With the growth of the internet, there are many new ways of communicating with your clients and customers and using these new, exciting ways of outreach is the perfect way to inject some fun into your marketing schemes, and even inject some fun into your office too!

Get your social on

Setting up an account on Facebook and Twitter allows for some great interaction between consumers and sellers. Use these mediums to spark friendly debate, share jokes, have friendly banter and help customers out too.

Make the brand voice friendly and fun and you’ll find that clients and customers will be eager to ask for help or drop you a tweet.

Talk to brands similar to your own too and get involved in the industry community: it could lead to being invited along to conferences or just to some drinks down at the pub.

It means your brand and your company is becoming more and more well-known though.

Run a crazy competition

Set up some competitions that your clients and customers can enter. Try not to make them top confusing or time consuming – but make them interesting and fun.

Something as simple as posting a funny photograph on facebook and asking your fans to comment with a funny quotation can work wonders.

Think about running discounts online too for marketing purposes. Pizza Hut publish different discount codes on their facebook page and twitter feed every day, which guarantees them a constant audience and means that their fans and customer base get something for making the effort the visit their page.

Think about going visual

Some of the most successful and fun marketing schemes over the last few years have been ones that have been shared over websites such as youtube.com.

When people see a funny video, they want to share it straight away, so by investing in this method you are guaranteeing yourself some seriously increased audience numbers.

Think about the first time you watched the Cadbury monkey playing the drums, that’s the kind of thing you should be channelling: something original, witty and just plain fun to watch.

If you get your team involved in creating the video too, you are looking at some great team building success!

Make a funny slogan or character

It’s always the catchy, silly or the cute things that tend to add the most fun to marketing so think about making a brand mascot or funny slogan.

Consider the huge success Compare the Market have had with their Meerkat counterparts – instead of promoting their service with a boring, dull advert they created a hilarious cast of characters (which actually has nothing to with their product) but that people will remember and impersonate.

Think outside the box

Some of the most fun marketing campaigns are often the weirdest. Mini launched an app in the last year which meant whoever was holding a virtual baton within the application meant that when the timer ran out they would win a car.

The twist being that whoever had the app, but not the baton could pinch it off you if they got within 50m of your phone. It took virtual marketing and using mobile applications to a whole new, incredibly exciting level.

Author: Ellie Rose works in the marketing department for wish.co.uk. If you’re looking for an exciting and unique gift, then browse their range of activities including spa days, driving experiences and thrilling adventures.

This article originally appeared on Brandwatch and has been republished with permission.

Find out how to syndicate your content with Business 2 Community.

Article source: http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/5-ways-to-inject-some-fun-into-your-internet-marketing-0136595

THE well-known 17th century idiot René Descartes declared that “animals are destitute of reason” and argued that since they couldn’t hold serious conversations with humans, they really didn’t count for much.

I’d argue that holding conversations with many humans is a total waste of time, so I understand why animals don’t always bother. And if their inability to speak human makes them thick and unimportant, maybe arrogant old René should have said: “I can’t speak gorilla, ergo I’m thick.”

Thankfully, we’ve come a long way since Descartes dissected live animals and put their screams down to reflex reactions, but now a broad coalition of scientists, philosophers and conservationists called the Helsinki Group want to take things even further.

In their “Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans”, they state that “dolphins should be regarded as ‘non-human persons’. From an ethical perspective, the injury, deaths and captivity of dolphins are wrong… Dolphins are, like humans, self-aware, intelligent beings with emotions and personalities”.

I’m all for that and I’m happy to treat dolphins as equals. After all, some dolphins can already understand some of our speech, but we still can’t comprehend theirs. Dolphins, one; humans, nil. But if we say the dolphins are equal with us, where do we stop?

There are some very bright creatures out there who deserve just as much attention as the dolphins. There’s a chimp in Japan who can remember the location and order of a set of numbers on a screen in less time than it takes me to think: “Oh my God, I’m thicker than a chimp.”

And I am. When it comes to memory skills and number recognition, I am much thicker than that chimp. Equally, like René Descartes, I do not speak any ape, but a bonobo called Kanzi can understand English grammar, tenses, make jokes and has a vocabulary of 400 human words. The only thing stopping him from saying them out loud is the physiognomy of his face.

Crows can fashion tools and use water-displacement techniques (which took Archimedes ages to work out) to get themselves a drink. Elephants grieve; rats show empathy; monkey mothers get embarrassed when their kids have tantrums in public.

If you’ve ever had a pet, I probably don’t need to go on to convince you that animals have never, ever been dumb.

But are humans intelligent enough to treat other animals as equals? After millennia of exploiting them, are we up to the task?

Think about it. Those dolphins are clever. Probably cleverer than us. They won’t be satisfied with a few warm words and some extra tuna. They’re going to want real rights – like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And what about the right to bear arms? Their brains are bigger than ours – are we opening the floodgates to Planet of the Dolphins?

The least they’re going to demand is representation, and where will that leave us, with our limited language skills? I can imagine what Fisheries Questions in the Scottish Parliament will be like:

MSP for Malin: “Eeeeee! Eeeeee!”

Minister: “Thank you. I …er…will reply to the Honourable Member’s question in due course. Is there an interpreter in the parliament today? A porpoise will do.”

I applaud the Helsinki Group’s intentions, but they are being speciesist. They only want the cetaceans, but that’s narrow-minded. We’re using human judgment to decide who we want to include as “persons”, and human judgment is flawed.

We regularly deprive species of rights because we don’t like the look of them, while adopting others for no good reason except that they look friendly. Pandas, for instance, are cute and cuddly, so we want to save them and adore them in zoos.

But pandas are thick. Conservationist Chris Packham says he would “eat the last panda” if the resources lavished on them could be given to “more sensible things”. So, if we’re going to accept the clever cetaceans, I reckon we should include the whole of animalkind as our family members. For different reasons, they all deserve our respect and kindness. Besides, there are many humans who don’t deserve to be called “persons”. I, for one, would happily put horses before Descartes.

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Article source: http://www.scotsman.com/news/fiona_mccade_putting_the_horse_before_descartes_1_2132563

In Part 1 – The Inhuman Stain, you play Aurinda Hearn, a newly-hired faculty member at Miskatonic University. After arriving at the venerable old campus, it doesn’t take long for mental alarm bells to go off. The dean warns Aurinda to stay out of the woods, refusing to specify why, and the entire Engineering department has recently vanished in a mysterious offshore accident (save one remaining teacher). When Aurinda enters her office for the first time and finds it ransacked, she becomes determined to get to the bottom of things, a course of action that multiple friendly colleagues warn is likely to get her killed. These warnings don’t stop her from attempting to infiltrate the conveniently neighboring insane asylum, however, in order to wrest answers from the last person to hold her position who is now interred there.

Miskatonic uses a fairly intuitive and familiar interface. Each screen has a variety of hotspots, some of which can be left-clicked either to get a closer look or to exit the screen. Others make the cursor turn red, indicating that right-clicking will bring up a overly-animated menu option to manipulate, examine, or speak to the object or person in question. Inventory is stored in a bar at the top of the screen, and using an item is as simple as clicking on it, then clicking again on whatever you wish Aurinda to attempt to use the object on, whether a hotspot in the environment or another item in inventory. Aurinda walks fairly slowly, but double-clicking exits automatically shifts to the next scene, and a map is automatically filled in as you discover new areas, allowing for instant travel between them after that.

As simple as the interface is, it doesn’t make it any easier to solve puzzles, several of which are downright baffling. One requires placing a variety of colored globes on a machine, each representing a specific planet that needs to be placed in a very particular spot. Once I’d placed all the ones I possessed, I realized I was still missing one. After fruitlessly searching for it, I gave up and peeked at a hint on the internet. My embarrassment at being unable to solve the puzzle quickly turned to annoyance when I discovered the actual answer to my dilemma, as not even the vaguest clue for reaching that solution was ever offered. Or if it was, it was certainly easy to miss. There are other examples of a similar lack of feedback or logic, but I don’t wish to spoil any details for those who like to be bewildered.

That’s not to say the game is nothing but obscure puzzles with seemingly random solutions, as there are a couple of very nicely crafted ones as well. Figuring out a passcode based on emails, notes, and bulletin board memos is a fun challenge, as is gathering the materials needed to distract a crazy inmate in the Miskatonic Sanitarium. But even these obstacles are made significantly more difficult by the frequent need to pixel hunt. There was one building I didn’t think I could enter at all, simply because I wasn’t holding the cursor over the exact spot needed to open the door. Such instances happen throughout much of the game, and either a hotspot finder or clearer visual representations of relevant objects would have helped greatly.

The graphics themselves are a little lackluster all the way through. All characters have simple and rather cheap-looking facial designs, while Aurinda moves somewhat stiffly and her figure almost seems to glide rather than step across the screen. The quality of the background components differs greatly, giving the game an uneven appearance. The intricate stonework of a bridge is quite detailed, for example, but the grass looks like a two-dimensional plane of green and brown splotches, and trees look like they’ve been cut and pasted on top of them. The overall design of the campus itself is nicely presented, featuring a courtyard decorated with a huge pentagram and an ornate obelisk. These elements give Miskatonic University an almost gothic and often dark ambiance, fitting the theme perfectly, but the graphics are hindered by a lack of visual crispness. There are a few nice touches like autumn leaves falling in forest areas that give the presentation some life and flair, but the highlights are few and far between. As a largely one-man creation, Miskatonic is understandably a low budget game, but that doesn’t excuse disappointing design choices like giving in-game journals such small print that you practically have to squint to read them. And so many of the locations are simply pathways in between important places that it’s a shame the effort wasn’t focused more on quality rather than quantity.

The visual design isn’t the only thing contributing to the characters feeling flat. The series’ first installment doesn’t provide a lot of story to flesh anyone out, and so far there’s an almost total absence of relatable characters in the game. Aurinda herself has exactly one trait: curiosity. She seems determined to get to the bottom of everything, even explaining in a flashback sequence how this led to her losing her last job. But beyond this lone characteristic I couldn’t tell you anything more about her. The dean seems friendly but nervous, and there’s a teacher named Steve who thinks he’s a Native American shaman, or something. There’s another teacher who is constantly drunk, and then there’s the sole Engineering survivor who seems to have taken the mysterious disappearance of his colleagues surprisingly well. This chapter ends with a dramatic event, but as you barely know anything about the person involved it lacks any sort of emotional impact. The same could be said of pretty much any of the characters here, as there simply isn’t enough going on to make players feel invested in them. The voice acting is certainly serviceable, even commendable for a small indie adventure, but the actors don’t really have a lot to work with.

The emotional impact of the game as a whole seems rather confused. There’s nothing really wrong with combining Lovecraftian horror with goofy humor, but it’s a tricky path to walk well. It’s somewhat jarring to walk onto a balcony and see a couple of black robed men cutting off the head of a chicken when only moments earlier you were conversing with a faculty member who does rain dances and brags that he has the same jacket as Stephen Seagal. In the asylum there’s a character clearly meant as a nudge-wink nod to the Chief in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but in the next scene you’re talking to a gibbering lunatic in deadly earnestness. There are little jokes all the way through, and admittedly some of them are actually kind of funny. In fact, Miskatonic seems to be more humorous than frightening so far, but it expects us to take certain moments seriously, which is almost impossible to do in the same game that throws in subtle references to everything from Monkey Island to Back to the Future.

The discrepancy between humor and horror isn’t helped by the relative lack of suspense throughout the game. The tension in this episode relies on what is meant to be an unnerving atmosphere rather than frightening events, but other than the chicken beheading, rumors of strange beasts in the woods, and some creepy journal entries, there really isn’t a lot of scary stuff going so far. Even the sun is shining the entire game. This may be an intentional choice, as Lovecraftian horror often has a slow build, but it does make for a somewhat tame first chapter, at least until the very end.

As the opening installment of a three-part series, The Inhuman Stain does have some good moments during its 3 or 4 hour duration, but there’s not enough substance here to overlook its budget production values, flawed puzzle design and inconsistent tone. Even the near complete lack of music (a track or two plays at certain moments, but that’s it) gives it a sense of emptiness. While the humor does hit home every now and then, a few laughs don’t make up for the dull, lifeless characters and confusing puzzles to date. It’s really too bad, as the designer clearly has a love of horror tales and there’s definitely some promise here. Fortunately, the tale of Miskatonic still has a couple chapters to go, so hopefully the further adventures of Aurinda Hearn will flesh out her character a lot more in a story that may yet prove worthy of its Lovecraftian influence.

Article source: http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,1421

GEORGE TOWN: Conservationists are urging the authorities to act quickly to save the near-threatened dusky leaf monkeys, which are being killed indiscriminately in Langkawi.

TRAFFIC Southeast Asia deputy regional director Chris R. Shepherd said the Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) should investigate  the shootings of the monkeys.

“It was  disturbing to read news of the monkeys being shot.

 ”Perhilitan must  investigate if the killing of the monkeys is limited to locals, or if there are people from outside the island hunting the animals for sport.”

  He added an investigation was also needed to determine if locals were collecting young monkeys after killing the parents.

   He said the investigation should find out if the monkeys weretraded illegally as pets.

   Shepherd said the killings pointed to the need for  better monitoring and management of people with gun licences and permits in Langkawi.

    He said if investigations revealed that it was  simply a case of dealing with an agricultural pest, then Perhilitan, as well as agricultural and land planning authorities,  should  engage locals to find solutions.

  “Surely, Langkawi’s wildlife deserves better protection. The island is a well-known eco-tourism destination and it does not bode well for  its reputation  if visitors are greeted by protected species hanging, dead, from trees.”

   He said people  who had information of illegal hunting and trade of dusky leaf monkeys, or  other protected species, should call the MYCAT wildlife crime hotline at 019-3564194.

The New Straits Times  on Monday reported that dusky leaf monkeys were being  killed in Langkawi, where the hunting of   animals is  prohibited. Residents said   gunshots could be  heard in  Pantai Tengah and Pantai Kok.

Kedah Perhilitan director Rahim Ahmad said the department had stepped up surveillance and enforcement in areas where hunting was said to be taking place.

Article source: http://www.nst.com.my/local/general/probe-into-langkawi-monkey-shootings-department-urged-1.50700

Monkey mommy Marie delivered late Friday night or early Saturday morning, and was discovered with the baby squirrel monkey clinging to her back Saturday morning by zookeepers. The tiny primate joins its mother, proud papa Jeebes and two other adult females.

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“We probably won’t name the baby until we know its sex,” said zookeeper Aubry Hall, who works with the squirrel monkeys.

Squirrel monkeys have the proportionately largest brain of all primates, with a brain to body mass ratio of 1-to-17. Humans, by comparison, have a 1-to-35 ratio. Adult squirrel monkeys range from nine to nearly 14 inches, plus a 13 to 17-inch tail, and weigh in from one to just over two pounds. The males are usually larger.

Found in the tropical forests of Central and South America, squirrel monkeys spend most of their time in trees and are primarily active during daylight hours. The tiny primates live together in groups of up to 500 males and females. Squirrel monkeys are omnivorous, eating primarily fruits and insects. They live roughly 15 years in the wild, but zoo residents can reach 20 years old.

“The squirrel monkey family is one of our most popular exhibits, particularly with children,” said Greg Bockheim, the Zoo’s executive director. “And they’ve been prolific; this is our 18th squirrel monkey born here since 1967. A squirrel monkey birth is a sure sign that spring is on its way.”

Article source: http://www.wtkr.com/news/wtkr-monkey-va-zoo,0,1869343.story