Articles in Frontiering Campaigns
Omo has combined GPS technology with a prize giveaway promotion as part of their “Try Something New With Omo” campaign. GPS devices are hidden in 50 detergent boxes throughout Brazil and the device is activate4d when the box is removed from the supermarket shelf.
The promotions agency then track the box to the consumer’s home, where winners receive a pocket video camera as well as an invitation for a day of outdoor fun at Unilever’s expense. To help alleviate consumer concerns the promotions team can cause the GPS to start beeping – let’s hope they don’t think it’s a bomb ticking 
Here’s an insightful look at some of the emerging Digital Trends from Frog Design
Want to know what your face would look like wearing a certain type of make up .. without touching your face? Well you could always summon up a magin mirror with the words “Mirror Mirror on the Wall, show me my face with make up all”.
And if that doesn’t work, you can head off to the Takashimaya department store in Tokyo and use their Digital Cosmetic Mirror.
The Digital Cosmetic Mirror lets store patrons test makeup and recommendations without actually applying anything to their skin.
I’ve always loved stories that are built from clay models & lego bricks, because as well as watching the story unfold, a part of me is fascinated with the artistic patience required to produce them.
Working for ASICS, agency Nordpol+ Hamburg commissioned Sipho Mabona who has created this gem of a story with Origami which is not only entertaining, but is so on brand for ASICS.
Origami In the Pursuit of Perfection from MABONA ORIGAMI on Vimeo.
October 15th is Blog Action Day, where 10,000 bloggers around the world are writing about climate change.
Social Media certainly provides a platform to harness the “collective” due to the global accessibility of internet and the ease of content publication which has given consumers a voice. Cause marketing is certainly one of the early adopters of doing this, and I expect to see a continued growth in corporate sponsorship of these initiatives, demonstrating the merging of social media engagement and PR.
There is still lots of debate surrounding digital piracy.
Matt Mason’s new book “The Pirate’s Dilemma” addresses the issue of piracy demonstrating how piracy helped to evolve Hollywood prior to the existance of the internet. His book describes how piracy is an important source of innovation, and he describes how piracy can be used to effectively spread ideas. In doing so, Matt suggests how piracy itself can be leveraged as a valid business model.
Here’s a video of Matt talking about how youth culture is reinventing capitalism.
Be a Football Hero allows you to create a personalised audio commentary.
Select your name, country, and age, and then listen to the professional soccer (football) commentary of yourself performing the ultimate football heroics.
If you like what you hear, you can order the soundtrack as a CD for 14.99 pounds.
The soundtrack is very realistic, and you get to hear your surname and age as you score the match winning goal in the dying minutes.
IBM has launched an Android based mobile app to “Augment” what is happening at Wimbledon. Taking a live feed from the handset’s camera, it superimposes content and data associated with various points of interest into that video stream. For example live scores, court information etc.
The widespread adoption of 3G and Smartphones has meant that the potential audience for leveraging location (using the phone’s GPS), and supplementing that with value added information is reaching a critical mass.
I think it makes sense to trial new technologies at these type of events.
One of the highlights from Cannes is the Wildfire stories.
You can watch the full presentation of Wildfire – Stories in full here presented by Contagious and Leo Burnett.
This year’s focus was on stories with a strong talkability factor to faster spread the word.
This is definitely where marketing communications needs to head.
Not all campaigns will be successful, but not having a brief, or having one that is “too brief” definitely increases the likelihood of failure.
The Brief is one of the most important stages of the marketing process, and yet many clients fail to see it’s importance, and either ignore it all together or pass this responsibility to the agency. Agency created briefs or “reverse briefs” can work well where the client / agency understand each other well, but there should still be some kind of approval step so that clarity of scope is understood.
