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How to Start a Fire » Video blog http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com Brought to you by Canopy Brand Group Mon, 18 Jun 2018 17:58:39 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.37 Radioactive Animal Husbandry http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/radioactive-animal-husbandry/ http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/radioactive-animal-husbandry/#comments Fri, 16 May 2014 13:04:23 +0000 http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/?p=4599 The new Godzilla movie comes out today, and I know that everyone has the same question on their minds: Could a gigantic radioactive fire-breathing murder-lizard actually exist in the real world?

The short answer is no. No it can’t.

According to YouTube channel Vsauce, if the bones supporting a beast several times longer, taller, and bigger than the largest animal on earth did not shatter under its own weight, the caloric intake necessary would increase the human mortality rate by 1.3%. So if gravity didn’t kill the thing outright, he wouldn’t have the energy to eat enough to not starve to death.

So yeah, don’t worry about it if a Godzilla actually comes out of the ocean. Just hide and wait for him to starve to death.

What Sparks Our Fire: Knowing that in this world of danger, at least we don’t have to worry about Godzilla.

Are you seeing the movie this weekend?

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Han Shot First http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/han-shot-first/ http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/han-shot-first/#comments Wed, 07 May 2014 17:04:17 +0000 http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/?p=4568 Sunday was May 4th. Most people know it as the day before Cinco de Mayo, but most of the internet celebrated Star Wars Day (as in “May the Fourth be with you”… get it?). In honor of the auspicious occasion many blogs and websites put together Star Wars-related content and features. YouTube Channel Action Movie Kid easily had the most adorable one, featuring the toddler star and his video-editing dad.

All I know is my dad never let me play with lightsabers.

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Other brands such as Oreo and Starbucks got in on the fun with one-off ads referencing Star Wars.

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Oreo has some awesome people working for it. We still remember “Dunk in the Dark”

What Sparks Our Fire: Brands taking advantage of opportunities to connect with fans based on common ground. Also, super-adorable children.

How did you celebrate Star Wars Day?

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Viral Schmiral http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/viral-schmiral/ http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/viral-schmiral/#comments Tue, 18 Mar 2014 13:46:28 +0000 http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/?p=4383 So by now, if you have an internet connection, you’ve seen the black and white video of beautiful people awkwardly kissing over an acoustic indie song. It’s awkward, and cute, and thought provoking, and totally an advertisement for WREN, but we’re not going to talk about that right now. However, for purposes of narrative symmetry, here’s the video that’s been all over every single one of your feeds.

The video itself has just shy of 60 million views, and it’s always increasing. The reasons for the virality of the content are hard to pinpoint. Some reasons could be the inherent desire that people have to see intimate and personal moments captured on video, the fact that all the people in this video are very very pretty, the vague subversiveness of including gay, lesbian, mixed-race, mixed-age couples in addition to the young heterosexual couples, or any number of things related to those reasons. Whatever the cause, the video strikes just the right resonant note with many, if not all who watch it.

And almost everyone is tired of it. The purity of the video has come and gone, the parodies have come and gone, the analysis of the video has been beaten into the dust by feminists, sociologists, and advertising apologetics and haters. That’s the trouble with highly viral campaigns. There is a huge amount of interaction in the first days of the campaign, and then interest slackens off and dies. But hey, we’re talking about it, so maybe it’s working more than we think.

Here’s a video of puppies.

What Sparks Our Fire: We like viral videos, but we like it more when they go away.

What do you think made this video go viral?

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Cuddling with a Predator http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/cuddling-with-a-predator/ http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/cuddling-with-a-predator/#comments Thu, 06 Mar 2014 18:56:42 +0000 http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/?p=4359 The leopard seal is the second largest seal species in the Antarctic, and is one of the most dangerous predators in the area. It’s not surprising, then, that National Geographic Photographer Paul Nicklen was nervous to enter the water with the largest sea leopard he had ever seen. What happened next is incredible.

What Sparks Our Fire: Photographing the natural world, up close and personal.

What do you think of these close and personal shots?

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Sharp and Pointy Things http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/sharp-and-pointy-things/ http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/sharp-and-pointy-things/#comments Fri, 28 Feb 2014 13:35:03 +0000 http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/?p=4327

I’ll be honest. I’m kind of a huge nerd. All these movies and video games have awesome non-realistic bladed weapons that you’d never actually expect someone to make in real life. However, Swordsmith Tony Swatton has handmade over 30 battle-ready versions of weapons from movies, video games, and TV shows, including Game of Thrones, Final Fantasy, and Avatar. Swatton has made weapons for over 200 movies, and each of them looks deadly.

These videos have been posted to the AWE me Youtube channel, and it doesn’t look like they’re anywhere near finished.

What Sparks Our Fire: Realistically forging the weapons of our fantasies.

What would you like to see them create next?

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This Article Changed My Life http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/this-article-changed-my-life/ http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/this-article-changed-my-life/#comments Thu, 19 Dec 2013 14:18:17 +0000 http://howtostartafire.canopybrandgroup.com/?p=3933 Let’s talk about clickbait.

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In the past few years, a certain type of internet journalism has become more and more prevalent in certain Generation Y circles. There are numerous sub-genres of this trend, but they all fall under a category that for simplicity’s sake I’ll refer to as “Clickbait Articles”. With titles like “22 Reasons Why Having A Quiet New Year’s Eve Is Secretly The Best“, “America Could End Homelessness in One Year by Doing This“, and “23 Food Things Only Chinese-American Kids Would Understand“, these articles reflect the changing nature of internet writing and the way we share information.

The reason this kind of article is written is for the most part, internet authors are paid for the amount of visits their article page receives. This means these articles need eye-catching, attention-grabbing titles and shareable content, to grab and multiply visits, or clicks. This ties into the concept of the internet as an information niche market. People want information customized to them, to their interests and likes, and will click on  and share pages they believe suit them and their internet persona. However, since there are so many person-specific niches, these articles tend to be broad in appeal and have minimal content, often to the point of lists: the author makes a point in a sentence or two, adds an accompanying picture or GIF, and moves on. As such, these articles are often short, light on content, and are in essence disposable. Buzzfeed.com alone sees a turnover of dozens of articles a day.

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This kind of directed content sharing springs from multiple motivations and thought processes, but there are three main thought processes that stand out: “This is so relatable/worth sharing”, “This is something the world needs to know about”, and “This describes my niche demographic”. This is obviously a simplification, but in essence these are the three motivations that tend to stand out.

Articles that are relatable tend to have subject matter regarding large demographics the author has ascribed certain common experiences to. For instance, articles relating to the experience of being a 20-something woman in NYC are common, as well as others listing reasons why Jennifer Lawrence is a wonderful person. These articles will often be shared with comments along the vein of “So true” or “Too real”, which in turn lead followers and friends to click on the link to see if they too relate. The problem with these articles is they tend to lack any real content, and are akin to horoscope predictions or zodiac signs, which seem to be very specific to you, but in fact are broad statements that almost anyone can apply to themselves.

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The second type of shared link are those that take up some sort of cause or social issue. This type of article isn’t new, but rather the positioning of the internet cause article is very removed from pre-internet articles, especially in the way they are titled. These post authors have perfected the art of writing a title that gives away next to nothing about their content, but demands viewer attention. Examples include, “A Fashion Designer Uses Her Mannequins To Send A Message That Hurts” or “A Gut-Punching Ad Shows 2 Perspectives On Your Last Years. Which Describes Where You’re Headed?“. These titles give the user a reason to click, and once they absorb the content, they share it. While effective, a critique of these methods might show that this positioning may lead to an alarmist tendency, as well as misleading content. One of the articles mentioned above claims to have found the cure to homelessness if only America would listen. However, it is simply an article on how houses can be built from plastic bottles, and doesn’t show how those houses will be built, who will build them, or how this solves a homeless problem on any spectrum except that of “more houses”.

The third type of article targets a niche demographic with content related specifically to the experience of that demographic. For instance, I am an American of Chinese decent, and I grew up in suburban New York. Therefore, the above article about experiences Chinese-American kids share involving food was immediately applicable to me, and I shared the article with the rest of my friends and family who also had those experiences, and the article resonated with all of them. The drawback of this sort of article is it can marginalize the members of the audience who don’t belong to that niche. For instance, no one outside of my demographic understands the rite of passage that is learning how to use chopsticks, or that my Grandmothers’ jook is better than anyone else’s and I will defend that statement to death. These are exclusive articles that can only be written by those who have directly experienced the subject matter, and as such cannot be applicable to large audiences.

In essence, this type of article is one of the most popular formats of current internet content, and it’s not going anywhere for now. Like all forms of journalism, this format has its drawbacks, but also appeals to a great number of internet users, and it will be interesting to watch Clickbait Articles and how they evolve in the future.

What Sparks Our Fire: Emerging forms of journalism exclusive to the internet are extraordinarily interesting, especially to those of us in advertising, where it is our job to watch trends.

Do you enjoy these types of articles?

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