5.9.09

Why People Use Twitter?

JULY 28, 2009


Updating status = self-promotion?

What drives people to tweet?

According to the “Consumer Internet Barometer” from TNS and The Conference Board, 41.6% percent of Internet users who used Twitter did so to keep in touch with their friends.

Reasons that US Internet Users* Use Twitter, by Gender and Age, Q2 2009 (% of respondents in each group)

In addition, 29.1% used it to update their status, 25.8% to find news and stay updated, 21.7% for work purposes and 9.4% for research.

Men and women both used Twitter primarily to keep in touch with friends. Secondarily, men were interested in finding news and women in updating their status.

Users under age 35 were more interested in broadcasting their status than their senior counterparts. Older users were more likely to use the service for work-related purposes.

The average Twitter user interacted primarily with friends and family.

Organizations/People Whom US Internet Users* Interact with on Twitter, by Gender and Age, Q2 2009 (% of respondents in each group)

Next-most-popular were celebrities, bloggers, TV shows, co-workers, brands and journalists.

More women interacted with friends, family and celebrities than men, but men were more likely to follow bloggers.

Older users trailed younger ones in interaction with every Twitter user type except journalists and brands.

Who can Twitter users blame for their addiction? One-half of tweeters said a friend or family member introduced them to the site and 33% were hooked by a co-worker.

HSBC: Phone banking

HSBC Phone Banking. Bank anytime

Advertising Agency: PomatoAsia, Jakarta, Indonesia
Creative Directors: Herman Tan, Andri Kong
Art Director: Dedi Setiawan
Copywriter: Herman Tan
Photographer: Widarto Adi
Published: July 2009

Nickelodeon / Safe Kids USA: Chicken





Tool Director Harry Cocciolo and Nickelodeon Creative Advertising collaborate to deliver an urban twist on the age-old joke "Why did the chicken cross the road?" for Nickelodeon. This time around it's a joke with a sobering punch-line. As cell phones, mp3 players and text messaging become greater distractions to pedestrians and drivers alike, Nickelodeon has teamed up with Safe Kids USA to launch a new campaign aimed at making kids aware of the dangers of technological distractions. Chicken opens with a cool hen strutting down a city street as it pumps the latest jam in its headphones. When the bird fails to notice the "Don't Walk" sign flashing at the intersection, it continues to cross into oncoming traffic and meets a "fowl" demise. The message is clear and humorously executed by Cocciolo. It doesn't matter why the chicken crosses the road, what truly matters is that its paying attention. So when walking in the city, take off your headphones, stop texting while walking and get off your phone. Paying attention saves lives.

Via: http://adsoftheworld.com
Advertising Agency: Nickelodeon Creative Advertising, USA
VP/Creative Director: Pete Johnson
Design Director: Juan Carlos Gutierrez
Head Writer: Jared Elliotta
Project Manager: Mike Zermenoi
Producer: David DeLuca
Prod Company: Tool of North America
Director: Harry Cocciolo
DP: Mark Plummer
EP(s): Brian Latt, Jennifer Siegel
Line Producer: Lauren Bayer
Production Designer: Joaquin Grey
Editorial: Final Cut
Editor: Akiko Iwakawa
Producer: Brian Semple
Telecine: Technicolor/Complete Post
Aired: August 2009

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS):::Globe of fortune

The travel industry has been hamstrung by the economic crisis, with people being cautious with their cash and opting for "staycations" (holidays that don't involve overseas travel).Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) wanted to drive business by releasing 650,000 low fare tickets on all SAS routes worldwide. SAS wanted to encourage people to be more spontaneous and impulsive with their flight purchases, breaking through people’s widespread financial caution, given the tough economic climate. The aim was to give people an excuse to leave it all behind.

SAS teamed up with Facebook to create an application that centred around spontaneity. The result was the SAS Globe of Fortune. Visitors to www.sasglobeoffortune.com are greeted with a globe application that links to their Facebook profile. Players get to choose their preferred Scandinavian departure airport and then spin the “globe of fortune”. This then randomly selects a destination, ranging from Europe to Dubai and Bangkok. They then get to randomly select one of their Facebook friends from a carousel to go on the trip with.

Players get 10 spins in total to find the best combination, be it going with their ex-boyfriend to Kiev or with a new best friend to Chicago. Having found the right destination they must submit a reason why they should get that trip for free. Players have to be at least 18 and have at least 25 Facebook friends. The competition runs until the end of August and 100 people will win a Globe of Fortune trip for two.

BRAND:SAS

CATEGORY:Travel/Airlines

REGION:European

DATE:Aug 2009 - Sep 2009

AGENCY:Crispin Porter + Bogusky

MEDIA CHANNEL

Mobile or InternetRetail or POS





Trident:::Musical Chairs

To advertise its exclusive Beyonce concert at the O2 Arena in November, chewing gum brand Trident wanted an innovative way of getting everyone in the mood to get up and dance. Its solution: a mass game of musical chairs.The event was part of Trident’s Unwrapped campaign, which has been building up to the one-off concert all year. Unwrapped kicked off with Piccadilly Circus brought to a standstill by 100 girls doing a synchronised dance to the Beyonce Tune, ‘Single ladies’. The flashmob event ended up going viral on social networking sites, something Trident aimed to replicate with its latest stunt.


To select players for its game, the chewing gum manufacturer left white plastic chairs dotted about in iconic London landmarks such as Oxford Circus. Those inquisitive enough to investigate found an invite to bring themselves, and their chairs, to Westfield shopping centre. Once there, the fun began. Beyonce tunes were played over the speaker system, and bemused shoppers looked on from the galleries above as chairs gradually ‘disappeared’ and players found themselves out of the game. Eventually, only one chair remained and the lucky winner received a VIP box at the O2 concert for her and 14 friends.



Hundreds of people took part in the day and many more watched from the sidelines, creating a buzz around the Trident brand and its upcoming concert. In total, Trident is giving away 17,000 priority tickets to its gig through a variety of promotional events and on-pack competitions. One fan will also be offered the chance to meet Beyonce in person







BRAND:Trident

BRAND OWNER:Cadbury Schweppes

CATEGORY:Confectionery/ Snacks

REGION:UK

DATE:Aug 2009

AGENCY:Pretty Green

MEDIA CHANNEL

Ambient

Fanta Stealth Sound System





Bubble Gum Advertising Campaigns

Big Big Gum Ad Campaign

Big Big Gum Outdoor Advertisement







Arcor Gum Magazine Advertisement

Creative 3D ads promoting Arcor bubble gum were placed in magazines by Leo Burnett ad agency in Sao Paulo, Brazil

. Arcor Gum Magazine Advertisement

Bazooka Gum Airbag Advertisement

Fun Bazooka bubble gum advertisement from BelgiumBazooka Gum Airbag Advertisement

Bolibomba Gum Advertisement

Creative bubble gum advertisement from Venezuela: “Free the kid you carry within”.Bolibomba Gum Advertisement

Hubba Bubba Outdoor Ad from Chile

Hubba Bubba Outdoor Ad in Chile

Big Babol Gum Advertisement

This creative advertising campaign was the golden award winner at Dubai Lynx Awards in 2008Big Babol Gum Advertisement

Hubba Bubba Outdoor Advertisement

Unique bubble gum advertisement from Israel: “Hubba Bubba - the longest chewing gum ever”.Hubba Bubba Outdoor Advertisement

Hubba Bubba Bus Advertisement

Unusual chewing gum advertising campaign from Sydney, AustraliaHubba Bubba Bus Advertisement

Big Babol Swing Advertisement

Creative Big Babol chewing gum advertisement from Indonesia.Big Babol Swing Advertisement

Bubble Gum Truck Advertisement

Brilliant truck advertisement for Wrigley’s Spearmint chewing gumBubble Gum Truck Advertisement

Hubba Bubba Advertisements

Cool gum ads from Sydney, Australia: “For blowers. Hubba Bubba”.Hubba Bubba Chewing Gum Advertisement

Hubba Bubba Advertisement

Hubba Bubba Gum Advertisement

Bubble Gum Billboard Advertisement

Awesome outdoor billboard promotes Hubba Bubba chewing gumBubble Gum Billboard Advertisement

Sportlife Gum Advertisement

Clever bubble gum ads by JWT from Amsterdam, the NetherlandsSportlife Gum Advertisement

Hubba Bubba Bubbles Advertisement

Big balloons that look like Hubba Bubba bubbles were attached to existing advertisement throughout Düsseldorf, Germany
Hubba Bubba Bubbles Advertisement

Clorets Gum Advertisement

Clever outdoor ad demonstrates refreshing effect of Clorets gumClorets Gum Advertisement

After the Fall: What Really Happens to Bankrupt Brands

After the Fall: What Really Happens to Bankrupt Brands After the Fall: What Really Happens to Bankrupt Brands

After the Fall: What Really Happens to Bankrupt BrandsIt’s easy to blame a brand bankruptcy on the economy, but it may be more complicated than that. “The brutality of this economy is not only exposing toxic assets, but poorly differentiated brands,” says John Gerzema, author of the best-selling book The Brand Bubble. “Many had a common inability to build strong brand differentiation and lead the consumer forward. Deficits that became that much more apparent in times like these” (“Bankrupt Brands,” TheBrandBubble.com, Jan. 20, 2009).

Gerzema’s point is well taken. In his book, Gerzema addresses the changing role of the consumer when it comes to assessing brands. He says consumers “are increasingly acting like investors. They have heightened expectations for brands to continuously surprise, adapt, and evolve.” Brands that go bankrupt, Gerzema says, “aren’t evolving, or aren’t different enough to begin with.”

The most telling public proof of Gerzema’s hypothesis is probably the recent stunning bankruptcy of General Motors. With the GM bankruptcy came the demise of several of its storied automobile brands. Even prior to the bankruptcy, GM had stopped making Oldsmobile, a brand that, despite its long history, had become, well, old. The bankruptcy itself, however, killed off Pontiac, a brand many car aficionados would agree was very much a part of GM’s prior success. Pontiac was the “muscle car” to Chevy’s “all-American car.” The Pontiac brand spawned songs like “Little GTO” and became an iconic symbol of the macho male. Ultimately, though, Pontiac was a brand stuck in the muddy past, unable to compete in a new, more nimble marketplace.

Bill Sowerby, a retired GM manager, says of Pontiac: “It didn’t have a focus. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, the brand had its heyday. It had a kind of gold chains, bell-bottoms and leisure suits image of its era. But then it began to lose its brand equity” (“Pontiac Closing Stirs Muscle Car Memories,” The Washington Times, April 28, 2009). Maybe the GM bankruptcy had a positive if sobering effect: beginning to cull out some of the brands that could not be relevant to contemporary car buyers.

While the Pontiac brand will be gone by the end of 2009, other GM brands may live to see another day. Saturn, for example, was once viewed as the brand that was symbolic of a new direction for GM. When it was first introduced, Saturn’s association with GM was even downplayed. Now it too has been jettisoned by the company. But apparently Saturn will survive, because the Penske Automotive Group, the second largest dealership in the US, has agreed to purchase the brand and its 350 dealerships. In fact, Penske is in talks to “broaden Saturn’s lineup,” according to MotorAuthority.com (“Official: Penske Automotive agrees to buy Saturn,” June 5, 2009).

What is happening to Saturn is not all that unusual. Lately, it seems, just as many bankrupt brands are revived in a different life form as enter the brand graveyard. The reason: that elusive quality called brand equity. The longer a brand name exists, and the wider its exposure, the more powerful and lasting its awareness. The brand name, bankrupt or not, has built value that counts for something. Even a brand that goes bust may have the potential for a second life.

Polaroid is a classic case of a brand that failed, yet its brand equity seems too strong for the brand to die. In its day, Polaroid was a strong, well-differentiated brand inextricably connected with “instant photography.” But that unique position eventually led to its downfall, as photography evolved into a digital medium. While Polaroid attempted to reinvent itself, its association with instant photography—now archaic—couldn’t be overcome. The Polaroid Corporation went bankrupt once, sold the brand, and then the company that bought the brand went bankrupt (albeit for different reasons).

John Gerzema says on TheBrandBubble.com that Polaroid “once was simply ‘magic’” but now it is “perceived as 35 percent less up-to-date and 23 percent less visionary than Canon.” Gerzema analyzed data from the BrandAsset Valuator, a massive brand database, to arrive at this conclusion.

Bankrupt brand or not, the brand name “Polaroid” lives on. As recently as 2009, a digital camera with a built-in printer called the Polaroid PoGo was introduced. In April 2009, the Polaroid brand was purchased by a company that intends to license the name globally.

Licensing, in fact, is one of the up–and-coming ways to extend the life of a bankrupt brand. Gerzema says, “…many troubled brands still possess enormous value. The key is to reshape a business model around the brand’s strongest points of differentiation, or invent new ways of being different.” Gerzema cites Sharper Image as a bankrupt brand that is “reemerging through a licensing business model."

Sharper Image, along with bankrupt brand names Linens ’n Things and Bombay, has been purchased by a partnership of two liquidators, Hilco in Toronto and Gordon Brothers in Boston, for about US$ 175 million (“Brand Names Live After Stores Close,”The New York Times, April 14, 2009). The Sharper Image name is already on new merchandise that appears in Macy’s, JCPenney and Bed Bath & Beyond. Linens ’n Things is selling through a website. Bombay is expected to become a line of furniture.

The payback? Jamie Salter, chief executive of Hilco, “predicted a billion dollars a year in sales for Sharper Image and Linens ’n Things in each of the next five years,” according to The New York Times.

Other brands that have appeared to have gone out of business are still very much in business. Retailers CompUSA and Circuit City, for example, were liquidated, but the assets of both were purchased, and they still operate under their original names via online stores. The website SEOBook.com points out that keeping the Circuit City brand alive online makes good business sense: “CircuitCity.com was quickly relaunched last week to capitalize on the remaining brand strength and traffic to the website…That traffic is cheaper than AdWords, will pay for itself in less than a year, and since they are a corporation the Google rankings and traffic will stick” (“What Does $14 Million Worth of Page Range Look Like?” SEOBook.com, June 11, 2009).

In times past, a bankrupt brand might have been abandoned. But today, bankrupt brands represent a new business opportunity for companies to acquire a well-known name for below-market value and revive it. With the expense of launching a new brand, it may in fact be cheaper to keep a bankrupt brand going, as long as it can remain viable, fresh and current.

It could be that negative associations with bankruptcies are lessening, simply because there are so many of them. Oddly enough, bankrupt brands could end up being beneficiaries of a weakened economy. After all, if a brand name lives on despite adversity, it may be regarded by consumers as a beacon in the storm.

[7-Sep-2009]


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During the last six years, Western Union has transformed itself from a U.S. operation with 100,000 retail outlets to a global network of 385,000 such outlets. The money-transfer giant has offices in 200 countries and territories and a $265 million annual advertising budget. CMO Gail Galuppo manages international marketing campaigns executed in more than fifty languages. In this interview she discusses the company's expansion into new digital remittance venues.



Chanel No. 5




Chanel 5



Chanel No. 5
perfect perfume?

Symbols of innocence, virginity and virtue, the early 20th century perfumes were inspired and composed around single flower themes. Before the First World War, women felt no need to compete with men; softness, tenderness and femininity were their signature, and “flowery” fragrances were natural extensions of their personality.



The war changed everything. Women were forced to wear the trousers while their men were away. The experience challenged and toughened them. After the war, women embodied a more forceful character in every way they expressed themselves, including their fragrances. But then couturier Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel broke the rules by revolutionizing and democratizing fashion in its various forms—from clothing to accessories, including perfume.
The Chanel No. 5 Juice
“I want to give women…a scent that smells like a woman, not like a flower,” Chanel said.

In 1921, Coco commissioned Russian perfumer Ernest Beaux to create what would become the ultimate Chanel masterpiece and greatest classic perfume of all time—an abstract floral overdosed and overpowered with sparkling yet heavy synthetic chemicals called aldehydes.
Chanel No. 5 was ahead of its time as a composition. It was impactful, long lasting, unique and libertarian in its essence. The juice’s signature hasn’t changed since its creation, yet its attributes have evolved to become aspirational in a more classic and feminine way as opposed to being the edgy, abstract rule breaker it was in its early years.
For decades, Chanel No. 5 has remained a bestseller around the globe. Interestingly, the juice doesn’t test well blind, but when women experience it within the context of the Chanel brand, a certain je ne sais quoi happens just like magic, and women just embrace it.
The Chanel No. 5 Experience
Its flacon is a simple square bottle with a rectangular top. It has been altered only minimally since first designed by Coco Chanel. Black and white colors and straight lines convey simplicity and purity. The black is not just black; it is the blackest possibly attainable. The famous double-C logo created in the early 1920s embodies all elements Chanel and remains strategically unchanged. The glass feels heavy, conveying quality. The simple style of the overall package holds classic stylistic codes that have become intrinsic to the brand’s DNA over the years.

The Chanel No. 5 experience is highly regarded, and the brand pays a great deal of attention to detail, juice quality and components durability. The label, colors and coatings must be durable so the consumer can keep the flacon impeccably intact for years, even when it is empty. Branding the experience is quite important for Chanel. Repeated consumer interactions with the product are meant to result in an accumulation of pleasant multi-sensorial moments that ultimately reaffirm Chanel’s quality and render awareness, recognition and loyalty to the brand.
Consistency, Consistency, Consistency
Perhaps consistency is the main reason Chanel No. 5 remains successful, aside from being true to its heritage. From Marilyn Monroe accidentally endorsing Chanel No. 5 in the 1950s to Audrey Tautou and all her “Frenchness” as the new face of the fragrance, the brand has been consistently linking popular cinematic figures to appeal to a younger generation with every passing decade.

Catherine Deneuve, Ali MacGraw, Carole Bouquet and Nicole Kidman—to mention a few—all embodied qualities the brand wanted to portray to characterize the quintessential No. 5 woman. Aggressive advertising campaigns over the years have been critical for the brand to stay current and keep its image young and fresh.
Many attributes of Coco’s unconventional personality are incorporated into her brand, as is evidenced in an upcoming biopic film, Coco avant Chanel, featuring Audrey Tautou as Mlle Chanel.
In 2008 brand Chanel decided—for the first time, after decades of careful brand strategy—to take a bold step by launching Chanel No. 5 Eau Première—a lighter, more modern version of the original No. 5 with a quieter sillage. Chanel in-house perfumer Jacques Polge stated: “Eau Première is for all those women who came to me and said, ‘No. 5 is fantastic but it’s not for me.’ Eau Première is lighter, more transparent, but, in essence, it is still No. 5.”
According to the NPD Group, a research firm, Chanel revenues increased by 14.5 percent after Eau Première was introduced.
Chanel No. 5 stays young by embracing a classy, ladylike attitude that could go just about anywhere, day or night. Chanel’s quality is uncompromised, distinctive and has an engaging history—from its avant-garde and socially progressive beginnings, to the traditional, luxurious and classic status that it has perpetuated throughout the decades.



4.9.09

Per nytimes.com...Facebook Exodus

Facebook Exodus

Published: August 26, 2009

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Facebook, the online social grid, could not command loyalty forever. If you ask around, as I did, you’ll find quitters. One person shut down her account because she disliked how nosy it made her. Another thought the scene had turned desperate. A third feared stalkers. A fourth believed his privacy was compromised. A fifth disappeared without a word.

The exodus is not evident from the site’s overall numbers. According to comScore, Facebook attracted 87.7 million unique visitors in the United States in July. But while people are still joining Facebook and compulsively visiting the site, a small but noticeable group are fleeing — some of them ostentatiously.

Leif Harmsen, once a Facebook user, now crusades against it. Having dismissed his mother’s snap judgment of the site (“Facebook is the devil”), Harmsen now passionately agrees. He says, not entirely in jest, that he considers it a repressive regime akin to North Korea, and sells T-shirts with the words “Shut Your Facebook.” What especially galls him is the commercialization and corporate regulation of personal and social life. As Facebook endeavors to be the Web’s headquarters — to compete with Google, in other words, and to make money from the information it gathers — it’s inevitable that some people would come to view it as Big Brother.

“The more dependent we allow ourselves to become to something like Facebook — and Facebook does everything in its power to make you more dependent — the more Facebook can and does abuse us,” Harmsen explained by indignant e-mail. “It is not ‘your’ Facebook profile. It is Facebook’s profile about you.”

The disillusionment with Facebook has come in waves. An early faction lost faith in 2008, when Facebook’s beloved Scrabble application, Scrabulous, was pulled amid copyright issues. It was suddenly clear that Facebook was not just a social club but also an expanding force on the Web, beholden to corporate interests. A later group, Harmsen’s crowd, grew frustrated last winter when Facebook seemed to claim perpetual ownership of users’ contributions to the site. (Facebook later adjusted its membership contract, but it continues to integrate advertising, intellectual property and social life.) A third wave of dissenters appears to be bored with it, obscurely sore or just somehow creeped out.

My friend Alex joined four years ago at the suggestion of “the coolest guy on the planet,” she told me in an e-mail message. For a while, they cultivated a cool-planet online gang. But then Scrabulous was shut down, someone told her she was too old for Facebook, her teenage stepson seemed to be losing his life to it and she found the whole site crawling with mercenaries trying to sell books and movies. “If I am going to waste my time on the Internet,” she concluded, “it will be playing in online backgammon tournaments.”

Another friend, who didn’t want his name used, found that Facebook undermined his whole notion of online friendship. “It’s easy to think of your circle of ‘Friends’ as a coherent circle, clear and moated, when in fact the splay of overlap/network makes drip/action painting a better (visual) analogy.” Something happened to this drip painting that he won’t discuss. He said, “Postings that seem private can scatter and slip unpredictably into a sort of semipublic status.”

That friend was not the only Facebook dissenter who was reticent about specifics. Many seem to have just lost their appetite for it: they just stopped wanting to look at other people’s photos and résumés and updates, or have their own subject to scrutiny. Some ex-users seemed shaken, even heartbroken, by their breakups with Facebook. “I primarily left Facebook because I was wasting so much time on it,” my friend Caroline Harting told me by e-mail. “I felt fairly detached from my Facebook buddies because I rarely directly contacted them.” Instead, she felt as if she stalked them, spending hours a day looking at their pages without actually saying hello.

But then came the truly weird part: “Facebook was stalking me,” Harting wrote. One day, on another Web site, she responded to an invitation to rate a movie she saw. The next time she logged on to Facebook, there was a message acknowledging that she had made the rating. “I didn’t appreciate being monitored so closely,” she wrote. She quit.

Julie Klam, a writer and prolific and eloquent Facebook updater, said in her own e-mail message, “I have noticed the exodus, and I kind of feel like it’s kids getting tired of a new toy.” Klam, who still posts updates to Facebook but now prefers Twitter for professional networking, added, “Facebook is good for finding people, but by now the novelty of that has worn off, and everyone’s been found.” As of a few months ago, she told me, Facebook “felt dead.”

Is Facebook doomed to someday become an online ghost town, run by zombie users who never update their pages and packs of marketers picking at the corpses of social circles they once hoped to exploit? Sad, if so. Though maybe fated, like the demise of a college clique

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2.9.09

BEST Out of Office replies

1. I am currently out of the office at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position.. Please be prepared for my mood.

2. You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn’t have received anything at all.

3. Sorry to have missed you, but I’m at the doctor’s having my brain and heart removed so I can be promoted to our management team.

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who did this over and over and over….)

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