I’m laying odds that the people at Head Office of IKEA in Sweden are looking very closely at their Singapore division and wondering what kind of Christmas bonus they can offer them this year. The ‘BookBook’ video, uploaded to YouTube by IKEA Singapore, has racked up over 10 million views in a week – a pretty clever marketing ploy by anyone’s standards. Send up your product in a parody of an Apple ad and watch it go viral. Just what I need for impetus for my ‘Language of our Times’ class next term, when we begin our Project Based Learning task exploring ‘What makes an idea go viral?’
Speaking of Apple, their latest video, ‘Perspective’, shown at their Keynote launch this week, is another signature Apple piece appealing to their tribe of followers. Take a look.
Over 600,000 views in three days. Another good one for my students to analyse.
I’m currently in Munich, where I’ve spent the last three days after visiting Italy for a week. In my last post I spoke of my poor footwear choices leading to some pretty difficult days limping through the streets of Florence and Venice. I’m pleased to report Munich has been much kinder on my feet. It’s a very flat terrain here, and we’ve slowed down our pace out of sheer necessity. We were exhausted after the heady pace of four cities in 7 days – Rome, Florence, Pisa and Venice. Today, after reading some travel blogs about the best footwear for traipsing through Europe, I purchased some Geox walking shoes that I’m hoping will see me right through the next few days in Frankfurt and Bad Kreuznach and then onto Paris and London in the coming weeks.
I will try to write here about some of our experiences – we’ve had an amazing time already. Yesterday we visited Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site and that experience deserves a post of its own. I’ve read so much about the Holocaust, but nothing really prepares you for walking the grounds and listening to a guide take you through the experiences of the people who were subjected to that cruel fate. It’s an experience everyone should have – as I walked through, it struck me that it is something that could feature as a Google Tour – that way students all over the world could have that experience and hopefully understand why the International Memorial there has the words, ‘Never again’ written in six languages.
Our hectic pace continues tomorrow, My husband and son are off the Bayern Munich vs Stuttgart game in the afternoon, then we board a train for Frankfurt in the evening, arriving there close to midnight and hoping that the accommodation I’ve booked doesn’t fall through!
I hope your weekend sees you finding time to relax and take in some sun. Enjoy whatever comes your way. 🙂
Lucacept - intercepting the Web 
Hi Jenny,
Glad to hear you have hopefully solved your footwear dilemma!
Like you, I have read so much about the Holocaust and visited Auschwitz last year. It was freezing cold and thick snow covered everything…I could not have imagined it any other way. It was a surreal and emotional day walking through what remains. My breath was taken away and my heart ached as I walked through the room containing piles of suitcases, glasses, shoes and hair…all that remained of so many innocent people’s lives. I will never forget is walking along the railway track to Birkenau, the same path so many walked to their death and tried to comprehend how it would have felt and how many people knew their fate.
Friends have asked me why I would want to go to Auschwitz. I needed to see for myself man’s inhumanity to man, but more importantly to understand the power of the human spirit to survive that very inhumanity. The same weekend I was there Auschwitz was to closing for The March of the Living bringing together Jewish teenagers, adults and survivors from around the world http://motl.org/?page_id=1038
Auschwitz is now a memorial that serves to remind us of what happened so it will never happen again. This quote is prominently displayed there – “The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again.” (George Santayana)
The sun is shining here in Melbourne and I am celebrating after another night at the MCG watching a thrilling North Melbourne win!
Happy and safe travels…
Kim 🙂
Hi Jenny, My name is Emily and I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama, and i found your post very interesting. I did not previously know about the new Ikea ad, but after watching the video i quickly saw your point. Its very clever of Ikea to use the current Iphone hype to boost sales. You said that it would be a good way to ask your class what makes a video go viral, I think a video must have some current trend (in this case, the iphone) or something very questionable and shocking in it. The video must have some element in it that makes people want to share it out.
It’s also fun to read about your travels in Europe at the moment. I have also been to Frankfurt and hope to see Munich soon. During my travels I visited the concentration camp, “Bergen Belson,” which I soon found out was the camp that Anne Frank died in. I think it is a wonderful idea that google set up a virtual tour of one of these camps, Its such a powerful and emotional place that everyone should be able to experience.
Best wishes for your travels,
Emily
http://parmeremilyedm310.blogspot.com
I love that Ikea ad, it makes me laugh every time. Glad to hear that Teachers are taking some time for themselves! We never do it enough!