The great and good of the national Press decended on Bristol yesterday and SWRDA hosted an event at @t-Bristol to round the evening off. Team Happy were asked to exhibit some interactive play-things in the lobby and of course we leapt at the chance. Only after signing up did we realise there wasn't really much Happy love to actually show. The first prorotype isn't yet ready for the App store, there's a delay while it is moderated by Apple and we only had 30 or so minutes with the delegates, who were no doubt going to be far more interested in the free champagne. So we took it back to basics, as we've successfully done for all our last PR opportunities (Boxes on heads, anyone? Sweets hidden in salt bins?)

Palin for Prime Minister

The original idea was to create trails on a board using images, string and pins. How to make this a little more...relevant? Irreverant? Of course! The US Election! So we decided to present Obama and Palin, in a finctional scenario, as two guests to the UK, and delegates would be asked to choose a location for them to visit, and leave some content and a personal message for them when they arrive (with the Happy Package program installed on their presidential iPhone...)

The Happy Wall

The event itself unravelled with the usual frantic ducking and diving, but all in all it was a sucess. We also learnt a few key lessons to take with us in the next phase of the Happy Package journey. But before that, a little bit of gossip - Andrew Marr played with our interactive wall! And he left a very clever little message for Obama in the Roman Baths. Jemima Kiss of the Media Guardian also spent some time with us, but a pesky old man kept whisking her away. He was probably important.

Andrew Marr talks with Obama

And so to more business chat - how do we sell Happy Packages? How do we get press coverage? What revenue models would work? Do we need a separate vehicle behind project to promote it and simplify the proposition to potential investors (as opposed to dealing with a TD/Mobile Pie collaboration)? Jemima had the answers on the tip of her tongue a number of times, but aforementioned 'important' old man kept whisking her away. As for business models, most options depend on a user base, and most userbases need a PR kick into action, but you don't get PR coverage without investment etc etc and so on. But what we can do is solidify our proposition into a tasty little sentence that spares the listener any techno-gobledy-gook and inspires them to get on board. Discussions continue, around the theme of sharing esperiences at locations, but ideas are welcome. 50p to the first person that actually COMMENTS ON THIS BLOG (Reddington?)

Posted by Ben Templeton