Do You Want to Play a Game?

From VPs to moms, "gaming" has gotten a bad rap. However gaming theory already exists in our day-to-day life from sales incentives to loyalty clubs, and even the way our kids learn in school. Buy more, do more, do better and you will be rewarded.

It's a multi-billion-dollar industry that can influence business strategies, education and society itself. Marketers are slowly starting to use game theory as the heart of their campaigns, as actually drivers and not just as bells and whistles.

As always, MINI is leading the way with an innovative gaming campaign called MINI Getaway, developed by Jung von Matt Stockholm, an independent Stockholm-based ad agency. The latest version was launched in Japan, December 2011.

http://youtu.be/dUuSM2IZ8PQ

For nine days, everyone with an iPhone or Android that downloaded the game app, had the chance to hunt and keep a ‘virtual’ MINI Coupe. Participants had to keep the virtual car by running away from the location where they’d found it. The fastest and most strategic participant who had the virtual car on their phone at the end of game won a real MINI Coupe.

The company has already seen great success with the same game in Stockholm, launched in 2010. For those of you, who don’t read Swedish, check out the recap in English. http://www.minigetawaystockholm.com/

I think it is safe to say that more and more companies will be utilizing gaming as part of their marketing strategies to better engage with their consumers.

And really, who doesn’t like to play a game? It’s just fun!

This post was informed by: Ad Age Mobile, Miniusa.com, Popsop.com

Image Credit: Popsop.com

Why Pinterest is Hot!

Pinterest is addictive – okay, maybe it’s because I’m a girl, since the new cyber site’s audience is primarily female. But it’s clearly pretty attractive to venture capitalists too.

Named one of the top 50 websites for 2011 by Time Magazine, Pinterest (rhymes with interest) is one of the hottest new social media sites with enduring specialties that qualifies it as the next ‘Twitter.’ Its value through venture financing has soared from $40 million to over $200 million in only a few months.

Pinterest is a vision board-styled social photo sharing website and app where users can create and manage theme-based image collections. Since educational research suggests that over 80% of human learning occurs visually, you’ll quickly get the appeal.

Here’s how it goes: It’s like a giant scrapbook of ideas. When you find things of interest to your audience, this new platform allows you to upload those images as Pins and place them on custom-themed Boards and organize and share them on any topic that you choose. Others can follow your Boards and add comments. You can also allow them to post to your boards.

New and growing – and there’s an app for that.

Like I said, Pinterest is new and it’s still far behind site visitors compared to Facebook, but it is making up for it in the amount of time spent on the site. An incredible 88.3 minutes was spent in November, according to comScore. This number is third only to Facebook (394 minutes) and Tumblr (141.7 minutes) and is also twice the amount of time that the average user spends on Twitter and 10 times the time spent on Google +. Plus, you can use your iPhone and get an app for it, so you’re your own roving Pinner.

A study by Experian Hitwise, which analyzed the one-year-old site’s traffic reveals that Pinterest:

• Had 11 million hits in just one week in December 2011 (almost 40 times more than what it was getting in June, 2011)
• Its major popularity is with women – 58% of the site's visitors in the past 12 months.
• Of the women visitors, 59% are between the ages of 25 and 44.
• And the site is gaining the most popularity in the Northwest and Southeast
• Right now, most of the pins are concerning home décor, crafts, fashion and food. But don’t let that “most” lull you into thinking this is not for your brand. A whole world of subjects and ideas are already pinned.

So how will brands use Pinterest? Here are a few ideas.

It’s good to see how some of the early adopter brands are already using Pinterest to showcase their offerings, attitudes, insights and provenance.

Start by checking out these four, very different brands on Pinterest:

• Time Magazine: http://pinterest.com/time_magazine/pins/
• Mashable: http://pinterest.com/mashable/pins/
• Nordstrom: http://pinterest.com/nordstrom/pins/
• Wholefoods: http://pinterest.com/wholefoods/pins

Pinterest allows you to showcase your brand in a unique and visually thrilling way - consider pinning videos, infographics, product images, blog posts – in addition to:

• Great potential for internal use with your brand’s creative teams – storyboards, branding strategies, campaign ideas, design ideas, industry trends.
• A great way to keep tabs on what’s hot and pin what your customers might find interesting.
• Potential for greater SEO (you can embed Pinterest to your brand’s website or blog)
• Organize areas of focus for your teams – keep up and share what is hot within your brand niche or industry focus
• Research – check in and see what people are pinning in your category
• Interact with your audience by testing new campaign ideas and concepts

To help you get started take a look at Rob Lammie’s article, Pinterest: A Beginner’s Guide to the Hot New Social Network

What do you think? Are you familiar with Pinterest? Are you using Pinterest in your social media mix yet?

While you're checking it out, connect with me there! http://pinterest.com/pljyork/

Special thanks to Michael Gass, Kip Bodner and Mashable for giving us a heads up and lots of stats!

-Priscilla

Image Credit

The Volkswagen Strikes Back

The great folks at Volkswagen are back again with a followup to last year's wildly popular and immensely successful "Force" commercial. If you recall that commercial from last year's Super Bowl XLV, a child dressed up as Darth Vader tries to use the mythical "force" within all Jedi Knights. Much to his chagrin it does not work on anything, until he finally tries it on the new 2012 Passat. When his parents notice, they use remote start to make the car react to the child's "force" action, to make it seem as if he started it with his powers.

Well, in preparation of the upcoming Super Bowl XLVI, Volkswagen has released a teaser trailer for a sequel to that commercial featuring a chorus of dogs barking the Imperial March (a famous theme for the Empire in the Star Wars series). The teaser trailer has affectionately been titled, "The Bark Side." Some of the dogs are even dressed up as various characters from the series (droids, ewoks, Darth Vader, etc.) to add to the Star Wars theme.

The trailer wraps with miscellaneous sound effects and the date of the Super Bowl with the promise "Back. And better than ever."

I know I'm not alone in saying, I certainly have "A New Hope" that's true.

Thanks again to the kind folks at Adverblog for aggregating great content like this.

Quick Controls Chaos - Nike Jordan Awesome Interactive Video!

Wow, if this isn't the coolest innovation in interactive video, I don't know what is.

http://www.nike.com/jumpman23/cp3v/chaos/

To announce Nike Jordan's launch of Chris Paul's newest shoe, the CP3.V, W+K New York has created a video featuring a live action street court game with a 160-degree interactive camera angle, as well as numerous "hidden bonuses" to make the experience even richer.

The concept behind the video is based on Paul's ability to outplay everyone on the court, both in both skill and in pace, creates a chaotic atmosphere on and ESPECIALLY off the court. A few examples of the turbulent events: A cook catches on fire, a mounted police officer charges onto the court and a female fan jumps on an opposing team's player that has fallen due to CP3's skills. Needless to say, there's a lot going on, and the feeling of hysteria is executed brilliantly.

With the ability to control time in addition to camera angle, the viewer is able to take in all parts of the chaos ensuing at all the different moments in the video. When the viewer discovers one of the hidden bonuses (such as the cook catching on fire), he/she is taken to a clip within the video detailing how it came to be.

The most amazing fact about how this video was put together is that over 100 streaming videos are interchanged in real time as the viewer changes the experience.

This video is one that keeps the attention of the viewer for at least 2 cycles, if not much longer (this particular writer has spent the last 30 minutes delving deep into it). It is incredibly engaging, and is a great example of the power of interactive video moving forward.

What do you think of the video? Any other examples like this out there that you would like to share with us? Let us know, and we'll post them here for the rest of our readers!

http://www.nike.com/jumpman23/cp3v/chaos/

Thanks to Adverblog for bringing this to my attention, and the screenshot! http://www.adverblog.com/2012/01/17/quick-controls-chaos/

The Amazing, World-Changing Third Screen

Twenty-five percent of American smartphone users already say they more frequently go online using their phone than on a desktop computer.

- International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide New Media Market Model.

Dubbed the Third Screen, the smartphone and it’s first cousin, the media tablet, is changing behavior around the world – although fastest in the U.S.

According to forecasts by the most recent International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Media Market Model (NMMM), Mobile Internet users are predicted to grow by a compounded annual growth (CAGR) rate of 16.6% between 2010 and 2015.

This means that by 2015 more Internet users in the U.S. will access the Internet through mobile than through PC’s and other wireline devices – (you know, that large screen and keyboard on your office desk that you can pretty much ignore because you’ve already responded to your emails, checked the stock market and checked into Facebook on your smartphone during the meeting you just exited.)

Correspondingly, with the increasing growth in smartphones and the explosion of media tablet adoption, the report predicts the number of people actually accessing the Internet through PCs will begin to stagnate and then slowly decline.

More predictions (and a few more initials) from the IDC NMMM:

• Global B2C ecommerce spending will grow from $708 billion in 2010 to $1,285 billion in 2015 at a CAGR of 12.7%.
• Worldwide online advertising will increase from $70 billion in 2010 to $138 billion in 2015, with its share of total advertising across all media growing from 11.9% to 17.8%

"Forget what we have taken for granted on how consumers use the Internet," said Karsten Weide, research vice president, Media and Entertainment. "Soon, more users will access the Web using mobile devices than using PCs, and it's going to make the Internet a very different place."

We agree. The Internet will look like a different place. But what does all this Amazing, Changing Third Screen live and look like in the real world today?

Sighting #1: Young family at an upscale, casual restaurant.

Dad and Mom are in their early 30’s, looking prosperous with a 5-year-old daughter happily engaged in coloring in her Disney-something book and their infant son swaddled in a sleekly designed baby-protecting contraption wedged into the chair and pushed up against the table. The waitress has taken the family’s order – everything seems normal. Until the waitress leaves and the scene shifts into Third Screen World– whichever it is.

It is no longer the “family out” tableau you would have seen way back in the good old days of 2010. It’s January 2012. Dad props up his iPad on the table and is checking football news. Mom whips out her smartphone, makes a call and is quickly miles away. She ends the call, checks in with her kids, checks in with her emails and then follows that up with an online check of refrigerator prices – then interrupts her husband’s iPad watching to show him on her smartphone where she had found a lower price on the refrigerator they wanted to buy. Then the waitress brought dinner – and it was a Wonderful Life again.

Sighting #2: Grandmom staying with daughter over the holidays.

While the Grandmom joined the family to watch the latest Netflix movie on the television, she never let her iPhone hit her lap or the table. She searched for and purchased a new lamp and two pairs of shoes – all at serious sale prices, then she texted her friends about it, checked the times for the Light Show she wanted to see the next evening, made reservations for dinner after the show. Then, she actually received a call on the phone – to which she responded that she would have to call the caller back later, since she was watching a movie with her grandchildren. Really Grandma?

Sighting #3?

Okay. It’s your turn.

Share with us interesting and fun and mockingly fascinating stories of how the Third Screen is changing your immediate world and the world around you.

Click here to read more from the IDC press release.

Cause & Effect: Innovative Facebook Timeline Display

In an innovative usage of Facebook’s new Timeline profile layout, McCann Digital has unleashed a new way in which to powerfully demonstrate time-lapse.

As an initiative to help Israel’s Anti-Drug Authority display the effect of drugs on a person’s life over one year’s time, McCann tells the tale of a fictional young man ("Adam Barak") at a fork in the road. On one side, he takes drugs for an entire year, and on the other he does not. The visuals alone have a power that ordinary before and after shots would not capture.

The truly unique thing about this campaign, although it became difficult to implement fully, is that this was intended to be a split profile complete with status updates, check-ins, tweets, videos, etc. On the left would be “Adam Barak” in a year in which he was a drug addict, and on the right would be “Adam Barak” in a year in which he was clean.

This is definitely one of the most creative Facebook campaigns ever seen with the visual representation. The breakdown of his life that occurs on the left side (the addict side) juxtaposed with the success/joy that occurs on the right (clean side) is brilliant.

We here at DENMARK {the agency} are excited to explore these and other techniques as we pursue new and innovative ways to use digital tools to help conquer creative problems. We will continue to bring you the cool things we find, as well as the updates on our new ideas. Please return the favor and let us know anything interesting that you find too!

This post was informed by: http://www.adverblog.com/2012/01/05/drugs-on-a-facebook-timeline/

Understanding the Modern Family: A Key to Successful Marketing

As we all know, the “modern family” is not the same nuclear family from the 1950s. Sure there are still plenty of two-parent households with 2.1 children, but the evolving family has taken so many shapes and forms, it’s a whirlwind keeping up with them! Not only is the actual makeup of the modern family changing, but the roles within family structures are also evolving.

The smart marketer realizes that on all purchases with a family target, a truly effective target is the decision influencer. Create your brand an advocate in the form of an influencer, and your sale just got a whole lot easier.

For example, for mobile and Web 2.0 products (think, smartphones), it is more effective to target the family influencer in the form of the teenage or tween members, as they are more likely to be passionate and up to date on the technology.

The same goes for products that typically have been marketed to either a man or woman without regard for purchasing decision power. These products, which were losing ground in their markets due to failure to adapt to a changing family dynamic, are now experiencing a resurgence as they begin taking into account the way the sale is actually unfolding.

For example, women make up 34% of the luxury car market now, and affect well more than that percentage of sales. Wives now have a very important role, if not final say, in luxury car sales, even for cars that will be the primary vehicle for their husbands. Cadillac has taken notice of this, and has begun integrating features that benefit the women of the family (yellow markings under hood to indicate fluid locations), as well as integrating female benefits into their thinking (male designers wearing paperclips on their fingers to simulate the effect of having longer fingernails). This attention to detail and adaptation to the evolving modern family have brought Cadillac great benefit for little to no investment.

To sum up, it is extremely important for people in our industry to embrace the evolution of the modern family. Refusal to will relegate once proud, successful brands to mere relics of marketing lore.

This article was informed by the following URLs, please click them to learn more

http://www.zainbooks.com/books/marketing/principles-of-marketing_15_consumer-buying-behavior.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_in_advertising

Photo Credit: Ambro http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1499