Category: Live Communication

KPT+CPT Smileball

Since June 2010, I have seen smile detection technology being used in vending machines, banners and Facebook apps to create innovative engagement with the target audience.

Now in this latest example, KPT in Switzerland decided to show that it has the happiest health insurance clients. To help demonstrate that, they created Smileball, a unique pinball machine that was controlled by smiles.

Unlike normal pinball machines where the two paddles are controlled by two buttons that can be found on either side of the pinball machine, the Smileball machine used motion sensing technology to recognize the changes in a persons smile to control the respective paddles.

By playing the game, participants got a chance to win a trip to a comedy show in New York.

An online version is also available here. Get an extra ball every time you share the game on your social profile.

Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise

Carrie is an upcoming 2013 American supernatural horror film. It is the third film adaptation of Stephen King’s 1974 novel of the same name.

To promote this upcoming remake, Sony, with help from Thinkmodo, outfitted a small coffee shop in New York, with remote controlled tables and chairs, a fake wall used to levitate a guy and books that fly off the shelves all by themselves. Then one actor took on the role of Carrie and setup innocent customers for a prankvertising experience of their lives.

The video has already got 3.2 million views and am sure we will get to see a whole lot more of prankvertising in the near future as the practice becomes the go-to marketing strategy for brands.

Disney’s Planes pre-screening on a KLM plane

On October 2, KLM gave 300 kids an experience of a lifetime. The lucky kids were invited to a spectacular pre-screening of the new Disney film Planes.

To make the event an unforgettable one, KLM held the pre-screening on an actual airplane and then used special effects to recreate the world of Planes in a live setting. This made it the world’s first movie experience in and around a plane.

Heineken Departure Roulette En Route

In July I had written about the Departure Roulette campaign from Heineken and Wieden + Kennedy which sent daring passengers somewhere totally new and exotic with the push of the red button. Now with the Departure Roulette En Route version, they tapped into the tweets and social conversations around the first stunt to produce a smart follow up stunt.

Heineken tracked down the people who had tweeted about Departure Roulette wishing that they were also dropping everything to travel to a mystery destination and offered a lucky few the chance to play Departure Roulette right there and then…

IAA Walk of Innovations – 2013

The 65th Internationale Automobil Ausstellung (IAA) has been running in Frankfurt am Main for the past two weeks. So on Saturday I decided to go for the motor show to catch up on the latest cars and also see first hand the much anticipated Nissan Nismo Watch.

Most of the car makers in this year’s show were also present in IAA 2011. In fact they were even located in the same stands as 2011, with the same high tech touch displays to promote their cars. The only difference was that their 2013 car models were now more hybrid and or electric only e.g. this new four seater Smart…

But while I walked around and looked for changes vis-à-vis what was shown in IAA 2011, I noticed that apart from the now expected large screens and touch displays, car makers were using all kinds of social media to engage with their visitors.

Here is a quick photo report of my engagement experiences with the various car makers…

Audi

To make sure I did not miss Audi this year due to 200+ people standing in line to get into the Audi Stand, I decided to visit the stand very early in morning. The line to get into the stand was short, but there were already hundreds of people inside. On walking in, I noticed that the concept for the stand was taken straight out of the Hollywood movie “Upside Down“…

Visitor engagement at the stand was done through a special photo booth. While people waited in the line they got an iPad to play a game and answer three questions about Audi. Winners got special custom giveaways like keychains, gummy bears etc. After which visitors were assured into the photo booth which superimposed the photos onto custom Audi backgrounds. Visitors could take home a printed copy of the photos and later also download soft copies from www.audiphotoautomat.com.

Mercedes

Next stop was the Mercedes stand which was also impossible to get into in 2011. From the below picture you can see why…

Mercedes put up a huge multi-sensory show that went on for over 20 minute, while thousands of people just stopped and watched. Children visiting the stand were kept busy with car simulators…

Outside the stand one could test drive the Mercedes off road jeeps with the help of trained drivers…

Hyundai

Hyundai was the first car brand I came across that was using the event to generate Facebook fans. For liking the Hyundai Facebook page, fans at IAA could win a Hyundai i30…

The rear windscreen of the i30 was converted into a touchscreen which people could use to instantly “Like” the brand’s Facebook page or choose to receive the Fan Page link via email…

At the stand Hyundai also displayed a unique touchable music seat for hearing impaired drivers which vibrated as per the music being played. This is still in concept phase and the test seats are currently being developed out of Korea…

Volkswagen

The Volkswagen “Think Blue” initiative was presented via an interactive augmented reality layer that was activated through the provided iPads…

Skoda

Skoda explained their Green Line initiative via a wooden toy car that was supported by the animations in the embedded touch screens…

At the neighbouring table kids were engaged with games around the Green Line initiative…

Michelin

At the Michelin stand, visitor could take pictures with a virtual Michelin mascot and have the pictures emailed to themselves instantly…

Nissan

After having written about the Nissan Nismo Watch last week, I could not wait to see the real watch in action. But to my disappointment the watch was not there as announced. There was only a boring plastic dummy on display…

But I did take Nissans version of real life “Likes” for a spin (first spotted at the Renault stand in the 2011 Amsterdam Motor Show)…

The RFID badges allowed visitors to post custom Nissan branded pictures of themselves onto Facebook…

Visitors were also given the option to share the cars they like on Facebook via special Like buttons built into the car info pillars…

Ford

At the Ford stand this year visitors were given head and shoulder massages…

Then to experience the Ford EcoBoost, visitors were put in front of a leaf blower and there reactions caputred and uploaded on the Ford Flickr Channel.

And for the more social visitors, Ford had a nice twitter based contest running…

Kia

At Kia, visitors could superimpose their heads onto a football player and then have the custom postercard sent to their email id’s…

Chevrolet

Visitors at the stand could make small flipbooks of themselves doing funny dances in front of the main charachter of the Hollywood film “Turbo“…

Or they could write special messages to their loved ones on a piece of paper and the team at Chevrolet would instantly convert them into wearable badges…

Chevrolet was also the only car maker at the IAA who was using Foursquare to offer discounts on their show merchandise…

Mini

Mini this year gave visitors the option to body paint their cars and email the photos to themselves…

Visitors could also slide down a specially created tunnel at record speeds that were also photographed and displayed on a large overhead digital screen…

BMW

BMW like Mercedes also put up on a multi-sensory show at their stand. But compared to Mercedes it was short and not as extravagant. But it was still pretty impressive…

Kumho Tyres

Then on the way out I spotted Kumho Tyres giving away various petrol and tyre related coupons. To win the coupons visitors had to catch them while being closed inside a wind cabin…

And that was a quick overview on what I experienced at the 65th Internationale Automobil Ausstellung. (To read about my experience at the 2011 show, click here.)

Until the next show in 2 years. This is Sunil Bahl signing off from IAA 2013. 😎

Social Robots

In 2011, Andes Beer in Argentina used robots in their campaign to enable people to virtually experience a real life event. Fast forward to 2013 and the social robots can now be seen in campaigns from Italy and Israel. 😎

Three minutes in Italy

San Pellegrino an Italian brand of mineral water invited their Facebook fans to come and discover the beautiful Sicilian village of Taormina and explore its cobblestone streets via a special webcam and microphone enabled robot that could be controlled by the users from their own computer…

Coca-Cola Summer Love 2013

Coca-Cola Summer Love is THE annual summer event for Israeli teenagers. Unfortunately, not everyone can join the fun. So to bring the experience to those who can’t physically be there, Coca-Cola created a robot that allowed teenagers to be part of the summer camp without leaving their homes. The special robots carried webcams and microphones and were controlled by users who couldn’t physically be there. Users could control the robots and navigate them around the campus, talk with their friends, watch the shows, participate in the competitions and be part of the experience.

The robots were a hit among the teens and the people around welcomed them to the camp, danced with them, sunbathed with them and surprised them. They became the stars of the show, as well as media magnets…

HERE balloons

Seoul has the highest gasoline consumption in the world. With parking space scarce, people in Seoul drive around 15km a month to find space for their cars. This is equivalent to 1 Litre of gasoline being used only for parking.

So to help save gasoline, South Korean oil brand, S-Oil teamed up with Cheil Worldwide to devise a new way of telling people that there was a parking space available right next to them. Bright yellow HERE balloons were setup for each parking space. Then as a car parked, the balloon would fall. On leaving the space the balloon would rise again. Hence drivers around could see the colourful balloons from far away and spot the empty spaces without wandering all over.

In just one day, 700 cars used 23 litres less oil. Over a whole year, they saved much more.

Heineken Departure Roulette

To embody the adventurous spirit of Heineken, Wieden + Kennedy in New York set up a board at JFK’s Terminal 8 and dared travelers to play “Departure Roulette”. Those who dared, had to drop their existing plans and go somewhere totally new and exotic with the push of the red button. 😎

The daring passengers were later also given $2,000 to cover expenses and were booked into a hotel for two nights at the new destination. Below is the recently released video of how things unfolded at JFK…

The game was inspired by “Dropped,” the new Heineken campaign that was launched a month ago from W+K Amsterdam in which four men were sent to remote destinations and their adventure to return filmed.

The Stolen Phone Tour

There are many sources for people to find things to see and do in Shanghai. So Time Out magazine decide to promote its Shanghai city information guide via a marketing stunt created with the help of Energy BBDO China.

The insight for the stunt came from the product itself i.e. Time Out Shanghai digs deeper into the city to find hidden gems that might not otherwise be discovered. To demonstrate this Time Out purposely “lost” a cell phone on a random street in Shanghai. Any passerby who picked it up was in for a suprise, as to return the phone they had to get into a London Taxi that pulled up infront of their location. Here is a video recording of the entire stunt through specially placed hidden cameras…