Krazy Kardashian Koncotions

Honestly, I had no intention on posting about them AT ALL! Then came along Gruen Planet and whaddaya know!

The Panel from Gruen Planet said it best! No denying the Kardashians are the incredible at what they do, bringing the world (and a million brands) to their feet and making a hell of a lot of money doing it! So how do they do it? Originating from the small time fame of their father, Robert Kardashian (Lawyer to OJ Simpson), they took this golf ball of fame and rolled it into a medicine ball, filled with kash. Hate them or love them, they've done it extremely well.

Enough from me...Let the Gruen Planet Panel of Wil Anderson, Todd Sampson and Russel Howcroft explain the intricacy of the Kardashian Klad Kindgom.

(caution: Wil Anderson is ridiculously hilarious, stitches may result)

Lets Get Digital, Digital!

As I scroll down my twitter timeline I see the word "digital" pop-up on majority of the industry accounts I follow...which lead me to think...WHY DIGITAL, WHY NOW?

As of late digital and advertising have become two peas in a pod. One without the other doesn't seem to make sense. Driving down the main roads in metro areas you see billboards going digital, namely GOA, with a billboard that has at least 3 other advertisements on it - talk about maximising sales opportunities - and lets not start on the Twitter and Facebook craze, actually lets. Facebook and Twitter are free digital spaces for everyone! And it seems that small businesses are loving this, albeit without utilising it properly and having plenty of room for opportunity, and why wouldn't they? It reaches many, its cheap or free and provides you with the ultimate control on your brand.

Digital seems to be the most effective means of advertising, it is immediate, captivating and the most free-form -creatively speaking. It also serves as a great element in IMC strategies and hey it provides an interactive platform for the target market. What more could you want????

But will there be a point where digital joins the clutter crew? Will the initial intrigue disappear? Will the target market dismiss the message in all the advertising madness? And what will be done to avoid the impending doom? Only time will tell....

But why now? Well I guess it comes down to who is able to be the most innovative and experimental. It was only a matter of time until the digital world and the advertising worlds collided.  The Lynx augmented reality strategy was a cracker! It opened the eyes and the mind of the target market, making the Lynx brand ever more edgy and maintaining their boundary pushing, loin invigorating and mind boggling messages.

So digital seems the way for the future, until it is overtaken by something fresher and newer. Until then lets embrace the digital race and make the best of a good thing.

Crouching Tiger....Hidden Dragon?

Something I noticed for the first time! I have seen this commercial a million times...shows how much attention I pay to commercials (and quiet possibly the level of attention the rest of us pay).

The St. George television ad of "you can do better with a St. George home loan" has the St. George Mascot (the green dragon) hiding in the background behind a bush. I nearly spat out my coffee in disbelief that as an avid analyser of advertisements that I missed it!

See if you can spot it for yourself...I've already told you where to look, so get spotting!

St George - Do Better with a St George Home Loan

ENJOY!

Sponsorships - The story behind the man

Sponsorship, players need it and companies love it. Gaining a sponsorship is becoming more and more difficult for the next generation of aspiring athletes, whether they are the best or second best. In the beginning sponsorship was like an award, the best few within each field are given sponsorship, letting the world know that they are the best at what they do!
So what now? If you are an up and coming athlete, working yourself to the bone to be the best, to make it to the professional level, it is no longer enough, you need to have a "story". According to Ad News, a story makes the sponsorship, along with some talent. What are you to do when you come from a seemingly well off family, not battled against the odds, essentially handed a silver spoon of sport soup.
A stated example by Ad News is tennis protege Bernard Tomic, brilliant tennis player who entered the sport young and has recently worked his way into the top 100, but cannot gain a substantial sponsorship. At age 13 he earned sponsorship from Nike, Head, Optus and Tennis Australia, when he was a fresh face with a "story".

Imagine this, a young boy from Australia given a wild card entry to the Australian Open, where he will come up against the likes of Federer, Hewitt, Djokovich or Nadal. Can this young superstar of amateur tennis make it to the end? Will he be Australia's next Number One?

As nice as that story was...that is where it ended. And since then Tomic has been unable to wrangle up another story, therefore leaving him without any sponsorship that would leave a mark on the world. What advice would you give him? Injure yourself severely, work your way back to the top or have a family feud and become a trailblazer...HELLO sponsorship!

Adidas Is All In- Australian Edition

As earlier mentioned Adidas has launched its biggest campaign in the history of the brand. We are all used to seeing these extravagant campaigns overseas in America, Europe and China. But long behold the campaign has graced Australian soil.

Cultural Hub Melbourne is the hot spot for the latest campaign feature. It is hosting a 60hr competition, at Queensbridge Square in Southbank, consisting of six teams of three from New South Wales and Victoria competing to win a massive Adidas Is All In prize. The winning team receives a trip to Los Angeles to see Katy Perry in concert, watch David Beckham & L.A. Galaxy play, a $10,000 shopping spree and last but not least a VIP shopping experience...not bad at all for 60hrs worth of non-stop sports.

Adidas has incorporated Facebook into the campaign (has anybody else noticed the increase in social media in campaigns? I sure have) through having Facebook fans "like" one of the competing teams. The team with the most "likes" wins! This latest move in the campaign is definitely asking its participants to be "All In".

Image from the Novafm website, promoting the challenge along with Facebook.

I am definitely getting the feeling that Adidas is all in with its current campaign.

Augmented Reality in Marketing (Social Media)

Augmented Reality is the midification of reality, replacing the real world with a simulated one. Why is this important for marketers?

The answer to that is quite obvious. The explosion of Smartphone sales worldwide has challenged the imagination of creatives to come up with marketing ideas that will combat the technological clutter. If you can’t beat them, join them. Although augmented reality ideas my be residing in the backs of many marketing heads and agencies right now, it is the way of the future and this new technology will provide numerous benefits.

According to the figures from ABI research, the market for Augmented Reality in the US alone is expected to hit $350m in 2014, up from about $6m in 2008. Augmented reality is exactly what marketers have been waiting for, hitting customers with the WOW factor. Not only this, but it is entirely unique, original, provides excelent personalisation, virality (as consumers wish to share their experience), Interactivity, and the content material.

My favourite example of this by far, is the Lynx ambush in London.

other examples include the following:

1. The Toyota Scion tC Take on the machine : an AR game on scion’s site. The user prints an AR marker which is used as a steering wheel to race with the new tC and win a spot in the global top 100 highscore board.

2. Subject 60: Volvo and EuroRSCG 4D teamed up for the promotion of the Volvo S60 by organizing five secret parties in Berlin, London, Paris, Milan and Madrid. In order to get an invite one had to find one of the code cubes, hidden in “naughty” locations around the city. The project was in collaboration with hand picked lifestyle bloggers and blog readers were given clues to discover the hidden cubes by using the Layar Augmented Reality browser.

3. Kit Kat Augmented Reality Gig: Agency Skive Digital of London created an Augmented Reality campaign for Kit Kat UK . Holding one of the special AR Kit Kat “4-Finger” bar packages in front of a webcam unlocked a one-off Scouting for Girls performance. The special packs also offered consumers the chance to win one of thousands of £100 Ticketmaster vouchers through Kit Kat Music Break.

4. IBM Virtual Mirrors: Created by IBM and EZFace. The special kiosks were placed in stores in North and South America, Europe, and Asia, covering major cosmetics brands, like L’Oreal, Maybelline, Covergirl and Revlon. The shopper can take a picture and virtually try on makeup, while the “mirror” takes into consideration such things as skin tone, facial features, and product colour. The mirror can make recommendations and allow the consumer to share a virtual makeover image with friends online.

Adidas "All In" - The Largest Campaign in the History of the Brand

In March, Adidas has just released their biggest and most expensive marketing campaign in the history of the brand.

The creative strategy used in the campaign, captures the passion of athletes, musicians and artists put into their “game”, and takes a gritty and authentic look into the visceral nature of raw passion. These celebrities give an insight into their lives and make the viewers realise that these celebrities got where they are today because they were determined to get there.

They did this by releasing numerous online and TV commercials, where various celebrities speak about their passions and show the viewers that anything is possible if you put your game face on. These celebrities include Katy Perry, rapper B.O.B, skateboarder Silas Baxter-Neal, soccer players David Beckham and Lionel Messi, and NBA star Derek Rose, to just name a few.

A strong brand always has to be efficient in the telling of a story. A story that rings true with the audience. But the challenge in brand communication is to develop its messages to be strategically consistent. And that is exactly what Adidas has achieved in their celebrity ads. Soccer Star Lionel Messi tells the audience how he started playing soccer at a young age, that he joined his first soccer team when he was about 4 years old,

  and that anything you love doing has sacrifices, but these sacrifices are always worth it in the end. Derek Rose spoke about his proudest moment in basketball, and that when he is on the court his mind is blank to everything but the game and how much fun he is having. B.O.B also spoke about his proudest moment in his career, but he also mentioned that his worst low in his career was also the best thing that could have happened to him as it gave him the fire to succeed. David Beckham summed it all up with “if you don’t enjoy the game, then there is no point in playing it”.

The campaign allowed viewers to get involved with the campaign through allowing them to interact with the website, posting comments on how they would run a soccer match if they could call the shots, enter into a competition to be a music reporter for Adidas and meet the biggest music celebrities, and picking an obstacle for Adidas to build at the International Skateboarding competition in London, and winning a chance for a paid trip there. This goes hand in hand with the marketing campaign, to show that no matter who you are, no matter what the game, you can play it and live the lifestyle if you put your mind to it.

At the heart of the campaign is the celebration of the game face – which is the look of glory or defeat we reveal at pivotal moments in a game. So Adidas asked its facebook fans to submit their own best game face photo for a chance to be in a special Adidas commercial that would be played at the MTW Movie Awards in June.  Adidas already engages in excess of 10 million fans of the brand on a regular basis across this platform.

One creative execution that Adidas has used is not a new one and has been used by many other brands, including Ralph Lauren, Samsung, Matell and Nike. Im talking about the use of 3D Laser Projections to give viewers an out-of-this-world experience that they will remember forever.  However, the grand scale of this particular project blew the others attempts at 3D mapping or Laser Projections out of the water. Adidas threw a laser exhibition at the “Palais du Pharo” in France, where the general public was astounded. The show featured massive projections of athletes playing basketball in the Palace and breaking it down to the beats of DJ Cut Killer. People stood amazed as jumbo-jet sized athletes and musicians did their stuff, and some even screamed when it appeared that the building was collapsing. Therefore Adidas’ strategy to get noticed and remembered, worked out extremely well as it hit newspapers and news channels all around the world. I highly recomend you watch the video, YOU WILL NOT BE DISSAPOINTED!

The use of so many celebrities is Adidas’ massive marketing push to showcase the brand’s distinctive presence across different cultures and lifestyles, fusing the world of sports, music and fashion. Erich Stamminger, a member of the executive board responsible for Global Brands said that the brand’s  “creative concept brings together the diversity of the brand under one strong roof. From the court to the catwalk, the stadium to the street, we are giving an authentic statement with the credibility only Adidas has.”  At the heart of this campaign, the marketing message to the viewers, customers and the public in general is that when you love your game, whatever the game, you put your all into it.