Shake and Bark!

Smart companies are starting to realise the potential of branded iPhone apps. Audi launched the first high profile branded app - a driving simulator that exploits the iPhone’s internal accelerometer to control your steering. What Audi did extremely well was it is recognised that when you build a branded iPhone app, people are using the app despite your brand’s affiliation, not because of it. The great thing about this app is that it is essentially a car game, like any other car game app, except with subtle Audi branding. In effect, people choose to use the app on a regular basis and actually want to tell their friends about it!

However, other companies, whilst coming up with innovative ideas, have not quite grasped the 'addictive-potential' of apps. A branded app that has novelty value is nice - but it's much better if the app makes you want to come back for more! Take the Pedigree 'Shake and Bark' app for an example:

This app lets you upload a photo of your beloved pooch and record its bark....nawwww cute...but somewhat pointless. Yes, it hits the mark by engaging with users' love of dogs, but it's a bit of a 'one-trick pony' - you're hardly going to come back for more! Perhaps it would be better to make a game where your player is a dog and you have to find packs of Pedigree for energy and so forth (wow, I should really be a game developer!)....but I guess this begs another question: Can a branded iPhone app only be truly successful if it encorporates the brand into a game format?

Because it's hip to be Apple...

I received an email the other day with the following images:

Good for a laugh I'm sure you'll agree! Now, unless you've been living under a rock and are not quite sure who these two individuals are, they are Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple (on the left), and Bill Gates, founder and former CEO of Microsoft (on the right). Quite simply, as the images imply, they have become filthy rich from their innovations in consumer technology (Apple) and computer software (Microsoft).

So this email got me thinking...Apple is so good at pioneering innovative products (can't wait to get my hands on an iMat haha) - it was the first to bring out the iPhone, the iPad and so on, and now it seems their competitors are playing 'catch up'. Apple has enjoyed a huge lead in the 'tablet race' as competitors have taken their time to try to come up with a better user-experience at a cheaper price. Nonetheless, on the iPhone front, apparently Google Android (which I had never even heard of until yesterday, just quietly) is predicted to beat the iPhone, in terms of global smartphone market share, by 2012.

Now you all know I'm no 'tech-head' by any means, so I don't really have much of an idea on what the various competitor products offer in terms of superior features, but from personal experience, I can't help but think that it is going to be extremely difficult for anyone to beat Apple. Take these examples:

- I regularly go out to dinner with friends and can't help but have a little chuckle to myself as we all place our beloved iPhones on the table in front of us as we sit down to eat
- Sitting in a lecture at uni, my iPhone message tone goes off, I go to look at my phone and then realise it was actually the person with the iPhone sitting next to me who received a text
- Wags (E-Marketing Lecturer) asks the class in the first week of semester, "Who in this room has an iPhone?" and 80% of hands go up!

In other words, WE ARE SURROUNDED BY APPLE! Sure, we could argue that the type of people who go to Monash (young, tech-savvy, good looking individuals) are clearly part of the target market for iPhones and other Apple products, so of course there's going to be a lot of us with iPhones, but honestly it seems like everywhere I go, people are glued to their iPhones.

And what is the reason for this? In my opinion, it's simply because Apple was the first to create these 'larger than life' ideas/products. Being the first, people trust you. And what's more, this first-mover advantage in innovation has allowed Apple to reach an epic 'cool' status and cult-like following, unlike any other brand. For many of us, whether we like to admit it or not, I think the 'cool' factor is the main reason we would chose Apple over another brand. It will be very challenging for competitors to break down this 'cool' association.

Well that's enough of my opinion! What do you think? Will Apple be beaten? Or will it stay on top for good?

Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project - you've got my vote!

It's not often that you watch an ad that truly captures your eye. However, the other night I was watching TV and was so intrigued by this ad for Smirnoff that I hopped onto Google and Facebook straight away to find out more about it! Here's the ad:



Basically, Smirnoff is setting out to show the world how other cultures party with their 'Nightlife Exchange Project'. Facebook fans of Smirnoff can add the 'Nightlife Exchange Project' application and then read or contribute thoughts on what makes their nightlife special in their country in terms of food, music, dance moves, entertainment and so forth. Great Britain, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, Lebanon, Canada, Poland, Thailand, Venezuela, United States, Argentina, Germany, India and Ireland are the countries involved. Some of the ideas I read under the 'entertainment' category for Australia were: have a ball pit - like the one's in primary school, a glow in the dark jumping castle, and my personal favourite; vodka jelly wrestling!

Each country's chosen curator will then sift through the ideas and select some of the most highly rated suggestions to create a culturally-authentic night out. These ideas will then be packed into a 'crate' representing each country, and on November 27th, each curator will swap their country's crate with another, unleashing 14 global nightlife events simultaneously. Can I just mention that our chosen curator is Dan Single (whoever the hell that is!), and I must say he definately drops the 'cool factor' of this project down a notch...just look at him:

And if you watch his video on the Smirnoff Facebook page it's even worse - does anyone else think his chest hair looks like some kind of dead animal? Anyway, luckily for Smirnoff, it can get away with having a wanker representing our country, because the awesomeness of the Nightlife Exchange idea makes up for it! It's only the early days of the campaign, but I really like what they've done. As I said the TV ad definately worked on me - the party scenes looked amazing, just the kind of thing I would want to be a part of...and then when it reveals that this is a global initiative, you realise it must be pretty freakin cool! It gives you just enough information about the project to get you interested but not quite enough - so then you HAVE to go look it up on Facebook as it tells you to!

Also, as we always go on about, Facebook is all about engaging your customers - the Nightlife Exchange Project is clearly very successful at doing just that! Smirnoff knows their target market: 18-25 year olds who love to party. What better way to engage them than to ask for their ideas on how to make an unforgettable party?! I even had a go at suggesting an idea myself; I said that everyone should wear morph suits (under the 'fashion' category). In reality, you'd have to pay me a lot of money before I'd ever squeeze myself into one of those, but I just wanted to have a go at suggesting an idea. I also posted a question on their wall asking how this event can possibly take place simultaneously in 14 different countries all at NIGHT on November 27 (surely different time zones would mean that some crate parties would take place during the day?!). A bit of a silly question but I really just wanted to see how quickly (and if they WOULD) respond. They responded approx 2 or 3 hours after I posted my comment! So kudos to Smirnoff for that! Pretty impressive considering they have over 100,000 fans to attend to!

Overall, I think the idea is a great way of engaging and creating conversations with customers, as well as building Smirnoff's brand personality. My only slight reservation about the whole idea is the fact that fans put all this effort into coming up with great party ideas and getting thier friends to vote for their ideas...and at the end of the day their ideas get swapped for those of another country! I guess it could be cool to see what crazy ideas other cultures come up with, but on the other hand, wouldn't those people want to get to experience the awesome ideas they came up with?

So what are your thoughts on the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project?

There's nothing like Australia...especially our sense of humour!

I’m sure we’re all well aware that Australia needs a good tourism campaign if it’s to get over its last ‘bingle’ with Lara Bingle. Therefore, a new tourism campaign was launched in May this year with the tagline, 'There’s nothing like Australia'. I found it quite interesting to read about the details of the campaign. The campaign was designed around the finding that Australians are eager to get involved in promoting their country. With this in mind, Australians were asked to upload photos of their favourite place or experience in Australia to the campaign website and to come up with 25 words or less why they believed ‘There’s nothing like Australia’. The website received nearly 30,000 amazing photos and inspiring stories over 28 days, making it one of Australia’s most successful consumer-generated promotions ever.

Using these entries, Tourism Australia has built a searchable digital map of Aussie's favourite holiday experiences on the website. It's quite amazing to look at! Many of the photos have also now been used in their print and online campaign - showing those clichéed images we all know and love such as kangaroos, beaches, aboriginals etc...Here's just a few examples:

Feel free to look at more at http://www.nothinglikeaustralia.com/index.htm . ANYWAY, (here comes the interesting part...) I realised that when I searched, 'There's nothing like Australia' on Google, http://www.nothinglikeaustralia.net/  comes up third on the list of search results (as opposed to 'dot com'). This, I discovered, is in fact a parody website that is in no way affiliated with Tourism Australia! It's basically 'taking the piss' out of the Tourism Australia campaign by implying that Australia might not be quite so 'crash-hot' as we're leading on. The website displays their own version of 'There's nothing like...' photos that provide a humourous take on touchy Australian issues, blatant racism, political incorrectness and more! Ah...brilliant!! I guess that's what you get when you offer the tourism industry (ie. anyone!) free use of the campaign logo, tagline etc. via the Tourism Australia website! Here's a few examples from the parody website (apologies for any offence caused, I didn't make the photos!):

 

It's quite interesting that something so clearly unrelated to the genuine 'There's nothing like Australia' website came up so high on the list of search results. Obviously this would have occured due to the location and frequency of keywords on the page, the number of click-throughs generated by searches etc. However, I wonder what effect will this have on the real Tourism Australia campaign? I am sure many people have clicked on this link fully believing that it is the 'real deal' and they may have been quite shocked at what they found. Of course, for our Kiwi and Pommy friends, they would probably understand the sarcasm and therefore it would not cause too much damage to their image of Australia. But what about people from cultures distinctively different to ours that might not understand our sense of humour? There is the potential that they could look at this parody website and not like what they see. It may just ever so slightly decrease their chances of wanting to visit Australia. I don't think this is a great threat, but it does show that putting the campaign in the hands of 'everyday Australians' may have some ramifications. What do you guys think?

Sick of seeing dicks on Chatroulette? How bout THIS instead?!

I'm sure most have us have dabbled in some harmless Chatroulette fun...and that 'fun' has often turned into A LOT OF PENIS IN YOUR FACE! This is happening far too often - according to a study mentioned on Wikipedia, approximately 1 in 10 feeds from Chatroulette were either users exhibiting themselves in the nude or masturbating . This has caused some to question whether Chatroulette will soon be consigned to history because of their inability to control this controversial content.


However, recently Chatroulette has demonstrated some value in the world of advertising. Chatroulette has been used to promote Lionsgate's latest horror movie The Last Exorcism. Some unsuspecting horny teenagers have been the 'victims' of this campaign. They have set up their cameras, ready to be linked up to a random person, and to their delight, they have been linked up with a complete babe! She starts undoing her top and chuckles flirtaciously - and you can practically see the drool forming in the boys' mouths on the other end. Then, all of a sudden, her eyes roll back into her head, her face turns white, and she screams/roars at the camera! Pretty freaky shit for these poor boys who thought they were about to get lucky! After that, 'THELASTEXORCISM.COM' flashes across the camera. You can see a series of the best reactions below:





It appears that Lionsgate has targeted the right audience - 15-19 year old teenage boys represent the demographic most likely to want to see a horror flick. Therefore, Chatroulette, with its abundance of teenage boys wanking off, was a great choice of ad placement. However, obviously each time the ad was screened it was only reaching a very small audience. It would need to have reached thousands of unsuspecting Chatroulette-ers for this advertising to be effective. I assume that is why the 'best reactions' have been condensed into the viral youtube video above which has now been seen by over a million people, and will continue to be shared and create hype for The Last Exorcism.


Nevertheless, I think the initial idea of posing as a user on Chatroulette was a great new innovative way to target consumers. It definately cuts through the clutter because we don't even realise we're falling victim to an advertisement! And if I were one of those boys, rather than feeling 'jibbed' by the ad, I'd be pretty damn impressed with this feat of marketing...once I got over the initial shock! Of course, this leads to the obvious question - would this unexpected encounter actually incite you to purchase a ticket to the film? We will have to wait and see how tickets sales go once the movie is released in cinemas.


However, the brilliance of this advertising is in its uniqueness. If other films follow The Last Exorcism's lead, posing as Chatroulette users and going on to create a viral video of reactions, they might not share the same success because we've seen it before.


What do you think? What would your reaction be if you encountered this sexy-Chatroulette-imposter-turned-exorcist? Would it make you want to see the movie? Do you think we'll see a lot of brands pulling similar stunts on Chatroulette?

Would you like a video game with your cocktail?

You know you’re living in the 21st century when you hear that Australia’s First Video Game Bar is upon us. But before you get too excited, put your nerd-gasm at bay; it’s located in Brisbane. Sorry Melbournians! But do not fear, the bar has plans to expand to Sydney and Melbourne, and their next stop is world domination!

So what’s this place called and how does it work? It’s called ‘Mana Bar’ and it opened up in March this year in the middle of Brisbane’s ‘night-club’ district. The bar is surrounded by walls of LCD screens and features the ‘next generation of video game systems available to play 7 days a week. You can even play games before they’re released!’ It promotes itself as ‘Australia’s First Video Game Bar’ and the bar’s owner, Guy ‘Yug’ Blomberg, believes it is in fact a ‘world first’. My initial reaction to this was, ‘Are you serious? How has this not been done before?!’ From working in a video store I know that adult gaming is becoming more and more popular, and another popular past-time for many adults is drinking! Put simply, it’s a marketing match made in heaven! I particularly like the way one eager Mana Bar-goer described it in the video below: “My two loves – video games, and beer - combined to form a nexus of awesomeness.”

Now of course there is the argument that you can fulfil that some love at home; invite a few mates over, bring a few slabs, pump up the Xbox – and you’re good to go! Free from the hassles of sharing with other patrons, and free from the need to put on respectable clothes (if any at all). In the comfort of your own home, anything goes! Nevertheless, I still think lots of people would make the effort to leave their homes to come to this bar. A bar like this would have a completely different, much more exciting atmosphere from the one at home. So maybe people would choose the ‘home option’ when they want a relaxed drinking occasion, but when they feel like ‘making a night of it’, they’d opt for the ‘Mana Bar option’? What’s more, this bar provides a great way to meet people! What better way to break the ice than to challenge a person you’ve just met to a fun and flirtatious game?! Say, this bar might even give nerds a chance at love!!

Speaking of which, what kind of customers do we think this bar attracts? Is it simply a nerd-magnet? What sort of brand image SHOULD the bar (and the ones soon to follow in Melbourne and Sydney) portray? It describes itself as a ‘funky drinking venue, with a unique selection of drinks, and custom cocktails on offer’. And this classy image is reinforced with the photo below showing an Xbox controller next to a blue martini:

So is this classy image the right way to go? Or should it somehow give off more of a nerdy vibe? I’m not quite sure of the answer to this. As much as we may like to think of gamers as nerdy, social recluses, most of they guys I know love playing video games. In fact, whilst there probably is a small percentage of people who do fit the aforementioned nerdy, anti-social profile, I think that ultimately this bar would be appealing to the average male who DOES enjoy socialising. So perhaps the brand image should fall somewhere in between – neither classy nor nerdy – appealing to the ‘average’ guy. But I’m just not sure that that image would work quite so well with an Xbox controller placed next to a beer… Then again, maybe Mana Bar realises that people will visit this bar no matter what, and in the interest of making profits, it’s going for a cocktail theme.


Nevertheless, Mana Bar will have to be very careful. At the moment it’s free to play games, but if they start to charge a fee to play games and hitch up drink prices, they could see customers walking out the door. Furthermore, the bar has a maximum capacity of 50 people, and from what I’ve read online, it seems people are already annoyed about having to wait in line. A maximum capacity of 50 seems crazy for a place with such high demand! So Mana Bar is going to have to think about how to solve this issue, or people might decide that playing games at home is a far better option. Perhaps they should look at opening another bar in Brisbane to cater for demand, as well as opening up in Melbourne and Sydney?


Anyway, what do you guys think? Would you go to Mana Bar if there was one in Melbourne? Or wherever you live? Do you think it will be a success? And do you think that a ‘classy’ image is the right way to go?

Try and find me NOW future employers!

When we think of Facebook, we think of a place to connect with all of our 1000 'friends' (haha, good joke Kate). But it is becoming evident that Facebook is now being used for other purposes - namely, for smart, privacy-invading (some would say) employers to 'suss out' a job candidate before making a job offer. By default, our Facebook profile has become a place to market ourselves, or our own personal 'brand', to future employers.

However, like with any brand, we want to send a positive, endearing message to our target audience (future employers). Herein lies the issue for many of us. What exactly should we be revealing on our Facebook profile? Many people have come to the conclusion that any photos which display drinking alcohol and having a good time send an undesirable message to employers. As a result, I have a number of friends who have changed their names on Facebook to outwit their potential future employers from ever coming across these photos. One friend even changed their name from 'Amy Smith' (to respect her privacy, this is not her real name) to 'Amy Tryandfindmenowfutureemployers Smith'. I kid you not! I found this quite amusing. It demonstrates the great lengths we are going to to stop future employers from finding us online.

On the other hand, I was quite surprised to hear what a certain tutor of mine (who works in advertising) had to say on the issue. He said that when his company is looking to hire people, they go through their candidates' Facebook photos, and if there isn't a photo of them taking their top off, or equivalent, they won't even consider them for the job! Of course, he then realised that that was probably taking things a little too far, but essentially what he was trying to say was that he WANTS to see photos of job candidates having fun! After all, these are the people he's going to work with, and no-one wants to work with someone who's no fun!

But he also implied that it depends on what type of job you're going for. Generally speaking, a person who works in marketing or advertising needs to show signs of creativity and fun as these traits can be critical to coming up with innovative marketing ideas. Whereas, a person who works in accounting may not require these traits to the same degree. So does that mean that myself and my fellow budding marketers are safe to keep our real names on Facebook and show the world our drunken photos?? I'd like to think that perhaps this is the case! Of course, we have to proceed with caution, and I think that allowing the world to see us curled up next to a toilet, surrounded by suspicious chunky contents is probably stretching the limit just a tad.

Also, it's common knowledge that everyone has a Facebook profile these days (and if you don't, what the hell do you do with all that spare time?!). So if a potential employer tries to find you on Facebook but can't because you've changed your name, you have to wonder what they might think. Would this not potentially cause them to consider that you might be hiding your profile from them? And then, a more ominous question might follow - well then, what they hell are they hiding?! In effect, they might be more concerned about your character than if they'd just seen your photos in the first place!!

Soooo, after that essay (whoopsies!), what I really want to know is what you guys think? Do you think it IS safe for us 'marketers' to keep our real names and show who we really are on Facebook? And for those of you who HAVE changed your names on Facebook, what is your opinion? Have I changed your mind at all??