The creative director behind these commercials is genius!  I love watching these commercials so much that I will stop fast forwarding thru commercials and play them during TiVo’d shows.  They really play on all the stereotypical things women want in a man.  “Your man may not look like me, but he can smell like me.”  I guess that’s the next best thing!

My favorite part is the oyster…in my hand is an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love.  Look again, the tickets are now diamonds!  Brilliant!  This commercial has received over 13 million views on YouTube.  People can’t help but watch these commercials over and over.  Isaiah Mustafa does a fantastic job.  His intensity and eye contact, not to mention his physique, voice and all-around sex appeal really make this commercial series hit!

Swan-dive into the best night of your life…this commercial has received over 5 million views and it has only been on for two weeks!  While looking for these commercials, I found a new one that was just added yesterday, so I thought I’d share it with you:

This video was created for the Old Spice guy’s internet friends only.  This is a great marketing ploy by Old Spice to keep their fans and consumers entertained.  They certainly knew how to pick their target audience and cast their commercials!  Bravo Old Spice.  The next time I purchase any toiletry item for my husband, I think I’ll go with Old Spice!

The following video is an interview with Eric Kallman and Craig Allen of Weiden & Kennedy about the making of this comercial and everything that went into it.  Very interesting!!

Chanel is a luxury brand, so connecting fame, fantasy, love and mystery to the No. 5 perfume is exactly the emotional attachment customers are looking for.  When people buy a luxury product, they are paying for what the product represents, and Chanel No. 5 is hitting this nail squarely on the head!  What woman wouldn’t want spend a passionate weekend with a sexy, brooding writer, and when they have to leave and return to their other responsibilities, he will never forget her scent.  And every time he smells it he’ll think of her, and every time she puts it on she gets to relive it.  Brilliant and classy, just as one would expect the brand to be.  The short film has gotten over 2 million views on YouTube, so there must be something appealing about it…

The Nabisco World homepage is very colorful with pictures of games and Nabisco products.  There is a login area for members with a box to the left that says, “Not a member yet? Register now or login to save your high scores and enter our promotions!” with a GO button.  Encouraging kids to register is how marketers can track specific activity on the web site and couple that with personal information making it easer to differentiate data.  Each time a game is selected, an ad will pop up for a Nabisco product.

Using the Nabisco products in the games is a good way to advertise and plant seeds for future purchases.   This is the new-and-improved, high-tech cereal box.  When I was young, I remember doing the mazes and puzzles on the back of my cereal boxes.  There were fun facts, jokes, chocolate fantasy worlds, and so much more!  You could get toys, promotional clothing and lots of items with a few proofs of purchase and the cost of shipping.  Just fill out the order form and send it in…now, to get your information, you register online to become a member.

This site does a great job in promoting their products.  They are presented in a colorful, tasty fashion, they are placed in games and they offer promotions.  They also offer healthy recipes and sensible snacking ideas to promote health and wellness.  They also provide nutritional information for their products – not that kids are interested.  Some of the games work on problem solving, math and reading/spelling skills, which is always beneficial!  The majority of the games are NOT food related, which gives the kids a nice break from continuous advertising, although every game page has an ad for a Nabisco product on it.  At least they are providing challenging and mentally stimulating games, and not just mind numbing video games!

 Using the SMM platform for brand building, education, driving traffic to the web site and gathering information is a great idea.  You can reach a much larger target audience, spread information at a much faster pace and increase the popularity of your product or web site by making it available to the masses.  By creating and maintaining new and interesting content that people want to view, you’ll have no problem drawing people to your site.

The traffic will result in website links, blog comments and sales.  SMM is also very cost-effective.  Facebook and Twitter are both free social networking sites.  In a social networking site, you can scout out potential customers and target markets with just a few clicks and keystrokes, adding a boost to your usual advertisements and promotional strategies. It allows marketers to learn about their customers likes and dislikes, which is tremendous. Whether on a budget or not it makes no difference, if you want to fine tune your business then this is the way to go!

Social networking word of mouth is critical.  This is what causes campaigns to go viral or to fail miserably.  To be successful you need to make sure that the campaign relates well to the target market.  You also need to be willing to put in the time and effort to maintain a social media site.  You have to pay attention to the customers, target audiences, etc.  by providing feedback, answering questions, and posting relevant information on a consistent basis to keep the attention of your followers!

The first part of the mobile component was text link ads – up to 5 million per week – run by AdMob. The ads were basically invitations for people to participate in the campaign. As an example, one of the ads proposed a call to Kevin Garnett, a player for the Boston Celtics, and one of the NBA stars that was part of the campaign.  Subscribers that clicked on the text link ad were brought to a dedicated landing page on the Adidas mobile site which included an opt-in form. Fans who joined received 4 SMS messages, plus 4 phone calls from Kevin Garnett.

 Throughout the campaign, mobile outperformed all other media for driving opt-in sign ups, and at a significantly lower cost than other media.  Another very interesting feature was the capability for a subscriber to call and leave a message for one of the NBA players. Thousands of fans called and left messages about what it meant to them to be part of a team.  Interestingly, a high percentage actually called two or more times. This plus the voice messages that they received from the players made it feel like there was a conversation going on, and it acted to build a relationship between Adidas and their customers.

Jackmyers.com, a B2B media website, posted a report on an Adidas mobile advertising campaign which features famous basketball stars who proclaim that ‘Basketball is a Brotherhood’. The ad campaign targeted teenage boys and girls and has become immensely popular among them. This medium is more effective because teenagers spend so much more time on cell phones. Upon clicking on the text ads they get, mobile users were taken to a mobile site where they can call the stars in the ad campaign, get tailor-made voicemail, special ringtones, and wallpapers.

The marketer addressed permission concerns by sending out text messages and having the customer opt in to the advertisement campaign.  By opting in, customers were able to access some of their favorite basketball stars and leave them messages.  They also received messages from those stars which created a conversational atmosphere.  Opting in to the advertising campaign allowed access to backgrounds, ringtones, voicemails, text messages, games and much more.

The response from the teenage target market was phenomenal. There were five million mobile impressions on the ads and 75,000 page views to the mobile site in the first week. Over 8000 people opted in. Thousands of people called their favorite stars, repeatedly.  It was a great mobile marketing campaign by Adidas.

                        The gaming media allowed consumers to experience first-hand (in the gaming world) how the Fit held up to the fuel guzzling competition.  Players were able to play up the car’s ability to maneuver around cars and obstacles while carrying a full load.  Promoting all the positive aspects of the Honda Fit in a game format it appealing to a broad range of customers.  The website also had an area where Honda Fit backgrounds could be created, players could create an icon and an interactive map of the game that enables the player to “unlock” various goodies such as an icon pack, a cell phone wallpaper pack, videos, computer wallpapers and a My Space theme.  This type of marketing gets a whole new generation of consumers thinking about the types of things they want out of their cars. 

 These consumers are the new generation of first new car buyers – they’re well beyond the “grown-up with TV” generation designation. These are today’s real media gurus – some call them media monsters. It’s a hugely savvy, expressive, independent market with lots of ready-to-spend cash and plastic.  Honda calls them non-conformists and has aimed a high energy, colorful campaign with a fast-paced, playful tone and focus that acknowledges, if only through generational icons, the wide array of influences on the group: the clothes they wear, hairstyles, music, video games, graphic novels, movies and cartoons, socializing, partying, and, of course, the tuner or customized car-culture that started on the West Coast.

A classic example of viral marketing  was one of the first free email services – Hotmail.com.  Their strategy was very simple.  They gave away email accounts and at the bottom of each message sent out there was a tag, “Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com.”  They then stood back and let the subscribers send the message out to their network of friends and family, who then signed up and sent it out to their network of friends and family, who then signed up…I’m sure you get the picture. 

A viral marketing strategy need not contain ALL these elements, but the more elements it embraces, the more powerful the results are likely to be. An effective viral marketing strategy:

1. Gives away products or services
2. Provides for effortless transfer to others
3. Scales easily from small to very large
4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors
5. Utilizes existing communication networks
6. Takes advantage of others’ resources

One of the best viral marketing campaigns I found was the Transport for London Agency: DoTheTest.co.uk Awareness Test Video.  This video presented you with an awareness test where you have to closely watch the white team to see how many times they pass the ball.  They then show you how easy it is to be unaware of something if you are focused on something else. Watch the video and see this amazing viral “awareness test” for yourself.  This video currently has 9,172,358 total views, and it’s easy to see why!  I want to forward this to all my friends and colleagues to see if they catch “it” or not.  And to find out what “it” is, you’ll have to watch the video for yourself!

Not every marketing campaign is meant to go viral, but following the marketing strategy is a step in the right direction! 

Everyone loves viral videos – so I’ll leave you with a few of my favorites:

Prices to create regular, 30-second ads, for major marketers, can cost between $500,000 to $1 million and 3-D commercials can increase the price by 30% to 40%, says ad executives.  Marketers will be watching ratings and audience reaction carefully to plan future investment in creating and running 3-D ads.

These marketers are paying a lot of money to reach the affluent, early adopters who already have 3-D enabled TVs. There aren’t many out there now, and the stats on the budding market are fuzzy: anywhere between 2 million and 5 million 3-D TVs and computer monitors are expected to be in American homes by the end of the year.

ESPN 3-D will accept only commercials produced in 3-D, Mr. Hanrahan said, to mirror the fact that “95 percent of the commercials we get for HD are in HD. There will be “no premium pricing for inserting a 3-D commercial in a 3-D broadcast,” he added.  The new channel will carry promotional commercials for ESPN, Mr. Hanrahan said, including “the first ‘SportsCenter’ spot in 3-D.”

So far the reviews for the 3-D programming has been so-so.  To view the 3-D shows and commercials the owners of the 3-D TVs must have the glasses.  Glasses from different brands cannot be worn interchangeably, which can create a problem when you are inviting people over to watch an even in 3-D.  This is definitely a new technology that is going to take hold and explode – like DVDs or HD TV.  It’s only a matter of time.  But is it worth the money for advertisers to create those 3-D commercials for such a limited population?  Only time will tell.  Maybe breaking into the market early will secure them some discounted advertising spots down the road.

Apple and Google are the two major app providers.  Apple has employees dedicated to vetting applications submitted to their stores, but risks still exist. In July 2008, Apple pulled a popular game called Aurora Feint from its store after it was discovered to be uploading users’ contact lists to the game maker’s servers. More recently, it yanked hundreds of apps it said violated its policies, some out of security concerns.  Google checks their apps “reactivley.”  They wait until users alert them of the bad software before they check out the apps. 

This ‘malware’ can steal your contact list, your banking information, your text messages, and basically any personal information entered or stored on your phone and is also being used for espionage by foreign nationa.  Because of the security issues, the FBI and the Air Force have barred apps from being downloaded on issued smartphones.  The Air Force was not only concerned about the theft of military information, but also about the use of personal details to scam or extort airmen and women. 

About a year ago the Air Force saw fewer than 12 attacks targeting phones per month, now they are seeing over 500.  It’s scary to think how much and how quickly the attacks have grown!  Espionage by app just seems crazy!!  But it’s happening right now.  You just have to be very careful with what you download and invite into your phone and personal information.

To tweet or not to tweet…that is the questions.  Twitter has exploded with the mundane details of everybody’s lives.  I don’t know why, but we thrive on letting everyone know what we’re doing at every moment of the day.  Are those 140 characters that powerful?  At least in the realm of marketing, that’s what I’m trying to figure out.

Companies/businesses are creating twitter accounts and engaging in what has been termed twarketing.  But is this effective?  Not being an avid twitterer myself, I had to do a bit more research on this topic to find out.  There was a case study done about the Fortune 100 companies and their twitter accounts.  They were graded on the following points:

1. The Google search test with the company name and twitter used as the keywords.

2. Active Twitter page with more than 1000 followers.

3. Multiple active Twitter pages with more than 1000 followers.

4. Strong Customer Service points of contact on Twitter page.

5. Twitter pages with multiple Customer Service points of contact.

6. Active link from corporate website or blog to Twitter page.

7. Active link from Twitter page to corporate site or blog.

8. Highly visible Twitter page link or logo on corporate site or blog.

9. Branded custom Twitter page background

10. Custom branded corporate website dedicated to Twitter and Twitter followers.

11. Twitter Verified Account Status (*)

And only 6 of the 100 made it into the “A” range.  They were…drumroll please…Wal-Mart Stores, Bank of America Corp., Dell, Best Buy, PepsiCo, and Cisco Systems.

It seems if you use twitter to communicate with your followers/customers by putting a personal touch on the tweets, actually responding to members of your community and tastefully promoting products, twitter can really benefit your company.  Wal-Mart has designated several employees to tweet on behalf of their organization.  This really creates that personal touch.  It doesn’t seem like the corporate giant is just spewing information blindly to the masses.  These selected associates and employees are tweeting in their own voice.

If you want twitter to hurt your business, promote everything multiple times a day, spam everyone, be generic and robotic and drive your followers away.

Twitter is a great tool if you know how to use it!  I’m going to close with some tips and a video by Miguel:)

Miguel’s 5 step action guide to getting started marketing with Twitter:
1. Sign up for Twitter
2. Get “Twhirl” (& Twitter Tools)
3. Build a list of followers
4. Network and build friendships
5. Don’t Spam!!!!!