Old Spice Muscle Music

Watch, and then play.


Old Spice Muscle Music from Terry Crews on Vimeo.

All kinds of awesome...

Via my colleague Liam

Using Twitter to make the gig better

A couple of great examples of how artists are using Twitter to make the live concert experience even better.

First, Enrique Iglesias asked fans to Tweet their seat number before his #EnriqueJLotour, for the chance to meet him backstage afterwards.

Guys don't forget to tweet your seat tonight when get to Staples. twitter.com/enrique305/sta…
— Enrique Iglesias (@enrique305) August 18, 2012

The message also appeared on the electronic signs at the venue.

Lots of fans did, many including pictures of themselves, which presumably helped their chances:

@enrique305 #enriquejlotour floor 5 row 4 seat 1&2 we love you enrique!lockerz.com/s/235711816
— Blanca Zaragoza (@blancazaragoza) August 18, 2012

Fans got to meet him, tweeted their pictures, and Enrique even tweeted pics of himself and the fans:

Thank you LA and Vegas you guys were amazing! Check out some of the posters from the shows. twitter.com/enrique305/sta…
— Enrique Iglesias (@enrique305) August 20, 2012

Full details and more pics on this Storify

Very smart stuff!

Second, One Direction, who use Twitter in an incredibly engaging way, always ask fans to submit questions to them, which they answer during a section of the gig.

It goes a bit like this:



Whatever you think of One Direction's music, you have to say that it looks like a fun night out!

Mobile site & experience for the Toyota GT86

My colleagues at glue isobar have made this interactive mobile experience for the Toyota GT86.

The Toyota GT86 is the first sports car by Toyota since the MR2, Supra and Celica, and has been over ten years in development.

Built in HTML5, you can swipe across the screen to rotate the car, and access menus to find out more, book a test drive or download a brochure.  Click here on your mobile, scan the QR code, or see the pics above & below:

Review - What Chinese Want by Tom Doctoroff

The publishers were generous enough to send me this book a few months ago.  I've finally read it and am writing a quick review.

I really enjoyed the book.  It's a more of a practical guidebook than a 'Malcolm Gladwell / Steven Johnson sort of book, but all the better for that.

The book starts by saying that to understand China you need to understand three main points:

A fatalistic cyclical view of world
A morally relativistic universe - stability good, chaos bad
& that the family, not the individual is core productive unit of society

then moves on to some short, to the point articles - 37 chapters in 250 pages - covering the different aspects of doing business in China, from the point of view of a Westerner, but one who's been in China for several years.

Some sample chapters:


Doing business in China
Why piracy is here to stay
The new middle class
China’s booming luxury market
Car-crazy China
China’s senior market
Christmas in China

There's even a section at the end on China’s worldview, giving brief descriptions of what they think about a number of subjects, including Japan, South Korea, the Obama brand.

Within these there are some fascinating insights.  For example: Starbucks and Ben & Jerry both theme their communication around enjoyment in public with friends - it's all about public consumption, rather than private enjoyment.  Progress as a person and perceived success is also important; McDonalds make a lot of play of education in China, for example running English lessons.

There are some good sections on Luxury.  We all know that luxury is big in China (again it's the public consumption idea), but since goods generally cost far more in China due to import duties, many who are lucky enough to travel buy luxury goods in the West.

However what successful luxury brands have been doing is to produce very small, entry level products (with the same level of quality), for example phone tags, so that even the less well off Chinese can own something by Louis Vuitton.

I think I would have liked more concrete examples like these, but that may just be the way that my mind works.  I'd strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the way China is changing, and particularly in how marketing works.

Buy the book here

Ballantine's tshirtOS

Ballantine's have produced tshirtOS - the world's first T-shirt with an operating system.  It's very fun, and the video shows the sorts of scrapes you can get into wearing it.

"The film puts tshirtOS to the test in London, showcasing what can happen when best friends Sonny and Oliver take it out for a night on the town. See who tshirtOS talks to, the dark alleys it leads them down and the dance moves it inspires. Will the tshirtOS 1024 LED screen blend in with the crowd at a Roy Lichtenstein themed party?"



Where can you get one?  Register here

Asos use Google Hangouts for a live shop-along

Brands are starting to get creative with the Hangouts part of Google+.  Asos held an hour long 'shop-along' earlier this month where Asos US editor Indigo Clarke & 'New York girl-about-town Cory Kennedy' answered fashion queries live.

Yes, numbers are still low (fewer than 200 people attended this), but it's an innovative way to use the platform.

One Direction launch their new single

Just tell people it's coming out, than let them buy it a few hours later.  No paid media.



& get the individual band members to tweet about it too (Harry Styles now has more followers than the corporate One Direction account, as well as being the 15th most popular user globally on Instagram)

A couple of hours later the video has had over 12,000 comments.

Axe on SocialCam

Axe (Lynx in the UK) are getting onto SocialCam, the mobile-orientated video service.



They've also shared the 'Susan Glenn' ad on the service.

See their channel here.  Very yoof!

You can also see the top users (by no. of subscribers) here

Earlier - Washington Post's Olympic reporting on SocialCam Although they seem to have stopped now.  Guys - it starts again next week!

Green Day's Angry Birds

Green Day are the next brand to jump on the Angry Birds juggernaut, following Rio (the film) and NASA (who presumably didn't pay).  There are 10 special levels, and a new song to unlock (dread word!).  It's all in aid of three new albums that Green Day are releasing.

More here.

From a hundred years ago (2008) - Weezer songs included in Tap Tap Revenge

Domino's partners with Local Motors to crowdsource a pizza delivery vehicle

Local Motors is a site and open source car company that lets people design their own cars for production.  So far they're most famous for the Rally Fighter (now in production).  The concept is that people design cars, or hold design competitions, and if there is enough demand they go into production.

Now Domino are using the community to hold a competition to design the perfect pizza delivery vehicle.  It'll be interesting to see what comes out of this; it could be pretty special.


Here's one of the (more sensible) competition entries.

VW Beetle on Shark Week

Great stunt, great partnership.  What a great idea to sponsor Shark Week, celebrating its 25th year. (Although I'm guessing that this might have originated with Discovery Channel, rather than the agency)



They even drove it on the bottom of the ocean



It's one ad you can't skip.

Don't Stop Me Now

It's been a fantastic fortnight.  I never wanted it to end, and we only have two weeks to wait before the Paralympics, but this is a beautiful way to remember all that's happened so far at London 2012

Monetising a blog

A couple of years ago I wrote about the menswear blog Put This On.  I had another look at it today (curiosity sparked by trying to find a male version of the Wendy's Look Book videos)

Put This On definitely isn't a male version of those (though there'd be a huge market for them if someone wants to make some), but what it has done is find a really good way of monetising.

PTO started listing cool items that were being listed on Ebay, and found that it was a really popular service.  In fact, you can see how the popularity was self defeating - suddenly lots of people were bidding for the same cool vintage sweaters and shoes.

What they've done is to produce a weekly email alerts of the best Ebay items as a subscription service, at approximately $1 a week, through Member.ly, as 'Put This On - Inside Track'

It's a very clever solution to monetising blogs that are effectively curating items around a theme, and also makes use of one of my favourite trends, managing scarcity.

Update - 2013 - they now also have an Etsy page, selling pocket squares

Member.ly offer lots of other things on subscription, including subscriptions to fine soaps, loose leaf tea, and arty prints, but sadly aren't taking on new clients at the moment.

Logo Tracking in Instagram

How do you know when people are referencing your brand, but don't mention it by name?  Do like Cadbury, and use image recognition technology to monitor for your logo.

Last week I was at the Olympic Park (Hockey - yay), and bought one of the Cadbury Gold Medals (effectively an over-sized coin, with a ribbon).

I then took a picture of it, and posted it to Instagram (& Twitter) with the caption 'Gold Medal!!!'

Within a couple of minutes Cadbury had liked it and written 'Congratulations'

Very well done...

Update - It's been pointed out that they might have just monitored Instagram & Twitter for words like 'medal'...

Zaarly's Button

It's one thing to have an app, a venue on Foursquare, a Pinterest page, an Instagram account...  But can you get a button?

This is what Zaarly have managed to do.  Zaarly is a local services company that you can use in the US to find someone to do (pretty much) any service for you from painting to dog walking to cooking.

Zaarly have now placed a button (they call it Zaarly Anywhere) on several sites alongside the existing sharing & bookmarking buttons to ask for people on Zaarly to help with related tasks.

The example sites they give on their blog are The Fancy, Remodelaholic, Cookstr, Simplified Building, Everyday Health, Ikea Hackers

A concrete example:  You like this modified table on Ikea Hackers, but you lack the time or skills to do it yourself - so you click the button, and it makes a posting on your local Zaarly to try to find someone to help.

Or, you like this recipe on Cookstr, but you'd actually like someone to cook it for you.

(Sadly it's not yet available in the UK)

More at the Zaarly blog.

Very impressive!

Brands 'Hijacking' The Olympics

A few months ago I did a post giving some examples of brand ads from official Olympic sponsors.

Now, just over a week in, here are a few from brands who are not officially associated with London 2012, but who are still trying to associate themselves in the public's minds with it.  Incidentally I don't mean anything legal by 'Hijacking', it's just that in the perception of many they are using guerilla marketing to ambush or associate themselves with the event and the coverage.

Nike

The most obvious example, trading on the 'no, not *that* London' idea



Also, this one.  Again, a different London:



Paddy Power

Also talking about a different place called London

Oddbins

Talking about a celebration, and how they can't be any more specific

"It offered a 30% discount to anyone who visits its stores with products from non-Olympic sponsors.
To qualify, customers need to visit one of Oddbins' 35 branches wearing Nike trainers and have in their pocket a set of Vauxhall car keys, an RBS MasterCard, an iPhone, a bill from British Gas and a receipt for a Pepsi bought at KFC."

Strongbow

Trading on a certain sprinter's 'archer' victory stance

Specsavers

Trading on the Olympic flag mix-up in the first day

EastPac

Ad in an email newsletter received by a colleague, and possibly less of a case of a hijack than someone not knowing the law

Beats by Dr Dre

They didn't advertise, but they did give nice headphones to athletes in the hope they'd use them on camera

Google

Google isn't an official partner as far as I know, but they've been doing a series of doodles during the games, some playable, including Hurdles and Basketball

The Guardian

Not exactly a hijack, but they re-created key moments using LEGO bricks


Please let me know about any others in the comments!

Also - here are some other examples of ambush marketing from previous events.