For those traveling to Chicago to attend AD:TECH Chicago July 11 and 12, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association has conveniently scheduled its "Measuring Word of Mouth" conference on July 13. The conference will address issues such as tracking and measuring word of mouth, establishing ROI, determining the best strategies, optimizing efforts for viral distribution and how word of mouth can find a home in any media plan. Full conference information and schedule is available here.
Where Can I Find That?
It seems the "Spicy Paris" commercial, featuring Paris Hilton, was a big hit both in generating site traffic for Carl's Jr. as well as, perhaps, influencing hamburger sales for the chain.
According to competitive intelligence service Hitwise, searches for the term "paris hilton" grew 102 percent and queries for "carls jr" grew an astounding 802 percent between the weeks ending May 21, 2005 and May 28, 2005. Comparatively, brand searches for Burger King - in the midst of its co-promotion of Star Wars: Sith Sense - increased just 52 percent during the same time period.
Hitwise Clickstream data reveal that, for the week ending May 28, 2005, a full 58.4 percent of those visiting carlsjr.com continued on to spicyparis.com, where the controversial advertisement was available for download. Perhaps more important for actual hamburger sales, 7.4 percent of visitors to www.carlsjr.com continued directly on to a Carl's Jr. store locator Web site. While Carl's hasn't released detailed sales figures for this period, indicators do point "Spicy Paris" having influence.
"By examining both search volume and clickstream data for this campaign, it is clear that the Spicy Paris campaign had two positive results for Carl's Jr.", said Hitwise VP of Research Bill Tancer. "First it raised awareness for the brand, but also prompted an immediate increase in consumer searches for local Carl's Jr. Restaurants."
Who said sex doesn't sell.
Huh? Let's Do What?
We couldn't say it any better ourselves, so we'll just let our NYC street team watchdog, Bucky Turco, comment on HBO's street campaign for Entourage.
OMD's desperately struggling trend marketing group, "Edge" is responsible for attempting to make HBO's Entourage show cool and culturally relevant to throngs of NYC and LA's hippest collection of savvy demo opinion formers, key influencers, tastemakers, etc.
At the heart of the Edge program was the initiative to promote the tagline "Let's Hug It Out Bitch," which HBO hopes to seed as the new expression for male reconciliation. You know, the whole "guys can't say sorry thing." It's a term used by Ari, the brash loudmouth agent, and least cool character on the show.
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Likely to be viewed with as much acceptance as Catholic nuns running around in thongs, textbook publisher McGraw-Hill Ryerson plans to sell ads in textbooks used by Canadian college students. So in the middle of college physics when Brad Pitt stares up and asks, "Honey, Want A Heineken," the professor shouldn't be all that surprised when all the females in class suddenly start squirming in their seats completely forgetting that E=MC2.
Perhaps to distance themselves from Ashlee Simpson's less than capable singing abilities and the bad press it caused, Candie's will now feature Hilary Duff in its upcoming ad campaign to promote a line of junior girl clothing and accessories. Duff will appear in print and television ads for the line which will be distributed exclusively at Kohl's stores.
Kohl's parent company president, Kevin Mansell claims Duff will "resonate with today's young shoppers." Duff was named one of People Magazine's 50 most beautiful people in 2005. Her new movie "A Perfect Man" is in theaters June 17, and her newest album is in stores Aug. 16.
While we all love a racy ad and any excuse to write about one, it seems marketers are simply creating them now in order to have them banned. Take the Plugg Jeans ad. It shows two hotties on the beach. The guy is holding a girl in a manner only seen in the confines of a photoshoot and the girl has her right hand in the guy's crotch. Hey, nothing wrong with sex but Plugg Jeans must have been smoking crack if they thought this ad would be quietly accepted by all media. Of course, that was the strategy all along according to Plugg Jeans parent company Andrew International President Andrew Kirpalani who told Ad Age, "We wanted something exciting, something provocative, it doesn't make sense otherwise to spend the money to be in Times Square."
The image was to grace a slot in Times Square but billboard owner Boston Properties declined to accept the ad as presented and asked for changes. The ad was also declined by Elle Girl and Teen People but accepted by Jane. To acquiesce to those concerned, M Media Creative Director Michael Cooper has toned down the ad a bit to unsexify the image somewhat.
UPDATE: Apparently it's now up.
