The endless choose-your-own adventure xkcd comic

From PSFK:

Created by web comic xkcd, ‘Click and Drag’ is a giant interactive piece that invites the viewer to go on a journey following the characters in their big world. he comic begins, “From the stories I expected the world to be sad, and it was. And I expected it to be wonderful. It was. I just didn’t expect it to be so BIG.” The viewer then has the opportunity to explore the large image by clicking and dragging with your mouse in all directions, going on a journey to discover different characters, climbing mountains and towers, going deep underground, or searching the skies.

Why I’m Curious:

We’ve seen musicians give their fans the power to play and manipulate their music, and fashionistas can curate their runway experiences. Now the popular web comic, xkcd, has now followed suit and gone interactive with a choose-your-own adventure. What makes this interesting is that the medium is static, and  readers can now manipulate it and tell different stories every time depending on which way they drag the mouse.

Grey Poupon Screens Facebook Friends Before Accepting Them

From PSFK:

Grey Poupon’s new tagline, ‘Spread good taste,’ is the guiding qualification on the Facebook application, which uses an algorithm to interpret your percentage of good taste. Applicants are reviewed based upon the following categories: “proper use of grammar, art taste, restaurant check-ins, books read and movie selections, to name a few.”

Why I’m curious:

The hook of the app is undeniable: who doesn’t want to know if they’re “good enough” to join a club? The fact that GP incorporates your social graph makes the whole experience super entertaining, and the app is sharable as well.

But what’s really great is that what could’ve been just a supremely entertaining one-time interaction with the brand actually presents multiple opportunities to engage the consumer for a longer period of time. Once you’re “in the club,” you’re privy to several “rewards.” This week it’s an eco tote bag (with GP’s branding, of course). But there’s prizes every week through mid-November, giving the consumer a reason for return visits. Moreover, when you want to claim one of these prizes, you have to give Kraft your contact info — an added bonus if one of the brand’s secondary goals is to beef up with mailing lists. There’s also an opt-in to KRAFT’s recipe newsletter, further hooking the consumer into a long-term relationship.

Johnny Walker uses Influncer Instagrams for Facebook Cover Photo Livefeed

From PSFK:

Edelman, together with BBH, has developed a campaign for Johnnie Walker that makes use of the brand’s Facebook cover photo, turning it into a live, interactive stream of Instagram photos. Three popular Instagram users have been asked to tell the story of the brand’s vibrant heritage by each taking over the Johnnie Walker Instagram feed for a week. The images will be fed into the brand’s Facebook cover photo, taking fans on inspirational brand-related journeys while providing exclusive behind-the-scenes glimpses of the iconic whiskey’s world.

The Instagram images the three users take will be automatically fed through to the Facebook Page through a unique app that creates an interactive timeline by live-streaming them directly to the cover photo. The campaign, which launched on August 27th, will be live until late September.

Why I’m curious:

Brands using UGC from users for their Facebook cover photo is not new. But, as Facebook as stressed to everyone, cover photos aren’t  meant to be a high-rolling engagement getter, but rather visual real estate to tell a story.

Johnny Walker isn’t necessarily just picking pretty user pictures to strengthen its relationship with fans. It’s trying to tell a story through the eyes of a Johnny Walker fan — one who happens to have thousands of social media followers.  This gimmick is not intended to increase impressions (though if users constantly refresh the page to see all the photos, as they need to, it’ll increase Edgerank); it’s intended to tell a story. Simple concept, yes. Effective? Most likely.

From The Next Web:

Airbnb released a feature in June called “Wish Lists” allowing its users to add properties to a list of places that they’d like to visit someday. It seems like the feature has caught on, because since its launch, over one million properties have been added to a Wish List.
Why I’m curious:

As marketers, we sometimes leave aspirational purchase musings to the wayside while focusing on pushing committed transactions. However, as Airbnb’s success with Wish Lists suggests, perhaps we should think of aspirational purchases as not just a midway point to actual purchase, but also a point of seed-planting amongst their circles.

Think of Wish Lists like an internal Pinterest — they’re equally effective as brag boards or a planning tool or as gift lists, and the social component of “hearting” (read: the equivalent of Facebook’s “liking”) means the spread of one item can reach many.

The full rundown on the traction Wish Lists have been getting:

– Users have added over 1 million hearts

– The number of repeat daily Wish Listers has increased 3.5x

– 45% of users that login each day engage with Wish Lists:

– 6K people each day heart something

– 25K hearts are being added every day

– The average Wish Lister adds four hearts per day

Ustream’s BFF brings simple broadcasting to Facebook’s News Feed

Video streaming by Ustream

From The Verge:

Now UStream is using its broadcasting know-how to let you share video to your friends’ Facebook News Feeds with a new mobile app called BFF, or “Broadcast for Friends.”

After you give the app the go-ahead to use your Facebook account, it uses some onscreen arrows to call out all of the UI elements (not that they’re difficult to figure out), then immediately lets you start recording. When you tap the big “Broadcast” button to get going the app first tests your network to make sure you have the bandwidth to stream video, then asks who you want to broadcast to — just yourself, your friends, or the general public. Choosing the latter two will add a post to your friends’ News Feeds that they can click to watch the stream, just like playing any other embedded video. The audience can then like the stream or comment on it; events that show up as notifications to the person doing the broadcasting. After the broadcast is over, BFF follows the Ustream model by leaving a persistent version of the recorded video in its place.

Why I’m curious:

While we’ve explored several other instant video-to-social-sharing tools in the past, like Color, this appears to be one of the first from a large videostreaming company. Also, a key difference is BFF’s ability to support broadcasts much longer than the 1-minute limit of its competitor, and BFF supports unlimited viewership — something that makes it stand way above Color from a branding perspective.

This opens up the live-video broadcasting platform to the consumer, and for big companies, this is the newest offering for UGC. For events that hold real-time urgency, this is something to definitely try.

adidas Captures Lollapalooza Action With Animated GIF Photo Booth

Via PSFK:

adidas Originals wanted to have a presence at Lollapalooza this month for their new #represent campaign so they reached out to agency Digital Kitchen, who provided their animated GIF photo booth for the event. The ‘Protobooth’ helped connect the event with the social web, with the addition of a site that works across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. Visit adidas.protobooth.dk to see the gallery of animated GIFs from Lollapalooza.

Why I’m curious:

Party photobooths are nothing new, but the party GIF booth is. Adidas takes a classic party favorite and one-ups it, creating a highly sharable, visually engaging medium that can help perpetuate Lolla (and Adidas) long after the event is done. Moreover, at an event like Lolla, you’re catering to tastemakers — people who are inherently interested in self-promotion. Adding the Adidas logo and hashtag those GIFs essentially makes the photographed do the hard part of spreading and sharing your branded content.

London train service offers free custom music for the trip to Gatwick Airport

Via Springwise:

The Gatwick Express train travels nonstop between London’s Victoria Station and Gatwick Airport in what is roughly a 30-minute trip. Now, offered exclusively to customers who buy their tickets online, the free Gatwick Express Tracks include three custom-recorded musical interpretations of the journey from recording artists Philip Sheppard, Benga, and The Milk.

Why I’m Curious:
Arguably the worst part of commuting is the mundanity of sitting without stimuli. What the Gatwick Express has done is made the trip more enjoyable for its online consumers by offering music downloads — something that makes a trip go by much faster. For travel and transportation brands, this add-on is a relatively small cost to potentially improve the worst part of the experience.

Passion Pit’s new app gives fans interactive experiences with songs

From The Creators Project:

Passion Pit released a new “app EP” yesterday, the Passion Pit Gossamer app, which features four different interactive experiences for the songs “Take A Walk” and “Carried Away.” Developed by interactive artist Scott Snibbe and his studio (whose work you may remember from Björk’s Biophilia app album), the project serves as further proof that mobile apps are gaining traction in the music world as the kind of album supplement artsy limited-edition CD packages and high budget music videos used to dominate.

Why I’m curious:

Brands don’t always have to create the experience for the consumer — instead, give the consumer tools to create their own experience. This is yet another example of how consumer experiences are no longer just about consumption but about participation. Rather than listening to music, then listening and watching a music video, it’s about playing with the artist’s project in different ways and sharing it with your own network. Passion Pit has already made sure it’s visually and aurally cool, and now it’s time for us to put our touchscreens to work to remix it.

Taco Bell Airlifts Taco Truck into Alaska After Hoax

  From PSFK:

The small town of Bethel, Alaska received a special delivery July 1^stconsisting of 10,000 Taco Bell Doritos Locos Tacos. Back in June, local residents staged a prank leading people to believe that Taco Bell would be opening a restaurant. When the chain restaurant found out about the prank, they decided to bring Bethel residents what they’ve been craving by airlifting a taco truck into the town.

Why I’m Curious:

The idea of a fast-food brand giving people a taste of what they don’t have isn’t new (TB’s stunt is sort of similar to Burger King’s “Whopper Virgins” from 2008). However, what’s interesting is that this was a response to a small-town prank-turned-carefully calibrated initiative, all borne out of something few had heard of — making it an excellent example of social listening. The big-name brand then planned the stunt, tweeted about it extensively all week with #OperationAlaska, had an end-reel which they re-promoted. For something unexpected, the earned and owned media on this initiative was huge.

McDonalds Train Info Board Shows Delays As Potential Burger Eating Time

From PSFK:

In cooperation with Polish State Railways, McDonalds capitalized on its proximity (a mere 50 meters away) from the main hub of Warsaw’s Central Train Station by creating a ‘Hamburger Timetable.’ The timetable displayed real-time schedule information–departure time, destination, track number, and train platform alongside wait/delay time in hamburger and french fry eating potential.

The ‘Enough Time To Eat’ measure used menu items to denote length of wait time- the more menu items on the schedule, the longer the wait for a particular train, with the menu options shrinking as departure time grew closer. When passengers checked the schedule and saw a hamburger, fries, soda, and ice cream symbol, they knew they had plenty of time to visit the McDonalds. But when they only saw a cup of coffee, they knew their train’s arrival was imminent.

Waiting passengers started to spend their time at McDonalds inside of whiling away the hours inside the station; McDonalds saw an increase of 4,500 customers in the first month of the campaign, and the train station became a more enjoyable place for waiting passengers.

Why I’m curious:

Just like the Homeplus subway grocery store in South Korea, another brand has created a campaign to take advantage of captive audiences to sell wares. McDonald’s uses this basic idea on a local level, tying in brick-and-mortar restaurants within proximity of trains. Not a new idea, but a smart application for fast-food with fast transportation.

Introducing Tagbrand, the new Foursquare of fashion

From TechCrunch:

The model is simple enough. Take and upload photos of what branded clothes you are wearing and tag them. Effectively, it’s a photo check-in for brands, or ‘Foursquare for fashion’, if you will.

The twist is that users are encouraged to tag up pictures with a visual tag of what brand each item of clothing is. Alas, the site does not yet do visual recognition of the clothes. Maybe one day…

TagBrand doesn’t call this check-ins, but – wait for it – “brand-ins”. People can then comment or vote on the brands their friends are wearing. Clearly the opportunity here is to capture a fashion-obsessed audience and provide a platform for advertisers.

The product combines contains brands, polls and e-commerce. There’s a lot of virality built into the service – every tags has a Twitter or Facebook button on it.

Now, clothing brands and retail stores are constantly chasing these people. This is one way of delivering them a highly targeted audience. Tagbrand’s business model is based on creating a special marketplace for them which is visible while browsing the brand’s tag on a photo. The stores provide Tagbrand with a price-list and its system attaches them to a “Recommended” block.

So while browsing their friends’ clothes, users see the real-world item beside the image and can purchase from there (click are on a CPC basis). Users also get delivered latest news on brands they such as new collections.

Why I’m curious:

Launched in May 2011 in Russia, TagBrand launched last month in the U.S. It works like Foursquare, and looks like Pinterest, and shops like an e-catalog, except it’s all UGC. (Actually, it’s kinda like Uniqlooks, except brand agnostic.)

What’s interesting is that this takes Pinterest to a whole new, niche level. For users, it’s not about browsing; it’s about bragging. In this way, it’s about recognition for uploaders. However, for casual passers-by (and some users, too), it still is about inspiration — and the way that TagBrand has created the site, about purchase. Really like someone’s Doc Martens? You can buy that brand of shoes at X, Y, Z store with just one click from the site. This is taking streetstyle blogs to a more shoppable level — a clear benefit for brands. It’s just a question of whether it’ll catch on in the States.

As of today there’s 21,945 users.

Nike Social Commerce: Pay with Sweat not Money

From Social Commerce Daily:

A brilliant social commerce campaign from Nike Mexico and JWT:

Head over to the Nike Facebook page for the #makeitcount Nike+ auction (subasta), and you can bid for new Nike sneakers with miles (kilometres actually) that you’ve run and recorded to your Nike+ app.  You can only bid with miles run during each 15 day auction period.  If you’re outbid you can rebid by adding more miles (if you run them).

Why I’m Curious:
 Not only does this program tap into the competitive spirit of runners/Nike fans, but also encourage them to use the product more as a way to invest in more Nike gear. Essentially, this program closes the circle on a wholly Nike-owned purchase cycle: buy Nike stuff with Nike credits, and earn Nike credits by using Nike gear socially. This type of commerce (using miles/minutes/etc. to “buy” new products) is not new, but this is a good example of Nike’s use of social commerce — something that’s harder for brands to do.

AirBnb Launches iPhone Alerts To Help Make Last-Minute Bookings

From PSFK:

Airbnb realizes the potential value of helping those who are frantically searching for accommodation with less than five days until their vacation. The popular peer-to-peer accommodation service has launched a new feature that aims to match guests with hosts according to their criteria.

Guests who need a place to stay within five days can note which locations they’re interested in and the amenities they’re looking for. The push notification system will then send the message to the hosts that fit the requirements and provide the guest with real-time feedback.

Why I’m Curious:

For any parent brand that requires reservations, this is a smart relative of the flash sale, making it easy to convert on last-minute bookings. Rather than force guests to search for accommodations and contact hosts individually , this service makes it convenient for travelers to have Airbnb do all the work, which in turn has Airbnb turn a profit. It’s a simple concept, but not one that’s readily employed by many brands.

Dove’s new Facebook ‘Ad Makeover’ Campaign overrides negative Facebook ads

From Mashable:

Dove recently released its new “Ad Makeover” campaign, a Facebook app in Australia that allows users to replace negative ads with one of eight messages designed to boost women’s self esteem.

One message reads, “Your birthday suit suits you.” Another: “The perfect bum is the one you’re sitting on.”

Users, both men and women, can send these replacement messages to their friends using the Facebook application. We’re not exactly sure how the app works — namely, we’re not sure how the app is able to buy up ad space for specific users. Neither Dove nor its agency, Ogilvy UK, could not be reached for clarification on the matter.

The Facebook app is part of The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, a worldwide campaign spanning print, online and TV advertisements, as well as events, workshops, viral videos and a book. The campaign, which encourages women to celebrate their beauty even if they don’t resemble models on ads and magazine covers, has been running since 2004.

Why I’m curious:

As AdWeek explains, it’s not quite the ambush that Dove wants you to believe — rather than “the app somehow take[ing down the old ads and replace[ing] them with yours… The media buy just gives users, on certain page loads, a Dove ad instead of another one. ” In this sense, users don’t even know about the switch; they just see positive Dove ads. However, it’s how the PR is spun that makes the advertising so effective with users who know the background story of Ad Makeover. In this way, it’s not just the actual advertisement that’s effective — it’s the campaign (read: the whole backstory) that makes it what it is.

Similarly, perhaps it wasn’t just Nike’s #makeitcount video that was so influential. Instead, perhaps it was the whole backstory that the guy just took Nike’s money and went rogue. The whole idea is what’s critical to the effectiveness, and even if only a portion of that creativity is actually literally portrayed in the ad, as long as the story somehow is disseminated, the campaign will succeed.

Nike’s new RSVP system lets consumers reserve products with just a Tweet

From Digital Trends:

Nike has introduced a new Twitter RSVP system which will allow hypebeasts to tweet or Direct Message the store Twitter handle to reserve a pair of the company’s latest releases without going in stores the first hour of launch. To RSVP, all the user has to do is send a tweet with the correct hashtag, the last four digits of their state, passport, military, or school ID number and the desired shoe size. Tweeters will get a confirmation Direct Message reply just like they would via e-mail, and they’re set! Naturally, the process is first come, first served so you will definitely want to stay awake and online during the release. But if you were able to tough it out hours on end in front of retail stores before, this change should be extremely easy to accept.

Once recipients receive their confirmation DM’s, they can pick up the product in store whenever the item launches. No more waiting in line, no more security fears. However, if you do not come and pick up your item within a specified time, Nike reserves the right to release your RSVP to another eager buyer. At the moment, Nike has Twitter accounts for stores in major cities such as New York, Boston, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles and many others, with the hopes that more stores in other cities and continents will be expanded to accommodate the new feature.

Why I’m Curious:

In a reversal of the “fans waiting in line at midnight is a symptom of great brand health,” Nike has decided to make shoe debuts online rather than in-store. Their new RSVP system is an cool new use of Twitter, and an interesting way to look at purposefulness of global vs regional social accounts for a brand. Moreover, perhaps the online buzz of a “Nike” Twitter trend is worth more than a write-up about the mob outside a physical store.

Actual execution of the idea will be interesting to see (one wonders how many Twitter RSVPs will accidentally go unconfirmed, resulting in negative backlash), but if nothing else, the perception of Nike as an innovative, tech-forward brand gets another boost from this initiative.

#makeitcount — exemplary of why content is king

From Mashable:
Nike hired the film director Casey Neistat and editor Max Joseph to create a commercial for the Nike FuelBand featuring the slogan “Make It Count.” But at the last minute, the duo strayed from the agreed-upon spot, and set off on a journey around the world using Nike’s money and advice to “Make It Count.”

“The ‘Make It Count’ film was the third film I was to make for Nike and at the last minute I thought, ‘If I could do anything in the world and make it count what would I do?’” Neistat told CNN.

It took 10 days to use up Nike’s cash. Neistat and Joseph traveled 34,000 miles, visiting 16 cities in 13 countries on three continents. The result is a four-and-a-half-minute film, which still features Nike’s “Make It Count” branding.

Why I’m Curious (Jocelyn):
What’s brilliant about this branded video is that the only Nike branding is the first 8 seconds of the 4:38 video, showing the Nike+ fuelband, and the #makeitcount endframe. The rest is pure content that’s simply appealing to users. It’s not selling the Fuel band; it doesn’t even tell us what the Fuel band does, and you can’t see Neistat wearing it in the video. Instead, it’s selling a lifestyle that people aspire for and can understand. This isn’t about counting calories (which, obviously, isn’t an aspirational lifestyle). It’s about adventure. And with almost 2 million views in 5 days, it’s clearly resonating with the public.

 

Why I’m Curious (Mai):

Neistat’s two earlier Nike ads garnered only 50 -100K views. Why? My hypothesis is that because it did not drive people to think beyond the ad.  If Neistat just filmed people “makingitcount” it would have inspired many likes and shares –  but it would have stopped there. His latest work is polarizing, ergo memorable. It gets people talking about two stories- one is about going rogue with a Nike Ad and another is producing content that tells an authentic story that documents real-life.

Other works Nike Ads by Neistat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9YW1x4mpM0&feature=plcp&context=C4c32613VDvjVQa1PpcFOWsVDKqlcShcZqb5YNOUxr-pEgM1QzHiM%3D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZzmHt3dj7w&feature=context&context=C4c32613VDvjVQa1PpcFOWsVDKqlcShcZqb5YNOUxr-pEgM1QzHiM=

Sync your AmEx with Twitter, get savings for tweeting branded hashtags

From PSFK:

American Express introduces a new experience for cardmembers that utilizes the power of social networks. U.S. cardmembers can now sync their card with Twitter accounts, allowing them to turn customized Twitter hashtags into couponless savings. Once they log on to Twitter via any devices, they will be able to tweet the special offer and instantly load the savings into their cards. After qualifying purchases at participating merchants, including Best Buy, McDonald’s, Whole Foods, Zappos, and more, the savings are automatically delivered via statement credit in just a few days.

Why I’m curious:

Despite the video leading you to believe you’re going to be tweeting #AmexCoffee or #AmexGroceries, you’ll actually be tweeting #AmexStarbuck and #AmexWholeFoods — a small different for the consumer, but big difference for the brand. Amex’s “Sync. Tweet. Save” campaign is a direct Twitter riff off Amex’s “Link. Like. Love” Facebook campaign from last summer and it’s setting the precedent that AmEx is a force in social credit/couponless savings.

What I like about this is that the incentive for consumers is not only the savings, but also the simplicity. What I like even more about it is that it’s a natural-seeming way to force what you want: reach and advocacy. This is a win-win for everybody, and a prime example of how marketers can actually deliver valuable content and achieve biz objectives in social (the same way as adding a coupon at the end of pre-roll).

Brands trying out Amex Sync include Best Buy, McDonald’s, Whole Foods Market, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Century 21, The Cheesecake Factory, Dell, FedEx Office, FTD, Gulf, H&M, Seamless.com, Sports Authority, Ticketmaster, Virgin America and Zappos. They’ll be closely watching the analytics on this test, with the Amex Synch API offering also supplying reports to merchants about customer spending, online and offline.

HASHPIX

We knew this was coming…you can’t have all of these beautiful pictures and no one profiting from them. Someone had to capitalize….presenting: Hashpix the new place to buy/sell your favorite Instagram photos.

Mashable:

“To sell on the site, photographers need to apply. It’s starting out by selling selected photos from 12 of the most popular Instagram photographers, who together have more than 800,000 followers on the photo sharing platform.” Read the full article here.

Why I’m Curious

I am curious to see what this could grow into. Could brands with amazing photos start selling them at a profit on Hashpix? Could brands such as Starbucks that use great imagery start using this as a place to promote their creativity? Additionally, it continues the conversation around images and videos and how much more people are using them in social media. It challenges brands to not only have engaging copy, but to be aesthetically pleasing to the consumer as well.

Facial Recognition Billboard Only Lets Women See The Full Ad

— Jocelyn

From PSFK:

A new kind of outdoor advertisement is being trialled on Oxford Street in London’s West End. The interactive advertisement uses a high-definition camera to scan pedestrians and identify their gender before showing a specific ad. The built-in system has a 90 per cent accuracy rate in analyzing a person’s facial features and determining if they’re a male or female.

The £30,000 display is set up by Plan UK, a not-for-profit organization that helps children in third-world countries. Female passersby will be shown the full 40-second video of its ‘Because I’m a Girl’ campaign that promotes sponsoring a girl to receive proper education in a developing country. Males won’t be able to see the full ad and will be directed to Plan UK’s website instead. The purpose of this was to show men “a glimpse of what it’s like to have basic choices taken away.”

Why I’m Curious:

Generally, the idea behind advertising is to reach mass. By making the billboard only accessible to half the population, Plan is going against that notion — but potentially to gain more value. The concept of using facial recognition to only show ads to one gender shows the possibility of isolating (or spotlighting) one type of consumer: perhaps ads shown only to redheads, or different ads shown depending on your gender. For a client like Verizon whose Rhyme phone is marketed specifically to women, or Dr. Pepper Ten, which is unabashedly marketed only to men, this type of advertising reinforces the idea while being an interesting twist on OOH.

Fancy That.

Pintrests you can purchase? -Tulani

From Mashable:

“A familiar-looking site called Fancy has beaten Pinterest to the punch — by monetizing its user-curated collection of images.

Fancy, which lets users organize images from around the web into “lists,” announced Thursday that it would begin conducting transactions directly on its site. Previously, users could click on a link listed with an item to buy it on a third-party site. Now they can shop directly on Fancy — and the site will take a cut of every purchase.”

Read the full article here.

Why I’m Curious

Apparently Fancy is not exactly like Pintrest, but has the same post/share aesthetically  pleasing items theme. With this option to purchase the beautiful things that you see find on other’s boards or on the site the potential for brands to post their merchandise and curate their products on pages in an eye catching way will definitely grow. It takes posting about things you are interested in away from just being about how it looks and brings it to is this attainable? Can I own this?

I am interested to see if/how this will take off and in what way brands or companies will look to market/advertise on a site such as this.