Category: Marketing Strategies

Tables you can hear

As part of their new urban headphones campaign, “You Need To Hear This,” Philips unveiled special handmade wooden tables that you could literally plug your headphones into and hear. Each table featured hand illustrated typography and iconography inspired by its neighbourhood – all prompting people to plug their headphones directly into the table (Philips headphones were provided by the bar).

As a result, pub goers across east London experienced the Philips headphones while listening to trending music curated specifically for the neighbourhood they were in.

The talking window

Train passengers who are bored during their travel tend to lean their head against the window. To capitlize on this moment of boredom and promote the Sky Go mobile app, BBDO Germany with the help of Audiva, a company that specializes in bone conduction technologies (i.e. the conduction of sound to the inner ear through the bones of the skull) developed a special transmitter that could be attached to the train window for a completely new form of public transport advertising.

As seen in the below video, these special transmitters released the Sky Go message through an inaudible high-frequency vibration that got translated to sound by the brain.

Scrabble WiFi

There are places in Paris where you can’t get any Internet connection. So Ogilvy Paris setup free Wifi hotspots in these areas and incentivised people to make use of the wifi by first playing a short game of ‘Scrabble WiFi’.

Once the user proved his spelling skills, the score from the word was converted into free wifi minutes. The higher you scored, the longer the connection. Sharing the score on Facebook also doubled the connection time.

The Beer Fridge

First various brands created campaigns with red buttons, then came one with a pink phone and now we have a campaign from Molson, a Canadian beer brand that revolves around bright red refrigerators. 🙂

These eye catching refrigerators were filled with Molson beer and strategically placed across a variety of European locations to attract crowds. The catch? The fridges could be opened only by scanning a Canadian passport.

The campaign was created by agency Rethink Canada in order to bring back the classic tagline, “I am Canadian.” As a result, the video footage collected from the different European locations was cut into a 90 second online ad (seen below) and a 30 second TV ad which ran during the Stanley Cup Finals.

The Office Turntable

Demo CD’s created by music labels are often treated like spam. So to promote the new track from DJ Boris Dlugosch, Kontor Records in Germany decided to send out an orange vinyl along with a 2D turntable as part of the direct mailing.

The people who received the mailing activated the turntable by scanning the QR code on it. This simple action enabled the missing piece of the turntable on the users smartphone which allowed them to play the music. The mailing was a huge success as 71% of the 900 turntable QR codes were activated.

Smart for two: parKING

Parking in the city isn’t fun. So BBDO Germany turned a regular test drive for the Smart into an interactive parking game based on the age-old game of musical chairs.

During the game an iPhone app was used to play music and direct players around central Berlin. When the music stopped the players had to immedietly find a parking spot. The last team to park and verify their location via a photo upload was eliminated.

The competition was run at the Berlin Smart center, where 8 teams battled each other to become Berlin’s first parKING’s. The result…

Philips Fruit Mashup

Philips launched the Walita Avance, their most advanced blender to date in Brazil. With 800w power and ultra-sharp blades, it mixed ingredients unlike anything consumers have ever seen before.

So to promote it, Ogilvy Brazil got a molecular cuisine specialist to actually physically blend two fruits into one! After 3 months of research the molecular cuisine specialist successfully created three new fruits (Pinegrape, Bananaberry and Kiwigerine) that Ogilvy used to promote the new Philips blender.

It seems Brazilian agencies are the ones to watch when it comes to innovative fruit related communication. 😉 Also see the real fruit boxes campaign from Ageisobar Brazil.

Pepsi Like Machine

Coca-Cola has created a whole bunch of innovative vending machines over the last couple of years. Pepsi on the other hand has created only a couple. Many of these soda vending machines I have featured here on Ramble.

Now to add to that collection here is Pepsi’s latest vending machine…dubbed the “Like Machine”, it is programmed to dispense soda to fans who “Like” the brand on Facebook via their smartphone or via the touchscreen on the machine.

Pepsi piloted the machine at a recent Beyonce concert in Antwerp, Belgium and has received a good response. So don’t be surprised if you see one popping up nearby at some point. 😉

Nivea Solar Ad Charger

To promote the Nivea sun screen range, Draftfcb Brazil developed a magazine ad with actual solar panels and a USB port. This transformed the ad into a whole new Nivea product that beach goers in Brazil could use to charge their phones. 🙂

Sun. Beach. Sunscreen. Mobile Phone. Solar charger. It all ties together quite nicely. Don’t you think?