Scary movie takes a spin on Chatroulette

Here’s some out-of-the-box thinking that helps keep our industry fresh and inspired. Lionsgate films recently ran a promotion for its new thriller “The Last Exorcist,” using the popular website, Chatroullete.com. Online users cruise the website to videochat with random people, mainly men hoping to find a girl who will show them some skin and other men who do all the showing themselves. Capitalizing on their knowledge of Chatroulette.com’s users, Lionsgate entices them with an image of a woman who seems to be about to bare her chest. Just as she is about to show them what they want to see, the woman puts her head down. When she resurfaces the woman’s face is distorted, as if possessed by a demon, then she lunges at the screen. After the scary clip, the website for the film is displayed onscreen to the shocked Chatrouletters. This is a great example of a marketer getting creative about how to reach its target audience, although we suspect that the movie is getting more buzz from people talking about the frightening promotion, than the promotion itself.

Video Dating dials up iPhone:

Internet dating has never been a simple matter. In fact, unless you were willing to pay for expensive dating sites, Craigslist or other similar platforms were the usual route for the relationship-challenged. VisualFriend is a new iPhone app that aims to revolutionize online dating by calling on iPhone to facilitate video dates between users, using Apple’s Facetime functionality. How does it work? From the VisualFriend’s website: “Meet friends, share information, flirt…” Put simply, users can view pictures of other members, chat in interactive chat-rooms, and exchange digits with that special someone they are interested in pursuing via Facetime. So it’s essentially a more selective version of Chatroulette.com, hopefully sans exhibitionists. The service is free, and we are watching closely to see what kind of results dials up among the singles crowd.

Mega Diner serves up Adidas Sneakers

At the Mega Diner, the waitress is mega hot, and she’s serving up a mega-brand. Adidas recently launched its Mega Diner interactive website, where users place their orders with Flo the waitress, who then has the chef cook up your favorite…..well, pair of shoes. Different responses to her questions causes her to bring you a different meal, I mean pair of sneakers. Customers can then inspect the shoes, order them, and of course, share on Facebook. The web interface is great and provides a stable platform for engaging consumers with content that they want. As the trend of targeting consumers via brand-generated content continues to grow online, we are watching closely for what will come next.

Getting the ‘dirt’ on consumers: GPS-enabled laundry detergent

As if pulled from a scene in a spy thriller, Unilever’s Omo brand detergent will be tracking its Brazilian customers to their homes using GPS. The promotion, “Try Something New with Omo,” aims to increase the buzz about the stain-fighting mix, rather than directly increase its sales. Bullet, the brand’s promotions agency, has placed GPS tracking devices in 50 boxes of the popular detergent, which will let the company track the lucky customers. Once the locations of the boxes and consumers are known, special teams will be dispatched to those sites. When the winning purchasers are identified, the teams will provide them with video cameras and ask them to film their day at a Unilever-sponsored family event. A website (experimentealgonovo.br.com) will go live this month (August), that features a map of the winners’ locations, and video of them taken with the free cameras provided by the brand. Known for its “dirt is good” campaign, Omo urges parents to let their kids have fun, and let the detergent take care of the dirt. We can’t wait to get the dirt on the buzz this campaign creates and the possible outcomes that clean laundry will reveal.

tissot future of watch shopping

As we kick off a new week we thought it would be cool to highlight another example of augmented reality (AR).

Think of how in the future AR will be able to impact sales or even change the consumer shopping experience.

a truly augmented reality

We’ve all heard about the cutting-edge developments in the world of Augmented Reality (AR). But, now that this trend is starting to surface more as part of mainstream we wanted to showcase how major brands are incorporating AR in order to engage consumers.

For those of you living underneath a rock for the past couple of years AR is simply a live direct (or indirect) view of the physical world, whose elements are altered using computer-generated virtual imagery. This technology was originally confined to the military realm of display systems. And, it was later adopted by TV broadcasting stations in the form of displaying the yellow line that marks the first down in sporting events such as football. Now, we are starting to see innovation coming from big brands who don’t necessarily have a background in technology.

Take the iPhone app – Scoops of Happiness – by Ben and Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream. This app comes with a feature called “Moo Vision,” where consumers can point their iPhone camera at selected ice cream containers, and see a 3D image in their camera display. And they aren’t the only ones serving up these exciting treats. Doritos recently shot an AR stunt (see video above) where the brand reveals a dancing mascot on roof top in Brazil. Even General Motors is currently working on an AR program that will help drivers in bad weather.

As AR uses advance, something tells us that we should keep our eyes open and smart phone cameras ready…chance are, we haven’t seen anything yet.

major retailers getting hauled by youtube and teen videos

A new trend has major retailers and social media giants like YouTube trying to cash in.

What is it?

Shopping haul videos – the act of an individual showcasing and reviewing items that they purchased online for the world to see via social media networks such as YouTube. Take a look at the video, which we posted above. It was featured on ABC’s Good Morning America on July 14th, 2010.

Talk about the convergence of word of mouth, user generated content and social media all being produced into unofficial commercials. It’s definitely something to keep an eye out especially because one has to wonder if this is the future of commercials or even sponsored programming.

kraft serving up more than just meals – big fork little fork

The global food and beverage corporation Kraft has cooked up Big Fork Little Fork, a new iPad application.

This marks a new trend that has major companies rushing to embrace a new gadget, in this case Apple’s iPad, in order to create a new application for a specific consumer.

With help from Meredith Integrated Marketing who assisted in building of this app, we want to compliment and highlight Kraft’s innovation. The brand sought to uncover a way to educate young parents about healthy eating in a way that was fun and interactive way.

Kraft expects that Big Fork Little Fork will help to fill a void where young parents, mostly in their 20s and 30s have when it comes to finding information about nutritional eating for their children. The Kraft app comes on the heels of a proprietary study Kraft conducted via Google that found 37 million web searches were recently conducted on topics such as family and kids food.

So that begs the following questions: How many consumers will this cool app actually reach given that only a small segment own iPads? Will Big Fork Little Fork leave consumers stuck at a proverbial “fork” in the road?

The @earlybird catches the worm

Twitter has announced the introduction of a social-shopping function to its already semi-convoluted business plan. After rolling out its “Promoted Trends,” and “Promoted Tweets” advertising platforms, the micro-blogging platform will begin tweeting daily deals through a new account aptly named @earlybird.

Similar to popular sites such as Groupon.com and LivingSocial, which recently raised $173 million and $50 million, respectively, Twitter will allow users to opt in to receive daily discounts.

Twitter is hoping that since users are the ones make the choice to follow, these ads might be more receptive. Of course, Twitter and its partners are banking on the viral nature of the platform, whereby people will retweet ads that they deem interesting, to their legions of followers.

If you ask us it sounds like a win-win situation for both Twitter and sponsors. The investment is minimal and the rewards are potentially massive. We’ve already started following @earlybird, and think you should too.

levi’s goes forth with braddock pa

So how does an iconic fashion brand such as Levis manage to stay relevant? Especially after one hundred plus years.

Some would state that its apparel is timeless and that’s the reason for such a success. And while there is little room to argue that, we believe there are other reasons.

A couple of weeks ago, Levis announced another extension to their “Go Forth” campaign designed by Widen + Kennedy. Instead of doing traditional ads that center on beautiful models and fashionable clothing, Levis will shift the focus to a struggling American town that reflects todays’ current situation where a once booming town tries to piece a community and neighborhood back together.

The brand hopes to shine a light on Braddock Pennsylvania and capture the real essence of truly “going forth” by helping to rebuilding a small town that embodies the true spirit of hope.

Now some sceptics will say that this is another big company PR stunt trying to cash in on the whole cause-related marketing craze. But you have to give Levis credit for such a daring move as the brand will donate more than a million dollars to rebuild this area.