How to do real-time advertising

Last night saw a blackout out the Superbowl. But what may have been Superbowl’s loss, was evidently Twitter’s gain.

According to Twitter HQ, chatter about the power outage peaked at 231,500 tweets per minute. Shish.

So forget the $4Million price tag per 30 second spot. Oreo tweeted this real-time ad, for free. Which has since been re-tweeted over 14,000 times (not to mention the reach far they would have achieved far beyond those who re-tweeted). Not bad for free advertising. Oh, well maybe it was Twitter’s loss after all.

So what made it all possible? Brave and committed clients. Who willingly attended a “mission control” at their agency’s office. Making speedy approvals a piece of cake (or biscuit in this case). Clients with balls. Magic.

 

More tweets, lower price. Simples.

It’s not the first time Uniqlo have caught my attention with their innovative marketing solutions, and it’s probably not the last time either.

The ‘Lucky Counter’ idea is simple (the best ones are). Tweet about a product from their new range, and it’s price will come down for everybody. Sweet.

Wheat Thins rewards unsuspecting tweople

When it comes to social media, it’s really important to reward your online advocates. Well US snack brand ‘Wheat Thins’ have taken this to the extreme with overt gestures to people tweeting about the brand. Tabatha Tweeted about Wheat Thins, watch the clip to see how they returned the favor…

If this entertained you, there are more videos you can check out on YouTube here. With half a million YouTube views on this video alone, the power of advocacy and word-of-mouth is plainly evident. Kudos to Wheat Thins for making such a powerful (yet simple) social idea that people want to pass-along (I did and we don’t even have Wheat Thins in the UK!). It’s one of those ideas that makes me think…

Facebook leads in sharing content

According to Chart of the Day, more people use Facebook as a means of sharing content than any other service. That’s more than Twitter, but even more surprising – more than email. This will be welcome news for Facebook who continue to emphasise connections and sharing as core to their strategy.

Facebook seem to be leading the way with developing their social offering off the Facebook site. Facebook Connect makes it easier for you to take your online identity with you all over the Internet, and share what you do online with your friends. My latest campaign with Doritos ‘iD3′ – uniquely integrates Facebook Connect into the advergame, which enables a more personalised and immersive experience for fans, as well as making the game more social.

Facebook have also recently announced the launch of Facebook Fanbox – it’s essentially a simple widget which allows brands to integrate page content on their own websites. A great way to turn visitors into fans, and share social content off Facebook. Neat.

But don’t underestimate Twitter. It may only be half as popular for sharing, but that’s with about one-tenth as many users…

Cool stuff I’ve missed while I’ve been in Turkey (yeah yeah I’m behind the curve…)

US agency BooneOakley built their website in YouTube using YouTube annotations to form the nav (via PSFK). Nice idea and relevant for the target audience.

Check out the world’s first panoramic music video (you’ll need to click on the image to view it). Okay so it’s an average execution, but I can imagine a great creative opportunity here (via Rubbishcorp).

Currently in alpha, this app from Zugara uses augmented reality and motion capture control, so users can try on clothes virtually using their web cams and a print-out marker (via creativity). One of the more useful AR apps I’ve come across.

Flutter is the new Twitter. Nuff said.

Spotify has changed my life

If you haven’t heard of Spotify (where have you been?), it’s an iTunes-esque streaming music program which allows you to instantly listen to any track or album you want, for free (legally too!).

Music can be browsed by artists, albums or created playlists as well as by direct searches. So what’s the catch? Well it’s ad-funded so expect the odd advert in-between songs (but much less than on ocmmerical radio). You can pay a premium for the ad free version – I just paid for the 99p day pass for my house party. Bargain! Record Labels get the cash and everyone’s happy 🙂

Music is social, and so achingly cool Spotify allows you to share songs and playlists with friends. I’ve already begun to see unofficial playlist sharing sites pop up – Spotify Playlists, Spotifylist,  and Spotify Friends to name a few. And in the spirit of sharing, here is one of mine – Soul. Enjoy.

Today, Spotify announced a deal with 7Digital to allow consumers to click-to-buy more than 6 million tracks from the site. Move over Apple. This is starting to get really interesting.

Spotify is fast catching up with the social networking site Twitter (yawn) as the most talked-about new site on the Internet.  Since discovering Spotify, I haven’t been able to stop raving about it to friends – and not just the geeky ones.

So what’s next for Spotify? Well Spotify have hired a director of ‘portable solutions’, so we can expect Spotify on our mobiles in the future. All I can say is…WHEN?!? This is Spotify’s in-development iPhone application. It’ll let you listen to Spotify from your iPhone. Amazing (I hope Apple approves it).

Get the free version here now. It will change your life. It has mine 🙂

“Skittles are the source of all evil..”

…or so it currently says on the Skittles.com homepage. There has been a lot of buzz around Twitter of late, and Skittles are riding the hype band wagon.

Their new homepage is literally the results page of a ‘Skittles’ search on Twitter. And from what I can see the results are unfiltered, therefore leaving themselves very exposed. Within the blogging and marketing world, there are whispers of ‘cool’  and ‘wow’, but seriously what value and engagement is this providing a consumer visiting the Skittles corporate website? They’re probably after nutritional information, careers, or most likely special offers, but they are met with a Twitter feed slandering Skittles.

It’s a bit cheap and nasty – all they’ve done is displayed a Twitter feed of their product name. Where’s the skill and thought in that? I would have liked to see a Skittles Twitter mash up of sorts, some sort of interaction, and perhaps integration with ‘taste the rainbow’ to add some meaning.

I commend them on their brave move and willingness to experiment. That is all…

More thoughts on Skittles here, here, and here.

The Web App Charts

Ever wondered what the top ten web apps are? Go to webappcharts.com to see just how popular Facebook is. Forget site traffic, this chart is based on the views of over 3,000 savvy Internet users.

Voting is now closed, but here are the results.

1. Gmail
2. Flickr
3. Twitter
4. Facebook
5. Ravelry
6. WordPress
7. Mint
8. Last.fm
9. Basecamp
10. Livejournal

I’m embarrassed to say I hadn’t actually heard of all these. Take Ravelry for example – it’s a knit and crochet community.

By Carsonified who apparently have a four-day workweek. Yep. I support that.

Found via Laughing Squid.

Penguin tell stories in today’s media mix culture

What happens when you combine classic literature together with Google Earth, Blogging, Twitter, and a splash of alternate reality gaming? Well, you get Penguin’s uber cool new campaign “We Tell Stories”.

Penguin are no longer simply telling stories in books, they are telling stories across a multitude of media platforms in a unique and immersive storytelling experience. Probably a good example of transmedia storytelling.

Six top authors are re-writing popular Penguin classics, but with today’s media mix culture in mind.

The first story “The 21 Steps” [inspired by The 39 Steps], is an adventure designed for Google Maps API. Penguin are being creative with smart technology.

 

The second story “Slice” [based on The Haunted Doll’s House] takes place across multiple blogs and follows the characters on Twitter. If you want to get deeply immersed, you can even email them.

The third story “Fairy Tales” is not any old fairy tale; it is in fact your very own fairy tale. You pick the characters names, and choose their paths, and once complete you can even write your own epilogue. I imagine this is fitting for a slightly younger audience – who frequently fight their own battles for expressive freedom and for the right to play with technology.

The next three stories are available over the following weeks. Look out for the next story 7th April, based on the classic Thérèse Raquin.

The final leg of this campaign is a secret [or not so secret?] seventh story featuring “a vaguely familiar girl who has a habit of getting herself lost.” Intrigued? I am. This is where it gets really exciting. What’s most exciting about the final story, is that it will break beyond the browser and clues will appear online, but also in the real-world. Yes, the real world is waking up. I imagine this will be high-involvement, but players they will have the chance to win some big prizes, including over £13,000 worth of the greatest books ever written. Steep reading…

It’s great to see brands engaging in new and exciting ways. A brilliantly entertaining campaign. As ever, the forums are going wild with speculation – everyone knows something, no-one knows everything – so they all share together and collective intelligence emerges.

Penguin have developed this campaign in partnership with alternate reality games company SixtoStart [creators of the popular ARG Perplex City]. They have hinted we need to “look out for the bunny”, whatever that means…