An Alien Has Landed in London

No not an ET-like Alien, but rather something equally as rare: The NFL (National Football League) otherwise known as American Football – that other football from across the pond, you know with the melon shaped ball.

In an effort to extend its reach and become a global sport, the NFL will host its first-ever game in Europe on Sunday, October 28th.

When I saw this picture on the cover of Nytimes.com today, it looked as if an Alien had landed in London. Just look at the public in awe over the huge animated figure of Miami’s Jason Taylor.

NFL in London

In terms of creativity, AMV BBDO did a superb job by placing a Giant Figure in Trafalgar Square and getting people talking with this bold move – spot on for creating buzz.

Now, comes the questions of who will rule over the name game of “football” and how will American football be received in London and across Europe.

This might turn out to be a classic brand identity conflict, then again maybe not. It’s doubtful; Europeans will ever confuse their beloved football with any other game professing the same name. Maybe this is answered in the simple question, of how many internationally recognized football stars come to mind? I can think of Pele, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Christiano, Zidan, Beckham, Figo…and the list goes on….now how many American football players come to mind…Joe Green, OJ Simpson…well at least one is still a star. All I can say, let the battle of classic football (soccer) vs. American football begin …

Fight For Kisses

Before ending the first week with our new Chama blog, we wanted to share this great interactive website. Just click on the image below and watch the trailer … enjoy.

Click Here to Watch Trailer

What’s Missing?

click to enlargeTo your left is a print ad that appears weekly on the “The News Portugal” paper. The ad belongs to Algrafica, the web design service arm of the paper.

See if you can spot what’s missing from the ad.

5 Easy Ways to Waste Less at Work

Blog Action DayToday (October 15th) is the first annual “Blog Action Day”- where 15,000 bloggers from around the world will post on an important topic – the environment on their respective blogs.

For my part, I’m going to share with you 5 painless ways to be a more environmental friendly company and cut unnecessary costs at the same time.

1 Switch to Compact Fluorescent Bulbs
Those spiral-looking bulbs might look funny but they work: releasing less CO2 into the air and keeps more green in your pocket.

2 Print less
Before printing a document, ask yourself whether you really need it printed or you can get by reading it online. Less paper consumption means less waste and less cash wasted.

3 Recycle
Does everyone in your office recycle? Do they know how to recycle properly? Sure by now everyone knows the blue box is for paper, the yellow box for plastics, the green one for glass. But there are times when we’re in a hurry and forget to pay extra attention – maybe you’ll want a friendly reminder posted near your recycle area: “never rush recycling…it’s serious business…have a nice day”.

4 Organize a team cleanup
Who said you have to sit behind a desk all day – get your team together and organize a once-a-month clean-up event in your community.

Could also be good publicity for your business. Get some company t-shirts and off you go — a good turn could provide good returns.

5 Turn off monitors and printers
If everyone shuts off their monitors and computers, before calling it a night, you would save a lot of energy and reduce your electricity bill … but it’s easy to forget sometimes – that’s why it might be a good idea to appoint someone. Energy Saving Officer – it would be their responsibility to make sure, monitors, computers and printers are shut off.

6 Employee mugs
{bonus} The bottom line is this – less waste, better for the environment, better for your bottom line. Get all your employees their own personal mugs or have them bring their own from home – this way, less plastic cups are used.

Would love to hear how your company wastes less and does good for the environment.

Where’s Portugal’s Web 2.0 Market?

Leaving the Gym earlier this morning, a street ad caught my attention. Which is really rare. This tends to only happen during the summer months when Super Bock runs their sexy and creative marketing campaigns … I guess sexy alcohol ads grab my attention. Not sure what this says about me.

Anyway, this particular ad, didn’t have any sexual overtones or the creative stroke of a super bock ad – it simply caught my attention because of the URL petnet.pt … since you rarely find ads promoting online businesses here in Portugal, other than Sapo or Vodafone, I got curious.

So, I pulled over and snapped this shot of the ad:

Petnet.pt Portugal

Petnet is a social community for pet lovers here in Portugal – a Web 2.0 type of business. It’s great to see web 2.0 Portuguese brand.

I hope to see more of these in the coming months — so i’ll be keeping my eyes peeled and look forward to talking about them here.

{update} Another new social community that has emerged from inside of Portugal – Adegga.com – a social wine discovery.

Welcome Post

Chama Inc Now Open in PortugalToday is a special day for us – marking our first day here in Portugal as a creative marketing and advertising company. We’re also, launching our new blog and website so lots to be excited about.

Although we’re new here in Portugal, we’ve actually been in business since 2002 and have been working with clients from around the globe. But we recently decided to relocate and chose to make Portugal our new home. The weather definitely helped galvanize our decision. So Chama is now officially registered as a Portuguese company under “ChamaInc. Lda.”

We’re excited and looking forward to working with local and national companies here in Portugal, as well as our foreign clients.

Why Portugal? Well there are many reasons such as lifestyle, weather, great food and the fact that Eddie was born in Algarve. But just as importantly, we believe our experience working with foreign companies and multinationals in advanced online marketing can contribute positively to the countless Portuguese business and products that exist here.

Regardless of the quality products that Portugal has to offer, it hasn’t taken the leap from bricks and mortar to the new global economy, heavily powered and influenced by the Internet. Competitive economies are well into web 2.0, while most of Portugal is still grasping the concept of the net. So this is where we see the opportunity to contribute our expertise, help local brands and businesses harness innovative solutions, get better ROI for their marketing dollars, create better customer experiences and ultimately work to bring the quality of Portuguese products to the forefront. Theres a lot of work to do!

So let the adventure begin : )