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It's captured in a slide show that offers marketers can capitalize on Twitter by flipping customers the (blue) birdie. View it here.
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Now, there's this inventive little augmented reality banner. Instead of printing out an AR symbol, you just hold a dollar bill up to your webcam to see what a buck will buy you at BK.
Who knew the King was both creepy and cool?
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Esquire is taking print magazines where they've never been. Again.
First there was the video-like, E-ink-enabled cover and inside spread ad in the 7th Anniversary issue.
Now, it's augmented reality, with a series of AR symbols featured throughout the pub. When held up to a webcam, or presumably some camera phones, scenes from fashion spreads come to life. According to today's Wall Street Journal, "A fashion spread about dressing in layers, for example, shows actor Jeremy Renner shedding a coat and sweater as the weather turns from rainy to sunny. Turning the magazine triggers a snow flurry, and Mr. Renner puts on more clothes and throws snowballs."
Apparently the issue's edition of "Funny Joke from a Beautiful Woman" features Gillian Jacobs, who, once activated using the AR symbol, says she'll tell a second, "'dirtier' joke should readers return after midnight." Which would indicate something is built in the symbol to check the time on our computer when you scan it.
Could be a lot of fun, or cheese. No word yet if any advertisers are participating - though I think it's better when advertisers use AR symbols on their own (they don't need the magazine's help to do it), rather than participate in a "special issue" where the actual usefulness of the experience is an afterthought.
Read more, here.
You'll also be able to see how a growing number of marketers are using augmented reality, in my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (Amacom/McGraw-Hill), which hits stores this next spring. Find out more, here.
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Now, this is out of Japan, so maybe Crispin - the agency for both the Microsoft and Burger King accounts - isn't behind this curious offering (odd that Business Week didn't mention the connection if it is).
This Windows 7 Whopper, by the way, is a seven-patty burger weighing more than 1.4 lbs and sporting 2,120 calories - not to mention more than a little cheese.
Read more, here.
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Harken back to those thrilling days of yesteryear, or at least 1994.
Ah, the 24.4 kps connection. That piercing dial-up sound.
The year before Netscape Explorer.
It was then that a handful of advertisers - MCI, Volvo, Club Med, Zima, 1-800-Collect, AT&T - launched the first banner ads on HotWired, an online version of Wired magazine.
The lowly banner ad - for many advertisers just figuring out that consumers could actually click on them, a landing page was an afterthought - got a 78% average click through rate.
How things have changed.
Check out the AT&T banner ad, which earned its click through by proclaiming, "Have you ever clicked your mouse right here? You will!"
And check out this piece in Ad Age that relives the excitement of online advertising's primordial past.
Those were fun days. But I don't ever need to hear the dial-up sound ever (and I mean ever) again.
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Somewhere out there, Kit's got to be rusting in a junkyard wishing he'd just run down David Hasselhoff when he had the chance.
Now, in the 21st Century, we have to deal with the consequences of that warbler of "Hooked On A Feeling," that German superstar, that bane of Baywatch, that star of Meet The Hasselhoffs, and his new iPhone app, Ask The Hoff.
As the App store blurb puts it, "Just turn up the volume, ask a question and shake your iPhone" and the Hoff will give you the answer, in a kind of screwy 8 ball motif.
I don't know. Pepsi's "Amp Up Before You Score" app is suddenly sounding less offensive.
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The Gilt Groupe - the folks behind high-fashion-at-low-prices, members only shopping site Gilt.com, are extending the brand to GiltMan.com, which will features expanded men's categories in a "guys only" experience.
I got word from Gilt Groupe on Thursday, and have been too busy to post about it until now. But that day, inaugural sales included:
I've yet to be invited to enjoy the original Gilty pleasures. But here's hoping my request for GiltMan works out a little better.
Check it all out yourself, here.
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Produced by Doritos' own branded entertainment outfit, Snack Strong Productions, this new installment enables you to use your webcam and microphone to amp up the chills considerably.
"Hotel 626" delivered some great moments - including secretly snapping photos of you to show you as a victim on a monster's wall of victims and even calling you up on the phone to really freak you out. (I talk to Derek Robson, managing partner of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, about that promotion and its role it played as Goodby was ratcheting up its digital capabilities, in my new book THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (Spring 2010, AMACOM/McGraw-Hill). I haven't had a chance to try out this new experience, but I'm hoping it takes it all to a whole new level.
I noticed there's a new symbol - perhaps an augmented reality symbol like Doritos' recent Blink 182/Big Boi promotion - on new bags of chips. Don't know yet if there's an AR component - the site's only available from 6 PM to 6 AM in your time zone. But you can be sure I'll be turning off the lights and figuring out that one tonight.
Try it yourself (between 6 and 6, of course), here.
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How'd Paramount do it?
First, it ran "Paranormal Activity," the movie produced for just $10,000 that spooked up $22 million and the #1 slot on this weekend's box office, only in 10 cities. Then, it launched a campaign to get consumers to "demand" that it become a national release.
Consumers could vote via mobile text message, Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites.
“We were thrilled,” Amy Powell, a Paramount marketing executive, tells the San Diego Business Journal. “We said to the fans, ‘If you demand it, we will bring the movie to you.’ And we did.”
You can bet all the word of mouth sent to Twitter via mobile phones over the weekend helped out a bit, too.
Look for even bigger business this Halloween Weekend - thanks to a campaign so smart, it's scary.
Read more, here.
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Just don't call us the Digital Hollywood Squares.
I was in Santa Monica this week to participate in a panel discussion on games as an advertising and marketing platform for entertainment and consumer products brands.
It was a lively discussion with executives from several of the online and mobile gaming outfits, and hosted by James Green, CEO of Giant Realm. Great group of people, and an interesting debate.
Some really intelligent (and funny) people aboard - which made it feel like a game show.
Peter Marshall, eat your heart out.
Read more, here.
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The story of the 'Amp Before You Score' iPhone app - a kind of pickup guide to different types of women, along with a Facebook bragging list for each score - is going to be pulled from the iTunes App store.
First, Pepsi posted the game, which was designed to promote the company's Amp energy drink, and which came with an NC-17 warning. Then it apologized for it.
Now, Pepsi says it's gotten too much criticism, and it's yanking the app.
Get the full scoop, here.
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Hey, if it's the most cost-effective way to reach your demo, why not lean heavily on an iPhone app?
But exclusively?
That's what VW plans for the launch of the new GTI. I'm having a hard time believing the total universe of GTI's prospective buyers own iPhones, but let's get to that in just a bit.
According to Automotive News, the marketer spent $60 million launching the GTI in 2006. Now it thinks it can do better on a $500,000 iPhone budget, which will include a Real Racing GTI game for the IPhone and iPod Touch, a virtual showroom, and (this is cool), the ability for users to send video clips of races game play to YouTube and messages via Twitter.. The agency behind the effort is AKQA (I interview founder Tom Bedecarré at length in my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (spring 2010, Amacom/McGraw-Hill).
The game isn't even built from the ground up; it's licensed from an existing game, saving the brand a lot of money.
But an iPhone/iPod only approach? Automotive News points to the fact that there are 50 million iPhones and iPods in use worldwide, but only 21 million viewers watch CBS' "NCIS," the most-watched TV show for the week ending October 18.
Still. The game won't be on every iPhone and iPod Touch - 50 million is the total number of users, not the universe of potential GTI owners therein. And you can't compare usage to ratings for one show. In terms of reach and frequency, GTI's target demo watches any number of shows during a one month period.
Not that the game doesn't sound cool, and the PR value of an iPhone-only approach will resonate with the target audience. But mobile is one touchpoint in integrated campaigns. Not THE touchpoint.
Time will tell if, or how well, the strategy pays off.
Hopefully it will be a major win for the brand, and that the company best known for innovative print and television ads like "Lemon," this campaign won't bring unintended meaning to that age old tagline.
Read all about it, here.
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The Real Thing may still rule the world, but Pepsi's got the Ka-Ching thing happening in China.
Business Week has an article on how Pepsi has been running American Idol-style television-and-web shows that reward contestants with $30,000, a trip to a Los Angeles recording studio, and a role in a Pepsi TV ad.
The "Pepsi Creative Challenge," on the other hand, encouraged consumers to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic with online birthday wishes. And a promotion called "Go China" prompted people to send in patriotic slogans and pictures of themselves online. Twenty-eight million submissions and 122 million votes for winners later, Pepsi has found itself a winner in its own right.
"Pepsi [in China] is one of the best digital marketers anywhere," Tom Doctoroff, North Asia director for ad agency JWT, tells the pub.
I'm trying to view this as something other than an iconic American brand playing into communist propagandizing. Maybe it's just worldly business acumen.
You'd think Coke would have a built in advantage, given its corporate colors. But the same brand that seemed inspired enough by the Obama campaign logo to evoke it with their own mark inviting folks to celebrate the birth of the People's Republic seems troubling.
Troubling but smart if your goal is market share in one of the world's largest and most important markets.
Some readers took issue with Business Week's assertion that all the digital marketing has resulted in Pepsi's ascendancy to #1 in cola sales, however.
Even if that particular status proves false, by Pepsi's measure, any market dominance over Coca-Cola is something to get excited about.
Read more, here.
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A large brand I work with decided a while ago to discontinue its direct mail print catalogs, figuring most people search for goods online.
When the catalogs stopped, web traffic plummeted - making the brand realize print still plays a role. In fact, it plays two roles - the one it always has, as well as a website traffic generator.
So it wasn't too much of a surprise to see the story in today's Wall Street Journal about how a paperless world will have to deal with a paper-filled world of retail catalogs. Why?
As the Journal puts it: "Because glossy catalog pages still entice buyers in a way that computer images don't. Catalogs, marketers say, drive sales at Web sites, making them more important than ever."
I've seen it first hand, and I'm a believer. In fact, as the Journal reports, 62% of retailers who depend on direct sales say paper catalogs are their biggest revenue generators - despite the fact that only 1.3% of those catalogs generate a sale.
Tougher to quantify is the web traffic generated by these mailings. But I think it's safe to say paper catalogs aren't going anywhere soon.
Read all about it in the online, paper-free version of the Wall Street Journal, here.
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The Swimsuit Issue is coming to your cell phone in an whole new way.
Condé Nast has announced it will start selling digital versions of each new issue of GQ via a new iPhone app.
Each issue will cost $2.99, or 1/2 off each issue's $4.99 news stand price, and will replicate everything from the print ad - including advertisements. An added bonus: advertisers would be able to add digital links from their "print" ads on the mobile platform.
I'm not sure how good that will look on the iPhone...one has to wonder how "assets" may or may not be further enhanced on its tiny screen....but with the rumored Apple tablet, well, that could get interesting.
Either way, if this app works out, look for Condé - and countless others - to bring more titles to the iPhone.
Read more, here.
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Speaking of branded games, none other than 7-Eleven has a new online game out called "The 711 Club."
I'm not even clear on what the game is from this post...but a quick look at the game seems to indicate it involves a "mojo meter," pick-up lines (look out for "Amp Up Before You Score" controversies), the objective of hitting on a "Hot Brazilian." and the chance to win a free cup of 7-Eleven coffee (Brazilian, of course).
Can a Circle K game be far behind?
Read more, here.
Play it yourself, here.
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Been a crazy month: Spoke at the Global Retail Executive Council event at CTIA in San Diego, then this last week, at the DTC Fall event in New Jersey. This week: a panel on gaming as an advertising platform at Digital Hollywood at the Loews Santa Monica Hotel in Santa Monica.
Should be a lot fun...and games. (Sorry.)
I'll post about it all next week.
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At least that's the word from a new report from Harris Interactive and 1020 Placecast.
In a survey of 2,029 consumers, Harris found:
• 42% of 18- to 34-year-olds, and 33% of 35- to 44-year-olds, say they are at least interested in receiving alerts about sales on their mobile phones from their favorite establishments
• Men are more interested than women - 51% of men, and 34% of women ages 18 to 34 report interest in such alerts
• Only 1% currently receive such alerts
• Of all categories, people are most interested in alerts from restaurant specials around them
• Movie/event tickets is second, at 43%
• Weather information is third, at 39%
• 31% are interested in alerts about pizza
• 30% are interested in alerts about clothes
• 27% are interested in alerts about fast food
• 25% are interested in alerts about electronics
• 24% are interested such alerts about music
• And 21% say they're interested in alerts about happy hour specials or bar and nightclub offers
"Opt-in mobile marketing has an enormous potential if done responsibly and is specifically focused on the stores/restaurants that matter to each consumer," Alistair Goodman CEO of 1020 Placecast, tells Cellular News. "There is an opportunity to design an opt-in service for consumers that alerts them about the brands they are interested in when they are near that brand's physical location."
I too think there are opportunities, but I'd personally prefer less an opt-in model than a user-initiated model. Even if we opt in to receive such marketing messages, the moment we're bombarded with 30 different establishments as we walk down the street, it's going to get very old, very fast.
Better to let consumers say, Oh, I'm in the mood for pizza, and initiate a request for nearby offers.
There's a big difference, which I'm betting hasn't been properly polled yet.
Read more, here.
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DTC's is having a decidedly tough year, what with the economy, reform measures like the "Just Say No To Drug Ads Act" and other reform measures, and new FTC rulings of search engine marketing and social networking.
So on Thursday, I'm going to be addressing the second day of the Fall DTC conference on ways to leverage the power of digital to reach consumers in amazing new (and highly ethical) ways.
This is the second time the conference has asked me to speak, and if it's anything like last time, it should be a lot of fun. Read more about the conference, here.
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