Car manufacturers have been always known as sheer proponents of bulky, interactive, rich-content, shockwave-driven websites that they desperately need in order to explain the message behind their next facelift. Audi is no exception, bearing in mind that it is a part of the VAG Group who spare no money or talent when the time comes to launch a brand new model of the Audi brand or a well forgotten old one from the Volkswagen line. Remember the “new” Golf GTI and the interactive test-drive, where you chose whether to take the driver’s or the passenger’s seat and take the car for a spin at the docks? … and it’s “always the docks”. This is how one of the six episodes of a movie, dedicated to the new Audi A1 is titled. Can you imagine – they’ve even made a MOVIE! The interactive digital campaign for the new A1 launch is righteously called “The Next Big Thing”. And it’s not so much the car itself, which shares the same wheelbase and chassis as the new VW Polo, but the whole marketing effort, which is the true Big Thing. Check for yourselves at the A1 Microsite or Audi’s YouTube Channel, where you can find the movie starring Justin Timberlake and Dania Ramirez. First episode is also here, after the break… (more…)
Another execellent analysis from Flowtown on how mobile is changing the social media landscape. As you see, the number of users who are accessing their social networking accounts from their mobile phones or other portable gadgets is steadily increasing. Overall more than 25% of Facebook users are now posting from the street. The infographic also shows, that the mobile user is as much as twice as active as the one sitting in front of the notebook or desktop screen. The most active mobile users are between 35-54 yro, but that number will soon enough change towards the previous group of over 18, as the teenage world is more and more linked to a pocket device. It’s interesting how these numbers will look like in 3 and 6 months – we bet on interesting results. (more…)
If anyone living in Central London had noticed a sudden increase in the number of people running on the streets yesterday it has nothing to do with the Moon phase or Solar flares. The streets of London became the playfield for an experimental ARG campaign launched by Nike and so far proven to be a huge success. It was all about running and following some virtual instructions. The Grid was spread among 40 postcodes in Central London with the idea of running from phonebox to phonebox and calling a dedicated number to enter a “check-in” pin code. The goal was – Claim the most streets in 24 hours by getting the most points. The more you run, the more you get. The whole thing was broadcast via Facebook and you can also get all the results from the dedicated fanpage. Will there be another campaign like this? – sure there will. There’s hardly something more fun than having an entire city as your gameboard.
Media Monsters is an extremely cool interactive marketing campaign by Mitsubishi Kagaku Media corporation of Japan. It aims to promote the company’s global brand – Verbatim, and although the initial target audience is the domestic Japanese market, the power of social sharing opened it out for the world. And that’s really great because whoever created the ai engine for the online flash competition did an extremely good job. You can choose from hundreds of thousands of combinations among funny looking “monsters” made entirely by Verbatim’s media products – from floppy disks to external HDD drives. They learn and upgrade by fighting other user-created monsters and climb up the ranking that currently follows more than 1.2 million custom build creations. The game is such fun that it quickly turns addictive and there is almost no chance that you ever get to fight the same opponent again. Make sure you check out the Media Monsters (Senshuken) website and think of a tri-letter codename for your media pet.
Time for yet another great statistical information on how Facebook is doing in Q1 2010. Bearing in mind that it’s almost impossible to take a correct snapshot of the state of the social network as it’s as dynamic as a nuclear core, this is a decent attempt at showing the key data of its most recent history. We all know that practically all of Facebook’s history is recent, so this could pretend to be a good review of the largest social web’s “baby years”. Check out the full infographic here…(more…)
If you think you’ve seen it all – think twice and click the link that follows. Chatroulette.com is a relatively new website /a web service rather/ that will connect you to a random user, called a “partner” who could be anyone from the other end of the world or just two blocks away. The service requires you to have a webcam and mic, although there also the old-fashioned IRC-style chat window where you can use the recently learned new online slang. It will also ask for your permission to record the session in both audio/video and text so that you can play it back later. We have no doubts that there will be another copy for the database so be careful with you’re doing. The platform is simple yet ingenious and we think the idea is just great for all the lonely souls out there. It for sure has a lot of business potential as well, if only there were more personalization options and privacy controls. A cool video example of its usage follows after the break… (more…)
What are the trends, evolving platforms, strategies, new media and networks that are already paving the way for the new breed of marketing in 2010. You will most probably find the answers you were hoping for or at least draw your guidelines for the months to come from this very comprehensive survey, brought by the Society of Digital Agencies. Senior executives from various digital and traditional agencies are pooled, alongside their clients and partners to get an idea what the predominant trends in digital are heading this year. From what we found, we couldn’t say the outlook is all roses and clear blue skies, but at least the general feeling is that the field is moving in the right direction and more funds will pour into the sector for a third consecutive year. Check it out and give your feedback.
It’s not the first time that the Unilever global brand AXE/Lynx is causing us some stomach pain… laughing. And it certainly won’t be the last. The new campaign of the brand, launched in the UK under its local brand Lynx is relaying mostly on mobile and online means of creating a buzz. Combining a few mobile applications that have absolutely no use other than pure fun, with the use of traditional and viral marketing, it will surely have the intended “Lynx Effect” at least for some time in the office or at a party. Isn’t that what marketing is all about…?
Also check out the other videos in the series and the official website of The Lynx.Effect… (more…)
A great man once said: “May we live in interesting times.” And now we do. After the rapid expansion of the social networking phenomena in the last two years a new type of revolution has taken shape. You may call it “The Social Media Revolution” or “The Second .com Revolution”, but to really describe it in its full scale we needed something different, something to embrace the scope… So a bunch of guys just came out with the right term – Socialnomics. From whatever angle we look at it, it encompasses the processes that lead to it and continue to feed its momentum. The blue-chip revolution started it all, then it was the dot-coms, then a plunge for a little refresh, and now it’s the borderless virtual world of free sharing and tweeting. It’s The Socialnomic Revolution, man, and it’s just picking up speed…
Happy New 2010 – The Year of Socialnomics! (more…)
The symbiosis of virtual and augmented reality with the real world is gaining more and more prominence among the hi-tech marketers whose sole purpose is to engage the core fan/customer base of a virtual brand in a unique experience. Building the relationship with your digital brand have never been so much fun and excitement for both your audience and the people who are making it happen. In this case the latter are the Canadian digital arm of MacLaren McCann agency who created this amazing ARG campaign for the launch of Microsoft’s Halo 3 ODST game for XBOX 360. (more…)
