Fin Follows Fine Tradition
We love modern history here at Fin, and have recently made some fascinating discoveries about our geographical heritage:
It turns out the Soho Square building which houses Fin HQ is celebrating its centenary: Number 22 was built during 1913 and ’14, on the site of an 18th century Lord Mayor of London’s residence.
Most symbolically though, we were thrilled to find that from the 1930s to ‘50s, today’s Fin Central served as headquarters to the British Movietone News company, who competed with Pathé to be kings of the cinema newsreel through the genre’s classic heyday.
Do spare a moment to check this really lovely series of atmospheric articles about how splendid the building looked and worked then, by former Movietone employee Terence Gallacher. He describes his first day at work here in 1945…
http://terencegallacher.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/66-years-ago-movietone-news-the-first-days/
We’d be honoured to issue Mr. Gallacher, now presumably in his mid-80s, with an open invitation to Fin, for a thank you cocktail at Bar Fiz. Despite our digital base, hopefully he will approve that in our small way we are continuing the epic media tradition of the building.
We’ve also discovered that the lower ground floor of no. 22 - today filled by Fin - is of further historic film import. Kay Laboratories partnered in sharing the building with Movietone – and industry hearsay has it that our very basement is where Kay installed London’s first-ever film development bath!
7 February 2013
Gymkhana virals produce 200 million hits
Over the years, many have doubted the power of social media, convinced it was just a fad. But this new viral video from Ken Block may convince them otherwise. The latest in his series of five films for his company DC shoes, it has already clocked 11,000,000 views and the series itself is about to go over 200,000,000!
Gymkhana 5: Ultimate playground; San Francisco
DC Shoes founder and professional rally driver Ken Block has taken his brand of insane stunt driving to the streets of San Francisco in the fifth installment of his series of viral Gymkhana videos, which are designed to burn up the web as well as several sets of tires!
Beautifully shot with a series of stunt cameras, fixed cameras and time splice cameras, the film makers took advantage of all manners of transport, attaching the devices to helicopters, cars and bikes amongst many others. The extreme sports star invades the city in his 600 hp Ford Fiesta racecar via the Bay Bridge and proceeds to drift and jump his way through its streets, performing a bevy of impressive technical moves along the way. He literally runs circles around a pair of moving cable cars at one point, whilst in another clip he circles his motorcycle racing pal Travis Pastrana, as the NASCAR driver performs a front wheel stand on his motorcross bike!
So how has this benefitted the brand? DC shoes we're the first brand to focus on skateboard shoes. For many extreme sportsmen, skateboarding was their first sport and love, which subsequently lead on to other sports. This immediately meant their potential audience was bigger than boarders alone. Starting with a loan from Block’s parents of $10,000 in 1994 and with a mix of pro skateboarders running the company, their talents attracted a great deal of media attention at events. They built on this coverage by hosting their own promotional events, which were designed to showcase its pro talents. One of the most notable was when partner Danny Way jumped ten feet from a helicopter to a ramp adorned with DC Shoes logos. Six years into trading the company had turned over an impressive $60 million.
Ken Block has used his fortune and love of extreme sports to take up rally and stunt driving, which he has used cleverly through his Gymkhana videos to support the brand and keep its core fans happy and reassured that this is a shoe made by professionals for professionals. Unlike many other brands who've expanded to quickly, lost focus and lost their core customers and disappeared, DC shoes has managed to keep its core audience happy, while launching sub brands for growth, which in 2010 saw a turnover of $100 million.
It's an important point to make that his customers are fans who become, through film, his audience! As long as the content remain entertaining!
See link for the whole series of films and experience the brand which 200 millions people have enjoyed.
Ken Block's – Gymkhana project
12 July 2012
Madonna Premiers video on digital outdoor
Fin regularly produces content for Digital Outdoor Media for brands and live events, including London Fashion Week with Coca Cola’s Vitamin Water and Taste London with San Pellegrino (link below), so we were particularly interested to see media-savvy Madonna adopt the technology this February to launch her latest video 'Give Me All Your Luvin'.
This isn’t the first time she’s proved an early adopter: remember the launch of the album ‘Music’ from Brixton Academy to an internet first of 9m viewers? And that was when we only had ISDN.
No-one would underestimate the queen of pop’s commercial prowess. After all she's re-launched herself more times than an inflatable bouncy castle. This time it's interesting how she has decided to launch her new song. It's not uncommon for artists to release new music to the world in one multi-media go, especially with the advent of social media. But what remains difficult is how to draw that audience together, at the same point in time, to experience it communally.
With her uncompromising marketing dexterity, Madonna convinced the bosses at Clear Channel to use their huge network of digital outdoor screens – all 1600 of them across 9 countries – to deliver a globally-synchronised launch with world radio networks, all at the same time. Containing American footballers and cheerleaders, the 'Give Me All Your Luvin'. video perfectly built up to her performance of the same song at this year’s Super Bowl.
Please get in touch if you would like to know more about how Fin create for and work with Digital Outdoor Media. Or just to have a chat about Madge!
San Pellegrino at Taste London
10 May 2012