On a recent Monday morning, I made the questionable decision to buy myself some followers on Twitter.

Egged on by a colleague and a feeling of intrigue, I plugged in my details and purchased 1,000 followers for the princely sum of £8; the speed and ease of the exchange was astonishing and within 24 hours my numbers had broken the 1,300 barrier. However, as I watched my follower count rise, the novelty of the original idea began to wear off. “I sort of did it for a joke” was proving an inadequate answer to those enquiring after my suspicious follower count, and the mounting social pressure of carrying over a thousand false friends inevitably resulted in a torturous Sunday morning spent blocking my 1,100 new disciples.

The whole charade was not completely futile, however, as the brief foray introduced me to the business of purchasing followers, likes, friends and even YouTube views; a practice becoming increasingly commonplace for celebrities, brands and even regular folk like myself. I was totally unaware of the exercise, and was stunned at the number of ‘fakes’ flying around social media, and Twitter in particular. Allegedly, only 28% of people following the 20 most popular Twitter accounts are real, and it has been reported that only 15 million of Justin Bieber’s 38 million followers are authentic. This is likely to be through no fault of his own, as the Twitter-bots and inactive accounts who sell themselves for money attach themselves to real accounts as a way of avoiding detection by Twitter’s supposedly effective spam filter.

Indeed, a quick flick through my new followers unearthed a few dubious characters (Jarvis Wenger, Jason van Smith) and a few incomprehensible names that seemed to be a random combination of numbers, letters and  punctuation (I’m looking at you, SL:17-cv7).

However, not all big-name characters with large social media influences are completely innocent when it comes to artificially inflating their social media profile. Mitt Romney fell under suspicion for impossibly immediate rises in followers during the run-up to the 2012 Presidential election, whilst 50 Cent and Diddy are alleged to have shown that even the coolest cats are not averse to social media ego-massaging.

The pertinent question that arises from this is why people would bother with this practice in the first place. The answer for the most part is credibility. Nick Ashton, the creator of fake online guru Santiago Swallow, argues that on social media it is easy to confuse popularity with credibility. Much like a long line outside a restaurant, having a weighty Twitter following can be an easy way of enhancing reputation in the eyes of others. Even at my lowly level, this was exhibited by a friend receiving a text from a colleague asking ‘”Who is Rob Guppy and should I be following him?”  Despite the predictable “definitely not” response, it is easy to see that a larger number of followers can make you stand out from the crowd.

However, beyond this initial mirage of credibility, is there any benefit to artificially augmenting follower counts? In other words, is there a correlation between number of followers and one’s social media influence? My personal score on Klout, a site that analyses social media behaviour, certainly suggested that this was (infuriatingly) not the case and, given that there was zero interaction between myself and my new mates, this was hardly surprising. The whole operation seemingly only served to improve the external aesthetic of my Twitter profile page.

This leads us to a more significant area of discussion for people and brands that chase social media love and focus purely on numbers of likes, views and followers they accrue. As recently expressed on the Synergy blog, pure figures are no longer sufficient and ‘participation’ is now crucial in any interaction between brand and consumer. The difference between an inactive follower and an interactive one is immeasurable. If connecting with the right people, this level of ‘participation’ can be incredibly valuable in introducing consumers to brands and influencing their behaviour.

The reasoning continues that it would be more valuable for a company to have 100 highly engaged consumers than tens of thousands of seemingly passive onlookers. Indeed, sponsorship is one way of sparking this conversation and increasing the engagement between brand and consumer.

In short, I believe my short-lived experience can be seen as a microcosm of a brand chasing Twitter followers: admittedly, my social media profile was slightly raised by my follower count increasing five-fold, but beyond that I gained nothing (not even a single re-tweet). The 200-odd followers I had previously earned legitimately tend to direct me towards content, interact with me and, to a degree, educate me, but the one-way process of me tweeting at the 1,000 Twitter-bots and inactive bods brought me nothing. The whole process underlined that whether real or not, purely chasing followers or likes for the sake of it is an out-dated concept. Level of participation will be the new measure of a brand’s social media influence, with those parties that successfully engage with consumers and catalyse conversation the ones that will benefit most.

By Rob Guppy on May 20th, 2013

Tags: Brand marketing, Branded content, Celebrity, Communications, Default, Facebook, Media, Mobile, Politics, Social Media, Sponsorship, Sport, Synergy, Twitter

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Bringing together over 1,200 delegates and a stellar cast of keynote speakers, the annual IEG Conference is the place to go to get a feel for the US sponsorship industry and the latest trends emerging from that side of the pond.

Having experienced three full days of presentations and roundtables covering every topic under the sponsorship sun, we have enough thoughts, insights and observations to fill a whole series of blogs (which we’ll be publishing over the next few weeks). But in advance of that, it makes sense to start with a high-level view of the key themes to emerge from the conference as a whole, with a particular focus on the keynote speakers.

The New 4 Ps of Sponsorship

In her welcome address, Lesa Ukman (Chief Insights Officer at IEG) introduced “The New 4 Ps”, a simple framework which outlines the critical components of successful sponsorship.

So here it goes: a summary of the core themes from the keynote speakers in the context of “The New 4 Ps”.

1. Partnership

Great sponsorship is far more than skin deep. It is about both the brand and the rights holder working together through all available channels to create win/win/win situations, where genuine value is added to the brand, property and audience.

This is not a new idea, and the debate about whether we should move away from the word “sponsorship” has been rumbling for years (decades even). Of course, it doesn’t really matter what we call it as long as brands realise that sponsorship is not a one-way value transfer.

This sense of partnership is at the centre of Pepsi’s new deal with Beyonce. Frank Cooper, Pepsi’s CMO,  acknowledged that on the surface it looked like exactly the same sort of deal that Pepsi has been doing since the ‘80s with Michael Jackson (a thought that we have already discussed in the past).  However, he assured us that this couldn’t be further from the truth. Evidently, it is a deep collaboration that will redefine how music is created and distributed, deliver innovative episodic content, while also resulting in new Women’s Empowerment projects that come from Beyonce’s personal social conscience. We’ll be watching with great interest.

Miller Light has taken things far deeper than simple product placement in its partnership with The Internship (a new comedy re-uniting Wedding Crashers Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson). The brand is providing large-scale marketing support on-pack and through a high-profile competition to win the ultimate internship with Miller Light. This will, in turn, deliver great content and social currency for Miller, in addition to strong product placement within the movie.

Deborah Dugan, the CEO of (RED), showed another great example of brands working together to create win/win/win scenarios. For those of you not familiar with (RED), it partners with world-leading brands including Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Beats by Dr. Dre and Bugaboo to create limited edition (RED) products. A percentage of the profits from these products go to The Global Fund which fights for an AIDS-free generation. This is a great example of a win/win/win scenario: The Global Fund raises much-needed money; brands drive revenue through new products while demonstrating what they stand for; and customers can support the cause simply by buying great, new, limited edition products from the brands they already love.

Clearly, what all these examples have in common is that actively working together creates more value for all parties, while also establishing a concrete role for the brand – all of which deliver the authenticity that is critical to being accepted by an audience.

2. Purpose

Of all the New 4 Ps, the idea that a brand needs a purpose (beyond making money for the sake of making money), is probably the one that came through most clearly. Consumers don’t just want to know who a brand is, they need to know what it stands for. A really powerful element of sponsorship is that it can provide a highly visible symbol of a brand’s purpose.

Jim Stengler is so committed to the idea that doing good and doing well are two sides of the same coin that he left his role as CMO of P&G to write a book, Grow, showing that companies with a strong purpose outperformed the market. His view is that a company’s culture – what it believes in and how it behaves – is the only truly sustainable source of differentiation.

He showed how the turning point in the Pampers business was this ad – when it stopped telling people about the product and started showing that “Pampers get babies. Pampers loves babies”. Andy England from MillerCoors used a nice turn of phrase to capture this idea: we need to move from brand campaigns to campaigning for our brand.

For Frank Cooper, the CMO of Pepsi, it’s a case of “The King is dead; long live the King”. Specifically, Content isn’t King. Intent is King. Consumers are no longer happy to just know what you do and how you do it, they want to know why you do it. A brand’s intent is now as important as the product itself.

Ironically, Frank Cooper didn’t manage to articulate the specifics of Pepsi’s “intent”, but he did refer to the Pepsi Refresh Project, describing it as “one of the most important experiments” Pepsi (or any other brand, for that matter) had undertaken in the past decade. It was undeniably brave – but the fact that it was ditched after just one year might indicate that it was a brave failure.

Jim Trebilcock from Dr. Pepper Snapple, provided one of my favourite case studies from the event. The Dr. Pepper Tuition Giveaway uses its sponsorship of NCAA Football to run a promotion giving college students the chance to win their tuition fees ($100,000) by uploading a video which described how they would use their college education to create a better future. I like this because it really brings to life Dr. Pepper’s intent to encourage everyone to tread their own path to become one of a kind.

Synergy have covered this trend extensively over the past year as part of our discussions on the Social Era of Sponsorship – so it was nice to see it reinforced in Chicago.

3. Production

Brands that simply badge content might get awareness but they don’t necessarily get any credit. Anyone can get awareness by slapping a logo on something – but producing content, events and experiences that resonate with the audience and enhance their experiences is the best way to truly connect.

All the keynote speakers emphasised the importance of being Creator Brands and took the opportunity to showcase some of the great content they had developed. From TV spots to earned media and user-generated content, no presentation was complete without a few examples of the engaging content they had created.

A couple of examples deserve special mention. The first is the deep, multi-channel engagement which Coors Light created around its sponsorship of Liga MX (the Mexican Football League) for the US audience. The sponsorship started with standard on-pack and in-store activity, but the brand took it further to create a website called ‘Fanaticos del Frio’, providing exclusive fan content about Liga MX. It then extended it into mobile apps, social media engagement and experiential activity, before finally partnering with Univision (the major Spanish Language TV Channel) to turn Fanaticos del Frio into a prime-time weekly TV programme. Creating and curating this content means that Coors Light owns the Liga MX fan experience in the US.

Pete Blackshaw, Global Head of Nestle’s digital marketing and social media, shared a very clever new interactive film with us called Perrier’s Secret Place. You are in control as you switch characters to navigate your way through the ultimate Secret Party, trying to find clues that will lead you to the Golden Perrier Bottle. Finding the golden bottle gives you a chance to win trips to “the ultimate parties around the world”. The idea that you should be drinking Perrier at parties to make sure you don’t miss any details of the experience is interesting – and the film is great.

Again, there is nothing new about the idea of content being at the centre of the sponsorship experience – we have written about it many times (here and chapter 6 of our 2013 Trends Report, here) – but it is important that the point is reinforced at every possible occasion.

4. Participation

The stories that a brand can tell about itself are dwarfed by the potential stories that others can tell about it.  That’s why sponsors should be finding ways to create movements that everyone can participate and share in.

Adam Garone, co-founder of Movember, really brought to life how a simple idea can harness the power of the audience to spread the word and drive the storyline. Every man that grows a moustache sparks hundreds of different conversations during the month of November – with friends, colleagues and even strangers on the Tube. And that, rather than simply raising money, is the whole point.

However, it is worth raising a couple of words of caution at this point. Firstly, don’t expect customers to participate in something which they don’t really care about (and they’ll be the judge of that), or which doesn’t fit into and improve their existing ‘rituals’. Hundreds of activations fall flat because the consumer just thinks: “why bother?”. Secondly, the whole point of ‘Participation’ is to create some form of legacy – a deeper connection with the consumer that lasts longer and means more than simply viewing an ad. With that in mind, it’s worth remembering that not all content is shareable. As Pablo Ganguli, founder of Liberatum, which creates cultural festivals in countries around the world said: “I would prefer 200 highly motivated, energised, intelligent people to experience my content directly rather than 2 billion people watching my YouTube video because they are bored.”

Sponsorship gives brands the ability to show that they have something in common with the audience. Brands that use sponsorship well are seen by fans to be “one of us”, and that makes them willing to tell their story.

So those are the new 4 Ps. If you have read the Synergy blog and our 2013 Trends Report, you will recognise many of the same themes in our ABCDE framework: for Beyond your Brand (B), read Purpose; for Content (C), read Production; and for Dialogue (D), read Participation. The New 4 P framework doesn’t explicitly reference Authenticity (A) and Emotion (E), but there is no doubt that both those elements need to be at the heart of all of the Ps. Conversely, ABCDE doesn’t explicitly mention Partnership – but that’s simply because the whole framework is about partnerships and the vital ingredients required to create great ones.

So when it comes to great sponsorship it doesn’t really matter what side of the Atlantic you might find yourself on: what the IEG Conference really demonstrated – as the ABCDE and the 4Ps frameworks make clear – is that the rules for outstanding sponsorship are universal.

By Carsten Thode on May 1st, 2013

Tags: Advertising, Brand marketing, Branded content, Communications, Consultancy, Mobile, Social Media, Sponsorship, Sponsorship Activation, Sponsorship consultants, Sport, Synergy, Synopsis, Twitter, YouTube

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Across the pond, college sport is big business. According to Kantar Media research, the NCAA college basketball tournament, or ‘March Madness’ as it is more commonly known, has now overtaken the NFL Playoffs to become the most lucrative US post-season sport property for advertisers.

As such, there is a real onus on sponsors to produce unique and engaging campaigns in order to stand out from the crowd and deliver a return on what would no doubt have been a sizeable investment.

At this year’s tournament, telecommunications provider AT&T have managed to do so by using the @MarchMadness feed to bring real-time video highlights to the fans.

While this may not seem like such an exciting development, drilling down deeper into the mechanics of the service reveals how this opportunity could lead to a revolution in how rights holders, broadcasters and sponsors can collaborate to leverage branded content on Twitter.

What Happened

Turner, the official tournament broadcaster, have partnered with Twitter and quick-share video start-up SnappyTV to bring fans 15-second highlight clips of key plays via embedded video Tweets. Content is selected in real-time by Turner’s social media team, who use a combination of human judgement and SnappyTV’s social media monitoring software to track the most talked about moments in the game. In less than a minute, the relevant clip can be posted online for people to view and share with their friends. This example from Florida Gulf Coast’s improbable run to the round of sixteen shows the technology in action, and the ensuing Twitter conversation around highlight plays.

(Unfortunately, clips are geo-blocked to the US only but AT&T’s pre-roll can be viewed regardless of location. Refresh the page if you missed it!)

Real-time highlight: FGCU with a monster dunk to take a two point lead.#marchmadness – snpy.tv/15IScCG

— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) March 24, 2013

While this technology isn’t new (it was used in last year’s tournament by Turner), this year is the first time that sponsors have partnered with Twitter to bring these clips to fans via a short pre-roll ad with embedded video content.

Why we love it

In the past year, Twitter has invested significantly in figuring out the tricky task of how to make money from the social conversation around live TV. Snappy TV’s video highlight service has given sponsors, such as AT&T, the chance to emotionally link their brand with high-stakes knockout tournament basketball, and the thrills and spills that this entails.

AT&T have also understood the demand for fast, shareable content and utilised the technology available from SnappyTV and Twitter to create a seamless user experience, where video content can be accessed without the need to click on an external link. This ease of use has enabled users to easily retweet and share highlights with their friends, thus giving AT&T the additional benefit of being seen favourably by the consumer as the provider of their chosen video highlight.

For the broadcaster, advertising opportunities around sponsored video highlights can mean additional revenue streams as sponsors increasingly wise-up to the benefits of supplying eminently sharable content to an already engaged and passionate fanbase.

While this technology is still in its relative infancy, the growth potential in this medium is significant. Current reports project Twitter’s ad revenues will reach the $1bn mark by 2014, with the most significant growth projected to occur in the mobile sector. With this in mind, it will be interesting to see how many brands will follow AT&T’s example and embrace the potential of second screen advertising.

By Robin Ooi on April 4th, 2013

Tags: Basketball, Blogging, Branded content, Digital marketing, Mobile, Social Media, Sponsorship Activation, Sport, Synergy Loves, Twitter

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What is it?

Selfridges has never been just a shop. In recent years we have seen a number of experiential installations from brands utilising the space Selfridges offers. In 2011 it was the The Truvia Voyage of Discovery, a boating lake and cocktail bar that lived on the Selfridges rooftop, and last summer the roof was occupied by Jellymongers Bompass and Parr’s crazy golf course. Non-Olympic sponsor Nike marked the Summer of Sport in the store with their House of Innovation experiential retail space, and for last September’s London Fashion Week, Mercedes and Bompass and Parr created the ultimate drive thru in the lobby of the old Selfridges Hotel.

Since then it has been a case of waiting until the next installation is revealed.

Attention on the store has reached new heights of late following the release of Mr Selfridge, the ITV drama focusing on the shop’s founder Harry Gordon Selfridge, with the first episode attracting 7.2 million viewers. So what better way to play on this wave of interest than by re-creating a concept Mr Selfridge himself launched in 1909? Over 100 years ago the Silence Room at Selfridges was born, and now it’s back in the form of a partnership with meditation gurus Headspace and the creation of No Noise at Selfridges.

No Noise is visible throughout the store with four of the shop windows designed by conceptual artist Katie Paterson, the Food Hall emphasising simple and honest food, and Headspace pods delivering meditative messages in all departments. However, the main focus is on the reincarnation of Selfridge’s Silence Room and the development of the Quiet Shop. Designed by architect Alex Cochrane, this inner-sanctum asks customers to leave all their 21^st Century distractions at the door and escape from the hustle and bustle associated with modern-day high-street shopping.

While the Silence Room – a completely shopping-free space – is unexpected from a retail giant, it is the accompanying Quiet Shop that is the most innovative component of No Noise in terms of support from brands. Selfridges have in fact persuaded them to de-brand. Stripped of their logos, Marmite, Heinz, Beats by Dre and Levis are just a few examples of brands whose logo-less products are available to buy within the Quiet Shop. Selfridges too have removed their name from their own illustrious yellow shopping bags.

Why we love it?

In the month when everyone is trying to get over both the excess and expense of Christmas, and dispel memories of stressful present buying, Selfridges have created a pop-up experience that puts the pleasure back into shopping.

No Noise works on so many levels: it certainly has a PR stunt element which has led to its initial coverage, but this installation is not to be short-lived; running until the end of February, a plethora of shoppers will have a unique consumer experience that is sure to lead to continued press for Selfridges.

Although only a item that has recognisable packaging could get away with de-branding, by icons such as Heinz buying into this concept they are themselves gaining publicity, with many suggesting that the logo-less items will also soon become collector’s items. However, it is the Selfridges brand that is the ultimate winner, with the buy-in and support from so many giants of the retail world delivering No Noise the shout out it deserves.

No Noise at Selfridges does have many separate elements to it, but the store has ensured that focus sticks to the theme of de-cluttering the shopping experience. As we know in our industry, simple ideas are often the best ideas and what could be more simple than silence.

By Fiona Watherston on January 14th, 2013

Tags: Default, Experiential marketing, Fashion, Food & Drink, Public relations

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Analysis of industry data suggests that the F1 ecosystem raises over £1b per year from sponsorship. This includes Team Sponsors and Suppliers (ranging from £100m for the big boys to £20m for the smaller teams), F1 Partners (around £25m per year in cash or Value in Kind from each of the 6 global partners) and Race Sponsorship (around £10m for each of the races with title sponsors plus trackside advertising).

To put that into context, the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games raised around the same amount (£750m from domestic sponsors plus around £250m contribution from the IOC for TOP partners) – but that was for a 4-year cycle.

So here’s a question: Given how much is spent on it from some of the world’s leading brands, why is F1 Sponsorship not at the leading edge of sponsorship thinking and activation?

It’s fair to say that F1 is ahead of the game in virtually everything else it does. So surely F1 Sponsors should be cleaning up at the major sponsorship industry awards.  In fact, over the past 5 years, an F1 sponsorship has won only once out of a possible 47 SIA awards (Vodafone’s Best Sponsorship of a Team or Individual in 2009). Case studies from F1 should be inspiring sponsors in other sports.  Here at Synergy, we should regularly be showcasing examples from F1 in the ‘What We Love’ section of Synopsis. But this just isn’t the case – at least not to the extent that one would expect.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some great pieces of activation in F1 (I’ll point out some of them later), but as a whole, F1 sponsorship is pretty uninspiring.

Having run the Reuters sponsorship of WilliamsF1 from 2000 – 2003 (yes – I agree – it was nowhere near ‘award-winning’!), I thought I would have a go at answering that question based on my own personal experiences.

1. Most Formula One sponsorships are B2B

Reuters primarily used F1 for B2B relationship building. A quick scan of F1 sponsors shows that over 40% have significant B2B businesses. There is little better than F1 if you have a relatively small number of high-value, global customers who you reach through targeted sales and marketing programmes.  Travelling around the world to all the key markets, Formula One and Paddock Club™ are the absolute gold standard of corporate hospitality. With this being the focus of the brands’ activation programme, it is little wonder that it remains unseen by the mass audience, award panels and the Synopsis editors.

The activation challenge for the B2B partners, however, is to create the most compelling brand stories and event experiences to attract their audience.  Because the fact is, especially in the small markets, most of the B2B sponsors are going after a very similar audience, in some cases exactly the same people.

2. There is too much focus on brand exposure and logos on cars and not enough on activation

Whenever brand exposure is such a critical part of the sponsorship package, it is easy to rely too heavily on it at the expense of all the other things you can do with the sponsorship. I absolutely hate the “media value” figures that are at the heart of so many F1 sponsorships.  However, it is easy to measure and as long as the media value is bigger than the cost of the sponsorship, brands can be tempted to think “job done”. In comparison, Olympic sponsors can’t rely on any media value to justify their sponsorship.  That’s why they have to work much harder and be far more creative with their activation.

A knock-on effect of this over-emphasis on media value is the fact that it can lead to an under-investment in activation.  Typically, the rights fee is so high (because brands are paying for the exposure) that there isn’t enough left over for activation. I’m not a big believer in any rule-of-thumb ratios, but the proportion of rights fee to activation spend when I was at Reuters is definitely not going to make it into any how-to textbooks. I suspect this isn’t unusual for F1 sponsors up and down the Paddock

3. The calendar gives you no time to plan and develop great campaigns

The F1 season is relentless. The first race is in early March and the last race is in late November. In between is a never-ending cycle of travelling and managing the day-to-day execution of race weekends. Everyone goes on holiday during the 4-week summer break and at the end of the season, which then leads into Christmas. Trust me, if you want a year to fly past, get a job in F1.

Which basically just leaves January and February to do any sort of campaign development. But even those months tend to be dominated by tactical planning for the season ahead. There just isn’t the time to think about a season-long campaign or a brilliant piece of activation.

Another challenge is the global scale required by an activation campaign. Japan, Abu Dhabi, Britain, the US and Brazil have very little in common with each other from a marketing perspective.  So as an F1 sponsor you are sort of in limbo between creating and delivering a global campaign that doesn’t quite work in loads of markets and developing local campaigns which feel a bit ‘small’ and short term.

4. The F1 community is too closed

There are some great people who work in F1.  However, it needs more ‘churn’.

For example, when I needed a sponsorship agency, everyone I invited to pitch was effectively a specialist F1 agency. I understand why most sponsors do that, but it leads to a form of ‘groupthink’ where new ideas are thrown out in favour of “what we did last year” or “what we do with our other clients”.

This happens up and down the paddock. If an F1 team needs a new Account Manager, they are likely to hire someone from one of the other teams. If a brand needs an F1 Sponsorship Director, they are likely to hire someone who has done a similar job at another sponsor. If an F1 agency hires a new Account Director, they typically hire someone who already has F1 experience.

The danger of this ‘closed’ community is that it loses the fresh influences and perspectives that drive creativity.

I know it’s tough (I’ve been there myself) but I think F1 sponsors need to be braver and set the bar higher for their activation campaigns. The benchmark should not be: “we want to create the best F1 sponsorship campaign”, but rather “we want to create the best sponsorship campaign”. And to do that, I think that it is critical for sponsors to look for inspiration outside the very small world of F1.

The point of this blog is not to say that there are no good F1 activations – because clearly there are some great examples.

My point is simply that given the number of world-class brands who are sponsors in F1, the amount that they invest and the possibilities of F1 as a platform, there should be far more ground-breaking activation programmes than there are.

Some of our Favourite F1 Activation Case Studies:

Johnnie Walker – Step Inside the Circuit Series

Johnnie Walker extended this campaign with some experiential activity in Travel Retail environments but at its core was some great behind-the-scenes content, from Monte Carlo (below), India, Singapore and other races

Vodafone:

One car, no team:

Camping:

Santander:

London Grand Prix:

The Silverstone Chase

Hugo Boss - Dress Me for the Finale

Using a special online configurator, consumers in each country could create bespoke designs of the drivers’ race suits. The drivers wore the designs during qualifying for each race, while the best two designs as voted by the audience were worn on the Sunday during the Brazilian Grand Prix. Boss also did a good job of connecting this activation to their social media and retail channels:

Red Bull – Faces for Charity

In exchange for a donation to charity (which Red Bull matched), consumers could upload a photo which was then put on the car for the British Grand Prix.

Vodafone –  Drive to the Big League

Vodafone introduced this initiative at the British Grand Prix in 2010 which offered one of their small business customers the chance to put their logo on the car for the British Grand Prix.  Vodafone have taken it to a whole new level in India now, where they have combined it with a Dragons Den style TV programme to select the winner – watch it – it’s brilliant!!!

See – it is possible – more of that please!!!

By Carsten Thode on November 15th, 2012

Tags: Advertising, Alcohol, Awards, Brand marketing, Branded content, Consultancy, Content, Default, Digital marketing, Experiential marketing, Facebook, Formula 1, London 2012, London 2012 sponsorship, Olympic sponsorship, Olympics, Red Bull, Sponsorship, Sponsorship consultancy, Sponsorship consultants, Synergy, Synergy Loves, Synopsis

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There’s no doubt about it, London 2012 has been the most digitally connected Olympics we’ve ever seen. Compared to Beijing 2008 there are nearly 10 times the amount of people on Facebook and a whopping 80 times more tweeting away on Twitter.

Brands, consumers and even the stars of the greatest show on Earth participated with tweets, photos and videos, often in real time and always with real, honest to goodness, passion. It’s this real-time nature that made Social Media (‘SoMe’) transform the way we have experienced the Olympics and has held the key to brands making the most of their Olympic sponsorships.

So we at Synergy wanted to take a little look-see as to which brands best activated their campaigns through the use of content and digital channels. Whilst we were at it, we even decided to have a little medal ceremony all of our own.

Gold Medal Winner: adidas – Take the Stage

‘Take The Stage’ was the title of the integrated campaign launched by adidas to leverage its sponsorship of the 2012 Games.

Whilst television and out of home focused largely on the Team GB athletes themselves, the campaign also contained a public initiative which played out via digital channels. These channels provided the content hub to house varied material from emotionally-charged, nation-rousing videos of Ennis, Daley, and Idowu (hindsight’s a wonderful thing), to pieces on the athletes’ adoration of the Team GB kit and Stella (the designer, not the beer), even Keith Lemon interviewing the most successful British Olympian of all time, “Circus Hoy”, getting the Brownlees to Tri-a-Thong or Swingballdon with Andy Murray.

Even a medal-winner laden lip-sync music video to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” emerged from the content coffers. Add to that footage of a certain Mr Beckham surprising well-wishers in a ‘good luck’ video booth installation, and you have a piece of content that has generated 3 million views alone.

Digital channels also provided the platform for 32 youngsters to be given the opportunity to collaborate with a host of top sports people and pop stars by showcasing their own talent via YouTube.

SoMe was employed to get the public more deeply involved and engaged in the campaign. Aside from the dedicated website, consumers could engage with the brand by following updates on Facebook and Twitter, using @adidasUK and #takethestage. The ‘Take the Stage’ Facebook app invited users to create their own campaign image and mantra in the same style as the striking photographic portraits, share it with their friends and post the image within the dedicated gallery.

When it came to content, there really was something for everyone.

Some stats

- The @adidasUK Twitter following climbed by 25% with the hashtag #takethestage being mentioned 109,241 times.

- Throughout the 17 days of the Olympics, adidas’ global Facebook page increased by 202,429 fans with more than 5 times the usual amount of shares.

- The David Beckham photo booth stunt has been viewed more than 3 million times.

- The adidas Team GB “Don’t Stop Me Now” video has been viewed more than 1.5 million times.

- Adidas claims it has “already recouped” its Olympic sponsorship investment through merchandise, with further sales still to be expected.

Why Gold?

Adidas realises that sports sponsorship and social have common ground – unified by passion. The brand generously sprinkled patriotism into the mix and fed consumers’ passions by telling great stories in an ‘always on’ environment, building familiarity, likeability and trust on the way.

‘Take the Stage’ focuses on what adidas as a brand stands for and not what it sells. The content is ‘shareworthy’; so meaningful, useful or interesting to its audience that they want to share it with their own friends, families and other connections.

Ultimately, adidas’ approach to sponsorship and digital during the 2012 Games has allowed the brand to build deeper, more meaningful and more enduring relationships with its consumers.

Silver Medal Winner: P&G – Thank You Mum

Proctor and Gamble brought to life its sponsorship of the Games most effectively through its ‘Olympic Mums’ YouTube campaign. Its aim was to recognise Mums as the special person behind every athelete.

Content for the campaign took the form of a series of video tributes called “Raising an Olympian”, stories told by the Mums themselves, which were then distributed on TV and online through sponsored content and video ads.

Facebook provided the destination to share special moments between the athletes and their Mums, and also allowed consumers to thank their own Mums by uploading family photos and writing messages for them to be shared in their news feeds. Twitter provided the platform to cheer on the athletes and allowed P&G to keep its followers informed.

Some stats

- The campaign achieved over 206,397,926 impressions.

- Over 5 Million views on YouTube.

- 43 online articles were written.

- Retailers that activated the campaign with in-store displays have seen a 5% to 20% sales lift for P&G products in the three- or four-week Olympic merchandising period.

Why Silver?

The content which P&G dispersed told emotional and compelling stories, which people naturally wanted to share.

Who could resist the pull on the heartstrings, the concept of ordinary kids becoming Olympians and the contribution their own mothers made to getting them where they are today?

Using social to roll out content a full 100 days before the Olympics shows P&G’s understanding of how using its “mum-umentaries” to engage wasn’t limited to the actual Games themselves.

Using real time distribution of narratives added to the impact, exemplified by the airing of a ‘thank you’ message from one Volleyball player to her Mum halfway through the final set of the match.

A robust paid-for seeding strategy also ensured the content reached the right audience. Oh…and finally, P&G forecasts that its Olympic campaign will generate over $500 million in additional sales.

Bronze Medal Winner : Coca-Cola Move to the Beat

Coca-Cola has been involved with the Olympics since the 1928 Games in Amsterdam. In 2012 the focus moved from more traditional advertising to a more ‘Liquid and Linked’ approach to story-telling. Launching an integrated campaign, which largely played out through SoMe, Coke targeted its audience with the spotlight on music and youth culture.

Bringing in some musical ‘big guns’, Coke worked with producer Mark Ronson and singer Katy B, with Ronson setting out to produce an original Olympic anthem for 2012. To achieve this he travelled around the world to capture the sounds he needed from various sportsmen and women in action to form a ‘rhythmic backbone’, for the anthem. Imagine Ronson in the meeting with Coke selling in the idea that he needed to discover a rhythmic backbone. He captured sounds from Table Tennis in the UK, archers from Singapore, hurdlers in the US, sprinters from Russia even Taekwondo in Mexico.

Coke then told the story of Ronson’s mission through a series of videos. Users were driven to Coke’s Move to the Beat website where they could become the producer themselves and combine their favourite sport with their favourite beats to create their very own version of the anthem. If the user so desired they could further manipulate the anthem through the movement of their mobile phone via an associated app.

Coke uploaded the UGAs (User Generated Anthems) to its global community and further facilitated the sharing of these user-generated anthems through Facebook and Twitter. Users posted the videos on their Facebook profiles and propagated them via tweets.

Some stats

- 3 million user-generated anthems were created.

- Coca-Cola has now hit 50 million fans on Facebook.

Why Bronze?

Coke understands the importance of creating content which resonates with its audience, and more so, it understands that co-creating this content makes it all the more powerful. People love to share what they themselves create and Coke facilitates this. Make the content unique, valuable and easy to share, and an audience will happily amplify your brand message – and do so with a smile.

In summary, whilst the Olympic Flame may now have been extinguished for another four years, the brands above have demonstrated that they have the ability to start their own fires through the power of Social Media. By creating truly outstanding content, allowing users to put their own stamp on that content, and helping them share it via social, these brands can sit back and enjoy the warm afterglow as consumers ‘fan’ the flames on their behalf.

Full disclosure: Synergy works with the Coca-Cola Company

By Lee Thomas on September 10th, 2012

Tags: Advertising, Digital marketing, London 2012, London 2012 sponsorship, Olympic sponsorship, Paralympics, Socialympics, Sponsorship, Twitter

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As I eagerly count down the hours before going to see The Dark Knight Rises tonight (to the amazement of one colleague who couldn’t comprehend the idea of going to the cinema on a Friday night after a long week at work), I couldn’t help but notice the number of brands looking to ride the wave of hype surrounding 2012’s most eagerly anticipated film.

By my latest count, no fewer than 15 brands have partnered up with Warner Bros and it is interesting to see which have or will achieve cut-through. The obvious danger for brands getting involved in movies is the potential backlash from fans who don’t want to be ‘sold to’ when they go to the cinema, and dislike obvious product placements that can detract from the story, rather than improve the overall fan experience (the key to a successful brand partnership). The films themselves also risk being accused by fans of selling out if they go too far (see the James Bond franchise), but it seems that so far Christopher Nolan’s trilogy has managed to remain both ‘cool’ and a commercial success, with no accusations of selling its soul. It will be interesting, however, in the coming weeks if any of the ‘friends of Gotham City’ start to get a few enemies.

Amazingly, Warner Bros have managed to tie up deals with two car brands – Chrysler in the US and Nissan in the UK. The Chrysler deal is expected to include some product placement (hopefully I won’t be distracted tonight trying to spot their vehicles) and they have also encouraged fans to create their own Dark Knight movie trailer, to be posted on the brand’s Facebook site, with Nolan himself choosing the best commercial to be aired on National TV. Whilst UGC is not a new phenomenon, this is a nice way for Chrysler to build on the hysteria surrounding the official trailer (which, to date, has over 23m YouTube hits) and gives the true Batman fans the tools to create their own content.

Nissan’s striking press ad was designed by illustrator Gabriel Hardman, who developed the storyboards for the film and brand also used Blippar’s augmented reality tool to give fans the chance to win premiere tickets.

My main concern, however, for any car brand getting involved in the Batman movies is that there is really only one car that the fans care about, no matter the marketing, so it is going to be difficult for anyone to compete with the Batmobile, let alone with this movie’s flying gunship.

Both Nokia and Mountain Dew have created limited edition products surrounding the films, with both brands offering fans exclusive film content – clearly banking on the partnership driving sales. It will be interesting to see whether there are really fans who care about the film enough to tie themselves into a long-term phone contract to get Nokia’s handset (unlikely to be quite so desirable this time next year), and the true test will be whether the phone can compete with the iPhones and Samsung Galaxys of this world. Obviously committing to trying a new flavour of Mountain Dew is much less of an ask for the consumer…

My favourite Batman brand partnership however is undoubtedly Under Armour’s sponsorship of the Gotham Rogues American Football team, and their subsequent product range. This is a great example of a subtle, and, most importantly, natural bit of product placement (in what looks like an amazing scene from the trailer) allowing the brand to launch a potentially lucrative new clothing range (which I’m sure many of the thousands of Batman geeks will be keen to buy, myself included).

This is all well and good, but as I shun the call of the pub tonight, I look forward to leaving my marketing hat at the door, and escaping into the world of Gotham City.

By Matt Kiernan on July 20th, 2012

Tags: Advertising, Brand marketing, Branded content, Film, Product placement

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If you haven’t already heard, 2012 is going to be the year of Connected TV. But what is Connected TV – the next ‘game-changer’, a televisual revolution, or just another over-hyped gamble for brands? And what does it really mean for Sponsorship?

Here’s an overview of Connected TV for the uninitiated:

Let’s look at the facts. Firstly, the TV is still very much at the centre of our entertainment universe. In the UK, we are watching more TV than ever before – a startling average of 120 hours per month – which compares to an average of just 7 hours per month on Facebook.

And last year, of the 9 million TVs sold in the UK, 3m offered some form of ‘connected’ technology (70% of Samsung sets were connected TVs). However, only half of those who have these TVs have ever bothered to connect and only half of those who have connected do so on a regular basis. So, while adoption has been slow, the infrastructure is already in place and just waiting for the revolution to occur.

But haven’t we heard all this before though? Wasn’t interactive TV the future a decade ago? Unlike the false dawn of the mobile internet at the start of the century, developments in both technology and the way people use it have suddenly hit a tipping point for the humble TV – so this time it is for real.

So what’s all the fuss about? What does Connected TV mean and, more importantly, what does it offer the consumer? The presentation below attempts to answer some of those questions:

Simply put, it’s the convergence of TV with the internet to create new content, services and on-screen experiences.

This will include:

Content Apps:

A range of content players like Netflix, Hulu, Blinkbox and YouTube will offer both long and short form content with various commercial models (ad funded, pay per view, monthly subscription etc.). All content creators (e.g. movie studios, production houses, even sports rights holders) will have a direct and cheap distribution channel to the consumer, with no need to buy TV bandwidth or pay carriage fees.

New Platforms:

The BBC, ITV, Channels 4 and 5, TalkTalk, BT and Arqiva are launching YouView, the connected TV successor to Freeview. With a set top box expected to cost £200 (if it ever launches!) it will combine broadcast and broadband content, while providing an open-source platform for app developers.

In addition, Sky have announced the launch of their own internet TV platform which will offer pay-as-you-go premium services, including catch-up TV, to people who don’t currently subscribe to Sky’s platform.

Google and Apple are making set top boxes and TVs to bring new services to the TV screen, while gaming consoles like Microsoft Xbox and Sony Playstation are connected devices that already have a strong presence in many living rooms.

‘Companion’ Apps:

Zeebox and Umami are examples of new ‘second screen’ experiences designed for mobiles and tablets. They allow viewers to gather more information about what they are watching, plan their viewing (even serving as remote controls), while enabling and encouraging social interaction and programme participation. Most interestingly for brands, however, is the fact that it closes the feedback loop, making TV more like on-line in terms of understanding who engages with what content and how.

This will allow Zeebox, for example, to enable brands to serve up targeted content for each viewer. And, of course, it creates a very direct pathway between what you see on TV and the opportunity to buy via e-commerce. “Do you like this song, her shoes, his shirt, this book, that holiday? Well here’s the link to buy it.”

All of this adds up to a potential TV viewing revolution which will impact everything, including what you watch, who creates and delivers your content, how that content is funded, what advertisements you see, what the admen know about you, how your TV experiences are shared and how you will end up paying for it.

So, what does it mean for brands and what does it mean for sponsorship? As a starter for 10, here are a few trends, ideas and opportunities that are worth considering:

Bespoke Companion Apps:

Sponsorship-specific companion apps can provide fantastic opportunities for sponsors to enhance fans’ enjoyment of an asset while opening up a new channel through which to speak to them. A great example is the RBS 6 Nations Live Challenge (featured in the February edition of Synopsis), which tested the audience’s rugby knowledge by challenging them to make real-time, in-game predictions and answer relevant trivia questions. Betfair have just launched a Euro 2012 App which optimises the audiences ability to bet in-game, while Sky gives the F1 fanatic the ability to deep-dive into the sport’s technical detail with its F1 Companion App.

Content Curation:

In a world of too much choice it becomes more and more difficult for consumers to accidentally stumble across content perfect for them. This has to be introduced – a ‘managed discovery’ – where someone that knows what you like and you respect (i.e. a brand) suggests content for you to consume.

Sponsorship gives brands access to content which people are really passionate about, so curating it into relevant music playlists, videos, photos, games and experiences is another way to get invited into their lives.

Content Creation:

Creating the content that your customers want is more time-consuming and risky but just as relevant, and Connected TV is making this a much more attractive proposition for brands. Firstly, it gives brands the ability to distribute their content directly to their audience for a very low costs (without having to pay carriage costs to the major platforms). More importantly, however, it also allows brands to create direct sales channels and capture customer data which delivers a much clearer line-of-sight to revenue generation.

Foster’s are in this mode at the moment with their ‘Foster’s Funny’ new Fast Show episodes, while BMW Presents: The Ultimate Performance is a brilliant series of four short films featuring Louis Smith, Rebecca Adlington, David Weir and Steve Cram which connects the brand to its Olympic sponsorship by exploring various angles on what it takes to deliver the ultimate performance.

Content Distribution:

Connected TV could drive major changes to the typical broadcasting rights model. With the internet providing a global distribution channel, the old country-by-country sale of broadcast rights is starting to look pretty archaic. Here’s a prediction: YouTube will bid for the global broadcasting rights for a major event within the next 5 years.

Connected TV could also significantly change the dynamic for ‘minority’ passion points which don’t currently receive significant TV coverage. There could be global ‘channels’ devoted to passion points like winter sports, triathlon, netball, martial arts, rock climbing, sailing, polo, opera, ballet, yoga, theatre, fashion, shoes, and every kind of music under the sun. The value of sponsorship within these passion points is currently held back by a lack of broad exposure. Connected TV could really help unlock this value creating exciting new sponsorship opportunities for brands.

Connected TV is here, it’s new and this time it means business. Whilst consumers have yet to engage en masse, the battle for platform dominance is still to play out and the commercial models that drive it are still fluid, it is clear that Connected TV opens a whole new world of opportunities for sponsors to drive new sources of value.

This is not the time to sit on the sidelines; this is the time to test and learn.

This month’s Synopsis Thought Piece was contributed by Pete Edwards, Director of Strategy at Engine.

By Synergy on May 31st, 2012

Tags: Content, Film, Media, Social Media, Synergy, Synopsis, Television, Television audiences

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What better way to spend St Patrick’s Day than watching England v Ireland at Twickenham with a pint of GUINNESS in hand? Well the rugby mad GUINNESS team here at Synergy certainly can’t think of one! So after another busy RBS 6 Nations tournament, it’s time to look back on our highlights from the GUINNESS Made of More campaign.

It all started back in January when a refreshed team of ambassadors were chosen to bring to life the new GUINNESS Made of More brand positioning.  The four ambassadors were picked to support the brand’s partnership as ‘Official Beer of The RBS 6 Nations’, as well as Official Partners of the home unions, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The new (and one not so new) faces included Scotland’s Sean Lamont, England full back Ben Foden, Wales centre Jamie Roberts and Jamie Heaslip of Ireland who were all contracted to spearhead an integrated below-the-line campaign for the brand.

Working as part of a cross agency team with Ireland’s WHPR and Cybercom, Synergy co-ordinated the two day launch which included content filming, photography and media interviews. To really get rugby fans across all four home nations roused ahead of the tournament the Cybercom team created a spine tingling video featuring the ambassadors, which has since had over 100,000 views.

Synergy contracted the photographer, Hamish Brown, to create a selection of images that inextricably showed the players’ dynamism and power, also demonstrating that like the GUINNESS product, the brand’s ambassadors are made of something a little bit extra. Whether this is Ben Foden’s lightening fast feet or Jamie Roberts’ powerful charges through the midfield, we wanted to capture each of the ambassador’s individual traits which proves they are made of more.

The Synergy PR team secured national and regional coverage in England, Wales and Scotland across a range of sectors including sport and lifestyle press, online, radio and broadcast, with WHPR generating some great coverage in Ireland.

One of the key objectives of this campaign was to drive international rugby fans to the GUINNESS Facebook pages, and encourage a deeper brand engagement through the ambassadors providing a steady stream of exclusive content from inside their camps. The cross agency team also developed a unique competition for fans from each nation to win the chance to play alongside their hero in the GUINNESS Rugby Challenge at the end of the tournament. More on that later…

Throughout the campaign Synergy activated player and coach appearances including interviews with Wales front row Gethin Jenkins, Scott Lawson and Chris Cusiter of Scotland, as well as England (then interim) coaches Stuart Lancaster and Andy Farrell.

Throughout the championship, GUINNESS ran an off-trade competition whereby one lucky GUINNESS customer could win the chance to have an England legend come to their home and watch the England v Ireland match with their mates, whilst toasting St Patrick’s Day with a few pints of the black stuff! Former England star Andrew Sheridan stepped up to plate, and for our lucky winner Keith Roberts and his friends it was a completely unforgettable day.

Andy’s insight and running commentary throughout the game proved perfect considering the game was so forward driven, with the big man himself proclaiming that “all that passing nonsense is for wimps!” All in all, it was certainly an they will tell their friends about every time they have a pint of GUINNESS at the local pub.

After seven weeks of rugby the final weekend saw Wales aiming for a Grand Slam in Cardiff, but the final curtain was to fall at a sold out Twickenham on St Patrick’s Day, with GUINNESS there to join in with the craic. Thanks to the RFU, the GUINNESS St Patrick’s Day video was shown to over 80,000 England and Ireland fans live at Twickenham, in addition to over 1,000 GUINNESS hats given away to fans in the West Car Park.  All of which added up to the GUINNESS bar have its busiest day at the rugby ever!

With Paddy’s Day behind us, the Synergy team rounded off this year’s RBS 6 Nations with the GUINNESS Rugby Challenge. Winners, plus two friends, were invited to Twickenham Stoop to play rugby alongside our ambassadors, minus Sean Lamont who was gallantly replaced by Scotland’s Jon Barclay. The warm up was taken by England forwards coach, Graham Rowntree and fitness coach Calvin Morris who later went on to referee the touch rugby competition.

By Synergy on March 27th, 2012

Tags: Alcohol, Default, Event management consultants, Guinness, PR, Public relations, RBS 6 Nations, Rugby, Sponsorship, Sport, Synergy, Synopsis, Viral Marketing, YouTube

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In a year of huge cultural, historical and sporting relevance, brands will be (and already are) fighting for ‘white space’ and unique ways to engage with the British public. During this very busy year the strategy and tactics that brands choose are critical, which is why we decided to use this Synopsis to look at some of the activation trends we are expecting to see in 2012.

At a macro level, experiential marketing (EM) is a growth trend in itself . Experiential specialists have long debated the need for integration with digital media to extend the reach of the live activity beyond a single interaction. Momentum has been driven primarily by the growth of social networks, which provide longevity, an extended audience and a measurement tool for the effectiveness of such campaigns.

Marketers are more concerned than ever about customer experience and innovation, but with a need to find simple, differentiating tactics, expect 2012 to be a year of the ‘Ts’.

TECHNOLOGY

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification)

RFID is a system that can transmit the identity of a person wirelessly using radio waves.  A portable device (for example a wristband, PDA, card, smart phone or even just a sticker) automatically transmits the data to an RFID reader, where it is then processed.

RFID has been used for many years - in fact, you may be using it in one form or another every day. I used RFID technology at least five times before I reached my desk today via my Oyster and Engine building access cards.  In 2006, the Emirates Stadium opened with an electronic ticketing system and members of ‘The Arsenal’ use their membership cards to enter the stadium, removing the need for gate security staff.

The ability of RFID technology to unite live and digital, by allowing consumers to share a real-time brand experience and messages in a controlled fashion with social networks, has seen the technology flourish.  At the recent Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange London,  RFID technology was implemented for guests to share their real time nightlife experience on Facebook. After a simple registration process guests could ‘check-in’, ‘like’ and post photos directly to their walls by tapping their RFID wristbands on ‘Facebook Interactive Pods’.  All posts were predetermined by Smirnoff which provided an element of controlled messaging. The event was amplified to 1.6 million people on Facebook. Laura Moody of Blondefish, the event technology company who deliver this RFID solution for Smirnoff comments:  ”The use of RFID technology in the event space is delivering  powerful results for both the live audience and brand sponsorship. Consumers and brands are embracing the way RFID can deliver a more personal, memorable and interactive live experience. As guests share their experiences on social media they become advocates for the brand, delivering huge levels of online brand amplification.”

It is not only events that are seeing the benefits and word-of-mouth that RFID can offer. In 2011, Ushuaïa Ibiza Beach Hotel installed Facebook pods for guests to “make all their Facebook friends jealous.”

With the costs of RFID coming down and the possibilities endless, there are some exciting developments that could change the face of experiential marketing.

Music festivals are quickly discovering the benefits of using RFID.  It is making ticketing and admissions more efficient, while ‘cashless’ payment methods are reducing security problems (there is no need to carry a wallet), driving purchases and allowing brands to track spending patterns.

The ability to analyse individuals’ purchasing patterns allows a brand to deliver personalised content and offers.  This not only drives spend (Mastercard in Canada has seen a 25% increase in spending by users of its RFID credit cards), but can also make customers feel more connected to the brand.  Minority Report’s vision in 2002 of personalised advertising seemed something for the very distant future – but RFID is bringing it closer.

Augmented Reality & Blippar™
Image recognition is another way to connect the real world to the virtual one and 2011 saw plenty of brands experimenting with QR codes.  However, it is safe to say that QR codes haven’t exactly set the world alight – usage has been low and according to a survey of 794 online respondents by Simpson Carpenter, just 36% of consumers know what QR codes are for, while only 11% have actually used them.

However, 2012 could be the year that Image Recognition finally takes off, thanks to Blippar™ – the 2.0 QR code. Blippar uses your phone’s in-built camera to bring a static image to life and provide an interactive experience. The difference between this and a QR code…the ‘wow’ factor.

Having previously used QR codes, Domino’s wanted to step up the innovation and required a more dynamic tool. Its current Blippar™-powered campaign promotes the brand’s ’555′ deal. Consumers simply hold their smartphone up to a Domino’s poster and it comes alive, allowing them to download deals, get the Domino’s mobile ordering app, become a Facebook fan and find out more about their local store.

KitKat are giving customers the chance to vote for their favourite new flavour by scanning posters using the Blippar™ app. The brand is also cleverly integrating geofencing into the campaign so that customers will be alerted whenever they are within a certain distance of a store which sells the  KitKat Chunky flavour they voted for.

Sponsorship activation can really benefit from the ability to dynamically interact with static branding. We are not expecting Blippar™ pitch logos quite yet, but over the next few years we will certainly see the decline in static stadium and event branding and advertising. In January alone a number of big brands have started to use Blippar™, and expect loads more to follow during the rest of 2012.

THEATRICS

With an influx of 2 million tourists to London, there is a huge opportunity for brands to engage with consumers in 2012. Brands will need to be clever to cut through the noise, and ‘drama’ can provide the essential memorable hook for consumers.

Flash mobs
Flash mobs bring an experience to people in unexpected moments. Flash mobs are essentially a group of people getting together to do something unexpected, before quickly dispersing. They are becoming more and more popular, bringing a sense of wonder to those that encounter them. Brands have harnessed the power of flash mobs to engage with customers and create interesting content and brand experiences, as T-Mobile showed with their famous ads.

Flash mobs don’t require a lot of money, making them an ideal tactic for a small business, or when budgets are squeezed. The beauty of Flash mobs is their complete integration with social media and their potential to go viral and provide entertainment to not only the people who were there, but those who want to watch and share.

Boris Johnson is obviously a Flash mob fan:- the Mayor of London is using them to promote London as a city of history and culture during the Cultural Olympiad this summer. Mark Rylance, one of Britain’s greatest Shakespearean actors, and his crew of 50 actors (all disguised as ‘normal people’) will stage ‘Flash performances’ of sonnets and speeches.  The unexpectedness of the experience will make it unforgettable for the people involved, while the content (both the planned scripts and unplanned audience reaction) will undoubtedly be shared around the world.

It is not a leap to imagine brands considering this as an opportunity for engagement during the Games, with consumers themselves (if wowed by the experience) providing the communications medium. There are, however, a few rules to making a flash mob successful and preventing this looking like a poor ‘am-dram’ performance:

1) Simplicity & originality for maximum impact

2) Good quantity and quality of ‘performers’ recruited for wow factor

3) Participants and location must blend together for the element of surprise

Sadly Qantas didn’t follow these simple rules for this effort to promote a new route:

Pop Ups

2011 was the year of Pop Ups, and we think that this trend will continue to grow in 2012, particularly with available commercial property sitting vacant. Pop Ups are by no means a new phenomenon with restaurants, shops and galleries embracing them; however, it is now brands that are starting to realise the benefit of a temporary location that makes a statement, delivers an immediate impact and captures the consumer’s imagination. Combine a Pop Up with an event drawing millions in attendance and you have a powerful brand experience.

In 2011, Chanel took Pop Ups to a new level with the arrival of the Hollywood glitterati for the Cannes Film Festival. Golden mosaic-tiled walls, dedicated make-up and nail bars, an exhibition space of Chanel gowns and suits previously worn by actors, and a private lounge on the first floor with views of the red carpet leading up to the Palais des Festivals all helped to deliver the ultimate Chanel experience.

This summer we will see a plethora of Pop Ups appearing across London and much can be learned from those that have gone before them.

1) Locations. Good footfall, transport links and signage will benefit the Pop Up with a steady stream of customers. However, some of the more interesting locations aren’t on the high street, in which case building a strong communications programme and integrating with social media and technologies such as location-based services are essential

2) Content. Build a story. Offer a unique take and provide a new way for customers to consider the brand. New content will give the feeling of exclusivity

3) Innovative branding and stylish fixtures including digital media

THROUGH THE LINE INTEGRATION

So who will be the winners in 2012? From our perspective it will be those that have developed personalised, innovative, simple and, most importantly, integrated experiential campaigns.

Nike has made a strong start in the battle of the sports brands with its #makeitcount campaign. It is a brilliant example of a campaign which fully integrates ATL, experiential and digital to deliver great content and brand experiences.  The campaign uses simple, standout photography and video to deliver a powerful message and a simple call to action…how will you #makeitcount in 2012?

But the really exciting thing is the way Nike has integrated experiential and social media into its campaign and made it relevant for everyone from elite athletes to gym dodgers (like me).  Customers are invited to have their picture taken by a professional photographer in the style of the campaign and are given the chance to create a handwritten pledge as to how they will #makeitcount.  The photo and message are not only shareable via social media channels, but will be displayed outdoor as part of the campaign.

@Nike has created its first single, dedicated Twitter feed. So far over 60,000 people have responded to the cry with #makeitcount. The first tweet on this account is from Nike founder Bill Bowerman: ‘If You Have A Body, You Are An Athlete’.

And, if you are ever in doubt that simplicity provides impact, check out another offering from Nike:

Experiential has always been able to deliver powerful brand experiences.  The issue has been the reach and the fact that it has only ‘touched’ relatively few people. But as we can see, digital and social media channels are unlocking the full potential of experiential marketing by extending this reach exponentially.

And, of course, the power of sponsorship is that it gives brands the content and access they require to create experiential activity around their customers’ core passions.

By Lisa Parfitt on January 25th, 2012

Tags: Advertising, Branded content, Content, Digital marketing, Experiential marketing, Facebook, Flash mobbing, London 2012, Mobile, Synopsis

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