We recently made the school run much more fun for one young lad. School boy Michael Waterfield recently won a competition run by Lego, where he created his own ’extreme machine’ from Lego. The prize was to be picked up from school in a cool car & Michael chose the ultimate mean machine, the Batmobile, personally chauffered by Batman himself. The Batmobile caused a storm turning up outside the school in Yeovil, much to the delight of teachers & pupils alike. Batman posed for some photos next to his iconic vehicle before whisking Michael off in a blaze of light & flames. The chauffeur took a trip round town to show off the car & even ended up giving Michael’s uncle a lift, so it turned into a family affair.  Forget the school bus, this was a school run fit for a superhero!

Calling all those in marketing. 

Win a beautiful Christmas tree delivered to your door complete with some fabulous decorations!

Feeling the yuletide bombardment and sensing the growing pressure of Christmas already? Save your tears, as we’re here to ease some of the pain by offering up a sparklingly fresh Christmas tree delivered directly to you, to take as least one festive chore off your hard working hands.

Delivered fresh to your door (unless you’d rather a fabulous fake, in which case we can do that too) complete with some stunning decorations, you can sit back, relax and rid yourself of the worry of setting up your pad to compete with your friends.  You’ll have a ready made Christmas on your doorstep; all you then need to add is a snowman on your windowsill and some annoying relatives and you’re set.

Simply like us on Facebook and/or follow us on Twitter and we’ll enter you into the draw.  Closes at 12pm next Friday, 9th December.  There will be a winner on both Facebook and Twitter, so feel free to double up and enter on both.  We’ll announce the winner that afternoon on both sites.

Good luck

Love from Unmissable

 We tweeted yesterday about fun things to follow to cheer us all up through the recent doom and gloom. So should we spend our way through December and out of recession? And if we did, what would we splash the cash on? This got us day dreaming of the best places on the planet to escape to. Places so far removed from normality we would be immune from any depressing news. Here are our top three uber-retreats:

Musha Cay

This make-believe island in the sothern Bahamas has something very special. Turquoise waters, white sandy beaches and water sports - tick, boring. Unmissable can arrange for you to embark on a Caribbean treasure hunt with pirates, helicopter, pyrotechnics and interactive coded clues. Or maybe you’d prefer to discover a secret monkey village only accessible by an underground tunnel? Perhaps a private movie theatre with a giant screen on the beach is more your thing? Pure escapism.

W Seminyak

Ibiza, Miami, London - nah. If you want to go clubbing and leave the world behind head to Bali. You’ll be dazzled by the mixture of Balinese mythology and contemporary style. The WooBar pulses with the beats of international DJ’s, but after a big night escape to the sanctuary of the oxygen lounge in the spa to ease a sore head.

Amangiri

Fly into the Canyonlands in the Utah Desert by private jet and escape to what feels like another planet. The striking stone structure is built into the canyon walls and overlooks a vista of nothing but unusual rock formations and high desert. Explore this other-world on a via ferrata adventure, along cables and ladder rungs in the rock, adding a sprinkling of adrenaline to your escape. Then relax and forget about your woes with flotation-aided meditation and stargazing next to the fire pit in your suite’s desert lounge.

Want to take part in a Bourne Trilogy? Become the star of a box office smash recreated in a real time live action sequence. With instruction from some of the world’s leading stunt co-ordinators, practitioners and instructors, we’re offering the chance to act out the ultimate childhood fantasy and become a secret agent. With tuition in stunt driving, free running and Krav Maga (the Israeli martial art used by Bourne and his protagonists),  hard work and training will culminate in faithfully recreating scenes from the films . Learn firsthand the disciplines and techniques that make Jason Bourne one of the most exciting and original action heroes of the modern movie era.

What can be expected on the day? Following training at a disused military airfield with other competing operatives, participants will be sent into the field where they will need to call upon every defence, driving and survival skill they have learnt to achieve their mission. Their newly acquired driving techniques, heightened awareness, defence and evasion skills will be brought to life on our staged film set with them at the heart of the storm. Unlike other Espionage experiences, training will be extensive and you will be taught by the world’s leading practitioners. They are some of best in the business having been involved in numerous blockbuster films such as Gone In 60 Seconds, Casino Royale, Drive, The Debt, Salt and many more.

It all sounds a bit dangerous?  Health and safety, fitness and well being are of utmost priority. Each participant will be assessed, medically checked and each session created, will
reflect their ability. Our meticulous planning and experience in delivering these stunts will result in creating realistic and achievable goals for them, ensuring safety but not at the expense of a truly adrenaline fuelled experience.

The Best Book Ever Written…is all about you.  Your life is a story waiting to be told, and “My 10 Stories” is your chance to tell it.

Commissioning a memoir for your family, friends and colleagues is a nice idea, but will anybody read it?  They will if they’re divided into the best 10 stories of your life and written by award-winning editors and writers. It’s the ultimate gift.

Work with a professional writer who will help you remember and relive stories that will make your readers laugh, cry and be inspired. Family, friends and colleagues will read your 10 stories knowing each chapter is its own short story.  You’ll receive a story-starter questionnaire to get you thinking:

>Tell us a story of your parents or grandparents
>Relive a defining event from your childhood
>Reveal a hilarious mishap or embarrassing experience
>Share a life lesson that came too late for you
>Inspire us with that pivotal career or life event that set you on a winning path

After the writer of your choice finishes a few interviews (done at your convenience), you’ll be wrestling with which story to leave out. The process is as much fun as the final product, we can promise that.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning editor, will guide you every step of the way. The result will be a book you’ll not only treasure, but be proud to share.

Winners receive 100 hardcover books with custom jackets. The books are about 140 pages long and include up to 10 pages of photographs if desired. Additional books can easily be ordered.  It will take around 4 months to hold the interviews, write and alter the manuscripts and have the books printed.

Call us for more details

It’s beautiful up North

Prepare for nature’s No. 1 2012 spectacular. The Northern Lights are predicted to be the brightest in over 50 years next year, so there’s no better time to witness this awe-inspiring experience. We’ll arrange travel with an astronomer to make the trip extra illuminating, to see the spectacle from your glass igloo or even stay at the Aurora Sky Station for the ultimate dazzling encounter.  An Unmissable experience such as this could really light up your next incentive or promotional campaign.

Like two peas in a pod

The doors will open next year to London’s very own Japanese style ‘pod’ hotel. Set inside the Trocadero Centre, the rooms may be tiny but still manage to fit in a double bed, ensuite bathroom & 42″ plasma TV. If the thought of squeezing into a cabin style room makes you want to gasp for air, then head to the rooftop bar & restaurant planned for the top floor where we’ll arrange for a meal with a view to die for.

It’s the end of the world as we know it

If the world’s going to end, then there’s arguably nowhere better to be than Central America.  The ancient Mayans predicted that the world will end on 21 December 2012 , when their complex lunar calendar comes to an end. Before you start thinking there’s no need to buy any presents next year, others say it’s all a load of rubbish but the date brings a new era of human consciousness. Whatever you think, this makes 2012 the best year to check out our trips to the most mysterious ruins on earth & one of the world’s most fascinating continents.

The hype surrounding social media has failed to influence the majority of senior business managers, with research conducted by Interactive Intelligence showing that just 13 per cent regard speaking to customers and prospects through online communities as ‘high priority’.

Nearly half (48 per cent) of the 500 senior managers questioned failed to recognise how comments on social media increasingly define public perception of their company or brand.

In stark contrast, a previous YouGov and Interactive Intelligence survey conducted on a sample of the UK population in April 2011, revealed that 41 per cent of consumers who use social media are influenced by both positive and negative comments about a brand or company on social media sites

However, signs that the situation will be rectified are strong, with 70 per cent planning a strategy to monitor and respond to social media comments.

“Results from both of these surveys highlight a worrying gap between the customer and the company. Customers say they are influenced by comments made on social media channels, yet only six per cent of the managers surveyed felt comments posted on social media sites were ‘very influential’ to the perception of their company or brand,” said Dave Paulding, regional sales director UK for Interactive Intelligence.

Need help navigating your brand through the social media maze? Call us for examples of some of the great social media campaigns we’ve worked on and check out our recent blog on the role prizes can play.

 http://www.unmissable.com/blog/2011/10/do-prizes-have-a-place-on-twitter-and-facebook/

Interesting article on Marketing Week’s website today…

Facebook and Adobe are working together to attempt to demonstrate the monetary value of the “Like” button to brands.  The two companies are currently collaborating on Adobe’s SocialAnalytics tool, which aggregates conversations about brands on all social networks and measures them against business metrics such as revenue or brand value.

Marketers such as Kraft’s digital head Sonia Carter have previously said there is a “battle” to prove the value of social media campaigns to senior executves because it is difficult to prove a return on investment.

Facebook has given its API to Adobe so marketers can measure metrics such as the specific monetary value of each click of the Like button against certain content. Marketers can also determine which fans of the brand are the biggest influencers to others and have driven the most revenue to the company.

Adobe says it is the first tool that gives marketers a “causation” metric - rather than correlation - to assess the business value of social media campaigns. The tool also gives marketers access to data about the influence of other social media platforms such as Twitter and blogging site WordPress.

Chad Warren, senior manager of product marketing and social media at Adobe, says the companies have now managed to develop a tool in SocialAnalytics that “optimises the impact of the Like button”.

“At the moment lots of businesses use social dashboards, but they provide no insights, only trends, the business context is missing - how did [social media] get consumers closer to making a purchase decision,” he adds.

Facebook and Adobe have also collaborated to create a “best practice” guide for marketers to measure and optimise the button on their brand pages and websites. It gives guidance on where best to present the Like button on brand websites and how to measure ROI from each consumer click of the button.

Apple is pipped at the post as Stuff Magazine’s gadget of the year goes to Asus this year. Does that mean the prize of choice will be changing in the lead up to Christmas?

Gadget title Stuff magazine has stuffed it to Apple by awarding the Asus Eee Pad Transformer with its title of gadget of the year – ahead of the popular iPad2.

The hybrid device features a hybrid tablet screen and detachable keyboard which enables the unit to function both as a passive touchscreen and productive laptop.

This combination of features was sufficient to convince Stuff’s editors, that Asus were worthy of their accolade, despite the iPad2 being better than the Asus as a standalone tablet.

Stuff’s consulting editor Simon Osborne-Walker said of the winner: “Best tablet? No. Best netbook? Probably not. But as a combo of the two - awesome.”

In a further blow to Apple the magazine voted Samsung’s Galaxy S2 smartphone as phone of the year.

It wasn’t all bad news for the tech firm though; the iPad3 and MacBook Air were named most wanted future gadget and best computer by the magazine.

Article taken from The Drum, 3/11/11.

Fancy escaping from it all in a luxurious gated community in the wilderness? Fiddler Lake Resort provides a natural haven of  log cabin rental nested in the lower Laurentians. Walk through 250 acres of private natural forest! Sun bathe beside the pool, play a tennis game or  a canoe excursion on non-motorized Fiddler Lake.

Your chalet away from home features stone fireplaces, large screened porches, cathedral ceilings, heated floors, fully equipped kitchens and high-speed wireless internet.

Many of the chalets also have a six-person Jacuzzi, private sauna, barbeque and more! Best of all, at our chalet you’ll find all this luxury at an outstanding rate.

These chalets are perfect for skiing in the winter and enjoying a completely relaxing break away from the stresses of modern day life but filled with the perks.