February 9, 2011
Posted by: Sharon Panelo - New York in North America
Earlier this week Rajat Paharia visited our offices here at JWT to speak at Social Media Week about game mechanics in marketing. (Gabe Zichermann, whom we also recently interviewed, was on the same panel.) We spoke with Paharia late last year as we were researching one of our “10 Trends for 2011,” All the World’s [...]
January 12, 2011
Posted by: Sharon Panelo - New York in North America
As a self-described “gamification thought leader,” Gabe Zichermann makes a case for using gaming principles to motivate and engage consumers. He co-authored Game-Based Marketing and chairs the Gamification Summit, which takes place later this month in San Francisco. We spoke with him about one of our “10 Trends for 2011,” All the World’s a Game—the [...]
July 20, 2010
Posted by: Sharon Panelo - New York in North America
Eco-friendly product launches increased by more than 500 percent from 2007 to 2009, reports Harvard Business Review. And green initiatives are shifting from competitive advantage to core competency, as we noted in our 10 Trends for 2010 report. As green products proliferate, and compete against each other, brands will need to focus less on eco-messaging [...]
June 15, 2010
Posted by: Sharon Panelo - New York in North America
Christopher Poole, the founder of the controversial website 4chan, argues that online anonymity empowers people to achieve unfiltered self-expression. Poole, aka moot, spoke in defense of online anonymity at a recent TED conference, and the video’s release last week prompted debate around free speech. 4chan is part of a Web landscape where, in many places, unsavory [...]
June 9, 2010
Posted by: Sharon Panelo - New York in North America
“Will 2010 be the year of the daddy blogger?” asked Fleishman-Hillard’s Jessica Smith last August on her blog. After all, 2009 saw a record number of stay-at-home dads in the U.S. (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics), a major campaign from Sony targeting daddy bloggers, and launches of community networks like Dad Blogs and [...]
Online privacy has been all over the news: Just this week a U.S. Congressman introduced draft legislation that would regulate how online ad networks use personal data and Facebook, already under fire for privacy issues, made headlines for exposing some users’ private chats. And yesterday the Lift Conference 2010 in Geneva—a Europe/Asia conference exploring the [...]
April 27, 2010
Posted by: Sharon Panelo - New York in North America
The behavior of big brands at the heart of the global economy can affect billions. As Adam Hanft recently wrote in The Huffington Post, Google‘s free-speech issues in China are symbolic of how “brands have grown large in the culture, standing for increasingly meaningful issues, belief systems that stretch well beyond their core functional benefit.” In [...]
April 19, 2010
Posted by: Sharon Panelo - New York in North America
A Hollywood twist on the future of marketing, The Joneses is a film about a “family”—really, employees of a stealth marketing agency in disguise—who use their lifestyle charisma to secretly sell upmarket goods to their suburban neighborhood. The Joneses is certainly based on real trends in covert branding. As a new platform for marketing, the [...]
April 7, 2010
Posted by: Sharon Panelo - New York in North America
The UN’s World Water Day recently brought attention to escalating global water shortages, and cities worldwide are launching ambitious projects to solve the freshwater crisis. And increasingly, brands are starting to become more proactive in water conservation. Scientific American suggests that “water footprint” labels may help consumers conserve water by exposing how much of it [...]
March 31, 2010
Posted by: Sharon Panelo - New York in North America
Is the mass market dead? The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki sees market growth for brands at the low end (e.g., the “well-priced adequacy” of Uniqlo jeans) and the high end (products that consumers consider worth the premium like the iPad), with brands in the middle languishing. Brand titans like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s will always be strong [...]
Trends on Twitter
In a post last October, we looked at innovative ideas for crowdfunding movies. The new film Iron Sky, a sci-fi comedy involving Nazis on the moon, was financed both by traditional crowdfunding (from some 10,000 contributors) and crowd-investing (around 200 people are shareholders and stand to benefit from any profits, according to Wired.co.uk). And Finnish writer-director Timo Vuorensola, who amassed fans with a low-budget Star Trek spoof, also involved the crowd in the creative process—e.g., to help with historical research, props and visual effects. This had the added benefit of creating evangelists, he told The West Australian: “When people are contributing to a film, they take ownership of it and spread the word.” Iron Sky is playing around Europe, in Australia and a few other markets, and has a North American distributor lined up. —Marian Berelowitz
Image credit: ironskyfilm
More flat surfaces are becoming screens, and more screens are becoming interactive, as we note in our 10 Trends for 2012 report. In one recent manifestation of this trend, the upscale Hong Kong Jockey Club installed several 10-by-4-foot touch-screen tables, where members can view videos and see updated race results, as well as gamble, using RFID-enabled smart cards to place bets. The tables, which each accommodate eight players, can also interact with members’ digital devices.
The Club is looking to install the tables at other tracks around the world, according to Possible, the WPP agency that created them. “Designed to resonate with the always-on tablet and smartphone generation,” screens such as these will increasingly replace formerly static flat surfaces. —Will Palley
While some are questioning how much potential remains in the Facebook gaming market, a batch of celebrities are turning out their own apps for the social network. Oprah’s Thank You Game, which aims to “help spread gratitude around the world,” was designed by game maven Jane McGonigal’s SuperBetter Labs. Jay-Z’s new Empire is based around his rise to fame, with players creating a Sims-like avatar before running empires of their own. Another famous rapper is behind 50 Cent’s Blackjack, basically a version of the casino game. And Jersey Shore’s Snooki beat them all to the punch with Match Game in February. —Will Palley
Brands are increasingly using Twitter in innovative ways—e.g., via “micro-affiliates” or for e-commerce. To help manage demand for sought-after new sneaker editions, Nike recently debuted a Twitter RSVP process that allows customers to reserve a shoe at any of a dozen U.S. stores, avoiding long lines and mayhem. Sneaker fans must follow the Twitter account of their local store, which sends a tweet at a random time on the designated day. Consumers must then direct-message the store within 60 minutes, including the product-specific hashtag, their name and shoe size. Shoes are awarded on a “first respond, first serve” basis and can be picked up on the launch day. —Will Palley
Image credit: Myrone Delacruz
Launched in late 2011, BackBid.com is a booking site that pits hotel against hotel to gain a client’s business—in the end helping the consumer to win out above all. Here’s how it works: Users book a room and post the details to BackBid.com. From there, other hotels in the area can outbid the current booking, offering lower rates or room upgrades and more amenities. Users can then accept one of the offers and rebook at the competing hotel. The model offers hotels an opportunity to fill empty beds without resorting to heavy discounting—which could ultimately cheapen the brand’s image. Instead, hotels can make savvy travelers feel like VIPs by offering a seemingly personalized discount package. But it’s a potential catch-22, since those beds might be empty due to would-be guests defecting to competitors with better bids. —Jessica Vaughn
Image credit: backbid.com
It’s one thing for a brand to have millions of followers on Twitter; it’s another to have that army doing some work for you. American Express recently started offering a credit to customers who tweet an Amex-related promotion (e.g., #AmexWholeFoods, to receive $25 off a $75 purchase at Whole Foods). U.K.-based Park Resorts, similarly, is offering savings and credits to brand followers who share promotional links.
“It’s simple and frictionless,” as Ed Gilligan of American Express told The New York Times. The ease of getting consumers to send a brand’s message certainly saves on media costs, and the message is more likely to be noted (Nielsen reports that 92% of consumers around the world trust recommendations from friends and word-of-mouth more than any other form of messaging). “Micro-affiliates,” as these consumer participants are sometimes termed, is an idea that fits well in a post-Groupon world, where deal-loving consumers respond to offers to save money they may not have spent otherwise. —Aaron Barr
Image credit: American Express
With businesses like TOMS Shoes and Warby Parker, we’ve seen the rise of the “Buy One, Give One Away” business model—a strategy we highlighted in our 2011 100 Things to Watch List. Now, we’re seeing more brands linking customer purchases to tangible do-good initiatives. Apparel maker United by Blue, a certified B Corp, says it has “one hand in the apparel industry and the other hand in waste management.” That’s because UBB vows to remove a pound of trash from oceans and waterways for each item sold (since launching in 2010, they’ve removed some 83,000 pounds of junk). The company proudly “does its own dirty work,” as the UBB website lays out, and the brand-organized cleanup events serve as organic community-building experiences for the volunteers, typically local residents. With more cause-minded products and CSR activities launched every day, socially focused efforts will increasingly need to promise tangible results so that customers associate each purchase with a measurable benefit. —Jessica Vaughn
Image credit: Unitedbyblue.com
TV networks aren’t the only ones experimenting with complementary mobile apps. Big-screen producers are seeing potential in the second screen, with movie apps that go beyond the outtakes and commentary of classic DVD extras. A $4.99 iPad app that debuted along with the Blu-ray edition of Monty Python and the Holy Grail yields the screenplay, Michael Palin’s diary and more. And if synced with a Blu-ray player, the app doubles as a remote control and surfaces pertinent extras at key points. Kids flicks are a particularly good fit: Warner Bros.’ free Happy Feet Two app, for instance, helps viewers “sing, dance, and play along” in sync with the Blu-ray. Disney offers free second screen apps for Bambi, The Lion King and Lady and the Tramp that include extras like stills, storyboards and flipbooks along with Blu-ray syncing. These apps provide a window into a future where viewers access augmented content across synced screens. —Deanna Zammit
Formerly known as Miss Bank$, 20-year-old rapper Azealia Banks has been garnering significant attention since she released her debut single, “212,” in December. She topped NME’s 2011 cool list and came third in the BBC’s Sound of 2012 countdown. The New Yorker’s first EP is set to launch April 17, and she’s working on a full-length album, Broke With Expensive Taste, while collaborating with Kanye West and Lana Del Rey. —Will Palley
Image credit: myspace.com/azealiabanks
Hang on to your popcorn. Another “dimension” is being added to the theatrical experience: physical effects. In some cases, theaters are installing seats that shift, rumble and otherwise move in sync with the action. “We are trying to reflect everything you would feel in real life without crossing that line of being like a theme park ride,” Guy Marcoux of high-tech seat manufacturer D-BOX told The Guardian. Around 3,000 D-BOX seats have been installed in theaters across North America, Japan, Germany, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand. Other 4D experiences incorporate “in-theater special effects,” like Broadway 4D, a permanent musical theater attraction planned for a long-vacant historic Times Square theater.
It seems the entertainment industry is working ever harder to create experiences that manage to entice viewers away from the big screens and high definition they already have at home. —Deanna Zammit
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