How are you bringing B2C approaches to your B2B marketing?
Are you doing it at all?
For far too many B2B marketers, there's a view that never the two should meet. But as I write in my book THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, it's critical that B2B marketers realize business people are just that - people. And their exposure to B2C marketing approaches in their personal lives sets expectations for B2B marketing, whether B2B marketers like it or not.
But some savvy B2B marketers have caught on - big time.
Case in point: Our client LoopNet, the #1 online marketplace for commercial real estate.
Over the last few months, LoopNet has launched an integrated campaign that's predicated on a simple, yet powerful message: If your commercial listings aren't advertised on LoopNet, they may as well be invisible. That's because only LoopNet drives traffic to commercial real estate listings like literally no other option can.
Print, direct mail and online advertising developed by has articulated this theme in compelling, brand consistent fashion.
So when LoopNet decided to fete the luminaries of Los Angeles commercial real estate, we got to thinking: What if we took our message and super-sized it? What if we used a full-motion, building-size canvass to drive home... Read more
Tags: #looptrafficjam, 3d, advertising, band, branded, branding, commercial, concert, cre, dooh, entertainment, estate, experience, fender, gamification, go2, guitar, jam, la, loopnet, mapping, marketing, media, music, ooh, outdoor, pearl, productions, projection, real, social, traffic, Train, Video, viral
Posted in Creative Best Practices, Emerging Platforms, Entertainment, Opinions, Social Media, Websites, Wireless, Word of Mouth | No Comments »
Brands got serious about fun and games this year - on a number of different platforms.
Among the trends we liked this year - promotional games that bridged the digital and the physical, without requiring consumer devices to play. Not that we wouldn't be amped to try Google's Ingress augmented reality game if we get the chance. And Ingress aside, Google made our list this year, along with several major brands.
One interesting note: Many of our top pics this year mixed so many elements - social, mobile, location and so on - so well, that they made some of our other lists, too.
So without further delate, our list of favorite branded games for 2012. We'd love to know which made your list, too.
10. Google Wants to Rock, Tilt & Roll Your World in New Branded Game
Google wants you to go ga-ga over its new game.
9. Kit Kat Launches GPS-Based ‘Golden Ticket’-style Promo in UK
Kit Kat wants to do a heck of a lot more than just give you a break.
8. Mercedes ‘You Drive’ – A TV Campaign You Drive, Via Twitter
Call it a crowdsourced cliffhanger.
7. Magazine Cover Becomes Interactive Video Game
This is one way to make print relevant in... Read more
Tags: advertising, branded, branding, coca-cola, coke, dooh, Facebook, ford, games, gaming, google, gps, ipad, Kinect, kit-kat, location, marketing, mercedes, mobile, mustang, ooh, solomo, twitter, zero
Posted in Creative Best Practices, Emerging Platforms, Entertainment, Social Media, Video, Websites, Wireless | No Comments »
It's the perfect match of medium, movie and audience.
Universal Pictures has launched a virtual/augmented reality mobile app to promote the upcoming remake of "The Thing," which opens Friday.
(Haven't seen the original? Catch this hilarious 'Thing-in-4-min' video to a ersatz Sinatra tune.)
The app's free, of course, and sports 360-degree flamethrower action where players must use their weapons to survive attacks. There's even one of those "Thing Yourself" features where you can see your mug mutilated from the inside out - and share it with your freaked out friends.
Not surprisingly, the app comes from metaio, which is making a big name for itself in this space.
A nice way to get the film's young, mobile fan base fired up for more.
As one of my readers put it, "It's the THING for Halloween!"
Tags: advertising, ar, augmented, branded, branding, entertainment, games, gaming, ipad, iPhone, john carpenter, marketing, movies, reality, the thing
Posted in Creative Best Practices, Emerging Platforms, Entertainment, Social Media, Video, Wireless | No Comments »
Barclaycard's back and more bodacious than ever - with an "extreme" follow up to its hit waterslide iPhone app, the most successful free branded app to date.
This time out, it's a rollercoaster motif. Waterslide Extreme has been downloaded 12 million times, and agencies Dare Digital and Fish Labs hope to beat that stat with this new game, which takes you on a roller coaster ride through through New York City.
If you're wondering what makes this branded as opposed to just a sponsored game, it's tied to television campaign (spot shown here) that demonstrates Barclaycard's ability to let you make it fast and simple to make transactions in the daily rollercoaster of life.
In my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (available everywhere books are sold), I look at how such branded games can have wide appeal. In fact, according to stats from ShiftControl Media, consumers will average 12 minutes with a branded game, which is by far longer than they'll spend with most any other form of media.
We'll see if this new Barclay game finds the same kind of success as the original.
But it definitely seems like it's on the right side of the tracks.
Tags: app, barclaycard, branded, dare, digital, extreme, game, iPhone, media, rollercoaster, shiftcontrol, waterslide
Posted in Emerging Platforms | No Comments »
Is a TV commercial better in :30-seconds or 5 minutes?
DumbDumb's new online series "dirty shorts" for Orbitz Gum is just the latest in the field of "branded entertainment." And its first short - "The Prom Date" - is extremely well acted, well directed and well produced. Starring Jason Batemen and Will Arnett, the powers behind DumbDumb, and Ben Silverman's Electus, it has the look of a "Arrested Development"-quality sitcom - from which Bateman and Arnett hail.
But "Prom Date" itself is less branded entertainment than it is a five-minute commercial. It literally could be :30 long and deliver the same punch. Sure, the conceit - Orbits helps you deal with dirty situations, leaving a clean taste in your mouth - probably wouldn't fly on TV. But it seems made explicitly to sell the product just as any TV spot would do.
To borrow an adage from another sitcom, "not that there's anything wrong with that."
But when you look at branded entertainment like "The Motherhood" from Suave and Sprint, or "The Rookie" from Degree, or BMW's "The Hire" there's entertainment beyond just being a pitch. In those efforts, the product was part of the natural action. In "Prom Date," the entire set up... Read more
Tags: arnett, bateman, ben, branded, date, dumbdumb, electus, entertainment, jason, prom, silverman, will
Posted in Creative Best Practices | 1 Comment »
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