Talking Retail | 29.05.09

The sales promotion campaign for McCoy’s (United Biscuits) – Win Gadgets – is covered here by Talking Retail.

Howdy

Couple of little snippets for this week.

Marketing

Yahoo have launched a “things look brilliant from here” campaign – if you see a big purple splodge on the floor, you can take a pic and then MMS it to a code and your image will be added to the Brilliant Spots website – if you join in you can win a ‘brilliant thing’.

You can also email a pic if you’ve an iPhone but it doesn’t actually tell you that on the spots, doh! I saw one on the embankment this weekend – pic of the spot attached.

The campaign runs for the next 4 weeks and will also be using the front seats of 50 London buses.

The idea is to promote Yahoo and its services like flickr (the pics go into a flickr group) offline.

It’s a nice idea – but at the moment the website doesn’t seem to work properly, which is a shame.

I also can’t find any reference to winning something, which is odd. On the upside there are a couple of groups on flickr around the idea – one of which is actually just posting picks of the spots themselves and trying to find them all.

New Launch

This week saw the launch of Nokia’s Ovi Store.

It’s Nokia’s answer to the iPhone App store so if you’ve got a Nokia phone check it out. From a quick look getting set up seems a bit long winded but once you’re set up I’m sure its vaguely interesting if you’re using a Nokia.

If you google it you’ll see that it launched 2 days ago and the launch was a disaster – it didn’t work basically, but they seem to be getting a handle on it now.

iPhone App of the week

Airfoil Speakers Touch (free) – its an app that lets you set up your iPhone or iPod touch as a remote speaker – you can stream your music from your mac or windows PC – you do need an app on your Mac or PC that costs £19 but its way cheaper than an airport express or a separate stereo in another room if you’ve got an iPhone or touch and some speakers you can connect, or even if you want to listen with headphone away from your machine.

Plus you can use it for Spotify.

Last FM etc while express only supports iTunes. Smashing.

Toot toot

Craig

Banking on a good weekend full of puntastick fun, well have I got one for you! STREETFEST 09 is all that and a bag of chips culminating in a modern day of community and collective creativity ­ for rizza!

A wide array of arts and activities that last all day long STREETFEST¹s quest is to combine old-skool party styles with modern, interactive culture.

There’ll be art; skating and fixed-gear cycling; fashion shows; street wars between England and Portugal to name but a few things, all to a body banging street dancing soundtrack.

Imagine a futuristic fun fair; action with every blink of the eye. A unique experience worth getting involved in, without that ‘Monday Dread’ feeling eclipsing your day.

So get out there and bust a move!

Peace Out!

Brydon G.

Mobile Advertising Workshop

Here are some top nuggets for mobile ads.

1. You can target consumers by handset – handsets tend to be tied quite closely to demographics and hence can be helpful
2. When developing a campaign ensure that its designed to work across all handsets – they all have different screens, operating systems etc – basically use a specialist and check that they do this
3. Don’t just take an existing website or ATL campaign and slap it on a mobile – use the media effectively, make the mobile experience worth doing
4. Don’t assume mobile campaigns are just for youth – biggest users of mobile internet are 25-44

This Weeks Top iPhone apps

1. National Rail – superb app that allows you to check train times, delays and even see where on the journey your train is at that moment – £4.99
2. Fring – VOIP and IM client covering all the major options – Skype, MSN, AIM, Gtalk, Twitter etc – FREE
3. twitterfon – twitter app with all the major options covered – FREE (ad supported) or £2.99 for Pro
4. Tetris® English – excellent version of the classic block based game from EA – £2.99
5. Wired Product Reviews – Reviews of gadgets from the magazine of the same name – FREE
6. ITN – Excellent news feed – better than the BBC one – FREE
7. Evernote – Excellent note taking tool that syncs your notes where ever you are, Mac, PC, Web – makes photos of words searchable, genius – FREE
8. Cropulator -image cropping and horizon straightening tool – £0.59
9. Friendsync – syncs your Facebook contact detail and pictures with you iPhone contacts list – £1.19
10. GoogleMobile App – gives you access to all you google applications from one place – also lets you run a google search by speaking into the iPhone – FREE

Top Web Apps

1. Google Docs – genius stuff, if you ever work on a doc at home and at work, google docs is the way to do it – allows you to work on the same doc whilst leaving your laptop at the office. Produces word, xls and ppt compatible docs – might just save your life if your presentation is corrupt on your memory stick – you can download it from any machine with web access, even a blackberry but not yet an iPhone!
2. Toodledo – excellent To Do list organiser that’s web based and hence can be accessed from anywhere – good integration with workflows like GTD. Also available as an iPhone app so your to do’s are never far away.
3. www.visualthesaurus.com – ever stuck for a word? Go here, it cost $19 per year to access, after a 14 day trial. However it gives a great visual representation of related words – worth a look and I’m sure Rod wouldn’t mind setting up a Wax account if it proves useful.

That’s it for this week.

Toot Toot

Craig

Marketing Services Talk | 20.05.09

Marketing Services Talk have covered the new sales promotion on-pack campaign for McCoy’s, created by Wax, for United Biscuits.

The ‘Wax All Stars’ are competing tonight in the ISP Bowling tournament, this evening, in WC2.

Pictured is the team looking mean – but not as mean as the team mascot.

Good luck troops!

McCoy’s consumers have a daily chance to get their hands on the hottest gadgets, from game consoles and mp3 players to touch-screen phones. There are thousands of gadgets up for grabs in a new ‘instant win’ on-pack promotion created by Wax Communications.

Launched on May 13th 2009, the promotion will help drive traffic to the newly launched brand website at mccoys.co.uk.

To enter, consumers simply need to enter their on-pack code by text or visit mccoys.co.uk to be immediately told whether they are a winner or not.

The campaign runs from 13th May to 30th September and is featured across all handypacks, multipacks and McCoy’s Tortilla sharing bags in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

Dave Littlewood, McCoy’s account manager at Wax Communications, comments:

“The main consumer of McCoy’s is young men, who isn’t necessarily the person doing the weekly supermarket shop. So our main challenge was to offer prizes that appealed to both of these key audiences. We’re confident the promotion offers the right mix of prizes to activate people – for shoppers to make a purchase and for consumers to participate.”

The McCoy’s Brand Manager comments:

“The daily aspect of the promotion will keep it fresh and should keep consumers coming back for more.”

Creative Match | 19.05.09

The new McCoy’s promotion ‘Win Gadgets’ is covered by Creative Match.

18.05.09

Wax Communications has won a place on the Scottish + Newcastle roster following a competitive multi-agency pitch. Below is a press article announcing the win.

Summer’s nearly here and uhuh, I’m all shook up!!

Time to party like it’s 1932. Check out a cool club night that blends my two childhood pastimes into one fantastic cornucopia of Hawaiian hula and boogie dancing.

A monthly event that takes place the 3rd Sunday of every month with this weekends bill throwing in a little burlesque for added style.

Keep your eyes peeled on the stroke of ten for the free snacks, which should perk up any flaggers feeling a bit soggy after too many Mai Tais. Hula Boogie also supports independent traders by hosting a stall for the late-night shopper in us.

So that¹s music, cocktails, classes, dancing, stripping (for Rod) and shopping (also for Rod).

So get out there and bust a hoogie!

Where:

South London Pacific Tiki Bar
340 Kennington Road, London SE11 4LD
MUSIC, COCKTAILS, DANCING, LATE NIGHT BURLESQUE ENTERTAINMENT 7pm -1am

ADMISSION £7

Peace Out!

B-Rye.