Julian Cole pointed out a new feature on Facebook dramatically increasing word of mouth. The status bar now shows regular updates of your friends. With a few small adaptations, does this make Twitter obsolete?...
Or is it? In what was set to be a very creative campaign Sprite's Thirst For Truth was launched a month ago. Appearing as a cross between the Chaser's War On Everything and Hamish and Andy, Truth Hunters AJ and Nicos aim these three minute videos at 16 to 24 year olds in an attempt to uncover "unspoken, brutal honest truths". The campaign has your usual vitals; a Facebook page, YouTube channel, blog and more but it seems the campaign hasn't quite received the attention they wanted. A contest asking for user submissions of people videoing their own Truths didn't receive a single entry. Promotions were run through billboards, bus sides and a cinema spot, yet $500 and a free trip to Sydney went unnoticed. Even after a month, I only heard about this campaign through someone at Naked Communications. It raises the question, does new media require old media? Can you successfully market a campaign digitally without a traditional launch? Perhaps in two years things will be different but at least here in Australia and now in the present a thirty second spot would have benefited this campaign greatly....
This clearly isn't going to be the greatest blog post ever. In fact, its probably far from it but I'm allowed to make such claims because it's only mere puffery. Those unfamiliar with the term should check out the Facebook group The Carbolic Smoke Ball Cured My Cold. So when Skins claimed that they "don't pay elite athletes to wear" their sports gear, they were using the same thing. Apparently the ACCC isn't aware that consumers aren't idiots. Contrary to popular belief, people don't believe everything we tell them....
When we use the Interweb, we surf naked. Nothing is left unseen and we lose our privacy in its entirety. There is an SMS service in Australia called Bongo (199BONGO) which can answer any question or tell you about any person, so it claims. Bongo's website says to have a massive data base, and after doing a check on me, I was somewhat surprised with the responding SMS...
Today is the 7th of November, or rather 7/11. 7-Eleven has capitalised on this with National 7-Eleven Day. Simply go into your local store and say "Happy 7-Eleven Day" to receive your free slurpee.I think this is a really creative campaign that should work well for them, particularly if they run something like this every year. Its targeted well to their market and I believe there should be a good turn out.There's also good use of their Facebook Event which seems to have gained a lot of popularity with over 40,000 people expressing interest. Unfortunately, it seems they've almost hidden away their promotional videos on the official website, with none of these posted on YouTube.I know I'll be heading down for my free slurpee, will you?...
