Monday, August 24, 2009

RED BULL SE SUBE AL ADVERGAMING



RedBull se sube a una de las últimas tendencias en publicidad interactiva: El Advergaming

La marca de bebidas energizantes eligió a la empresa FreeStyle, como desarrolladora de sus juegos y entretenimientos, para atraer y generar lazos efectivos con sus consumidores: http://www.redbullsoapboxracer.com/

La firma originaria de Austria selló un acuerdo con la desarrolladora de software para generar diversos videojuegos. Según informó la publicación Business Week, la firma tecnológica está trabajando en un video game llamado B-Boy, y también para la consola del play station. 

El juego “brake dance” es una de las primeras incursiones de ambas empresas en conjunto. Este acuerdo marca la importancia de generar una experiencia de marca dentro de los juegos. Los consumidores actuales son mucho más eclécticos en lo que se refiere a su forma de entretenerse. Cada día pasan más tiempo expuestos a medios interactivos como internet o los video juegos.

El desarrollo de branded entertainment, en especial el advergaming, es una de las nuevas tendencias que encontraron las marcas para vincularse con estos nuevos consumidores. Por otro lado, el creciente mercado de las consolas de video como la xBox o la Playstation, son un claro signo que representa el espacio en donde podrán encontrar a los próximos consumidores, que ya están llegando.

Fuente: iprofesional.com
Link: http://marketing.infobaeprofesional.com/notas/49365-Red-Bull-se-suma-a-una-desarrolladora-de-video-juegos.html?cookie




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TACO BELL SPICES UP MARKETING STRATEGY WITH MOBILE



Fast food franchise Taco Bell has spiced up its marketing strategy with the introduction of a mobile component to its “Why Pay More” promotion.

Taco Bell launched the “Why Pay More Shaker” iPhone application, which calculates the various 79, 89 and 99 cent items on the restaurant’s value menu. The application was created by the Hyperfactory. 

“iPhones are considered to be the latest and the greatest,” said Dave Everett, vice president and partner at KaOoga, Newton, MA. “They are made for people on the go and this fits in perfectly for fast food chains.”

“The demographics also match up well as the iPhone users’ age group skews towards a younger crowd,” he said. “Another iPhone advantage is the enormous screen size – an advertiser’s message is impossible to miss. “Having mobile outreach gives fast-food chains an opportunity to push new products, specials and deals.” 

Taco Bell first launched its Why Pay More value menu last year and it couldn’t have been a more perfect time. The battered economy has taken its toll on fast-food chain sales in general and the Why Pay More value menu is a great incentive to drive sales. 

The Taco Bell value menu includes a variety of menu choices including burritos, tacos and nachos. To use the app, users just need to enter the prices of the value menu items they are buying. Then, they have to shake their phone to trigger calculation. 

The application is meant to show consumers that Taco Bell is dedicated to helping consumers save money during this tough time. The application also calculates how much change consumers are to get back. 

Customers with a limited amount of money in hand can enter the amount they have and the app will show them what combinations of menu items they can afford to buy. The app also has a store locator link that helps find the nearest Taco Bell. 

“Quick service restaurants view mobile apps as a new way to engage their customers, from a simple store-finder function that helps customer find the nearest restaurant to full remote ordering and payment right from the app,” said Noah N. Glass, founder CEO of Gomobo, New York.

Gomobo built an iPhone application for fast-food chain Burger King. The Burger King app lets consumer place orders and pay for them their iPhone. Additionally, Gomobo helped Subway with its mobile ordering service. 

“Restaurant self-service technology has evolved from in-store kiosks, to online ordering, to the mobile device,” he said.

Fuente: Mobilemarketer
Link: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/database-crm/3610.html



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REALIDAD AUMENTADA: TARJETAS DE PRESENTACIÓN



“La realidad aumentada” está de moda, y las tarjetas de presentación no son la excepción para generar un impacto y capturar la atención del espectador. 

Por esa razón Jonas Jäger desarrolló las tarjetas de realidad aumentada. Que no solo muestran el correo electrónico y número de teléfono de su portador, si no que lo exponen como una figura real que cumple la función de desplegar información de contacto como: Teléfono, SMS, e-mail y por supuesto las redes sociales. 

Estas tarjetas de presentación muestran también información actualizada, así como el portfolio de una persona con sus respectivas actualizaciones dentro de la web y las redes sociales. Como un verdadero FAN de ‘La Guerra de las Galaxias’, Jonas Jäger buscaba lograr un “holograma” para efectos de las presentaciones, y lo hizo. 

Para ver esta holográmica innovación, ingrese al link. 

Fuente: Brandlife Blog 
Link: http://www.brandlife.es/2009/07/tarjetas-de-visita-en-realidad-aumentada/




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TYLENOL MOBILE CAMPAIGN DRIVES 3,000 APP DOWNLOADS



Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare drove discovery of its free branded "Tylenol PM Sleep Tracker" iPhone application with a mobile campaign on AdMob’s ad network, according to a presentation at digiday: Apps.

The Tylenol application, which was created by Deutsch, is available as a free download in the App Store and is promoted with the tagline “See how beneficial a good night’s sleep can be.” A click-to-download banner ad campaign that ran across iPhone sites and applications drove close to 3,000 downloads and increased Tylenol’s ranking in the App Store from No. 120 to 14, which in turn drove additional organic viral spread of the application.

“With tens of thousands of apps in the App Store, promotion is crucial to getting your app highly ranked, which is critical for discovery,” said Tony Nethercutt, vice president of sales at AdMob. “Consumer discovery is difficult with 50,000 apps, so being ranked in the top 25 most popular apps in your category is critical to getting more downloads.

“Brands get a steady flow of organic distribution through placement in the App Store rankings,” he said. “We can tell you the exact ROI you get in terms of the amount of apps downloaded directly from the ads served on our network, but there’s also a halo effect, and ROI will continue to improve well after you’ve stopped spending.

“The Tylenol PM application is a highly successful brand extension to what they were already doing that provides utility to consumers, and advertising with AdMob effectively and affordably drove downloads of the app and increased its ranking.” 

AdMob has served mobile ads promoting iPhone applications from Bank of America, NBC Universal’s “Bruno,” Choice Hotels, Walt Disney’s “G-Force,” Ford Flex Photo Lab, Kraft iFood Assistant, Nissan Cube Party Round Up, Taco Bell Why Pay More Shaker, Target and Sherwin Williams ColorSnap.

An AdMob survey asking “How do you usually download apps from App Store?” found that 93 percent of consumers download applications using their iPhone, with only 7 percent using their computer.

AdMob also asked “How do you discover the apps you decide to download?” Sixty-two percent were searching for a specific type of application, 60 percent were browsing through the top App Store rankings, 46 percent heard about the application via word of mouth, 20 percent see ads while using other applications and 19 percent discover applications from press stories or blog reviews.

Driving app downloads with mobile ads The Tylenol brand of pain-relieving drugs is owned by McNeil Consumer Healthcare, an American pharmaceutical company and a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.

The Tylenol PM Sleep Tracker iPhone application lets users track their sleep hours and moods, see their sleep history over time, add notes and customize their icons and get tips to help them sleep better.

Tylenol is promoting the application as part of its “Get Ready for Bed” campaign. Tylenol PM Sleep Tracker ads across AdMob’s network issued a call-to-action urging consumers to click through to the App Store to immediately download the application. 

While specific click-through rates weren’t revealed, AdMob claims its clients see conversion rates between 5 to 20 percent, with the average being closer to 10 percent. While ranging between $0.15 and $15, brands’ average cost-per-download directly from the click-to-iTunes mobile banner ads typically ranges between 1 and 2 dollars, according to AdMob.

“Those cost-per-download numbers are not counting viral downloads — we cause an organic bump, which continues somewhat even after the ad campaign ends,” Mr. Nethercutt said. “Ranking in the App Store is critical for discovery.

“Anything in top 25 is good, although our personal goal is to get you into the top ten,” he said. “There are a few apps we’ve gotten to No. 1, which is obviously the best.”

Fuente: Mobile Marketer
Link: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/3913.html




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CITI MOBILE OPTIMIZES FOR SMARTPHONES



Citibank is expanding its mobile offerings to smartphones, including iPhones, Palm devices and most BlackBerry smartphones.

Checking account balances or paying a bill used to involve a trip to the bank, and in recent years, logging on to a PC, but mobile banking services continue to grow. Citibank customers can now access and manage their bank accounts via their smartphone's mobile browser, without having to download an app.

“We’re constantly looking for ways to make it easier for our customers to manage their money,” said Marylou Dowd, director of customer experience for Citibank Online and Citi Mobile, New York. “Citi Mobile for Smartphones is one more way in which the growing population of mobile users can access their Citi accounts anytime, anywhere.

“It complements our dedicated iPhone app, launched earlier this year, which has already enjoyed great adoption,” she said. “Our aim is to make mobile banking increasingly easy for our customers, regardless of what type of device they use.”

Citi Mobile for smartphones is a mobile banking application built by Citibank with support from Mobile Money Ventures, a joint venture of Citi and SK Telecom that provides mobile financial services applications worldwide.

Citibank was the first major U.S. bank to launch a downloadable mobile banking application in 2007.

Citibank is a member of Citi, a global financial services company with approximately 200 million customer accounts. It does business in more than 140 countries.  It has become clear that consumers are no longer using their smartphones for business purposes only.

According to Nielsen's Q1 2009 Mobile Insights survey, 62 percent of recent smartphone acquirers use their devices for personal reasons, such as taking photos or texting friends, while only 10 percent use them solely for business.

Additionally, consumers are switching to smartphones at a rapid pace, with smartphones accounting for 22 percent of all devices acquired in the past six months, increasing total market penetration in the U.S. to 16 percent.

Citi says that it is targeting the mass market with its smartphone platform. “We’re not focusing on any specific segments, because a surprisingly broad range of demographics appear to be behind the recent surge in smartphone sales,” Ms. Dowd said. “And as recently reported, many people are also increasingly untethered, depending on mobile devices for more and more of their connectivity—voice and data too.

“And across all segments, there are early signs that mobile banking is also finding a role in the home and at the office,” she said. “In other words, users don’t have to be on the move or out on the street in order to find mobile banking useful.”

The new Citi Mobile offering lets users of Web-enabled mobile devices such as RIM’s BlackBerry, the Palm Pre and Apple’s’ iPhone view Citi account balances and account activity, pay bills and set up recurring payments.

Citi customers can also use their smartphone to make transfers between Citi accounts, locate Citi branches and ATMs and connect to customer service.   

Citi Mobile for smartphones provides navigation on virtually any device that has a mobile browser and an Internet connection.  To sign in, customers enter the same personal user ID and password they would use on their home computer.

Citi Mobile launched its new offering because millions of Citibank customers are banking online, many visiting the site at least once a week, and more consumers are switching to smartphones everyday.

Citibank makes Citi Mobile available to all its customers free of charge, because mobile banking is now part of customers’ expectations.

“The added convenience for customers is the fact that they can now manage their accounts on the go,” Ms. Dowd said. “Mobile banking is reaching a stage where it’s not an add-on or a luxury—it’s part of the cost of doing business for any financial institution.

“Citibank.com and our branches are the main venues for advertising the new Citi Mobile for Smartphones,” she said. “We will also be using our other regular channels of communication with our users to make them aware of this new feature.”
Fuente: Mobile Marketer




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HILTON HOTELS USES MOBILE TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER SERVICE



Hilton Hotels has launched a new mobile Web application giving iPhone users accessibility to the hotel chain’s Internet features.

The new mobile services for German and British users, including the ability to book from the iPhone, were launched in conjunction with Dublin-based Mobile Travel Technologies Ltd. Users can access and change bookings and view hotel images and information. 

“Hilton has launched the innovative mobile service to ensure customers have the best possible means of booking and managing their hotel accommodation, with ease,” said Geraldine Calpin, vice president of global ecommerce services for Hilton Hotels in Britain.

The mobile service has integration with the hotel company’s Hilton HHonors for the benefit of Hilton loyalty club members and a Hilton downloadable application will soon be available to British users.

The downloaded application will give users three ways to search for a hotel: text search, country or city, or by current location with the iPhone’s GPS capability showing a list of nearby Hilton hotels.

“In this digital age it's important we respond to the new needs of customers and now we can offer them the convenience to select and book a hotel, access and change bookings and view hotel images and information, whilst away from their PC,” Ms. Calpin said.

The technology was designed to be usable by both high-end and low-end software. “The technology provides an optimized view for each device,” said Gerry Samuels, founder and executive director of MTT, Dublin. “We took the lowest common denominator approach, it’s optimized for low to high-end and in the U.K. over and above we’re providing a genuine iPhone experience.”

“It’s all about convenience, to service road warriors when they are away from PC,” he said.
The new Hilton Hotel British and German mobile Web application joins the American version powered by Usablenet. Similarly, hotel chains like the Hyatt, Wyndam and Marriot all use Usablenet technology.

Wyndham Worldwide Corp. launched mobile sites for its Wyndham Hotel Group to address growing consumer demand for mobile commerce and to offer a more complete travel resource to customers.

Travelers now have access to Wyndham Hotel Group properties through 10 newly created branded mobile Web sites. Sites were created for Wyndham’s Ramada, Days Inn, Super 8, Wingate by Wyndham, Baymont Inn & Suites, Microtel Inns & Suites, Hawthorn Suites, Howard Johnson, Travelodge and Knights Inn brands (see story).

“By launching local mobile services in the U.K. and Germany, we create a new distribution channel for our products and at the same time improve customer service, as customers enjoy the convenience of making and changing bookings on-the-go,” Ms. Calpin said.

Fuente: MobileMarketer 
Link: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/commerce/3875.html



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BRIXX PIZZA SERVES UP MOBILE COUPONS TO DRIVE TRAFFIC


Regional restaurant franchise Brixx Pizza is seeing a spike in sales and increased customer traffic from mobile offers during the normally slow Monday-through-Thursday period.

Before the mobile campaign, Brixx had worked with Money Mailer on a number of shared-mail campaigns. While the direct mail ad worked well for them, Brixx viewed a mobile campaign as a tactic to improve targeting and increase the number of potential customers the restaurant could reach. 

“Brixx Pizza wanted to grow their revenue and differentiate the restaurant from the local competition and drive traffic to the restaurant at non-peak times,” said Carol Kelly, co-owner/partner of Money Mailer, Charleston, SC.

There are 13 Brixx Pizza locations across Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina. Brixx Pizza of Charleston, SC, is located in a busy shopping center close to a heavily traveled interstate Through the shared mailing and mobile marketing campaign, Money Mailer was able to assist Brixx in their effort to bring in first-time customers while enticing current customers to increase their visits.

Brixx’s top priority was to attract more customers to the restaurant by building a database of mobile-phone numbers.  Using the database, it could then market relevant offers directly to customers on a regular basis.  The restaurant also wanted to use the mobile coupons to increase frequency of visits by current customers.   Realizing how competitive the restaurant business is in Charleston and how extremely value-conscious the pizza dining crowd is, Brixx saw mobile marketing as a cost-effective way to target them.

Money Mailer introduced the mobile coupon text messaging campaign program to Brixx’s management and staff, demonstrating how it worked on a mobile phone.  Brixx decided to integrate the communication tool into their marketing program, using the keyword BRIXXMTP and Money Mailer’s short code—686868—in all their other advertising such as radio ads. 

The shared-mail campaign was sent to thousands of consumers that fit the restaurant’s customer demographics—at least 30,000 homes throughout the nine counties in and around Charleston, SC. The offer was spelled out simply so that consumers knew how to opt-in.
Money Mailer, in tandem with Brixx, reinforced the offers with in-store collateral such as banners, buttons, window stickers and table tents with the SMS call-to-action.

The restaurant’s wait staff shared the opt-in code and offer with customers. As an incentive, customers who opted-in received a free appetizer.  “The waiter says, ‘How would you like a free appetizer today?’” Ms. Kelly said. “Patrons say ‘Sure,’ the waiter tells them how to opt in, and they opt in.”

Once consumers opted in, Brixx sent them mobile coupons, which included 50 percent off, buy-one pizza get-one free and two kids eat free with one adult purchase.  An example of a push message sent via SMS: “Brixx Pizza: kids eat free Sat. 4-8 with adult purchase, dine-in only.” Consumers have to show their mobile phone at the point of sale to redeem the coupon.

Money Mailer sends out Brixx mobile coupons to the opted-in database roughly once a week, no more than four offers per month.   Integrating the shared-mail program with mobile coupons led to more than 517 opt-ins and counting.  Brixx Pizza’s management said that they experienced a definite spike in sales due to the mobile initiatives.

As an important gauge of the program’s success, the campaign increased customer traffic during the normally slow Monday-through-Thursday period.  “The mobile coupon program has been working well,” Ms. Kelly said. “Brixx Pizza has achieved a huge volume of increase in traffic due to the mobile campaign—in the triple digits.”

Fuente: MobileMarketer
Link: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/commerce/3819.html



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MEET GOOGLE'S NEWS SOCIAL NETWORK: iGoogle



Outside of social networks, start pages like My Yahoo, AOL, and iGoogle are among the stickiest in terms of occupying users’ time. Thus, it makes sense that the latter is moving to make its service a lot more social in an effort to take up even more of users’ attention.

Today, iGoogle is launching a series of new features that transform the start page into a social network of sorts, complete with its own social graph, activity feed, and applications. It’s not the first attempt to make iGoogle more social by any means, but it’s certainly the most sweeping, and with millions of users in play, it represents an important new push by Google. 

Google’s VP Search Products & User Experience, Marissa Mayer, told me in an interview yesterday that essentially, these changes can be thought of as a “new set of gadgets and functionality that augments our existing iGoogle and allows them to be social.” Indeed, there are already thousands of gadgets available in the iGoogle ecosystem, though only a few of them are taking advantage of the new social capabilities as of today. Here are three examples of them:

YouTube: This gadget now lets you filter by “Shared Activity” – i.e. – the videos your iGoogle friends have shared, as well as instantly share it yourself and leave comments. That activity is then visible to your friends in their YouTube gadget, as well as on their “Updates” page.

Scrabble: This is just like Scrabble for Facebook, but for iGoogle. There’s no time limit on moves, so games can be played over days or even weeks between iGoogle friends. 

To-Do: Though quite simple, this could actually be a gadget that lures lots of users into iGoogle’s social features – shared to-do lists. 

An important thing to note about these features is that the social graph – i.e. who sees your comments and shares – is separate from other Google products like Gmail or Google Reader. Hence, what we’re basically talking about is a separate social network for iGoogle, where the “Updates” link is akin to Facebook’s News Feed, showing activities from your friends on iGoogle. Meanwhile, for developers looking to target iGoogle’s users with social gadgets, all of these features are now a part of the iGoogle Gadget API.

It would certainly seem that iGoogle now has all of the makings of a social network: millions of users, activity feeds, and an ecosystem for apps. The challenge – and it’s no small one – is getting those users to start doing things like sharing their to-do lists and favorite YouTube videos using iGoogle, which will ultimately build out the user networks that something like this needs in order to succeed. 

Fuente: Mashable. The Social Media Guide. 
Link: http://mashable.com/2009/08/12/igoogle-social-network/



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NIKE, FRITO-LAY CAN'T DISRUPT EVIAN'S VIRAL-VIDEO DOMINANCE



The Nike SB (that would be skateboarding) effort and Frito-Lay's "A Woman's World", campaign are the fresh videos on this week's chart, which was still dominated by Evian's rollerskating babies. 

Is it a good day when your skateboard gets run over by a car? Only, apparently, if you're pro skaker Paul Rodriguez (aka P-Rod), the car is driven by Ice Cube and the soundtrack is his '90s classic "Today Was a Good Day." The Nike SB (that would be skateboarding) effort and Frito-Lay's "A Woman's World" campaign are the fresh videos on this week's chart, which was still dominated by Evian's rollerskating babies. 

The Nike SB work is the only debut on the chart this week, securing the No. 6 spot with 221,000 views; helping it, suggested Visible Measures, which compiles the chart each week, were the release of various additional and behind-the-scenes assets. Meanwhile, Frito-Lay's "Woman's World" effort returned the chart (it originally made its debut in May), thanks to "Jeans," the latest video in the "Woman's World" series. Visible Measures pointed out that "Jeans," which launched July 21, benefited from YouTube-home-page placement.

And for all those keeping track at home, it's Cadbury's 20th week in a row on the chart. When will people tire of the "Eyebrow Dance"?

Fuente: Advertising AGE
Link: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=138299


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