Digital Stuffing

Peperami are launching a new product, Nibblers, which are bite-size bits of the snack in a bag. They’ve taken the interesting step of using using the service Idea Bounty to create their ad for the product. The crowd-sourcing site is a way for brands to connect with the creative industry for ideas, without the hastle of choosing new agencies, or paying for account management or any of those services and allows creatives to try soem things in areas that they may not have a chance to. It’s not ‘UGC’ as it’s a professional connection service, but it has roots in that area. For this brief, they had 1,185 entries to choose from. Here’s the result

In the publicity, they have focused primarily on the methof of prodcuing the ad, rather than the ad or the product and they seem to be happy with it

“The new ad demonstrates we are relevant and current to our target market, and we are confident that it will herald a successful campaign for the Peperami brand and the legendary Animal.”

I’m obviously not target market as the ad does little for me, but it is in the style of the previous work. maybe far too close, as Adliterate says, #

Fourthly, surely crowd sourcing should be about engaging the wisdom of the crowd to create something new and interesting but what we get here is a ‘90s Lintas ad that’s not quite as funny or interesting precisely because it’s a retread of old work and an old idea. ‘A bit of an animal’ was powerful for the brand when it was conceived because it broke the conventions of the category’s advertising and, along with Tango and Pot Noodle (both from my alma mater HHCL), rewrote the rules of advertising for a generation.

there’s nothing new in the ad, it’s not a new way of looking at the product, just a continuation. Should this new way of idea sourcing generated a new way of looking at the product? Maybe, but I’ve not seen the brief and I have no idea what they asked for. But I don’t agree with some of Richard’s other points. This is not an engagement campaign, to connect with the fans. People who love Peperami do no appear to have been involved in the process, inthe same way as Doritos have done, with public voting and commentary. Idea Bounty is crowd-sourcing from the creative industries, not from brand advocates; as a process it’s taken over a year, with the first announcements about it in August 2009. That’s not a consumer campaign, that’s just a new way of sourcing your marketing.

The last few years, Orange have been running (through) a ‘Spot the Bull‘ contest – pick where the bull is going to be in a field, get it right and be entered into a draw for tickets to Glastonbury. This year, there’s still a contest, but it looks like it’s changed. There’s no bull, no random chances, no hitech tracking and video from a field, just an image photoshopped with a little orange welly – Where’s My Welly. Find it, click on it and you’re entered in the draw.

Orange Spot the Welly for Glastonbury (screenshot from site)

As well as the contest, if you already have tickets, you can take advantage of their GlastoNav an augmented reality app, which will display events and locations on the site. It’s definitely available for the iPhone and probably for other smartphones, but they’ve not yet confirmed listings. They’re providing charging stations on site as well.

So it’s a mixture of a digital contest, mobile app and on-site experiential offering, there’s going to be a blog at some point; there’s no facebook page except for the ‘Like’ button. There’s also no mobile version of the site, nor embeddable widget, so it’s been slimmed down a lot since last year. Another area that’s been changed is the promotion. Last year, personal email, this year, an impersonal press release from M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment. Still a good contest, it just feels a lot less friendly and quirky than last year, the brand putting up shutters.

Update: I’ve received an email from the team apologising for the lack of contact; they’re working their way through emails at the moment and not got to me yet. Having had to do this in the past, I can understand the time taken to do a good job with outreach. So, they are being personal still which is great, far better to do this than stick with press release language.

Microsoft have been pushing a new campaign recently, The New Busy, to promote their webmail, Hotmail. I’ll have to admit the print ads completely confuse me, but the website, for an information driven site, is quite sweet, with its gamelike moving blocks you can re-arrange.

As part of the campaign, Microsoft are running 3 days of events in London (on 26, 27 and 28 May at Golden Square, Canary Wharf and Broadgate), where you can go outside and do something more interesting instead. At least, that’s what I think the message is, with all the time the new tools in Hotmail give you, you get chance to try something different

The World of New Busy events will host a chill out and viewing area, Hotmail showcase, Health Farm where guests can learn Morris dancing, hula hooping and iconic dance moves, and Frivolity Fields where people can learn knitting, hand massage, throat singing and have a nap in the sleep pod. There will also be a unique photo opportunity in front of the green screen.

Apparently it’s a ‘quirky experiential campaign’ running across the summer, promoting the new version that launches later this year. They’ve got the obligatory Facebook page and Twitter feed, although something tells me the people running the profiles are not quite comfortable with the language yet, as a contest on Facebook to win a skydive asks you to ‘logon’ to their Twitter account (sure, give me the password then!) and then the tweet tells you to go to Facebook. I think they need to do a little bit more sorting out still

Overall, I think there’s some good bits here, they’ll get the city people coming and taking a look at what they are offering and hopefully they’ll remember Hotmail. But it feels not quite there yet.

Knitting with The New Busy (image provided by 3-monkeys Microsoft agency)

The Pitch

I got an email asking me if I wanted an email about it; polite, but far too easy to ignore usually, I prefer just getting the stuff and then deciding what to do with it. I then got an email with an attached .docx (again, another barrier, not everyone can open these) which was a duplicate of the text in the email (so why bother with the attachment). A few hours later, I then got the same email, non-personalised which had obviously been sent out to a large list. As with the campaign social media, I think the pitch is not quite there yet.

Update: A big marketing push started on Wednesday, with Hotmail taking over the Metro to advertise the events

Spot the Bull with Orange (image from Poke)

Orange are again doing their Spot the Bull competition, giving away tickets to Glastonbury if you can predict where a bull will be in a field at a certain time of day. I played this last year and it was good fun; it got launched yesterday, starting off with an email, I’m guessing to all of last year’s participants. Later on, I got a lot more information about the competition from Poke.

• They’re using a new bull this year, called Desmond, a 5 year-old Charolais Apparently last year’s bull was a little quiet, they’re hoping for more action this year.
• In another change, they’ve adjusted the tech they’re using. Instead of a complicated set up using GPS and satellites to follow the bull action, they’ve got people in the ground, posting the position every 5 minutes and getting great pictures using a mini-dv camera. In a further extension, they’re also tweeting throughout at spotthebull
• They’ve gone mobile this year; go to the same URL on your phone’s web browser and get a sweet mobile version of the site. You can play direct from your phone or SMS your chosen square. There’s also a html version
• Return visits are encouraged. Statistical information is being built up around where the bull will be over the day, plus the tweets will let you know what Desmond’s favourite places are. You can start to predict the bull’s behaviour. Another tip is to play at weekends, which were quieter last year so you have a higher chance.
• There’s an embeddable widget, which brings all the bull action to your blog or profile.

What I think

It’s a successful mechanic for a competition, that obviously worked well last year, enough for them to bring it back. What I’m most impressed about is how ‘solid’ the campaign is, with all the elements connected. There’s a html version, a very nice mobile version, a chance to connect with SMS, the sharable elements. They’ve connected all the dots from a digital perspective. My biggest issue is with the flash version, which is heavy, takes a while to load and slows down the browser. It’s very, very good, but just a little too much of it. All in all, I love this campaign/

As a blogger, they connected with me well, a polite first enquiry about writing about it, then a whole load of imformation that is just lovely. It was done by the Poke team, so thanks to Dylan for the info.

An interesting email came through today, about Idea Bounty, where brands can put forward briefs for creatives to send in their ideas for a reward. The blrub says:

Clients: Get thousands of minds thinking about your brief and only pay for what you use.
Creatives: Get paid for your best ideas with no long term commitment from you.

So brands are basically crowd-sourcing the creative process and probably paying a reduced amount of money then employing an agency. I’m ambivalent about the concept, I can see that for a brand it is a great way to get a huge variety of new ideas and for creatives it means they may be able to work on brands they normally would not because they don’t have the brief. Subverting the agency process can be a good idea, I’d be curious to see if the brand think they miss something or if this a sustainable process. You don’t actually have to produce any materials for the entries to the brioef, it’s just the idea that they are after.

The last bounty was for Levi’s who paid a grand total of $3000 for the idea, which is pretty cheap but fromt he brand but may be more than the creative would normally get, so it can be a win-win for both parties.

The current brief is for Red Bull, which I think is a pretty exciting brand to work on. For a bounty of $5000 you get this challenge:

Red Bull has been available for 21 years in several countries and has always remained the number 1 Energy Drink since its launch. Drinking Red Bull in your favourite club, bar or restaurant symbolises fun, activity, open–mindedness, and an eagerness to meet people. We want you to develop a concept for a new Red Bull drinking ritual that captures all these values.

I’m guessing they want to move away from the vodka-Reb Bull tag and introduce something different.

They’re also announcing the winner of the last brief, which was for BMW cars. Gary Willmott, of creative production company Urbian, won $3,000 for his idea to answer this brief:

BMW – asked for ideas to create a branded BMW activation and mechanic that would entice potential new drivers to opt in for future BMW communication

I’d tell you more, but the press release (which is embargoed until now) has little information on what was actually presented and lots of puff about the concept!

What I think

As a pitch, it was a little short on social media aspects, I got a press release which was short on details and a link to the site. As an idea, I liked it; I’d not seen it before but I can see the advantages for both parties. The proof is in the development and I’d love to see how the previous winning ideas have been executed.

Watch the above ad, then go take a look at the Computer Tan site. Have you done, have you seen the brilliant products they’re offering and did you take up their free offer? I so want the mobile version.

I hope you weren’t taken in, that you know that the whole product is a complete hoax? It’s actually part of a campaign from SKCin, the Karen Clifford Skin Cancer Charity.

Their aim is to raise the profile of skin cancer in the country, a disease that kills 5 people in the UK everyday. They’re looking to attract the attention of people who wouldn’t necessarily seek out information, moving away from the straight information driven sites to something a little more fun. The risk of skin cancer can be reduced by following sensible tanning guidelines, so it hits the right spot.

I like this, the video and site are both well done, hitting that slightly cheesy infomercial spot right in the centre. They’ve got online banners and a more traditional PR campaign as well. The reach out has been done well, evidenced by the number of sites where the video is appearing. It’s all been done for free by Rubber Republic and other agencies – a great set of ideas.