A-for-Awesome Fun!

This is one of the most fun executions I've ever seen. VW and their Fun Theory stuff is great but I love that most of the time its a pretty literal interpretation of a recognised consumer problem.

The executions here are aimed at people who like to speed things up.

Skate-Trolley is A-for-Awesome!

Hat-tip to Content Kids.

Here's a cool idea...

For those that are into fashion this site (polyvore.com) will push you buttons.

Basically, it takes fashion inspiration, catalogues, creativity and e-commerce and mashes it altogether.

With basic drag and drop technology you can create your own mood boards - a dream for any aspiring fashionista or mag-hag.

Whilst the fashion space may not appeal to you, the applications for this type of technology are huge. I can see it working for music, automotive, luxury brands... anything really that has some aspirational appeal.

From a media point of view, its a pretty useful tool for creating a mood board or archetype when you don't have time to trawl through various sites for different pictures.

Due to popular demand....

So.... on a personal note. Matt & I have just returned from an amazing month in Europe. We had many great adventures starting in Cannes (see below posts), travelling onto the Greek Islands and then finally to Paris.

Coincidentally, this time of travel marked four years since we had met and fallen in love (in fact revisit the meeting here). Now whilst many people have said to me "you must have known" I can't stress enough how much of a suprise it was when Matt asked me to marry him on the 14th of July.

Here's the story....

When we first met I had ben travelling alone for about 5 months. I had visited paris and 100% hated it. I thought it was a smelly, grey and unfriendly city. having recounted this experience to Matt he insisted that I join him there so he could show me the true beauty of the city. I accepted the invite and not only changed my opinion of Paris but also fell in love.

Part of the romance occurred when we stumbled upon and incredible room at the Avenir Hotel Montmarte. Room 39 has the most magical view with three balconies; the first framing the Scare Couer, the second showing the breadth of the city and the third framing the Eiffel Tower.

We've stayed here everytime that we've been to Paris since.

So on the day of our anniversary Matt suggested that we have a nice breakfast together then meet up with the rest of his family who were also visiting Paris. I agreed. On the moring Matt woke up and brought me a cup of tea in bed (exactly what I love) then asked me to have a shower and get ready. For those who don't know, Matt hates to be late. He is constantly rushing me out the door and to my dismay, we are constantly arriving at events before the start time. So even on this day when we had no appointments he was hovering around trying to rush me. I told him as much and asked him to stop stressing me out!!!

When I'd finished with the 'fluffing' Matt asked me to stand on the balcony where he was going to take a photo of us all dressed up. I went out to the balcony and Matt said "Oh look, dad & Louise are up at the Scare Couer waving".... I turned around and indeed they were waving but also holding an enormous sign that said "WILL YOU MARRY ME?". I read it out loud not quite comprehending until I turned back around and saw matt on on knee holding the most incredible engagement ring that I have ever seen.







From then, it turned into a bit of an emotional fireworks dispaly with both of us a bit lost for words, crying, shaking all of the above.

After a few photos we headed up to the Scare Couer for more photos with the sign close up (amid screaming American tourists.... people said things like "oh, my god, this has totally made my holiday...." - hello, I was being proposed to, not them!!!)

We spent the rest of the day celebrating with family and friends.

On top of that there are lots of people we need to thank....

• Both of our families for keeping this enormous secret. I had no idea and if it weren't for all of your crafty work it wouldn't have been such a suprise.
• Mum, Dad, Jo & Kane for saying yes when matt asked if he could marry me
• Ken, Bernadette, Mrs H, Louise, Amanda & Shrek for organising the sign and celebrating with us.
• Louise & her skydiving buddies for making the sign.
• Henry, Chris, Trav for arranging an additional week's holiday so that Matt could propose on our special day.
• Lyndelle, I hear you've been an unwavering rock for matt with his nerves and in the ring selection and making process - thank you.
• Miss Sal and Jen Leonard for your sneaky arrangement of the fake itineraries and ensuring we got there and back safely.
• Ara for hiding the ring and keeping it safe in Cannes.
  

I'm sure that there are people I've missed but Matt tells me that without you all this wouldn't have happened so thank you.

At this point we've made no plans but are just so appreciative of everyone's heartfelt messages and will let you know as soon as possible dates for celebrations!

Cannes 2010: A contagious conversation

Yesterday I attended 'A Contagious Conversation' with Richard Pinder, Paul Kemp-Robertson and Jess Greenwood. It was one of the highlights of the festival so far. The guys spoke about the importance of creating tangible value and gave some great examples of creating conversation.

Durex Play – From protection to pleasure

Needed a fundamental shift in position.

High brand loyalty of 16-24yrs but as they got older they had no need for the brand anymore. So they created a whole new range of products that were all about pleasure.

They commissioned a survey all about sex and sexual behaviour. They wanted to liberate sexuality and make I mainstream – ie sit next to cosmetics on the supermarket shelf.

Women helped design products for women.

A zero base to $43million revenue in the first 4 years.

The case study from contagious.

Ways to change the conversation

1. Ignite the conversation
2. Own the conversation
3. Confront the conversation
   
4. Subvert the conversation
   

Ignite the conversation

Pepsi refresh project.

A consumer generated project that allowed Pepsi to create its own voice. People voted for funding against different community projects. The campaign prioritised engagement over reach and understood the brand rather than just sat there aware of it.

VW – the fun theory

They wanted to be less automotive and more about change and the great things in life. It was about changing the conversation around their brand from

Throw rubbish in the bin because its fun – noise was activated when the rubbish was put in the bin and 72kg of rubbish were collected on day 1 compared to 42kg in a nearby bin.

The outcome – fun can change behaviour for the better.

Check out the reel here.

Lurpak – Bake Club

Insight: British people do not cook at home like they used to

Pride never came out of a ready meal.

A communal cook off where people cook the same thing at the sme time and interact online about it.

Own the conversation

Advertisers felt they could own the conversation by yelling at people over and over again. The real way to own the conversation is to involve people in it.

Gatorade – Replay. No small games.

Gatorade flipped the tables and went for the cult of the amateur.

Insight: Everyone’s got one of those games where something went wrong.

Idea: Rivalry is scaleable. Provide what every athlete hopes for, a second chance.

Replayed old highschool football game to decide the real winner. Original coaches, cheerleaders, band members were there. Gatorade designed a training program strating 2 months out and the journey was recorded and broadcast throughout.

10K tickets sold out in 90mins.

No major injuries, broken bones or torn muscles – the ultimate product demonstration.

Hollywood has shown interest in creating a film out of the concept and the TV show will run again next year.

The no media engagement metric – without media, would people still choose to engage with your content. Gatorade took a product demonstration and turned it into a Hollywood movie.

Here's the summary.

Dulux – Let’s Colour – Own the concept

They wanted to own the concept of colour but take it a lot further. It was about transforming the look and feel of impoverished communities with different coloured paints.

A team of cultural bloggers followed the project and used the web as a global tv set.

www.letscolourproject.com

Nike/Livestrong – Chalkbot – post-digital thinking

People chalk messages on the side of the road during the tour de france to send messages of support to the cyclists.

Nike arranged for messages via twitter, sms or yellow.com told the chalkbot to spray the message on the road. It then took a photo and sent a message back to the messenger with gps coordinates so that they could see it.

It changed something digital into something physical whih makes it much more emotional and real. The way people react to something changes once it becomes physical/tangible.

Chalkbot video.

Confront the conversation

Domino’s – Pizza Turnaround – Transparent Takeway

Negativity around the brand heightened when a video of employees being disgusting went viral.

700k views on pizzaturnaround.com

80,000 more fans on facebook (1 fan = $3 of earned media)

Same store traffic increased by 14%

Marmite – The Marmarati

You either love it or you hate it. They realised they couldn’t get the haters to buy it but they could get the lovers to buy loads of it.

They used the top 20% of the lovers on facebook to become part of a marmite secret society and then use them to launch a limited edition product.

Subvert the conversation

Uniqlo – Lucky Switch – Digital hijack

You need to be brave and you need to do something that gives back to people.

They took banners – the most common and ubiquitous digital advertising platform and made them interesting and useful. They created a never seen before banner ad campaign. I don't know the technical details but basically you downloaded a plugin that was activated when you licked on a uniqlo banner. It then replaced all other advertising with uniqlo ads. The motivation to do this was essentially a treasure hunt/promotion where people could win items of clothing.

Essentially, it turned the banner ad into a piece of content that people wanted to interact with. Clicking on the banner didn't take you away from the site it just added value to the site you were on.

Charmin – sit or squat – public services

They wanted to subvert the conversation about going to the toilet. If parents are out and about with kids, kids give no warning at all, they just look for the nearest toilet.

Sit or Squat App. Essentially a toilet locator using gps tracking and consumer reviewed star ratings.

1600 downloads prior to the partnership and afterwards a 1million.

The reel.

Love Jozi – Luv Jozi – Problem/Solution

This is an example of what happens when you focus on the problem not on the spend.

No awareness issues – everyone in the know knew about jozi but what about the other people that couldn’t afford jozi.

They faked their own brand. Sold them in flea markets, street vendors & distributed to more ‘mainstream’ wearers.

The fakes were then faked.

After two years of running the campaign, they brand revealed that they were behind the fakes.

Luv Jozi now makes up 75% of the brands revenue and they successfully made a cheaper derivative of the brand without cheapening the brand.

Check out more at www.publiciscontagiousconversations.com

Cannes 2010: EA Games & the next frontier

A few stats & facts

•        In the US $1 in every $4 spent in entertainment is on games.
  
•       Consumers see value in entertainment, spending 100+ hours per week.  Think parents interacting and teaching their kids via video games.
•         75% of Apple’s app revenue comes from gaming.  Mobile is the fastest growing area.
•         43% of gamers are women and a third of gamers are parents.
  

 

EA Sports

EA Sports “experiences that unite the emotions of sport”.  The closest you can get to being one of your heroes is participating in an electronic game as your hero. E.g. Being Tiger Woods and winning the Ryder Cup (coming out next year).

For FIFA 2011, player images will be photo-like.  EA have also created personalities in the players.  So players on screen will start to play just like they do in real life e.g. a shorter player might have greater speed/acceleration and when the players interact, they will respond like they would in real life.

Time spent on the FIFA platform is 36 million game sessions = 217 million minutes = 414 years (as an aside Tristan hates these numbers… “they don’t mean anything he says”, I agree…. The gamer is engaged in the ‘experience’ not the brand in the background.)

 

How EA is selling in-game advertising onto brands

EA = Experience Affinity

1.  Top entertainment
   
2. Relevant reach
   
3. Engaged audiences
   
4.  Integration expertise
   

It seems most brands (Dr Pepper, Unilever, Doritos) all use the platform as a means for giving consumers access to exclusive content or a deeper engagement/more positive experience than they would get through purchasing the product alone.  It is a means for adding value to an audience who has common interests in the advertising brand and gaming.

 

The case of Renault & SIMs

Renault is overcoming the challenge of ‘young people not buying new cars’ by integrating into SIMs.  They’ve experienced 250,000 downloads of Twizy ZE to date and over 8,000 comments about the partnership on European blogs etc.  It is teaching gamers (and younger generations) about electric cars as well as improves the user’s SIMs experience.

Renault has used the integration to learn a lot about their customers and build their database.  They say that being pushed out of their comfort zone has helped them learn how to sell better and recognize bigger opportunities.

 

Measurement

EA games now has a partnership with Nielsen allowing brands to measure interactions and purchase lift in households exposed to interactive advertising.

The measurement will be comparable to other channels and will plug into people meter-style facility.

 

My opinion….

Still not convinced.  Its all very interesting and certainly ticks the boxes on reaching a very passionate audience but at the end of the day, its still just a very passionate, segment of the entire potential population.

This is a channel that needs to be considered right from the outset and at the point of content and creative development.

 

Cannes 2010: OgivlyOne's Search for the World's Greatest Salesperson

Ogilvy One ran the search for the world’s greatest salesperson.

The seminar opened with a statement “you can create saleability without creating sales”.

Its not enough to create desire & brand attraction on its own unless it translates into action.  Take the environment for example, there is a clear gap between the lives people want to live in theory, and the lives they live in practise.

A good sales pitch requires change of mind and actual behavioural change.

We saw a live context between the three finalists in the search.  They were to sell a Motorola Phone…. (I think it’s a bit of a problem that post all three pitches I still can’t tell you the name of the product).  Irrespective, here’s my short wrap up….

1. LEE

Felt polished and businesslike.  She was wearing a suit and red shoes which gave me something to remember her by! Her pitch was well rehearsed but seemed to lack a little personality.

Judges comments: “I want to start with you” was nicer than focusing on ‘me’.

2. TODD 

2. Todd a great ‘boy next door’ presence but I was a little disappointed in the delivery.  Again, its seemed a little mundane.  A small slip up mid pitch but he recovered admirably.

He’s opening line “If you were to design a smartphone what would you want?  Speed.”  I thought this was clever as it is an appealing angle that transcends various audiences.

Todd used humour up front to pull me in and then used the features of the phone to show how the phone worked.

Judges comments: good call to action – I’ve got more to tell you but come and see me later.

3. ERIC

Eric had me from the start.  He was entertaining, gimmicky and told a story rather than ‘sold’ a phone.

He made me smile which meant he was memorable and he forced me to be engaged by throwing things (free t-shirts I think) at me.

Judges comments: A single idea through a character - mobility

_________________________________ 

My vote was for Eric but Todd won the challenge.  He then closed out the seminar with a really clean and charismatic speech so maybe I just got distracted by his nerves during the pitch because I ended liking the guy!

Shaving Bieber.... why is none else doing it?

A BIG thanks to Briar for bringing this to my attention.

It is a brilliant little app built to plug into firefox. Basically...

* 1 - Go to Shaved Bieber
* 2 - Download or bookmark
* 3 - Enjoy Bieber-free browsing!

It's funny because well... there is an audience who wants to escape Bieber Fever BUT it is clever because to my knowledge, there are no brands using this type of functionality yet.

I think that there is a great opportunity to think about 'browser' apps rather than just the traditional (I can't believe I'm saying that) i-phone app. The greatest opportunity would be to add utility in terms of consumption filtering but you could also create some entertainment value.

Imagine an app that highlighted all the rude words on a page or even combinations of words to make funny sentences. It could completely change the user experience of written content consumption.

Does anyone know why brands haven't broadly entered into this space?
What opportunities can you see for thsi type of filtering application?