If you're a publicist or marketing trying to get your message to America's youth, what would be your best course of action: Surreptitiously edit a Wikipedia page about whatever you're pushing; book an expert to trump up your brand on a radio show; spam an online forum; get the kids talking about your gimmick on Facebook; or hound a business magazine editor until she agrees to plug you in a write up. According to "Edelman Trust Barometer 2008," an annual survey about trust, the youth demo is more likely to believe anything they see in that last option: business magazines. But if you don't have the connections to score a half-page in one of those rags, at least breathe easier knowing your official press release is still seen as more trustworthy than anything on YouTube. CONTINUED »
M&M's Red, Blue, and Green; the Geico Gecko; Aflac Duck; Poppin' Fresh (aka The Pillsbury Doughboy); Tony the Tiger; and the Energizer Bunny all top Forbes' list of America's favorite, and most recognizable, "spokescreatures." Companies are said to enjoy these fictional characters representing their brands because, unlike actual celebrities with recognizable faces, Bugs Bunny and Chester the Cheetah are not likely to enter rehab, demand to renegotiate their contract, carry a 12-page rider, or need frequent Botox treatments. Even Playboy understood this, which is why they chose a bunny instead of a vagina that would need constant rejuvenation. The bunny did not make Forbes's list.
This Louis Vuitton trash bag is fake. News that Kanye West is designing for Louis Vuitton is not.
This Absolut ad is fake. This Absolut infomercial ad featuring Kanye West is not.
And this screaming rant written by Kanye West? Alas, it is also true.
And so it is, the return of the viral video onslaught. This spot, so obviously from Adidas (promoting its Ajax shirt), is shot in the public square in Amsterdam's Leidseplein district. We're only about six days in, so don't judge the video's mere 60,000 views as a measure of success, or failure, just yet. But it's a clever video, and we enjoyed watching it, and it's the type of thing worth emailing to your friends or posting to Fark. And most importantly, it doesn't leave you looking stupid as you try to guess whether some fanboy orchestrated the whole thing, or a guerilla marketing agency.
Generally what a giant company employs illicit methods to build buzz about its product, it does not proceed to brag about them. But under CEO Dan Hesse, who insists on appearing in black and white commercials, nothing about Sprint makes sense these days.
In order to build interest about its new Samsung Instinct phone, the wireless carrier is asking filmmakers to plug the phone in a video they post on YouTube — the first 1,000 get $20 and the winner gets a $10,000 grand prize. Under normal circumstances, Sprint might be able to get away with the stunt by saying it merely aims to reward promising young directors with a little cash stipend while getting first-hand experience in product placement.
But they're not even trying to hide behind an excuse. Instead, they think they're in the joke! CONTINUED »
The second-best column in the New York Times Magazine, next to The Ethicist, is Consumed. Written by Rob Walker, who claims to have created the term "murketing," and noted by the "$ / ¢" stamp, Consumed explains in just a few hundred words each week why we spend the way we do. (This week he told you why you buy a certain snack, because you believe it to be healthy, when it isn't really.) Walker's out with a new book, Buying In — that we'll file in on our Consumer Trend Books That Are Actually Interesting shelf next to titles like Maxed Out — which is like pages and pages of his excellent magazine column rolled into things called chapters and billed with the buzzworthy promise to take on a tour of the "consumer-persuasion industry." Who knew it'd be such a suspense-thriller? CONTINUED »
Know what marketing gimmick is really going to piss people off? More than those blinking LED things that the Cartoon Network hid around Boston leading to terrorism fears?
These "landmine stickers" that Unicef is deploying.
They're laid on the ground upside-down, so the sticky side is on the top, which will stick nicely to your shoe when you step on it. (They're even camouflaged to match the type of pavement they're placed on.)
Then, when you've realized you've got something stuck to your shoe, you're supposed to bend down to pull it off, feel relieved it's not gum, and then see a special message about the world's landmine problem. Calling Unicef to complain about the sticky glue residue left on your shoe is optional.
Click below to see it in action. CONTINUED »
Performance "artist" Charlie Todd, founder of Improv Everywhere, which carries the slogan "We Cause Scenes," is famous for those "freeze crowds," where a group of participators suddenly freeze for a minute or two in a public place while everybody around them wonders what's going on. It's the new flash mob and, like its Internet-organized cousin, will grow tiresome very quickly. But alas, here we are plugging Todd's latest antics, at a Taco Bell opening in Flushing.
Our favorite audience member? This fella: "I think we should probably cut this guy. 'Cause this guy isn't moving."
Except at the end of the video, you'll notice a corporate plug: Head in to any participating Taco Bell for a free Frutista Freeze. Get it? Freeze? Is this evidence that Todd, who pulled off the very entertaining Grand Central Terminal freeze, has finally sold his art to corporate?
With his 10-year Pepsi contract coming up next year, David Beckham is said to be considering cutting ties from the soda king to branch out on his own … and create his own line of water. If his past endorsements (Emporio Armani, Sharpie) are any indication, attaching his name to virtually any product is a way to create buzz, if not boost sales. One source told Britain's Mirror, "He has an idea for creating a range of healthy products, including water." Uh huh. Pepsi, of course, has its own water label: Aquafina. But much of this sounds like a well-orchestrated plan to leak items ahead of Beckham's Pepsi contract termination, laying the groundwork for the idea that the soccer star wants to go out on his own, when all he really wants is a higher-paying new deal with Pepsi.
To drum up buzz for her single "7 Things" and its Brett Ratner-directed music video release, Disney starlet Miley Cyrus claims the song is about an ex-boyfriend who she wants "to be upset. That was my point. Maybe after my video we'll hear from somebody, because it's pretty honest." Naturally, the finger pointing lands squarely on Jonas Brothers star Nick Jonas, as the two were said to have dated last year — but let's not play pretend: the whole scenario was very likely a Mickey Mouse orchestrated set up to drive interest in their brands. And now that the two have "split" (just in time to promote the tour)? The perfect time for a "boys suck!" anthem!
Know what it's also perfect time for? Speculating on another break up … between Miley an Disney. CONTINUED »
With all the fuss being made over J.C. Penney's real-but-not video spot that won a Cannes Bronze Lion, we were pleased yesterday when some actual marketing stunts arrived from Dexter, the Michael C. Hall series about a lovable serial killer.
First, there was Dexter’s Wrapping Paper ("Due to its impermeability and adhesion keeps the victim well wrapped and the floor free of blood splatter. Avoiding leaving clues and traces of any crimes."), which carried information about the series printed on the plastic wrap itself.
Then there was this guerilla stunt, with a piece of fake meat on display in a butcher's window.
And then came two truly captivating stunts: One involving a urinal, the other involving a dead guy on the street. CONTINUED »
Vera Wang, who's lent her name to everything from Serta mattresses to HP computers, will now lend it to Brides.com. In the form of a byline. The designer today begins blogging there for the week, which, as we guessed before we even clicked on over, is less an opportunity for Ms. Wang to wish you a happy ever after than a chance to plug her latest offering: VeraWangWeddings.com.
We've spent many instances of clicking "publish" discussing viral marketing or, as it's known in some circles where buzzwords don't annoy, "murketing." From Levi's uploading a video to YouTube featuring young people jumping into pants to LG's not-exactly-secret-but-very-creepy spot for its Secret phone, the trend of paying very little for a video spot that reaches a much wider audience than a TV spot ever could is a growing one.
Auto maker BMW and its agency GSD&M understood this quite well, which is why they spent a few bucks on a five-day shoot to produce a half-hour mockumentary, in the style of This Is Spinal Tap, about a Bavarian's town attempt to launch a new BMW 1 Series, via ramp, from Germany to the United States.
When the clips began popping up in February, it wasn't long before most everybody called bullshit on them, and linked the spots, part of a campaign called "Rampenfest," to BMW. The car company, however, refused to acknowledge it was behind the project. More so, they even went the additional step and "created a Web site for the fictional events planner, Franz Brendl, and the fictional Bavarian town of Oberpfaffelbachen. Several characters, including the faux film maker, got their own Facebook profiles."
Now, the Wall Street Journal issued a postmortem on the stunt, which argues BMW could've faced significant backlash for its unconventional – though, these days, all too conventional – attempt at reaching younger consumers, by refusing to own the spots when they were found out. CONTINUED »
Is Lil' Wayne the record industry's last hope? After 2005's 50 Cent album release, The Massacre, you would've been hard pressed to find a record exec who would've predicted another album to move more than a million units in its first week. After all, since 50 Cent's record three years ago, even grandmothers got broadband Internet in their homes and figured out how to use iTunes; things were supposed to get worse for the industry. And, while anyone from Sony to Bad Boy will tell you they have, Lil' Wayne's Tha Carter III, shipping just over 1 million copies in the first week since its June 10 debut, represents an anomaly.
So how come it was Lil' Wayne, and not even the likes of world superstar and egomaniac Kanye West, who accomplished the impossible? CONTINUED »
To promote justhowclose to the action it gets, and its impressive ratings, ESPN sent media buyers in Asia these "You can't get closer" eyeball packages, created from actual basketballs, footballs (sorry, soccer balls), and baseballs. The direct marketing campaign supposedly drew "extremely positive" reactions from recipients, who promptly kicked the thing down their office stairwells because it kept staring at them.
(Click below for larger version) CONTINUED »
It's with great sadness that we can no longer watch videos like this one – entitled "People's encounters with wild animals in daily life" – without immediately jumping to the conclusion that it is a fake and, worse, that it was put together by a creative marketing agency with a product to push.
These viral videos, named for their inclination to spread like the nasty crap that'll force you to the ER at 4am with a burning sensation, are now becoming the territory of corporate America. And lately, these murketing efforts have simply stopped making sense.
Sure, there are the obvious videos, like the one where young people are taped finding various ways to jump into a pair of jeans, courtesy Levi's. And then there's the other end of things, like that "office freakout" video that had almost nothing to do with the project it was promoting (the movie Wanted).
So who's behind this one? It could be the work of somewhere that makes sense, like the San Diego Zoo. Or maybe it's a Frisbee company. (You'll have to watch the video to understand that.)
The now-infamous video of the "security camera catches office freakout," which was exposed as a fraud almost as quickly as everyone assumed it to be, turned out actually to be a viral gimmick for the new Angelina Jolie movie Wanted, from Timur Bekmambetov.
So how does this clip, which shows a cubicle sufferer absolutely lose it in front of his coworkers, fit in with what the movie is about?
Because, as some Russian translating reveals, the movie is about escaping your everyday life, just as the loon in the video wants to. Ehhhh, that's a stretch.
Luxury brands are finally facing the recession like the rest of us: in a fetal position. When the U.S. economy first started tanking, upscale goods companies like Louis Vuitton and Cartier weathered the storm, since the rich are never too affected by things like higher gas prices, mortgage meltdowns, or George Bush's fiscal policies, which means they get to keep buying $14,000 luggage trunks (as coffee tables) and $145,000 watches (as bureau adornments). And then a funny thing happened: Eventually, the recession caught up with even the uber-wealthy, and their luxe spending dipped. Tiffany only posted decent financial reports because of international sales.
So what's a luxury brand to do to entice customers? Espiecially in the scary world of the Internets? CONTINUED »
At last(?), the mystery behind the videos of cell phones supposed popping corn, which has been seen nearly 2 million times, is solved: It's an ad. For Cardo Systems.
Surprise!
Oh, murketing, that buzz word describing the stunts pulled by Levi's, Coor's Light, and Nike, which produce stunt videos, post 'em on YouTube, and wait for viewers to eat them up. Unlike TV spots, the clips are cheap to produce, free to distribute, and find audiences in the hundreds of thousands and beyond with a creative that people want to watch.
And: We fully support them.
Editorial Director
