Japan has recently introduced new digital advertising billboards for a trial run that utilizes exciting new technology that could potentially change the face of visual advertisements. Although it is still in its test phase, the new technology fits billboards with specialized cameras that can read the gender and approximate age of its viewers and tailor the message displayed. This ensures the ad space is being used to its fullest potential and the message is delivered to its intended audience. The project was launched last month with twenty-seven displays in multiple subway stations around Tokyo. Further testing and analytics can take the ads a step further adding another variable for increased accuracy in audience targeting: the time of day. Different demographic groups are more likely to use the station at certain times of day so the available ads in circulation can change for increased precision.
This type of targeting is already being used online with Facebook tailoring advertisements based on the user’s gender, age, and interests, but using cameras could be seen as too invasive. There has been some backlash at Facebook for saving user data for advertising so there are already many ethical considerations surrounding this new technology. The operators claim that the cameras do not record images, they only collate data about the groups it is targeting to improve the system. Depending on how the trial run proceeds, we could soon have these “smart” advertisements in American subway platforms displaying only relevant ads to commuters.
I find this particularly interesting because, besides a few exceptions, billboards have never really changed. For decades they have remained the same, untouched as relics of old-world media before the digitization of advertising. By incorporating new technology it may ensure the lasting survival of the medium or, based on the public’s perception of its potentially invasive nature, destroy the public’s acceptance. With security cameras already prevalent in most major cities this wouldn’t seem like a hard sell for the public’s acceptance, but it may be seen as more surveillance and the next step in an increasingly Orwellian future.
Frito Lay’s Cheetos have launched an ambitious new online campaign that is surprisingly very effective. It is entertaining, engaging, and very impressive considering it is a viral game centered around cheese flavored snack products.
In their campaign titled “Battle of the Cheetos” users pick a side; crunchy or puffy and do battle with other users online. It is a strategy war game where animated Cheetos fight with cheese-powered weapons to determine the superior type of Cheeto. As players win more battles they are rewarded with upgrades and more Cheeto warriors for your regiment.
The animated battlefields spring from partnered websites from which the viral game is accessed, including Mashable, Gawker, BoingBoing.net, Gizmodo, and many others. Statistics can be tracked via Facebook to determine which users are the most skilled generals for both the puffy and crunchy armies. The gameplay is simple yet engaging and like all great online multiplayer games, it allows users to taunt their opponents and trash talk via their computer’s microphone. This imaginative campaign may seem like a very strange way to promote and sell Cheetos but it is already doing an excellent job if you consider the content and depth of the game. Consumers spend an average of 12 minutes playing branded games, much longer than they would with any traditional form of advertising, also consider the Facebook connectivity and the fact that this branded game is actually quite fun to play; the Battle of the Cheetos is an impressive campaign that manages to entertain players centered entirely around the Cheetos brand. It is easily the best branded online game I have experienced and will hopefully set the tone for all branded game content that will follow.
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.
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.
Sweden’s TV licensing company Radiojanst recently released a new viral video campaign experimenting with emerging video technology that allow viewers to insert themselves or a friend into the commercial. The ad, titled ‘The Hero: A movie about you or someone you know”, builds up with a dramatic announcement about a new national hero who is making life better for the people of Sweden. This new Swedish hero ensures that viewers can trust what they see on television and radio and the voice of average Swede can be heard. Midway through the commercial the hero is revealed to be the viewer because they pay their broadcast fee. The ad shows crowds of people from around the world celebrating the viewer with their photo on billboards, signs, and TV. The idea for this video was for people to upload an image of their friend and email it to them so they can star in their very own commercial. At the end of the commercial it gives the option to make a new commercial with a different image that can be passed along to share with another new “star”. The video was very well received by international audiences with over 14 million site visits within 8 weeks.
This clever campaign was accomplished using viral video technologies like those used in Staple’s “Elf Yourself” holiday campaigns and MoveOn.org’s Glenn Beck satire that takes the viewers image and information from Facebook and inserts them into a viral video where they are appear to be publically smeared by the ridiculous, fear-mongering Glenn Beck. This new trend of in viral videos where the viewer can be a part of the commercial and shared has enormous potential for advertising. After all, one of the main goals in advertising is to get the potential customer to envision themselves using the product or service. Videos like this give the message a personalized look and feel allowing consumers to establish an emotional connection with the brand. It will be interesting to see how this technology will be used next and how it will continue to evolve the viral video.
In an attempt to draw users back in, Myspace has begun revamping their site for a comeback. As more and more users shift over to social network applications like Facebook and Twitter, the former leader Myspace has been surpassed while quickly losing market share. With their lack of growth compared to the enormous rise in Facebook users and Twitter boom, Myspace isn’t the juggernaut it used to be. For years they were the undisputed king of social networking but they got complacent and failed to innovate, this presented an opening to Facebook and now they dominate the medium with over four times as many members. While Facebook has taken over, Myspace has remained profitable bringing in about $350million a year mainly from advertising, but this too could change very soon. They have a shared advertising revenue deal with Google currently that has been keeping the company profitable but with the recently announced Google Buzz social networking platform it is unclear if they will renew their deal. Between these problems and a recent management shakeup, Myspace has a lot of work ahead to accomplish their goal, but their strategy seems solid.
Instead of looking at Facebook and Twitter as competitors, Myspace is now changing their strategy and looking towards these once rivals and potential partners for distribution and synchronization. They have already synced services with Twitter so tweets or status updates on one service are automatically posted to the other.
They are also shifting their target market and content strategies. They will now appeal to a younger crowd focusing on music, movies, and games by using the service to discover new music, view movie trailers, and play games in a social environment. Instead of being a “place for friends” their new mantra will be “Discover and be Discovered” moving further away from social and focusing more on the media aspect. This rebranding will include simple, clean pages to avoid the unappealing cluttered pages that have become expected with the original design. They are investing a lot in their gaming channel by working with social-gaming firm Playdom. They have also teamed with Microsoft to improve their mobile web services and revamp its look. Lastly, they are keeping music a main focus.
Myspace Music has been an extremely useful and popular medium for bands to increase exposure and connect with fans. While Myspace’s user base is down compared to Facebook, their music channel is still considered quite successful. If they can continue their success of this channel while improving their video and game channels, it could prove successful.
Many argue that Myspace is already done and their failure to innovate along with other social networking sites has already sealed their fate. With social networking dominated by Facebook, Google’s new social network, and Apple trying to take over distribution of digital media there may not be room Myspace. But with their new strategy to reinvigorate the brand and network, their resources backed by their parent company News Corp, and their still popular Myspace Music channel I believe there still is a chance for them to find their niche and survive, it just won’t be focused on networking with friends. It will be very interesting over the following months to see how they choose to re-brand and if their strategies will work.
The Vitamin Water brand continues to amaze me; not only do they have a wide range of flavors that are all very good, they also have some of the funniest and clever marketing campaigns in the beverage industry that have been remarkably successful. Since partnering with rapper 50 Cent back in 2004, the company has been using a mix of celebrity endorsements, intelligent social media marketing, and entertaining advertisements to reach new customers and build a very strong brand. In 2007, Coca Cola bought the company for $4.1 billion and has increased its availability world wide allowing it to quickly take market share from soft drinks, sports drinks, energy drinks, and juice drinks alike. They have launched hilarious ads featuring the NBA star and self-proclaimed “Canadian Celebrity” Steve Nash that are truly the funniest ads on TV right now. Their newest ads featuring Nash spoof the successful Dos Equis “most interesting man in the world” ads with Nash as “the most ridiculous man in the world”. Previous ads featuring Nash have spoofed infomercials where he portrays a Billy Mays type of spokesperson praising Vitamin Water with a priceless cameo by 50 Cent. They have also just wrapped a successful social media campaign on Facebook that culminates with the launch of a customer-created flavor available next month. Their latest ad, celebrating the Winter Olympics, transforms bus stops in downtown Vancouver BC into a ski lift with Vitamin Water signage. Taking bus stop ads, which seem to be a dated medium that hasn’t experienced much change or innovation and turning them into a spot for photo opportunities centered around the Vitamin Water brand is a great idea. With Olympic fever and increased tourism pouring into Vancouver these ads are sure to receive a lot of attention. As they continue their media blitz with effective inspired ads across a range of different mediums, Vitamin Water is definitely a company to watch.
Twuition is a new web application integrated into twitter that automatically responds to tweets with information about products, local weather, directions, and other useful information. To use this service you simply tweet a specific “hashtag” like #twuitionweather Portland, OR. then in about three minutes you receive a response. Along with the informative tweet it also generates an advertisement.
Twuition was developed by Blast Applications; a New York based company that specializes in developing applications for Facebook, the iPhone, and Twitter. The application is intended to make twitter more convenient for mobile users, allowing them to stay on twitter instead of switching applications to find information. The technology is not necessarily groundbreaking; they have had similar applications for AOL instant messenger, but it is one of the first on Twitter that provides more information that just weather reports while effortlessly incorporating advertisements.
Pepsi recently announced that they would not be airing their annual Super Bowl commercial for the first time in twenty-three years. Instead, they are investing the money would usually spend on the expensive ad spots in an ambitious social media marketing campaign. Last year, the 2009 Super Bowl attracted an estimated 95.4 million viewers, with many viewers watching new commercials premiering as attentively as they are watching the actual game so this move by Pepsi is quite the gamble. Historically, Pepsi has spent tens of millions of dollars on TV and this decision and upcoming campaign could be one of the biggest events in the shift from broadcast to Internet media. As television viewership has gone down, Internet usage and social media are on the rise. According to ABC News, in the coveted 18-34 demographic, an estimated 85% now use social media so it is no surprise that more companies are diverting their resources to this new medium.
Pepsi’s new social campaign titled “The Pepsi Refresh Project” will launch on January 13th. This campaign will be driven by social media outlets and blogs and will encourage individuals and organizations to interact and pitch ideas that will “refresh” their community. The best ideas will be presented via social media and users will vote for their favorite projects. The winners will receive grants enabling them to carry out their community projects in categories like Health, Arts & Culture, Food & Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods, and Education will be considered. This campaign will ultimately fund thousands of community projects while promoting the Pepsi brand. As Pepsi prepares to launch there is no telling how this social media driven campaign will be received. If this gamble pays off for Pepsi I believe this ambitious new campaign delivered through social media could be the push that further redefines the marketing game.
Now that social media networks like Facebook have become a commonplace occurrence in our society and literally “everyone and their mother” has a profile, its no wonder that most major brands now utilize it to maintain an online presence and communicate their brand messages. Although there are hundreds of brands using Facebook, only a few have been able to utilize it to its fullest potential. IKEA is one of those brands.
Their campaign to promote the opening of its newest store in Mälmo has been wildly successful. It has been described as brilliant, smart yet simple, genius, and innovative. With a very small budget, Swedish agency Forsman & Bodenfors managed to start a Facebook campaign that was able to grow organically and transcend international boundaries on its own. By creating a basic profile for the store manager of the new store they uploaded images of IKEA showrooms from the new store to his photo albums over the course of two weeks. Those who became “friends” with Gustavsson were encouraged to tag themselves in the photos over products in the showroom images for a chance of winning that particular object. As word spread across Facebook and more people tagged the photo, the showroom images where subsequently shared on all their profiles, links, and newsfeeds with millions of people in Sweden, throughout Europe, and across the planet. Instead of simply placing a banner ad on various websites hoping for a connection, IKEA got people to personally promote IKEA on the biggest social networking platform around. Word of mouth advertising is considered the most effective and sharing on Facebook is the equivalent of word of mouth these days.
