von Roland Hachmann | Juni 18, 2007 | Blog, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Online Advertising, Social Media Marketing
Whoever doubted that widgets can be a fantastic tool for marketing? Well, probably anybody who didn’t think that a widget can actually provide a fun „anything“ sponsored by a brand.
Here is a short article about a Red Bull Widget that seems to be the killer app for all those people bored at the office (during lunch break only, of course).
It is an online version of Rock / Paper / Scissors. You can play this via the widget against other people from the facebook network. Great idea!
This might be the start of a whole new stampede of marketing widgets on facebook (and others).
von Roland Hachmann | Mai 22, 2007 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Online Advertising
It is amazing. A viral campaign apparently already started for a movie, that will launch in 2008. That is at least 7 months down the line. I wonder how early is too early?
But, given the fact that it is a viral campaign, they need some time for spreading it.
There is a good overview about what has happened so far over here.
It seemed to have started with a static site, then some unbranded posters appeared in some US cities. Then:
Within 48 – 72 hours, all of the posters in major cities were defaced to resemble the image seen at the URL I Believe in Harvey Dent Too. If you went to that URL the site would ask for your email address. After you submitted (reusabale database anyone?) you were sent an email with the coordinates for a pixel that you could removeBatman4 from the site.
With users able to remove just one pixel each, a viral effort was underway to spread the word to get others to register and remove a pixel. In less than a day, thousands and thousands of unique visitors had visited the site to remove a pixel – ultimately revealing the face of the new Joker, Heath Ledger.
And then it goes on even more – I suggest you go here to continue to read. Really cool stuff – reminds us of „Snakes on a plane„
von Roland Hachmann | Mai 17, 2007 | Blog, Digital Marketing, Online Advertising
Dish your dirt is a small „viral“ online campaign site for Gavin & Stacey, apparently a UK sitcom or something like that. It asks you around 10 questions on embarrassing or stupid things you might have done at the office, at parties, etc. The nice thing is a little shocker at the end, which reminds me of a couple of joke *.exe files that were sent around a few years ago. Unfortunately the bad quality of the screenshot gives it away (you’ll see what I mean once you’ve gone through it).
From a marketing perspective there is an intelligent feature in it. While you wait for the „time consuming“ calculation of the results of this survey, you get to see a short trailor clip of the show… Something you might otherwise not have watched.

von Roland Hachmann | Mai 9, 2007 | Ad News, Blog, Marketing, Online Advertising
This is something Frederick Samuel asks here, having presented a viral spot for Ray Ban (which looks, if you ask me, like it has been well post-produced to achieve this effect…)
My reply in the comments was:
good viral means good content and that will continue to be king, nevermind if it is an ad or not. think about it: people don’t forward it, because it is an ad for xyz, quite often, they won’t even be able to tell you the name of the brand or product a few days later.
the challenge with viral is really, to produce good content. to have a remarkable story worth spreading. with an increasing number of viral spots, it will be more difficult to stand out of the clutter enough to be liked&spread. but that is a challenge that classical advertising had all along, so there really isn’t anything new, don’t you think?
What do you think?
von Roland Hachmann | Apr. 29, 2007 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Culture, Marketing, Online Advertising
I guess April was one of the most unproductive months in the history of this blog, with the holidays and the nice weather outside…
Here is a quick catch up on a few headlines that I found after looking into my feedreader for the first time in weeks:
Being a blog addict is not what I have been the last couple of weeks. Here is a list of symptons that you should watch out for.
I got an invitation for joost some time ago and have been checking that out. I was fascinated by the quality of the „free“ IP TV but now I read at Startup Meme that they will indeed integrate ads – even the classical 30″ spot. In addition, they track my viewing behaviour:
Joost will also be creating behavioral profiles of the users based on the viewing habits, likes and dislikes, to serve hyper targeted ads.
Adverblog pointed me to this nice idea for an „interactive“ outdoor ad by Grolsch beer.
eMarketer refers to a study be marketing sherpa about effectiveness of viral marketing tools. Apparently „experienced“ marketers think highly of these things.
At the same time, YouTube is experimenting with pre- and post roll spots in order to find out how and where to best place ads amongst the clips.
Coke has started a virtual promotion with the guys at Crayon, as you can read at Experience Curve. It’s called virtual thirst – since you don’t really drink anything in Second Life, the idea of being „thirsty“ got extended to thirst for fun, experiences, knowledge, etc. They now call for people to enter their virtual Coke machine that delivers against whichever of these „thirsts“.
Anyway, so much for now, I will continue later, once I am through the rest of the feeds.