Ice Box Locks?

Everyone knows Ben and Jerry’s make some of the best ice cream around.  In fact, once a pint goes in the fridge, it’s hard to control those ‘everyones’ from eating ‘your’ ice cream.

Thus this pint-sized invention.

Instead of spending money on hidden cameras that survive deep-freezer temps, the marketing guys at Ben and Jerry’s found a less expensive solution:  the “Euphori-Lock”!

This combination lock attaches to the lid of a Ben and Jerry’s pint so you and only you can get that much needed calcium.

While we know this is somewhat fanciful (right, midnight-snack Dad?), the genius of marketing this is the implied irresistibility of Ben & Jerry’s creamy concoctions.

And the lengths lactate lovers will go to protect their Cherry Garcia or Americone Dream.

Maybe to extend this ‘campaign’ B&J can set up text alerts with functionality, reminding you of your ice cream break -- or alerting you to an ice cream break-in.

Social Media for the Social Drinker

In honor of Oktoberfest starting late September, we’d like to honor innovations brewing in beer marketing.

Many beer brands have joined Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.  Hey, drinking’s a social thing.

But a tip of our hat (or tap of the pint) to the Guinness marketing team for devising a clever campaign that includes QR codes. 

Sure, everyone does QR codes now. 

But Guinness has done the rest one better, putting their QR codes on beer mugs.

And since Guinness beer is a dark, or stout beer, the QR code becomes visible only when the beer is full.

When you scan the mug using your smartphone, it tweets about your pint, updates your Facebook status, checks you in via Foursquare, downloads coupons and promotions, invites your friends to join you. 

Now your significant other can log on to Facebook, see how many pints you’ve really had, and check out which bar you’re at via Foursquare. 

Sorry all you light colored pilsners – your mugs won’t work.  Of course, depending on your significant other, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Prust.

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/guinness-qr-cup-reveals-scannable-code-when-full-140602

Got a Light, Bulb?

Anti-smoking ads are as plentiful as butts at a nicotine convention. And they’re often mocked by the intended target audience for trying too hard.

But this Thai anti-smoking campaign from Ogilvy has a core idea that grabs even smokers in the act.

It didn’t take graphs, spooky facts, scare tactics, or even riffs on classic cigarette ads, as some anti-smoking spots have done.  It simply highlighted an age-old tack of having those addicted warn others not to make the same mistake.  

The effect hits hardest when the audience sees the light bulb go off for the smokers – as these planted kids cause the smokers to simply warn themselves.

As we see it, this ‘advice to kids’ angle might be an interesting insight to help highlight a number of things adults do that they’d warn kids against doing.  Bike helmets, anyone?

So yes, kids say the darndest things.  And they also can cause us to question the darned adults we have become.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u-rhnV4l08

London Olympics a Non-Event?

Many advertisers don’t appear to be as hot with Olympic fever this year.

For example, the London Evening Standard thought they’d end up with a bunch of cash from media sales, but their eBay-style ad auction proved them wrong. The bidding war (or lack there of) surprised many when expectations came in lower than the score on a pole vaulter using a bendy straw.

As a result, there’s still plenty of room for outdoor advertising around London. So, if you’ve got an extra hundred million (pounds, that is) laying around, put it to good use.

Overall, the the games cost $15 billion, but the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) has only raised $2 billion in sponsorship gold.

For that $13 billion differential, they could buy out the real Olympic birthplace, Greece, post-default….

The LOCOG have also installed some tight rules to ensure non-sponsors don’t get in the games:
• Logos from non-sponsors are being covered up with tape in public places (including the ‘loo!’)
• Athletes are restriced from using Olympic symbols in blogging/social media (#freedom of expression?)
• “Advertising police” can raid any potentially unauthorized advertising areas and fine offenders 20,000 pounds

Like rampant parking meter maids, that’s one way to gain revenue. But whatever happened to love of the game…or Games?

http://www.businessinsider.com/london-olympics-advertising-restrictions-2012-5#heres-how-london-envisions-your-olympic-experience-10

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/25/london-2012-olympics-sponsors_n_1546466.html?ref=advertising

Oodles of Google Doodles

Google’s frequent Doodle homepages add a splash of sparkle to our web surfing. 

Would you have known Earth Day if Google hadn't transformed their logo in tribute?

Nice calendar reminder function, eh?  Bet you didn’t know when Frank Lloyd Wright’s birthday was either.  More indispensable water cooler trivia.

Google has created 300 Doodles in the U.S since ‘98 when their genesis was actually laziness and happenstance.

Their first Doodle displayed the Burning Man image, and told users the site

would be running unattended, like an “out of office” note.   But the

Burning Man bloop sparked a revolution, or at least a habitual bit of differentiation on the tabula rasa that is Google’s starkly simple home page. 

 

Now Google creates many Doodles commemorating events like the Venus transit, LEGO’s 50^th anniversary, and Robert Moog’s birthday – ya know, the guy who invented the electronic synthesizer.

Anyway, Google Doodles are fun, visual reminders about events or random facts you can’t live without.  Kinda like what Google gets you every second of every day, right?  

 

Why the Long Facebook?

Considering the public’s limited attention span, Facebook should be proud of its longevity in Net years. Surveys show, however, that its popularity is fading -- and not just on Wall Street after the botched IPO:

"The online poll (Reuters/Ipsos) also found that 34 percent of Facebook users surveyed were spending less time on the website than six months ago"(Reuters)

So if users are expressing a decrease in satisfaction, why do they keep using it?

Connection is a key component, of course.

But also, long before the web, we’ve had an innate desire to broadcast to others about ourselves, from wearing logoed clothes to putting alma mater labels on den walls or car windows.  Social media simply provides us with another outlet to satisfy this desire.

Plus, Facebook has made it more constant, and convenient.  

In fact, comments posted on articles discussing dissatisfaction with Facebook were posted on none other than...Facebook.

So despite analysts predicting its imminent demise via dwindling satisfaction, we won’t stop using it unless something else becomes more appealing, more convenient, or, as they say in college where Facebook started, more ‘popular.’ 

But buying Pinterest, auto-face-recognition for tagging, and having loads of cash would make anyone popular on campus, right?

Bump It Up

Bump is a new app that allows users to transfer photos from phone to computer, wirelessly.

How is that anything new? Well, all you have to do is bump your phone (iPhone/Driod) to your computer and, voila, the pix on your phone are transferred.

By tapping your phone to the spacebar, the sensors and Bump’s cloud activate, and it transfers the pics. So, for those of us who keep losing our connector cords, we love the wireless ways of Bump.

The spacebar is not just a spacebar anymore -- now it’s now pic magnet.

And if Instagram sold for $2 BN, maybe this app will see a valuation…bump