Mercedes Benz from A to S

von | Jan 16, 2006 | Blog, Digital Marketing, Online Advertising

This is clearly one of the smartest and best brand microsites I have seen in a while: From A-Class to S-Class by Mercedes Benz.

With each letter of the alphabet (but only until S) this site shows one of the features that prove that Mercedes Benz pays a lot of attention to detail. This alone doesn’t strike one as being overly interesting.

What makes this a true „experience“ of the features is the way you explore everything with your mousepointer. In the screenshot above, you push down the leather while moving your mousepointer across the leather. In another one, you can see how your mousepointer starts skidding away in a straight line once you moved over a puddle of what I reckon is oil. This one shows how ESP gives you directional stability.

In the beginning, the site even teaches you the three main ways of interaction with your mouse on this site: roll-over, click, click and drag. (Makes you wonder about the target group.)

A lot of fun, while using interactivity to its fullest, to demonstrate each point. Well done!

And now for the marketing bit: they didn’t publish all features just now. May be because they aren’t finished yet, but who believes that?. I think it’s a rather clever stunt to collect addresses: when I clicked on a letter that wasn’t „live“ yet, I got a message saying that I would be informed of updates if I leave my email address (and it obviously also had a check box for „further information in the future“). Of course I left my email address. For one, because I infact do want to see the next couple of letters. Secondly, I want to see the follow-up email they’ll send me. Should be interesting!

Honda’s Civic being promoted with a choir

von | Jan 14, 2006 | Ad News, Blog, Online Advertising

Here is a Honda TV Spot that is currently making it’s round across several blogs.

I am curious to learn about how many views Honda gets with this spot – as it seems to be quite well promoted via a choir of word-to-mouth propaganda.

On some blogs, people ask what does it sell or achieve?

What does it achieve for Honda? Unfortunately, not much of anything. The same spot could have featured a Toyota, Volkswagen or Mercedes, and it would have worked just as well creatively.

Well, you could ask the same question for most car ads. In fact, you could ask the same about most spots these days.
At the same time, I have thought more about Honda (and in parts the Civic) in those 2 Minutes, than I have in the last couple weeks.
Or as Werbeblogger puts it, the Honda brand will most likely have moved up the ranks in the list of cars I remember the next time I buy a car.

On the microsite you can of course explore the car’s features. But you can also see the making of the spot.

(thanks)

Links & News – 11. January

von | Jan 11, 2006 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Culture, Digital News

  • Here is another list of predictions for 2006. Most of it sounds interesting. But here, I just couldn’t help a big fat grin:

    Speaking of a higher purpose, Google, NASA and Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos will shake hands on an agreement to collaborate on space missions.

  • Web content shifts from PC to all sorts of other devices (especially mobile).
  • The iPod is not only bringing record revenue to Apple, it is also becoming part of everyday fashion (see also here).
  • Apple ignited the storm on podcasting by adding a podcast funtionality to iTunes and the iPod (for which I love them, because I love Podcasts) – and now they stepping backward and add an FM tuner to the iPod? Come on!
  • Adrants complains about an apparently fake blog by Coke.
  • By the way, speaking of Adrants: I regularly listen to the „Across the Sound“ Podcast – and since Steve Rubel has unfortunately left the show, Joe Jaffe invites co-hosts to have discussions on new marketing an PR with him.
    Steve Hall of Adrants was the latest one of Episode 15 and it was very entertaining and informative!
  • Congrats to Yahoo! for allways finding exciting companies to purchase. Their mission of becoming the user centric, folksonomistic, semantic, web2.0-istic company fascinates me. If there was one company I would like to work for other than one I currently work for: Yahoo! would be it…