Beer at the movies

Alcohol companies have been very successful in creating ads that really grab consumers’ attention. Beer brands such as Budweiser with their ‘Poolball’ and Carlton Draught with ‘the Big ad’ really created something that had not been done before. However, the hits they got on YouTube are not even close to what Carlsberg got (even though the Big ad has been there for several years).

Carlsberg launched a very creative marketing campaign that was based in a movie theater. It was posted on YouTube and the ad went viral with almost 2,5 million views in less than a week!!! It is a very unusual ad, check it out...

The question that automatically pops into my mind is how effective is the ad? It did go viral which means that cost is low and exposure is huge, as the views already suggest. But the million dollar question is whether it actually leads into sales..? In a way the brand is engaging with the consumer and providing an experience, I mean I’d love to get a free beer at the movies. Wouldn’t you?!

SoundPond

Music and social media go hand in hand. Go, hype it! discussed about SoundCloud, which reminded me of another different kind of platform for music - SoundPond.net. What makes it interesting is that it's the first one of its kind in Australia! This is a website where you can stream live DJ sets from different DJ's 7 days a week. It's almost like you have a DJ in your own room. It's a simple business plan created by a few people in Adelaide. They set up a studio with decks and a video camera so that dj's could play their sets live online. At the same time there is a chat open where you can chat with the dj or with other people streaming the show. Sometimes you can even watch a live set from a club. From the schedule on the front page you can see times, DJ names and the music genre.

I've seen familiar faces there who also promote their sets on SoundPond through Facebook. It's a brilliant way for new and upcoming DJ's to create awareness and make a name for themselves amongst others in the industry. Weekly unique visits are over 15,000 at the moment and increasing all the time. Soundpond is advertising different events on the website and selling ad space. It is well know in Adelaide music&hospitality scene but they need to get the word out more. Facebook and Twitter are already being used and the next step is to expand to Melbourne and Sydney.

There are some great DJ's who play here, if you like good music I recommend tuning in!

Would you try this kind of steering wheel?

It seems that Volkswagen knows how to engage with consumers extremely well. Here's a campaign they ran in China, with a great idea that I haven't seen done before. They attached a steering wheel to a motorsport magazine and the readers could then go online and use the exact same steering wheel from the magazine and race online. How amazing is that?! See this video for more details

The success of this campaign lead to the most successful year for VW Scirocco sales in China. Apparently over 7% of the online racers signed up for a test drive.

Would you try this online? If yes, would you consider test driving a vehicle based on a campaign like this? Consumers seem to have preferences when it comes to cars which might have an influence on their opinions. At least it's something new to try...

Engaging with the consumers

Some brands have started engaging with consumers in a very successful way. Here are a few examples:

New Balance launched a campaign to get people running while at the same time engaging with the brand

Volkswagen launched a campaign in Norway and got consumers to engage by guessing how far the new Volkswagen Golf Bluemotion could get without refilling with petrol

Two different industries but both introducing something interesting for the consumers to engage with.

The Dark Knight Rises...and goes viral

The new Batman movies have been a huge success, not many people have bad things to say about them. Even bigger success has been the marketing of these movies. The marketers behind these movies are brilliant, The Dark Knight had a viral campaign called 'Why So Serious?' and the success of it had never been seen before. Chicago was seen by fans as 'Gotham City', the campaign spread across the world so quickly and gained followers everywhere who supported Joker or the Gotham police force and marched down the streets of various cities presenting their commitment. The way it was done was very clever and here's a video explaining how it all got done:

The third movie, The Dark Knight Rises, is scheduled to come out June 2012. It's expected to be even more popular than The Dark Knight and the viral campaign has started already. There are a few videos that can be found on YouTube that show Gotham burning on Gotham City News and there's chanting on the background for the new villain Bane. There is also a clip that reveals the character Bane pixel by pixel

There's a lot of debating around different websites about whether or not these clips are part of the new viral campaign for the new movie or whether they are just user generated videos by the biggest Batman fans. I don't think it really matters because it has already created such a hype online and it's only about to get bigger. It might just be a very smart move from the marketers since the campaign for The Dark Knight was a huge success all over the world. Considering that the previous campaign was launched in 2008 and how much social media has grown since then, this campaign could be better than ever!

On their Facebook page, The Dark Knight Rises has just over 192,000 likes whereas The Dark Knight page holds over 8 million likes. It'll be interesting to see the figures in 6months time...Personally, I can't wait for the movie to come out and I might just go and Like the page right know to see how this campaign turns out.