In its “pursoot” to provide interactive content to their European customers, BMW has partnered with Apple to run a new type of campaign in Europe. Apple launched its iAd for iPad mobile advertising campaign in Europe and BMW’s BMW i wanted to participate. The campaign had BMW i advertisements running on popular iPad applications allowing “clicking customers” to experience a multimedia world around their BMW i vehicles.
Iconic beauty company Dove have stepped up their Real Beauty campaign with an interactive twitter feed encouraging men to tweet about the beautiful women in their life. If you’re anywhere near London’s Victoria train station over the next few days (I believe this is going until the 19th of February), check out the huge screen which is displaying a constant stream of Valentines inspired tweets.
Sometimes an idea comes along that combines digital with a little magic that only a brand like Nike could pull off. This experiential area is like nothing I have seen before. Learn how to throw hoops like the pros using the latest in green screen technology. Kids replicated some of Basketballs biggest stars’ signature moves on a real court. The camera then isolated the player and analyzed their performance, step-by-step.
Can you believe that “the pause that refreshes” is now 125 years old? Coca-Cola realizes what a feat this is and is working with the Antilop creative firm of Istanbul to create the Coca-Cola future room to celebrate the event. The future room will be an exposition featured at santralistanbul Galeri 1, a modern arts and cultural complex in Turkey.
Last week, sweeping layoffs at GS+P left, by some estimates, hundreds jobless. As one commenter noted on our post last week,”Great. This just made the freelance market in SF about a billion times tougher.” No, it probably wasn’t the most sensitive of statements, but it undoubtedly carries a good amount of truth with it. When that many people are let go in a market the size of San Francisco, it’s an uphill battle.
When Ford Fiesta decided to launch a new campaign, the aim was to draw attention and increase awareness about the new Fiesta. With this in mind, they wanted to create a campaign that would clearly attract customer’s attention towards the USPs, features and improvements of the car in a fun way. For this purpose, they partnered with Blue Hive and launched a new campaign across Europe.
I think this is the first time CreativeFluff has ever gotten a valentine. Well, I should say that it’s not a valentine for us…we got a note telling us that a Valentine exists for everyone but us. Anyway… Enter the Samsung Galaxy Love Note. Apparently the company is not satisfied Samsunging everyone at the Super Bowl, they want to be in your business on this day filled with love.
More and more brands are now listening to their users via social media channels and some are even adapting their brand to what their consumers are saying. Domino’s has recently taken this one step further, by launching the ‘Think Oven’. This is an innovation app that lives on Facebook and rewards users for their ideas. This is all part of the brands initiative to become more relevant and increase loyalty by engaging consumers in its reinvention.
When it comes to social media campaigns, LinkedIn is not the first thing that comes to mind. It’s not that LinkedIn hasn’t done any directed campaigns before, they just don’t do them as often as Facebook for instance. LinkedIn has launched a global campaign with Fujitsu, titled “Profile Pitch“, where users connect with the campaign site via the LinkedIn API.
Being the Official Automotive Marketing partner of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, Lexus has created a multi-faceted campaign for the 2013 GS sedan called Tori 500 – a campaign that showcases an actual racetrack Lexus created in the shape of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model Tori Praver’s body. “What better way to help introduce the bold new face of Lexus—the all-new GS—than with a bold new campaign featuring a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model?”
HangTen
Antilop, Apple, auto, basketball, BMW, Coca-Cola, Dominos, Dove, Fiesta, Ford, Fujitsu, GS+P, iAd, iPad, Lexus, LinkedIn, Nike, pizza, Samsung, santralistanbul Galeri 1, Social Media, Sports Illustrated, Super Bowl, Tori Praver, Twitter
Mercedes-Benz created an interactive outdoor event on digital advertising displays in Berlin underground station Friedrichstrasse, which blurred the line between classical outdoor advertising and interactive entertainment. Under the slogan “Key to Viano”, passersby were offered the unprecedented opportunity to control digital advertising displays using their own remote car keys.
During the Jewish Holiday of Hanukkah, Latet (Hebrew for “to give”), a humanitarian aid organization, wanted to create a unique fundraising event. In collaboration with Shaker, an app that turns Facebook into a virtual bar, Latet created a one-of-a-kind fundraising event – a street party inside Facebook. Israeli celebs, who received special avatars, held live performances inside the virtual street party.
MasterCard isn’t standing by while rivals such as Visa and American Express move forward with their own wallet apps. The credit card company is rolling out the first trial of its QkR mobile application, a mobile payment app that allows people to interact and initiate payments via QR codes, NFC tags and other technologies.
Today The Red Hot Chili Peppers released an interactive music video for the band’s latest single, “Look Around.” My first thought was, “It’s been done before by a number of bands” but how wrong I was. I spent 15 minutes exploring this video which for anyone is a ridiculous time but I could easily spend another 15.
Amercian ice-cream giants Ben & Jerry’s have launched a new competition in a bid to encourage socially responsible entrepreneurs to give back to the environment and community. As part of the competition ‘Join Our Core’, which launched last week (February 1), startups from across Europe are being urged to put their sustainable business ideas forwards for the chance to scoop a €10,000 cash prize.
According to the Islamic law Sharia, if a woman is accused of infidelity, she is sentenced to death by stoning. The same punishment was given to Sakineh Asthiani, whose story is known the world over. To support amnesty International movement against stoning Euro RSCG created a Facebook application where people create a portrait of Sakineh from an artistic mosaic of stone.
Chevrolet have found a great way to recycle their billboards in Canada. Rather than just taking down and trashing their outdoor ads, the automaker decided to use the vinyl from the posters, along with recycled seat belts and bicycle inner tubes, to create trendy messenger bags and latptop sleeves. The initiative comes after Chevrolet put up dozens of outdoor ads for the launch of the new Cruze model.
Remember the Starbucks Cup Magic app that was released last year in conjunction with the holiday season? Well it looks like the app has been given an update just in time for one of the most celebrated events worldwide: Valentine’s Day. The app now creates an augmented reality scene when the camera is aimed at the special edition Valentine’s Day-themed cups that will be in use through February 17th.
An old building just outside Brussels will be transformed into a Nissan showroom next year. To make people aware of this, creatives Ivo Mertens and Jasper Declercq of advertising agency TBWA\Belgium came up with an impressive street art painting on the 400m2 wall of the building. Street artist Steve Locatelli used 489 spray cans in two weeks to complete the breathtaking piece of art.
As expected, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has launched Meet & Seat, a new service “for meeting interesting passengers on your flight.” If you have a reservation, you can link your Facebook or LinkedIn profile to the flight you’ll be on, in order to see who else is on board, and decide who you want to sit with – long before the flight leaves the ground.
HangTen
airlines, American Express, Amnesty International, app, auto, Ben & Jerry, Chevrolet, digital advertising, Facebook, graffiti, Hanukkah, ice cream, KLM, LinkedIn, MasterCard, Meat & Seat, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, QkR, QR codes, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Shaker, Sharia
Budweiser has put together some pretty impressive Super Bowl ads over the years; their frogs and penguins from the early 2000s were unforgettable and their Clydesdale commercials of late have been pretty good too. But nothing tops their newest creation, in which they told two recreational hockey teams that they were filming a documentary about rec hockey. Except that they weren’t.
The Audi vs. BMW battle has heated up and there have been two extra rounds of sparring. First up, Audi responded to BMW’s ‘Checkmate’ with an ad showing their R8 model. A clever response from Audi in my opinion, with great copy. But once again, for the second time, BMW has outwitted and outsmarted Audi, and I see no response to this.
Created by Italian model and designer Anna Utopia Giordano, Pop Bottles is a tongue-in-cheek art project of kid-themed branded booze bottles topped with rubber baby bottle nipples. The art is both amusing yet shocking considering it features themes such as “Fisher-Price Whiskey” and “Hello Kitty Vodka.” The mature themed Pop Bottle will be part of an art exhibition to raise social awareness.
Air China’s Facebook marketing campaign is a great example of how to use Facebook for marketing and branding purposes. Air China entered into partnerships with many asian restaurants in Sweden to act as ambassadors. People who visit these resturants were encouraged to check-in and these were displayed on Air China’s Facebook page.
Pearlfisher has designed the brand identity and packaging for the you count… range for Waitrose, part of the supermarket’s LOVE life offer. The consultancy has worked with Waitrose on the whole LOVE life range, which launched in June last year, and the you count… work is an extension of that project. The packaging emphasizes that food doesn’t need to be boring, even if you are watching your calorie intake.
Millions of tweets are sent around the holidays, and this year Belgian agency VVL BBDO decided to bring the wishes together and turn them into a melody. Wanting to start 2012 on a high note, the agency created a campaign to unite people all over the world. ’Best Tweeshes’ were user generated messages that ended with the hashtag #tweeshes.
More brands are finding their way onto two increasingly popular platforms. Brands are ten a penny on Facebook and Twitter, but with Instagram and Tumblr continuing to welcome more users, brands are broadening their social horizons. Coke, Levi’s, Tiffany & Co and Aldo are all amongst brands that have new projects underway.
When we last checked in with Norwegian bank DNB (and it’s worth noting here that we’ve checked in with a Norwegian bank), the company was getting international notice for putting an international playboy in an ad. Recently, through agency Try/Apt, the bank tried to bring that same kind of charm to one of the more charmless “touch points” of any corporation–automated customer service.
Heineken is helping ignite romance this Valentine’s Day with the launch of a fun new Facebook application called ‘The Serenade’. Based on the brand’s second global film ‘The Date,’ the new app enables Heineken consumers to send humorous personalized songs to potential partners, inviting them on a date.
When passersby in New York City see people flying around the Statue of Liberty, it’s going to get people talking. And talk they did. As it turns out, the stunt was actually a viral marketing ploy put together by masters of deceptive marketing, Thinkmodo, for the upcoming found footage superhero movie, Chronicle.
HangTen
Air China, Aldo, ambassadors, Anna Utopia Giordano, Audi, baby bottles, BBDO, billboard, BMW, booze, Budweiser, Chronicle, Coke, Customer service, DNB, Facebook, flying, Heineken, Hockey, Instagram, Levi's, packaging, Pearlfisher, songs, Super Bowl, superhero, Thinkmodo, Tiffany & Co, Try/Apt, Tumblr, tweets, Valentines Day, Waitrose
Wishing your vehicle had a better-integrated entertainment system than the iPad you’re forced to futz with in the backseat? If GM has its way, you may be in luck. The auto manufacturer has joined forces with the Future Lab at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Israel to transform boring rear windows into interactive touchscreens.
We’ve recently featured a number of innovations such as Swimtag, which employ technology to motivate and encourage users to exercise more frequently. Now Bally Total Fitness gyms in the US have launched motion-sensing interactive walls that give their customers nutritional and workout tips and advice.
One million Facebook fans is a pretty big deal, right? Of the 1,492,134 Facebook pages that social bakers track, only 3672 have over one million fans or 0.2%. However, Facebook recently stated that there are over 30 million active Facebook pages (with more then 30 fans) meaning that the Cadbury page can count itself one of the lucky 0.012%!
This year, much as in previous years, some brands may be staring into the abyss, while others will do exuberantly well. And while we can’t offer any help to defaulting nations or bankrupt companies, we do believe that there are more opportunities than ever for creative brands and entrepreneurs to deliver on changing consumer needs.
Soon there will be no reason to walk into a shop and have to deal with humans, cause augmented reality is here to give you that consistent brand experience that a 19 year old gum-chewing, hungover student never could anyway. After downloading the NET-A-PORTER iPhone/iPad app, customers who turn up at stores can activate an Augmented Reality shopping experience by pointing the camera at the various pieces in the window.
Halfsies is a social initiative offering restaurant-goers a choice that provides a healthier meal portion, reduces food waste and supports the fight against hunger. The goal of this fundraising campaign is to kickstart the ‘Eat Less. Give More’ movement in the US. Halfsies turns the simple act of dining out into a charitable giving opportunity.
Those familiar with Groupon Inc.’s daily email alerts may be surprised to find the marketing mogul has taken it to the streets, making its services hyperlocal and interactive at kiosks around Chicago. Coupon-savvy customers have already begun to take advantage of Groupon’s physical manifestation by accessing Groupon accounts at one of six kiosks at Navy Pier.
South African fast food chain, Wimpy, wanted to let visually impaired people know that they offered braille menus in all of their restaurants. To spread the word they built braille burgers that blind people could actually read. With the help of skilled chefs they took sesame seeds and meticulously placed them on burger buns so that the seeds formed braille.
Tropicana and its Brighter Mornings campaign continued to cheer up Londoners. Yesterday at 6:00AM in Trafalgar Square, Londoners had an opportunity to see a man made sun. The sun installation stayed until around 7:30PM and gave the citizens of London an extra three hours of daylight. The man made sun was quite big actually: It was 30,000 times bigger than a football and really heavy, around 2,500kg.
Pinterest, the virtual pin board at the crossroads of social and style, has burgeoned into a marketplace for consumer brands, offering a visual and demonstrable platform for engagement. A wide range of major brands are using Pinterest to engage fans through social curation and as an online focus group to see what clicks with consumers.
HangTen
augmented reality, auto, Bally Total Fitness, Braille, branding, Cadbury, Chocolate, Facebook, Fast Food, Future Lab, GM, Gym, Halfsies, iPad, iPhone, London, Net-A-Porter, Non-profit, Pinterest, restaurant, Retail, SwimTag, Trends, Tropicana, WiFi
Jeep Poland launched Jeep-in, a geo location game, which turned Poland into a big treasure map. To play it people had to go off-road. Every player received a map with the exact location of the awards. To win one had to find the point, go there and Jeep-in (check-in). The awards were put in the most remote and hard to get places in Poland. The player who at the end had the highest number of points won a Jeep Grand Cherokee.
We have previously seen multiple examples of QR codes being used by Indian brands in their campaigns. Adding to that list is Delhi-based club Turquoise Cottage which implemented a campaign through digital agency, Webchutney, to use QR Codes as admittance stamps on Christmas Eve. What’s different about this campaign though, is that the implementation has been made in a way not just to reinforce the brand but to make it actually useful for the target audience.
Volkswagen’s new super-compact car sets the standards for accommodation in the class and production is anticipated to start in 2013. The Volkswagen Up campaign is just one of the many creative marketing initiatives the auto brand has embarked on over the last several months on sites whose location, visibility and hearing are particularly strategic. In Paris or Ile de France, Cannes or Marseille.
We’ve seen QR codes being used to convey playful messages before when we covered Qkies cookies. Now San Diego-based QRawr is giving users the ability to transform any physical object into a Facebook-style digital wall, with QR code stickers linking to the users’ own photos, videos or text. QRawr hope their stickers, printed with unique QR codes, will turn real-world items into online conversations.
Don’t pretend you haven’t done it. We have all, at one point or another, pulled off that scented strip in our favorite magazine to take a little whiff of the latest perfume. Perhaps you have even tried rubbing the paper on your wrist to transfer some of the fragrance. Don’t worry there is nothing to be ashamed of, we have found some of our favorite fragrances that way and if you ask us it was a truly ingenious step in perfume advertising back in the ’80s when scented ads first came onto the market.
During the f8 conference last year, Facebook promised more meaningful interactions with your friends with the announcement of its “Open Graph” initiative. We’re starting to see more of that interaction pop up in the ticker on the right hand side of the site. One of the best ticker notifications is seeing what your friends are listening to on services like Rdio and Spotify.
While the large majority of athletic gear is segmented for each specific sports market, Nike announced a product Thursday that sweeps across the entire sporting landscape and can be used by any athlete at any level: the Nike+ FuelBand, a rubber bracelet worn on the wrist during exercise and sports activities to measure “steps, calories, time & Fuel metric (currency measured by oxygen kinetics).”
Over eight nights in major cities across South Africa, interactive agency iLogic created large projections of race tracks to promote the BMW 1 Series. Passersby could sign up with promoters to race BMWs on projected screens by logging into Facebook on a tablet. People could then use the tablet as the steering wheel for the car that was projected onto the race track. Each person’s race results were posted to their Facebook Wall.
Daffy’s, a high end fashion store recently opened up in Times Square and wanted to promote their opening “Up to 80% Off” sale. With the objective of attracting attention in perhaps the most heavily advertised location in the world, Daffy’s introduced an old-school Peep Show to illustrate to passers-by what 80% off actually looks like.
Fans of the Benelux MINI Facebook page have the opportunity to both play with fire and win a new car thanks to the ‘Fan the Flame‘ contest. A Mini Countryman has been placed on a ramp in the parking lot at the European Auto Show in Brussels. The car is held only in place on the ramp by a thick hemp rope. Facebook fans can take their turns remotely flashing a flame from an Arduino-controlled burner placed under the rope. The fan whose flame finally burns through the rope wins the car.
HangTen
BMW, check-in, contest, Daffy's, exercise, Facebook, Fan the Flame, fragrance, FuelBand, geo location, Jeep, Mini, music, Nike, off-road, peep show, QR codes, QRawr, Race, scent, sports, stickers, Turquoise Cottage, Volkswagen
