The report on the “glitch”

Tiger proving the Jesus Shot:

What I admire, is something completely different: Apparantly, these delivery men are tracked in real time with real journey data, during the regular working hours. And this is remarkable. I have also worked for clients with a huge fleet of delivery vehicles and I do appreciate the fact that Heineken managed to include their drivers into this game. Creatives usually come up easily with lots of brilliant ideas how to connect the mobile workforce of a client with a webpage via all sorts of mobile devices like phones or GPS tracking devices. But organisational reality most of the time kills these ideas.

So this won’t have been easy to push through the internal, most likely rather political, approval and commitment chain in order to get the buy in of all the different departments (marketing, distribution, logistics, etc.). Kudos, I like that.

(via)

Toyota in World of Warcraft

Coke in World of Warcraft

Coke in Secondlife

Coke in GTA:

Thanks for the tip!

The shooting car is the central character of a new Xbox game called Yaris that Toyota will introduce today. The game will be offered free to all Xbox 360 console owners in the United States and Canada, who can download it from Xbox Live’s service. It is also the first Xbox game created by an advertiser to be distributed over Xbox Live.

They were not the first to launch such a game, but again, this is a good example of a growing trend:

Advertisers in the United States will spend $502 million on video game advertising this year, up from $346 million last year, according to eMarketer, a research firm. Just over half of that is in the form of ads placed within games, and the rest is for marketers to create their own games, known in the industry as advergames.

That this can bei highly successful is proven by Burger King for example, who sold an advergame for the Xbox for $3.5 which despite the price showed a considerable amount of time spent with the game:

Using Xbox data on game use, the Burger King game equates in time spent to more than 1.4 billion 30-second commercials, the fast-food company says.

Imagine that. 1.4 billion voluntary 30 second long contacts – It will be hard for “classical” advertising to beat that! Both in terms of quantity, as well as quality:

Interacting with our characters in the games is actually more engaging than just sitting back in your chair and watching a Super Bowl commercial,” said Russ Klein, president for global marketing for Burger King.

(On a side note: how does Microsoft track that, anyway? This is scary, once again…)

Giles Rhys Jones is also rather early: He already predicts the Digital Advertising Trends for 2008. The trends he lists are all about the changing agency landscape. And he’s right about them, I think. The way agencies will work will change (does change already). The skills needed will change, too.

Sofar, we have two sites racing for the jackpot: Kongregate and YoYo Games.

I doubt the potential is as big as for any of the other typical Web 2.0 sites, simply because it is so much more difficult to conceptualise a computer came, with all its rules, scenarios, player modes, levels, etc.

At the same time I am sure the market is still big enough for good advertising potential, since people will probably spend even more time on these online games portals than they will on Youtube.

(The only thing the sites need to make sure: that the players will see a range of ads, even though they are most likely spending a lot of time on a single page. Remember the discussion about the death of the page view?)

(found at psfk)

Funnily enough I wrote back then:

I wish second life was only nearly as realistic as anything the new cryengine can show!

Well, it looks like Entropia made the race…

The LA Times has a story about the US companies starting to have second thoughts:

“There’s not a compelling reason to stay,” said Brian McGuinness, vice president of Aloft, a brand of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. that is closing its Second Life shop and donating its virtual land to the nonprofit social-networking group TakingITGlobal.

But the sites of many of the companies remaining in Second Life are empty. During a recent in-world visit, Best Buy Co.’s Geek Squad Island was devoid of visitors and the virtual staff that was supposed to be online.

The schedule of events on Sun Microsystems Inc.’s site was blank, and the green landscape of Dell Island was deserted. Signs posted on the window of the empty American Apparel store said it had closed up shop.

On the other hand, many companies had trouble finding something of added value to present in the virtual world:

For some advertisers, the problem is that Second Life is a fantasyland, and the representations of the people who play in it don’t have human needs. Food and drink aren’t necessary, teleporting is the easiest way to get around and clothing is optional. In fact, the human form itself is optional.

Which is especially frustrating, if you’re just in it because you wanted that publicity:

most firms were more interested in the publicity they received from their ties with Second Life than in the digital world itself. “It was a way to brand themselves as being leading-edge,” he said.

I know exactly what they mean. I had quite a few clients asking us about Second Life. What it is, and what they could do in there. Some even asked, whether it actually makes sense to move in there. For some companies there is a lot they can provide in this digital world that is of added value. Some might not have the right product, but had a good idea. And some might better not move in-world in the first place.

Now some US companies that did move in with whatever approach, are reversing their strategy.

But, as this article of German Newspaper “Die Welt” says, two of the most active German companies in Second Life are still content to stay:

“Momentan bestehen keine Pläne, sich aus Second Life zurückzuziehen”, so Oliver Brüggen, Sprecher von Adidas [...] Seit der Inseleröffnung im September 2006 verkaufte Adidas monatlich 2700 Schuhpaare im Second-Life-Shop und verzeichnete im Schnitt 9000 Besucher.

(“There are currently no plans to move out of Second Life, says Oliver Brüggen of Adidas. Since opening their shop in 2006, Adidas has sold 2700 pairs of shoes per month and had around 9.000 visitors per month”)

Auch DaimlerChrysler will weiterhin mit seiner Marke Mercedes Benz in Second Life vertreten bleiben. “Wir sind sehr zufrieden mit den Besucherzahlen. Das Ziel unseres Auftritts in Second Life ist, in direkten Dialog mit der Zielgruppe zu treten”, betont Susanne Klauser

DaimlerChrysler will also stay within Second Life with their brand Mercedes Benz. “We are very satisfied with the number of visitors. The objective of our presence is to engage in a dialogue with our target audience”, emphasizes Susanne Klauser

(Translation is mine, please let me know if something is incorrect.)

I wonder just for how long they’ll stay. Because in general, the first indicators of a slowdown in user growth and activity rate are appearing:

Between May and June, the population of active avatars declined 2.5%, and the volume of U.S. money exchanged within the world fell from a high of $7.3 million in March to $6.8 million in June.

What’s should be even more concerning: users seem to be flocking on to other platforms, testing them. Since Second Life is not really the best in terms of graphics and performance, there might soon be a better offer around the corner. And users might act in a swarm like behaviour and move on to the next tree. Worlds such as Entropia Universe and There.

I just wonder, with all that hype around facebook, if it isn’t time for a facebook application that offers you the social components of facebook (especially enabling to keep you current contact list) in a 3D virtual world? Wouldn’t that be neat? And for my sake, please also include netvibes in that offer!

Here is a short article about a Red Bull Widget that seems to be the killer app for all those people bored at the office (during lunch break only, of course).

It is an online version of Rock / Paper / Scissors. You can play this via the widget against other people from the facebook network. Great idea!

This might be the start of a whole new stampede of marketing widgets on facebook (and others).

And I have (finally) read his book. I am very late writing about the book. Why am I writing about it nevertheless?

More than a year ago, Joseph Jaffe came up with a concept he called “UNMTPNM“: Use new marketing to prove new marketing. He launched this idea in order to promote his (then) new book:

Life after the 30-second spot

Energize your brand with a bold mix of alternatives to traditional advertising.

I decided to take part, as I liked the idea of how he wanted to start word-of-mouth this way. Now I want to write the review. It’s late, but I thought better late than never. And this way, Joe gets a new mention during a time, when everyone is already writing about his new book, which should be coming out some time in the middle of this year. Which, by the way, extends on one of the thoughts what new marketing can look like in the future. So here is my review, apologies, again, for it being so late.

His main conclusion throughout this book and his blog and his podcast is always the fact, that traditional advertising is by far no longer as useful as it used to be. Or as he puts it: the 30-second spot has outlived its usefulness.

So what’s in the book? There are 3 main sections:

Section I – The Problem
In this section Joe describes the current state of the media landscape. How mass media are dying due to the fragmentation of media and increasing consumer resistance towards clutter and power of media choice.

This chapter lays out the foundation for the rest of the discussion. By now these things are common knowledge and widely discussed everywhere. Yet, in 2005, when the book was printed, these points were heavily debated everywhere. (And, by the way, in Germany these points are still relevant, considering the fact that we’re usually lagging some time behind.)

Section II – The Solution: Re:think Four Fundamentals of Marketing
In this chapter, Joe is Re:thinking four main areas that need, well, rethinking. These are: the changing consumer, branding, relevance of advertising and the agency/client situation. These chapters are a “theoretical basis” for the approaches in the third section and . A nice idea: you cannot read chapter 10 within the book. You will have to download the pdf or the mp3 file (to listen to Joe read out that chapter for you).

Section III – 10 Approaches that are transforming the marketing and advertising games

The approaches expanded on in this section are: the internet (of course…), gaming, on-demand viewing, experiential marketing, long-form content, communal marketing, consumer generated content, search, music – mobile and things that make you go mmmm, branded entertainment. In essence this covers examples for all the buzzwords, that companies have been experimenting with in the last couple of years.

Comments on the Contents

The first chapter is rather preaching to the converted and sometimes a bit over the top. The facts might be true, but sometimes you get the feeling as if the world is going to stop, the way Joe writes about the end of “old” marketing. For anyone reading the book now, the first 60 pages are common knowledge (or should be!). But as a summary on the situation it is not bad.

The second section is the one for me, that had the most juice in it. Purely because these are the backbone thoughts on how to think about marketing in the future. And – in contrast to the third section – these thoughts are more likely to be relevant even in a few years time. The third section covers many examples per approach, but even looking at them now, some already seem antiquated (which doesn’t make them less true).

Comments on the Style

His style of writing is rather conversational. One of the many examples:

“… in a survey conducted by the consultancy Emergence, a grand total of 0 percent (that’s zero, none, nada, squat, zip, nil) of those quizzed…”

That makes it awkward to read sometimes, especially considering it is a book, not a blogpost or a podcast. It is almost, as if he dictated the script for someone else to type it. But, speaking of which: keeping Joes way of talking in mind, you can almost read the book and hear his voice saying these things.

So should you buy it? I think it was Joe himself who once said: buying a book these days is like getting “the t-shirt”. An “I have been there” thing at times when content itself is readily available everywhere… You could follow Joe’s thoughts through his blog, his podcast, by going to crayonville, etc. But this is the one source that best and most complete summarises what Joe thinks, writes and says about new marketing.

So while the book will not completely stay relevant in the next couple of years, I think it is a very valuable basis for re:thinking marketing and advertising. For anyone who read about the changing media landscape, wanting to find out how to possibly react (and not having had their agency recommend things already, which they should have done), read the book. Skim-read the first section, this should be no news to anyone by now, focus on the second section for strategic visions and get some ideas of what new marketing can look liek from the last section.
Don’t forget: you can order it online. (Any commision amazon might yield will go to Joe, as I copied this link of his website.)

I just wonder if that really helps in finding these companies once you’re zooming in? Anyhow, looks interesting and it suggests that location does indeed matter…

Instead of re-creating the city using computer animation, they shot actual footage on the Ile St. Louis. While you’re driving, you can fool around with Nokia’s car kit by using its GPS features and changing the music.

On the site, it takes ages until the game has loaded…

And the game controls seem a little sluggish – but maybe it’s just my PC.
And it’s well worth it. The  grafics are brilliant, and having lived in Paris for a year, I actually recognised most of the spots.

Now Reuters writes about the latest statistics.And it seems like Europe is well represented – something I never thought:

Europeans make up the largest block of Second Life residents with more than 54 percent of active users in January ahead of North America’s 34.5 percent, according to new Linden Lab data.

Interestingly enough it was especially the French who boosted the european numbers – mainly due to the fact that during their presidential elections in January both parties got actively involved in this virtual world – opening up offices and such.

France has the second-highest number of users after the virtual world became a battleground for the country’s presidential election. Although French residents had long been a part of Second Life, thousands more joined Second Life in January as demonstrators picketed the virtual offices of Jean Marie Le Pen’s far-right National Front party. Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal also established a Second Life presence.

Here is the complete overview:

Active residents by country

• United States 31.19%
• France 12.73%
• Germany 10.46%
• United Kingdom 8.09%
• Netherlands 6.55%
• Spain 3.83%
• Brazil 3.77%
• Canada 3.30%
• Belgium 2.63%
• Italy 1.93%

The numbers add up to round about 85% – which means that 15% are spread out over the remaining +/-150 nations worldwide. And I guess that China makes up a large part of that 15% – even though I would have expected them within this list…

The average resident is 33 years old, and:

58.9 percent of residents declared themselves as men when they registered, compared with 55.5 percent a year earlier.

I like the way that is put: “declared themselves as men”. But it’s true. On the web, you never know – and in Second Life this is just as well the case…

One more link: these news were posted within the Reuters Second Life News Center Website. (I just want to keep track of this link for myself…)

Sweden is to become the first country to establish diplomatic representation in the virtual reality world of Second Life, officials said on Friday.

“We are planning to establish a Swedish embassy in Second Life primarily as an information portal for Sweden,” Swedish Institute (SI) director Olle Wästberg told AFP.

They won’t issue visa, instead they will tell people how the obtain visa for Sweden in the real world. And they want to inform people of how nice and beautiful Sweden is… This sounds more like a regular tourist information to me, than an embassy. But nevermind – I like Sweden and I hope this helps.

And of course it lists total residents (6+ billion), you can get first life clothing for real dollars (at cafepress.com), in a 3D analog world, where server lag does not exist. Hhm, maybe I should try that sometime.