Donna's Promo Talk

American Idol Finale. Did Google & Twitter Get It Right?

Well I'm doing what many others are tonight, watching the season finale of American Idol. I have been hooked on this show and last year I wrote this post the day after David Cook won the title. This season has been very entertaining with many talented contestants as well as a new addition to the judging panel.

Digression to my train on thought...Carlos Santana is playing his guitar magic with the various contestants providing the vocals. How cool! No one has that unique style like he does.

Well earlier this week it was reported that Simon Cowel told Oprah Winfrey on Monday's episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show that his money is on Lambert because the contestant is fearless, unique and "he's got swagger."

Another article appeared earlier today on Mashable that predicted that Adam Lambert with be this year's champ. By looking at Google search trends – volume, demographic and geographic – from March through May for the top three finalists of prior seasons they were able to spot patterns in the data that seem to predict the eventual winner of American Idol Season 8. It wasn't as simple as looking at who has the most search volume, they also looked at past seasons to see the trends.

So can search engines now predict the future? Will Adam Lambert be the next Idol champion? One thing that is really new from last year is that by looking at search trends we can reveal a lot about what people are interested in right now.Twitter is also a great tool for predictions. You can see the search volume for both Adam and Chis on Twitter Trends. In fact Twitter co-founder Biz Stone came right out and said here that he doesn't see advertising as their business model but instead selling "light analytics" to companies, maybe doing revenue-sharing with mobile phone companies so we can Twitter our way, using our mobile devices, to distraction.

Mashable went on to say that for marketers, this type of data can be viewed as “votes,” helping to gauge the impact of their marketing and product positioning efforts, as well as providing insights into where they currently sit in the competitive landscape. Looking at search trends might not equate to looking into a crystal ball – but it can be a powerful resource for brands who want to keep their finger on the pulse of emerging trends online.

Okay, now for the final votes. They set a record with over 100 million votes. And the winner is......Chris Allen!!!!!

What? How can that be? Even Chris seemed extremely surprised and confused. Oh well, looks like we need to go back and review our search data. Either way, both Chris and Adam will both do extremely well I'm sure. Google and Twitter will also. So let me know what you think of these results. How surprised were you?

Chili's Integrates TV, Online, SEM & Social in the P.J. Blands Campaign

Here's a new promotional marketing campaign that I think is pretty clever and a great example of how to integrate paid search advertising along with social media into a promotion.

With the focus on today's economy Chili's wanted to promote its new "10 under $7" menu. So they launched a TV and online campaign that centers on a fictional restaurant chain named P.J. Blands. They serve customers bland food, it's not bad or good, just average. And made entirely from cardboard. Here's the first ad:

As you see the ad ends up with Chili's logo on screen. They even went so far as to create a P.J. Blands web site where you can meet P.J. If you click on menu it links you over to Chili's website. The site also has the TV ads, bios of employees of the month and a toll-free number that you can actually call and leave a message for P.J. along with your name and email address. I take it they want to add to their database!

So go ahead and Google "bland food," and a paid search ad for P.J. Blands should appear on the top of your search inquiry page with a Chili's ad in the #2 spot. You can also follow PJ here on Twitter where you'll get to read some of the "Blandest Tweets".

Kudos to Chili's agency, Hill Holliday, that created this great integrated marketing campaign. I hope to see more like this.

Easter Bunny Chuckles at the Recession as Sales at Candy Companies Rise

With Easter Sunday coming up this weekend and the fact that many people are craving chocolate because they've given it up for Lent, it seemed fitting to write about candy sales. I mentioned this in the post I wrote last week regarding how some marketers are doing well in this recession and the candy companies are one of these industries. 

The New York Times reports that while we can’t quite pinpoint why, for many, sugar lifts spirits dragged low by the languishing economy. For others, candy also provides a nostalgic reminder of better times. And not insignificantly, it’s relatively cheap. “Candy companies are relatively recession-proof,” said Peter Liebhold, chairman of the Smithsonian Institution’s work and industry division. “During the Great Depression, candy companies stayed in business.”

Many big candy makers are reporting rising sales and surprising profits even as manufacturers of other products are struggling to stay afloat. Cadbury reported a 30 percent rise in profits for 2008, while Nestlé’s profits grew by 10.9 percent, according to public filings. Hershey, which struggled for much of 2008, saw profits jump by 8.5 percent in the fourth quarter.

Cadbury's Mini-Eggs and Creme Eggs are synonymous with Easter. I personally am a sucker for the mini-eggs and always buy them for my daughters' Easter basket (and of course for my own stash as well).

Cadbury wanted to extend the Cadbury Easter experience beyond the Easter Egg Hunt this year to an interactive online experience. The Cadbury Easter site builds on an already strong relationship and loyalty with the consumer. First off it's got that lovable white bunny that greats visitors and invites them to explore Cadbury products and to play the "Flying Bunny" game that challenges players to help the Easter Bunny deliver Cadbury Mini Eggs to homes. Visitors can also view this "Clucking Bunny Fly Over" TV ad.

The site reminds us that this is only going to be around till Easter, so you better enjoy it now before the website and the eggs are gone.

Also, Hershey's, Cadbury and Reese's have teamed up on an Easter promotion called the "Colors of Spring Coloring Contest" which is open to children between the ages of 4 - 12. Parents can send in their child's colored page for a chance to win a $1,000 Savings Bond which will be awarded to three different age brackets: ages 4-6, ages 7-9 and ages 10-12. The Coloring Page/Entry Form can be found at www.keepeastereasy.com. Secondary prizes are Hershey's gift baskets.

So I wish everyone a Happy Easter and don't forget to get your fair share of all these chocolate treats...and help the economy in the meantime!

PMA '09 Wrap Up - The UK's Give a Few Bob Campaign

With being out of town last weekend and most of this past week I'm just now getting caught up around the house. I always enjoy visiting Chicago, however, I do regret that I didn't get a chance to do any shopping at all. I usually at least make it to Nordstrom's on Michigan Ave. and purchase a new pair of shoes. So I'm sorry I didn't do my part to help the economy. With hotel prices still high you can't afford to spend that extra night to have a little downtime.

Anyhow, I thought the PMA and the team did a good job of putting together this year's two-day conference. It had a little bit of everything for both the brands and the agencies. Yes, the number of attendees was certainly down from previous years, but that's to be expected. Having a smaller number of people though really made for a more intimate gathering and a good opportunity to meet those that where there and have some interesting discussions. I met some really great people who we've already found each other on LinkedIn and Twitter.

The keynote luncheon on Day 2 of the conference was very interesting. It was a tribute to the Globes and featured three different speakers that enlightened us Americans that yes, marketing does go on outside of the U.S. I wanted to take a moment here to tell you about the "Bob" phenomenon, which was a great example of an integrated marketing campaign which won quite a few awards. It was created by The Communications Agency from the UK and was presented to us by Robert Prevezer.

The task at hand was to raise awareness of prostate cancer in the UK and drive donations to the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation. The challenges were that there was a tiny budget, not an easy topic to talk about among the reserved Brits and they were to integrate into the campaign a dead comedian, Bob Monkhouse, who died of the cancer.

The big idea the agency came up with was to bring Bob back to life in a TV ad and integrate him into all the communications of the ‘give a few bob’ campaign. They planned to have Bob himself tell the story for us. So they created this amazing film called ‘bring Bob back’ in which they used archive footage, a body double and voice artist to basically bring Bob back to life.

Next they developed an exclusive media partnership with The Sun that included articles in the printed newspaper, ads online along with premiere rights of the film. The TV exposure and news coverage the campaign received from all the press was incredible and an online donation website, www.giveafewbob.org, went viral with over 4000 targeted applicants.

Retailer WHSmith got all of their 723 nationwide locations involved displaying posters and badges. A direct mail piece was also created that included Bob on the envelope with a "Direct Male" label that was sent to a targeted list. Newspaper ads were placed and movie theaters were integrated into the campaign with screening of the film in all Vuecinemas, plus POS in their foyers, ads online at the Vue website and an email blast that was sent to Vue’s 280,000 database.

Outdoor ads were donated by both Clear Channel and JCDecaux. Other out-of-home media channels were utilized such as taxis that included exterior messages as well as tip-up seat posters with a donation mechanic in the interiors of 250 London taxis. The London Underground featured 4,000 tube cards and Ambient  Media donated the truck advertising and provided this funny bumper sticker.

This truly integrated campaign resulted in the following:

• £3.5million media value from a total budget of less than £50,000
• An estimated 83% of the UK population has seen the campaign an average of 4 times
• There was a 228% increase in the charity’s donor base
• A rise in the number of regularly monthly donors by 580% 
• Traffic to the charity’s website increased by 2000%
• The PCRF annual income shows an increase of 70% year on year - $1 million donations

But much more importantly, Mark Emberton MD FRCS (Urol.) Senior Lecturer in Oncological Urology at the Institute of Urology, a Trustee of the Charity commented "I have seen a marked increase in patients being tested and diagnosed with the disease as a consequence of having seen the Bob campaign…it’s saving lives”

The campaign won numerous awards. The top lesson from ‘Bob’ to pass on is: make it simple for the consumer...get one great idea and then execute it consistently through every available communications medium using one message, one look. Thanks Bob for reminding us all and thanks again to the PMA for inviting me.

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. 

Sharp Teams up with MLB with their Lights Out Challenge Sweepstakes

It's October, and besides the upcoming presidential election and the doom and gloom about Wall Street and our ecomony, let's not forget that it's the most exciting month of the year for sports. I finally got around last week to writing this post about my favorite sport, NFL Football, and the excitement us Buffalo Bills fans have been feeling. We were certainly brought back to a hard reality this past Sunday when our starting quarterback went down on the second play of the game and we lost BIG! But hey, we got a bye coming up this week and we're still 4-1. Much better than we're we've been in over 10 years!

So now I have to talk about those boys of October. Yes, this year's Major League Baseball season is coming to a close. Neither New York teams made it to the playoffs this year and the playoffs have already showed us that 2008 isn't quite the year for those Chicago Cubs either. However, my team, the Boston Red Sox are in there. I'm watching them during Game 4 against the LA Angels right now on TBS as I write this.  So if I get distracted at some point, please give me a break.

Now I'm hoping that the Red Sox will be playing the Tampa Bay Rays next week on October 14th during the fourth game of the American League Championship Series. That's when Sharp Electronics will be teaming up with TBS on a really innovative promotion that will give fans a chance to win a Sharp big-screen TV.

Sharp is promoting its “Lights Out Challenge” with a series of 45-second TV spots that debuted during last week's initial round of Major League Baseball playoff action on TBS. These spots not only highlight the promotion but also the the brand's energy-saving TVs.

The spots direct fans to this TBS micro-site, where they can enter the Sharp Lights Out Challenge Sweepstakes for a chance to win a 46-inch or 42-inch Sharp Aquos TV. They can also register to participate in the partial blackout by indicating how many lights they intend to turn off and logging in their zip code.

“The end goal is to increase awareness and ultimately increase sales,” said Sharp spokesman Chris Loncto. “It really fits perfectly for us.”

Sharp Aquos is MLB’s official HDTV. This interactive promotion is a unique way to integrate traditional TV media with an online promotion. TV viewers during the fourth game of the ALCS  are typically a pretty sizable audience  giving that the series is the best of seven games. This should give Sharp an effective platform to push its LCD TV products in prime time while still at the beginning of the NFL season, at the start the NHL season and just in time for the important 4th quarter holiday shopping season.

Loncto noted that the company also is intent to present its energy-saving perspective: “One of the core philosophies of Sharp is to present products that are energy-saving and energy-creating,” he said.

The micro-site will feature a U.S. Map that will track the states that have turned out the most lights. Announcers on TBS will report on how much energy was saved and which states saved the most during the post-game show.

So whether the Boston Red Sox make it our not, I'll still be tuning in and shutting off some lights. This should be interesting. BTW - there still is no score in the top of the 5th inning, but the Angels are pushing with two men on base. Gotta go now!

NBC Promotes Sunday Night Is Football Night

It's already Week 4 of the new NFL football season and I can't believe I haven't written about football once since it started. Last year I had this post written on opening day. We all start out with great hopes for our team and by now we're either still very optimistic or we're realizing that we're in for a very long season.

Well the Buffalo Bills are now 4-0! They haven't been in this spot in 16 years, since 1992 when they were the Super Bowl team that consisted of Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas and Bruce Smith! We Bills fans are very, very ecstatic. However, we do realize that since they haven't made the playoffs in the past decade that they've been given a pretty easy schedule this year. Plus, their conference rivals, The New England Patriots have lost their star quarterback, Tom Brady, so that has helped their season outlook quite a bit as well.

NBC Sports is back, entering its third season, with their Sunday Night Football season this year and their main objective is still focused on making "Sunday Night Football Night". They started off the season this year with a September promotion in 7-Eleven stores aimed at targeting its core audience, 18-to- 34-year-old males who NBC sees as the hardcore fans for these Sunday night games.

The Big Match-Up Promotion features branded Big Gulp cups with full Sunday Night Football schedules and branded hot dog containers for that Super Big Bite at 7-Eleven. Banners bearing NBC Sports’ signature tagline, “Sunday night is football night,” are displayed in the windows of the 6,000 7-Eleven stores around the country. Theses banners are co-branded with Pepsi who is a sponsor of NBC’s Sunday night football franchise.

“We wanted to be the first sports franchise to be in 7-Eleven because it’s the best way to reach that hard-to-reach male demographic,” said Mike McCarley, vice president of marketing, promotions and communications for NBC Universal Sports & Olympics. “It’s a great destination to reach those young men who are the avid core football fans.”

7-Eleven found that Sunday Night Football tested off its focus research charts in appeal among those young males, compared to movies it’s promoted to that same demographic crowd, according to McCarley.

7-Eleven came up with the Big Match-Up concept to tie to its Big Gulp and Super Big Bite. Fans had the chance to enter all month in a sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip to a live taping at Football Night in America at NBC Studios in NYC. FreshWorks, who I previously wrote about here when they won this year's top  Reggie Award for another 7-Eleven promotion, are executing the campaign.

NBC Sports has also created the Sunday Night Cookbook which is being marketed through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble outlets. The cookbook is part of a partnership with Time Warner Home Entertainment and features recipes from top chefs and players representing each NFL team, along with NBC’s announcing crew and singer Faith Hill. Sales proceeds are going to Taste of the NFL, which supports food banks around the country, and the book is expected to be a big holiday season hit.

Well this Sunday Night Football game just ended and the Chicago Bears beat the Philadelphia Eagles 24-2O. It was a great football game. The Bears!

Now we still have 13 more weeks left in this NFL season. Can the Bills hang in there for the long haul? I don't know, but it's gonna be fun watching them. At least we have a prayer. This is such as great game.

The Olympic Games Have Begun - Are you Watching?

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games got off to a spectacular start.  I stayed up till midnight on Friday night to see the end of the recorded version of the opening ceremonies that NBC broadcast. It was really cool the way they lifted Li Ning, former Olympic gymnast for China, to the top of the Beijing National Stadium ("The Birds Nest") and had him appear to be running on air with the Olympic torch to light the cauldron. 

It appears that the opening ceremonies that the Chinese hosted for the world were the most spectacular to date and included an amazing blend of human talent combined with technology. I found it really hard to pull away from watching the event on TV...even the commercials. While the Olympic Opening Ceremony normally doesn't receive the same hype for TV ads as the Super Bowl does, there were some really great ads that ran during the broadcast.

One of my favorite ads was from McDonald's featuring children's soccer. It didn't have any words, just a musical score with very strong expressions coming from the "losing team" and well as the "winning team".  It showed how the kids' expressions changed dramatically once the food showed up... for the losing team of course. It reminded me of when my daughters were young and going to McDonald's was such a treat. In fact one of my daughter's first words were "french fries" (which actually sounded like "fra-fras") and she would yell that out whenever we passed the Golden Arches.

I'm looking forward to watching some of the events tonight. I read that the U.S. already got it's first Gold Medal - in Fencing. The time difference is a little confusing. We'll get to watch some live meets tonight, Saturday evening, which are actually taking place Sunday morning in Beijing. That's why it's so important to be able to watch what you want, when you want. NBC is scheduled to have over 2.200 hours of event coverage online this year. That's pretty cool, even though there has been some criticism for not giving viewers more choice. Check out this article from Silicon Alley Insider that lists some of the ways NBC could have really utilized Web 2.0 in their strategy.

Another interesting bit of research that I read in this Adotas article is that teens are not that into the Games. I have two teenager daughters who are so busy with what's going in their own lives that they really don't appear interested at all in the Olympics. They may have been more I think if Abby Wambach was there playing with the U.S. Soccer Team. Abby is a graduate of Our Lady of Mercy High School here in Rochester, where both my girls are from. The team did pretty well without Abby today. The study on teens was done by Harris Interactive which states that less than half, 43%, expressed any interest in the Olympics.

I've also been trying to keep up with Jenny and Tom who are blogging on Kodak's blog, A Thousand Words, from Beijing. I've also been able to follow Jenny on Twitter. It appears to be an experience of a lifetime for her so far. She writes in her first post from Beijing about how "tall" she thought all the Chinese women were until she noticed the platform shoes they wear. Jenny took this photo of the shoes along with some other great photos of the Opening Ceremonies you just have to check out.

Well I just have to admit that these Olympic Games have brought back for me at least a sense of patriotism and if anything helps make the world seem like a smaller place. I've learned so much already about China and its people. It's hard to comprehend how big of a country it is ....over 1.3 billion people living in a country on the other side of the world from us Americans. Hopefully we'll get to know them and they'll get to know us a little better. Now wouldn't that be be a great result of these games?