Viral Strategy by Adidas

Adidas is doing something pretty cool this NBA All Star Weekend (Valentine’s Day weekend), and it involves an unique strategy for implementing viral features into their campaign for its footwear and apparel lines. It also involves our very own Dwight Howard, star player for the NBA’s Orlando Magic.

Adidas will be airing a 30-second commercial that will urge viewers to visit the Adidas website and YouTube channel. On the YouTube channel will be a video of Dwight Howard. There’s nothing unique about that; plenty of commercials have tried to drive traffic to their website and/or videos on YouTube. So what’s the big deal?

One of the videos featuring Dwight Howard reveals more content of the player the more times the video is shared. Adidas is actually giving the consumer an incentive for sharing the video with their friends. If you want to see more content of Dwight Howard, then you can help make it happen by sharing the video you just saw.

Another video featuring the Magic player shows him jumping as high or low as consumers choose using a gaming-style grid control. Dwight Howard is known for his jumping ability (he was the NBA’s Dunk Contest champion 2 years ago, and he got robbed the year before and after that).

It is believed that this is the first time a marketer has tied accessibility of content to the amount of hits a video draws on YouTube. Will it be the last time?

I don’t think so. I can already think of a number of other brands that could have incorporated this kind of strategy in the past. Several years ago, Will Ferrell performed a number of commercials for Old Spice as a character from his movie Semi-Pro. The commercials were mostly improvised, which means there were probably a lot of outtakes. If Old Spice were to mimic Adidas in this situation, they could take the best 3-5 outtakes and make them unlock-able based on the amount of views the first video receives. The way people love Will Ferrell, I’m willing to bet all the outtakes would have been unlocked, too.

Snickers ran a campaign with Mr. T a few years back that could have tried the Adidas approach. Mr. T doesn’t improvise his lines (to the best of my knowledge at least), but much like Will Ferrell, he is well-liked enough for people to want to unlock more videos of the almighty mohawked one. Mr. T is already a YouTube star as it is:

Video games and movies can set up a system like Adidas’ to gradually release more extensive previews based on the amount of public interest. This could also be a way to predict how successful a movie or game will be and how much money to put towards marketing for it.

Keep an eye out for the commercial if you happen to follow the NBA this weekend, and we’ll continue to keep our finger on the pulse of exciting new strategies. Also, GO MAGIC!

————————————————————————————————————————- The Dream Factory Blog is managed by Matt Ruecker. To ask Matt any questions about what you’ve read here, please send him an email at media@dreamfactoryproductions.com.

Can the iPad Save the Publication Industry?

We talk about new gadgets sometimes on this blog and we do our best to keep up with new technology here at Dream Factory Productions, so it’s about time we discuss what will likely be the year’s most sought after gadget: the iPad.

According to Apple, the iPad is “the best way to experience the web, email, photos and video. Hands down.” Well that sounds pretty cool. Here’s a link to a page on Apple’s website that goes into detail about how it’s the best at all of those things.

There are more expectations stacked atop the iPad’s thin multi-touch screen, however. The biggest of those expectations comes from the publishing industry, desperate for a savior to revive their industry. The publishing industry has been suffering for quite some time now. Magazines have gone from monthly publications to quarterly publications to online entities or nonentities. Newspaper sales have been in steady decline for years now, and a number of them have not survived. So why might the iPad save these publications?

If it’s a runaway success like the iPod and iPhone, then the iPad could very easily change the way we get our news. Newspapers and magazines are struggling because the information they offer is readily available on the Internet already for free. Who needs the Sports page when espn.com reports news as it is happening?

News is already online, so that won’t have to change. If Apple can figure out a way to charge people for specific articles, authors or sections of a newspaper or magazine (much like how iTunes can charge per song), then the publication industry would benefit. For example, maybe I can be charged $.10 a day for the Sports page if I have no interest in reading the rest of the paper. Maybe I only want to read columns by John Smith so I pay $.05 for every one of his published articles on the day it’s published. Maybe I buy a subscription to the Wall Street Journal and download it every morning like a podcast.

One of the reasons people still receive newspapers instead of looking for news online is because of the look and feel of a newspaper. There’s a positive feeling associated with the way newspapers and magazines look compared to how they are represented online. The iPad will be able to maintain the look and feel of most publications in an online format. This brings together the convenience of online news with the look and feel (dare I say nostalgia) of an actual newspaper or magazine.

Something else to consider is how the iPad will be used by owners. This new device is not a laptop, so people who already cart their laptops to work every day will probably not be looking to bring another device with them. The iPad is also not an iPhone; it’s too big for pockets. How people will use the iPad remains to be seen, but I imagine that a lot of iPads will end up next to the Lazy Boy or on the desk in the home study or den. These are newspaper reading locations.

It’s an interesting time for the publication industry, and they are going to have to be a little innovative in order for this to work. There are some definite obstacles to the iPad-as-savior dreams that newspapers and magazines are having every night. First of all, why would anyone pay for something (online news) that’s already free? Also, how will you determine the cost of a single article or section of a newspaper (if that’s something that’s going to develop)?

For music, a CD typically costs $12-$15, and there are typically 12-15 songs on a CD. It was easy for iTunes, therefore, to create the per-song price of $.99, and that’s a price people are willing to pay for a song. If a newspaper only costs $.50 on the street corner, how much are you willing to pay for one article or one section? Is selling an article for $.05 enough to create a profit?

It’s exciting for our industry too. If the iPad does become the savior of the publication industry, then that’s going to create a new medium for the advertising industry. There could be a resurgence of magazine print ads because of the iPad’s ability to display pages closer to how they actually look in a physical magazine. People might actually want to look at them too because of the novelty of it (of course that will wear off pretty quick, but it’s still exciting).

Is there a revolution coming?

Maybe.

————————————————————————————————————————- The Dream Factory Blog is managed by Matt Ruecker. To ask Matt any questions about what you’ve read here, please send him an email at media@dreamfactoryproductions.com.

What We’re Up To

We’re working on some exciting projects here at DFP. Here’s a quick rundown.

Arabian Nights

Arabian Nights is an Orlando dinner show featuring over 60 horses of many different breeds. We hope to unveil Arabian Nights’ new website sometime next month. We’re giving it a new look and making it a bit easier to navigate, too. Here’s a link to their current website.

We’re also spearheading an effort to increase Arabian Nights’ overall web presence with a new blog and twitter and Facebook accounts. If you love horses or have ever been to the Arabian Nights show, feel free to follow them on twitter or become a fan on Facebook.

Pics Motorsport

We’ve recently begun working with a company called Pics Motorsport and it’s been a very exciting project so far. Pics is just getting started themselves, so we’re helping shape their brand identity from the ground up.

So what is Pics?

It’s going to be a two-day Nascar-style motorcar training experience. The exact details of the curriculum are still being decided, but the idea is to have classes and hands on experiences (think Nascar pit crew type excitement) with the ultimate goal of having the students sit in an actual racecar as it goes around the track. We’re excited to be working with the Pics crew on this project.

Liquid Siding

Liquid Siding is an All-Weather Protective Coating that is applied to homes and other buildings as a longer-lasting alternative to latex paint. It’s energy efficient, an energy star partner product, and an all-around great product.

We recently finished doing their new website, and are currently finishing up work on brochures and door hangers to help increase their sales.

Of course these aren’t the only projects we’ve been working on, but Arabian Nights, Pics Motorsport and Liquid Siding are fairly new to the DFP family of clients.

The Importance of Focus Groups

If you don’t know, a focus group is a number of people (typically 6-10 or so) brought together to discuss and evaluate a topic in a group interview setting. Adverting agencies frequently use focus groups to get consumers’ perspective on advertising ideas, campaigns, brand images, logo designs, etc.

It’s important to conduct focus groups so that the work you produce delivers your intended message. Sometimes when you work so closely with something, you can become blind to its flaws, and because consumers notice these flaws, asking a small group of consumers their opinions before launching is a good idea.

We recently conducted a couple of focus groups for one of our clients before creating billboards. We gained valuable insight into the minds of the target demographic and what they thought was important. This helped us gear our message for the billboards we created later.

Sometimes you see a commercial or ad and wonder how that possibly could have been let out into the public – especially for larger brands. “Shouldn’t that have been stopped by a focus group or something?” Well I was thinking that the other day when I saw a commercial for Domino’s Pizza.

Domino’s is trying to change the taste of their pizza, they want it to taste better. Nothing wrong with that. They made the decision based off of negative feedback they received from their own customers. Nothing wrong with that either; in fact I thin that’s great. In their new tv commercial they spend a great deal of time talking about how dissatisfied customer’s were with their pizza, citing direct quotes about the pizza’s blandness.

“Domino’s pizza crust to me is like cardboard.”

The worst excuse for pizza I’ve ever had. Totally void of flavor.”

That just seems like a foolish angle to play, doesn’t it? I understand the idea of being forthcoming and telling the truth straight up. A healthy dose of brutal honesty can give a brand a human element that it might otherwise lack. I think Domino’s probably would have been ok just saying that they were making their pizza taste better. They could even mention it was at the request of their customers. But tearing down your own brand that many people have been satisfied with for decades could do some damage to your image. Domino’s pizza has tasted about the same for a very long time. Admitting that for how ever many years you’ve been around that you have been making a crappy pizza is not a good idea.

I feel like Domino’s should have taken a page from Microsoft’s book. Microsoft’s latest commercials have Microsoft users expressing how happy they are with the latest installment of Windows because Microsoft fixed bugs and made it better. The customers claim that it was their idea, that their suggestions and complaints were addressed and improved. Domino’s could not have angled their commercial the same way?

“Domino’s new crust has more flavor than ever, and it was my idea.”

Show that you listen to your customers. Show that you’re dedicated to improving your product. Do not make people think that only now you’ve begun to care about the taste of your pizza.

Yeash. How did this commercial get past the focus group stage? Was there a focus group stage?

————————————————————————————————————————- The Dream Factory Blog is managed by Matt Ruecker. To ask Matt any questions about what you’ve read here, please send him an email at media@dreamfactoryproductions.com.

Smart Ideas: Advertise Your Weakness

Most advertising focuses on the main selling points of a product (or service). If the goal is to sell the product, then it only makes sense that you would tell the consumer what they need to know to convince them to buy it. That makes sense. Sometimes it makes more sense to focus on your product’s perceived weaknesses though. That’s a little confusing. Let’s look at an example that I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post.

This is a famous campaign for Avis from the 1970s. It’s considered a strength for a company to be its industry leader. If you just landed in an airport and need to decide between Avis and Hertz (let’s assume Hertz is the industry leader for this example), if someone informs you Hertz is the industry leader, you’d probably be more inclined to use Hertz. We tend to think that the bigger a company is, the more it can be trusted. Avis was not the industry leader, but they took this perceived weakness and turned it into a strength. Because they were the number 2 rent-a-car, they tried harder than the number 1 rent-a-car.

Lesson: Focusing on your perceived weaknesses can sell your product if you turn it into a strength with your advertising. Doing so also reduces your number of perceived weaknesses that consumers use to dissuade themselves from purchasing your product.

A couple more examples:

Example: Stella Artois

Weakness: Stella Artois is more expensive than your typical beer.

Tactic: Use the price as a selling point to upscale consumers. You should feel reassured that the higher price means you’ve selected a better beer that identifies you as a person of upscale taste.

Example: Mini Cooper

Weakness: The car is too small.

Tactic: Make people think that maybe the car isn’t too small, but everything else is in fact too big. Also, identify the Mini’s small stature as something that makes the car more fun to drive.

————————————————————————————————————————- The Dream Factory Blog is managed by Matt Ruecker. To ask Matt any questions about what you’ve read here, please send him an email at media@dreamfactoryproductions.com.

Coke Freestyle

Saying Coke is a leader in the beverage sector is like saying Michael Jordan was good at basketball. It’s obvious. It’s easy for brands in the number two or number three spot to find motivation, because everyone wants to be number one. In fact, there’s a legendary ad campaign for Avis rent a car that used their number two ranking to their advantage. Here’s a print ad they used in the 70s:

It can be a little more difficult for an industry leader like Coke to find the motivation that a company like Pepsi likely possesses (even though Pepsi is a close number 2 in the US, globally Coke holds a bigger edge). Coke’s greatest asset is its brand image and how that image tugs on people’s nostalgia strings. Therefore, Coke has to be motivated not to surpass other companies, but instead to bolster their brand identity and to push technology that fits into that mold. Behold:

This is the new Coke fountain soda machine, called the “Freestyle.” You know when you eat somewhere and they give you your own cup to fill with your choice of whatever eight beverages they have available? Well this machine takes up roughly the same amount of space but offers over 100 beverage options. There are traditional sodas, energy drinks, flavored waters and basically anything offered under the far-ranging Coke umbrella including some flavors currently not available in the United States.

Watch this video to see how it works.

As you can see, there’s a touch screen interface that makes the Freestyle interactive. The customer first selects a beverage choice like Coke, Diet Coke, Fanta, or Dasani water. Your choice takes you to a screen with more choices. For example, if you select Fanta you’ll be taken to a screen with the different flavors of Fanta offered by Coke (Grape, Orange, etc…).

But how can the Freestyle manage to serve 100 different varieties of beverage when before, fountain stations could handle only eight selections? Current soda fountains use five-gallon concentrate bags. Freestyle uses highly concentrated 46-ounce cartridges instead. The freestyle uses “PurePour” technology to ensure precise amounts of the concentrated syrup is used to mix your drink choice. The PurePour technology was originally developed to measure precise amounts of dialysis and cancer drugs, so you can imagine it’s very exact.

There’s one more bit of cool technology to talk about with the Freestyle. The machine sends back data to Coke headquarters in Atlanta about what beverages are being consumed, peak times of usage and what locations are most used. Coke can also communicate with their machines from Atlanta if a certain flavor has be discontinued or recalled. The Freestyle will stop serving the drink immediately, something that simply is not possible with today’s machines.

What I think is particularly cool is that even with all the technology going into the Freestyle, it still has an appearance that harkens to old Coke fountain machines. That’s Coke being aware of its brand image and tugging on those nostalgia stings once again. The Freestyles are being tested in California, Atlanta and Utah, and Coke has plans to expand their presence if everything continues to work out positively.

————————————————————————————————————————- The Dream Factory Blog is managed by Matt Ruecker. To ask Matt any questions about what you’ve read here, please send him an email at media@dreamfactoryproductions.com.

Taco Bell Diet?

Jared.

Who did that make you think of? There’s a pretty decent chance you thought of the guy who has become the face of Subway. The Jared campaign has been going strong for some time now (without looking it up, it has to have been 10 years by now, right?), and it’s been successful for Subway.

If Jared can lose so much weight by walking and eating Subway sandwiches, then they must be good for you. Plus we all love a feel good story about people we can connect with, and Jared could have been anyone’s neighbor.  Subway has created an image for itself as a healthy alternative in Fast Food America during a time when concerns over obesity are ubiquitous. That’s a desired brand image in the fast food industry.

So desired in fact, that Taco Bell is rolling out a new campaign that echoes Subway’s Jared campaign.

Wait, wait, wait. Taco Bell?!    

Apparently a woman (Christine Dougherty) lost weight by mimicking Jared’s idea, but substituting items off of Taco Bell’s Fresca Menu for Subway’s sandwiches. The Fresca menu consists of seven food items that are healthier alternatives to Taco Bell’s typical fare. This new campaign boasts what is being called a “Drive-Thru Diet” even though Taco Bell insists that it “isn’t a weigh-loss program.”

The idea seems to be that by making better choices with the food you order from Taco Bell, you can lead a healthier lifestyle. It worked for Christine, it can work for you. The problem with this of course is that Taco Bell already has a pretty strong identity as an unhealthy place to eat. For their advertising to suggest that you can eat their food and lose weight is, well, shocking to a degree.

Hopefully as the campaign develops Taco Bell will make it very clear that Christine ate only from the Fresca menu AND exercised AND cut down her daily calorie consumption from 1750 to 1250. Otherwise there could be some serious backlash from a whole lot of people, from doctors and nutritionists to moms and dads worried that their young children might fall under the impression that eating a Gordita can help them lose weight.

————————————————————————————————————————- The Dream Factory Blog is managed by Matt Ruecker. To ask Matt any questions about what you’ve read here, please send him an email at media@dreamfactoryproductions.com.

Happy Holidays!

Happy holidays to all of you from all of us; we’re taking off after today and coming back next week.

Anyone else put off most of their Christmas shopping until Christmas Eve like me? Yeash, I never learn. While I expect to have a hectic next couple of days while I brave the last-minute shopper crowds, I hope you all have a relaxed break.

Whatever you celebrate, have a good one!

When will Tiger be out of the woods?

Tiger Woods’ image is in trouble. If you have a tv, radio, Internet connection, or a friend or two then you know this. Tiger Woods is also a big time endorser of some big time products and brands: Nike, Gatorade, Gillette, etc. You probably knew that already, too.

So what do we know about athlete/celebrity endorsement deals after their images get tarnished? Ads get pulled.

According to media tracker Nielsen, the last time a commercial aired on tv featuring Woods was on November 29. That’s two calendar days after his car accident. Remember, the tales of infidelity and the long list of supposed mistresses did not start to leak out until after a few days after the accident. That’ll be the last time you see a commercial featuring Woods for some time.

Not forever though. If you asked the average non-golf-watching American to name three golfers, almost everyone would respond with Tiger Woods. After that, you’d get more blanks than anything else. Maybe Phil Mickelson would show up a few times. Woods is such an interesting figure because he stars in a sport that, if not for him, far fewer people would follow. How Tiger became such a mega sports celebrity in a sport like golf is baffling, but it’s also the reason why his sponsors won’t stay away forever.

Some time will have to pass. The mess he’s in now is going to take some time to blow over, for sure. I recently read this espn.com article that describes some actions Woods needs to take to help it blow over (even though the article has a joking tone, Woods would be wise to follow the advice). If you don’t click on the link, just know that Woods has to make a lot of apologies, consider some charitable donations, and most importantly appear on Oprah to expedite the healing process.

The American people are a forgiving people. Also, we love our athletes and celebrities. We love when they fail, but we also love when they admit they are wrong and we especially love when they try to rebuild their image. We support people who are flawed but trying, mostly because we too are flawed but trying.

I remember watching a basketball game between the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and Phoenix Suns. A player on the Nuggets, Chris Andersen, was suspended from the NBA several years ago after testing positive for some pretty serious drug(s). The commentators devoted five minutes to singing his praises and the recovery he’s made while turning his life around. A player on the Suns, Grant Hill, is known for being an all-around great guy who devotes time and money to charities. He’s never been in trouble with the law and is widely considered a positive role model. The commentators had nothing to say about Hill.

You see, it is human nature in this country to offer our support to those who we think need it most. For every person who is and will be vilifying Tiger Woods now and in the near future, there will be just as many if not more applauding the “strides he’s made in his personal life” a year from now. And that’s when the commercials will return.

The biggest sports star to go through what Tiger Woods is about to go through is Kobe Bryant. Kobe allegedly raped a woman in Colorado several years ago. While the charges of rape against him were dropped, he did cheat on his wife. His image took a hit, the endorsements slowed to a halt and he was booed in every stadium in which he played for the next year. But then he bought his wife a big diamond, apologized to his fans and continued being arguably the best basketball player on the planet during that time span.

Now he has a puppet, a children’s toy.

People are pretty worked up about Tiger Woods now, but it’s only a matter of time before we the public forgive and forget. As for his wife? Well, best of luck, Tiger.

————————————————————————————————————————- The Dream Factory Blog is managed by Matt Ruecker. To ask Matt any questions about what you’ve read here, please send him an email at media@dreamfactoryproductions.com.

Gadget Alert

Jack Dorsey, the guy who created Twitter, recently introduced a new gadget to the world. It’s a device that allows credit card payments by cell phone, and it’s called “Square.”

Square is a cube about in an inch in length that plugs into the headphone jack of most cell phones. It contains a magnetic strip reader that allows users to swipe and read credit cards. Users sign their name on their phone’s touch screen using their finger. Square should launch in March 2010 for iPhones and iPods.

That’s cool, but is their a practical use for it? At first I didn’t think so, but now I can see how some people could benefit from Square. While I have no need to carry around a little cube in my pocket to complete credit card transactions, a whole lot of other people do.

Think about folks who give private instrument lessons. They are pretty much dependent on cash transactions in a world that has become credit card/debit card dependent. In the cnn.com article about Square, Dorsey mentions how his co-founder can benefit from the new technology.

“My co-founder is a glass artist. He sells things that people don’t need — $2,000 glass faucets. They’re beautiful. If he could not take credit cards, he wouldn’t make the sale because no one carries around $2,000 in the cash.”

So maybe you’re like me and this Square thing doesn’t really appeal to you, but there are clearly people who can benefit from it. It’ll be interesting to see how well it does and to see how Dorsey pays for it. He will be giving it away from free apparently, and is considering charging a small per-transaction fee.

————————————————————————————————————————- The Dream Factory Blog is managed by Matt Ruecker. To ask Matt any questions about what you’ve read here, please send him an email at media@dreamfactoryproductions.com.