Jul 23
Widsets — Free Your Mobile.
Use web services straight from your cell phone. Make your own widgets. Promote your widgets on your website. Create mobile access to your own service. WidSets is all about getting web content on the go through widgets, tiny-apps that bring services and information you normally use on the web, to your mobile phone.
Jul 18
GM’s Alternate Reality Game Yields Real-World Results
Carmaker’s Offbeat Online Effort Hypes Ethanol Campaign, Logs 1.8 Million Page Views
[from AdAge.com]
For four months, Christopher Love was plagued by a nagging question: Who is Benjamin Stove? A painting of mysterious crop circles plays a major role in the online GM game designed to promote its ethanol campaign.
Mr. Love, a 26-year-old from Albuquerque, N.M., was caught up in the mystery with thousands of others across the world, spending between 15 minutes and four hours every day trying to solve it. But what he and his fellow detectives didn’t realize was they were really involved in an intricate commercial, part of General Motors Corp.’s “Live Green, Go Yellow” ethanol-ad blitz.
‘Four-month commercial’
“Who knew a four-month commercial could be so fun?” Mr. Love told Advertising Age in an e-mail. For GM, the feeling is mutual. The automaker’s first trip into the world of alternate-reality gaming nabbed the company a small but highly engaged audience for what ordinarily might have been a mundane message: the benefits of ethanol. More than 1,000 players came along for the four-month romp through “a modern-day mystery,” said GM’s Bob Kraut, director-brand marketing and advertising operations.
The mystery-solving gambit, dubbed “Who is Benjamin Stove?” kept the auto giant’s role as backer concealed until late in the process. The goal: Create prelaunch buzz for the ethanol-ad blitz. Alternate-reality games, or ARGs, are catching on with marketers. ARGs ask players to solve mysteries by seeking out clues online and, increasingly, offline as well. Microsoft used an ARG in 2004 to market Halo 2, Audi launched its “Art of the Heist” game last year, and ABC is using an ARG to keep “Lost” viewers intrigued throughout the summer.
1.8 million page views
GM’s effort attracted 1.8 million page views through mid-April, with 383,829 consumers spending an average of nearly 17 minutes per visit, according to Stefan Kogler, senior VP-creative director of new media at Campbell-Ewald, which designed the game. (To put that into perspective, a niche cable network such as the Travel Channel might snag about 400,000 prime-time viewers on an average night.) GMD Studios — the Winter Park, Fla., outfit that created Audi’s “Art of the Heist” game — executed the GM game.
It launched in early January at whoisbenjaminstove.com. There, fictional 29-year-old Tampa, Fla., resident and Newton, Iowa, native Tucker Darby asked for help unraveling the mystery of an antique painting of crop circles he bought in the sale of the Stove family’s farm estate in Newton. Benjamin Stove, the farm’s last owner, had disappeared without a trace. (Tucker Darby’s online picture is actually the ad agency’s Brad Fairhurst; other Campbell-Ewald execs appear as well: Christine Wilson posed as Sarah Randall, cynical publisher of debunkette.com, a website on the paranormal and Chris Zientek was Benjamin Stove, who spent his life trying to solve the crop-circles mystery.
Jul 18
From the site:
Jaiku is a phone book that displays the real-time presence and location of your contacts.
We invented the term ‘rich presence’ to describe the many relevant things a phone knows about you. Rich presence on Jaiku includes an IM-style away line, your phone profile (ring volume, vibrate), location (country, city/region, neigborhood), Bluetooth devices around, upcoming calendar events, and the duration how long your phone has been idle.
You can view your contacts’ rich presence on jaiku.com, and once you have signed up, you can download a free client application for Nokia Series 60 Second Edition phones. We’ve also created some badges that let you display your rich presence on your blog.
BAP will be hosting the first in a series of programs entitled the “BAPLab†taking place on July 22nd 2006. Showcasing well known artists side by side with emerging artists, the Lab’s purpose is to expose both audience and artists alike to the vast spectrum of digital culture. Located at 3rd Ward, in the outer edges of Bushwick, the Lab is an experimental event where artists are encouraged to explore new paths and investigate new ideas through a curated program of electronic music, video, sound installations and interactive works.
Part exhibition, part creative R&D program, the BAPLab is a festival of ideas. An environment where artists can explore new approaches to creative expression.
Check out the Victoria’s Secret PINK MySpace resource for backgrounds, code and much, much more. The only way to get to the PINK page is to have a friend let you know the location.
The web imitates life imitates the web. The milliondollarhomepage.com concept has apparently been adopted and adapted by the Netherlands-based Sandberg Institute, which is selling space on its building facade, imitating the pixel-based ads of the Million Dollar Homepage.
Read more.
Jul 13
Visitors to Coke.com can take part in “The Coke Show,” monthly “challenges” testing their creativity. In the first challenge, set to run through August, users are invited to submit short videos, but they’re not limited to creating ads or odes to the brand. Instead, Coke is asking for 45-second video expressions of “the essence of you.” Visitors will rate submissions, culling them down to 10, which will be judged by a group of professional filmmakers.
The magazine, Lucky, will offer readers of its September issue a chance to send text messages from their mobile phones to buy merchandise from 18 marketers and retailers, which include Avon, Liz Claiborne, Estée Lauder, L’Oréal, Target and Unilever. The program, called “Live Buy It,” uses a service from the PayPal unit of eBay known as PayPal Mobile Text2Buy.
Read more.
Nokia revealed the result of its recent collaboration with Central Saint Martins (CSM) College of Art and Design at the Future of Mobile Design exhibition.
For six months 25 Industrial Design MA students from London’s CSM College of Art and Design have been working to a broad brief set by Nokia’s design team to create concepts for a premium but mass market mobile communications device capable of providing 4 or 5G multimedia services up to the year 2015.
Virtual Worlds: The Latest Fashion
By Gavin O’Malley from AdAdge.com
Before American Apparel launches its first denim line this fall, the offerings are getting a virtual debut and being bought and worn by virtual people. Just as other marketers-from Coca-Cola Co. to Wells Fargo-are creating their own virtual niches, the hip clothing company is letting members of the online game Second Life try the line on for size.
“Since we opened in May, we’ve sold over 2,000 items to people outfitting their avatars,” said Raz Schionning, director of web services for American Apparel, which opened an elaborate retail store last month in Second Life with the help of ad agency Ad Option and web developer Aimee Weber. Virtual shoppers who buy virtual clothes get 15% off the same items in real life.
‘Massively multiplayer’ games
Second Life, created by San Francisco-based Linden Lab, is one of several virtual online worlds where trendsetters are flocking to exchange ideas, egos and virtual property using IM-equipped “avatars,” or highly-customized 3D representations of themselves. With nearly 200,000 “residents,” and its open-ended structure, Second Life has become something of a testing ground for marketers to explore this new genre known as “massively multiplayer” games.
Second Life currency, known as Linden, can actually be exchanged for U.S. dollars, but American Apparel didn’t set up virtual shop to turn a profit. And, of course, the company has to pay Second Life in real dollars. Linden Lab charges $1,250 for an island like the one on which American Apparel’s virtual store is located, plus another $195 a month.
by Paul Parton, July 2006 issue of MEDIA
Is there anyone in media, advertising, or marketing who hasn’t heard of Burger King’s Subservient Chicken? Is there anyone who hasn’t marveled both at the cojones of the client who approved the idea and the genius of the team who had the idea in the first place? A simple but deliciously entertaining little software application, it demanded to be sampled at least once. I know we’ve thought about it a lot down here at The Brooklyn Brothers, and it led us to wonder, in classic Carrie Bradshaw fashion: Are applications the new advertising?
They’re certainly popular among consumers. Anything that lets people take part in their own entertainment seems to be hot at the moment.
This season of “American Idol” was a classic illustration. That chipper rascal Ryan Seacrest proudly boasted that with more than 63 million votes cast through a simple SMS-based voting application, “Idol” performed better than any president in history. The ratings were impressive enough, but 63 million votes is a big number.
Jul 13
[from giantstep]
The Audience’s Listening is the product of a Los Angeles native who’s lived in the bustling metropolis for all of his life. It’s what’s shaped his sound, diverse outlook and his edge. It is evocative of an era when sound enthusiasts put out records for the adventure of it, using the simple set up of a turntable, mixer and computer. What sets Cut Chemist songs apart from others is that they have been built with the assistance of thousands of rare, crazy, odd, eccentric and quite often unplaceable samples from other records – a truly global library that has been amassed from his extensive travels. And traveling he did, spending 12 years as a DJ/ producer for LA hip-hop dynamos Jurassic 5 and five years playing the turntables backing up Latin alternative band Ozomatli. He also released the highly bootlegged mixtapes Brain Freeze and Product Placement with DJ Shadow and continued to helm his own recurring Los Angeles club nights “Funky Sole.”
Partnership Signals Accelerating Deployment by U.S. Carriers of Mobile Commerce Options
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., July 12 /PRNewswire/ — Obopay, which introduced the first comprehensive mobile payment service in the U.S., today announced that it has entered into an extensive partnership with Amp’d Mobile, the pioneer of fully integrated mobile entertainment. The deal marks a milestone in the adoption and deployment of mobile payment systems in the U.S.
The two companies said they will offer the new mobile payment service, Obopay-Amp’d to Amp’d Mobile subscribers in the coming months. Amp’d Mobile will promote the service to all Amp’d subscribers, and in addition, the two companies agreed to an aggressive joint promotion on university campuses across the country this fall.
“Obopay will give our subscribers a mobile payment service that combines an intuitive user experience with real time ability to access and spend money,” said Mike McSherry, SVP of Emerging Technologies at Amp’d Mobile. “Our subscribers nationwide will now have the opportunity to revolutionize the way they handle their finances, managing their entire account on their phone and exchanging money with friends instantly through their mobile device. It’s the perfect service for our customer’s mobile centric lifestyle.”
Jul 11
This is a great free service. Works with 94% of popular, every-day mobile phones with U.S. and International support. Try it out. Turn your music and pictures into custom ringtones and graphics.
Big up to Yzabelle Munson for this story.
This award-winner was an outdoor media advertisement using a huge 10.8 m x 3.65 m mirrored space to present the latest collection from World’s INDIVI fashion brand. Just walking alongside, passersby could “try on†various outfits in the mirror. It was a “wearable advertisement†designed to pull shoppers into a wonderland, allowing them to ascertain the fit of the clothes in a way not possible just looking at them in a magazine or store. The installation was given high marks for its novel idea that extended the possibilities of the media, the additional hype it won through widespread publicity, and the contribution it made to increasing INDIVI’s sales.
Jul 5
Adidas just recently joined the bandwagon of brands launching profiles on MySpace. To coincide with the World Cup, adidas created a page on MySpace where visitors can sign up to win an XBox 360, view player bios and photos, upload a video to try out for the Impossible Goal Team and download wallpapers and exclusive videos. As of today, over 45K friends have linked to their profile. Not bad.
Create a 20 second promo for NBC’s “The Officeâ€. Shoot your own original footage plus you may use the optional “The Office “ music and graphics provided in a download kit at http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/contest/. Winners’ promos will appear on NBC and “The Office†Web site on NBC.com. For complete video instructions and contest details go to http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/contest/.
Orbit gum’s latest ad launched last week and features the Orbit Girl coming to the rescue of a foul-mouthed Snoop Dogg. “The Ultimate Clean-Up” shows the rapper being sent to hell, thanks to his filthy mouth. The Orbit Girl comes to the rescue and the spot ends with a cleaner, kinder, Snoop Dogg dressed in white and kickin’ it with the ladies up in heaven.
Jul 5
The VW Rabbit is back. It’s the first part of a multimedia campaign created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky. In addition to the wild postings and billboards that are running nationally and in Canada there are two online components for you to check out as well.
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