We’ve all seen many great interactive vending machines campaigns, most of them with that same idea: complete a task (or tasks) and get a reward. But what if you didn’t have to do anything and get a prize anyway? From running from one place to another for appointments, meeting family, friends and so on, sometimes we forget to just have a pause (and maybe a Kit-Kat), relax and enjoy the moment. And that’s why Amstel, a Dutch brewery, and their creative agency NEXT-DC wanted to persuade the busy people of Sofia, Bulgaria to get some rest.
How? They created “Amstel Pause“, a vending machine rewarding people with free beer for doing nothing! The idea was to make them pause for a while, not to move (even picking up a ringing phone disqualified the person from receiving a free beer) and get a free beer.
The results? Over the span of 16 days, the Amstel Pause vending machine clocked in 4,032 minutes of rest in total. That makes an average number of 84 people participating each day and over 1,300 beers dispersed for nothing in return but a few minutes!
We all live in a hectic world, constantly under the pressure of time and deadlines, and slowly forgetting the how to pause. So, the Amstel Pause vending machine is a nice reminder to just sit back and do nothing, even if just for a few moments.
Back in Portfolio 1, my partner and mine’s third campaign was Decomposition books, an eco-friendly version of the normal composition books. Fuuuun, right?… Anyways, during our process of trying to come up with a direction to take, we were asked why do people still write on paper when living in a virtually digital world? We didn’t take this as a direction for our campaign, but it did leave me thinking… Is it better to write thoughts down on a computer or on paper? This, in turn, led me to thinking why I still chose to keep a journal for writing.
Well…
I find there is something magical about writing in a paper-bound notebook which I cannot quite put into words. The feeling of my pen gliding across the page, feeling the subtle yet firm texture of the paper. Every once in a while my hand cramps up because I am still much more accustomed to typing on the computer than writing for long periods of times. (Pauses to massage hands).
I feel that the biggest advantage of writing on paper rather than typing on the computer is that there are much fewer distractions. Sure when you’re writing on paper, you might have an annoying roommate bothering you or some noises from outside, but you won’t have a blinking Gmail icon, blogs, or sites nagging for your attention.
I look at my handwriting and although it is scrawled and barely legible, it has character. My character. A piece of myself which is transmitted onto the page. It has soul, character. Each character looks different. Sure, there are some of my own words that I cannot make out quite clearly, but merely studying the gestures of my strokes can make illegible words legible.
I can hear the etching sounds of my pen’s fine metal tip scratching against the paper. In the background, I can hear the crickets chirping outside and the sound of an occasional car passing by. I feel part of the “real world,” rather than the “false” online one.
Sure the irony is that after I am done writing on paper, I might type it up and post to a blog for all to see (what I am doing right now). A bit contradictory, huh, that I am advocating for more analog means of writing while showing the negatives of writing digitally when I’m currently typing this all out now on a computer?
Well, not quite.
Although I am advocating for the practice of writing one’s thoughts down into text, the online blogosphere is a wonderful place to read the original ideas of others and build a support system of friends and acquaintances. The advent of the internet has democratized information which allows anybody to share his or her thoughts with the rest of the world. You could potentially have your ideas broadcasted to millions of viewers, without having to publish in a popular newspaper or magazine. Now with a few clicks and a bit of patience, anybody could become a popular and well-read writer. Whoo!
However, I’ll still always be a journal writing person.
(This commercial above doesn’t have much to do with this actual post, but I thought it was funny to share and it gets the point of paper being around to stay.)
In 2011, Color Me _____ was a cool modern art exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art by Andy J. Millar and Andrew Neyer where they invite the public to interact and collaborate as they please with enormous 5.5′ paint markers. The public were able to be the finishing element to the artists’ work by filling in the white spaces, and the art exhibit quickly became a collaboration between artists and the public. As the artists’ say, there was no public memo, people just saw the markers and colored. This is a great example of how non-traditional advertising should work. People should be able to see the execution and understand almost instantly what it is and what they should do, if there is to be interaction.
We all like to have fun. We all like to play. And we all remember the simply joy of transforming black and white pages into visions of vibrant color. Humorous and welcoming, Miller and Neyer connect people of all ages to fond memories of uninhibited and youthful creativity, to a time and place when the world was at the disposal of our imaginations. By inviting everyone to participate – to color – the world becomes a true collaboration, a game, and a chance for us to all harken back to our youth.
Who can resist a juicy story – or a sandwich? Yet again, Wendy’s shows America it won’t chicken out when it comes to great food. Since July, millions of Americans have had a love fest with the Pretzel Pub Chicken Sandwich. Wendy’s continues to fuel the nation’s pretzel craze by spreading the love and offering the answer to every chicken lover’s hidden desire. Recently, the fast-food chain launched a campaign centering around the Pretzel Pub Chicken sandwich, which has fueled a second wave of pretzel passion among consumers and has spiraled into another online love fest. Wendy’s is once again tapping into the social trend of turning tweets into spoken words with an over-the-top video series. This follows the successful #PretzelLoveSongs campaign for the Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburger. Watch the video below to see where all the craziness began.
Many big fast-food chains have tried to create successful Facebook or Twitter marketing campaigns — and flubbed it. Burger King chose an unfortunate Twitter hashtag (#WTFF) in a recent attempt to publicize its new lower-fat Satisfries, and McDonald’s #McDStories got rude responses to Twitter campaigns instead of customer love. But Wendy’s has scored a Facebook and Twitter hit TWICE with campaigns that leverages the one factor that reliably gets social media users to laugh with you rather than at you: Unbelievably dumb stuff that’s blow-milk-out-your-nose funny.
In #PretzelLoveStories, the hashtag for their follow-up campaign, actors in a nonsensical, telenovela-style soap opera recite diners’ tweets about the new menu item. The first video featured a love triangle at the altar, as two men vie for the bride’s hand.
Making a marketing campaign patently this ludicrous seems to help shield Wendy’s from being a target of rude comments on Twitter. Where big brands often get skewered on the 140-character platform, users so far have played along with #PretzelLoveStories (aside from a few of the usual gripes from haters of promoted hashtag campaigns). The obvious lure to these user-generated campaigns is to get Twitter users to share about the product to see if they can get their own tweet into one of these videos. That tends to get these campaigns rolling and create interest in the final video product.
Beyond that, Wendy’s employs another little-used tool for Facebook success: super-responsiveness! Every comment — even complaints about customer service — is pleasantly and promptly answered (and not hidden from view, as some chains do with smacktalk on their Facebook forums).
Now, I want a Pretzel Pub Chicken Sandwich. Thanks, Wendy’s.
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” – Helen Keller
The extremely hipster (and almost cheesy) quote above is one of many used to describe the sentiment behind the Nike video sensation, entitled “Make It Count.” The popular 5-minute viral video that was release April of last year traces two young men traveling around the world in 10 days, and captures the essence of stopping to smell the roses, something that our generation often forgets.
The supposed story begins with the sporting giant hiring film director and editor Max Joseph and Casey Neistat to create a movie for the Nike FuelBand featuring the slogan “Make It Count.” But at the last minute, the duo stray from the agreed-upon spot, and set off on a journey around the world using Nike’s money to show what it truly means to “make it count.”
Innovative, fun, and consistent, the concept is compelling, irreverent, and a little silly. Is the story legit, or was it all a setup? It’s hard to say, but either way, it has humor and heart…and it works. It speaks directly to the daring adventurer in all of us. The compelling narrative behind Nike’s brand storytelling is empowering and encouraging. It genuinely (at least for me) makes us feel that we all can “Just Do It,” and “Make It Count”…While wearing a pair of Nikes, of course.
In an effort to put the “ha-ha” back into Halloween, Cheetos is urging the young and old to indulge their mischievous side by toilet papering sites of their choice – if only virtually. Among many other things, the age-old tradition of T.P.-ing someone’s house on Halloween has gone digital. Partnered with Goodby Silverstein & Partners, this is the chance to cover the world in digital toilet paper.
The Project TP digital campaign launched on October 1st, in conjunction with Google, to promote Cheetos’ new limited edition glow-in-the-dark Halloween-themed snack bags. The project uses Google Maps and Street View to help locate and visualize the location to be wrapped in toilet paper, and then offers a playful and interactive digital user experience where the mischief maker is asked to confirm the location and drop the ‘payload.’ The brand’s spirited tone aligns nicely with this app and approach to such a popular and celebrated holiday.
“Halloween has gone soft and it’s time to take it back,” intones Chester Cheetah, the snack food’s devilish mascot, on the Project TP website, as he cruises around in his black helicopter scoping out sites to vandalize.
Whimsical prizes are one way to lure to user participation. A series of time-sensitive missions, such as one to cover any place and taking back the paper to its source by covering a paper factory, rewards users with prizes including a framed image of the T.P.’d target signed by Chester, a roll of toilet paper complete with instructions, a project T.P. flag and, of course, a free bag of glow-in-the dark Cheetos. Oh, imagine if this were real and not digital.
A little over a year ago, IKEA released upon the world their free 2013 Catalog app that quickly became the most downloaded app of 2012. The Swedish furniture supplier, with the help of McCann-Erickson, came up with an idea showing that a printed catalog can be much more than what it actually shows and that a printed catalogue can be way more fun than just turning pages. The app allowed readers of the physical catalog to bring to life featured items with a collection of additional content by simply hovering their smartphones over the pages. A simple use of augment-reality.
2013 Catalog App
While the first was a hit, IKEA wanted to give a bit more interactivity to their customers. Since the success, IKEA has continued work with McCann-Erickson to bring in something better for the 2014 Catalog. What came out of it was indeed something better. Rather than sticking to what they knew worked from the previous app, IKEA and McCann-Erickson created a fist-of-its-kind augmented reality features that will actually allow customers to place furniture in 3-D directly from their phones into their home or office. No printouts required. No gigantic app download required. No problem! This is truly a different dimension of augmented reality. This app gave people looking to redecorate for cheap a creative and fun way by cutting out the pain of accidentally buying and picking up the wrong furniture. This also will solve the problem of wondering whether furniture will look right and/or come together.
2014 Catalog App
Definitely better than just flipping a page! There is just something so interesting when digital is mashed with tangible items in the real world. Unfortunately, customers will still have to go to the actual store for IKEA’s Swedish meatballs…
Amanda Cotan 