Donna's Promo Talk

Mandela Day Campaign Integrates Social Media to "Make an Imprint"

Here's a new campaign for a social marketing cause that is utilizing social media marketing, a highly interactive promotional website, viral marketing components and some big name celebrities, all in it's marketing mix.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation, along with the help of 46664, Interpublic Group's Gotham, Morgan Freeman, Clint Eastwood and a host of several other big name personalities, are inviting people to "Make an Imprint" through community activism in an effort to celebrate the legacy of South Africa’s former President Nelson Mandela. The campaign is urging people all over the world to join them in a bid to create an official Mandela Day, which would be held on Mr Mandela’s birthday each year, July 18.

46664 is the campaign that bears Mr. Mandela’s Robben Island prison number and which was originally launched to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS. Mandela Day celebrates the idea that each individual has the power to transform the world, the ability to Make an Imprint.

TV, print, outdoor and Web advertising has been implemented over the past week to drive visitors to MandelaDay.com where they can sign up for volunteer work directly and learn more about the broader initiative which is to raise awareness for social issues, inspire volunteer work, and commemorate the former South African President's 91st Birthday, July 18, as Mandela Day. Here's one of the videos:

Mandela Day from mandeladay on Vimeo.

Visitors to the site are also invited to create and upload their own personal content in the form of a video in which they can insert images of themselves alongside up to six of the partner celebrities. The video will also display the campaign's official open-hand symbol which participants can then send to friends by posting it on Facebook, YouTube, and other social media platforms. A Facebook fan page has been created that people can join to stay current on the campaign as well as follow it on Twitter @mandeladay.

"They brought us in around November [of last year] to figure out what to do next," said Peter McGuinness, CEO of the New York City-based Gotham. "We said, 'Why don't we go farther upstream,' which meant tackling the root causes of HIV/AIDS."

Addressing such a range of issues -- race, inequality, gender inequality, poverty, and lack of education -- also, in theory, appeals to a far larger base of potential volunteers, according to McGuinness. "That was the breakthrough," he said.

Perhaps as a result, in less than a week, the site has registered over 50,000 volunteers and as of tonight there were 123,875 minutes pledged.

Gotham developed all creative work for the larger integrated campaign for Mandela Day, all of which features a call-to-action asking individuals for 67 minutes of their time -- a figure correlating to the 67 years Mandela has spent fighting social injustice.

Last week, the agency unveiled an art exhibition at Grand Central Terminal in Vanderbilt Hall dedicated to telling the story of Nelson Mandela that will run through July 22. On Mandela Day, July 18, there will be a special concert at Radio City Music Hall hosted by Whoopi Goldberg and featuring artists such as Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Will.i.am, Gloria Gaynor, Dave Stewart, Aretha Franklin, Cyndi Lauper, Queen Latifah, Josh Groban and others.

So while the majority of us marketers don't have the luxury of putting on such an elaborate campaign, there are elements of what they're doing here that can be implemented on a much smaller scale, even at a local level. So please check it out and while you're at it perhaps you can spare 67 minutes of your time to "Make an Imprint".

Mets Fans Try to Break Guinness World Record with Wise Potato Chips Big City Crunch Promo

We're just about at half-way through the baseball season and I realized I haven't written any posts this year regarding a MLB promotion. Last year I wrote quite a few. This post last May was about MLB teaming up with Indiana Jones on the release on the new film sequel. This post last July was all about Baby Ruth's User-Generated "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" video contest. Then almost two years ago to the day I wrote this post about the MLB and MasterCard promotion that included the MLB Dreams Sweepstakes and another user-generated contest.

So I really felt compelled today to write about this promotion that's taking place this evening, July 10th. It's doesn't include a major interactive promotion or user-generated contest. It is just a pretty creative promotional event. And where else would it take place, but in New York City.

Wise potato chips will be attempting to to set the Guinness World Record for the most potato chips ever crunched at once at the New York Mets' new stadium, Citi Field. The Mets will be playing the Cincinnati Reds tonight as the Big City Crunch gets underway. Every fan entering the new ballpark will be handed a .75-oz. bag of Wise Potato Chips. At a designated time, instructions will be given to open the packages and, when given the go-ahead, to start crunching.

"As New York's favorite snack food, it's only natural for us to support one of New York's favorite teams, the New York Mets," said Jolie Weber, Wise Vice President, Brand Marketing. "We developed The Big City Crunch to give Mets fans -- the most vocal and passionate fans in baseball -- a chance to be a part of history ... a loud history

Representatives from Wise have been in and around the area driving a Wise-wrapped van and distributing Wise Potato Chips. They also have been getting consumers to try the Wise "Spin the Wheel" game where players were given the chance to win Big City Crunch-branded merchandise, as well as tickets to tonight's game.

Representatives of Guinness World Records will be on hand tonight to record the occasion and, if all necessary criteria are met, will certify that a world record has been set.

The promotion was developed to increase awareness for the chips and leverage Wise’s sponsorship as the official potato chip and Cheez Doodle of the New York Mets. Wise's sports marketing agency, Source Communications, came up with the promotion which is a complement to a season-long advertising presence at Citi Field, including outfield and LED ads for Wise brands.  A New York local print, outdoor, TV and radio ad campaign promoting the Big City Crunch and featuring Mets shortstop Jose Reyes, began back in May and will run through tonight's event.

They even have some social media integrated into the mix by creating a Twitter page. So we can follow them on Twitter here to find out if they're successful or not. If anyone can make noise, its New York baseball fans. Yes, I'm a New Yorker and a Mets fan (but not a fan of that other New York team)!

DMB Promotes New Studio Album with a Facebook Listenting Party Contest

I'm sitting here watching American Idol as I'm writing this post. I missed last night's show and tonight is when they will reveal the top three for this season and send someone home. We've always been a family that really enjoys music. I've been pretty proud of the fact that we raised our two daughters exposing them to good music. It's great to be able to say that we all enjoy listening to some of the same artists with The Beatles being our all time favorite band and the Dave Mathews Band one of our favorites during their lifetime.

My husband and I took both our daughters with us to their first concert to see DMB perform. It was at a summer outdoor concert on the lawn at Darien Lake which is a theme park with a performing arts amphitheater that's right off the New York State Thruway between Rochester and Buffalo. Our daughters were both pretty young then, but old enough to appreciate the experience and to be actually familiar with the music. They were however wondering "what's that funny smell?".

My oldest daughter Kelsey is just finishing up her first year at NYU and was lucky to attend the DMB concert a few weeks ago in New Jersey which was the band's second performance after kicking off their new tour at Madison Square Garden the night before, April 14th. She was still singing Satellite the next day and amazed at how great a band they are.

Now after a long break from the studio the band traveled down to New Orleans to complete work on their much anticipated new studio album, Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King, which is slated to be released on June 2. They have put together a great promotional campaign utilizing social media to launch the album and since I'm a "fan", I have been receiving regular email message regarding the promotion which is called:

DMB BIG WHISKEY AND THE GROOGRUX KING ADVANCE LISTENING PARTY CONTEST - Party With the King For a chance to win the GrooGrux Grand Prize'!

Fans are invited to host a listening party and create a Facebook Event page scheduled for Memorial Day weekend and invite all their friends. Be one of the hosts of the 100 event pages with the most attendees and they win a personalized advance watermarked copy of the new album to use for the listening party. Hosts must submit an entry form on the Advance Listening Party Contest Page by the May 12th deadline.

Hosts are encouraged to promote their listening party by:

• Posting notes to their Facebook profile with the Event link
• Post photos and comments on the Event page
• Tweet the Event link on Twitter
• E-mail and AIM friends

The host of the best listening party will win a trip to meet Dave Matthews and see DMB perform live from the front row at Cruzan Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach, FL on Saturday, August 15th!

To enter this stage of the contest hosts must post a video to their Facebook Event Page after their party. Videos will be judged by a combination of:

• The number of guests at the party
• Degree to which the album thematic elements are incorporated (artwork, songs, New Orleans, etc.)
• The degree to which music is creatively presented

I'm going to try and talk my daughter into entering the contest. I figure she'd have more luck getting a good number of guests to attend them I would. So we'll see. DMB will be on tour till the beginning of October. They are one of the best bands to see live. The album is available for pre-order and comes with a bunch of different packages that include some extra tracks and other promotional merchandise as well. I'll be one of the many listening to the album on June 2nd!

BTW - Allison just was sent home from American Idol. Looks like my eariler predication of the top three was a little off. We're now down to three guys, Danny's in instead of Allison. Well at this point it's Adam's to loose! He did perform an amazing rendition of Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love!

The Final Four is Here - What Brand-Sponsored Bracket are you following?

Well the Final Four has been decided and will play each other today. I'm feeling guilty that I have not written even one post about March Madness this year. I guess all the conferences I attended this past month have taken me a bit away from the world of sports.

So today we're looking at what should be the best day of the annual NCAA Basketball Tournament: The two semifinal games, starting with Connecticut vs. Michigan State at 6 pm EST, followed by North Carolina vs. Villanova, both covered on CBS. Our Syracuse Orangemen at least got through a couple of rounds this year.

Then tomorrow finally for all the die hard baseball fans (say Hi to my Dad, the classic Boston Red Sox fan) it's play ball! The Major League Baseball season opens with the Atlanta Braves vs. the defending World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies on ESPN2.

Last year I wrote this March post that included some pretty innovative online promotions around the NCAA Tournament that involved blogs and social networks. This year however Twitter is the hot topic.  Most of us didn't know a Tweet from a Retweet this time last year. But hey I have to admit, I'm one of those that's been kinda obsessed by the whole thing and it's growing fast... currently at about 7 million users, up 15 times from a year ago, according to Nielsen Online. Then after just hearing Guy Kawasaki's Keynote about Twitter at the SES NY Conference a week ago,  you really see how marketers are integrating it into their mix.

And the Oscar Goes To....This Year's Winning Promotions

There has been quite a lot of buzz around this year's Oscar nominees and this Sunday we'll be able to pull up a seat to watch the 81st Annual Academy Awards on ABC and see who get to take home a coveted Oscar. We have some favorites back this year, as well as some brand new names, with a first time host, Hugh Jackman.

 As with the Super Bowl there will be some memorable ads broadcast during the telecast. I've written about a few of this year's interactive promotions associated with the event over here at Lipsticking today including the Oscar's Designer Challenge.

So again today's my day to be the Lipsticking guest blogger so please hop on over and continuing reading "And the Oscar Goes to..."

95% of Super Bowl Ads Scored Online

So were you one of the 148.3 million people that watched at least part of Super Bowl XLIII this past Sunday with the Pittsburgh Steelers against the Arizona Cardinals? It was the second-most-watched Super Bowl ever, just behind 2008's record-breaking  game between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots.

NBC said it did sell out of all its ad inventory getting $206 million dollars, which is up from the $186.3 million Fox sold last year for the game. So advertisers did pay more and got less viewers. I've been writing about the ads and promotions associated with Super Bowl XLIII here and here and I asked the question in my last post of how many ads would actually try and get their money's worth by driving viewers online to extend the experience?

Last year I learned that 64% of the Super Bowl ads promoted their website after which I had predicted a much higher percentage. So I wasn't sure what to expect this year. Would the advertisers get it right and make their $100,000 a second ad pay off?

The Advertisers of Super Bowl XLIII

This past Sunday was the first one in quite a while that we didn't have any NFL Football which is always a big readjustment for many of us. We now have Super Bowl XLIII to look forward to that is less than a week away to be played in Tampa Bay. But for many of us our season is over, except for you fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals (yes, I did say Cardinals!).

So besides waking up to even more layoff announcements today we still have the largest marketing event of the year to look forward to. Here's a run down of what advertisers we should expect to see this year:

Anheuser-Busch - Even though they are now owned by Belgium company, In Bev, the maker of Budweiser and Bud Light is still expected to run five minutes' worth of advertising during this year's Super Bowl. They've been testing as many as three different ads using their famous Clydesdale horses and are considering one spot apiece for its Bud Light Lime and Budweiser American Ale products. Bud Light is also expected to get plenty of face time, with at least three spots possible. A-B is famous for testing its Super Bowl ads among consumers again and again, so the final lineup is still in question.

Bridgestone - The tire maker will once again sponsor the Super Bowl halftime show, which this year features Bruce Springsteen. They're expected to run two 30-second commercials which will contain humor while focusing on showcasing the performance of the company's tires.

CareerBuilder - This website company intends to run two 30-second ads, one in the second quarter and one in the third. This year's ads are will not use the famous monkeys from Super Bowl ads past.

Cars.com will air one 60-second ad in the second quarter which is expected to be "humorous".

Coca-Cola Co.intends to advertise its flagship cola in multiple spots. During last year's Super Bowl, Coke received critical acclaim for their ad that featured balloons from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade slugging it out for a bottle of the fizzy brown liquid.

Recently they announced that they'll use one of their three spots to feature Coke Zero alongside Steelers safety Troy Polamalu. This spot is now in it's final editing stages, however the company wouldn't disclose any details about how the Coke Zero commercial might look.

Under the company's "Open Happiness" campaign, which is led by Wieden + Kennedy, Coca-Cola is pushing a 30-second spot featuring avatars and a 60-second spot that features music performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

PepsiCo's Frito-Lay - As covered in my previous post, the company will run the winning ad from it's Doritos consumer-generated Crash the Super Bowl ad contest.  Doritos will give the winning entry $1 million if the ad become "the first-ever consumer-created commercial to claim the No. 1 ranking in USA Today's annual Ad Meter."

General Electric, the parent company of NBC, the broadcaster of the 2009 Super Bowl, intends to run one spot in the game.

GoDaddy will again run at least one 30-second ad in the Super Bowl and may have another since we've learned that they were producing two ads, both of which will feature race-car driver Danica Patrick and follow a similar tone of the company's past Super Bowl ads.

Hyundai is expected to run two commercials to help promote the launch of its 2010-model Genesis coupe.

Monster is expected to kick off a campaign highlighting the fact that it has become the official career services sponsor of the NFL. As part of that pact, the company said, it will run an additional 30-second "in-game enhancement" to launch an NFL-themed promotion intended to drive traffic to the site.

The NFL is running a promotion which I wrote about in this post in which players and fans tell personal stories. Clips can be seen online, and fans can vote on the stories.

Pedigree, The Mars dog-food brand, is making its first Super Bowl appearance. Watch their ad here and they will donate a bowl of food to dogs in shelters.

PepsiCo Beverages will run a numbers of commercials and has declined to comment on its Super Bowl advertising. It's worth noting however that Mountain Dew, Pepsi and Gatorade are all getting new packaging and logos which may mean that these brands may bet the spotlight.

I just received this press release tonight that states that on Tuesday Weatherproof® Garment Company will be previewing their 3 second ad that NBC rejected to run during Super Bowl XLIII. During their screening they plan to announce alternative methods to reach Super Bowl consumers. Last Super Bowl they attempted to buy a 3 second ad and committed to outreaching to other smaller advertisers to join forces in order to “time share” an ad for this year’s upcoming Super Bowl. While NBC denied Weatherproof’s “time share” concept, this year's weakening economy and lackluster Super Bowl ad sales beg the question: why decline an innovative solution? We'll see, stay tuned. 

Winner of Samsung and NFL "That's How I See It" Stories To Become a Super Bowl Commercial

As I'm writing this post I'm watching Game 2 of the NFL Playoffs, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens. The Steelers are the favorite to win, but so were the Eagles who lost to the Cardinals earlier today. So the Arizona Cardinals are headed to Super Bowl XLIII to play against the winner of this AFC Championship Game.

Super Bowl XLIII will take place two weeks from today on February 1 in Tampa Bay. If the Steelers don't win this game the predictions are that there will be little interest in who actually wins the Super Bowl since the Steelers are the only team left in the running that has a big national fan base. So, we'll soon see.

Besides the ad from Dorito's Crash the Super Bowl Video Contest that we will see during the Super Bowl which I just wrote about in this post. We will also see another consumer-generated commercial that will air during the Pregame Show on NBC that's a fan's story from Samsung's "The NFL. That's How I See It" promotion.

For eight weekends, Samsung, the Official HDTV of the NFL, and NFL Films toured various NFL markets stopping at Best Buy retail locations and NFL stadiums across the US to capture stories of how fans see the game. Hundreds of fans shared their stories such as a New York Jets fan who had his wife sign a contract before marriage allowing him to catch every home game; a superstitious Washington Redskins fan who can't be bothered during games; a New York Giants fan who won over his future brother-in-law with tickets to a game; and a faithful San Francisco 49ers fan who calls the game following September 11, 2001 the most memorable she's ever seen.

There have been two rounds of voting. The first round of 24 videos was posted on nfl.com/howiseeit from November 20 to December 3. Then the second group of 24 was posted December 4 to December 17. 275,000 votes were cast and the final nine videos that included one wildcard were announced on December 18. Final voting took place up till January 4. The winning story, determined by the number of fan votes and a panel of NFL and Samsung judges, is now being transformed into a commercial to air during the pregame show prior to Super Bowl XLIII.

"Samsung and the NFL developed this campaign to involve the all-important fan. The stories collected truly exemplify the unique passion fans possess for the game of football," said Tim Baxter, VP of sales and marketing at Samsung Electronics America. "We are excited to open these stories and look forward to turning the winning story into a commercial for all to see on Super Bowl Sunday."

This Super Ad promotion is part of Samsung's "That's How I See It" campaign which includes four unique commercials showing how fans experience the NFL through their Samsung HDTV and an interactive microsite that contains fan stories, and even purchasing advice from notable celebrities and athletes like NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason, Rich Eisen of the NFL Network, legendary rocker Alice Cooper and television personality Regis Philbin.

We now have a score of 16 to 14 with the Steelers over the Ravens in the 4th Quarter. So, I gonna go now and watch the rest of this game. Go Steelers!

Countdown to Super Bowl XLIII - Dorito's Ad Contest Kicks it up a Level

Well the first month of 2009 so far has been all about Obama and football. I've already posted here regarding Obama's inauguration promotion, so now it's that time of year to start our countdown to Super Bowl XLII which is taking place on Feb. 1st in Tampa Bay! So what better interactive promotional campaign to start off this annual media blitz with than Dorito's!

In it's third year of developing a consumer-generated content contest tied-in with the Super Bowl, Doritos is currently in the final phase of it's $1 million Super Bowl ad challenge with consumers voting for one of five finalists eligible to win tickets to the Big Game.

 We're down to five final entries from nearly 2,000 submissions in the third annual Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” contest. This year again, the winning ad will be aired during the broadcast of the Super Bowl. However, Dorito's has added another layer and will award the winning contestant $1 million if the Dorito's ad takes the #1 spot in the USA TODAY Ad Meter rankings that rates the popularity of the TV spots appearing during the game.

Voting is currently taking place online for one of the five ads and will continue just up until Jan. 25. Voters automatically have a chance at winning a pair of ticket to the Super Bowl. 21 pairs will be awarded, one pair per day.

The final five ads have been submitted by the following participants: Joe Herbert of Batesville, IN; Oren Brimer of New York, NY; Eric Heimbold of Venice, CA, Chris Roberts of Burbank, CA, and Michael Goubeaux of Los Angeles. They were chosen by a panel of Doritos judges and will each be awarded $25,000 and a trip to Tampa Bay to view the game from luxury suites.

“They are literally about to give Madison Avenue a run for its money,” Ann Mukherjee, Doritos group vice president of marketing, said in a statement.

While visiting the Web site, those voting in the contest can view all of the 1,961 ads that were submitted during the contest entry period - Oct. 3-Nov. 16, 2008.

Take a look back to learn more about Dorito's previous Crash The Super Bowl Contests here. This is my third year covering this promotion which has become the model for consumer-generated content contests. So, who do you think will be the winner this year?

October is Pink Promotions for the Cure

It's still October, a very busy month. I wrote this post about October being the greatest month of the year for sports...my Boston Red Sox team is now history for this season. I guess it was never meant to be, so congrats to the Tampa Bay Rays. But how about those Buffalo Bills! They're on an amazing start to this year's NFL season.

I also wrote this post about October being the start of the holiday shopping season. October kicks off the 4th quarter which is such a crucial time for many marketers who count on this time of year to make their sales goals.

But what I haven't posted about yet, and something that is so relevant to my personal life, is that October is breast cancer awareness month!

I've  written about my mom many times in this blog and the fact that she has breast cancer. She was first diagnosed early in 2007, underwent chemo treatments, went cancer free for a few months, and now it's back. I believe I haven't written about it being back. My parents traveled up to New York State this past June for their first visit in over two years since they moved to South Carolina. Mom didn't seem quite right though so they decided to cut their stay short to get home to see her doctor.  The tests showed that the cancer seemed to creep back in, but this time it jumped from her breast to her lungs!