HP :::Serena Williams endorses HP

BRAND OWNER:Hewlett Packard
CATEGORY:Electronic Goods
REGION:India
DATE :Mar 2008 - Apr 2008


Hewlett Packard dominates the notebook market in India with its two brands - Compaq and HP Pavilion.

Due to its price premium, HP Pavilion is the more lucrative brand, so HP wanted to position this brand as amore fashionable laptop.

To make HP Pavilion a fashion brand, it needed to be seen by the right people in the right place.

HP Pavilion sponsored Indian Fashion Week in Delhi and, recognizing that celebrity endorsement is 62% more influential in India than elsewhere, decided to leverage the HP ambassador Serena Williams, who was visiting at the time to play the Bangalore Open.

While she was a tennis icon, she was not immediately associated with fashion. HP discovered that Williams adored hip designer duo Nikhil & Shantanu – the toast of Indian fashion. So the designers were commissioned to create a collection based on the skins of the limited imprint edition HP Pavilion for Williams to wear.

HP created 12 fashion-themed road shows in regions near Delhi as well as an online campaign and TV campaign on Fashion TV. HP also held a press conference with Serena Williams following the Bangalore Open, held as part of Fashion Week. It was staged as a fashion show, with Serena walking the catwalk with models wearing the Nikhil-Shantanu collection.
The entire cost only around $200k USD. The Limited Edition version of the HP Pavilion was out of stock in within two months.

The Nintendo Game Boy Timeline

Contest replaces ad campaign for Nissan launch

If contests can be used to fill a job or promote a region of the world, why couldn't they launch a car?
That's apparently the thinking at Nissan Canada, which recently kicked off a competition to select 50 people to win a free 2009 Nissan Cube.

Nissan Canada's hypercube contest is a unique social media campaign to promote the company's new Cube vehicle, which launches in May. Rather than embark on yet another mass-media advertising campaign, Nissan and Capital C—its creative partner in the effort—have chosen to tap the creativity of Canadian consumers.

Back in March they invited up to 1,000 Canadian musicians, DJs, dancers, programmers, designers, bloggers, podcasters, poets, writers, storytellers and artists—"anyone who considers themselves creative, hip, interesting or unique"—to explain via survey and Twitter why they should be selected to audition for one of the winning 50 spots.
From that initial group the top-scoring 500 individuals were selected to audition via Facebook, Twitter and the hypercube site using photos, videos, illustrations or other media to demonstrate how they personify the Cube brand. (Current examples can be found here.)
Due to wrap up in mid-May, auditions will be evaluated by a panel of independent judges based on uniqueness, creativity, personality, enthusiasm, survey responses and peer voting. Consumers can register to vote on the hypercube site, and the 50 winners of the brand-new Cube will be announced in mid-June.
With advertising clutter and consumer skepticism at the heights they are, it's no wonder clever marketers are turning to alternative methods to break through the din.
The contests will continue to come fast and furious, we expect—why not try one out for your net-savvy brand? (Related: Scion drives into Second Life.)
Website: www.hypercube.ca
Contact: joncube@hypercube.ca

Lyntoto:::Betting on women

BRAND OWNER:Norsk Rikstoto
CATEGORY:Sport/Leisure
REGION:Norway
DATE :Apr 2008 - Aug 2008


Norsk Rikstoto is an independent foundation established by the Norwegian Trotting Association and the Norwegian Jockey Club.

Betting on horses is big business in Norway, but the foundation was seeing its consumer base of men over the age of 40 dwindle.






Lyntoto is a gambling product aimed at those who don’t really understand horse racing and trotting. An automated system uses form and rankings to pick the horses the customer bets on in seven different races that take place every Saturday.
Norsk Rikstoto isolated women aged 25-55 as a key untapped target audience for Lyntoto. The women they wanted to attract were“fortune gamblers”, i.e. attracted by big prizes but with little understanding of the sport. The campaign revolved around a humorous gambling kiosk owner called Tor who explains to younger customers how to bet on the horses with Lyntoto. This was launched on TV, online, radio and in print.
By targeting such an different audience, Lyntoto increased its sales by 16.5% and continues to run into 2009.

Whiskas::: Let's purr together

BRAND OWNER:Mars
CATEGORY:Pet Care
REGION:Hungary
DATE:Jan 2008 - Mar 2008


Whiskas is market leader in Hungary, but it was under threat from competitors including own-label products. It needed to push the emotional brand connection it had started to establish with its regional them of “let’s purr together”, especially in the more competitive dry food sector.

Whiskas’ target audience was women aged 35-55 who don’t just look for functional features in cat food, they look for the product that will most satisfy their feline friends.
A cat’s purr is the universal sign of feline satisfaction, so Whiskas strategy had to exploit it via audio and audio-visual channels.

Whiskas created an owner-purring contest which ran on Hungary’s most popular national morning radio show.

Participants applied by SMS to purr on air and prizes were given out to the best purring owners. In-store there were displays triggered by motion-sensors.

When someone passed the displays, the movement triggered the message: “Meoww, purr, irresistibly tasty Whiskas dry food with pocket kibbles”. This was supported by a microsite and a TV and radio campaign.

The in-store programme was particularly successful, delivering a 16% sales volume uplift for the Whiskas dry portfolio.

Starburst::: Share something juicy

BRAND OWNER:Mars
CATEGORY:Confectionery/ Snacks
REGION:USA
DATE:Jun 2008 - Dec 2008

Confectionary brand Starburst had aggressive growth goals in 2008 and wanted to revitalize itself among 18-24 year olds online, with the launch of a new product, GummiBursts.

Starburst realised that for 18-24 year olds, the digital space provides the setting to create the identity they want the world to know. They use every opportunity to share themselves with anyone who will pay attention. The Share Something Juicy campaign connects the candy to insights about today’s TMI (Too Much Information) culture, where people's personal moments are captured and broadcast more than ever.

The campaign is highlighted by partnerships with popular vloggers, entertaining viral videos about sharing, with creative control given over to vloggers to create videos that show what happens when people share everything in their minds – Moments in Sharing.

Starburst also produced, in partnership with Nest New Networks, Nite Fite - an episodic cartoon series in which Starburst was integrated into the fabric of the show. Within the cartoon, two talk show hosts share their feelings about the challenges of their new sponsor, Starburst, in an interesting twist on a traditional media sponsorship.

Nite Fite and vlogger videos combined to deliver nearly 11 million engaged video views. The GummiBurst launch creative received strong branding, with the new product messaging driving a 14% lift in purchase intent and brand favourability among the target.

Ariel::: Think about wasting water

BRAND OWNER :Procter & Gamble
CATEGORY :Household Goods
REGION :Germany
DATE :Jul 2008 - Sep 2008


Ariel is one of the two big players in the German detergents market, with competitor Persil benefiting from a strong heritage of over 100 years. Ariel needed to position its product and communication strategy to appeal to people's support of sustainalble consumption, which is still strong even in times of economic strain.
Ariel's target is environmentally conscious, but only when it is at little extra effort and saves money.

Ariel's new detergent technology allows the consumer to forego the pre-wash, saving water and money. The challenge was to educate the target to the scarcity of water as a natural resource and to the financial cost of over consumption.

Ariel started with a pre-launch phase before the official start of advertising. To sharpen the targets awareness Ariel used 10 TV Specials: "Surprising water facts" spots from daily life.

Questions like 'did you know that you consumed 160 litres of water yesterday?' - were placed within Sat. 1 breakfast TV, catching the target as she starts her daily routine.

Once awareness had been sharpened, the target was invited to share their own water saving tips. Prizes worth 20,000 Euros were used as incentive, and the education was continued on Sat. 1's online portal. Underscoring this campaign was the fact that using Ariel allows you to give up your pre-wash, and do your bit for the environment.
In September 2008 Ariel took over market leadership in volume (+3.4ppts ahead) from long-time German market leader Persil for the first time.

Shredded Wheat :::Putting the "NO" in Innovation

In a time when many food products are being enhanced with super ingredients and altered to match the latest diet trends, one food brand is bucking marketing trends and embracing its lack of innovation.
After more than 100 years, Post Original Shredded Wheat cereal continues to be made with one simple, honest ingredient 100% natural whole grain wheat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULzt2rZjT4Q

Social networking trends

which recently announced that more than one million social networks have been created using its service, is currently the 2nd fastest growing social networking property. Its traffic is up 283 percent year-over-year, and it now reaches a total of 5.6 million people in the US.

which we recently reported saw a one month surge of nearly 50 percent on the heels of a redesign and AIM integration, has grown 148 percent in the past year, and now reaches more than 6.1 million people in the US.This is significant because Bebo is known mostly for being big overseas, but insignificant in the US. The next few months will tell us if this was a one-time pop thanks to AIM integration or a continued trend thanks to some innovative things Bebo is doing with Socialthing.

continues to be one of the quickest growing social sites and has more than doubled its size in the past year. It now reaches better than 15.8 million people in the US, ranking it 3rd in total size behind Facebook and MySpace. It’s no doubt being buoyed by the weak economy and high unemployment as people turn to the site and their connections to find work.

As for “the big three,” the story remains much the same.

is now growing at a mind-boggling 2,565 percent. In total, it reached more than 13 million people in the US during the month - and that’s just on its website (i.e. - not counting clients like TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop). Next month will likely see this total continue to swell, thanks to huge mainstream media events like Ashton Kutcher versus CNN and Oprah jumping onto Twitter.

continues to extend its lead over MySpace. In March, it saw 69.1 million visitors, versus 55.9 million for the News Corp-owned social networking site. In fact, MySpace was the only social networking site measured in the Nielsen survey that saw its traffic decline year-over-year.

Word Of Mouth Visualized

As it says visually, we have three potential scenarios. Promoters, passives and detractors.

• Passives :who have mediocre experiences don't talk about them and so there is no conversation around the subject (this is where most word of mouth marketing initiatives fail).
• Promoters have a good experience and tell people about it,
• Detractors who have a bad experience with something tell even more people about it.

Word of mouth isn't always positive, it's often negative and that's where there's opportunities to engage detractors, change opinions and improve products and services.

Coca Cola's corporate responsibility

Ivendo Positivamente for South America

Live Positively for the US