Video of the Week: The Flashed Face Distortion Effect

By Mike Woods, Framestore

Apparently, there is a new scientific finding called the "Flashed Face Distortion Effect.” This effect has placed second at the 2012 Best Illusion of the Year Contest. In my opinion, it should have won first place. 

 

Gardening blogs grow up: The online publishing evolution continues

As the Chelsea Flower Show makes headlines all over the world with its jaw-dropping displays of gardening expertise, SAY Media have added a new green-fingered title to its growing lifestyle publishing portfolio.

Gardenista is the new online sourcebook for 'cultivated outdoor living'. If I was being mischievous I'd say that official description sounds like Monocle for Tramps, but it is instead an extension of its parent site, Remodelista, and will cover everything from edible and sustainable rooftop gardening to backyard entertaining and outdoor design - making it a prime channel for home and lifestyle brands.

“Gardens matter. We want to make gardening accessible, the way Remodelista demystified—while celebrating— interior design,” said Michelle Slatalla, editor of Gardenista. “We’re uniquely positioned on the Internet to give readers in-depth   coverage in a beautiful, easy-to-navigate, interactive design. Using SAY’s social publishing tools , we can also build and easily connect with our community and really inspire them with quality content.”

As editor of the site, Slatalla will oversee the editorial strategy and development of content, working closely with Remodelista’s editor-in-chief Julie Carlson to maintain the same balance of high-level design and attention to detail that informs Remodelista’s coverage of interior design. Slatalla, a weekly columnist for the New York Times for 10 years, wrote the popular “Wife, Mother, Worker Spy” column for the newspaper’s Style section. She is also a former lifestyle columnist for TIME Magazine, and writes a monthly etiquette column for Real Simple.

Gardenista shares many of the design attributes of its parent site Remodelista - and as such represents thte next stage of evolution in online publishing titles. Schools of web design thought have merged with blogger publishing mentality and greater understanding of user experience. This means that new considerations, such as design functionality that takes into account the screen size of the viewer's device ensure that Gardenista and Remodelista remain attractive and user friendly, at every encounter with the reader.

Gardenista offers a new channel for brand advertisers to reach a highly engaged and passionate community. As the launch sponsor, Odwalla will partner with Gardenista to promote its “goodness” campaign. The campaign will feature custom editorial content that includes a series of videos and tutorials by Slatalla to promote urban gardening. With this exclusive sponsorship, Odwalla will command 100 percent share of voice across the Gardenista property. It will also have brand ads running across other sites in SAY’s Living and Food channels such as Cupcakes and Cashmere, Design Milk, Food52 and Smitten Kitchen.

“The philosophy and fresh, yet classic look of Gardenista complements the new Odwalla campaign, which is centered around the idea of ‘goodness,’ both within and without,” said Irma Shrivastava, vice president marketing, Odwalla. “With Odwalla and Gardenista sharing a similar perspective, we hope fans of the site will enjoy the ‘goodness’ found within a bottle of Odwalla while feeling inspired to create their own personal ‘goodness’ every day.”

Through its uncluttered layout and thoughtful juxtaposition of relevant content, Gardenista leverages SAY’s social publishing tools to seamlessly integrate social elements and deliver a great experience across any platform, including mobile and tablets. The site's sleek design highlights engaging content and showcases relevant brand advertising. SAY’s Living channel reaches 34 million monthly uniques.

The Price is Right.

The Price Is Right

In the globalized economy, the chances of a product reaching consumers all over the world are extremely high. But this does not mean that the product can be marketed in the same way. Localizing the product for each individual market is extremely important and so is product pricing.

The culture of the country and knowledge of this culture on the part of marketers should determine the product’s pricing strategy. An example of insight into a specific culture is the value place on local goods in different countries. In North America and a growing number of European countries, locally manufactured products are becoming increasingly popular and as such, priced at a premium compared to imported goods. This is not the case for consumer goods in China. Chinese consumers privilege North American brands, ready to pay premium prices on imported goods.

It is also important to consider the cultural traditions of a country to understand what pricing to attribute to a product. When thinking about the price to give a Chinese product, the significance of certain numbers in Chinese culture needs to be taken into account. Eight is considered a lucky number, bringing good fortune, whereas the number four is associated with bad luck. The value Chinese consumers attribute to numbers should enter into the equation to avoid negative perception of a product on account of the price.

Brands shouldn't forget Euro 2012 opportunities

By Ruben Pillai

Although there’s just three weeks to go, there are still key opportunities still exist to get your brand associated with Euro 2012, without even leaving the UK.

With all the buzz around the London 2012 Olympics, it almost feels as if brands have forgotten about the excellent promotional opportunities that Europe’s biggest football tournament, Euro 2012, has to offer.

By Ruben Pillai

Although there’s just three weeks to go, there are still key opportunities still exist to get your brand associated with Euro 2012, without even leaving the UK.

With all the buzz around the London 2012 Olympics, it almost feels as if brands have forgotten about the excellent promotional opportunities that Europe’s biggest football tournament, Euro 2012, has to offer.

The event may not be being held on home soil, unlike the Olympics, but in some respects that enables brands to create their own local experiences around key individual games and generate a tournament atmosphere that makes people feel like they are there.

But first, why Euro 2012? Well it has it’s own distinct place on the calendar, positioned between the Queen’s Jubilee and the Olympics, delivers a specific audience (particularly young men and women, non-luxury), and more of an opportunity to create an interactive, sharing experience due to the nature of a football match.

With only three weeks to go before the tournament kicks off, is it too late to plan related activity? Not necessarily. You may have missed the boat with respect to the main official sponsorship opportunities in and around the stadiums themselves, and with respect to securing TV ad space. There are probably also limited options relating to taking groups to the tournament or organising satellite events in the Ukraine or Poland. However, if you get a move on there are still chances to tap into Euro fever both online and live – or even better, a combination of the two.

For example, you could emulate the gamification trend and create your own branded Euro fantasy football experience that your customers will be able to play online during the tournament, with your brand front of mind as they do so. You can use email marketing, any existing social media activity, along with traditional media, such as newspapers, to promote the game and encourage people to sign up, while offering a series of prizes for the winners. Although developing such an online game from scratch can take some time, there are likely to be a number of ‘brand-able’ off-the-shelf packages available that can be up and running quickly.

However, if a brand came to me right now and asked how best they could leverage the buzz around Euro 2012, I’d have to say that creating a series of boutique events coinciding with key games would be the way forward. The number and scale would depend on budget, but each would feature a big screen showing a specific game, a bar and food, plus entertaining activities such as a live penalty shoot-out, band and party afterwards.

You could invite specific customers if you have a relatively small number of high-value. Alternatively you could run a competition or promotion online to select the audiences. Furthermore, to maximise the return you can amplify and extend the reach of the activity by videoing the events and either streaming them live online and/or uploading an edited version afterwards, drawing further attention to the content through social media.

You could even include a special booth at each event where revellers could pop in and record their reactions live. This can create a wonderful snapshot of the enjoyment levels within the audience and reflect really positively on the brand through a video compilation of the best responses, which can be hosted online.

Using live and online activity in this way not only builds loyalty through giving a memorable experience to customers, but also allows you to broadcast the fact you’ve done this, heightening positive associations with your brand.

Such experiential activity can also incorporate employees, boosting motivation levels and creating stronger brand ambassadors.

Tournaments like the Euros that lend themselves to this kind of communal celebration around a number of specific events don’t come round too often. And local satellite events can tap into the atmosphere and create an ‘as if I was there’ experience, while offering unlimited branding opportunities without the strictures that sponsoring the actual tournament can bring.

 

Ruben Pillai is Olympics Co-ordinator at Blackjack Promotions

A new way to integrate Pinterest

This week virtual pin-board company Pinterest received $100 million in a financing round as the company’s hugely expanding user base is turning the start up into a force to be reckoned with.

Marketers are taking note, and a new feature from MediaMind is making easier for brands to integrate pinning into their digital campaigns.
 
MediaMind’s Pinterest Pin-Through Block is a ready made code that lets consumers easily pin items in an online ad to their Pinterest pinboard. This Pinterest Block is one of a collection of ready-made pieces of usable code and Flash assets (called Blocks) that advertisers or brands that use the MediaMind platform can download in order to quickly acquire functionality in ads rather than spending time building it.
 
Previous Blocks have been made to offer social features like Facebook "post to wall" or Retweeting. The Pin-Through Block makes it possible to specify an image, a click-through, and notes for each Pinterest item, and the ability to pin more than one item from a single ad.
 
Have a look at a demo here.

The social media landscape

Interesting view of the marketer and consumer consumption of social media, from LUMA Partners

Consumer stories forge strong brand partnerships

In the quest to engage with consumers, brands are increasingly turning to other brands to create meaningful, mutually-beneficial partnerships. One of the most recent examples is Wrigleys and Asda.