Promotions 2.0Blurring the line between interactive advertising, promotions and social network marketing.

October 21st, 2009

JetBlue and Hertz Daily Giveaway

JetBlue is all about giving consumers more, so to celebrate their partnership with Hertz they are giving away up to $500 in daily flight and car rental gift cards. You can also win one of five trips to amazing destinations including Aruba, New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Orlando. You can also save an additional $25 on your rental car when you book it at JetBlue.com

teamDigital developed the program to maximize participation across social networks by rewarding consumers with better prizes when they tell their friends. Basically, the more people that enter, the more you can win. So grab the widget above, share it with your friends and enter every day.

July 7th, 2009

Doritos does Augmented Reality

Augmented reality seems to be everywhere these days. Now Doritos is bringing augmented reality to the world of promotions with specially marked bags of Doritos Late Night chips that can be used as a “ticket” to a 3-D concert performance by bands including blink-182 and Big Boi — all made possible by the power of augmented reality technology. The exclusive venue, www.doritoslatenight.com, is where music fans will get to see their favorite artists onstage and online in a truly one-of-kind performance.

The Doritos Late Night online concert is the first-ever augmented reality experience to showcase live-action video within a 3-D, interactive environment. The website allows Doritos Late Night special-edition bags to be used with a web cam to launch the virtual performances that pop directly out of the bag, (See video above) including two fan-favorite songs by blink-182 (”Rock Show” and “I Miss You”) and one from Big Boi (”Ringtone”). Fans can personalize each artist’s performance by the way they hold, move and shake the bag, offering up a new experience each and every time.

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June 10th, 2009

Promotions Make Media More Measurable

We all keep hearing about the challenges of measuring marketing campaigns.  It’s true, tracking the overall ROI of a campaign is not entirely possible since there is a large qualitative and not quantitative aspect involved.  However, by adding a promotional element we can directly track consumer interactions & engagement.

Traditional media campaigns rely on eyeballs, meaning the amount of people who actually see the ad.  However, as media costs continue to rise, audiences have become more fragmented, making them harder to reach.  So how do you measure the success of these massive costs?  Well, you try to figure out how many people saw the ad,  it’s like measuring the success of a Google AdWords campaigns strictly by impressions, not very effective, since the majority of advertising messages are ignored by consumers. Traditional media relies entirely on one way communication, with as many people as possible, but then what?  As advertising clutter continues to expand consumers ignore a larger percentage of the ads they see.  All we have to do is click the skip button, change the channel, or turn our heads; which in most cases is exactly what we do.

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May 14th, 2009

iPhone Continues to Grow as Ad Platform

iphone

Madison Avenue is plowing more resources into a new marketing medium: Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

In the past several months, companies such as Burger King Holdings Inc., Zippo Manufacturing Co. and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. have experimented with promotional software applications that can be downloaded onto the iPhone, or they have created ads that are placed within other popular applications for the device.

At the most basic, marketers are taking advantage of the iPhone’s advanced video and screen capabilities by creating streaming video ads. But some are taking things further by offering ads disguised as apps. The latter allow users to do such things as play games or manipulate images by touching the phone’s screen.

Many marketers find “app-vertising” attractive because the iPhone’s audience has grown so quickly. The iPhone now has more than 20 million users, and more are likely to buy in because Apple is widely expected to unveil a new model in coming months. Analysts estimate that Apple’s iPod touch, which can also run downloaded apps, adds at least 15 million more users to the market. Continue Reading…

May 11th, 2009

Dave Matthews Band Facebook Contest

dmb

After a long break from the studio the Dave Matthews Band band traveled down to New Orleans to complete work on their new studio album, Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King, which will be be released on June 2. To promote the album the band has put together a social media promotion called DMB BIG WHISKEY AND THE GROOGRUX KING ADVANCE LISTENING PARTY CONTEST

DMB fans are invited to host a listening party and create a Facebook Event page scheduled for Memorial Day weekend and invite all their friends. The top 100 hosts will win a personalized advance copy of the new album to use for the listening party. Hosts must submit an entry form on the Advance Listening Party Contest Page by May 12th.

The host of the best listening party will win a trip to meet Dave Matthews and see the band perform live from the front row at their show in West Palm Beach, FL on Saturday, August 15th!

May 11th, 2009

Sony Launches Terminator Viral Game on Twitter

Sony has launched a viral game for Terminator Salvation called Resistance 2018 that involves users on twitter joining various resistance squadrons in order to fight the machines.

If you want to play the viral game, first visit twitter.com/Resistance2018 and follow the twitter account. Then visit the website Resistance2018.com where you can login with your twitter password and read the instructions on how to play. The basic premise is that as a member of the human resistance, you follow out orders that are tweeted out on twitter and you gain points by doing so. The more points you get, the more opportunities you have, including the ability to join various squadrons, like John Connor’s Squadron.

There are various assignments and messages that apparently will be tweeted out by Resistance2018 with coding as follows: RA (Resistance Assignments), WM (Word Mix), TR (Trivia), PT (Partial Transmission), SW (SkyNet Warnings), and so on. In essence, it’s a mass multiplayer online viral game coordinated entirely via twitter. This is the first time any studio has ever done anything like this. The movie, which opens Memorial Day weekend looks like it is going to be the blockbuster movie of the summer. Check out the extended trailer above if you haven’t already seen it.

Source: FirstShowing

April 9th, 2009

Moving from Clicks to Conversions

For over a decade, Website publishers have relied on an old advertising model: Publishers provided advertisers access to online viewers, and the more desirable those viewers, the more online publisher charged for banner impressions. Like the early days of television this model worked (for a while), but as advertising clutter increased and consumers began to see banners as noise click-through rates have dropped to an all time low.

Marketers are now shifting their focus from a one dimensional awareness approach to  integrated marketing strategies that leverage the engagement cycle to move consumers from awareness to conversion.

Unlike the sales funnel. Engagement is better thought of as a cycle, a series of touchpoints designed to create engagement with a brand in order to drive a purchase, each time in a meaningful and valuable way to both brand and consumer.

In the world of interactive promotions the engagement cycle is driven by three primary stages: awareness, activation, and conversion (or purchase). Throughout the cycle, marketers must measure in order to add value throughout the cycle.

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March 23rd, 2009

Social Networking’s Growing Footprint

Online communities, which include both social networks and blogs, are now the fourth most popular online category visited by 67% of the global online population, according to new research by Nielsen Online.

The communities are growing twice as fast as any of the other four largest sectors—search, portals, PC software and e-mail.

“Social networking has become a fundamental part of the global online experience,” John Burbank, CEO of Nielsen Online, said in a release. “While two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing. Social networking will continue to alter not just the global online landscape, but the consumer experience at large.”

The report also found that Facebook, which is the world’s most popular social network, is visited monthly by three in every 10 people online across the nine markets in which Nielsen tracks social networking use. Continue Reading…

March 17th, 2009

The Phone is the Next Big Thing.

phonesThe computer industry has hit upon its Next Big Thing. It is called a phone.

95% of consumers carry their cell phone at retail, making mobile the next big platform for marketers. Now PC makers are trying to get in on the action.

Emboldened by Apple’s success with its iPhone, many PC makers and chip companies are charging into the mobile-phone business, promising new devices that can pack the horsepower of standard computers into palm-size packages. Continue Reading…

March 13th, 2009

Advertising in the Digital Age

tvThe emergence of digital media has created some very fundamental and important changes in the world of advertising. New digital technologies are creating a wide range of new possibilities for two-way communication and measurement. The power of promotions to cut through clutter and capture consumer interest and attention is also beginning to blur the line between advertising and promotional marketing strategies. These changes are  redefining the rules for advertising in the digital age. Continue Reading…