One of the better agency stunts at this year’s SXSW is Razorfish’s #UseMeLeaveMe, a set of 20 GPS-equipped ‘town bikes’ that anyone can take for a spin while they Tweet out fun facts.

The bikes are single speed beach cruisers, which makes them easy to ride for those that haven’t been on two wheels in a while (it’s like riding a bike…) and each one contains a GPS transponder that updates a map in real-time to help SXSW attendees track down a ride.

Once a ride has been claimed, the bike will Tweet out things like where it was taken from, where it was left, if it’s been ridden hard (and if so, how hard), the weather, hellos to other bikes, if one rider is “being douchey”, and other random stuff to keep things interesting. Plus, each bike has its own personality, which is expressed in the words and phrases it Tweets with.

Once a rider hops on, they’re encouraged to Tweet things about their experience using each bike’s unique #hashtag, and anything goes, as long as you follow the one simple rule: “Just don’t be a jackass.”

There’s also a QR code on each bike to enables… oh, who am I kidding? It’s 2013; no one scans QR codes anymore…

So far, the stunt seems to be going pretty well, with a nice mix of rider Tweets and bike Tweets that keep the conversation worth paying attention to:

Tweets about “#UseMeLeaveMe”

No word yet on what happens with the bikes once SXSW is over (a charity donation would be nice…) but it’s a simple idea that could easily be replicated at just about any public event, so hopefully you’ll see this concept riding into a town near you sometime soon.

#UseMeLeaveMe

The post Razorfish Gives SXSW Town Bikes With #UseMeLeaveMe appeared first on The Future of Ads.

It’s easy to say that a car is spacious and luxurious, but how do you demonstrate that claim in a clever and unique way?

If you’re Fitzroy Amsterdam and the car is the new Hyundai i30 Wagon, you turn it into Hotel Hyundai, the world’s first 5 star hotel on 4 wheels.

For Hotel Hyundai, the i30 Wagon was customized with a double bed, blinded windows, a multimedia system, and included 24 hour in-car service. To complete the experience, Fitzroy even created a unique logo for Hotel Hyundai, as well as a full collection of sheets, pillows, slippers, bath robe, and even a hotel key that winners would retrieve from the front desk.

Hyundai fans entered on Facebook for a chance to stay at the hotel, and the car was parked outside of The College Hotel in Amsterdam, so guests didn’t have to worry about who would come knocking in the middle of the night. And while guests of Hotel Hyundai would surely enjoy the time spent in the i30 Wagon, the well-do-to guests of The College Hotel were also likely to be intrigued by the well-lit hotel on wheels in the parking lot, and seek to learn more.

As with most social media stunts, Fitzroy made a video of the event, complete with an eye candy spokesperson to show off the hotel’s unique features:

It’s hard to find fault with this campaign. The idea is new and unique, production costs were relatively low, and they managed to nail the details that could have been overlooked, like the custom bedding and the luxury hotel connection.

They could have rolled out the campaign on a much larger scale, and given more than just a handful of winners the chance to stay at a Hotel Hyundai in their area, but when the only thing you can say about a campaign is that they should have done more of it, you know you’ve got a winner on your hands.

The post Hotel Hyundai Shows Off The i30 Wagon appeared first on The Future of Ads.

When I wrote about the need for better direct mail campaigns, one idea I mentioned was to “create a direct mail ad that’s also a unique piece of art”.

No doubt inspired by that idea (probably not) Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners created a direct mail campaign for BMW that included a series of unique art prints, along with the typical sales material, that was mailed to perspective buyers.

To create the prints, they turned a new BMW M6 Coupe into “The M Press”, with a custom rig that would dispense ink above the M6′s tires.

The plan was simple enough: Matt Mullins, the Chief Driving Instructor of the BMW Performance Driving School, drove the car around Blackhawk Farms Raceway in Illinois, and when he drove over areas of the racetrack where pieces of paper had been taped, he would flip a switch to activate the custom ink sprayer, which inked the rear tires and allowed them to leave their mark on the paper below.

To make sure the printing process would deliver the intended results, Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners worked with Classic Color out of Chicago, a digital printing shop that helped mix the inks and create the printing rig that brought the idea to life.

BMW sent the resulting series of “M Prints” to existing M owners and potential owners via a direct mail campaign, and along with the printed ad, recipients could visit a personalized website that would show them the video of how their print was made.

As with most modern campaigns, a crew was also there to create a behind the scenes video, which they then used to tell the story to a wider audience. This helped to not only increase the ROI of the original campaign, but to create a second wave of interest out of a single idea.

By taking a traditional direct mail campaign and finding a fun way to add something special, BMW and Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners were able to create an ad that’s sure to stand out from every other ad that gets delivered by the USPS.

The post BMW Makes Direct Mail Exciting Again With The M Press appeared first on The Future of Ads.

Toronto, Ontario based agency Lowe Roche found a way to spice up their direct mail campaign for Pfaff Porsche by taking a Porsche 911 and parking it in front of mansions in the Rosedale, Forest Hill and Bridle Path neighborhoods of Toronto.

Lowe Roche then took a picture of the car while it was parked in the driveway of each home, and used that picture as the focal point of a custom direct mail piece they created for each home on the fly.

In addition to the car, Lowe Roche also brought along their own photo editor, printer and runner, so they were able to create and print each piece of direct mail right there on the spot, and skip the process of organizing, labeling and mailing each flyer.

The results speak for themselves: Of the homes that received the direct mail ad, 32% booked a test drive online.

What’s surprising is not that this campaign worked. Of course a family that receives a piece of mail with a picture of their own home on the front is going to pay attention to it. And when that picture includes a hot sports car, they’re going to generate some interest.

What’s surprising is how easy the concept was to create. They made a template, they took similar photos of each home, and kept the offer simple. By eliminating as many complications as possible, they were able to create the ads at scale, and give them just enough personalization to be effective.

So considering how easy it was to create, why can’t this same concept scale to something even bigger?

With digital printing, there’s no setup required to create a direct mail piece at scale, so printing costs shouldn’t be a factor. (Sure, each ad is going to cost a little more to print than a typical direct mail ad, but not so much more that it would eliminate the ROI of a reasonably targeted campaign.)

If you wanted to mirror their technique and use an image of each recipient’s house, a technology like Google’s Street View would give you the images you’d need to customize each ad, but why limit the concept to just photos? For example, look at what Absolut was able to do with customizable printing to create a series of nearly four million bottles that were each individual and unique:

So what about using a similar process to create a direct mail ad that’s also a unique piece of art?

This process would be especially effective for companies that have good data about their direct mail recipients, and can customize it beyond just their address.

For example, it’s well known that Target has a huge amount of data on their Target Card holders, and they use that data to customize the types of offers that their customers receive.

So what if, instead of coupons, you sent customers an ad that is customized to the types of things you know they like? Think ad libs for print ads.

The goal here shouldn’t be to create an exact duplicate of the campaign that Lowe Roche created. Instead, the goal should be to get inspired by their creativity, and to think of ways to customize your own advertising to achieve the success that they created.

Just because something has always been done one way, doesn’t mean there isn’t another way that might work even better.

The post Help Save Direct Mail appeared first on The Future of Ads.

The guide aims to emphasize the exotic adventures that Land Rover owners are supposed to undertake, and includes the tools and information needed to survive in the desert:

• The cover is made with the same reflective material used by the army, and can be used to signal for help.
• The metal binding of the guide can be made into skewers, so stranded drivers can spear and cook any animals they’ve hunted.
• The 28 page guide details all of the indigenous animals and plants in the area that are safe to eat.
• The pages of the guide also include information on how to make a shelter, build a fire, and a map in case drivers wish to try and walk their way out of the desert.
• Plus, if needed, the book itself can be eaten to provide the owner with a few additional calories. The pages are made of potato-based starch paper and printed with glycerin based ink, resulting in something that’s 100% safe to eat, with relatively the same nutritional value as a cheeseburger. (Though probably not the same taste.)

The ad was created by Y&R Dubai, who described the idea as follows:

While Land Rover vehicles can take on any obstacles in the desert, it cannot be said the same of their owners. Sandstorms, deadly animals and sinkholes are just a few things they might encounter. And when they venture deep into the desert, even the most experienced drivers can quickly succumb to the harshness of the desert. This book teaches them the basics to staying alive in the Arabian Desert, hence reinforcing what Land Rover stands for in a fun and engaging way.

The campaign was so successful that all 5,000 of the original books were quickly claimed, and Land Rover decided to print an additional 70,000 copies to include as an insert in a popular print magazine.

Sounds like a winning idea to me!

The post Edible Survival Guide Helps Land Rover Owners Survive appeared first on The Future of Ads.

Digital magazines have only existed for a few years, but I don’t think I’m asking too much when I say that if you’re going to advertise in one, you should at least be able to utilize the most basic functionality that this platform provides to help you tell your story.

I’m reminded of how poorly most advertisers have adapted to digital magazines as a medium every time I see this ad from Kohler:

The ad is for the Flipside, a four-sided faucet with ‘Flipstream Technology’ that gives you four unique spray patterns depending on how you flip the faucet head.

Seems like a pretty interesting product, right?

Since this was a digital ad in a digital magazine, I immediately tried to grab the faucet head and ‘flip’ it to see the other three spray patterns. The result of my flipping was… nothing. The ad did absolutely nothing, and had no response to my touch input.

Ok, I thought, there are four spray patterns, and the iPad that I’m holding has four sides, so maybe all is not lost. Maybe it was too difficult to program the ad so that the faucet head rotated with my finger, but maybe it’ll show off each of the four spray patterns as I rotate the device. So I turned my iPad 90 degrees, and low and behold, the ad changed!

Perfect, I though. Now we’re getting somewhere! I’ll just give it another rotation and…

Crap. There are four ways to hold the device, and four possible spray patterns, but no matter what you do, you can only view two of those four patterns.

Even discovering the second spray pattern is left to chance, since the ad gives no indication that you should rotate it to see more images. I poked and swiped and tapped at the screen, but nothing unlocked the other two images. It will recognize portrait mode, and show one pattern, and it will recognize landscape mode, and show another pattern, but spray patterns three and four are apparently left to the imagination.

(Maybe the other two spray patterns just aren’t that good, and Kohler doesn’t show them on purpose?)

The end result is that I’ve gone from an interested consumer that’s willing to touch and play with the product, to a frustrated consumer that’s put off by the experience, and put off by a brand that didn’t take the time to create an ad that would show off its product’s main feature in an intuitive and engaging way.

To make matters worse, I would have been better served by a static ad that was just divided in fourths and showed four images of the four spray patterns. Or a carousel that scanned through static images on a timed rotation. Or hell, even a YouTube embed that showed a :15 demo of the faucet turning from spray pattern to spray pattern would have been more informative than what Kohler came up with.

It should also be noted, I wasn’t viewing this ad in the latest issue of US Weekly. This ad appeared in an issue of Wired, a magazine that caters to the early adopter crowd. And I have to imagine that Kohler bought the ad in Wired because they felt that the Flipside faucet would appeal to this digital, tech savvy audience.

And by all accounts, it should. It certainly looks the part. And I’m sure the different spray patterns are useful for different situations, and nicely integrated into a new and innovative product. But you’d never know by just looking at the ad, since you’re only able to poke at a static image of two spray patterns, and can’t find out more information without spending time searching online. (Which I’m not likely to do, given the fact that I’m not currently in the market for a new faucet. However, like most people, I’m always open to be wow’ed by something that I didn’t even know I needed, and could have found myself in the market for a new faucet if this ad had showed me all the things that I was missing with my current faucet in a quick and easy way.)

So what should advertisers keep in mind when designing a successful ad for a digital magazine?

1. If your audience is in an environment where they want to touch and play with things, make sure your ad can be touched and played with.
2. If your ad needs to be rotated or scrolled or tapped or engaged with in any way, make sure to highlight that fact in an obvious way. Don’t leave it up to chance.
3. Don’t hide important information behind confusing and non-intuitive interactions.
4. There are many ways to tell the same story, and sometimes, simpler is better. Don’t let novelty get in the way.
5. Digital magazines are the future. If you’re not ready to produce ads for them, then you better get ready soon.

Best practices for digital magazine ads are hard to come by, since the medium is still so new. With that said, the opportunity should not be ignored, since this new format gives advertisers a whole new set of tools to tell stories in immersive and engaging ways.

The post Let Me Touch It: A Recipe For Successful Magazine Ads In A Digital World appeared first on The Future of Ads.

About a year ago, Skittles took one of their sweet looking custom vending machines (the same vending machines they give to celebrities) and offered it up to anyone that could convince them through either photo or video why they were a worthy recipient.

One (well actually two) of the responses came from Trale Lewous, a character played by Nathan J. Barnatt, a YouTube ‘celebrity’ that creates wacky characters and makes odd videos with those characters.

Predictably, his entry videos were a little… odd:

But that should come as no surprise, since Trale Lewous made odd commercials for Skittles on his own without any reward:

Since Skittles is an odd brand, they seized upon this odd opportunity, and delivered Trale his prize:

Since Trale was already a huge Skittles fan, the videos continued:

Skittles again seized upon the opportunity in front of them, and delivered a custom boombox to help Trale Lewous with his music videos:

A month later, another video emerged from the Trale Lewous/Skittles partnership:

By keeping the videos low-budget, Skittles doesn’t need millions of views to justify the campaign. Even a few hundred thousand well targeted views would be enough to make this campaign a success, especially when many of those views come from hard to crack communities like Reddit.

Now many brands would have called it quits after a series of successful videos, but Skittles decided to take their partnership a step further by making Trale the star of an online video contest, which they teased:

And then formally announced with their new official spokesperson:

RideTheRainbow.com is, as you’d expect, a bit odd, but it fits with the type of brand they’re trying to create, and appeals to their intended audience. (The same people that watch and enjoy videos featuring Trale Lewous.)

Since this whole thing started with a vending machine giveaway, the hope must be that by giving away a Skittles pinball machine, they’ll unearth the next Trale Lewous, and start the cycle all over again.

And with an endless supply of new talent flooding YouTube every day, doing whatever it takes to stand out, Skittles should have no problem finding their next star.

The post Skittles and Trale Lewous are Odd Partners appeared first on The Future of Ads.

Ford’s ad for the new 2013 Mustang featured a tease of a model named Dalena Henriques. She only appears once in the magazine, in Ford’s ad, which is odd since most models make repeat appearances throughout the issue. However, there’s a good reason for this oddity: Dalena Henriques is a made-up model that Ford created for their swimsuit spread.

Ford was counting on readers to search for more of Dalena by firing up Google and searching for her name, since that search would more than likely end at DalenaHenriques.com, the only site that existed for this made-up model.

On the site is a collection of additional photos of the car, each with additional, partial glimpses of ‘Dalena’. The photos show off everything from the taillights, wheels and hood vents to the interior, navigation system and door handles, and each includes a pun-filled caption from Dalena as she talks about how excited she was to be featured in the ad.

By guaranteeing that all searches for Dalena Henriques would end up on a site that Ford controlled (at least for a little while until posts like this flooded Google with her name), they were able to direct and control all search results without spending a single dollar on Search Engine Marketing.

Lexus decided to go with Tori Praver, an actual swimsuit model, for their ad. For the print version, Tori’s photo was turned into a race track, with ‘curves’ that only the new 2013 Lexus GS F Sport could handle.

While the concept is novel, it’s the extensions of the ad that caught my eye.

As many bikini-filled ads often do, the Lexus campaign included a ‘making of’ video that showed off a few additional views of the car, along with extended views of Tori Praver. (To be fair, this is to be expected, given the intended audience of the issue, and the ad.)

Taking things a step further though, they also released a game for iOS devices called TORI 500, where players were challenged to “see what it’s like to race the all-new Lexus GS around Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Tori Praver”.

Unlike a print ad, which will be viewed briefly while flipping from one page to the next, a mobile game is something that guarantees extended interaction between the user and the brand, and helps to increase the exposure time of the campaign.

Finally, in addition to the game, Lexus also created an app called Super Modeled that lets you take Tori Praver and/or the Lexus GS F Sport and “place these two famous models in virtually any photo on your iPhone”.

Given the recent explosion in popularity of photo editing on the iPhone, this was a smart move by Lexus to take advantage of this trend with a simple app that’s still likely to see heavy use.

Both Ford and Lexus were smart to test out experimental extensions on a large and highly targeted placement like the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. Regardless of how these extensions perform, the print ads still serve their main purpose in the magazine, and any additional interaction with the campaign through these digital and mobile experiences can be viewed as icing on the cake.

The post Ford and Lexus Experiment with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition appeared first on The Future of Ads.

No that long ago, blog writers were the primary curators of content online, and we’d all tune in to see what they’d recommend next. Ads would try to place themselves next to premium content on premium channels, but the connection was loose at best, and readers knew the ads were paying for the placement, so they would still get ignored.

However, as companies realized there was value in being the source of new, interesting and unique content, curation became a viable marketing tactic. Through Twitter, Facebook, and other curation channels, companies would find and share content related to their own products in hopes of attracting the sustained interest of their target market.

Over time, as trust shifted and consumers were more willing to look outside of the traditional sources for new content, additional verticals started to adapt to this trend, including ad networks and daily deal sites.

In the last post I talked about ad networks that have taken on the role of content curator, so this time I’ll give a few examples of daily deals sites that have harnessed the power of content curation.

The first example of this trend is Fab.com. As Sarah Lacy noted recently on PandoDaily, “Fab Isn’t an Ecommerce Company; It’s a Content Company with Sales“.

Part of what makes Fab so successful as a daily deals site is that their users trust Fab to source the best and most unique products, and share those products on a consistent basis. The prices are great, but it’s the great content that keeps the users coming back for more.

The Gilt Groupe believes so strongly in this mix of content and commerce that for the launch of their food site, Gilt Taste, they hired the former Editor-in-Chief of Gourmet magazine, Ruth Reichl, to serve as the editorial advisor. According to Ruth,

I believe that Gilt Taste is the next generation of food media, giving you everything you love about food in one place: ideas, inspiration, recipes, stories, and the ability to buy the best. It’s going to be the food magazine of your dreams. With this site, we’ll be able to create a community where people who love food can come together and share their experiences.

Looking beyond daily deals sites, we see networks like Pinterest tapping into this new trend, and growing substantially as a result. Pinterest allows anyone to curate their own content around specific topics, and others can then subscribe to topics that match their own interests for the latest updates. Brands looking for an easy way to curate content and share it with their audience have quickly adopted the platform, and I’d expect that trend to continue as the Pinterest audience continues to expand. For a look at what some of the first brands to make the jump into content curation through Pinterest are up to, check out Whole Foods Market, Etsy and West Elm.

By becoming the source of curated content, brands can shift some of their energy from push to pull marketing. Instead of constantly pushing out messages through banners spread far and wide, they can pull in their desired audience by sharing content those customers will enjoy, and then retain those customers for long-term interaction with the brand. This gives the brand additional opportunities to develop a deeper relationship with their customers without additional media spend, and puts the focus on a channel that they have much more control over.

Curating content that customers will enjoy does take time, and you can’t be everywhere at once, so brands need to choose channels wisely, but for those that have the personality and the resources it takes, content curation can be a great way to attract and retain an audience that will trust the brand for more than just a one time sale.

The post A Shift To Curation appeared first on The Future of Ads.

Field Notes is another brand owned by Coudal Partners, the company behind The DECK, and they recently created a banner ad that caught my eye:

As you can see, there’s no call to action, no product shot and no sales pitch. Instead, there’s just a colored box, a product name and the fact that they ‘made a red one’.

If you aren’t already familiar with Field Notes, or aren’t the world’s biggest fan of the color red, you might look right past this ad without a second thought. And if you were to compare it to the Anatomy of the Perfect Banner Ad from BuySellAds, this banner would fail every test.

However, because Field Notes has such a long standing presence on The DECK, and because readers of sites that feature ads from The DECK trust the network to only highlight products they might be interested in, Field Notes is free to focus on a single point they’re trying to get across; that their notebooks, which specialize in creative colors and seasonal varieties, are now available in red.

It’s a simple message, but perhaps the most effective given the audience’s existing familiarity with the product, and trust in the network.

If you click on the ad (because how are you NOT going to click on an ad like that?) you’re presented with a fantastic video that explains the new red color, and tells an inspiring tale of love and adventure:

As Coudal Partners says on their site:

When you’re your own client, and there’s no one to step all over your ideas, what happens? Well for us anyhow, we wind up with a series of promotional films that hardly ever mention the product, or only mention it tangentially.

Apparently that philosophy extends to their banner ads as well.

Coudal also goes on to point out videos for their Fire Spotter, Northerly and Monona County Fair editions of Field Notes, which each featured new colors and a new story to tell, but didn’t feature a lot of the product being pushed down your throat.

While this doesn’t work for everyone, it’s important to keep in mind that there are other factors to an ad’s success besides just the image and the copy. Something as simple as the network that it runs on can have a huge effect on the response the ad receives.

In my next post, I’ll dive deeper into this trend of brands and networks as curators of content.

The post The Network Matters appeared first on The Future of Ads.