Coca-Cola - Personal Road

Back in 2011 Coca-Cola launched the incredible 'Share A Coke' campaign in Australia.  The campaign saw Coca-Cola print 150 of the country’s most popular names on labels of Coke bottles for the first time in the brand’s history.  The idea was to give people a reason to connect with friends through a Coke and by every measure was a huge success.  Since then Coca-Cola has been rolling out the campaign across the world, recently launching Israel where Coke & Gefen Team took the idea of personalization a step further.  They transformed the a series of prominent billboards into interactive displays.  Consumers were asked to download the Coca-Cola smartphone app and enter their name.  The app would then transmit and display their name on the billboard whenever they were in range (using geo-fence technology).  The app would then notify the user when their name was being displayed.

I would normally write this off as a gimmick with too many barriers to entry to get traction amongst users, but one shouldn't underestimate the narcissistic nature of today's smartphone user and their desire to see their name up in lights.  The app ranked #1 in Israel's app store and was downloaded over 100k times.  It's a cool idea and a wonderful execution, but also somewhat creepy.  Is this the first step on the road to the dystopian personalized advertising as imagined in Minority Report?  Check out the case study video below.



Posted by: Reuben Halper

Interrail Mobile - Global Pass

A generation ago backpacking around Europe was a rite of passage for college-age youth with a little bit of money to spare.  While the center of gravity for the backpacking experience has moved to SE Asia, training it around Europe for a summer or for a few weeks at a time is still a popular travel experience.  In order to promote their European wide unlimited train ticket, Interrail and Havas have created a fantastic piece of utility for their customers.  Interrail have partnered with mobile operators around Europe to provide a SIM card that allows travelers to use data and make cheap calls regardless of what country they are in for the duration of their travels.  The aptly named Interrail Mobile is sold directly on the Interrail site and provides an invaluable service to their youth-oriented market; the ability to stay in touch and post updates to their social networks throughout their travels.

Giving their customers a cheap and easy way to stay connected to social media and document their journey not only eliminates a huge paint point for travelers, but also allows Interrail to leverage word of mouth among their customers in order to drive future bookings from their respective social networks.   Check out the overview video below or check out the more in-depth article/interview at Contagious Magazine.




Posted by: Reuben Halper

IKEA - 2014 Augmented Reality Catalog

A few years back it seemed like augmented reality was going to be the NEXT BIG THING.  Reality has since intervened as most augmented reality executions proved to be mainly gimmicks that didn't provide a particularly compelling experience nor did they provide true utility to consumers.  Now IKEA is showing how augmented reality can be truly useful through their 2014 augmented reality catalog.  Created by McCann and IKEA's in-house agency, Icom the app allows IKEA customers to preview items from the catalog to see how they'd look in their homes prior to purchase.

Here's how it works, a user places the 2014 IKEA catalog on the floor in their home and then fires up the app on their phone or tablet.  The mobile device recognizes the tablet as the augmented reality marker.  The user can then select from various items in the catalog where they are overlaid onto a real-time view of the room (as captured through the camera of the mobile device).

Again, this is a great use of technology in order to provide true utility to the customer.  Users can see how various colors would look in-situ, as well as getting a sense of the size/scale of the furniture within their homes.  Those two features alone ease two of the most common pain points when buying furniture (eg. will color x good? will it fit properly?).  In fact, IKEA developed this app after their research showed that 1 in 7 customers purchased items that were either too large or too small for their homes.  It's a win-win as the app also has the potential to reduce the amount of store returns.  Check out the video that demonstrates the app below (complete with slightly creepy Swedish guy):





Posted by: Reuben Halper

Baba Beptanol Baby

As a new parent, it's been fascinating to see/experience just how much myself and my wife use the Internet for all things baby.  Recent research also shows that new and expectant Moms spend 35% more time online than the general population.  Obviously this represents a real opportunity for brands to insert themselves into the Moments That Matter for new parents.  As a result, I've been looking at ways, (both good and bad) that brands are providing utility to an inherently time poor audience of new parents.  One of my favorite examples comes from JWT Brazil for the brand Bepantol.  They created the Babá Bepantol Baby app which turns two iOS devices into a baby monitor.  From a utility perspective it can potentially eliminate the need to buy a baby monitor, or provide an ad-hoc baby monitor for situations where the family is away from home.  The app allows parents to talk to their children, provide ambient light around the baby, play lullabies, etc.  It's a great idea and particularly relevant when you look at the same research around smartphone usages for new Moms: 'The smartphone quickly becomes the mother's significant other: 36% of women purchase a smartphone as a result of becoming a mum, while 59% of mothers called it their do-everything device.' 

Check out the case study video below.



Posted by: Reuben Halper

Chrome Super Sync Sports

As regular readers of this blog know, I'm somewhat obsessed with media bridging experiences.  That is, how do you seamlessly (relatively speaking) bridge an experience between desktop and mobile, or how do you create a bridge between a digital billboard and your smartphone, etc, etc.  My esteemed colleagues at the Google Creative Lab here in London have also been thinking about the same thing from an even broader perspective.  They have just launched a delightful new experience called Chrome Super Sync Sports that uses 'HTML5 features such as WebSockets for real-time gaming synchronicity on desktop and mobile, and Canvas and CSS3 for rich and engaging visuals.'  Here's how it works (as described in the official Google blog post):

'Smartphones and tablets are great for all sorts of games, and lately we've been thinking about new ways to play. Chrome Super Sync Sports is a new Chrome Experiment that uses the unique features of mobile devices to create a new gaming experience on big and small screens. In this game up to four friends can compete in running, swimming and cycling on a shared computer screen, using their smartphones or tablets as game controllers.'

Check out the overview video below and have a play around yourself at Chrome Super Sync Sports.

Bus Stop Ads - The Good, The Bad & The Excellent

I thought it'd be interesting to change gears a bit and showcase some interesting (both good and bad) work from the out of home world, namely bus stop/bus shelter advertising.

The Good - First up is a nice stunt from Qualcomm which effectively delivers on the tagline 'We make life better with mobile.'  Check it out below:


The Bad - Next up is a stunt from the Weather Channel to promote their mobile app which tells users the exact time when rain will start or stop.  Since the Weather Channel takes the guesswork out of weather forecasts, they wanted to see people get caught in the rain one last time.  To do so, they outfitted a bus stop with a rain machine.  Call me crazy, but I'd be pissed off if I'm sitting there waiting for my bus and a brand decides that they're going to make it rain on me.  I wouldn't exactly be rushing to download the app after that moment of unexpected precipitation.

The Excellent - Last up is from SAS in Norway.  To show off the array of new sunny destinations that the airline services, JCDecaux outfitted a bus stop with what looks like an airplane window.  Users who pull up the window shade are presented with videos from one of the sixteen new destinations.  It's a great way to grab the attention of people who, by definition, have some free time on their hands while waiting for a bus.  It's also a perfect execution considering the winter weather in Norway and other Northern European countries, coupled with the universal desire to get away to sunnier climes.

EasyWay Language Center - Subtitles

A bit of background, Brazil-based EasyWay language center is primarily targeted at foreigners living in Brazil (eg. student and ex-pats) looking to learn Portugese.  You may remember the innovative use of the Chrome speech input functionality that they used as part of their web experience a few months back (see previous post here).  Now EasyWay has launched another service that uses Google technology in a clever way.  Their agency, Loducca, has created a browser based experience that helps people learn Portugese by providing subtitles for Brazilian TV in any language.

The website provides real-time subtitles to the major Brazilian TV channels by combining old school closed captioning technology and Google Translate.  Here's how it works:  EasyWay has a computer hooked to up to TV set 24 hours a day.  The computer captures and uploads the closed caption data to be translated on the website.  Users visit the site from their mobile device (or laptop I suppose) and choose their preferred language & TV channel.  Voila!  The subtitles for the program are displayed on their second screen, synced up to the TV broadcast.  Check out the video below for a better explanation.

Durex - SOS Condoms

Some of you may remember the Cannes winning VIP Fridge Magnet service for Red Tomato Pizza in Dubai from last spring (see case study here).  Now Durex, along with their agency, Buzzman, have launched an interesting branded service in Dubai.  Based off the insight that you never have a condom when you need one, Durex has launched a delivery service that will bring you a condom, wherever you may be, within an hour.  It's a nice take on branded utility for a mobile app and is definitely a new twist on location based technology.  Again, good to see mobile apps that actually give something back to the user (and in this case also promotes safe sex)   Check out the overview video below.


The campaign/app has been successful enough in Dubai that Buzzman and Durex are running a competition to decide the next city that will get the SOS service, so feel free to head over to SOS Condoms to vote for your city.

hat tip: Adverblog

McDonald's - Track My Maccas

The recent Tesco Horse Meat scandal has put issues of supply train integrity and brand transparency front and center.  It's been interesting watch McDonald's (across various regions) dedicate significant time and effort to behave in a more transparent manner.  The McDonald's - Your Questions campaign was featured on this blog a few months ago, but even that effort pales in comparison to the recently launched 'Track My Maccas' campaign.  Track My Maccas is an app that provides McDonald's customers with a vast amount of information about where the various parts of their McDonald's meal were sourced.  As the good folks over at Contagious describe:

Once downloaded onto a smartphone, the TrackMyMaccas app uses GPS and image recognition, combined with date and time information, to find out where and when a particular McDonald's menu item has been purchased. It then overlays that information with data from McDonald's' supply chain in real time. Finally, it serves up an immersive and entertaining story about where the food has come from.
Using augmented reality, the app then transforms the restaurant table into a farmyard, showing where the beef was sourced, or the ocean, if the main meal was a fish fillet. The story unfolds differently depending on exactly where diners are in Australia.
People can also meet the suppliers, for instance, farmers, fishers, bakers of burger buns, etc, and find out how long they have been working with McDonald's.

The app, developed by DDB Australia, is a fairly mind-blowing effort from both a logistical and a technical perspective.  I also appreciate the effort taken to make the resulting information/data both interesting and entertaining, rather than simply presenting it in a dry, tabular way.  Check out the video below that shows off the Track My Maccas app.
hat tip: Contagious

Telstra New Year's Eve App

We had a session at the Google Creative Sandbox in Cannes last June with James Hilton of AKQA.  Among other things, we discussed the potential of mobile and product design in general.  He said something that really stuck with me; unless an experience is useful, usable or delightful then it's just contributing to the digital landfill.  Unfortunately many brands seem to ignore that advice and pump out ill-conceived mobile apps or experiences that meet none of the aforementioned criteria.  That's why I love this app developed by Australian Telco, Telstra for New Year's eve in Sydney.  The app has a host of features to enhance and amplify the experience of fireworks goers in Sydney.  As the good folks over at Contagious explain:

Throughout the night, four Telstra Colour Moments will automatically sync phone screens with the lighting on Sydney Harbour Bridge, and the fireworks displays around the bay. The screens will light up, becoming a visual extension of the show. 

Message the Bridge, another function on the app, enables users to write and submit their very own New Year's message - with 1500 of these being displayed on the pylons of the bridge over the course of the night. A dedicated Facebook app lets people without a smartphone send messages to the bridge. 

Telstra has also included features to help the public get the most from the evening: the maps function, for example, details the best vantage points from which to see the fireworks, and includes information on reaching each one; and Midnight Messages enables users (on any network) to pre-load 50 SMS messages which Telstra will then send out to their loved ones, free of charge, at midnight. 

Telstra also streamed the fireworks on their YouTube channel for those folks who couldn't attend in person.

Overall the Telstra App is just a great example of a mobile application that meets all of the criteria.  It's useful (best vantage points via maps, rules about what you can and can't bring to the fireworks, etc.), usable (nice UX in the app, but also the ability to pre-load SMS messages to send at midnight) and delightful (become part of the larger experience via the Telstra Colour Moments, Message The Bridge).  Check out the demo video below.

hat tip: Contagious

BMWi Born Electric

Here's a nice bit of mobile advertising.  The BMWi Born Electric campaign allows users to take a virtual test drive in the BMW i8 or i3 concept car with Google Maps and Street View.  After selecting one of the concept cars, users are put in the drivers seat and can choose a route that they want to take to any location or one of many landmarks in different cities.  Users are given an in-car perspective and given a view of their route via Google Streetview.  An accompanying map shows the location on the route and how much power is left in the electric battery.  If you select the 'Interior 360' option you can pan around inside the car and get a 360 degree interior view of the car and a 360 exterior view of your location in Street View.

Targeted at city dwellers, the mobile experience is a really nice way to put the experience of the i3 and i8 into the users hands while showing how electric cars can easily fit into their existing urban life.

Have a play around with the London experience.

A Few Things From The Holidays Worth Noting - Mobile Orchestra, PNC Christmas, Starbucks Spread The Cheer

AKQA Mobile Orchestra
A lovely collaborative mobile experience from AKQA: 'to celebrate the holidays, AKQA teamed up with members of the Pacific Chamber Symphony and Mussic Director Lawrence Kohl to create a synchronized mobile orchestra.'  See the video below or experience it at mobileorchestra.com

PNC Twelve Days Of Christmas

For nearly 30 years US-based PNC bank has calculated a yearly Christmas Price Index.  The CPI (as they call it) shows the current cost for one set of each of the gifts given in the song 'The Twelve Days Of Christmas.'  For the past several years PNC has also create immersive digital experiences that bring the CPI to life.  This year's 12 Days Of Christmas Experience is particularly well done.  Check it out here.

Starbucks Spread The Cheer
When will brands learn that campaigns inviting user participation have the potential to backfire?  You'd think that moderation of these campaigns would be the default after mishaps like McDonalds #McDStories.  Starbucks is the in a growing list of participatory campaigns gone horribly wrong.  Before the holidays the coffee giant invited the twittersphere to send out some holiday cheer, using the hashtag '#SpreadTheCheer.'  Instead the company received a bombardment of tweets criticizing the company, particularly the low tax rates that the company pays in the UK (background: a couple weeks prior Starbucks was dragged in front of Parliament to address tax avoidance accusations).  If that's not painful enough, Starbucks had also setup #SpreadTheCheer screens showing live tweets at the ice skating rink in front of the London Natural History Museum.  #FAIL.  Huffington Post has some of the choice tweets here.

Ingress

William Gibson wrote in one of his books that 'cyberspace is everting.'  Simply put the digital world is spilling out into real-world experiences.  We've really just scratched the surface of the marriage/interplay of the digital and physical worlds that's enabled by ubiquitous connectivity and mobile devices.  The augmented reality and mobile location based technology that's cutting edge today will most certainly seem quaint in just a few years.  The recently launched global alternate reality game, Ingress, gives a sneak peek of what (I believe) will become more pervasive and incredibly common in the not too distant future.

So what is Ingress?  It is a new location-based augmented reality game from Google-owned Niantic Labs.  The premise is that the world around you is not what it seems.  The game puts you and your smartphone (Android only at the moment) in the middle of a global battle between two sides that plays out in real life all around you, regardless of where you live.

As AllThingsD explains: 'Users can generate virtual energy needed to play the game by picking up units of “XM,” which are collected by traveling walking paths, like a real-world version of Pac-Man. Then they spend the energy going on missions around the world to “portals,” which are virtually associated with public art, libraries and other widely accessible places.

“The concept is something like World of Warcraft, where everyone in the world is playing the same game,” Hanke said. Players are on one of two teams: “The Enlightened,” who embrace the power, or “The Resistance,” who fight the power. Anyone can play from anywhere in the world, though in more densely played areas there will be more local competition for resources.
Outdoor physical activity is a big component of this, though driving between locations isn’t banned. “You’re like a rat in a maze on the phone,” Hanke said. Then, back at your computer, you can review the larger area and gameplay.'

It's really a magical experience and even more so when you consider that there's no discreet start and stop to the game.  It could go on for several years as a sort of constant background activity that we engage with when out in the physical world or as part of our daily routine such as commuting.  If you look at the popularity of MMORPG and extrapolate that out into the real world, you can see the massive potential behind such games (and I wonder if there will be a the equivalent click-sweat shops and selling of characters for real-world MMORPGs like currently exists for games such as World Of Warcraft).  Anyhow, the video below gives you an additional sense of what it's all about.  If you're interested you can head over to the Ingress site to get an invite to join in the game


hat tip:  Matthieu De Fayet for reminding me to write this up

2012 Election Season - 7 Eleven, Jetblue & Blippar

The 2012 presidential election is heating up in the States.  It's been interesting to see how brands are tapping into the interest around the US election.  Most are doing it poorly (I'll ignore those), but some are doing great work.  Three in particular stick out.

JetBlue - Live Free or Fly
I've heard people threaten to leave the US if their candidate doesn't win.  Apparently JetBlue has also heard this claim from both sides of the political spectrum.  They (and their agency, Mullen) have developed JetBlue Election Protection which will give a thousand sore losers the chance to get out of the country (at least temporarily) if their candidate loses.  Users are invited to go to jetblueelectionprotection.com and choose their political party (Democrat or Republican) as well as one of more than a dozen overseas destinations that JetBlue is offering up.  If your candidate loses, JetBlue may send you there.  The site gives you a sense of the current political leanings of the audience showing the polling so far among participants.  JetBlue is also doing their part, reminding people that the best part of Election Protection is to do their civic duty and vote.


7-Eleven - 7-Election
Convenience store giant 7-Eleven is back for the fourth edition of 7-election.  Customers can choose from partisan coffee cups (Romney cups are red, Obama cups are blue).  7-Eleven is then tallying sales for each to predict the outcome of the election.  This is the fourth election that 7-Eleven has done this and in each case it's successfully predicted the winner as well as coming within 1% of the actual outcome.  Unscientific? Yes.  Amazing?  Most definitely.

Check out the slate video about the initiative below and head over to the 7-Election site to see the current results.


Blippar - Blipp A $5 Bill To Donate To Obama
OK, this isn't technically a brand execution, but it's fascinating.  Blippar technology is probably the predominant app used by brands to execute mobile augmented reality experiences.  Blippar is taking a stance and coming out in support of Obama.  They've decided to throw their support and their technology behind Obama in an innovative way.  Fire up the Blippar app, point it at a 5 dollar bill and you can donate $5 directly to Obama's campaign.  The AR experience also has additional features such as the ability to create a picture of you high-fiving Obama, find your nearest campaign office to volunteer your time, listen to Obama speeches, etc.  I wonder if pointing Blippar at a $100 bill fires up a Romney experience?  Anyhow, check it out in action below:

Doubleclick Rich Media - Media Bridging Desktop & Mobile

As you may have noticed from previous posts, I'm a bit obsessed with the media bridging opportunities where mobile is the glue that connects all other forms of media.  There's still a long way to go until it's seamless and elegant, but there's been some really nice progress, especially over the past six months.

One of my favorite examples (logrolling alert) was developed by my talented colleagues at Doubleclick (Scott Harmes - creative, Roberto Stocco - dev) in conjunction with Toaster Ltd.  The tech is called 'Channel Connect' and basically creates a communications channel between a desktop advertisement (such as a Youtube masthead) and an HTML5 mobile site.  It's not just limited to one user, so you can actually create an ad experience with multiple users competing/collaborating on the experience at the same time.  I think it has a ton of potential and look forward to seeing how agencies push these executions going forward.

Have a play with the demo here or for more details read below (full post on Doubleclick Rich Media Gallery blog):

Dubbed ‘Channel Connect’, this new Rich Media feature enables you to create more ways for users to connect with your brand.

What is it?

Channel Connect is a new DoubleClick package of Flash components and JavaScript libraries used to establish a communication channel between a desktop advertisement and an HTML5 mobile site.  The opened channel can be used to send any kind of information in either direction between a user’s mobile device and their desktop.

How can I use it?

Channel Connect turns a smartphone or tablet into a new input device, allowing users to interact with brand content more tactilely than a simple mouse.  Any Rich Media ad can be enhanced by switching mouse-interactions to gestures: turn a user’s mobile into a game controller or graphics tablet for maximum active engagement.

On a separate note you'll notice that it uses a QR code to initiate the mobile part of the experience.  That's definitely where most of the media bridging stuff falls down, so it's interesting to see Layar's announcement a few days ago that they're creating an easy way for publishers to turn standard print content into a simple augmented reality experience.  Really interesting stuff...

Gap Geo-Fencing Campaign

In what's sure to be a much more common media play, Gap (in conjunction with out of home agency, Titan) just wrapped up a campaign that combined standard bus & transit ads with geo-fenced mobile display ads.  For those of you who may not be familiar with geo-fencing, it's essentially a virtual perimeter in a real-world area.  In this case, the mobile display ads utilised the location based services standard in smartphones/tablets to establish that users were within the geo-fenced area.  Here's how it worked, people in NYC, San Francisco & Chicago saw standard posters for Gap, but smartphone/tablet users within a specific area around the posters also saw mobile display ad offering Gap coupons if they were on particular sites or playing various games from Zynga, such as Words With Friends.

Dave Etherington, Titan’s senior vice president of marketing and mobile, says that 'The lines are kind of blurring,' he says. 'You’re only a click away now from rich brand experiences and purchases.'  He went on to say that Gap & Titan were pleased with the results which has a noticeable, but unspecified, sales uplift.  Additionally, 'the campaign, which ran from Feb 20 to March 6, delivered 2.5 million impressions, with a 0.93 percent click-through rate.'

It's a really nice way to enhance the efficacy of standard outdoor ads and I love the potential that geo-fencing and other mobile technologies are starting to offer as a way to bridge the digital and offline to provide true cross-platform experiences.

As eConsultancy pointed out, we'd need to know more about the campaign before passing judgement, were the posters near actual Gap stores?  Were the results skewed due to it being an offer?  No

Supporting articles: PSFK | TechCrunch | eConsultancy