Social Hallucinations

Never let anyone to define who you are by their terms

This is a car ad and this is also a car ad...

...which one you like most? Which story telling appeals to you most and any idea why?

Honda Jazz, The Unpredictable Life, 60 sec. of journey full of suprises and you can watch it here.

The other one is from good and reliable Volvo, where we are guided in how to make a sexy car ad.

 

Music is an experience and TV is social

What I like most about the technology is the new communication opportunities it brings. Clever thinking and creating synergies between stuff we know and the new possibilities, makes the same old story sound a bit more  new and refreshing. The to good examples of this are Black Eyed Peas and German TV show Galileo.

Black Eyed Peas has developed an iphone app BEP360 to promote (sell) their new album and video.

BEP360 is an interactive music video that provides augment reality experience (you just need BEP album cover to activate it). There is also option that gives user tools to create photo session with the band and share it with other fans. Pretty cool way to activate music on other level than just traditional video. Hope to see more such an initiatives.

 

Another examples proves that TV can be social if you make an effort to provide viewers with the relevant tools. 

German TV show Galileo used augmented reality browser app Junaio to run an interactive quiz for their viewers. Viewers had to hold their phone cameras up to the TV screen and point them at the answer they wanted to select. Image recognition worked out which answer was being selected and a tap of the screen submitted it.Viewers received instant feedback whether their answer was right or wrong. The quiz activity was promoted before  and the whole activity seemed to be a success with an increase in TV show share among 14-49 year old viewers. 

Something that wil stick or rather one time phenomena. Time will tell. But there is no doubt that TV can be a social and engaging experience. 

You can see a video of the TV experiment (after an ad) here.

 

 

Telling stories

I've stumbled upon the two commercials they I've really enjoyed watching. Two ads they got my attention from the very beginning.

First one is from Intel. How do you tell the story about how fast your processor is? Lots of tech jargon? No necessarily. What about this way...

 

And the new ad for Heineken. Great universe that makes you want to see more. Open your world by W+K for Heineken. Pleasure to watch.

 

The Small (Commercial) Acts of Kindness

Doing good gets you attention and makes people smile. Nice idea from KLM. Also a nice example of how online and offline merge and create new brand experiences for people.

 

No channels world

The boundaries between media are dissolving. People don't look for channels they want to tap it, they look for content which is accessible and interesting enough they want to spend a time on it. 

 

When selling becomes fun...

... or when fun becomes selling.

I've stumbled today upon those two ads from VW and T-Mobile. Both are sequels, another parts in the puzzle of advertising. What's interesting, none of the brands is taking shortcuts. They don't really get to the core - buy me message. They tell stories, they entertain. They rather give and take. It is good, worth seeing and works pretty well along with the traditional advertising shouting at people to buy. It works well for those who are tired of being called consumers. It gives the feeling (fake or real - decide yourself) that companies (advertising agencies?) care.

Nevertheless, both videos are enjoyable!

 

A Simple History of Selling

Advertising is about giving reasons to buy stuff.

Changing behavior

Changing behavior is difficult. It requires right motivation and relevance. People need to see and experience how the change would relate to their lives and evaluate the wins and costs connected with change.

Here are two interesting examples of how to catch people's attention and motivate them to change through provocative and shocking tone and experience.

Let it Ring for Road Safety

Consequences by PCRM's to draw attention to the link between heart disease deaths and fast food.

 

What do you think? Does it work?

Print Is Not Dead

Cute commercial for launch of the new magazine Anthology .

What's great about magazines is that you can have it with you and read it on the go, at home, at the office...as long as it inspires and is relevant. 

Tweet and decrease prizes

I am a big fan of Uniqlo. They keep on delivering great stuff that integrates the experience of shopping with being social. Lucky counter - tweet about a product and its price will come down for everybody. 

The Extensions of Man

Technology empowers. Photo camera that enables people to create memories that would be lost if not for the camera. Camera that becomes the extention of the man.Well captured by Samsung.

via Scary ideas

 

The Art of Adaptation

How to catch people's attention and make them eat baby carrots? How do you make baby carrots cool? Well, the solution can be packaging them like junk food. You just need to adapt to people's needs and expectations. The question is whether the chips-like packaging will turn carrots into the new cool, people want to eat.

Packaging design by Crispin Porter + Bogusky

Via USA Today

What Athlete are You?

In the constantly jogging, sweating, striving and starving to be fit world where sport achievements are highly valued, this spot from Puma is quite refreshing. It is cool you finished marathon, yes it makes you an athlete but you know what we are all athletes, after hour athletes. It makes me smile. Relax. There is no need to run so fast.

"Because we know it takes just as much effort to score a phone number as it does to score a goal."

 

Improving the Shopping Experience

What do people want from brands? Utility and good experience. There is plenty of different services trying to deliver on it. Here is one fantastic example that integrates mobile device, check-in mechanics, coupons with the shopping experience - Shopkick. Shopkick is a hardware and application system to be installed in stores. It rewards people for just coming into the store, adds social sharing and customized offers overview to you while you are in the store. Judging from the video showing how the product works, Shopkick makes the whole coupon and check-in idea more social and more fun in relation to retail experience.

It opens the new opportunities for building loyalty and closer relationship between customer and retailers, where the latter one is not just products provider but improves the whole shopping experience.

Read the whole article and see the video on Techcrunch