I’m not going to even think about the days getting shorter because I can’t believe we’ve just passed the summer solstice anyway! What a year it’s been so far….

We’ve added Gorillaz, Philips and Red Bull to our client list. The lovely people at Asda and Cancer Research have both come back for more. We’ve won another award for our first advergame for Vimto. I’ve been speaking at Elmwood’s Digital Picnic, Brandhouse’s Digital Sparks and I’m up next at the Develop Conference in July. And we need more desks and IT kit because we’ve got new Matmians on board – great!

Why has the downturn been Matmi’s up? Because we’re getting great results for our clients and making them look really good…..

Although our other halves have sometimes forgotten what we look like, in general the marvellous Matmians have been having a whale of a time this year. And I’m not gloating about it – there’s a very good reason.

What we do is working wonders for our clients and they keep coming back for more. Asda, EMI and Cancer Research have all run their second/third/fourth campaigns with us in the last six months because now they truly understand the power of branded entertainment as the new genre of advertising.

We’re talking TV equivalent airtime in terms of decades – and it’s voluntary, interactive, word-of-mouth marketing too (ie – the most influential type). Take a look at the Digital Diary for the facts and figures.

So what’s changed? Nothing – but when times are tough, people are more open-minded. “Necessity is the mother of invention” and all that. Now that a few big brands have successfully included cutting edge digital techniques (like advergames) in their online marketing, the rest have noticed and decided to catch us up.

That’s slightly scary for Matmi because we like to be “out there” in every sense of the word. But we put our business brains into gear (yes, we have that type of thinking here too) and work out the next move.

I predicted that the fusion of gaming with social media would be this year’s big trend – and it is. So much so that the big shakers like Facebook and Apple are only just keeping up. We’re a minnow in comparison physically, but we have a massive footprint digitally and that’s what qualifies us to show clients how to do the same. It’s no surprise to us that their Matmi campaigns are so successful – but it’s great to still be able to surprise them!

I think this is the beautiful secret of Matmi’s success. Give people what they want online (entertainment) and they’re really happy. Brand the entertainment – subtly – and the sponsors are happy. Come up with great concepts and challenging work and the marvellous Matmians are happy.

When everyone’s happy, you’ve got a success on your hands. I hope you can put the same principle to work in your business.

(And if you’d like to give it a test drive with an advergame, you know who to call).

Enjoy, Jeff.

If you looked at a copy of the Manchester Evening News on Friday, you might have seen an article/interview with our illustrious leader Jeff.  If you didn’t see a copy, you can click here to read the article on the MEN website.

While we’re very happy to get the coverage, there’s one correction we’d like to make.  It was reported that Jeff said the following: “Within four years it is predicted that more people will be using an iPhone to access the internet than a computer.” when what he actually said was: “Within four years it is predicted that more people will be using a mobile phone to access the internet than a computer.”

It’s a small thing, but it’s an important one!

Avid Matmi fans will no doubt remember our festive pinball offering “Snowy’s Christmas Pinball”, but summer almost upon us, so you’d be forgiven for not feeling especially Christmas-y.   Have no fear though, because some places stay cool all year road, like the frozen reaches of Canada, where the winter ice gets so thick, you can drive a truck across it.

And that’s the inspiration for Snowy’s brand new look and new game, Ice Road Pinball.  It’s the same great game, with all new graphics and sound, and best of all, if you’ve already bought Snowy’s, then all you need to do is update it, and voila! You’ve got Ice Road Pinball too: two awesome looks, and one low price.

You can grab Ice Road Truckers here, or just update Snowy’s from your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Our latest game “Escape to Plastic Beach” for the Gorillaz crosses the divide into reality – along with several other divides that we know of!

2D to 3D. Flash to Unity. Free-to-play to free MP3 download. Bruce Willis got his own virtual double as the bounty hunter. And the game crosses from virtual to reality and back again – several times – given that Gorillaz is a virtual band (which makes your brain hurts if you think about it too hard….).

But don’t do that! Play the game and let us know what you think. Here’s what lead singer Murdoc has to say on the subject:

“Hey! This is fan-tastic. Some top-notch gonk gaming company have made a Gorillaz game that you can play free online. It’s all based on Plastic Beach, and it features me, 2D and my cyborg Noodle! What’s even better is that if you pay the £1.50 for the last part, you get our new single “Superfast Jellyfish”, and that’s got ‘Super Furry’ Gruff and the De La Soul boys on it! El Caminos, Boogiemen, ghostly pirate ships, underwater chases, mines, fat cops and gun battles all wrapped up in some snazzy new gaming technology and a great new Gorillaz track too…I mean, what more could you want? Come n’ play with me and Gorillaz on Plastic Beach and see how far that gets you…”
He’s right – we think it’s pretty darned good too. There are months of our lives, a lot of our brain cells and an awful lot of Matmi magic in “Escape to Plastic Beach“.

And there’s still more to come. Prepare yourself to cross another chasm Matmi style in a few weeks time…. Enjoy, Jeff.

There’s always a lots going on here at Matmi HQ, so even something as recent as the release of Monster Pinball, which only came out last summer, seems like an age ago. That’s not the case for the rest of the world however, and with so many apps on the App Store, it’s easy for people to miss even the good stuff, like say, Monster Pinball. (more…)

Last week Penny and I were given the enviable task of representing Matmi at the prestigious Design Week awards ceremony at the Park Lane Hilton in London (ooh err).

Everybody knows a girl never turns down the opportunity to throw on her gladrags, the venue was beautiful, the menu was mouth-watering and we got to share a few drinks with one of our fabulous clients, Neil from Vimto, as our redesign of Vimto’s UK website was shortlisted for a digital design award. (more…)

Meetings are like buses; you wait for ages and then two come along at once.  If Apple wasn’t enough, we also had the CTO and founder of Netlog, Toon Coppens.  Netlog might not be a household name in the UK, but it’s Europe’s largest social network, with more than 58 million subscribers, so a visit from the head man is a pretty big deal. (more…)

When a platform holder comes to visit a developer it’s either for something really, really good, or really, really bad.  It could also be a formality, but that was nowhere near as snappy, so we left it out.  Anyway, in this instance it was a good thing, as Apple wanted to talk to us about our future plans for the iPhone. (more…)

We decided that the upstairs office – affectionately called ‘The Treehouse’ by its inhabitants – was starting to look a little drab, and needed a lick of paint to brighten it up.  But being who we are, a common or garden magnolia wasn’t going to make the grade.

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We’ve got plenty of admirers here at Matmi; aside from the fact that we’re all so pretty, our games and websites are enjoyed by millions of people all over the world.  Still, even we, who have grown accustomed to having affection poured upon us*, are not immune to the charms of a suitor like Apple.

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