Giving away free sh*t that clients and PR people have sent you via your Facebook Page: It's the fastball of social marketing. Simple, reliable, and vaguely erotic (there are bound to be some phallic objects, right?).
Philly-based Red Tettemer + Patners--who recently won my affection by sending me a bunch of airplane bottles of TuB Gin--have launched their annual Swag for All Giveaway on their FB page. First up is some Rival Bros coffee. Check it out: https://www.facebook.com/RedTettemer
Sony Playstation and Duetsch's commercial/mini-film "Michael" for its Long Live Play campaign is killing it right now. They're almost at 9.6 million views and should hit the coveted 10 million mark within a few days.
Personally, I'm just thankful that we finally have a "Michael" film that's more popular than that awful movie where John Travolta plays an angel.
Viewable Media seeded the campaign and claims that a bit over 1 million of the views come from paid placements. I guess you can buy a viral campaign after all, huh?
If you ever live tweeted a TV or Sports event, you know that following a hash tag isn't exactly the most visually appealing experience.
Pepsi seems to be looking to change that with two baller social conversation containers: Pepsi Pulse and Pepsi Sound. Pepsi developed the two containers for the "X Factor," but it could seemingly be used for any event it has an interest in.
First, off, let's check out Pepsi Pulse:
Pepsi Pulse visualizes sentiment in conversations. So 100 hearts if 100 people are talking about loving the show, or 5 check marks if 5 people are agreeing with Simon. Studies have repeatedly shown that human beings absorb information much easier through infographics, so this makes a lot of sense.
Next, Pepsi Sound:
Pepsi Sound is a well-designed social platform that leverages Gigya's technology. It definitely feels more fun having a conversation here than in a hashtag stream, but strangely, you can't post messages to Pepsi Sound from Twitter. You have to go to the site, although you can push out your Pepsi Sound messages to Facebook and Twitter once you get there. Would have liked to this go both ways, but I guess Pepsi isn't a bi-curious brand.
Read more about Pepsi's new platforms on Ad Age. What do you think--will people use Pepsi Pulse and Sound, or is it just a pretty tree falling in the woods?
The Time Warner Signature commercial is made to seem like an escort service ad ("our devoted staff is ready to service you anytime," the seductively voiced narrator whispers). It's bizarre but I guess the message makes sense--if you pay extra, we'll make love to you, not f*ck you.
Back in May we wrote about personalized video provider EyeView giving new life to the traditional agency dinosaurs on Madison Ave. Now another personalized video space provider has hit up our inbox: DynamicVideo. Here's their pitch:
DynamicVideo's technology not only only allows you to layer in personalized content into a video, but also to
1. Add personalized static and video elements directly into a video ad
2. Integrate social media links and live calls-to-action
3. Tie into a database for real-time rendering of products and offers into an ad
4. Deliver personalized video ads (in-banner and in-stream) on the web, mobile and tables
5. Connect the video ad to integrated marketing campaigns that include personalized web pages and emails
The personalized ad is assembled on the fly and delivered to the viewer in real time. So someone watching an ad for a pizza chain gets information on local deals, and an ad for a movie gives the viewer local showtimes. Definitely smart. DynamicVideo also provides personalized video and photos inside a video ad, like this ad for Family Moments/H&M.
Will this save traditional advertising? Probably not. But it could fend off digital and social agencies ready to #occupymadave for a few years.
We’re always skeptical of User-Generated Content campaigns. Very few people contribute to them, they’re often expensive, and they encourage a lot of congratulatory ass-patting from uncreative ad men. So we had our doubts when Leo Burnett’s 4-month old New York Office got in touch with us about New York Writes Itself, “an ongoing series of creative productions fueled [submissions from] by the real people of New York City.”
The basic concept: “Scribes” submit scripts of crazy scenes they see in the city and the best are chosen by a pool of collaborative artists as inspiration for music, creative writing, art exhibitions, and any other crazy idea a New York artist comes up with. It’s like a more artistic version of Overheard in New York. Was this working? And why the hell was Leo’s NY office doing this? Intrigued, we headed uptown to meet with CCO Jay Benjamin and his Aussie right hand man, Creative Director Michael Canning.
Benjamin launched New York Writes Itself with Canning and fellow Creative Director Kieran Astill just a few weeks after landing from Australia. “Agencies like to shout about themselves and we didn’t want to throw out a big press release about ourselves. We wanted to do something in the city that was valuable to people’s lives and become part of the culture.”
So has anyone actually submitted?
“We’re starting to see dozens every day. Some are just a quote, others are like short stories. The full script is in the tens of thousands.”
Whoa. Tens of thousands of submissions? What was the secret? Free porn?
“A lot of times brands ask people to do too much,” Benjamin explained, “And when you can give people something very specific that they need to do that relates to their lives, which is just, ‘Listen to what’s happening on the street or watch what’s happening on the street and put it in there as a scribe,’ that’s for an average person going to be really easy and really interesting. ‘Cause then as a scribe, you’re also going to be rewarded. The piece that you wrote could actually be grabbed by an artist.”
“[When brands ask people] to make a short film, things like that are just a lot of times too hard.”
They also gained serious traction by tapping into NYC’s creative community.
“As the script fills out, more and more creative communities are reaching out to us. When we started, we contacted the Letterpress community and we’re getting ready to do an exhibit with them at the Art Directors Club in December. They came together as a group and said, ‘Let’s all do this together.’”
The Leo crew tabbed The Good Wife’s Kevin Conway—perhaps the most quintessential New Yorker out there—to read scripts in weekly episodesas NYWI's "Chairman." Conway is the perfect choice:
Armed with early success, the Leo crew is starting to think big. “Now as this thing grows up we now have a lot of ideas about things we want to do,” Benjamin said. “We’re hoping to get certain music artists involved and when we can do a big lead up to [an announcement] with one of them and that’s where a lot of interest will draw around. It will drive “Scribe” interaction.
They already see a big payoff for the agency as the project grows and they build a network of creative collaborators. “More than anything, I think it’s demonstrating the way we think,” Benjamin said. “We’ve set ourselves up as a kind of small collaborative model here. We’re not a massive agency, and we don’t’ really intend to be. But everyday, we’re meeting all kinds of people that we’re going to end up working with.”
