To stay one step ahead, you have to think out of the box. This blog is dedicated to digital ideas that stand out from the crowd, ideas that get people talking and ideas that push the boundaries of advertising in cyberspace and beyond.
What a simple, clever idea. In Brazil, British Airways have felt that many people don’t understand that they fly to many destinations around the world, so they wanted to spread the message. And where better to do this? Well, what about at the point of consideration - picking up a travel book in your latest bookshop. As people scanned the books to find out the cost at their local bookshop, they were treated to a deal specific to the location they were thinking about travelling to. It’s a smart use of an old technology and a really clever way to communicate to your audience. Nice work guys.
Creating a new kind of digital advertising - Captcha Type-IN
The clever guys over at Solve Media think they may have come up with an idea that helps solve a long-term problem with advertising messages online. Banner ad click-through rates are down, and they have calculated that people on average spend 14 seconds filling in captcha forms (that are in effect gobbledygook). Why not combine the two? By using brand messaging within the captcha area, and getting the user to retype it, they believe they can get 1200% more message recall than a banner ad. It’s a smart idea and a very clever use of ad space online. What do you think? Would you use it in your next digital campaign?
It’s seems that vending machines are the new 3D projection mapping. Last month we saw a creative vending machine from Fantastic Delights that challenged people out on the streets, now Kenco are jumping in on the act with their talking vending machine Kenneth. The machine chats to passers-by, getting them to perform simple tasks in an entertaining way for a free coffee. It’s all rather entertaining stuff to tell you the truth. What’s next in the world of vending machines? Watch this space guys….
According to Sun Valley Idaho, 100% of people want to skip stones in the summer. Unfortunately, 99% of them can’t. Why? Because they don’t have the luxury of a wide expansive lake in the city. Well, they think they may just have the solution. Meet Skippy the robot. Log onto the site, get in the queue and skip a real stone in a real lake. Thus, bringing you closer to nature and the wonderful things you can do while visiting Sun Valley. It’s a cool use of a real-world situation and digital that offers people something fun and different to do. Love it.
VW only uses 100% genuine parts in all it’s cars. To deliver the message they used an extremely unique and innovative method, YouTube ads. What? YouTube ads! Haven’t they been going for years? Well, yes they have, but not in such a contextual way. VW found some of the most horrendous covers on YouTube of some of the worlds greatest songs. They then helped users back to the original with their media buy. It’s nice to see such a clever use of such a static (and annoying) ad format. Thumbs up for originality.
The Ford selection is a range of ‘nearly new cars’. They have all the same benefits as a new car but Ford found that one thing was missing… that new car smell. So, they used some of the best ‘scent creators’ in Spain to create and bottle the smell of a new car, that came free with every car sold. The idea then ran out through ambient and radio. Quite a nice simple idea built on a powerful insight.
To coincide with this years Earth day, Burts Bees teamed up with music composer Diego Stocco to create an original piece of music. The twist? All sounds within the piece were created from mother nature. Fruit, bark, nuts and more all combining to create a nice, original tune. A great example of well thought out tactical advertising.
With Pinterest literally ‘so hot right now’, we have only seen a handful of brands harness its power to engage their creative audience. Lands End keeps springing to mind for their ‘Pin it to win it’ campaign as does the recent competition from BMI that had people re-pinning images to win holidays.
However this is the first highly-targeted campaign I have seen from a brand. For ‘Women’s Inspiration Day’, Kotex searched Pinterest for 50 influential women. they then browsed their boards to get a sense of what inspired them. They then simply created a personalised package and sent it out to them. Being ‘influential’, the women then blogged, pinned, liked and shared their gifts. Thus, free exposure for the brand. What’s impressive is that nearly 100% of the women that recieved gifts went on to share their experience.
It’s a challenge we face in the agency world on a day to day basis; how do you make your clients product stand out from the competition when it really has no differentiating features? The answer? You create a feature and actually get the client to implement it. Or at least, that’s what these guys did in Argentina to promote the new range of BGH Quick Chef microwaves. It’s a simple idea, and one that finally does away with the traditional ‘beeping’ at the end of a cycle. Sometimes it really is the simple ideas that cut through.
VidRythm - A new iPhone game from the creators of Rock Band
Harmonix know music. They’re work on the multi-million dollar franchise Rock Band is a great showcase of their talent. But where do you go next? What is the next big thing in music creation? Enter VidRythm, a new iPhone app that allows users to create crazy music videos to share with their friends.
Apparently, it’s dead easy too. You select the song you want to create, then record 5-10 video ‘snippets’ of each of the sounds that make up the song. From a ‘tshhh’ of a symbol to a ‘boom’ of a drum. People are challeneged to be creative to see what results come out at the end. The app then creates a video that can be posted on YouTube or Facebook.
Above: An example of what can be achieved (if you know what you’re doing)
Of course, the end result isn’t always a masterpiece, but given time I can imagie people coming up with some pretty creative compositions. I wonder how they plan to launch this to the world? Perhaps a YouTube channel aggregating the best in-app created clips?
What I love about this is that a big games company have not simply ported an existing franchise, and instead tailored the experience to the audience, and the features of the device. It’s a brave step for the software giant, and if people go nuts for it, this little experiment could really pay off. I can’t wait to see the crazy types of videos that are created using the app when it’s released next month. YouTube will surely never be the same again.
For more information, and an interview with the Harmonix CEO, check out IGN.
