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There are very few products out there that are incredibly hard to market and differentiate using video as a medium. Video is so versatile it allows for endless possibilities in motion, graphics, and music allowing you capture the use of your product and attach emotional appeal. Until the rise of Tivo, it has been seen as a surefire, indestructible medium where a very small number of products find it difficult to utilize. Paint however, is one of those few products. It is no easy task communicating the texture and brilliance of your paint’s colors on a standard definition TV or monitor. That is why the newest campaign for European paint company Dulux is so great. After six months of planning, working, and editing they have finally launched an amazing television commercial/community project that is both memorable and motivational. The “Let’s Colour Project” is their worldwide initiative to transform ugly grey spaces covered in dirt and graffiti in urban communities around the globe with colorful paint. By rallying the community’s support with over 500 volunteers and 1,800 gallons of Dulux paint they took to the streets to brighten neighborhoods. They recorded the community event over a four month period in the UK, France, Brazil, and India and using time lapse photography developed an unforgettable two minute commercial.

Not only did they produce a brilliant TV commercial but the meat of their campaign is the real places around the world that have been completely transformed with their vibrant colors. The commercial is just the beginning for this ongoing campaign; they plan to release a documentary and other web based content. This campaign is a great achievement on many levels; it is excellent PR for the paint brand, they have facilitated unforgettable neighborhood events with their brand as the centerpiece, have literally left their mark all over the cities, and have participated in a large scale urban renewal project. It will be great to see how the campaign continues and if they take on another similar project in other cities but for those four months the world truly was their canvas.

Although everyone seems to have a differing opinion of Sunday’s LOST series finale, most people can agree that the Target spots that aired during the four and a half hours of finale content were very good. Continuing with their “Life Is A Moving Target” campaign that focuses on certain household products becoming necessities at times, these new commercials had environments and products tied to themes and locations in LOST. Spots included the show’s smoke monster setting off a smoke detector, a keyboard failing while a user attempts to type the now famous 4-8-15-16-23-42 number sequence, and a shot of a wild boar that they hunted the first season running through the woods signaling a need for BBQ sauce. Now that the iconic show has aired its last episode and given longtime viewers closure (hopefully) and a few answers (hardly), it is presumed that the ads will no longer run. The ads did a great job of cleverly incorporating the show’s themes to their current campaign to relate directly and resonate with the viewers, who should be very familiar with the themes after watching the show for six seasons. By tying their ads into the late cultural phenomenon they managed to stand out as the only memorable ads of the evening.

Last week Nike launched its FIFA World Cup “Write The Future” campaign with an epic three minute ad featuring star international players including Wayne Rooney, Didier Drogba, and Cristiano Ronaldo. The concept behind the ad is that there are certain amazing moments in during the game that can change the player’s lives and write their place in history flashing forward to the potential future based on the outcome of the moment. The commercial was directed by Mexican film director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who previously directed and produced Babel and 21 Grams. To premiere the video Nike released a ten-minute short film to introduce the video and talk about the concept and production. Interestingly, the video is only viewable if visitors click the “Like” button making visitors become fans before they can view the video. This could become a new trend for brands making their content accessible only to registered fans.

Nike is now getting aggressive with their soccer marketing efforts competing directly with Adidas who launched their “Every team needs” world cup campaign months ago to start building hype for the event and their products.

British Petroleum continues their odd public relations campaign in the wake of last month’s disaster. They have recently pledged $25 million towards a marketing effort to promote beach season on the Florida coast. The state will receive the $25 million to run a Memorial Day campaign to assure the public that Florida’s beaches have not been affected and are safe to enjoy. In a continuing case of seriously bad luck, their announcement coincided with news from the U.S. Coast Guard that tar balls have been discovered off Key West. It has not yet been confirmed that the tar balls are from the massive oil spill in the Gulf but they are in currently being tested.

Although they have adapted their “we’re not to blame but we will clean up the mess” strategy, it remains ineffective. Another strange tactic employed by BP meant to protect their PR interests is preventing reporters and media outlets from accessing cleanup areas along the coast to report on the ongoing cleanup efforts. CBS reported that contractors from BP threatened reporters with arrest when they tried to cover the cleanup in Louisiana. This makes them appear as if they have something big to hide. If BP wants to hold on to any small shred of positive public perception that could possibly remain after this disaster, they should be working alongside the media to assure the public they are committed to cleaning up reducing the impact of the ecological disaster and rallying support to save the fragile coastal environment instead of simply sending updates in press releases.

Amid these seemingly ineffective public relations tactics, the millions BP has invested in cleaning up their mess could eventually help in their current PR nightmare. But if the oil reaches the Gulf Stream and destroys the reefs, the environmental effects will be so disastrous and widespread; all the money in the world couldn’t clean up their mess and repair their tainted image.

Adobe and Apple are in the middle of a PR skirmish that is starting to heat up. Although his displeasure with Flash has been hinted at for some time, in April Steve Jobs finally trashed Adobe and Flash publically in an open letter. Jobs states that Flash did well during the “PC era” but we are now in the “mobile era” with low power devices and touch interfaces that don’t work with Flash. Also, and most importantly, Flash is a closed system and does not support open web standards. This is no surprise that Jobs would not support Flash because most of the portable products he sells do not support it either.

I understand why many developers try to steer away from Flash; it requires more system resources slowing down the system and is not supported by the W3C. However, it gives developers more options and is very widely used across the Internet, mostly for video and interactive content.

Adobe has responded to Jobs’s Flash bashing with an interesting strategy, to kill the opposition with kindness. In their own open letter, they started an opposing campaign based on Love of all things. They have also followed up with an ad in the Business section of the LATimes with the copy:

We love creativity

We love innovation

We love apps

We love the web

We love Flash

We love our 3 million developers

We love healthy competition

We love touch screens

We love our Open Screen Project partners

We love HTML5

We love authoring code only once

We love all devices

We love all platforms

What we don’t love is anybody taking away your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it, and what you experience on the web

Adobe has cleverly fired back at Jobs pointing out the hypocrisy of his claims. Jobs fully supports open web standards as long as they only apply to his competitors and not his own software platform. He claims that he does not support Flash because he refuses to put his products at the mercy of a third party but that is exactly what Apple demands of its iPhone app developers. He is accusing Adobe of the exact same things Apple is guilty of. This is why I feel that open web standards is not the issue at all; I believe the main reason Jobs does not support Flash is because it enables free streaming video and games online. If Apple products supported Flash on their portable devices, people would have access to media without having to spend money in the App store and iTunes store. Many of Jobs’s negative claims about Flash in his open letter are blown out of proportion or completely unfounded (see security and battery-life for example). And while is true that HTML5 is the future and will likely replace Flash in most applications, its still in its infancy and it is very unlikely it will be recommended as standard for at least another few years, until then Flash is still completely necessary. The fact is that Apple would have to compete with Flash enabled media on its devices and Jobs does not want the competition, this is not about open web standards and healthy competition, it is the opposite of that. In a perfect world, users could decide whether or not they want to use flash on their portable devices similar to how we can on computers.

While I am impressed by Adobe’s clever response and resulting campaign, I feel that this escalating feud between the companies is completely unnecessary and both sides will lose in the long run. Apple and Adobe have had a long-standing relationship that has greatly benefited both parties. At Chado, we love both brands and use Adobe software on Apple products everyday. Both companies are firmly grounded in creative industries and both can attribute their initial successes to their products being used together in this industry. In fact, the only reason I use a MacBook is because how well it supports Adobe products. Whether they like it or not, both companies are dependent upon each other to some degree; without Adobe’s superior creative products there would be very little demand for professional Mac hardware. Also, Apple would not be the brand it is today without the praise and exposure it received from creative professionals. With the growing popularity of their portable devices, Apple seems to have lost focus on where they came from and what their true strengths are. If this battle continues there will be no winner. Both companies would greatly benefit if they continued to work together as allies rather than going on the offensive as enemies.

A perfect follow-up to yesterday’s post about “Oversharers”, social network users who divulge too much information to the dismay of their friends and followers, a Japanese man in a jam found a new use for Twitter. User @naika_tei found himself in a predicament when he used a public restroom stall in an electronics store with no toilet paper. With no newspaper in sight and instead of resorting to using his sock, he pulled out his smartphone and desperately started tweeting for help. His post read: “Urgent request, toilet paper in Akihabara Yodobashi Camera 3rd floor men’s restroom.” His followers retweeted and after 20 minutes someone came and literally saved his ass. This particular instance proves the great value of having many followers.

Do you have social networking friends or followers that tend to go into great detail and often share too much information? Everybody knows at least one, a friend who feels the need to tweet about their latest bowel movement or extremely inimate detail of their life. Sometimes funny, sometimes disturbing, but always uncomfortable, these posts are the product of an “Oversharer”. To combat this now common practice of over sharing, and to coin a new internet term, Pringles has launched a new social media campaign. The P&G snack brand asks Facebook users to start naming friends who frequently post too much information on the social networking site using a Pringles-branded tagging button. Similar to the “like” button, this new capability allows users to show their disapproval of the personal information shared and label the user an “Oversharer”. The app allows any user who sees a ridiculous Facebook or Twitter status to notify and shame their contact with one click. Pringles will also host a site, similar to FML or Texts from last night, where posts and updates containing too much information will be showcased.
Along with this social networking campaign, Pringles is also selling “Overshare” branded merchandise and presenting prizes to encourage more people to spread the word about their new campaign and the growing “Oversharer” epidemic.
I think this is a great idea for a campaign. People on Facebook have been demanding a “dislike” button to counter the “like” button since it was introduced and this is the first app to provide similar capabilities. Also, Pringles has the potential to coin a new internet term. Pringles has found a way to integrate their brand into a high demand app. It will be exciting to see what companies follow Pringles example and make more useful apps for social networking platforms.

This January, to market their new game MLB 2K10, video game developer 2K Sports put up a $1 million prize for the first person to pitch a perfect game under specific conditions. The new game features all new pitching mechanics for improved gameplay and to advertise the improvements over last year’s MLB 2K9 they put up the money for the contest. They figured this new strategy would build hype for the game’s release, persuade more players to buy the game for full price on the day it is released, and invest more time playing the game. They originally estimated that it would take weeks for players to achieve the supposedly difficult feat but a mere 24 hours after the game was released they had a winner. After going through the rigorous confirmation tests to certify a legitimate perfect game, the winner was just recently announced.

Wade McGilberry, a 24 year-old Alabama resident won the cool million in just 90 minutes of playing the game on his Xbox360. McGilberry, playing as Atlanta Braves pitcher Kenshin Kawakami pulled through with a 27-up, 27-down contest relatively quickly. Although the contest succeeded in generating buzz and received positive response from fans, 2K Sports had to pay the $1 million lump sum out of pocket. Insurance companies couldn’t come up with the odds of throwing a perfect game so 2K Sports couldn’t take out insurance on the contest.

As the video game market continues to significantly increase, developers are constantly looking for unique and exciting ways to hype their new games. While some tactics have been quite successful (and others fail miserably) it will be interesting to see if contests become a new trend to increase release day customers.

In the wake of the worst oil spill in US history, British Petroleum (BP) has taken a unique and dangerous public relations stance; they are not apologizing.  Their website’s emphasis is on the cleanup rather than detailing what and who exactly caused the spill. Rather than a heartfelt apology their website’s lead story is reporting that over 2,500 personnel are involved in the response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Their no apology strategy continues with a quote from CEO Tony Hayward who explained, “BP is fully committed to taking all possible steps to contain the spread of the oil spill” but failed to offer an apology. Their position seems to be that it isn’t all BP’s fault. On the Today show, Hayward explained to Meredith Viera that “it wasn’t our fault but we are absolutely responsible for the oil and committed to cleaning it up”. Instead of being held accountable for the accident BP has decided to point the finger at Transocean, the offshore driller that BP has partnered with. This isn’t a very good public relations policy. For one, if you contract with someone like they have with Transocean, you are responsible for their actions. Also, trying to shift the blame and get off on a technicality makes BP look much worse than if they would simply apologize and accept responsibility. BP has had a very public, long running campaign promoting itself as a relatively green company and seeming both unapologetic and unprepared for the catastrophe is turning into a public relations nightmare. Only time will tell but the “we’re not to blame but we will clean up the mess” strategy seems to be ineffective.