I recently came across a promotional video, dare I say commercial for Tostitos Salsa. The way the video is presented as well as the animation blew me away and I had to share it:
Thought this was a great example of creative used to highlight brand attributes.
Leave a comment and see if you can name ‘em!
In an effort to fend off FTC regulation on digital privacy, the IAB this week endorsed a symbol to be used in banner ad campaigns as part of an industry endeavor to demonstrate our ability to self regulate. The icon, dubbed the “Power I”, was designed and focus group tested by a consortium of industry players including the IAB, the DMA, the ANA and the AAAAs to alert consumers when behavioral targeting is employed. It is part of a larger consumer education push that will ask “Why did I get this ad?” in smallish type on behavioral banner ads and provide a link to a page with information about privacy in advertising. Major online advertisers are expected to start incorporating the symbol in ads this summer though they are not mandated to do so.
It remains to be seen if this approach will help assuage consumer concerns. It might just confuse them. One thing we do know – it won’t work without wide advertiser adoption and in fact will likely penalize the early advertisers who first use it if fast followers don’t appear well, fast.
Do you think consumers will appreciate the disclosure?
South by Southwest (SXSW) began as a modest, local music fest in Austin, Texas and 24 years later has morphed into the largest gathering of geeks, hipsters, and wanna-bes this side of Coachella. What separates it from the music-only fests is that it eventually built a film fest into the program, and finally an interactive festival, which is what Robin and I will be attending. Beginning March 12th and going through the 16th, the Interactive portion is packed full of seminars, panels, tweet-ups and parties, all under the auspices of ingesting the latest in everything from augmented reality t0 location-based apps in seminars like “Becoming Immortal: Undertanding the Digital Afterlife” and “Measuring Blogger Credibility: FTC Regs vs Crowdsourced Solutions.”
Like the SXSW tagline says: This is where tomorrow happens.
This will be my second trip, having lost my SXSW virginity last year (It’s kind of like that: they have a number of seminars for rookie attendees on just how to negotiate the festival and schedule yourself.) It’s massively free form and so unlike the buttoned up more typical ad-industry conventions I’d been used to.
First of all there’s the geek/hipster factor: everyone is continually tweeting/texting/IMing so slamming into people becomes a regular occurrence. Don’t feel bad if you’re a scheduled speaker and every single audience member is glued to his/her laptop/iPhone. They’re probably tweeting a question to your hashtag, or highlightling your talk on their blog in real time.
Second is the locale: Austin’s official city slogan is: Keep Austin Weird. It’s also cool to dive into those spring Austin temps, when our NE temps are still flirting with freezing. Austin might be in Texas, but it’s not “Texas.”
But it’s the overall takeaway that makes it worthwhile: the knowledge you ingest, the friends you make, the interactive friends you finally meet. And even though you’re exhausted from the previous night’s Red Bull/Facebook party, as the Interactive segment winds down and the music crowd rolls into town for phase 2, you wish you were that kid at the front of the line for tickets for the Airborne Toxic Event gig much later that night.
My daughter is constantly asking me if I know where her keys are and I usually don’t because she never hangs them up on the key thingy in the kitchen–like I do every day. Turns out I might be doing my middle–aged brain a disservice through this rote behavior–and my daughter is working her brain in a beneficial way by dropping her keys in a different place every day.
Scientists have found that the brain does not, in fact, loose millions of brain cells daily between the ages of 40 and 60 as previously reported. In fact, while some neural connections become folded into corners of the brain and become a little harder to retrieve, we actually gain a fuller understanding of the bigger picture as we age.
What we can do to keep those neural connection sharp, is to do things differently. Drop your everyday routine, be it good or bad and shift things up. Take a different route to work. Do yoga instead of cycling. Pull out the cookbook and make something you’ve never tried. Learn a foreign language. Or at least try.
The same thing goes for marketing. Get in a rut, use the exact same process for every client, go back to the old tried and trued standards and you’ll be left behind. Unearth the unexpected. Don’t think out of the box, there is no box. Comfort zone be damned.
For all my fellow geezers, here’s the NYTimes article I referenced.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03adult-t.html?scp=1&sq=brain&st=cse
And for all you youngsters, keep mashing it up. You’ll be here soon enough. If you see a set of VW keys laying around, they’re mine.
With all of the buzz around social media, companies are searching for best and most effective ways to dive in and connect with consumers. For most the question is how to utilize social media in a way that will engage users and elicit/maintain a meaningful dialog, and for others it is providing those doors for users to consume and digest content in one location or central hub. In the later, companies approach this with developmental integrations. Microsoft has opened yet another door to the largest gaming network and the 20+ million active users on the Xbox LIVE! Marketplace. For those who are not familiar, the Xbox LIVE marketplace, available through the Xbox 360 gaming console is an online gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft. Xbox LIVE is an evolving entertainment hub with seamless integration between gaming and media needs. Through LIVE users have access to online gaming, streaming HD movies through Netflix, video chat with friends, photo sharing, and early access to content and exclusive discounts.
Microsoft has now integrated Facebook, Twitter, Zune, and last.fm. Users with an Xbox LIVE subscription will now be able to connect with friends, tweet, listen to music, and stream more HD media.
Facebook
Share status updates and photos with friends in real-time, as well as gaming moments right from the Xbox dashboard to Facebook. This provides gamers another avenue to share their achievements and favorite gaming moments on Facebook, and keep up with friends right from their console and TV.
Twitter
Read, reply, and post Tweets to Twitter through Xbox LIVE. See what friends and family are up to, connect to celebrities, learn about news as it happens, and follow online trends.
Last.fm on Xbox 360
With Last.fm, members can select music preferences to explore personalized radio stations with a library of more than 3.5 million tracks. Skip, “ban,” or ‘love” tracks to tailor the radio station to your tastes. Share music with friends, manage customized radio stations, and create personal soundtracks. A social component allows users to discover new music based on what other friends are listening to.
HD Entertainment with Zune
Zune on Xbox LIVE gives users access to full HD video entertainment, with the ability to rent and buy the latest movies and TV shows. HD content is in 1080p and 5.1 surround sound. A Party mode allows users to watch movies and share the experience with up to 7 friends in an online ‘movie theatre’ setting. Any download will provide the option to download again and watch on your PC or Zune HD player as well.
What does this mean for users? To the 20 + million subscribers, this is all the more reason to remain in one outlet digesting various levels of gaming, entertainment, and social. Instead of streaming music from your computer or switching off your console to watch a movie in high definition, everything can be done right from your Xbox console. You can keep all of your friends updated on what you are listening to, watching or playing.
What does this mean for agencies and their clients? As LIVE grows the plethora of services offered, so does the amount of time users stay connected, and the number of reasons they stay on LIVE. This provides us even more opportunity to reach these elusive demographics by volume in a highly targeted environment. Among the various search and display opportunities being utilized through Microsoft, with LIVE provides the ability to tailor campaigns using standard ad placements, multimedia such as video, audio and animation, as well as custom sponsorships/contests. Developing branded theme packs for users to skin their dashboards is also an option to engage the audience, essentially creating a downloadable homepage takeover for their dashboard experience.
Xbox 360 Dashboard Preview
