A Wider Net

Altering a bronze status of Jimi Hendrix, that was built in memory of his Isle of Wight performance, so that it looks like he is playing Guitar Hero is, indeed, a clever idea. But even those of us who like the Guitar Hero franchise and it’s arguably superior competitor, Rock Band, are sick of the promotional overload. Vandalizing the statue of a rock god is no way to appeal to the fans of rock music. To anyone else with a similarly clever idea: Don’t. Just don’t.

Here’s a cool widget article from Adweek featuring a quote from yours truly.
Thanks to Richard Brunelli for the mention and for the insightful article!

Chief Marketer comments that marketers should take note of how the Yankees, or more specifically, A-Rod and his agent Scott Boras managed to steal the Red Sox thunder by announcing A-Rod’s departure from the Yankees in the middle of the fourth and ultimately clinching game of the World Series. They knew that most diehard baseball fans were glued to the game and they took the opportunity to drop a media bomb despite the fact that it was clearly a day for the Red Sox and the Rockies to hold the limelight. Call it crass, call it dirty - but it sure was effective.

As a Red Sox fan, I was disgusted. I hope A-Rod ends up dealt to a baseball league in some war-torn drought-ridden bug-infested place where his stories no longer matter. Since he is the most valuable commodity in baseball, that obviously won’t happen. But as a brand, A-Rod certainly isn’t creating a positive impression. According to headlines since the game, Boras has managed to really anger Major League Baseball, Fox Broadcasting, and quite a large segment of fans. Diehard Red Sox fans have been rallying and chanting NOT to sign A-Rod.

As a baseball fan, I was (again) disgusted because it stole the limelight from the game’s premiere night. But I kind of also wish that some OTHER sport like Football had managed to pull eyes away from the World Series. Why? Because even though the game suffered it’s second worst ratings for a world series game in history, the league still hasn’t learned their lesson. The games are on TOO LATE for young (and future) fans, and the Sox Sleep Deprived all know what I’m talking about. So, let Football own the media - they understand how important fans are to a sport.

As a marketer I’m both impressed and dismayed. I sometimes wish this sort of thing didn’t work. “Timing is Everything” is a fundamental concept but spreading controversial news at just the right time seems downright dirty. I guess it totally depends on what side you’re on. I applauded Steve Jobs when he announced the iPod hundreds of miles away from CES, completely stealing the tech headlines for the week. I’m sure CES wasn’t too happy about that.

Footnote: Boras has publicly apologized and claimed this stunt was unintentional. Speaking of timing: I’d have to call that apology “too late”.

The Doritos Unlock Xbox game creation competition reached a critical and exciting phase this week with the release of playable demos of the five finalists.

For those of you new to the contest, Microsoft’s Xbox division teamed up with Doritos to create a one-of-a-kind game creation contest. It launched back in in June. The rules were simple - submit a Doritos-brand-inspired game idea, and the winning entry will see their game produced as the worlds first user-generated Xbox Live Arcade Game - available for play to 12 million Xbox 360 console owners.

The contest appears to be enjoying great success. First, their microsite reaches a large gaming audience where they collected 2,314 game idea entries. That’s 2,314 ideas. For free. From that list of ideas, the judges pared it down to 5 finalists, and created five playable demos, again accessible through their microsite (no Xbox required). They even produced documentaries about the finalist teams and posted them on the site.

That’s where they are today - down to the final five. And everyone gets to play the demos and vote on which game will make it to Xbox Live Arcade.

Doritos gets tremendous exposure into the gaming market - both casual AND hardcore, which amounts to over 100 million people in the USA alone. They also get gamer-cred. (provided the final game doesn’t suck like the Yaris disaster). Xbox gets ideas - and a game - and a perhaps a small torrent of people buying Xbox’s to play “Dodgeball” or whichever title wins. The winner gets fame and opportunities.

And you get to play five demos of up-and-coming Doritos-branded games right now. It’s win-win-win-win.

The winner will be announced on November 19, 2007. The winner of the contest that is. The real winners appear to be Doritos and XBox.

Yep, it’s two bits of web jargon in one - a jargonlomerate. Your widgets, apparently, can have badges. And while you may be thinking (as I was) that you “don’t need no stinkin’ badges”, this free service from Yahoo is a nice way to promote the availability of your widget and make it easier for people to use it.

For example, here is a badge for a widget we recently built to keep attendees and prospects in touch with news about a consumer trade show:

Webkinz, the latest pre-teen craze from Canadian wholesaler Ganz, are little stuffed animals (Beanie babies, basically) with special tags that contain secret codes. Kids go to www.webkinz.com and enter the secret code to unlock an online social media game world that borrows from MySpace, Second Life, and casual game sites like Pogo, and Puzzle Pirates. The site features daily activities that kids perform to earn Kinzcash with which they can purchase all sorts of virtual add-ons for their virtual pets. The kids play against other kids in some of these games, and the winner wins more Kinzcash. The website is driving demand for the plush toys which can quickly get forgotten. The tags on the toys drive kids to the website, and the daily activities keep them coming back - often. Every year, the child must buy a new toy and get a new code to continue playing on the site, else they lose all they have earned. This isn’t going to sit well with Parents, who are already having to call around to find these things before the sell out (usually within an hour of arrival).
The persistent web community is driving demand for these toys WAY beyond beanie babies: Ebay features Webkinz on their front page pretty much all the time and there are usually around a dozen Webkinz auctions ending every minute.  The traffic on the website has rocketed past ty.com, the home of beanie babies, which had its peak two years back. Webkinz.com shows little sign of slowing down, either. According to this NYT article, the site now services about 3 million unique visitors.

This brilliant campaign has it all - and they did it without the help of major toy retailers. I find the the way the product drives traffic to the website, the quality of the activities, the community aspects, and the steady drive to buy more product inspiring. They even retire the plush toys rapidly to drive up their value as collectibles (baseball cards and coins are a lot easier to store, by the way, and once you use the unique secret code they’re worthless).

If you dig the Geico caveman campaign, you’re in luck. ABC plans to air a sitcom starring three of them. Adrants pointed me to the TMZ story published on Friday. Personally I’d rather see a Gecko sitcom. I’ve seen enough TV shows portraying men as stupid as cavemen (true or not). I still bear the scars from Married with Children.
The caveman sitcom will apparently also feature a Geico spokesperson role in the cast. This makes simple product placement seem rather prehistoric by comparison. This is branded content at it’s pinnacle (but the quality obviously can’t be judged yet).

Searching around the net I could find no article describing how deep Geico is into the funding and development of the show. If Geico or it’s agency bought the content, commissioning the pilot and pitching it to ABC, it would not surprise me. Buying branded content is nothing new: check out this NYT article from a few months ago. In it, they mention that  companies like Burger King and Anheuser-Busch are producing full-length movies and their own television networks. Companies have often funded documentaries, or created their own content for television and/or web and now they’re making their own video games and working harder to capture viewers attention outside of the TiVo-removed ad insertions.

Building your own branded content can position your company as a thought leader, or position your product or company in the heart of pop culture. Smaller companies can do this too, now, publishing the content through their own web site, through a custom micro site, or through any of the content platforms like YouTube or Brightcove. One of my favorite examples was Reebok’s Terry Tate Office Linebacker campaign. Which reminds me - make your own branded content all you want - it still has to be good.

This isn’t another Mooninite post - although, there is a connection between the two. Graffiti Research Lab has an exciting post (with video!) about a device that enables laser-guided video graffiti. NOTE: Some of the graffiti in the video is inappropriate for public viewing and we certainly don’t condone that. The idea, however, is terrific. It’s a system that allows you to “write” in massive letters on the side of a building using an off-the-shelf laser pointer as a “mouse”. The images are created in real time using a large video projector mounted in a truck, and a camera that tracks the moving dot from the laser pointer.

With permission from the building owner and proper notification of local authorities, this would make a great promotional stunt for an event or product launch. You also don’t want to do this if there’s an airport behind the target building. I used to work for a company doing something similar with laser projections, but it required the evacuation of the building which was, to say the least, not ideal.

GRL has some outstanding examples of public electronic communication, even if they tend to be on the anarchistic side. They specialize in Throwies, the magnetic battery-powered LED graffiti devices made infamous by the Mooninite scandal in Boston. The trick is to learn from these guys, and the Mooninites, and find ways to use it wisely.

Also see: Throwies, and Throwie Videos.

This terrific video explains web2.0 pretty well, although you will have to know a bit about it already to fully appreciate the video. I just love the way it’s produced. It offers some insight into the changes we’re facing in the way information is created, proofed, found, viewed, modified, and shared.

I also followed the rabbit hole to Mojiti where the creator of the video has posted the video for public comment. Mojiti allows everyone (who registers for free) to place comments right on the video - a terrific experiment in social content creation.

Found on Information Aesthetics.

Billboardom writes about a billboard designed to trick drivers into slowing down to read their billboard. The trick is the realistic cutout of a police car placed below the billboard at ground level. A few years back, while under the influence of the draconian “Speed Kills” campaign across the country, I read a study that proved that speed variance was the leading cause of highway accidents, as opposed to speed itself. Of course, I’ve always said that running into things is what does it, regardless of the speed factors, but who am I to judge?

The point is - here’s a billboard designed to cause traffic to slow down. What if someone slows down suddenly, and gets rear-ended? (Forget that this billboard is in Turkey for a moment). Wouldn’t the ad company and the bank find themselves on the hook for that accident? In fact, a sudden slow down can cause traffic jams, multiple accidents, and even gridlock. So why is this ok, given that it is clearly intended to cause slowdowns, while the Mooninite project, which was designed to create the effect of people talking about mooninites, is being treated as an act of terrorism by the city of Boston and the conservatives on the radio?

You may have heard of a radio show from 1938 which unintentionally caused mass panic and hysteria. That event also occurred at a very sensitive time in our nation’s history.

I guess our industry has to be extra careful not to worry people. Or we can tell the media to simply stop broadcasting the news. Or we can be more diligent and investigate more thoroughly before we react. Is this radio program a hoax? Is that LED cartoon character a bomb? Do they really have WMD’s?