Imagine walking down the street and having advertisements change based on your gender, age, or race. This trend of ultra-targeted advertising has already started in London. Plan UK, a not-for-profit organization that helps children in third-world countries, launched a facial recognition billboard to promote its "Because I'm a Girl" campaign on February 22nd. As you may already assume, the ad is not the same for everyone. With 90% accuracy, the interactive advertisement scans pedestrians and identifies their gender. If it recognizes a woman, it allows her to see a 40-second campaign video, which promotes sponsoring a girl from a developing country to receive proper education. On the other hand, if it detects a man, it shows relevant campaign statistics and directs them to the Plan UK website. The purpose of this somewhat exclusive method of advertising is to show men "a glimpse of what it's like to have basic choices taken away." Personally, I think it is a bit creepy, but I'll have to get used to it (I'll explain why later).
The billboard, located at a bus stop on Oxford Street, cost Plan UK around $47,000 to execute (with help from Clear Channel UK, 3D Exposure, andCurb Media), and will only last for a total of two weeks (one down, one more to go). They hope to raise $400,000 in donations during the next four months, and believe the high-tech, emotion-inspiring billboard will motivate many of these donations. The amount of press the organization and its campaign has received due to the billboard will certainly help fundraising efforts as well--cue the need for PR professionals!
The 40-second video is part of a longer documentary, which showcases three 13 year old girls: Jasmine from the UK, Bintou from Mali, and Sur from Thailand. It highlights their differences, commonalities, obstacles, and dreams. If you have three minutes to spare, take a peak. Beware: it's emotionally riveting.
This new breed of outdoor advertising has incredible implications for the marketing industry. The technology used in Plan UK's billboard is the first of its kind and can be compared to the iPad and Xbox Kinect (combined). Not only does it scan faces, but it also measures the distance between the viewer's eyes, width of their nose, length of their jaw line, and shape of their cheekbone, to determine their gender. Ultra-targeted advertising through facial recognition software is in our near future. Some shopping malls are already testing the technology to more effectively reach and appeal to shoppers.
I hope this technology can eventually be applied to television and the Internet. Maybe one day I'll stop seeing advertisements for arthritis medication or Viagra. One can only hope!
I created my account on Pinterest in December and have been obsessively pinning ever since. For those of you who are a little behind in this booming social media trend, it is basically an online scrapbook. The site was launched in 2010, and went from 1.6 million registered users in September '11, to more than 7 million in December '11. WOW. The site is fun and engaging for users because it allows consumers to create and organize personalized and categorized bulletin boards, which they can pin their favorite images to. When they "pin" something, their friends/acquaintances/followers will see it and can re-pin it to their own boards, or simply "like" or comment on it. Additionally, Pinterest pins have the ability to go viral, just like posts on Facebook or Twitter.
Pinterest is not only a great social media platform for consumers, but it also provides an incredible opportunity for companies, brands, and blogs. When users click on a picture, it will link them out to its source, which ultimately drives visitors to company websites and relevant blogs. Companies should highly consider setting up accounts on Pinterest in order to reach consumers in a visually appealing way. This is especially applicable to retailers who can post images of their own products, and ultimately link users back to the company's website and... DRIVE SALES!
Like any social media website, the goal of Pinterest is to interact and engage consumers. Companies should not only post their own pins, but also re-pin the images of other users in order to maintain a presence and avoid being too promotional. The scrapbooking site is strictly visual... so it's not the optimal social media platform for every company. But if marketers are able and willing to think outside the box and get super creative, it might result in various positive outcomes! Chobani is one of these innovative companies. The popular yogurt brand posts pictures/recipes of delicious looking (and sounding) foods that use Chobani yogurt as an ingredient. It helps the brand drive consumers to its bloggers and website, which helps promote the brand's personality, values, and uses. Another Pinterest success story is Ideeli, an online retail "deal" site that specializes in luxury products. Ideeli has seen a 446% increase in web traffic from Pinterest in the last six months!
Here are a few of my favorite pins...these are just snippets of styles I love, delicious looking food and recipes, future home dreams, and incredible photography.
Pinterest is quickly becoming all the rage among consumers...SO, if companies and marketers haven't signed up yet, they should probably get on that...today.
On January 23rd, an environmental phenomenon occurred... the sun rose significantly earlier in central London than normal. Well, not really. It was a man-made sun, but it helped the real sun brighten Trafalgar Square. Not only did this "sun" rise an hour early, but it also gave Londoners three extra hours of "daylight"!
The "sun" was around 30,000 times bigger than a football and had the power of 60,000 light bulbs, which apparently means it could have been seen from space. Greyworld, a UK art collective, was commissioned by Tropicana to design and build the sun in order to launch the company's "Brighter Mornings" campaign. It was the perfect (and gorgeous) way to brighten up the dark, mid-winter day.
Photo Courtesy of Greyworld
Tropicana's "Brighter Mornings" campaign is a large-scale, integrated marketing campaign, which also includes a new Tropicana commercial. The key goal of the campaign is to increase sales and specifically link Tropicana with the ultimate way to start the day--yes, that rhymes. It also aims to strategically motivate retailers to back the campaign by selling single-serving Tropicana juices to boost on-the-go breakfast sales.
Obviously, an instillation like this is meant to generate a lot of online and traditional buzz... and Tropicana succeeded. There were TONS of tweets from consumers, marketing professionals, and media personnel from all over the world. Clearly, if the company was measuring the effectiveness of the campaign solely on the amount of digital buzz, they would be proud. Tropicana still needs some time, however, to see if the campaign influences positive sales results.
I love sunrises (when I'm unlucky lucky enough to catch them), but the installation was short-lived and the bang--or lack there of--didn't seem worth the time or money. The idea was pretty good, but the execution was... meh. It would have been a lot more impactful and memorable if Tropicana had these "suns" installed in multiple locations... maybe in specific areas that don't receive sunlight naturally. Money, however, is always a factor, and I'm sure the sun in Trafalgar Square didn't come cheap. I guess the rest of us will have to settle with the natural rise and fall of the real sun... "oh woe is me us."
I'm not a big fan of cats either, so me and the cat-eating dog from the Super Bowl Doritos ad should team up. The Great Dane and his bribing strategy really made a splash in Sunday night's Super Bowl advertising competition. The spot ranked number one in USA Today's Annual Super Bowl Ad Meter... and was voted one of the most popular Super Bowl 2012 ads in various other ranking systems as well. The Doritos ad, "Man's Best Friend", was one of two awesome consumer-generated advertisements that aired during the game--the other one, "Sling Baby", was a Doritos ad as well, and ranked number four on the Ad Meter! Jonathan Friedman, the ad's creator, will receive $1 million from Doritos for his nationally recognized ad, which only cost him $20! Cheap and no celebs? Way to go Average Joe Jonathan!
USA Today's Ad Meter is regarded as the most influential Super Bowl ad rating system in the advertising industry. It tracks the second-by-second responses of a panel of viewers during the national broadcast and has them rank the ads from favorite to least favorite. USA Today also recently introduced a Facebook app, which allows consumers to rank and share their favorites as well.
For those of you who missed the commercial (or the entire Super Bowl), here it is:
This is the sixth year Doritos has put on the Crash the Super Bowl contest, which invites regular "Average Joe's and Jane's"--AKA consumers--to submit ads. This year the contest received more than 6,000 submissions. After the Doritos team whittled that massive number down to five, consumers' votes determined one winner, while Doritos picked its personal preference.
Doritos may have the number one and four spot on the Ad Meter, but my personal Super Bowl fave is still top five... M&M's spot, "Just My Shell". I previously posted about the intro of Ms. Brown... and man, did she introduce herself! I was right, she is sassy! Absolutely loved it! And Red has never been so funny.
I don't think I'm alone in wondering why M&M's hasn't promoted their brown M&M. I get it, it's brown. It's not a lively or "pretty" color, but it's still one of the staple members of the M&M clan. Well, February 5th (AKA the SuperBowl) is when M&M's will finally introduce the apparently not so new brown character... and... IT'S A GIRL! Her name is Ms. Brown and she will walk and talk just like her fellow computer-animated buddies. I'm sure Ms. Green is thrilled to have a gal pal after all this time.
BBDO New York, M&M's preferred creative agency, has developed a few teaser advertisements to spark excitement and buzz among consumers and the media about Ms. Brown's debut.
Until the first quarter of the Super Bowl on NBC, we're left with her simple photograph... and 20 foot statue that was unveiled in LA on Monday... so much for the big bang of keeping her identity a surprise.
Her pose, raised eye brow, and unamused facial expression doesn't even leave her personality a mystery... she looks a little bossy sassy to me. I like it. She must be a pretty demanding M&M considering the amount of money the company is paying to formally introduce her during the Super Bowl. A 30-second spot on NBC during this extremely competitive air time costs around $3.5 million. OUCH! She deserves it though. She's been locked in the office and hidden from the public. She's worked hard as the CCO. Now, it's finally her time to shine and join her sweet M&M buddies in their efforts to promote M&M's of all colors, personalities, and fillings.
