Bing a ding ding dead

So I chooned into Late night with Jimmy Fallon the other night to witness the car crash of awkwardness, pauses and presenter self- doubt that we usually see. There was an added layer of uncomfortableness this time, though, with a skit that bombed for different reasons from the usual. 

It started with Fallon donning a fake mustache, hilarious already right. He then said as follows...

"Does everyone know that new search engine'Bing'? It searches the Internet differently from the other ones. So we're going to play a little game here now we'll call 'the bing ding'. 

A visual came up that read 'the bing ding...presented
by microsoft'. The audience laughed, presumably finding the idea of corporate sponsorship of a skit funny. Fallon then invited three audience members down to three computers adorned with the Bing logo and asked them a question and the first person to get the right answer would win.There were shots of the contestants searching the Bing website and it seemed pretty effective in getting the answers quick. We then got to see the college white boy winner grinning when he was awarded a laptop with that Bing logo on it. 

So as it turned out, the whole thing was clearly an informercial, and actually was presented by microsoft.

Do you think this is the future of advertising on network television? Is this a desperate effort that is doomed to fail? Will consumers stomach this content or turn away from the provider? 

There wasn't a shred of comedy in the skit, and I sensed an uneasiness or confusion in the audience, but you know what I did during the ad break:searched Bing. So maybe there is potential, even if it is as awkward as Fallon's charisma

Image courtesy of Bing.

The big JD bet

A while back, I went to the Prince ah Wales in St Kilda and saw the undisputed greatest band in the world: You Am I. It wasn't my first time of course, but it was the first with free entry. It was the JD set. JD is for jack daniels, for those who are soft. Jack Daniels have put their foot in the rock room before with the Jack awards and are clearly trying to buddy themselves up with rock music much the same as triple m
does, but hopefully In a cooler and silkier way. 

You am I may have actually played the best gig of all the times I'd seen them, and I've shelled out 45 bucks to see them more than once, so we all left thinking it was a great night and feeling slightly like thieves, which is always better than feeling ripped off. So I left with respect for JD on one hand, but couldnt help thinkin they could have done more to seal the deal. There was a lotta punter goodwill for Jack Daniels in the Prince and most of my group were keen to sink a few of the real man's tipple. However, the feelings of lameness in asking for a bottle of the malt outdid the novelty factor. Everyone was drinking beer. But most of us expected to come and only be able to drink JD. Maybe the variety generated even more positive brand feelings from some folk, but I think a big sign 'Jack Daniels $7' would have got hundreds of punters sampling the stuff. When watching the adverdoco on The Bacardi Express on Channel V all I saw were bright cans of the white rum being shaken about by bogans. Anyway, I thought JD missed a good opportunity. 

One brilliant thing they did do, though (even if it was unintentional), was providing dozens of posters to punters as they exited. The shiny posters had a picture of my favourite ageing rockers on it so I taped it up on my wall. I then stared at it and of course saw the JD branding all over it. Jack Daniels has now entered the home of dozens maybe a hundred fans. The poster will remind them of the great night, bring up those good brand feelings again hopefully and of course also acts as an inescapable awareness advertisement. JD got itself into the home! It's like the Four N Twenty Salad Plate.

Kudos or laughs must also go to the tagline on the JD posters in the venue: 'Know when to unplug. Drink Responsibly'. Haha. We thought it was funny, and made sure our friends were unplugging when they'd had enough. Now this phrase has entered our lexicon. Good or bad? Who cares.

Baaaaa!!

What a world we live in where I would listen to a talking sheep when considering where to borrow 400 grand from. 

Craptomer Service- Myopic businesses

An apparently well known ad dude called Sergio Zymin wrote in his book 'The end of advertising as we know it' that Advertising is "everything". It’s traditional media but its also product packaging, treatment of employees and customers, promotional materials, events sponsored… etc.” everything you do communicates something about your brand to your customers and prospective customers”. Customer service is so important I reckon too, make it customer slavery, that mantra of the customer is always right. If you are serving me, you are my bitch. I'm sorry, that's the way it is. I've tasted this fresh at Subway myself don't worry, I've paid my dues! Sadly many small-minded business folk forget whose money they want and whose bitches they are, to the point where minor short term gains cloud their ability to consider that grand old bigger canvas. I have many examples in my life, because I've felt the rage many a time. I'll give two examples in some sort of scientific comparison. Example A, I went to a chemist and bought a packaged product, but realised ten minutes later after talking to a friend that it's not what I needed at all. I hadn't opened it so I took it back to get some refund action. No dice. They refused to refund me but said they would write me out a voucher for any of the crap wares they stocked in their pathetic apothecary. I was enraged, "Is that legal? You demon of a woman" I cried. This stirred up all kinds of anti corner Elizabeth St and Little Collins Chemist feelings inside me. I would spend the $20, yes, but I would never return. I hated them. Compare this to the Electric Room, who I bought a guitar tuner pedal off. After about two months with the pedal it stopped working, I don't know why. I was pretty disappointed. I sent the manager an email, and he said to send it back to him. He paid postage and sent me a NEW pedal. I had all kinds of happy feelings towards the Electric Room now, and went on to recommend it to friends, one of whom bought a grand worth of recording equipment from here subsequently, and now YOU.

See how long term gains defeat petty short term pedantiscism (that is a word as of now)?. I've been told Walmart's success is based on this idea. From the beginning the owner, who I'm assuming is named Walter Martin :), said he'll refund everything bought from the store. Urban legend has it that he even told an employee to refund a man in full for a car tyre he returned to Walmart, even though Walmart didn't sell tyres! Arrgh yes. I think we've all learned a little today.

Marketing Proposition #5

A man walks beside a road along the pavement. There are a  couple of puddles knocking about in those little chants and indentations in the road. Anyway, the dude is walking and a car speeds past and a puddle spits up all over him, in that cliched way we all know. Our dude freezes in the way you probably would, and looks a little pissed. We see him again, maybe ten minutes later or maybe a day, and he is walking again along that familiar path. He stops when we hear the sound of a car coming and we see our dude is clasping a empty drinking glass. He waits for the car to go past and it spits up the puddle but this time he catches a bit of the water in his glass. We get a close up of him then, his teeth beaming through a smile, and his glass, which is dripping with dirty brown water. He winks at us then takes to drinking his acquired fluids. Banner flashes across: Don't let water restrictions get this bad! Are you in line with your targets?

We could just use the latter part of the ad, because the situation is familiar enough, and we could also run some billboards with our dude drinking his dirty water. A potential flaw is people saying "why do we need water restrictions if there are puddles eerrrrr". These people are knobs. Ultimately, though, we will do nothing because I am in no position to produce an advertising campaign for the state government. Damn. Let's keep that rain away until I get a bit of respect and we can realise my vision.

Marketing Proposition #4: Seven Nights

So my bloggy posters are a little overwhelming on the eye for the sheer amount of characters taking up the screen I think. Most other people are writing quite short ones, mine are a bit thesis-like, but I think I need to do this so I remember all the features of my ideas when I may actually need to use them. My quest for brevity this time has been somewhat ironically hampered by this disclaiming preface. Anyway, I think this might be another long one. The good news is I think it's my best idea yet and should be stolen by someone, who I will then sue for breach of intellectual property. Ear et es...
Background
I have been a long lover of socalled 'girls drinks' since I felt compelled to conform to drinking booze but not enough to conform to male archetypes. Midori caught my eye in particular, because it was green, and tasted sweeter than straight sugar, making me wonder what could possibly be in it. Anyway, Midori never really advertised until recently when they whipped up some pretty poor (in my opinion) tram stop billboards under the title 'Welcome to Greenland'. There was an all right website attached to this campaign, predictably set out as a map of this fantasy Greenland that parties every night and is young and beautiful etc etc, but I couldn't really spot a chance for real utility marketing engagement. Where we would actually want to come to this website, come to the Midori brand, to make our lives fuller and/or easier (although there Blend A Bartender game wasn't too bad, I should be able to watch him mix the drink I ordered and be able to upload him to my blog though). So randomly this idea came into my head when someone asked me "what's good on a monday?" (for going out in Melbourne) and I thought it would work for any liquor basically but I'll go with Midori because it's quite youth targeted.

Midori Seven Nights
So first and foremost it's a website. A portal, even. A portal for partying people. I hate the word party. But that's irrelevant. I just wanted three Ps. Anyway you go to the site, sevennights.com.au (don't go there yet!) and you are greeted with all the fantasticality of the Midori greeness, it will look swish and sleek like the slickest Melbourne bar. In essence, it will be a interactive and informative portal for 18-30 year olds who are looking for something to do in the city. It's a guide to the city's best night spots, more clubs and bars then pubs though. It's like the Deck of Secrets, except it's free, more extensive and constantly updated with the latest events, Djs, drink specials etc. Nothing exactly like this exists yet to my knowledge, and it is the perfect opportunity for a brand to stamp it's name on the city and become associated with general revelry and new experiences. The key feature will be the 'Seven Nights' tab, which will lay out all your gig/club/bar options in appealing little jpeg icon poster form for a specific night (important for it not just to be soulless text listings, consumers want a feel for what the event will be). People are often in the position where they want to do something but they don't know what's on, or can't face the prospect of squinting at ink in the sadly uncomprehensive street press listings. This service can give a run down on the type of crowd that attends event Y or Z, how good their Japanes Slipper is etc. Where will all the info come from? The venues and the bars themselves. Half the business of running a drinking trough is shameless promotion, and I guarantee almost every bar would hound this service with plenty of information on acts, drink specials, guest lists etc. Heck, having this all lined up together in one spot might even bring drink prices down from fierce competition. God Bless Capitalism and the Internet. Better yet, when you sign up to Seven Nights, for the cost of an email address, members can tick boxes on what music they like, what their favourite bars are (as long as they stock Midori!) etc. and then the results for what's on will be prioritised according to personal taste. This can also start a bit of a community, with review sections for bars and a ratings system, plus a forum for people to discuss what they think the best places to go are on particular nights. The site master can take notice of this and update the website, it'll be like a wiki! It'll be social media too! The bar and club profiles will also have addresses and directions and members could plan there night on a map, send it off to friends through Facebook or even through the Midori website itself.

The obvious connection we are trying to forge with this campaign is that Midori means seven nights of partying, that Midori's always waiting behind the bar for a good time. We will be giving venues another medium for interaction with consumers (hopefully getting them on side to stock and promote Midori a bit more, we could offer industry incentives directly because we will have all there contact information in the one place) AND making consumers' lives easier, organising a night won't entail painstaking hours sifting through those crappy bar reviews from that beige and boring melbournepubs site. This will hopefully create a great, positve brand experience for consumers. We can install direct links to buy Midori, and will have a captive audience for specials, competitions, promotions and Midori-organised parties. We will be offering experiences that the audience has shown interest in, and will have extensive information on consumer tastes. It's win win win times pie. Ultimately, the site could be rolled out to more cities, but it must feel somewhat organic, like it started out in Melbourne and isn't just a hollow, short lived national promotion. The goal here is of course to shift a lot of product, and I think providing a sleek, extensive and engaging service like this to a target market that is crying out for it will put Midori on the google map of Melbourne drinking, and keep it there.

A little look at utilising utilities & Marketing Proposition #3

So I am writing a bit of a theatrical thesis at the moment on the future of advertising, and utility marketing seems to keep rising to the top as the way forward. I'm not sure what utility marketing campaign I'm going to take a close up look at yet but I have stumbled across a couple of little entertainment-based interactive campaigns that are worth taking a look at now. So I will compare two interactive online campaigns, coming from Smirnoff and Lynx, and try and put forward an argument for why Smirnoff's one is better. 

Look above. Yes it is rather big, and in the midst of an eruption that would only cause heartbreak in my house ("farrk, I lost like 5mls, that's like seven cents!), but it looks tantalising nonetheless. It is a mixed drink, entitled the 'Smirnoff Mule', that Smirnoff are trying to popularise, get it as a mixer in bars and clubs and have people making it at home (and I am completely sure it would taste nowhere near as good with another brand of Vodka, you would be an absolut ass to think otherwise). I first saw the outdoor branch of this campaign, a poster billboard at a tram stop with the above model shot of the mule and directions towards the Mule website. I googled it but I couldn't find it for a few minutes, and then I realised that it was the sponsored result at the top . The fact that I and many other people never look at the sponsored result is surely a bad sign for the efficacy of this tactic. The sponsored results should at least score a little picture to grab our eyes. Anyway I got there eventually, and went through the crap where I randomly pull numbers from the scroll downs to equate to at least 18 years ago, like I did when I was under 18 as well. I then get asked to start playing the game, and it's a little car chase with a back story, with characters named 'Ginger Beer', 'Lime' and 'Smirnoff'. Bizarre names at the best of times. Point of it though, the game was okay, a dainty little procrastinator, simple enough but actually responsive to the arrows I was hitting. I got to the second level and then my character couldn't run, only walk like the detective he was, so I became acutely aware of how much of my life I was wasting and what I was doing and closed the window. 

Result: I want to try a Mule! I know what's in one, I can make it myself pretty easily thanks to the recipe tab. This brand interaction is also helped by the, albeit annoying, presence of the 'Mule Crew' (crew is a mistake, outdated and lame) at particular popular bars and clubs and hosting 40s jazz theme parties. So they are really shoving it down your throat, litter-raa-lee, from all angles. This campaign is forcing you to take notice, but it is also creating positive audience energy towards the product, if you enjoyed playing the nifty little game. The most important part of the whole thing is that it keeps a brand focus, and continually reminds you the ingredients in a Mule. It's all about that Mule, man. Mule. Mule.

Improvements

Why not make the game an iPhone App as well, with the Recipe and updates on where those Mule theme parties are and how you can get entry.

and...

Marketing Proposition #3

Continuing my creative ramblings, I had an idea for how to engage consumers in a positive brand experience for mixed drinks. It could work with anything, but we'll go with the Mule here. Instead of having a recipe tab with the cocktail ingredients and measurements typed out, why don't brands let the consumer create one digitally? I've surfed the web waves for this, because I thought it was pretty obvious but I got nothing to make it to shore, and end this metaphor. So my idea is to make the first page (after the age identification) or the Recipe tab a little game in mixing the Mule. The user is presented with a glass, a shining bowl of crisp ice, lime splices, some ginger beer, a shot glass and the almighty Smirnoff bottle laid out in front of them. The cursor then becomes a pair of mini bar tongs (whatever they are called) and they have to scoop the ice, pour the shot, put the lime in etc. all in the right order to get a...gold star, or just a tick to know they did good. The best part of this is the sound effects. We can get all those mouth watering soundbites of the ice clinking on the glass, the shot splashing on top and the ginger beer fizzing to the brim. It'll make you want to run out and make one, surely. And the result is that the audience now can, they know the recipe, and they've hopefully enjoyed their little brand experience and have got some positive energies flowing.

Lynxing up with this is a similar campaign by Lynx for their new deoderant 'Instinct'. I thought they were finished at' Chocolate Man', that surely signalled the exhaustion of all possible macho scents. This one started with an ad (screenshot seen above left) but I was alerted to it through the first effective Facebook ad (well almost) I have come across. In the sidebar, a voluptuous woman materialises out of mist in the jungle. She is dressed in a Westerner's idea of skint tribal wear for models and she purs at you with her tiger lips. Then a weird headline comes across like "save the babe because the Ice Age is coming". "Oh no" you say, and click on the "babe" because that will somehow save her from the imminent Ice Age, which world governments must have been keeping under wraps for a while. I click, but nothing happens. I don't know if that's part of Facebook's ad conditions, but if there was a link, it weren't working. The ad told me to go to Lynxeffect.com.au, so with a groan I MANUALLY (oh my gawd) type it in the address bar. It takes me through to some animation action and some roaring of beasts and annoying bongo drumming. I have this music playing in another window right now and it is so jarring and irritating I can't keep listening. Smirnoff, meanwhile, had a cool double bass run going on and I didn't close it down for about 15 minutes. Worse still, when you actually get into the game (after 15 minutes of signing up to a bullshit form that keeps denying you because usernames are taken and other excuses) this crap music keeps going. Basically, there were too many 'out' opportunities for me with the interactive arm of the campaign: The "music", the signup, the ten pages of rules to the game (it should be simple), my inability to play the game after refusal to read manual, the crappy generation -1 Gameboy graphics and game play, bizarre storyline and THE MUSIC. 

Result: I feel genuine brand annoyance towards Lynx, and honestly don't want to even test their pungent cans. Is this incredibly simple and insulting boy puts Lynx on, boy gets hussy for sex cause-effect-chain going to be Lynx's gospel forever? If it ain't broke don't fix it I suppose, but I'm sick of it and their every step is reeking of Deja Voodoo. There is their next can brand, maybe.