As part of a promotion for its Hot Box cell phone, Virgin mobile Canada created some Christmas wrapping paper that shows angels kissing and fondling one another. Ottawa's Alan Dean wasn't too pleased when his 12 year-old daughter was handed some of the paper as part of a promotion following a screening of Harry Potter at the Famous Players Coliseum. Mr. Dean had no kind words for Virgin Mobile marketers telling the Ottawa Citizen, "Somebody had to have their head screwed on wrong to put out a promo like that at a family theater. Even though they said they wanted to hand it out to 18-year-olds, it doesn't matter. It shouldn't have been on the premises." Oddly, we agree. It's just a little sick.
In a week long promotion, Australian bag maker Crumpler sold messenger bags in exchange for beer. Patrons entering their stores could buy beer and then give the beer back in exchange for a bag of their choice. To see detail of the promotion, drag the eight ball or one of the stars to the hand in the lower right hand corner of the site. Promotion aside, do check out their website. It's one of the more odd sites out there and was created by Sputnick Agency.
Time Magazine is promoting its Person of the Year issue on the Reuters board in New York's Times Square. As part of the promotion, developed by Fallon, the first 50,000 people who submit their photo will, after review, be shown on the 45 foot tall electronic display at 43rd Street and 7th Avenue. There will also be photographers, who will beam photos of selected people to the board, roaming Times Square from 12 Noon until 3PM each day until December 8. Each headshot will be framed in Time Magazine's Iconic red border on a mock Time Person of the Year cover.
People don't have to actually be in Times Square to see their headshots displayed - a digital camera will snap photos of each new image as it is displayed, and will place these photos in a searchable database online at www.impoy.com. Photos can be emailed, printed and shared with friends and family. 50,000 headshots will rotate through the display along with real Person of the Year candidates such as Lance Armstrong, Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, Bono and J.K. Rowling. The display will ask passersby who they would choose to be Time's 2005 Person of the Year.
The promotion, presented by Chrysler, will run for a total of 6,000 minutes from Dec. 1 - Dec. 19 on The Reuters Sign in Times Square. We submitted our photo. You should too.
Mennen has hooked up with Maxim to promote its Speed Stick deodorant with a series of whack videos illustrating the extreme dedication certain people have to certain sports. One guy is freakishly into ping pong and another goes nuts for air hockey. In December, we'll meet a wiffle ball freak. The videos are imbued with a nonchalant, "this is so normal" tone that seems to work. The site also has an online air hockey game and a chance to win a VIP sports weekend. As is required with anything Maxim and sports related, the site also carries the ubiquitous images of the dream girl hottie for viewing pleasure.
Working for The Weinstein Company - the Hollywood production company formed by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, founders of Miramax and Dimension Films - online marketing firm Deep Focus and creative services firm Big Spaceship have created YouAreNowInfected, a promotional site for the upcoming Dimension Films feature Pulse, starring Veronica Mars' Kristen Bell. The site resembles an online FTP directory devoid of fancy Flash graphics usually associated with online promotions for Hollywood films and contains simple links to images, character video diaries and, of course, the film's trailer.
While the success of the film which takes yet another stab at "Internet as host for really bad things" could go either way and won't be known until March 3 when the film opens, we can say, this promotional site is refreshingly welcome. Without all the Flash n' Crap, the site, which is blissfully easy to navigate, we're told, will build over the four month run up to the opening with more video diaries and film related trivia, clues, and imagery.
Joe Jaffe has coined the term, "UNM2PNM," which stands for "Use New Marketing to Prove New Marketing." Jaffe's manifestation of that term consists of promising a free copy of his new book, Life After The 30-Second Spot, to anyone who promises to review it. Each week, Jaffe will summarize the progress of the project with short notations on who has requested the book and what they've said about it.
Some might call it self-promotion but it's not. It's simply placing the product, his book, in front of an audience who can influence others to buy it therefore making his writing efforts pay off. After all, when a writer spends a few months or a year writing something, some income might be nice. It's no different than a large company spending years an millions in R&D. There's an expectation there will be a payoff. In Joe's case, that payoff may be money or it may be more exposure in the industry which might lead to more consulting work.
We've read half of Joe's book so far, which we received well in advance of this current promotional effort and we can say we like it so far. Joe has done a nice job summarizing the current state of the industry and why the :30 spot, in its current form, is a losing proposition. The latter half of the book promises ten approaches marketers can use to survive in our rapidly changing world of advertising. We promise a full review when we've finished the book.
Tomorrow, Ford Motor Company will launch Where Will Zephyr Take You for its 2006 Lincoln Zephyr. It's a sweepstakes site with prizes such as trips to New York, Miami and LA to feats at fancy eateries while staying in Hyatt Hotels. The site will be promoted with ad banners on Sports Illustrated, CBSsportsonline, New York Times MSNBC and MSN. Offline advertising will include magazine inserts and moving sidewalk ads. Currently, the site contains product placeholder information so we have no idea how goos or bad the promo is. We'll check it out tomorrow.
To promote the TBS global warming awareness show, Earth to America, LA-based agency/production company Stun Creative has produced Earth to America, a 2-minute short starring Jack Black and directed by Jay Roach. It also features the Six Feet Under dead dad guy.
Currently running in theaters to raise global warming awareness, the short stars Black, doing his usual shtick, as an attorney who sues corporate America on behalf of the nation's children. Earth to America also promotes two upcoming events: a full-length comedy special of the same name that will air on TBS in November and a star-studded comedy showcase taking place on November 19, 2005, the final day of the HBO Comedy Festival in Las Vegas. The Earth to America project is Executive Produced by celeb environmentalist Laurie David.
HBO Video is promoting the launch of its Sex And The City full series DVD with a day in the life experience on November 1 where people can visit the show character's favorite haunts.
People can start their day off at New York Sports Club with a free workout to anyone wearing pink, visit City Bakery to sample the same brownies the girls enjoyed, grab a cosmopolitan with lunch at Cafeteria, take a free trapeze swing at the Trapeze School and end the day at Bowlmor Lanes. the whole thing is free and the venues are, no doubt, excited HBO is herding cattle their way.
On Monday, Budget launched a blog-based competition, called Up Your Budget in which stickers will be placed in 16 cities over the course of four weeks and those who find them win $10,000. Today, in Orlando, at the Citrus Bowl's Sign H, Gate C, George Culbertson found the first sticker near the Orange Bowl and was proclaimed the game's first winner. Culbertsom tells his story on the Treasure Hunter's Blog. Currently, the Up Your Budget site is receiving over 10,000 visits per day and growing dramatically.
|
|
