Memorabilia. The ultimate demonstration of fully committed fandom, right? Now I’m not talking about the typical million-odd replica shirts sold each year by Manchester United; I don’t even mean the larger share of these that sell featuring a certain Wayne Rooney’s name and number on the back; no, I’m talking about the real up-close-and-personal stuff: Botham’s bat, Pele’s Pumas or Tiger’s tee-peg.

You name it, someone out there will probably try to buy it, sell it, or, in the case of OJ Simpson, nick it. Allegedly. So what’s the fascination with collectibles, and why will ordinarily sane people part with extraordinarily daft amounts of money to own them? To me it’s about either possessing a tangible part of your hero, a slice of sporting history…or, and this is where the big bucks come into play, both.

In terms of sporting collectibles, baseball rules the roost; from the $10,000 spent by chewing gum maker Curt Mueller on a piece of spent gum from Arizona Diamondbacks Luis Gonzalez, to the ball struck by Mark McGwire for his record-breaking 70^th home run in 1998 – bought by comic book creator Todd McFarlane for a staggering $3.05m. Especially staggering when you consider the record was subsequently tainted by McGwire’s admission of steroid abuse during that season…the baseball shedding two-thirds of its auction value. Less home run, more own goal.

But if you think that sports fans have the market cornered (as well as signed, framed and independently authenticated) – think again. It’s the movie buffs that really know how to splash the cash to get their hands on a piece of Hollywood heroes or history.

In 2008, a miniature TIE Fighter model spaceship from the original Star Wars movie sold for over $400,000 and Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber made almost a quarter of a million dollars. Surprisingly though, in the memorabilia stakes, chic overcomes geek, with Audrey Hepburn’s Givenchy dress from Breakfast at Tiffany’s selling for just under $1million and James Bond’s gadget-filled Aston Martin DB5 going for $4.1million.

What, might you ask, has any of this got to do with marketing, per se? Well, if you need to ask, then you obviously haven’t seen the recent Nike Mag campaign.

For those of you not aware, Nike Mags were the futuristic sneakers worn in Back to the Future II by hero Marty McFly when visiting Hill Valley, year 2015. For a quick reminder…

The self-lacing, self-illuminating hi-tops went on to become the most sought-after movie footwear since Dorothy Gale’s ruby slippers, whilst creating veritable product placement lore for their creators, Nike.

Many have crudely tried to repeat the trick, most notably Will Smith’s Converse-obsessed lead in I, Robot and, subsequently, the Puma-wearing inhabitants of The Island. Given that each member of the latter’s identically-shod population is, in fact, an irretrievably doomed clone of a corporate paymaster, you have to think that Puma really should have read the script before involving themselves.

What sets Nike apart from the aforementioned brands is that the trainers worn by Michael J. Fox’s character were simply an ‘ain’t-it-cool’ vision of the future for the movie’s teenaged audience, appropriate to Nike’s own brand trajectory; they weren’t linked to part of a specific marketing campaign, and were categorically not made available for purchase by their makers.

Until now.

Hot on the heels of Total Film’s 2010 ‘Future Day’ hoax, forums were buzzing earlier this year with the rumour that Nike had taken out a patent on an ‘automatic lacing system’. Nike sneakers with power laces on their way? Not quite, but an ingeniously timely tease nonetheless.

In fact, the Oregon-based sporting superpower had finally chosen to make film buff dreams a reality, by producing a limited run of 1,500 pairs of ‘2011 Nike Mags’.

With illuminated LEDs that can be recharged after a long day switched on in their display cabinet (as though anyone is actually planning on wearing these) the 2011 models are, in fact, not of the self-lacing variety. This is rather unsubtly explained courtesy of the movie’s co-star, Christopher Lloyd – AKA Doc Brown – in the video below, where it becomes clear that said technology will only be available in 2015 (the year he and Marty visited in BTTF2), and that the DeLorean time machine has erroneously brought him to a point four years too early.

So, after all the hype and fervour, how can I get hold of a pair, you ask? Well, unfortunately you’ve already missed the boat: the entire lot were auctioned off over a 10-day period on eBay in early September. Although bidding started at $0.99, over-excited demand amongst collectors and scalpers alike saw standard prices kick off at around $4,000. Who pays $4k for a pair of slightly ugly-looking trainers? Well, no one, it would seem. The first pair actually sold for the princely sum of $37,000 to one Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu – that’s Tinie Tempah to you and me. His PR or Nike’s…it’s hard to tell.

But never fear: Nike’s ruse was all in a very good cause (besides fleecing a few overpaid musicians). It turns out that the brand had partnered with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, all profits from the auctions going direct to the organisation.

Nike (with a little help from eBay) capitalised on the perfect storm of memorabilia-hungry Back to the Future fanboys, obsessive boxfresh sneakerheads and understandably fervent supporters of the Parkinson’s research projects – raising $5.7million in a mere 10 days. This was doubled to $11million by the ubiquitous Google, whose co-founder Sergey Brin has pledged to match donations to Fox’s foundation until 2012 to the tune of up to $50million.

Nike has demonstrated just how far ahead its thinking is from its competitors’ in respect of memorabilia, limited edition wares and product placement (even retrospectively). And who’s to say that the ‘2015 Nike Mags’ won’t be released to the general public in four years’ time anyway?

They’ve hit the sweet spot between collectible and commodity, and through the nostalgic lens of one of the most popular movie franchises of all time, have delivered a lesson in slow-burn brand marketing.

But coming back to the crux of the argument, people will do anything for their own part of an image, an icon, a moment or a man – heart over head, irrational and absurd. As Huey Lewis once put it: that’s the power of love.

By Jonathan Izzard on October 4th, 2011

Tags: Brand marketing, Celebrity, Charity, Content, Default, Digital marketing, Film, New Product Development, Viral Marketing

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What Happened?

The beginning of the month saw the release of a selection of free content for the popular iPhone app, Hipstamatic, from the team behind one of this summer’s movie blockbusters, Cowboys & Aliens.

Hipstamatic, for the uninitiated, is a retro-inspired camera app that allows users to customise the lens, film, flash, and even camera ‘case’ they use when taking photos, with the output being some unique and genuinely memorable images. Synthetic, the company behind the app, states that it took inspiration for the product from the Hipstamatic 100, an ill-fated analogue camera that failed to trouble the market back in the 1980s. It has been alleged by a few wags that this backstory is in fact nothing more than gentle hokum: a self-perpetuated viral myth designed to imbue what is effectively a piece of imaging software with a little more retro heart.

Either way, the app has without doubt been an unqualified success: it’s clocked up around 2 million downloads since its release at the tail end of last year, was voted ‘App of the Year 2010’ by Apple themselves, and was even used by photographer Damon Winter in a New York Times cover story on the war in Afghanistan (which rightly sparked a photojournalism vs photography debate).

On top of this, with the App Store selling additional lenses and film – for users to combine to produce a myriad of effects – Synthetic has an generated an ongoing revenue stream driven by curious and creative users looking to further tinker with their iPhone photos.

So where does downloadable content from the soon-to-be-released sci-fi western fit? Well, the idea is relatively simple: a push message to owners of the app offers two new lenses, as well as a Cowboys & Aliens camera case. Whilst the case itself is little more than a branded visual rooted in the movie’s steampunk influences, the lenses themselves, one of which is designed to simulate an alien POV, for example, are definitely of greater value.

Why we like it?

I’m not saying that I’m now planning, without further encouragement, to rush out and see Cowboys & Aliens on the day of its release – I mean, that’s one dreadful film title – but I’m unashamedly using the free lenses in my day-to-day photography. This is an interesting spin on content provision: it’s not a one-hit wonder, a tactical traffic-driver or even a piece of compellingly sticky website content – it’s a ‘gift that keeps giving’, providing already-loyal users added value to an iPhone app they already legitimately love…which is no mean feat.

And this isn’t the first of this kind of branded content deal: in June Nike released a lens, two film stocks and its very own branded case. A rare example of Nike as follower rather than leader, it is less than clear what the sportswear giant’s motivation for involvement is, beyond a branded presence in the hands of creative young people.

Whilst neither of these could claim to be the ground-breaking partnerships for Hipstamatic, you couldn’t exactly call them a shot in the dark. This activity signposts the trajectory for stronger and more relevant co-ops that will offer greater terms of engagement with Hipstamatic’s userbase, convince a wider audience to buy into the analogue revolution and, crucially, say something a little deeper about the partner than “brand X is offering a free Hipstamatic lens pack…that’s cool”.

By Jonathan Izzard on July 26th, 2011

Tags: Default

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What happened? To coincide with the release of Limitless, the new thriller starring Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro, Relativity, the film’s production company, commissioned a smart and differentiated viral campaign encompassing digital, outdoor and, well, digital outdoor media.

Why we like it: As a movie whose premise revolves around NZT, a pill that allows anyone taking it access to the full 100% of their brainpower (and the consequences thereof), it is perhaps appropriate that the film company should have demonstrated a bit of lateral thinking in its marketing.

In the States, where the stakes were naturally highest for the movie, the tease began in earnest a month prior to its release with a video created and seeded by Thinkmodo, the New York-based viral marketing outfit. The team produced a piece of footage where a young tech-geek demonstrates how to hack the digital advertising media in Times Square.

Whilst this video hit the Internet hard, with over 2 million views, the execution was later criticised for its very casual link to the movie itself. Only at the very end of the clip do you see the hacker interrupting the official trailer for the movie, or by following the click-through discover that he managed to achieve such feats after taking NZT.

Subsequent to this, and arguably more importantly, the film company also created a faux campaign fronted by Bradley Cooper himself as the literal face of NZT. In a great pastiche of companies like Vitabiotics, whose Wellman advertising for herbal pick-me-ups is a global phenomenon, Mr Cooper stars in both print and TV creative.

The coup de grâce was media buy that placed the campaign’s print creative directly in the eye-line of those people used to seeing

The fact that its stated side-effects include “psychosis, amnesia, homicidal blackouts and death” is a cheeky nod to the film’s own plot trajectory.

Not only is it great to see the creative use of outdoor media – when did you last spot a movie poster on the inside of a Tube? – but it also showed a genuine consideration by the film’s marketing team as to the potential for their assets (namely the film’s star) to deliver into a content strategy beyond that of the typical Photoshopped poster.

What’s more, as a movie starring ‘That guy from The Hangover‘ and Robert ‘please let this not be another turkey’ DeNiro, this is also a campaign that drove a degree of critical reappraisal from the very quarters that might otherwise have ignored it. Having hit #1 at the US Box Office, and taken $80million to date, it looks as though the team at Relativity may have been on NZT from the start.

By Jonathan Izzard on April 20th, 2011

Tags: Advertising, Film, Synergy Loves, Synopsis

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During a 5-hour traffic delay on the way to the Ryder Cup, two Synergists entered into a debate about the greatest Sports Marketing Innovation of the last 50 years. What started in the back of the car, turned into our own private mission to find the answer. We invited suggestions from the public, debated the merits of each suggestion, invited guest bloggers to put their case forward and finally put the resulting short-list to a vote. And according to you, the biggest Sports Marketing Innovation of all time was Nike’s deal with Michael Jordan.

The deal went beyond mere endorsement and created a product line purely around the player, whilst defining the relationship between corporate organisations and sports stars. According to Charlie Brooks, the communications director of Nike “…It has helped define the way the Nike brand, and the industry overall, has behaved ever since in terms of sports marketing and creating athlete signature products…”

It’s staggering, if the stories are to be believed, that Jordan originally didn’t even want to meet with Nike execs to cut a deal. The company’s association with MJ created a brand in Air Jordan that generated some of the most memorable advertising creative in recent years, with ‘Wings’ still one of the most popular posters ever printed. Almost a decade since he last played, the Jordan brand has grossed over $1 billion in sales, representing around 5% of Nike’s total revenue, with the “Jumpman” adorning the shoes of kids for whom Jordan has only ever been a YouTube myth. Wouldn’t you want to be a part of that?

So, there is no doubt that we found a worthy winner…but at Synergy, that just triggered the next question. What next for superstar endorsements? Is this still a winning sponsorship strategy?

From the earliest days of advertising, the stars of the day have been employed to strengthen the promise of a brand. Whether it’s the testimonial of actress Lillie Langtry for Pears Soap, or that of US President William McKinley for his Waterman pen – both before the turn of the 20th century – we’re not talking about a new art, just one that has evolved over time.

That said, apparently, using a celebrity doesn’t guarantee success. According to research carried out by US-based firm Ace Metrix, in 2010 almost 15% of advertising in the US involved celebrities, at an estimated cost of $50 billion. And of that number, nearly 20% of commercials indexed negatively versus the advertising norm. With four out of the top five culprits from the world of sport, several UK publications suggested this as sounding the death-knell of deals for major sporting names like David Beckham.

Of course, this is partly explained by the fact that two sporting superstars for whom 2010 had hardly been a year to remember, featured heavily in this list: Lance Armstrong was accused by his former team-mate Floyd Landis of taking performance-enhancing drugs, whereas Tiger Woods, well, you don’t need me to tell you about his 2010. What this demonstrates is the height from which an icon has to fall, even if, in the case of Armstrong, the pedestal is still structurally intact.

The fact is that consumers are now a savvier bunch and it is easy to pick out where a celebrity is simply a hired hand lending stardust to a brand.

Looking at the advertising that best resonated with US consumers last year, we can see that celebrities need to bring an authenticity that is impossible to manufacture. Oprah Winfrey’s traffic safety campaign represented three out of the top four strongest performing creatives. A very ‘Oprah’ endorsement. George Clooney, another celebrity with integrity, unquestionably plays his own smooth self in Nescafe’s commercials, although it’s definitely more than just an address to camera. Turning this on its head, Kevin Bacon’s commercial for Logitech (where he brilliantly plays a Kevin Bacon-obsessed superfan) is in no way a Bacon endorsement of their specific product, but a means of connecting the brand with humour and charm often missing from the category.

This is where sponsorship begins to play a greater role for companies looking to connect with a consumer, a market or a movement. It’s about a brand in alignment with an individual. What develops is a symbiotic relationship where brands have as much to gain as they have to lose…arguably more.

Nike, of course, has since repeated the trick with Tiger Woods. Why didn’t Nike cut Tiger loose last year? Well, whilst his behaviour disappointed fans and sponsors alike, there’s no denying that he represented a longer game to the sporting giant. And his relationship with Nike is deep and authentic. Prior to Woods’ endorsement of Nike’s golf range in 2000, Nike owned approximately 1% of the global golf market. Following Woods’ signing, Nike Golf acquired approximately 4.5 million customers and in 2008 posted revenues of $648 million – a direct result of the Tiger who came to tee. Estimates suggest that even the 100,000 or so consumers that left the brand in the wake of his extensive indiscretions never actually defected to a competitor, impacting instead a net loss on the golf industry as a whole.

So, authenticity is key. In an attempt to find it, a new avenue has been explored by brands over the past couple of years: offering the celebrity more than just cold hard cash, but a job.

Arguably the most successful proponent of this is adidas with their appointment of designer Stella McCartney as its creative director in advance of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. An appropriate relationship that, suitably leveraged, will provide adidas ample reward in 2012, but, critically, one based on her skillset and day job. Need to demonstrate an ability to actively shape their employer’s brand and bottom line, whilst still connecting with the target consumers. Jamie Oliver and Sainsbury’s, Kate Moss and Topshop, Dr Dre and Monster headphones – all examples of motivated individuals working to deliver tangible value back to their paymasters.

In a slightly more worrying turn of events, the role (or rather title) of creative director provides an opportunity for companies to steal genius (or perhaps more realistically, borrow talent) from a heavily focus-grouped ‘next best thing’.

Intel has shown the world that it likes (black eyed) peas with its chips, having signed up the ubiquitous Will.i.am as their own ‘director of creative innovation’, where he plans to work with scientists and researchers to “collaborate and co-develop new ways to communicate, create, inform and entertain”. Well, if it keeps him out of the recording studio, I’m all for it.

Mr i.am’s work placement comes hot on the heels of icône du jour Lady Gaga, who in 2010 announced she had bagged a role at Polaroid as the brand’s creative director. Here she was “fairly involved” in merging the company’s two mainstays, cameras and sunglasses into (wait for it) a pair of camera sunglasses. One might suggest Ms Gaga was chosen by Polaroid as a 1980s throwback with the ability to deliver an instant reaction, but there’s a definite risk that they have instead simply secured a cheap imitation that fades after prolonged exposure.

It is clear that giving a celebrity a job is no guarantee of authenticity. In a world permeated by the insidious creep of celebrity wannabes and casually eroded by salacious A-Z list gossip, ambivalence is a perfectly understandable reaction from consumers to all-star overkill. Similarly, people believe in sports stars – they are heroes to fans young and old, and as such have a duty of responsibility that for many is beyond their reach.

Celebrity endorsement can still be a winning strategy. But the rules are very clear: without authenticity a brand will simply shed its celebrity skin.

By Jonathan Izzard on March 17th, 2011

Tags: Advertising, Brand marketing, Default, Golf, Music, Olympics, Sponsorship, Sport, Synopsis, Team GB, Television, What's the Greatest Sports Marketing Innovation?

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Anyone watching Newsnight this week may have caught the interesting feature on popular design website Information is Beautiful. For the uninitiated amongst you, the site is the brainchild of David McCandless, who describes himself as “an independent data journalist and information designer…interested in how designed information can help us understand the world”.

With nods to the seminal philosopher and statistician Otto Neurath, whose motto, “words divide, images unite”, led him to design an icon-based language to express quantitative information, Information is Beautiful presents a fascinating series of visualisations, a distillation of democratised data, if you will. In a world where we’re constantly struggling under the weight of statistics, news, opinion, video – not to mention a healthy measure of total junk – McCandless questions whether there’s a compelling means of simplifying, and in some way better understanding the constant stream of facts and figures routinely presented to us by the media.

This mission led to one of IIB’s most famous designs, The Billion Dollar-o-Gram, an exercise in quantifying the unquantifiable: I mean, what does $1billion really mean to anyone?

It was inevitable that this project would attract the attention of the media, with sites such as The Guardian’s Datablog providing a ready outlet for data and stats with a journalistic hook, that can be represented in a new and appealing way.

Mr McCandless’s appearance on Newsnight was certainly a little different, as you might expect, with host Kirsty Wark and guest, respected designer Neville Brody, critiquing McCandless’s previous assertion that visualisations had the potential to offer new insights into the politics of the world around us.

The debate’s well-worth watching, even if it involves the somewhat unjust intellectual skewering of Mr McCandless by the Brody-Wark duo, whose main argument is that designs such as those found on IIB, whilst beguiling and attractive, are likely to oversimplify the deeper issues behind the information from which they are drawn. We might feel slightly cleverer, but we aren’t necessarily any better informed; the designs are knowing, without necessarily imparting knowledge.

It was an awkward paradox for McCandless, as, by the nature of his work, he is bound by the information he illustrates, restricted to those nuggets that lend themselves to visual representation, however clever or imaginative the resultant images are.

Interpretation is all important, with IIB less about blind acceptance than mental stimulus: if it forces you to find out more, it’s achieved a goal.

Other examples of this include the excellent online resource Wordle – a word-cloud generator, which can quickly deliver images like…

Whilst certainly a valuable tool in linguistic sifting, it’s hardly something upon which you’d base an entire opinion. Instead this presents us with a means of examining the patterns in a complicated world, rather than explaining them.

Similarly, the online project ‘We Feel Fine’ – also referenced in the Newsnight report – is a resource as alluring as it is technically impressive. Scouring the global social media landscape every 10 minutes for any posts starting with the words “I am feeling…” or “I feel…”, the output is a demographically configurable snapshot of sentiment. Emotion trending, perhaps. The organic, transient and in many ways fickle nature of social media updates questions this as a means of truly tracking the mood of a nation, but it certainly offers food for thought.

There’ll always be a précis, a Cliffs Notes, an elevator pitch or edit to help us cope with today’s crowded and clouded data-stream – the impetus on us is to question, examine the bigger picture, ensure that visualisations such as those of David McCandless serve as cues to curiousity. It’s not just a design, but an invitation to explore the numbers, opinions, testimony, photos and history surrounding an issue, all accessible via a few extra clicks of the mouse.

Information might be beautiful; integration is essential.

By Jonathan Izzard on August 17th, 2010

Tags: Design, Media, Online communities, Social Media, Television

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You’ve got to love a good viral. Many of you will have seen Brand Republic’s article this week on the efficacy of this type of marketing, which includes a liberal dose of Goviral’s favourite videos to be leveraged as part of a wider viral campaign. Many of these are fantastic, with the 15million views of Nike’s ‘Write the Future’ video testament to their pulling power and creativity.

Assuming this list managed to whet your appetite, how about spending a few minutes with Ignite’s view of the viral game-changers of the last 10 years. Lots of things you’ll have seen, but also, I’d wager some stuff that may have passed you by. It’s a liberal mix of videos, pictures and applications, but all check a single box, namely, would you send this on to a mate?

As you may have noticed by the none-too-subtle references in my last couple of Synergy blogs, I’m a bit of a film fan, so to see ‘The Blair Witch Project’ so high up on Ignite’s list reminded me just how much of an upsurge of viral marketing campaigns related to film releases there has been over the past few years.

Ask most people and they’ll probably agree that 1999′s ‘The Blair Witch Project’ was certainly one of the first films to really embrace viral marketing, and use the internet to create a genuine phenomenon. They’d be right, and the figures speak for themselves: though the production costs are often enthusiastically undercooked by the media (in fact coming in at a total of around $600,000), the movie nonetheless went on to gross almost $250million worldwide, at the time making this one of the most profitable independent films ever made. Incredibly, this was recently eclipsed by the similarly spooksome ‘Paranormal Activity‘, which has to date taken over $190million from a mere $15,000 production. Now that is frightening.

Since then viral has formed a part of a great many movie releases, but perhaps the most important question is how did Blair Witch’s original campaign come together? Using the internet as a subversive source of pseudo-information to create and perpetuate the myth of the Blair Witch. Coupled with the movie’s amateur documentary feel, blurring the lines between actors and characters, it sucked you in and creeped you out.

Without doubt the Blair Witch team exploited first-mover advantage – to be fair, in a year that saw the release of ‘Star Wars: Episode I’, ‘Toy Story 2′ and ‘The Matrix’, they needed it. In fact, ‘Blair Witch’ ended up as the 14th biggest movie at the box office  in 1999,  out-grossing ‘American Pie’ (okay, bad use of the phrase ‘out-grossing’), ‘Sleepy Hollow’ and ‘Fight Club’, to name but a few memorable titles.

So what about the pretenders to the throne – the viral campaigns that followed in the Blair Witch’s shadowy wake?

‘Cloverfield‘ is one you might mention. With a budget of $22million, it could hardly be termed a small movie, but the air of mystery that was cultivated around its release was pure viral: the teaser trailer featuring directly before producer JJ Abrams’ preceding major release, Mission: Impossible III; the drip-feed of subversive shots of a decapitated Statue of Liberty; and what the hell was a ‘Cloverfield’ anyway…? As with ‘Blair Witch’, ‘Cloverfield’ was based on the premise of found footage – but this time on a Hollywood scale – with a viral campaign that built intrigue ahead of the big reveal, mirroring the natural plot crescendo of many a monster movie before it. Disappointing or not (anyone see the finale of ‘Lost’ – also by JJ Abrams?) – it was definitely a success.

Conversely, you’ve got the Samuel L Jackson vehicle, ‘Snakes on a Plane’. Infamously inheriting its title from the classic Hollywood elevator pitch (Ridley Scott originally described Alien as ‘Jaws in Space’), the online community went wild over it. A slew of parodies and spoofs, such as ‘Cats on a Plane’, ‘Snakes who missed the Plane’ and even ‘Steaks on a Train’ were released on video sharing sites in the lead-up to the movie’s opening. Unfortunately, a turkey is still a turkey (even if it’s on a plane), and, in spite of a spirited effort by its marketing team, no one went to see it.

Various others have followed, including ‘Spiderman 2′, ‘Iron Man 2′, and, most notably ‘The Dark Knight’ (yes, you guessed it, ‘Batman 2′).

This last example represented viral marketing with a difference: there was no doubt from the off that the sequel to Christopher Nolan’s successful franchise reboot was going to be big – it didn’t need a clever campaign behind it to break any records. However, where it differed was in its very specific approach, with its careful exploration of The Joker, Batman’s enigmatic nemesis, allowing interested fans the opportunity to glimpse this character’s dark, unsettling roots. Importantly, though, ‘Why So Serious?’, the resulting ARG (Alternate Reality Game) encouraged not only online discussion, but offline, real-time participation in live events across an estimated 177 countries worldwide. Millions of people wanting to talk about your product, coupled with a career-defining performance from Heath Ledger saw ‘The Dark Knight’ have the biggest opening weekend in history (taking $158million).

And it’s the same team behind ‘Why So Serious?’ that are trying to repeat the trick for the upcoming Disney movie ‘Tron: Legacy’.

Not heard of it? That’s because it’s a sequel to ‘Tron’, cult sci-fi flick from way back in 1982. It was one of the earliest films to bring video games to the silver screen together, with a plot revolving around a games programmer, Kevin Flynn – a young Jeff Bridges – being sucked into a computer network (okay, it was no ‘Gandhi’), and notable for being omitted from the Best Visual Effects category at the 1982 Oscars on the grounds that many of the film’s special effects were computer-generated.

So why bother with viral marketing? I mean, if you’re Disney then surely you can just buy an audience via traditional media? Maybe the answer lies in who they’re targeting with the ‘Flynn Lives’ campaign – key influencers in the geekosphere: tech bloggers, sci-fi critics and comic fanboys. As the kind of people who, like me, are naturally protective of cult movie IP, and therefore highly cynical about a money-spinning 3D sequel, this is a key demographic for Disney to engage with and convert. As such, the ‘Flynn Lives’ campaign started with an exchange of branded memorabilia, details of esoteric code to be cracked and secret web addresses with clues to real-world experiences, such as trailer screenings.

Disney are not technically buying love (although it’s definitely a transaction of sorts), but rather engaging with the sceptics and bartering for belief, in a bid to reclaim interest amongst the 1982 original’s fanbase.

So does that make this retroviral marketing…?

By Jonathan Izzard on June 15th, 2010

Tags: Default

1 comment

Microsoft has announced the release of a new mobile phone designed to capture the hearts, minds and standing orders of ‘younger, chattier, socially switched-on’ users.

Developed in conjunction with former Manchester United sponsor Sharp, the brand is to be known as KIN, and represents a range of mobile phones – currently dubbed KIN One and KIN Two – the former in particular a pretty neat-looking device somewhere between a Palm Pre and the chubby widescreen variety of iPod Nano.

From left, KINs One and Two

It’s not a Blackberry, neither is it an Android-a-like, and it’s definitely, categorically not an iPhone challenger. With social media feed functionality placing it in an interesting limbo between smartphone and old-fashioned ‘dumb phone’, the KIN may, in fact, be more of a long-term stepping stone for Microsoft in converting a wider audience to the upcoming mobile Windows 7 OS.

Check the KIN website: it’s all very ‘youth’ (and not even in a ‘this is what all the kids are doing these days, isn’t it everyone?’ Gap style), informative, pretty and dynamic…nice, and contains only the tiniest nods to Microsoft…phew.

Does this mean Microsoft has broken free from its infamous track-record of dad-dancing that has confirmed the world’s third largest company as one of its dorkiest? Of course not, as confirmed by the following shot of Microsoft exec Robbie Bach from the KIN’s press launch last week – probably not the Generation Y shot in the arm the product required, given its offering and audience.

Robbie Bach at the KIN press launch

So why do Microsoft rule the uncool, and how do they manage to make things so effortlessly undesirable?

The much-ridiculed Window 7 Launch Party video holds one or two clues…

If you never saw this, please watch as much as is humanly possible of the video above (I’d say about 12 seconds) and then have a look at the Remix version on this ‘tribute’ site, which, through the tiniest addition has produced something eminently more watchable.

So why will people line up to shoot Microsoft down for this? Is it because the original video is so replete with cheese, yet so bereft of irony? Is it because of the public’s distaste for celebrating what is effectively a stress-purchase, in this case designed to solve the problems created by Microsoft Vista, W7′s predecessor? Or is it simply that the idea of hosting a party to launch a computer operating system is just incredibly bizarre?

Go back a little further to Microsoft’s ‘I’m a PC’ campaign. This was a response to Apple’s ongoing advertising creative which pitched a ‘typical’ PC user against a Macophile. In the US this campaign included Justin Long (of Dodgeball and Die Hard 4.0) as ‘the Mac’, but UK consumers will be more familiar with the localisation featuring Mitchell and Webb.

Whilst a comedic exercise in stereotypes – termed as bullying from certain pro-PC quarters – ultimately, Apple’s campaign was grounded in the functional versus the inspirational: on the whole people have to use PCs, but choose to own a Mac. If this isn’t an indicator of brand love, then I’m not sure what is.

Were Pharrell Williams’ claims that he’s a PC enough to turn the heads of unbelievers? What about when they see him on his  iPhone? Did Eva Longoria’s endorsement make PCs any sexier? Tough to say, especially when she was subsequently captured at the airport on her MacBook. Isn’t this indicative of the difference between obligation and aspiration?

Whatever way you look at it, in the constantly-updating, virtually-democratised world of the web, where transparency is a badge of honour, there’s very little room for the clumsy manufacture of cool. And even if you did want to – Microsoft boffins, take note – there’s a formula you need to apply…

Generated through research conducted between InSites Consulting and MTV Belgium amongst 13-29 year-olds, the above represents the key factors (at an official ratio of 22% originality, 23% popularity and 55% attractiveness) that contribute to make a brand, product or service ‘cool’.

The same study demonstrated that 73% of all brand loyalty is about the coolness of the brand, with young people today buying twice as many cool brands than uncool brands, while the future purchase intention of these brands is no less than three times as high. It doesn’t really matter whether this is right/wrong/lowlands-specific, but there’s little argument in the study’s assertion that trying to be cool is the worst thing you can ever do. Ever.

A tragic confirmation of this is Microsoft (honestly, I don’t actually dislike the company, there’s just so much cannon fodder) and its foray into the digital music market…the ill-fated Zune. They have the set-up, the know-how, and the can-do attitude, but this couldn’t save Microsoft from failing on the Originality, Popularity or Attractiveness fronts, in the face of Apple’s iPod. In fact,  in what is probably my favourite comedy product on the internet, you can even buy what has been termed the ultimate Apple anti-theft device, the ‘Hide-a-Pod’ - a Zune-disguise for your iPod.

Who knows what the fate holds for Microsoft’s latest mobile offering, but unless they learn the lessons from past product launches, there’s a chance it could be KIN useless.

By Jonathan Izzard on April 19th, 2010

Tags: Blogging, Brand marketing, Default, Digital marketing, Media, Mobile, New Product Development, Online communities, Viral Marketing

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Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

- Ferris Bueller

Sentiments borne of teenage frustration and a need for escape, rebellion and self-expression from the master of the ‘80s genre, the late great John Hughes. A simpler time, one might argue: the days before the web, wi-fi, information aggregation and real-time status updates live-streamed from a virtual community of billions.

Nowadays, information overload is well-documented, but to put things into context, it’s worth reviewing a snippet of the review of web use in 2009 from the legends at Pingdom.

So, in 2009:

- 90 trillion emails were sent…of which 81% were classified as spam (that’s 200 billion mails a day)
- A total of 234 billion websites were catalogued…with a further 47 million added last year
- There were 1.73 billion internet users worldwide…an 18% increase on 2008
- 126 million blogs were tracked by BlogPulse…with 84% of social network sites with more women than men
- Microblogs weighed in with a hefty 27.3 million tweets per day…although 57% of Twitter‘s user base is in the US
- Facebook reached 350m users…50% of whom logged on every day
- 4 billion images were hosted on Flickr…however, 2.5 billion per month were uploaded to Facebook
- 1 billion videos were viewed per day on You Tube…with the average user watching 182 videos per month

And breathe.

In an age where the relentless pace of technological change means that many of us feel like we’re running to stand still, how do we find the time to stand and stare? If only there was some kind of machine that could take you back, pre-tipping point, or at least let you remember what things once looked and felt like…

You’ll be needing the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Whether it’s for research, curiosity or simple nostalgia, this is a really fascinating resource. Type in whatever website you’re interested in and the site will offer you glimpses of archived pages from as far back as the mid ‘90s.

Just to get you started, how about:

Hotmail circa 1997

Google circa 1998

BBC.co.uk circa 2000

Sky Sport circa 2001

You Tube circa 2005

Granted, hardware, software and coding changes mean that not every page works perfectly or looks exactly as it used to. However, it’s a great way of frittering away a couple of minutes online, and even acts as a would-be stomach pump for the reclamation of forgotten morsels of data that Google, like a virtual sarlacc, has swallowed up but is now unable to regurgitate via organic search, such is the ceaseless growth of cyberspace.

Whether you find what you’re looking for or not, such online time travel confirms that LP Hartley knew what he was talking about…the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

By Jonathan Izzard on April 12th, 2010

Tags: Blogging, community, Content, Default, Facebook, Media, Online communities, YouTube

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The King of the World is dead, long live the King of the World.

You have to hand it to James Cameron: at $1.88billion in takings to date, his 3D epic Avatar is officially the biggest box office ticket of all time. And having taken only six weeks to eclipse the record set by Titanic, JC’s last feature film, this is likely to be just the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, the world and his wife (and their three children, plus extended circle of friends) have queued up at cinemas to see Avatar: whilst it’s not perhaps a film for everybody, it has nonetheless garnered some strong reviews, and, 3D effects aside, features some of the best CGI ever used in medium. The spectacle in 3D, however, elevates Avatar beyond movie to experience, drawing the audience into Cameron’s alien world of Pandora without simply resorting to the customary “oh, that was the 3D bit” camera pans. Not all 3D films can claim to do the same.

Avatar is a 3D success because the extra something this technology brings makes us believe it more, enriching the immersion and further suspending disbelief. The question is, how to monetise this on a more regular basis, as opposed to only once every 15 years, when Mr Cameron decides to take us one step beyond?

Naturally, the answer came in the form of the ever-inventive Sky, with Sky Sports’ first foray into 3D programming the live coverage of Arsenal vs Manchester United last weekend. For those lucky enough to be in one of the nine bars across the UK to feature 3D screens – well, if you’d call ‘lucky’ being reciprocally filmed by Sky Sports looking like the rejects from a Buddy Holly casting session – the experience was mixed. The customary Sky Sports graphics, player line-ups (where a sense of depth and perspective is inherent to the camera view) and wide angle shots from behind goal were suitably impressive; however, the third dimension was not the totally eye-popping revolution many were imagining.

To be fair, Sky does spoil the viewer: with up to 20 cameras tracking the game in regular Ds and lovely High Definition crispness for those willing to pay an extra tenner a month – it’s hard to say whether the final spectacle of 3D could ever match up to our expectations. It’s no massive surprise that this was basically a glorified experiment by the broadcaster – football may not be the ultimate sport to benefit from an extra dimension, versus, say boxing, rugby, or even golf – but the fanfare of such a world’s first certainly captured the public’s imagination, leaving viewers hungry, or at least peckish, for more.

Whatever the future holds for in-home 3D, it’s clear that from a sporting perspective, as James Cameron understands, the extra dimension needs to add something to our experience, to give something back, with Sunday’s experiment representing a small step in furthering Sky’s opinion on exactly how it plans to achieve this.

By Jonathan Izzard on February 2nd, 2010

Tags: Barclays Premier League, Branded content, Broadcast sponsorship, Experiential marketing, Football, Football Sponsorship, Manchester United, Media, Sport, Television, Television audiences

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Having won the MCCA ‘Best Campaign Featuring Sponsorship’ last year for its Team GB campaign around the Beijing Olympics, it’s great to be able to say that the Powerade 2009 InnerGear campaign has again been shortlisted in this year’s MCCA BEST Awards. Building on the insights and imagery of the Team GB campaign, Powerade brought the same InnerGear core creative idea to two of its international rugby assets – the English and Welsh rugby teams.

The 2009 edition featured England captain Steve Borthwick, Paul Sackey and IRB World Player of the Year, Shane Williams, in some equally impactful creative, and was supported through the line by Powerade’s cross agency team.

By Jonathan Izzard on January 20th, 2010

Tags: Beijing 2008, Olympic sponsorship, Olympics, Rugby, Sponsorship, Synergy, Team GB

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