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.

Marketing Proposition #2: पशु-पशियों

Background:
So I was in India and I liked it, and no souvenir I acquired there has sustained my attention more than the lining of my stomach which is clearly now completely gutted. Haha. Still feeling it though. Anyway, the place is really big, right? Like almost a billion people, right? NO. WRONG! Joking. It is overpopulated to the max (is that a double positive, did I just cancel out my statement?) and has a real problem with pollution, as I'm sure many are aware. Just because there's squillions of people there doesn't mean life can't be improved a lot by something very little, though. A huge issue in India is spitting. And it is everywhere. Three square inches of the ground out of every four will be feature a lovely phlegmatic film of Indian saliva. They really suck it up to, comes right from the throats. Sometimes takes them a full minute to get the yield for a discharge. I've got no idea why they do it, unless they all have OCD and can't swallow germs, (which does make sense) but it is a huge problem because it is aiding the transition of Tuberculosis. An incredible 80% of Indians have the TB virus running rabid through their blood cells, or wherever TB likes to travel, and almost 25% of those have the naughty type, the one that kills. I saw a couple of signs on Taxis reading 'Stop Spitting, Stop TB' or whatever but what India needs is cultural change, for as many people as possible to know spitting and pissing in the street is not normal anymore because it is disgusting and der.. der.. downright dangerous. I think the government can facilitate this change through a huge awareness campaign. A TV commercial would be a great way of getting this across, but what's that you say- not everyone in India has a TV and the ones that do probably are higher class and don't spit? Wells, plenty of them do have TVs and I seens thems spit with me own eyes, I swear it. But yes, we will be spreading this fictional campaign to outdoor and radio as well to reach the main offenders.


The Campaign:
It should start with a TVC: In the first few seconds we see a dog trot up to a white wall in the street. It lifts its leg and does its business. It is a very well trained Indian dog, but that's not the point. It's meant to be WILD (there are dirty mangey dogs lurking everywhwere in the cities). So then it trots off or whatever a dog word is for jogging, and the word पशु-पशियों appears on the wall, meaning 'Animal', because the dog is an...animal. An Indian feller than walks up to the same inner city wall and the audience thinks he is going to piss on the wall but after thinking about it, he shakes his head in panto/bollywood style and walks away. As he walks away the message appears on the wall "don't be an animal. respect yourself, respect your people". This could be coupled with radio ads, billboards and maybe even producing the message on popular piss walls (although I'm sure this would only result in thousands of tricksters making a mockery of the campaign with dirty smiles on their faces and unzipped flies). Either way, addressing public hygiene in an unescapable campaign should bring this issue into the public domain, because at the moment it ain't. And this would be a victory. But we want to achieve social change here and that will take a while, we'll also need a few more public toilets as options (which there are) that are cleaned, say, once a year. But likening an act to an animal is a very simple way of telling an Indian something is dirty, just ask them. Harbhajan Singh called Symonds a Monkey remember? Well not if you ask him on the record, BUT STILL! 

-Maybe this is the answer, whatever this is.

APPlying Brandaids

So I've got the "iPhone" going. (I'm putting that in quotations because I feel uncomfortable spelling it as the logo wants me to but I also feel equally uncomfortable about being seen as making some sort of spelling mistake for a word that doesn't actually exist by writing iphone of Iphone) I am actually liking it, and I say as much to all the kids who think I've sold out by getting one. Optus stung me with some hidden charges the first bill, so I was damned pissed, and worried it might happen again. Hmm. Fear. Anyway, on to what I am thinking. It is a thought most marketing folk have undoubtedly had and probably written down but I haven't seen it yet I swears. 

So as the title suggests, I'm going to take a quick glance at Applications for the iPhone and other platforms. So I've loaded myPod up with a handful and most are good fun for three seconds. I've got one where I use tap my fingers on some sort of running track, a screen of digital bubble wrap that I can pop for hours, a Mr T quote selection and a picture of Elmo that if I touch (even if I hit the white background nowhere near his body) will cackle and say "hahahahaha you did it again", even when I did it for the first time. The best is by far the Metro Melbourne one that will tell me the next five trams closest to me and is pretty reliable. But something seems to be missing from the Apps as I browse on iTunes...Brands. Yeah you've got your Facebook and Myspace applications, but these are obviously just altered version of the social network programmes, what I'm talking about is brands creating or getting involved with iPhone applications. News services, public transport and airlines have all jumped on board, producing free applications that provide meaningful information and undoubtedly serve to enrich the whole brand experience for consumers, encouraging further usage. Eg; the Qantas arrival/departure live update app makes traveling and picking up people from airports less stressful so I'll probably be more inclined to fly or recommend Qantas over other airlines. Qantas than also becomes synonymous with organisation and efficiency. But there is probably an application for any brand to take on. I've got a To-Do List app on myPhone, which 'does the job', but what if it was the OfficeWorks To Do List? The app could be much slicker, have a blue colour scheme but try to maintain subtlety in its branding, as to not piss off consumers. The app could have a tab to a search engine for all your office needs  and then could locate your nearest OfficeWorks store. What if you typed in your To-Do list "buy a pen"? Well OfficeWorks could bring up a dozen pens to choose from. Except this app shouldn't do this necessarily, I think this could be a bit invasive and actually do more harm than good. That's why subtle branding is the name of the game here. Making a product that people enjoy that is clearly associated with a particular brand can surely only create a positive brand experience and encourage users to become brand loyal. Brand. Brand. 

Nike have started something very similar to this across myspace and Facebook with this widget. It's an App that provides Football videos and news as you choose and can be decorated in your team's colours. You can whack it on your myspace or Facebook page or on your desktop and it will update itself. The other obvious advantage is the 'Gear' tab on the widget, Nike has a captive audience for its catalogue, they can update it, play commercials with Football stars, show who's wearing what boot etc... With this app Nike is stamping its name on the game of Football, the consumer's entertainment of the game of Football should start to become seamlessly and subconsciously interwoven with the Nike brand. Now they should put this thing on iTunes. And other brands should create their own as relevant to their business. Once again, the key is 1) subtle branding and 2) a great program the target market will actually enjoy and spend a lot of time on giving a chance to engage with the brand.