Google Earth anymore.
From mid-January until November 30, when one arrives at the NORAD Tracks Santa website, one is greeted with a message to come back on 1 December to “track Santa with NORAD”. During December, one finds a NORAD Tracks Santa website with all the features available. On Christmas Eve, the NORAD Tracks Santa website videos page is generally updated each hour, when it is midnight in a different time zone. The “Santa Cam” videos show CGI images of Santa Claus flying over famous landmarks. Each video is accompanied by a voice-over, typically done by NORAD personnel, giving a few facts about the city or country depicted. Celebrity voice-overs have also been used over the years. For the London “Santa Cam” video, English television personality and celebrity Jonathan Ross did the voice-over for 2005 to 2007 and the former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr narrated the same video in 2003 and 2004. In 2002, Aaron Carter provided the voice-over for three videos.
The locations and landmarks depicted in some of the “Santa Cam” videos have changed over the years. In 2009, twenty-nine “Santa Cam” videos were posted on the website. In previous years, twenty-four to twenty-six videos had been posted.
Better tomorrow,
PR Pret-a-Porter.
Mashable informs us that in US has been launched this cool Starbucks Christmas App. I wonder why we couldn’t find it worldwide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWwQXi9RG0w
As demonstrated in the video above, the app works by pointing your phone’s camera at the company’s red holiday season coffee cups and 47 additional objects, such as bags of coffee, on display at Starbucks retail locations.
Doing so will produce animations involving five characters — an ice skater, a squirrel, a boy and a dog sledding and a fox 
— on your screen. You can also interact with the characters. For instance, if you tap the boy on the sled he does a somersault. Those who activate all five characters can qualify to win an as-yet-unnamed prize.
The app also includes traditional and social sharing capabilities. You can the send ecards as well as holiday offers from Starbucks, among other things.
The object, says Alexandra Wheeler, vp-global digital marketing for Starbucks, is to “surprise and delight” customers during the holiday season.
Better tomorrow,
PR Pret-a-Porter.
Today is 1st of December, the month of celebration and presents. Take a look at what type of greeting cards with Christmas sparkle you can send to your beloved ones.
Evolution Bureau (the creators or Elf Yourself) has come up with another way to send humorous holiday greetings, with a new mobile app and website for mall company Westfield.
The LOLiday Cards app which launched on Black Friday, uses augmented reality technology to let you insert your photo into a variety of scenarios (such as kissing an elf, wearing reindeer antlers or becoming a Nutcracker soldier) and create a free, personalized e-card. As well as emailing it to all your friends, you can also share it via Facebook and Twitter.
You can take part either by visiting a special LOLiday Card location in Westfield malls and downloading the app, or remotely by visiting the LOLiday cards website.
Westfield will also offer a LOLiday-themed 3D Art Experience in malls, showcasing the optical-illusion artwork of streetpainter Tracy Lee Stum. Shoppers can pose and photograph themselves within a LOLiday floor mural created by Stum, and then share their photos through email, Facebook or Twitter (#LOLiday).
Better tomorrow,
PR Pret-a-Porter.
PR Pret-a-Porter 