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A case in point is a brand experience where real and virtual worlds intersect, called The Grid. A mobile social network that allows users to chat with friends, locate them on a map and share media, The Grid is a first for the African continent. Part Facebook, part Flickr, and a dash of Twitter combined with a GPS-type navigation system, The Grid allows customers to share their lives in a mobile location-based matrix with all of their friends. The application is all about socializing on the go. If users want to have a cup of coffee with a friend, all they need do is log into The Grid to see which friends are nearby and tag the location of a nearby coffee shop. Then they send a coffee invitation with directions to tempt their mate to pop on over. If the coffee drinking duo wants more friends to join them, they can log in again and type up a blog, message or record a quick video and invite everyone who’s free and happens to be nearby. Because The Grid displays the user’s approximate position on a street map, everyone can easily see where friends are and what they are doing where. Users from any network can join in because the independent and network-neutral application was developed to showcase innovative new technologies to all South Africans. “There are several areas where users get significant value when interacting with The Grid,” says Vincent Maher, portfolio manager for social media at Vodacom. “The service enables low-cost and real-time conversations, as well as an opportunity to meet new people and interact with them via mobile phones. Then users can create the mobile equivalent of a blog by combining multimedia elements and maps to show where the content was created. The Grid is a highly social environment, and what we are seeing is that people love to share their experiences and contribute to creating a social map of their experiences across all walks of life in South Africa.” The Grid is offered as a free or value-added service to users, who only pay for the data usage from their mobile phone to access the service. “Right now people are using The Grid to meet and interact with friends and new people, and to share their experiences through photos and stories about the things they do in their day-to-day lives. The service is busy most of the day, but usage peaks in the evenings when people are home from work and relaxing,” Maher says. The winner of the New Telecommunications Service at the Comms MEA Awards—held to recognize outstanding performance in the Middle East and African telecommunications sector—The Grid’s branding plays a significant role in promoting the larger Vodacom brand as a technological mover and shaker. Not only does it underscore innovation as a key brand value, but it does so in a way that is completely experiential. What’s more, it is changing the way marketing is delivered by offering a new paradigm for brand messaging. “The Grid demonstrates how the physical and digital can be meshed to create a more compelling and relevant marketing message,” Maher says. “By tying location to the delivery of messages it means small businesses finally have a viable digital platform to advertise on, and this means that bigger brands can leverage multiple locations simultaneously to interact with their customers in an interesting, innovative way. There are a lot of very interesting ways that brands can leverage The Grid to integrate digital and mobile campaigns with the physical world. The revenue model has been developed in such a way that deeper integration can be done to encourage users to go to specific places as part of a promotion. Another element of the model is the ability to deliver location-targeted advertising, which makes the content of the ads more relevant. At the heart of The Grid is the digital marketing “holy grail”—the viral effect. “Usage is driven partly by viral growth as users invite their friends to join and partly by innovative media integrations,” Maher says. The more friends users have on The Grid, the more they can get out of the service and the more they can do with it. “The stickiness is directly connected to how many friends a user has and the quality of conversations. The ability to meet new people without revealing your mobile number is also very appealing and, as users become more advanced, they start to use the features like the street maps and content uploads,” he says. To launch the new service, Vodacom commissioned the world’s first geo-tagged documentary for mobile phones, which centered on the issue of youth culture in South Africa’s biggest urban township, Soweto. Called Mobikasi (literally translated this meansmobile township), the mobile documentary utilizes The Grid’s location-based service capabilities to tag real-life physical locations and link them to relevant content in the movie. When users look at the film, they can explore Sowetan youth culture on their mobile phones from anywhere in South Africa through The Grid’s map interface, or by physically touring the famous township and watching documentary clips on their phones at the locations where they were shot. Mobikasi features people, music, fashion, social issues and places of interest and is unique in that it is not linear in nature. Rather, Mobikasi splits the content up into 25 one-minute inserts, and each is geo-tagged to the location where it was shot. This means that viewers can now explore Soweto’s vibrant youth culture by virtually “traveling” through a mobile street map of the township and stopping off at points of interest to enjoy the short video clips about each destination. The mobile documentary has proved so successful that a second season of Mobikasi is on its way and will take place in other townships around South Africa. In short, The Grid is a smart social networking solution with a branding strategy and message that targets a continent where mobile connections are more pervasive than television, the radio or the Internet. |
We grew up and were always pals with Tropic-Ana. She not only graced the packages of Tropicana, but she was on the outside of the bright orange CSX freight trains that ran from Palmetto/Bradenton Florida to packaging plants up north.
Yes, she was topless, but somehow it was covered over by a nice sort of necklace that always stayed positioned PERFECTLY.
She was gradually phased out, somewhere in the 1990s
Client: WorkSafeBC
Agency: Wasserman + Partners, Vancouver
Creatives:
Liam Greenlaw (Creative Director)
Terry Lin (Art Director)
Allen Forbes (Copywriter)
Claire Khan (Agency Producer)
Country: Canada
Other Credits:
Vice President and Managing Director: Pauline Hadley-Beauregard
Broadcast Producer: Kylie Leathem
Digital Producer: Liv Hung
Developer: Engine Digital
Media Planner: Antonella Frustaci
Brand Activation Team: Oliver Flaser, Anne Buch, Rachel Legge
Production Company: Craven Studios, Vancouver
Director: Liam Greenlaw
Director of Photography: Ian Kerr
Editor and company: Don Macdonell, JMB Post Production, Vancouver
Audio Post-Production Company: Davor Valuma, Wayne Kozak Audio Productions
Wrigley’s 5 Gum is a premium sugar-free stick gum that delivers a long-lasting flavour and a sensory experience with each flavour. So the ‘Rain’ flavour was a tingling spearmint, ‘Cobalt’ was a cooling peppermint, and ‘Elixir’ was a mouthwatering berry. There were also flavours that transformed halfway through chewing, so ‘Solstice’ started off feeling warm before turning cool and ‘Zing’ went from sour to sweet. This range of gums had a very strong visual identity and the brand message “rediscover your senses”. This was a gum which made a statement beyond just making your breath smell nicer after you’ve eaten onions.
The brand has launched a wide range of marketing activity, including a series of very strong TV ads, playing heavily on the sensory experience of the gum and appealing to teens and young adults. It also had a strategy to partner with cutting edge fashion brands, musicians, putting on a series of events featuring interactive artworks and hot DJs.
One of the most intriguing elements to the campaign was an augmented reality DJ application. The brand created “The 5 Mixer”, which allows people to mix together club music via Augmented Reality markers. Users print off four symbols from their computer, cut them out and position them in front of their webcam. There are 3 main markers that are linked to different tracks and a master marker that links them all together. Budding gum DJs can select between techno, electro and hip-hop music and then move the 3 markers away from the master marker at different angles and distances to change the volume and effects for each track. If one of the 3 track markers is moved towards the master, that track gets louder. Covering the symbol turns that track off completely and spinning the marker produces different sounds.
Unlike real mixing, it is impossible not to beat-match the tracks, but the results are varied and pleasing – especially for the wannabe DJs found inside most teenagers. Having mixed their track, users can upload their demo and have it rated by their peers. They can also share their mixing mastery with their friends on Facebook and other social networking sites.
