Universal wrappers

In the web there are cleaver things. Something for the crosswords lovers. A word for every occasion… well almost. See yourself:

Innovation through innovation

I should call my blog “Cool phone apps blog” as this post again is about one cool app made for smart phones. Volkswagen shows innovation through innovation. Smart.

Let the game begin

Here is one very nice use of smart-phone capabilities. If I would be younger and had more free time I would totally love games like this. It’s an upgrade to the oh so popular GPS games used around here. And it’s branded. Total brand involvement.

Even better would be if it would be done in the style on The Game movie, launched more than decade ago, but still carries an idea how to excite and suprise.

And what a nice business idea to do personalized adventures in a smart-phone platform. For workshops, team-building events, personal suprises and message delivering etc. Dream, dream, dream.

Making taking my money easier.

I have good memories of my Hong Kong years. Vibrant, busy, innovative city with very short people and my wallet being lighter and easier to carry. Not like now, just having accepted Euro with all those numerous coins. It was thanks to one simple card.

Octopus card is a rechargeable contactless stored value smart card used to transfer electronic payments in Hong Kong. To say it more simply it’s a card, with what you go close to a certain electronized area and the purchase/identification is made. I used it mainly for public transport, but quickly it became a secure mean for payments in supermarkets, cafes, fast food restaurants, vending machines etc. At that time I took it as a natural part of Asian developed society and enjoyed the benefits of it. Now doing some research: 95 % of Hong Kong citizens aged 16-65 are using it everyday, generating over 11 million transactions worth over 12.8 million USD a day. Wow.

A week ago Strabucks launched a free Starbucks card app for iPhone, iPod Touch and Blackberry owners. This not only enables to pay with their smartphones for the purchase, but also add money to their cards, check balance, locate stores and earn reward stars for free drinks. It works very simply, you just give your phone for a second to the cashier and she/he accesses a bar code on the screen, wipes out a scanner and hands you with your order. Easy. In the era when companies are trying their hardest to outsmart the competitors with new apps, this is actually the one that generates extra value for the Starbucks and is useful at the same time. It’s a win-win for both sides.

So now, being an Estonian and having been introduced to Mobile ID, which allows us to access our bank accounts and digitally sign documents, I believe that there is some more effort to be made. Please combine the idea form octopus card, Starbucks app and Mobile ID and give me a smartphone app, which allows me to pay with my phone, check my balance, locate businesses accepting this app and earn bonus. Estonia is very small, just like Hong Kong, so ideal for a test environment to develop systems like that. I believe that this dream comes true just like this one did as the know how and the demand excists.

Save as .wwf, save a tree.

So simple, yet brilliant. Out of the box thinking. WWF created a new file format that is in collaboration with the essence of their organization. This new file format .wwf does not allow you to print out the material on that particular file, in order to avoid unnecessary printing. This software is free for downloading for everybody. You can do it here.

Japan gives me shivers

Good conversations lead to interesting findings. This is not science fiction, this is really happening. This is a virtual anime diva Hatsume Miku, whose voice has been generated with Vocaloid, a computer program developed by Yamaha. She is designed to be a 16-year-old girl and has released many popular singles in Japan. That’s not all folks. Previous stuff did not impress me. The real intrigue comes from the fact that she is giving LIVE concerts to a live audience. And people are just simply going nuts to go and see her. She is being projected as a dynamic hologram that brings her virtually into life. Check it out here:



As crazy as it may sound, here is one more act that leads conservative ATL marketers into a heart attack. The developers have given the brand a possibility to grow with the help of the fan-base and released software that enables the fans to create their own Hatsume Miku songs. Now they have released already additional software that features different tones of Miku’s voice – Soft (gentle, delicate voice), Sweet (young voice), Dark (mature, heartbroken-like voice), Vivid (bright, cheerful voice), Solid (loud, clear voice), and Light (innocent, heavenly voice). Also there is available the MikuMikuDance freeware! program, that helps to produce 3D animations for the character. And the story goes on…

It gives me shivers, what kind of possibilities this creates for the marketers in the near future.

Dunlop tyres – Feel the road

All my male reader please pardon this post, but I just need to express my womanly opinion. My ride home from work takes 20 minutes. Although there is some construction work going on, it's pretty regular road, considering Estonian road conditions. Yesterday, after coming home, saw a TVC advertising Dunlop tyres. Their international slogan and the slogan also used  in this ad was “Feel the road”. I imagine that this was meant the way that this gives bigger control for the driver, the driver can read the car and the road better and lets to enjoy the ride every inch with those tyres. Put please dear advertisers, consider the local road conditions. I do not want to feel the road, as there are holes big as lakes in some country. If I would liked to feel the road I would buy a sports car with proper sports suspension. The ones who buy a sports car in Estonia, are forced to sell it after a short while, because it destroys healthy bone structure and loosens some skrews in their heads. We are not living in Italy or US where the roads are smooth and comfortable. You can actually loose a tyre in the Estonian bumpy roads. So in Estonia “Feel the road” does not equal a comfortable and secure drive.

Perhaps I should buy a plane.

Vacuum cleaners made from the plastic waste collected from The Baltic Sea

Here is a textbook example of cause marketing. A brilliant example. 

Vacuum cleaners are made for cleaning and to make that extra clear, Electrolux took the idea of cleaning into a higher level and decided to collect plastic waste from the world's major oceans and seas, so they could raise public awareness that plastic waste is polluting vulnerable marine habitats and produce a limited number of vacuum cleaners out of the plastic they gathered. 

Here is their vacuum cleaners collection made out of plastic derbies:

From left to right: North Sea Edition, Indian Ocean Edition, Medittareanen Sea Edition, Pacific Ocean Edition, Baltic Sea Edition.

The global reach of this project is remarkable, as even me, who lives in a small place called Estonia, is touched by it, as my home country runs alongside the Baltic Sea. Although the waste gatherings were made in Poland, Latvia and Sweden it still rings my bell more, than to hear that someone gathered plastic waste form the Indian Ocean. 

Read more about the plastic gatherings and recycling from here and watch the video to illustrate their cause:

Although it's one-time action as we are dealing with the limited edition here, it is still a very smart, simple and inspiring idea. And please note that the pretty vacuum cleaner are not for sale. They are made for making a point. You can buy a piece from their Green Range called Ultraone.

While selecting my country from the webpage, as it forced me to read swedish, I was amazed by the countries list. There was no Estonia, there was European Union. This page did not open. And there were Latvia and Lithuania, but no Estonia.  And to my big suprize there was a country called Soviet Union, which to my knowledge stopped from existing 1991. See it yourself from here. 

Mouth propaganda

The answer to my last blog post is not TV, newspaper ads or direct mail. These seemed like wallpaper. I shut my sensors off and did not notice them. The reach and reliability of these messages is not what a marketer dreams of. Not any more.

I analyzed what were the messages that reached me, during this dark time of no internet and the only ones that really affected me were simple recommendations. From friends and family. This is no new revelation. For centuries there has been recommendation letters for recruitment and then there were bibles like "The Tipping Point" and "Buzzmarketing". Online marketing platforms use them, catalogues use them etc. but it is fascinating that mechanically forced recommendations do not work anymore. If a friend sends me an e-mail recommending me to go to a spa or buy a new and better frying pan - I delete the mail. It is already spam for me. It does not matter it came from a friend.

If my relatives and friends discuss over dinner-table that SEB and Swedbank are no good anymore for pension fond portfolio management, and they are moving over to LHV, although they take bigger fee, then this is what I want for my brand. I did not notice the TV ads LHV was running, but I immediately started to think, if the information came from people close to me.

It seems like a spontaneous talk, that cultivated during dinner chit-chat. But was it really? LHV has lately very vigorously spread into ATL and we can see that taking over pension fonds is their goal of the year. And they have invested in it. I'm anxiously waiting for the results as luckily these are measurable. So is it really possible to create massive WOM without ATL support?

Here is a nice graph by Nielsen to make the trust levels very clear. Basically now people believe the talk of the stranger more than TV ads or brand websites. That's the power of online forums. The power of free speech. 

To make the merger of business and anthropology make wonders, keep in mind the core principle. You have to earn peoples trust to be effective. The closer/ must respected the recommendation source is to you, the better it works. Please also note that if I see a friend recommending me something every day, it is wallpaper. If I see it once a year, I take it as gold, depending how close/ reliable the person is to me.

The key is to create outstanding experiences in the first place. If the product/ service is not outstanding, then there is no reason to buzz about it. If it is outrageously outstanding then the word will spread around organically, if not, then ATL support is needed, to spread to masses. There is no suits-all solution for all brands and every brand should find out the solution best for their brand.

Three weeks without Internet.

I consider myself the biggest internet addict I know. I work, consume information, prepare for school, communicate with friends and family, run my everyday errands like banking, shopping, vacation planning and etc. via Internet. And now due to some changes I had to manage without it.

What a shock.

I thought it will be liberating, but was it really? What did I learn? Work – absolutely not possible to manage. Luckily I had a vacation and no harm done, if not to consider some personal projects.

Information came mainly via TV and not in the amount and shape I’m used to. I am used to create my own information flow in the internet, so I consume only the information I’m truly interested in. So not completely satisfied with the local news, as it’s not tailored according to my needs. Although if there would be a hurricane, earth quake or some other major disaster I should know of, I would know and I would not die.

I was totally cut out from social communication as I manage it via msn, Facebook and e-mails, as I’m from the new era of communication and instead of meeting my friends, I tend to communicate electronically. I’m not used to pick up the phone and ask “Hey, what’s up, how you’re doing?”, what’s worse, actually get dressed and visit someone instead of calling. I do it from time to time, but not on the regular basis. So now I get sms-s and calls inquiring “are I still alive?”. As for the known quote: if you’re not online, you do not exist.

There is also one institution who thought there is something wrong. My home bank, because my regular payments were not on time. I dragged myself to the bank office and made my payments manually via payment machine, which was a first time experience for me. Pleasant luckily. It was very easy to handle.

As for the vacation planning, it was a total failure. How do you book something if you do not know how it looks and what is said about it in the forums. How do I know if the price-range is reasonable or is there a room for negotiations? I can handle some background checking via phone in Estonia, but if my interests are behind the national border? How do people without internet travel at all? I do not understand. They look at some packaged offer from the newspaper ad and read from the encyclopedia what the main attractions are? What if I’m into fine dining or extreme tourism? I should then totally rely on the travel agency and that robbes away my independence. Or I can just hit the road and see what tomorrow brings… which is a nice option, but not always. Especially if you plan to travel with kids.

Anyways living without internet in the longer run is expensive. Your choice is limited and the effort made, to consume, bigger. Also the phone bill.

There are still many families who run their everyday lives without internet. My dad for example. I still wonder how he manages all his errands so well. Although I have to admit, the life tempo is from another dimension and comparable to geese migration speed. As a marketer it triggers, how to reach those households, without internet. There in an answer. About it in my next post.

Brainwashed by Disney

Being a parent, Disney, as a brand, is part of my everyday life. We have different Disney channels via satellite, most of our DVD selection is Disney produced, the kid’s playroom is, let’s say, accompanied with „a few“ Disney books and toys. Trip to Disneyland is a dream, which will come true eventually, as she is very persuasive. And she is only five. She is brand-washed and she loves it. I do not mind. I like Disney as well, as I find it safe, educating, entertaining and I still continiously refuse to grow up. The whole concept is so well targeted and continuously wholesome that it is inspiring, and I let it happen in front of my very own eyes.

If a kid finishes watching a Disney fairytale cartoon on DVD, there are so called extras. which run automatically. These are fully packed with brand conscious materials, which are truly inspiring. There are people behind the hard work, sparkles in their eyes, telling how they made one frame like… 30 days until it was perfect. There are gardeners from the Disneyworld who are talking about the passionate effort they made to build this dream land just for the joy of making it. They have captured the essence that drives kids. Joy of creating something, just because it is fun and makes you feel good. And they sell it good. What an industry.

Disney channels run neo-Disney programs mixed with some traditional programs. But definitely is Disney not resting in its glory. It’s conquering new horizons. Hanna Montana for example and etc. Please look at those pictures made few years ago by Anne Leibovitz, which is an advertising campaign letting people know that Disney is old and safe combined with new and exciting. Lovely pictures.

Scarlett Johannson as Cinderella


David Beckham as Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty

Jennifer Lopez as Jasmine and Marc Anthony as Alladin

Roger Federer as King Arthur

Jessica Biel as Pocahontas

Rachel Weisz as Snow White

See the whole photo series from here.

Man's nightmare

The nightmare of every boy or a man. Underwear as a present. Does not matter how good these ads are. Underwear as a present is a very bad idea. Seriously.

Click on the image to see the fine print.

Small remark: so good it's vice versa, if it comes to women.

Copycats vs Parallel Geniuses

Yesterday evening I received a call from a journalist who had noticed that the ads Taevas has made for a Raadio Uuno's morning program were extremely similar to the ads made by Miami Art School for Red Bull. You can read the article from here. Use Google translate, if not Estonian.

That’s true, they do use the same technique. This is not some rocket science originality, I admit, but these ads have very well served the purpose they were supposed to and lifted the awareness of Raadio Uunos new morning program. Mission completed. Not so good for the agency, as who wants to be called copycats anyway.

But this case is really interesting. These things happen. All over the world. Parallel geniuses. Thinking the same thoughts. Without knowing about the existence of the others.

Please check out this blog, which has dedicated itself for revealing shameless copycats and exposing just unfortunate coincidences. I’ ll take the privilege to copy some of those revelation into my blog. Please enjoy:

The art of recruitment

Finding the employees that fit the company’s profile and expectations can be a struggle. I’ve seen some well targeted and composed recruitment ads (like this), but nothing I’ve seen before is comparable to this genius act done in here.

Their main goal was to find an accountant that was more attentive than others and in order to find one, they transferred 1 euro into the competitive ad agencies accounts using the posting line for the job ad.

As you can see from the site, they found what they were looking for.

Estonian Next Top Model

New Estonian Top Model has born. Last year he did the campaign for Statoil, promoting environmentally friendly carwash and now, all over Estonia, you can witness this amazingly well posed, at ease look he is promoting for this package recycling campaign.

I loved the Statoil ad, as the frog was earning a higher purpose and fitted perfectly into the context. But this package recycling campaign is not really my cup of tea. As from the funny faces in the packages I assume that this is directed to children and the message is clear and well directed, then why is the frog in the picture? This particular frog happens to be in the RED LIST in many countries, but not in Estonia. Estonian kids would have better related to some animal they have fallen in love already. Like this lovely animal, actually living in Estonia and who is in the dangered animals listing.

Perhaps this is a call to think globally, as the globe in his hand refers to. This should be injected to small children at the early age, I agree. But why this iStock frog. Why?

Ok, I’m just jealous, that my time as a supermodel has passed and frogs are taking over.

The art of good casting

Simple and over-used idea, but I simply just love the casting. Watch until the end.

Happy Father's Day

Crew Uniform Update

Estonian national airline, Estonian Air, has initiated an online voting for finding the best possible uniform for the flight crew. I like the idea, that Estonian Air is taking measures to become more close to the customers and shows that they care about what the client wants. They have already initiated a complimentary snack and beverage offering program for economy class flights and this Crew Uniform Update competition is only second in their list of ten of becoming more pleasant and comfortable flight operator. Impatiently waiting for the next steps.

Although Estonians are considered a little bit conservative, airline companies are in a desperate need for good reputation building/ maintenance and the weather in here is constantly bad, what’s up with those granny vs. Mary Poppins looks? As Ryan Air has proved numerous times that bad reputation is increasing their profit, then here are some good examples of making people click on your advertisement, in the longer run buy tickets to long distance flights or … loose all family reservations.

Please note that the votes people give, count only 33 %, so this is not a “choosing the best uniform” contest. This is “we pretend to care” image campaign. Good thought though, as the majority does not read fine print and press releases, so probably they will get their way with this one.

Slogans speak up

As regular recruitment ads are just boring for ad agencies nowadays, it is fun and inspiring to watch how one agency, speaking the language of slogans, makes a point. This recruitment video is made to hire a copywriter to Memac Ogilvy Dubai and actually makes sense. Luckily the idea shines further than the bad acting.

Tyrannybook

Amnesty International Portugal and Leo Burnett Iberia launched Tyrannybook, a social network that aims to generate a global consciousness about the world leaders who violate human rights the most.

The page itself is a Facebook look-a-like, made in co-operation with Facebook, only using an aggressive red to stress out the cause of this action.

Users can follow the leaders they are the most interested about and the users will be updated about the faults committed by those leaders against human rights. The updates to the tyrants’s profiles will be made by the Amnesty International and also by the users.

As the site acts like a limited version of the Facebook, there is possible to create groups, events, uploads videos, pictures etc.

Although all the information is available in the internet this is the way creating awareness among the Facebook generation, as now the information is wrapped up in the way that they have used to consume information and made easier to understand.

Now the only thing to do, is to wait, until the tyrants destroy the page, which would be the biggest dream of AI’s publicists.

Vacation pictures found a new home.

For those who love taking photos and always have trouble with sharing i.e. vacation pictures or any other (baby, weddings, birthday-party, nature etc), Trip Advisor launched a new photo-sharing platform called Trip Wow.

You can actually make a movie-like interactive slideshow, which looks good and you can stop it or zoom in any time you like. The coolest feature is the sharing option. You can embed it to your website, blog, send via email or share in Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc. Only thing missing in my opinion is the commenting feature.

Here is a nice slideshow from the Great Flood in Soomaa during this spring. Welcome to Estonia:

This travel slideshow of Aivar Ruukel’s trip to Parnu was created by TripAdvisor on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 12:50pm UTC.

Monton on the right track

Here’s a very good example how Estonian fashion brand Monton has captured the essence of the social media and realized that it is all about two-way communication.

My homebank's new imago

Hard times in banking, so during the renovating period a hairdressing saloon was opened in SEB branch located in a shopping mall. Wider the area of expertise, bigger the client coverage.

Ok, that’s not quite true. I love my homebank and was very surprised to see this SEB branch turned into a hair saloon last night. Unwillingly and caused by pure boredom I assume.

Here’s a little recommendation. While renovating, please use curtains or do it overnight. Otherwise all those fancy image campaigns do not pay off.

Still, if they finish renovating, i’m hoping for free head massages while waiting for my number. That would be something to remember and buzz about !

Pixels are taking over

I love the idea and production.