Archive for the ‘Creative’ Category

I had the pleasure of attending (and tweeting) AiMA’s October event, Interactive Creative Engagement. The panel discussion (moderated by Coca-Cola’s Capabilities & Communities Manager, Amanda Thompson) revolved around how engaging and interactive media drive consumer interaction, dialogue, and ultimately brand affinity and sales volume. The panelists at this event included representatives from three big brands: CNN, Chick-fil-A, and Cox Media Group. Below is a recap of what each panelist discussed with the group:

Leon Levitt, VP Digital Media at Cox Media Group reviewed the creative displayed on ajc.com & walked us through the McDonald’s Barista Challenge. Key points that Leon stressed were:

• Good, spectacular creative can make a difference
• Old rules still apply: contact drives eyes, eyes drive revenue, good creative will have an impact, don’t apologize for being intrusive

Michael McCathren, Interactive/Digital Marketing Lead at Chick-fil-A discussed the evolution of the Chick-fil-A cows and the emergence of their (the cows) new website: eatmorechicken.com. Michael spoke about taking risks with creative and the importance of helping your clients feel good about taking such risks.

Adam Naide, Sr. Director of Audience Experience at CNN Worldwide gave the audience a run through of the CNN Challenge which was created to combine the excitement of competitive trivia games with the fun of social online gaming.

Goals of the CNN Challenge:

• Build consumer affinity w/ the brand & talent
• Increase engagement
• Promote sampling of CNN content
• Drive revenue through sponsorship

Below are a few notable tweets from the event:

ewendkos: #aima listening to presentation from Leon Levitt – we can not be too intrusive so long as we have great creative +biz model

JermoH: Summary of Cox’s Leon Levitt: People will respond to great creative. Creative developers, step your game up! #AIMA

DianaBaldwin: Eatmorechicken.com launched last week. Interactive branding. Active branding. #AIMA

GumboShowJoe: #AiMA Michael M from Chick-fil-A empasized that you should push creative and risk with interactive media.

JermoH: cnnchallenge.com looks fun and is going to be a total productivity killer in offices nationwide! #aima

bsteve76: Naide sez CNN tries to be different and provocative w/content. #CNN #aima

To read more of the tweets from this event, checkout the hashtag #aima in Twitter. The next AiMA event will be on Wednesday, Nov. 18 and the topic will be: Mobile Marketing – How mobile is more than texting, tweeting and talking.

During an early morning Street View search I ran into this:

Street .. or Panda ... View?

In case you don’t see it, try to spot for the” yellow man” icon that normally appears in the bottom window pane. It has been replaced by a Panda bear.

Now, as you may or may not know, Google is notorius for their April Fool’s practical jokes. So I looked around. And, in fact, Google has been having some fun with this Panda. Their April Fool’s blog post is about CADIE (Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity) which is said to be a “powerful new technique for solving reinforcement learning problems, resulting in the first functional global-scale neuro-evolutionary learning cluster.” 

The blog post says, “Earlier today, for instance, CADIE deduced from a quick scan of the visual segment of the social web a set of online design principles from which she derived this intriguing homepage.” It’s Panda-rific. And, apparently, CADIE has found her way to Street View

CADIE's Website

Google has also turned YouTube upside down … literally. Check out this screen shot, and visit YouTube.com; videos linked from the home page appear to be doing it. 

YouTube, turned upside down!

Have you seen any April Foolery from Google today? Share it with us!

The country finds itself in what is said to be the most severe recession since ‘82 or ‘71.  Some go so far as to say we’re bordering on a depression.  Even more, seeing that the economies of the world are inexorably connected, this time it’s global.  It reaches into every industry and down into every business.  This makes us all very somber, very serious and extremely careful.

In our business, an attitude shift like this infiltrates every discussion around a brand and its communication.  Decisions are made with extreme caution; ideas are judged under a banner of conservatism and evaluated based on any number of imagined risks.  Humor is over-analyzed.  And throughout this conversation, the word “creativity” becomes tarnished and trivialized.  It becomes something to discuss when the economic picture becomes rosy, once again. 

This is unfortunate, because in reality, it is the strongest weapon a brand can wield at a time like this.  Creativity is the driving force behind impact.  It is the engine of attention, and there is nothing more necessary for a brand during a time when consumers are confused and complacent than strong impact and the ability to get attention.  Creative ideas reverse attitudes:  a spontaneous laugh or an unexpected visual twist provides a shock to the system.  It reopens a closed mind to reconsider and allows alternate thoughts inside.

Apple uses creativity not simply to break through with a message, but literally to break the online media itself.

Modern psychology considers emotion a stronger motivating force than logic.  Fear, depression, stress, anger– let’s face it, emotion is one of the biggest factors in any down economy. Creativity is the key to pulling emotional triggers.  Just imagine how strong a message of hope and positivity can play for a brand.

A creative message of inspiration, “Yes we can,” was a backbone in the November Presidential election.

The other mistake is considering creativity as merely advertising, or the tone and execution of a passive message.  Today, creativity combined with technology is extremely active and involved.  It does more than get attention; it urges people to get involved.  It develops positive, rewarding relationships (and that is just what we need right now).  It brings people together, gets them excited to be a part of something.  Creativity offers the most wonderful distractions, provides and emotional compass that points away from the present mire. 

NGK Spark Plugs creates humorous in viral videos to make it point and get consumer pass-along.

In fact right now, the only risk with creativity is in avoiding it.  In dark times, we all search for a beacon of light.  Most brands have it at their disposal, but just can seem to flip the switch.  They wait in the dark.  And then one of them ventures out with something-an alternative message, an unusual interaction, a new way of connecting or sharing or communicating.  Surprised by their behavior, we all stop and take notice.  We give that brand, that piece of communication our interest, our attention, our gratitude.

Snickers creates a new language, SnickerSpeak to get its consumers talking.

Creativity is this world’s only limitless resource.  Yet brands continuously conserve it, waiting for the “proper time.”  Well, there is no better time than the present. If your brand plans on speaking to consumers-in any media, in any form-do it with enough creative force to be heard.  To gain notice.  To start conversations.  To change minds, and hearts.  That is, in fact, the reason creativity is here.

As a sports enthusiast, one of my morning rituals is to go to ESPN.com to check the scores from last night’s games, view the top highlights, look for breaking news, etc. Just the other day I went about my normal routine, but when I hit the ESPN.com homepage I was smacked in the face with an iPod Touch ad that made me feel like I was on a rollercoaster ride. Before I knew what was going on the ad had destroyed the top navigation. The ad uses Flash to actually manipulate the page. In the screenshot below, you can see how it bounces the navigation tabs around as the iPod Touch moves while playing a typical game.

According to a Marketplace article, the Online Publishers Association will continue to create bigger ads in the future. I can admit that this is a cool way to display an ad, but from a user’s perspective, this was just frustrating. I found myself yelling at my computer because it was prohibiting me from doing what I was trying to do on the website.

What do you think? Is this a creative way to display an ad or just a big irritation to the users’ experience? How will users react to bigger ads on websites?

I’m a HUGE fan of the new www.skittles.com website. Essentially they’ve handed their web presence over to the fans. Not their online brand. That, like all brands, already belongs to the public. But in this case, Skittles made the decision to hand over their website as well. Personally I think its brilliant.

Want to hear about their products? They pull up their Wikipedia listing.

Interested in pics, or video? Where better to look than Flickr and YouTube.

Want to hear about the Skittles “chatter” on the web? Twitter’s search results will do just fine.

Connect with other Skittles fans and make new friends? Yep, you guessed it, takes you to Facebook.

It’s a very radical approach to being comfortable enough to allow the public to *officially* control your brand in the digital space. Are they censoring it? Nope, check out the Tweet I made to test that, looks like they are letting anything go, and good for them!

I’d love to know what YOU think about this. Is it marketing genius at work, or a way of being extremely frugal with their marketing budget (or maybe a little of both)?