Being old enough to remember when Apples (aka Macs) had a built in 9″ monochrome screen and were coined “Classics“, I have been lucky enough to be taught in both traditional methods and with the tools we use every day to create, communicate and reboot. Skip forward to 1994 and when Mindspring changed the landscape by offering great service with a slow, but reliable internet connection to my home and many offices in and around Atlanta. So what has happened in these 13 years since we would start the day by the lovely sound of the modem? We all know that a lot has happened and changed, but my question is less related to what has happened but to how it has affected our media and communication landscape.
Recently, I polled my students and recent graduates at The Creative Circus with some questions around “Traditional” and “Digital” advertising, design, media and strategy. Figuring that this generation of marketers, advertisers and designers will most likely experience an even greater shift in how we relate to media.
The Question:
How do you see “Traditional” advertising and media changing in the next 10 years?
Some of their Answers:
1.) “Consumers will have more control over the choice and content than they do now and brands that engage consumers as active participants will be successful.”
2.) “I don’t think there is ‘Traditional’ advertising anymore.”
3.) “More media channels, more ways to reach people, more interactive experiences and more brand interaction. Hopefully less User Generated crap.”
4.) “I don’t think anyone can answer that question. The only thing you need to be certain of is that your ideas communicate with an audience in an interesting way. Don’t let the media do the work.”
5.) “More out of home, experiential and true interaction between the audience and the advertising itself.”
6.) “Traditional will be a support role. It will only exist because it has always been there.”
7.) “I think it can go two ways… either it could go back to more traditional forms, as the interactive market becomes saturated, or it could go the other way where traditional becomes a program on the history channel.”
8.) “More interactive/online experience focused.”
9.) “A drastic overhaul of TV and more of a move towards viral.”
10.) “Media will become even more scattered.”
With these answers and our own insights, we all know “Digital” will become a driver within the next 10 years. The real question that excites me is what will “Digital” become.
It may be a Dutch website, but they have the same great taste in music (less the awkward skew towards the still popular Journey, Asia and Air Supply). The microsite showcases 5 generations of VWs alongside the music of their era. The gaming portion of the site quizzes the user to pick which VW and era belongs with the song and the results are an engaging advergame that delivers some great music and memories.
So what were my findings?
VW sure has changed from the 5os, and still has yet to bring back the Karmann Ghia.
Quiz shows and advergames mix very well.
I have an odd skew towards 50s and 80s music.
Take the quiz and see how VW has changed over 60 years. Just click on “speel het spel” and enjoy the music. (It takes a while to load, please be patient!)
Whoever said scrolling for content was bad? Maybe our entire User Experience Department…
So why can’t scrolling be part of the experience, part of the concept… well it can be and Orange does a great job with the dreaded “page down” action.
Orange, a mobile provider out of the UK, recently launched the microsite around the concept of unlimited mobile usage. It’s a clever play on unlimited and scrolling lets the user interact with various flash experiences and conveys the feeling of a single page that never ends. The micro-experiences give quick interaction points and continuously drive the user deeper down the page to an abyss of rainbows, birds, bunnies and monkeys.
All said and done, it is a smart site and if it does not crash your browser, I hope you enjoy the lengthy experience.
Are you confused by the hundreds of printers that fax, copy, print, talk, beep and jam? I know I am.
Enter Epson’s new website that simplifies your decision process while giving you a few “chuckles” along the way. There are some great aspects to this site that make it viral and also sales focused. Epson understands that the viewer/user might not be the purchaser and also might not be ready to buy the product this instant. So, they have given the user some tools to share their findings with others and even themselves for future Epson purchase decisions. See below in the “Wish” page and a great example of a “Dear Me” reminder email.
So with an understanding of the user and the buying cycle, we might say that Epson has built an amusing site that guides us through a normally frustrating process. Well, before we jump to high praises, I would like to talk about some other key points that I would have wanted out of this decision engine:
1.) If they are talking about the quality of prints, show me the quality. I would have loved to have seen side by side examples of the same image to weigh the print resolution.
2.) If I am given options to compare the product, give me the ability to select from other manufacturers. The site is fun, but it will not stop me from going to a better comparison site like cnet to get unbiased reviews and user generated comments.
3.) As we all know UGC (user generated content) is a great feature to add validity to your products, why wasn’t a dialog started with consumers on the site that already owned these products?
All in all, Epson and their agencies have built a very creative way to choose “your” peripheral device, but they have left out some key features that could really make it more than an engaging microsite and make it a great tool.
Take a quick look into the past of some of the best and worst social media has dished out. From our friend and prankster Nalts to Mentos, this video shows just how fast this landscape is moving. Buckle up for a great synopsis and get ready for a terrible rendition of Billy Joel’s - “We didn’t Start the Fire” by Cakke.
Design and usability are to many “form and function” - the chocolate and peanut butter, and also the difference between an amazing product and a soon to be forgotten one.
I would like this blog post to be Round 1 of the debate over the design interface, the overall product design and its usability among the public. What this is not is a place to complain about Apples’ battery life issues from previous technologies or how Apple will be creating yet another design movement that will effect everything from toasters to toilets. (see iMac)
(Enter and exit Ring Girls and the sound of the bell)
Can you develop Frito-Lay’s brand and produce their “Mockumentory” ad campaign? Of course you can! With the power of social-media and a bold “hot dog” flavor, you can not only do these things, you also have the chance to be one of the lucky winners to have a year’s supply of Doritos . . .
So why my sarcasm? Other than the fact that social media is by far the tastiest spice currently being traded in the marketing world, I believe that social should be social. Can you still taste that “social” football-flavor left over from the Doritos’ SuperBowl campaign? Do you think that engagement with your community/customers betters your brand online?
The one great thing that Frito-Lay has done is understanding that the online channel is a viable one, and that consumers have no problem going from offline to online. Now let’s see if they will really ever get social.
Playstation just announced their new Social Networking tool for the PS3 gaming console called “Home”. The new offering will be found within every console in the “cross media bar” and will give the users a Second Life experience within the PS3 world.
As a member you can personalize your avatar, customize your own apartment within your Private Space, purchase premium items to decorate and even play “your” media on a Sony Bravia television. These are all things that are currently available within Second Life, but the new offerings that I find personally interesting are within the “Public Spaces.”
These Public Spaces house everything from virtual arcades to movie theatres, where you can watch HD quality movies and even user generated content. The social media content is being provided by Grouper; so it should be interesting how they feed in and filter the content. Even future non-social content within Home is not only about Sony, but also game publishers, developers and even non-industry corporations (Starbucks anyone?).
With Sony’s new effort to dive into the virtual world marketplace, it makes me wonder about the audience that it will attract to this experience. Second Life has a free experience (less the $600 needed for a console) with 4.5 million people from around the world. But with Sony’s 2 million consoles sold in 2006, it seems that they are not too far behind.
This said, I do not see Home being as much a competitor to Second Life as they are simply emulating their environment to create a better sense of community. What really matters is that Microsoft has over 1 million subscribers to their online community, Xbox Live, and has already entered into the media gateway for your household entertainment, communications and storage.
Now that consoles are becoming gateways into whole home media centers, it will only be a matter of time when your favorite movies, your virtual conference call, your vacation slide show and all of your entertainment, will be available to you and “your friends” at the touch of a button.
So sit back, relax, and watch Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony battle it out within their community games.
To learn a litle more, check our Sony’s Video Presentation about Home (wait for the commercial to pass, the presenation is very informative).
Being a marketer does have its benefits sometimes. There are so many industries that seem to be stuck in the past when it comes to driving new sales. What do giant inflatable gorillas, brightly colored balloons and dancing clowns with signs have in common? They are all old attempts to drive sales locally.
Now I know that not all car dealers, real-estate agents and clowns know the power of local search, much less the simplicity behind AdWords. But imagine if those balloons and inflatable gorillas could be strategically positioned all around their competitor’s lots and listings. Local targeted ad buys have been a great way for many businesses to target regional buyers searching for product and services at very low costs. For $0.04, less the cost of any balloon, a highly targeted ad can yield great results.
Let’s look into an example of a campaign that I am currently running for my beautiful, fabulous, well-priced (obviously still trying to sell it) townhome. With a very competitive real-estate marketplace and many new condo and townhome communities going up, it seems almost necessary to shorten the sales time with other non-traditional mediums.
My current locally targeted AdWords campaign gets about 150 clicks per week and over 8,000 impressions (people that might have saw the balloons). At an average cost per click (CPC) of only $0.20, it is worth every penny to have them view my property without having to schedule a showing with my agent.
My keyword strategy is a simple one… be found when people are searching for new homes, researching new developments, finding lenders, finding tax information and even researching local neighborhoods. The costs and impressions greatly range, but considering the sale price and the value of a click, it was worth the couple extra minutes of setup.
So next time you are looking to drive more traffic, don’t just think a PPC campaign is only for big budgets. You will be surprised what $4 a day can get you and you might even save a few animals from those pesky balloons.
The Coca-Cola Company has released an e-greetings campaign through YouTube this holiday season. The “Holiday WishCast” allows a viewer to select from a variety of Coca-Cola holiday commercials and user-generated videos and send them to a friend with a personalized holiday message.
This adoption of viral video is right on track with Coca-Cola’s great understanding of social media. Their existing website shows user-generated videos of the people that create the Coke brand. With such a passionate brand like Coke, why not let it live within the hands of their enthusiastic, video shooting customers/advocates.
Petro Kacur, a spokesperson for Coca-Cola said, “We partnered with YouTube because they have global reach and a great platform for video. For Coca-Cola it’s an opportunity to leverage that and bring new users to coca-cola.com.”
The program ends the first week of January, so get your videos ready and surprise some friends.
At Spunlogic, we have a lot of great experience and unique ideas to share. From work with clients to new approaches and trends, in this award winning blog you'll find Spunlogic experts sharing their opinions and ideas on all aspects of interactive marketing.
