Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
According to AdWeek, location-based targeting will redefine behavioral targeting sooner than you think. This article touches on a few examples of campaigns that really only scrape the surface of what’s to come.
I’ve been fixating on re-imagining lately: a trend in design, marketing, and communications that takes the mashup from the 90s a few steps further (thanks, in large part, to better software). Anyway, since I’m currently working on a proposal for a breast cancer awareness foundation, this really piqued my interest…
Nobody’s immune to breast cancer. Ace idea out of DDB, Maputo, Mozambique. I love playing on the thought that everyone thinks it won’t happen to them, and using icons to convey so much of that insight.
(Source: poptartcreative)
reblogged from helloyoucreatives
reblogged from helloyoucreatives
Pitch the Story, Not the Platform
As I sketch out ideas for a digital global awareness campaign, I keep referencing something @NickDeMartino notes in his article (and where I get my headline), What the Transmedia Movement Has to Teach (And to Learn).
If you’re in moviemaking or advertising, you’re creating story (as brand) or brand (as story) and your narrative unfurls across multiple channels and platforms, in emerging formats, intersecting online, and inviting participation from audiences along the way — rarely to change the story but more to uncover subplots and other points of fascination (or engagement, if you’re a marketer).
From proposals to interactive projects, I’ve witnessed brilliantly assembled teams of brilliant creatives favoring tactics over strategy — format over story.
It’s tempting to start with “the Web” and fan out ideas for apps or YouTube playlists; hashtags that should be used on Twitter and places people can check in to unlock prizes. But that’s rarely about story. That’s about places. That’s all platform.
I’ve seen plenty of campaigns built around timelines, with clear nodes and content formats for pre-awareness, engagement, activation, conversation, conversion… but that’s not really about story either. That’s about time. That’s about persuasion.
The best example I have of taking narrative, identifying the lean in and lean back moments and allowing creative, copy, and code to fall out of that comes from my AOL days, which is sort of surprising to me as I look back in hindsight.
Master storytellers roamed those Dulles corridors (the good news for me is that I still get to work with a few of them) and inside that so-called walled garden, we were crafting how stories played out across a network. A tweak here, click-through there, and we could coerce massive waves of captive audiences through different experiences over the course of a day. We did it so well, so often, that I think we took the network (the platform) for granted. Looking back, that’s probably why it was so effective. The focus was on the story.
So as I steal the strategic ideas that I overhear from the transmedia community, and learn from adlands’ best and worst, I find myself going back to my old files and pulling out those old best practices. Might be time to do some tinkering over the Thanksgiving hols and see if I can build a better brief…
On Profit and Proceeds: Planning for Good
Apothecary chain president, Chris Salgardo talks conscious consumption in AdWeek, noting his shoppers “want to buy products from a company with a conscience.” Under his leadership, the company has managed to fuse shopping, advertising and event marketing for good with a company-wide commitment to giving back.
Reading this I get flashbacks of what Anita Roddick achieved with The Body Shop in the UK, ultimately scaling ethical consumerism into a global franchise.
These concepts are nothing new but increasingly I see shoppers declining to donate a dollar at the register but instead give by way of which products they buy and what those brands transparently support.
This shift will ultimately encourage brands to go beyond developing cause marketing campaigns and instead commit to developing long term relationships between their customers and the causes the founders and employees are actively involved in. The best agencies and agency planners will dig way past the brief, to see how these commitments articulate themselves throughout the brand experience — in-store, online, before, during and after specific campaign pulses.
CDC Zombie Apocalypse: Best Thing This Week
For a major Walking Dead fan, this campaign hit all the right notes. In fact, it appears the campaign was so well and widely received they ended up crashing their own site. Good problem to have, I suppose.
Yesterday afternoon, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tweeted out a link to a new blog post on their website called “Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse.” A great marketing idea, we must admit—someone over there has been watching The Walking Dead. The only problem is, the surge of traffic took out their whole blog. And it’s still down this morning!
Sun-Maid Embraces On-Pack QR Codes
In a a promotional tie-in with Dreamworks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda 2,” Sun-Maid raisin six-packs and 24-ounce canisters are carrying QR codes, which when snapped (and a little data collected), they can view trailers from the movie, learn more about its characters, download computer wallpaper or enter a sweepstakes
MediaPost has more on the sweeps itself, which is actually kinda cool and a nice high-value prize. The article goes on to explain how the brand will be using a few more of its channels to help drive up awareness of the campaing:
A Facebook campaign will support the sweepstakes. Through June (with heaviest activity around the movie’s launch date), Sun-Maid’s Facebook page is featuring panda trivia and updates about the movie, and encouraging fans to look for the special packages with QR codes and enter the sweeps. In addition, the Kung Fu Panda, Mattel and Zoo Atlanta Facebook pages are doing cross-promotions.
Post-it Sticks to Stunts
Kind of love this Post-it campaign in the UK around the royal nuptials, developed by OgilvyAction.
Walgreens Runs First National Foursquare Campaign
According to ClickZ, Walgreens today put a Foursquare twist on its classic “Friends & Family Day” promotion. Most of the retail chain’s 7,600 locations are offering store patrons who check in on the geo-social platform 15 percent off eligible items and 20 percent off Walgreens-branded products.
The retailer’s director of e-commerce marketing told ClickZ, “Some people prefer email…
“Some people have smartphones. Some people don’t have smartphones but feel real comfortable with texting. Some people feel better about being able to print out a piece of paper and bring it with them to the store. We are definitely seeing good response across all [digital] channels for these promotions. We are simply trying to give people a range of choices.”
We think this is the right way of looking at sprinkling in emerging or bleeding edge platforms into bigger CRM or acquisition strategies. Shoppers are not created equal; even within subsets of shoppers, behaviors and preferences frequently shift from one day to the next.
This is a great time to try new things and by allocating budgets to experiment, while maintaining tried and true tactics, the retailers and consumers win. It will be interesting to see what Walgreens shares in terms of the success of this experiment.
