Just saw this ad for AT&T, where the odd man out gets a memo late because he doesn’t have AT&T. But I noticed the phone he uses (which receives the memo much later than everyone else) at :19 is actually an iPhone 3G with a sticker over the home button. As we all know, iPhones are currently exclusive to AT&T, thus making the message of this ad that those with iPhones will be “left behind”
Good job AT&T, this is a fail in so many different ways.
Possibly one of the most popular TV shows for males since Sportscenter, Entourage on HBO has been known to be a king of product placement throughout the years (think Playboy, Victoria’s Secret, Skyy Vodka, Rolls Royce, Maserati, the list goes on and on). With a huge following and some of the greatest guest stars and cameos in the industry, Entourage became a household name, as did many of the products and celebrities featured on the show.
One product that is poised to sneak up to such popularity is the Avion Tequila brand, featured in this season’s Entourage. As Turtle’s new business venture in the show, what most people don’t realize is that it’s actually a real tequila brand. Although I don’t believe Mark Cuban has any stake in the real company, the bottle he proposed in the show is the real bottle they use in real life.
Apparently, the creator of Entourage, Doug Ellin, and one of the men behind real life Avion (along with Ken Austin), Kenny Dichter, were childhood friends and grew up together. So what do you do if you have a new product you want to promote, and you know the man behind the one of the most popular TV series of a generation? You get the man to showcase your hip new tequila brand on his hit show.
Has it affected Avion sales? I’m sure it has. But since the tequila brand was just launched not long before the premier of this season’s Entourage (btw, this was the second to last season. That’s right, only one more season of Entourage to go) it’s hard to calculate exactly how much this promotion has affected the bottom line.
Here’s Ken Austin, Founder and CEO of Avion Tequila on CNBC’s Fast Money.
I can’t believe this happened, but I find it absolutely hilarious. Everyone knows of the Double Rainbow Youtube phenomenon that happened in Janurary of 2010 (if you don’t, you probably have never been near a computer and thus, probably will never read this blog post. ps. 13 million views. Thats all I’m going to say).
In any case, the guy got SO popular; Microsoft HIRED him to do a commercial for them to promote their Windows Live Photo Gallery. Here’s the video:
And yes, the man you see there is the real, original Double Rainbow dude, Hungrybear9562.
Many companies today want social media initiatives “like Twitter, Facebook and Myspace”. However this attitude will simply help a company “catch up” to the digital age. But by the time these companies “catch up”, the digital age has already moved on. Being successful in the digital era isn’t about catching up to your competition, it’s about finding the next big market, the next big platform.
Today, successful companies have to be on top of the game by being early adopters, by being trendsetters. Those that unfortunately fall into a Late Majority category or are considered Laggards simply won’t be able to compete.
Trying to catch up by utilizing these huge networks is a start, but companies are now targeting smaller, niche networks that provide the company with better feedback and the consumer with more precise advertising.
Many companies don’t understand how to use social media properly and think that a Twitter account or Facebook page is the key to the future. This is a pure myth and can lead to a lot of time wasted. Social media at its core is all about INTERACTION. It has revolutionized the way humans interact with each other. Interacting with people that are interested in a product or service is probably one of the best and most pure forms of market research and customer retention available.
So to promote the upcoming Madmen season, AMC designed this cool, interactive “interview” with some of the characters at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (which is definitely too long of a name. SCDP sounds better.) I took the interview and was “offered” a job as a media buyer. This is cool because I’ve happened to be applying to Media positions recently, plus Joan the office manager is pretty attractive if you ask me.
This is another example of cool, new age, interactive marketing. Now, I’m not sure how effective it’ll be since I haven’t really seen or heard too much buzz about this. I just happen to spot this on the Razorfish twitter feed. But this type of interactive promotion is definitely exciting stuff (and kind of fun and interesting) that we’ll definitely be seeing more of in the future.
If pulled off correctly, this type of marketing campaign will definitely engage much more users (and ultimately viewers) than a 15 or 30 second spot on TV.
One of the latest and most successful marketing campaigns lately has to be the Old Spice Guy (Look at your man. Now back at me. Now back your man. Now back at me). Old Spice commissioned a new marketing campaign that takes place over Twitter and Youtube, where the guy from the new Old Spice commercials (Isaiah Mustafa) tweets and makes video responses to different people. He made numerous videos directed at everyone from celebrities to everyday people.
This marketing campaign was a raging success not in the sense that Old Spice sales skyrocketed (I have no idea if they did or did not) but the campaign got rave reviews from all over. The viral execution of this marketing campaign shot Old Spice followership (is that a word?) through the roof and each Youtube video got hundreds of thousands of views while the actual commercial videos reached millions (as I’m writing this they’re at about 6.5M Channel views and 61M total upload views). Consequently, pretty much ALL of the Old Spice videos views jumped, most into the millions.
There are many factors that went into the success of this campaign.
1. Mustafa spoke directly to individuals. He would pick out certain tweets or comments and respond to them, directly speaking to the original commenter. This ads a whole new level of interactivity with Old Spice consumers.
2. I think this is one of the most important factors; Old Spice wasn’t a 30 second ad before the video, there weren’t Old Spice products littering the scene, if you had no idea what the video was about, you wouldn’t have any idea that it was an Old Spice campaign. But everyone knew it anyways.
3. They were funny! Mustafa’s lines and the things that happened in the video were hilarious. They made the videos very enjoyable so that people would want to spend their Youtube time watching these ads, as they would any other video on Youtube. It wasn’t designed as a traditional ad or commercial, but just another video to waste time watching (Lets be honest, we’ve all wasted time just watching pointless Youtube videos)
All these factors (and I’m sure others) are what made this campaign so successful. No Banner ads, no keyword mumbojumbo, no annoying pop up spam mail in my inbox. This is what the future of internet marketing will eventually be, and Old Spice pulled it off spectacularly.
Heres the last video they posted as this campaign wraps up. At the end of the video they’ll link to the other videos he did as well.
I just wanted to write a quick note on advertising. I saw this article about the use of QR codes (think Blackberry bar codes) on a billboard where passerbys can use the camera on their smartphone to scan the image, and a video will play on their phone, after which they can link it to their facebook or twitter pages.
This is just an example of revolutionary marketing techniques and the direction of marketing and business in general. Traditional marketing techniques are slowly fading out of the social conscience as new innovations allow us to bypass traditional television commercials. Think tivo, dv-r, and even Hulu, where you’re only subject to a couple commercials per program (and theyre usually for the same brand).
I’m not even going to mention print ads and radio spots because, well, they’re not even worth mentioning in any blog except maybe an antiques or history themed website.
As traditional marketing companies scramble desperately to get a piece of the digital pie, new start up firms and small internet companies are gaining incredible ground at an incredible pace. It won’t be long before traditional marketing is completely a thing of the past.
Ninja Plug 