Rockstar Games takes product placement through to purchase
March 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto 4) is allowing players to link through to Amazon and purchase each track they hear within the game. The mechanism is built into the game’s mobile phone system and as the character drives around listening to the radio, they can bookmark a song by dialing the number ZIT-555-0100 to get sent a text message back with the artist and track details. Via PSFK
BBC Worldwide sees both sides of the story
March 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The majority of great advertising campaigns are often conceived from simple ideas, and BBDO New York have created a really great but simple campaign for the BBC Worldwide service. The campaign brings together both inspiring creative messaging and works because of the great media placements. The message “Show both sides of the story” is placed on corner billboards, showing a different take on the same situation.
Stars launching their own social networks
March 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment
First Kylie and then Fiddy (50 Cent to you and I). Stars are now starting to launch their own social networks sharing tour news and other delights that I don’t really care about (well from these two anyway). I obviously find it hard to believe that the stars themselves are posting to these sites, but I can’t help but feeling they are nothing more than glorified websites? 50 Cents site contains a little more content than Kylie’s admittedly, and has just clocked up 160,000 users which can’t be sniffed at. I can understand that if you are a 50 Cent fan, then this is your paradise but it leaves me feeling that this is simply an alternative to MySpace created by his PR agency.
Do brands feel my love?
March 30, 2008 | 4 Comments
Recently I have been pondering how brands treat their consumers and measure their own successes given that it is now harder than ever for a brands to really command any brand loyalty. It is a thought that I have been discussing in person with some of my fellow likeminded Twitterers (Joseph Jaffe, John Dodds, Mark McGuinness to name a few), as although of course I would love to think of myself as the font of all knowledge, I am interested to hear other peoples views on this subject. Kevin Roberts describes consumers showing their loyalty to a brand in Lovemarks, where a consumer will happily buy a product because they love the brand. However what I would like to know is, are any brands starting to look at a consumers Lovemark when it is not associated back to a sale?
So to put it into context here is an example. If I had a choice I would prefer not to drink Becks beer. I find it too bitter and I don’t really like the taste so in that respect Becks would not acknowledge me as a consumer. However, Becks created Becks Fusions a really great series of events covering music and the arts. This series enabled me to see The Chemical Brothers (i’m a big fan) play a gig in Trafalgar Square. My feelings for the brand in creating these experiences although I never had any real negative thoughts towards it, changed. The brand speaks to me in my areas of interest and at my level, therefore my feelings for the brand are very strong and I will happliy place my Lovemark against it for creating these rewarding experiences for me. Although Becks do not see my love within their sales, they will see it through secondary sources for example; I excitedly shared my feelings and recruited new lovers to the Becks brand by telling a lot of people within my network (Becks audience) about the great experience. I purchased Becks at the events and didn’t mind drinking it as they had already won me over. I will always be on the look out for future events that Becks lay on and will undoubtedly want to be a part of it and show Becks how I love them so. I am now openly endorsing them within my own blog.
So what do I mean to Becks? I would hazard a guess at `bugger all’ since I probably wouldn’t feature within their marketing presentations showing sales going up on a colorful bar chart, but should this be the case? Do brands quantify their success based purely on direct sales or, do they actually look at their Net Promoter Score to see who is recommending the brand? Are they reading what is being said about them amongst consumers?
As we start to see more and more brands fighting to win us over by entering into new territory and offering us experiences as a way of saying “thank you”, is the outcome of these experiences being measured and fed back into the organisations long term objectives? I have given this topic much thought and would really love to hear your views so over to you. Photo
Cadbury follow Gorilla with vanilla
March 30, 2008 | 1 Comment
It was never going to be easy was it? Everyone has been waiting for Cadbury to launch their follow up to their drumming Gorilla but after seeing it I can’t help but think….Vanilla.
The ad features a great song (Queen), but the ad left me feeling a little flat and I can’t help but think the song is the hero rather than the creative thinking or even the product. Fallon were always going to have a difficult time following up the Gorilla ad which was a brilliant execution but Trucks didn’t make me smile and I didn’t feel rewarded but maybe I wouldn’t have felt like this if my expectations hadn’t been so high?
Diesel create outdoor spaces
March 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Diesel are supporting the art world by launching a competition for designers win the chance of exhibiting their work on the side of buildings and giant walls within city centers. The winners will be displayed in Manchester, Barcelona, Zurich and New York. The campaign was developed to cut through the thousands of advertising messages we are faced with, to “salvage what precious public space is left and fill it with something worth saying.” The words “pot” and “kettle” spring to mind Mr Diesel but I am interested in seeing the results from the competition. Via: PSFK
Asics dress up drains as ads
March 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Asics in Sao Paulo are currently running a campaign called Face the Streets. The campaign decorates Sao Paulo’s drains and turns them into ads featuring the hero of the show itself.
Graffitti artist hacks into Digital Billboards
March 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment
18 year old graffiti artist Skullphone has successfully hacked into 10 of Clear Channel’s digital billboards in LA and replaced the advertising with his trademark skullphone imagery. I want to hire him. Via: Supertouch
Penguin gives you an adventure telling stories
March 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Yesterday afternoon the rather good brand marketer who actually gets it Jeremy Ettinghausen alerted me to the fact that Penguin were launching a new site called We tell stories. The site shows a series of six stories, one launched each week that includes an interactive layer in the form of Google Maps. The user follows the authors journey through Google Maps, seeing the places referred to in the stories themselves. That in itself is a very nice campaign. If you are fairly observant, you will see a hidden code. I am not going to give anything away but the journey it takes you on completely turns it from a nice campaign, to a “wow” campaign that I just loved. Some of you I know are reading from outside London so if you want to know how it ends up, send me a message and I will share with you. The site was developed by Six to Start and if the first adventure is anything to go by, keep checking in every week for the other five installments.
8 things you might not know about me
March 12, 2008 | 3 Comments
Following a trail that’s going around the blogosphere, I have been tagged by the highly delightful Eaon Pritchard. The idea is to get to know each other better by revealing 8 random things about yourself so here you go:
1. I love being surrounded by animals. I have a cat called Bear (because he’s big and hairy) and on my desk you will find two goldfish and a Leopard Gecko (yes a real one).
2. My Dad is a great musician and was in a rock band which was fun as one of my babysitters was Mitch Mitchell.
3. I’m a fan of Marshall Arts and got my Red Belt in Kickboxing.
4. I have been playing the guitar since I was 12 and my Fender Stratocaster takes pride of place in my living room.
5. I love food, both eating and cooking equally. I particularly love anything that once lived in the sea.
6. My Mum is a hippy. She is a Reiki Master and I love going to see her as it’s like visiting a little retreat.
7. Four years ago I accidentally fell in love with my now Managing Director. Fortunately it was reciprocated.
8. I studied Business Information Systems at University and wanted to be a developer. I took a job in advertising until I figured out what to do with my life.
Now I pass this onto another 8 bloggers, so over to you……look forward to reading them!
