GEN WOW: The Latest In Digital Marketing, from the Author of BRANDING UNBOUND, and THE ON-DEMAND BRAND

'Chuck' It Out: NBC Launches New Social Media Game

It's called "Mission: Chuck Me Out." And it's designed to track users who mention the the show - NBC's "Chuck" on social media. And every mention earns the mentioner one point toward having his or her picture shown during one of Chuck's mental flashes.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, never mind. To fans of the show - which returns January 10 (a fact that I'm a bit torn about, as I thought the Season 2 finale would have been the perfect way to end the series), its yet another way they can use soc-nets to support what is undeniably one of the most entertaining show nobody's watching.

Last year, an expansive online soc-net based campaign convinced Subway to sponsor the show, and for NBC to keep it alive for one more season.

Now, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace will once again be brought to bear for the Intersect.

And if you don't know what that means, either, go home. Or read more, here.

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Coke Zero Reveals Early Results for 'Facial Profiler' Facebook App

Just got word from Coca-Cola about early results for the Coke Zero Facial Profiler Facebook app. Yes, it's creepy and cool at the same time. And so far, it seems like the perfect match for Coke Zero's demo.

According to 360i, one of the companies behind the app, the stats so far: (a reader informs me that that it's actually Coke Zero agency Crispin that's behind the app):

• The app launched last week doubling the number of users in the first two days alone!

• Over 100,000 new images have been uploaded; over 100,000 votes have been cast

• The photos have an average accuracy at 58.78% and will only improve here by incorporating voter feedback

Try it yourself, here.

(I personally have been afraid to try!)

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'Avatar' XBox Live Goes Augmented Reality Route

I was just commenting that with Coke Zero's "augmented reality"-inspired "Avatar" cross-promotional TV spot that I hoped there would be actual augmented reality components to the movie's marketing efforts.

Now there is, with this AR-based element of the new Xbox game.

I hope there's more than this - this seems like the perfect movie for AR experiences - it appears someone in James Cameron's camp is on the same page - or floating off it, as the case may be.

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Discovery's Australian 'Shark Week' Promo Has Bite

With apologies, to paraphrase an old beer commercial, "Shark" is Australian for fear.

While the US version of Shark Week hit in August with its popular "Frenzied Waters" advergame, summertime is just getting going in Australia.

And Discovery Network has decided to kick things off with this Australian Coastal Watch site featuring alarming satellite link showing sharks swimming right next to bathers at Bondi Beach (via Adverblog).

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Coke Zero Facial Profiler Launches - To Some Unexpectedly Hilarious Results

I've been so busy the last few days that I'm only now catching up with my email - which included a note from 360i about the official launch of the Coke Zero Facial Profiler that I posted about a few weeks ago, which finds people who look like you based on their Facebook photos. 

As 360i tells it, here's how the profiler works:

Using the industry’s most advanced facial profiling software, Facial Profiler will match you against the vast database of faces collected by Coke Zero (there are already over 105,000) to find your look-a-likes. Results will be delivered soon after, and you can then discover the details about your doppelgangers based on the privacy settings for their Facebook profiles.

Also, there is a fun feature called the “Match Bank,” where users will be able to rate which matches they think are the best. By combining human feedback into the Facial Profiler equation, this will help improve the accuracy of future matches.

I've posted in some of their matches here. As you can see, the technology seems to do a pretty good job.

But you'll find some hilarious (reportedly actual) matches here (I won't show it as some of the people will no doubt be embarrassed). 

On its face, some very interesting technology - and a fun social experience from Coke Zero.

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'Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore': 80's Band REO Speedwagon Rolls Out Advergame

80's rockers REO Speedwagon have teamed up with Curious Sense to roll out a new online video game to promote the band's new album, "Not So Silent Night: Christmas with REO Speedwagon."

Go ahead and re-read the title of that album and then we'll move on.

The game comes out today, and is titled "REO Speedwagon: Find Your Way Home." As longtime GEN WOW readers know, that in and of itself is nothing new. What's interesting here is the business and promotional model. As the New York Times reports, game buyers receive coupon codes for 25% off the holiday album. And this is indeed a paid game. It costs $8 each time you play the game, and each session can last as long as 10 hours (the first hour is free.)

“We build digital experiences beyond a typical Web site, which offer long, interactive times between the content and the consumer,” Adam Blumenthal, president and chief executive at Curious Sense in Durham, N.C., tells the Times.

In my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (AMACOM, April 2010), I talk to Tim Zuckert, head of Shift Control Media, which has created online games like Coca-Cola's "Happiness Factory," who tells me that consumers will spend an average of 12 minutes with a branded game - far longer than they'll spend with just about any other form of marketing communications.

In REO Speedwagon's case, here's an advertisement that consumers don't just endure - they actually pay for the pleasure of spending up to 10 hours with the brand every time they play.

Which means that beyond the unlikely holiday album, the band is getting an early Christmas present.

Read more, here.

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'Iron Man 2' Gets Facebook, Game Action - Along With New Movie Poster

Marvel's "Iron Man 2" doesn't hit theaters until May, but the poster and other fanboy maneuvers are already taking the web by storm.

The Hollywood Reporter released the poster peak today (shown here)(I think that's War Machine behind the hero). And as I posted last summer, games related to the release are already big hits.

But what's really interesting is that while the movie's official site is feature sparse, the action over at the movie's Facebook fan page is hitting a fever pitch. With most brands sporting only 10 to 10,000 followers, and mostly big brands topping 1 million fans, the film's fan page has a respectable 436,540 fans.

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Secret To Successful Facebook Fan Pages? Pre-Existing Popularity

Flying in the face of regular-joe-makes-good-with-social-networking mythos, E-Consultancy is reporting that well-known, established brands get the most out of venues like Facebook, not upstarts.

Just look at The Big Money's Facebook 50 ranking from the other day. According to analytics firm Sysomos, the vast bulk of branded fan pages have between 10 and 1,000 fans. Only 4% of fan pages have more than 10,000 fans, and less than 1/20th of a percent have more than a million fans - and they're brands like Coca-Cola and Starbucks. 

In my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (Amacom/McGraw-Hill, Spring 2010), I posit that this dynamic holds sway in most forms of digital media, by the way. Viral videos rarely go viral on their own. The biggest sensations usually (not always, but usually) stem from established affinities or are promoted heavily in other media - especially traditional media. Ditto for social networking, branded games, augmented reality and more.

Read more about the book here.

And read the E-Consultancy piece here.

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HP Sends Celebs Scaling Mt. Kilimanjaro to Raise Funds For Global Clean Water Crisis

HP's hoping to reach new heights with an ambitious, star-studded initiative designed to raise awareness and funds to fight the global clean water crisis.

Summit on the Summit is a project that will send music star Kenna, Jessica Biel, Elizabeth Dole and other celebrities, activists and notables climbing the 19,340 feet of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Along the expedition, the team will use HP computers to blog, tweet and post video about the ascent, all of which users can follow at the summitonthesummit.com website.

You'll want to check out the site, from Goodby and Number 9. It scales the height of Kilimanjaro to nice effect. During the climb, which begins January 7, users will be able to scale the mountain with the team, and check out video posts and other content based on the team's actual position.

Users can also buy gear and sponsor a foot of the climb to raise money to get clean drinking water to those in need. (Full disclosure: Our agency is working on facets of this campaign.)

Check it all out, here.

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Study: Recession-Scarred Consumer Landscape Sees Four Distinct Consumer Segments Emerge

A research firm says it has identified four distinct consumer groups emerging from the Great Recession.

Chatham, N.J.-based Decitica says a new study titled "Marketing to the Post-Recession Consumer" finds that the economic downturn has redrawn the American consumer map into four groups:

Steadfast Frugalists
Steadfast Frugalists are committed to self-restraint, engaging in prudence with unequivocal enthusiasm. They make up about one-fifth of American consumer, representing all income and age groups. "Marketers will find this group to be the most challenging, as they are the least brand loyal and most likely to discount marketing messages," notes Dr. Val Srinivas, principal at Decitica, in a statement

Eighty-percent of Steadfast Frugalists say the new behaviors they have adopted will likely stay with them for a long time.

Involuntary Penny-Pinchers
Involuntary Penny-Pinchers, about twenty-nine percent of the population, have been severely affected by the recession. They are mainly made up of households with less than $50,000 in income, with more women than men. 

Pragmatic Spenders
"Pragmatic Spenders are the most attractive group for marketers because of their higher spending power," says Dr. Val Srinivas. "While it is true that they have also curbed their spending, they are the most capable, both psychologically and financially, to willfully resurrect their past spending patterns," he added. This group comprises twenty-nine percent of consumers.

Income has blunted the effects of the recession on this segment. Only twenty-eight percent of Pragmatic Spenders feel the recession has changed what and how they will buy in the future.

Apathetic Materialists
Apathetic Materialists seem least changed by the recession. They have not embraced the new frugality to the same extent as others, and get minimal satisfaction from such behaviors. Only about six percent in this group find price comparison to be satisfying, in contrast to eighty-five percent in the Steadfast Frugalists camp.

I haven't had time to dig into this yet, but it does sound interesting. On its surface, I am skeptical about some facets of the study. These four groups represent just about everyone in any economic environment, so it's not clear how the Great Recession has done anything more than solidify pre-existing behaviors for all those but the involuntary penny-pinchers, the ranks of which, no doubt, have swelled over the last two years.

But still - an interesting look at the consumer mindset as we dig our way out of a giant mess.

Read more, here.

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Coke Zero Mines Augmented Reality In 'Avatar' Cross Promotion

Coke Zero - they of the Coke Zero Facebook Facial Profiler app - are mining the augmented reality wave  with a new commercial tied to James Cameron's new movie Avatar, which opens next month (if it can be completed in time.). Not sure if this is from Crispin, and I'm not sure if there's an actual AR experience tied to it yet. But I hope there will be.

In my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (Amacom/McGraw Hill, Spring 2010), I look at AR as an increasingly popular way to create engaging brand experiences for consumers. Prinz Pinakatt, head of interactive for Coca-Cola Europe, has some particularly insightful things to say about the future of AR in branding. You definitely won't want to miss it.

Find out more, here.

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While Pepsi's 'Refreshing' Communities, Coke Seeks Happiness Through Social Networking

The soda wars have gone social.

While the Pepsi Refresh Project is pumping $20 million for projects people create and vote on to "refresh" their communities.

Now, Coca-Cola is launching its most expansive social networking campaign yet, with Expedition 206, which will send three 20-somethings - Toño, Kelly and Tony to 206 countries and territories where Coca-Cola is sold. The kids will embark on a 275,000-mile tour stocked with laptops, video cameras, smartphones and other youthy gadgetry to document their search for happiness in these communities.

As AD AGE reports, the whole thing will be tracked at Expedition206.com, as well as through Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and on Twitter@x206.

Just looking at the two initiatives together, it seems the Choice of the New Generation is taking on the Me Generation. Or, looking at it another way, one campaign is about how to help others, the other seems to be about being inspired by others.

So far at least, IMHO, Pepsi's sounds more relevant and compelling - despite seeming like yet another Obama rip off.

Read more here.

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McCann Launches Web Response To 'Mad Men'

So Sterling Cooper is being sold to McCann Erickson. The folks at McCann New York is welcoming them with a video and print ads in industry publications proclaiming "Welcome, Sterling Cooper" and are signed "Your friends at McCann Erickson.

Considering the fact that the fictional acquisition would have happened in 1963, I guess 46 years late is better than never.

Read more here.

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Is 'Crowd Sourcing' Hot New Ad Trend, Or More Of The Same Old Thing?

Much is being made in the industry press about Mountain Dew's Dewmocracy "crowd sourcing" campaign, which lets consumers decide product names, flavors, colors, packaging and even which agencies or individuals get to make new TV commercials – and Victor & Spoils, the new agency from a few Crispin alum, which will seek out ideas from people outside the firm.

On the one hand, I like term, because it sure beats what it really is: User-Generated Content and/or user-influenced content. In the UGC space, consumers were voting on work created by professionals or semi-professional/pro-sumers who ended up winning all the so-called "consumer-generated" content contests.

Now ad agencies are doing it, too. But while the term is new-ish, the idea is as old as advertising itself - when brands crowd-sourced jingles for TV spots back in the 1950's. For a more modern example, look no further than that 20-year-old crowd sourcer, America's Funnies Home Videos, where consumers create the content, which is then voted on by a studio audience.

Oh, there's another name that fits when agencies crowd source as well.

It's called "outsourcing." And it's been around for a long, long time.

Read more here.

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'The Dark Knight' Meets Superman In New Spoof

It's not part of a promotional effort, but it cracked me up. Re-imagining "Batman" helped that franchise. Is it too soon to reboot "Superman Returns" and pretend it never happened?

Inside 'HBO Imagine': Interview With Alison Moore, VP, Brand Strategy & Digital Platforms, HBO (Part 1)

HBO gave itself a tough act to follow - and it's working to do just that.

During the last few weeks, HBO has launched an ambitious sequel to its double Cannes Grand Prix winning "Voyeur Project," called "HBO Imagine."

Not to be outdone by "Voyeur's" projection of dramas on New York City buildings, "Imagine" features, among other things, a giant video cube that displays scenes from a mini-drama shot from four different perspectives, so you have to view each side of the cube to get the big picture.

At hboimagine.com, viewers can unlock each of these video sequences as they progress through a broader narrative, with a pay off for people who unlock each of 37 complete scenes.

It is a massive new undertaking for HBO, which hopes to top the number of impressions it earned for "Voyeur," as well as reinforce its brand positioning in a compelling new way.

In my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (AMACOM/McGraw-Hill, Spring, 2010) I talk to Courteney Monroe, HBO's executive vice president of consumer marketing - and a newly minted Brandweek Marketer of the Year - about the brand's approach to efforts like "Voyeur" and "Imagine," and why they're so central to creating consumer marketing that's as inspired as it is effective. (Despite the recession, HBO's subscriber numbers are actually up, to 27 million.)

In the days just after "Imagine" launched, I also spoke with Alison Moore, vice president of brand strategy and digital platforms for HBO, about why this campaign is such an exciting successor to "Voyeur," and about her views on how this initiative will fuel subscriber growth (and reduce churn) in the year ahead.

Part One: "Imagine" That: HBO's New Take On Making The Physical/Virtual World Connection (approx 7:33)

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Why The DVR Didn't Kill The Television Star (Or Its Sponsors)

  Turns out the dreaded DVR hasn't been as deleterious to TV commercials as once feared.

Today's New York Times has shown that Nielsen studies show the DVR users sit through far more commercials than we once thought - and that when DVR viewership is weighed into original airing ratings, some shows see a significant ratings boost. DVR viewings of "The Office," for instance, boosts that show's ratings by 26%.

More amazing: 50% of viewers sit through the commercials.

Why? As Brad Adgate, the senior vice president for research at Horizon Media, tells the Times, "It's still a passive activity."

Sure sounds like it (though I only watch until I realize I'm watching a commercial, and then I fast forward)

Read more here.

(Separately, and a little more sadly, it turns out that despite all the presumed competition from video games and what not, children are watching more TV than ever - including 50% of the commercials they view on recorded shows, according to a separate Nielsen study.)

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A Fond Look Back As Banner Ads Turn 15 Years Old

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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'Paranormal Activity' #1 Debut Backed by Extraordinary Online Buzz Campaign

Mobile has played a major role in the micro-budget horror flick that could.

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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Back from Digital Hollywood

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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