Muscles make music for Old Spice

A while ago we brought you ‘Smell is Power’ from Old Spice and talked about how P&G had cleverly ambushed their own marketing (with help from W+K). This time round the campaign has gone truly interactive and lets you use Terry Cruise’s muscles to make music. Enjoy.

(HT @tbuesing & Adverblog)

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P&G hijack their own advertising (smell is power)

Two very different worlds of advertising collide in this new campaign by W+K. It is a very smart and (perhaps, more importantly) funny move.

The only question is, can you really go back to the tried and tested formula for the other brands now… Either way, we like.

 

Will it go dot.mum? (the real adnews article)

A new phrase has entered the building – dot.mum. It was blurted out (as these things normally are) in a creative brainstorm the other day, ‘I like it, it’s a great idea, but will it go dot .mum?’.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/3946109956

At the time, it came out as shorthand for ‘the mainstream’. The incomplete thesis behind the mumbling was once you’ve gone dot.com you then need to go dot.mum, which means you’ve pretty much got yourself into every household (pretty much – an incomplete thesis as I said).

As the presumed ruler of the household purse, Mums have long been the targets of some pretty one-dimensional strategies (we’ve all seen it before in this industry; food = fear, toilets = pride, etc) and, of course, the terrible advertising that accompanies it. There is a lot more to dot.mum than meets the eye though (now that I’ve actually bothered to explore my mind fart) the truth of the matter is that actually dot.mums are changing the nature of what the mainstream is.

The Entertainment Association of Australia quietly released a study last month which predicts mums are set to overtake teenage boys as the new gamers (ask anyone at Facebook and they’ll tell you they’ve already seen it happen). Their study shows that 46 per cent of the Australia’s gamers are now female, with the average age 30 years.

While we’re fighting some female marketing stereotypes, I’d like to include a side point of clarification here: In the same way that mums aren’t fear-driven, pride-seeking, FMCG buying machines, when women play games they do not necessarily want teddy bears and shopping apps.

A study undertaken in 2006 by the Australian Catholic Univeristy no less (their misspelling not mine… Given this, perhaps we should view all results as indicative at this stage) found that female gamers find mental stimulation, creativity, interesting story lines and superior graphics more important than anything else (more important than dolphins and flowers for example).

Once you’ve put your copy of Ad News down go and check your analytics for some genuine insight. When we launched our paper plane game (check it out – it’s fun) we found out that the majority of the users where female (55%) and since then we’ve taken specific learnings into a number of campaigns. One implication is the fracturing of engagement (mum’s are very busy people) so we need to make any content bite sized, flexible and something they really want to return to.

Make no mistake the dot.mum phenomena has its downside. Is something still cool if it has gone dot.mum? Just ask Dido. And then there is the question of where dot.mum finishes? Once the chick chick boom girl appeared on sunrise her cache evaporated. So where does Sunrise fit and should we include Sunrise in our media plans for dot.mums? That really is the stuff of sleepless nights.

So guess what, games are increasingly a mass marketing channel and women aren’t idiots. No, there is much more to it than that. Going dot.mum is important, it is the future of the mainstream, a future mainstream we must connect with and, in order to do so, ultimately understand. If we can’t get that far let’s at least make sure we don’t fall back on some of those bad marketing assumptions.

Now you’ve read this rubbish, go and check out some serious gamer girls here – girlgamers.com.au, thumbbandits.com or womengamers.com (the latter of which is now 11 years old btw).

Ben Hourahine is Strategy Director at Amnesia Razorfish – @benhourahine

————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Published in Adnews – ‘Dot.mum is the new mainstream’ – 19.11.10

This is the original version before the re-edit, my name is also spelled correctly here too 😉

 

Once you’ve put your copy of Ad News down go and check your analytics for some genuine insight. When we launched our paper plane game (check it out – it’s fun) we found out that the majority of the users where female (55%) and since then we’ve taken specific learnings into a number of campaigns. One implication is the fracturing of engagement (mum’s are very busy people) so we need to make any content bite sized, flexible and something they really want to return to.

Google’s Place Search to squeeze returns

In the search engine marketing and optimisation sector, it really does seem that change is the only constant.

In June, I wrote about the launch of Google Caffeine and the impact of social search in the marketing mix. Just four months later and Google has added another game-changing feature to their search engine results pages (SERPs), called Place Search.

As its name suggests, Place Search prioritises search results based on proximity of the website to the user’s current location, in an effort to make consumers “feel like a local everywhere [they] go”. It is very similar in concept to Yellow Pages but doesn’t require users to leave the Google homepage.

This is good news for consumers seeking local restaurants, shops, entertainment and the like, but for companies there are new challenges that come with it.

In addition to having its own dedicated category, Place Search also appears in natural results on the main SERP (in the form of business listings with reviews and a map showing result locations) when Google predicts that the user is looking for local information. But it is what that new content is replacing that is of concern.

Companies currently paying for Google AdWords to gain higher visibility on more generic search queries may find that their click-through rates suddenly take a tumble thanks to the new Places map, which is positioned in what was previously a lucrative AdWords position: the top right-hand corner.

Not only does it take a prime position, it maintains that position as the user scrolls down the page, which means significantly less visibility of company-sponsored AdWords.

It would not be far-fetched to expect AdWord costs to increase (due to the increased competition and importance of gaining the top three spots), despite a greater risk of fewer click-throughs and thus a decline in return on investment for those not appearing in the top spots.

In every challenge, there is an opportunity. In Place Search, the opportunity for companies is to raise the visibility of bricks-and-mortar stores to among 60 per cent of Australians who research online with an intent to purchase offline.

To do that, I asked one of our search experts here at Amnesia Razorfish to provide their top five tips on optimising for Place Search:

1. Get listed and be consistent: claim your free listing by providing your company details at www.google.com/places, ensuring that multiple locations each have their own profile containing the location/suburb in the Places title. Choose your categories carefully, and ensure your description is consistent across other directory listings.

2. Enrich the experience: take the opportunity to add additional information such as opening hours and rich media content (photos, YouTube videos, and so on) to your Places page; you want consumers to get a good feel for who you are and what you do.

3. Reviews: customer reviews play an important role in Place Search ranks. Ensure you have the process in place to monitor and respond to user reviews about your business.

4. Sponsored map icons: make your business stand out by investing in a personalised map icon that displays your logo.

5. AdWords ad extensions: link your Google Places listing with AdWords to enable users to see your location from the sponsored ad.

And my recommendation? Make the most of this opportunity while it is still free, as you have to assume Google is not out to destroy its own commercial model.

To that end, I would expect to see related new forms of paid advertising being launched by Google in the weeks and months to come. Given its current focus on location, my guess is that mobile advertising is next on the hit list. Watch this space.

Jennie Bewes, Director of Social Media & New Business, Amnesia Razorfish

As published in The Australian Financial Review, 3 Nov 2010

The Death of Social Media?

Most morbid social media campaign yet? The gist: Take a photo of yourself DEAD and you could end up in next year’s horror movie Redd Inc. According to the company there have been a few ‘inadmissable photos’ so far.

Above: User generated death.
http://www.reddincthemovie.com/Submissions/Art/Fake-your-own-death/Page2/Art225

 

 
The website: http://www.reddincthemovie.com

It’s making the news… Article about it in the Daily Tele.

User-generated electioneering

Every election these days is called ‘the internet election’, and not surprisingly since each election brings new innovations in social media. Howard Dean did really well out of e-campaigning in 2004, although he was probably less enthusiastic about it once ‘the scream’ appeared all over YouTube. MyBarackObama.com was a cracking success, expanding into a SMS programs, 2,000 YouTube flicks, 3 million online donors, 5 million ‘friends’ across Facebook and other social sites. In Australia, Labor claims a lot of its success is due to marshalling support through digital, and the Coalition admits they didn’t make the best use of it, falling before the bold and youthful Kevin07 brand.

There’s one month of furious electioneering to go in the UK before folks head to the polls, and we’ll see how the parties make best use of digital and social in particular in these next few weeks. Already, my Facebook news feed has changed. Status updates allow everyone you know to see your opinions, comment, and get notifications of others’ comments.  It wasn’t that long ago that these were about X Factor, but political conversations are taking their place – people are linking to opinion pieces on the economy and social policies, and the same political discourse is all over twitter too.

But what I’ve found most interesting is how user-generated content has already made a big splash. Following the launch of (Conservative leader) David Cameron’s much mocked airbrushed billboard campaign, Tory-bashers are giving those ads an amusing PhotoShop once-over at mydavidcameron.com.

Labour had an official crowd-sourcing poster competition won by a 24 year old’s entry depicting ‘Nice Dave’ sitting on a 1983 Audi Quattro (below), recalling a character from recent BBC drama Ashes to Ashes in which a police officer inexplicably wakes up in 1981.

The ad was launched last Saturday by Labour’s agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, but immediately repurposed by Euro RSCG (the Tories’ ad agency) to great effect (more on this here).

Clearly crowd-sourcing hasn’t paid off in this example (more of an own goal really), but I’m looking forward to more UGC in the coming weeks.

Twitter Hugs making the world a ‘betterer’ place… @pepsi @cocacola

From a genuinely random and spontaneous twitter experiment (here) that led to Coke and Pepsi becoming ‘friends’ on Twitter there’s been a fair bit of press coverage. Nice to see Biz Stone, founder of Twitter tweet it out too (here).
Maybe Twitter Hugs are something we’ll see more of in the future.
Adding links below as they come in:

Posted by ~@eunmac

Above: The original tweet from Coke to Pepsi:
Below: Pepsi says Hellooo back to Coke.

Global Press Coverage:

http://adage.com/digitalnext/post.php?article_id=137709

http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/917650/Coca-Cola-Pepsi-bury-hatchet-Twitter/

http://www.revolutionmagazine.com/DigitalPM/News/917650/Coca-Cola-Pepsi-bury-hatchet-Twitter/?DCMP=EMC-Media-PM-Bulletin

http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/blogs/2009/07/coke-and-pepsi-hold-hands-on-twitter-whos-next/

Founder of Twitter Biz Stone – tweets out the news:
http://twitter.com/biz/status/2438852220

Reuters : http://blogs.reuters.com/shop-talk/2009/07/07/cola-truce-coke-and-pepsi-trade-niceties-on-twitter/

20 ads that are clever, creative and socially responsible

The crew at environmental Graffiti have gathers a bunch of ads that come from environmental groups and promote awareness and action for change.

It’s awesome to see agencies embracing campaigns that have no other agenda than creating awareness and hoping to affect some social change and responsibility.

See the whole list at Environmental Graffiti

It’s True. Size Does Matter.

Well, at least when we’re talking about ad size.
Over the past months most of our entire industry have been playing around with ad sizes on homepages everywhere, from Yahoo to MSN and AOL.

This quick article on Compete.com gives us a little interesting insight into how users and prospective customers actually behave when presented with the same ad in different sizes.

I wont give the big secret away, but you might be surprised at the outcomes of some of the tests that were done, I definitely was.

Check it out here (it’s a quick two minute read)

NikePlus Race for unfit Twitter Users…

You know it makes sense… All that tweeting isn’t shaving any cm off the love-handles is it? OK, this is just a bit of fun… but at the same time if you can run 5km you’ll probably feel a bit better no matter what the time!

The Rules:
– 1 month – finishes on 14 June
– Open to all people who are unfit and on Twitter.
– No Treadmills – get outside!
– Open to international
– 1st Prize = Pride!

Instructions
– You’ll need an ipod/nano/touch and a Nike+ Sensor (they cost about AU$30)
– The challenge is here – you just need to sign in. 
http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/?l=all_challenges,2935985
– Use #5km as the twitter hashtag 🙂

New to NikePlus? 
Check it! You get to look at cool charts and stats and see how unfit you really are!

Top 100 most valuable brands in the World? Why they got it all wrong.

Article by Iain McDonald – Founder / Exec Creative Director at Amnesia Razorfish. (@eunmac)

Each year Millward Brown puts out it’s index of the top 100 brands every year (here). I’m going to offer a different opinion (and yes, it’s only my opinion) on why I think it’s a load of old-school corporate phooey which is sending a financially skewed perspective on the value of brand compared to the modern consumer REAL thoughts about brands.

Note: I take the point that not all brands in this list are consumer facing per-se, but when publishing a list of the “Most Valuable Global Brands” I believe the word ‘value’ and ‘brand’ needs to take a deeper dive into broader consumer data and well beyond “highest margins and the most recognisable logo”.

In my humble opinion the power of a brand should mostly be judged by how well it is able to reach, interact with and influence a consumer, in particular with regards to their decision making process (which has a lot to do with ‘Trust’). It’s a big subject area and worth a lot of $ when you look at the $ad spend invested by these brands. Millward Brown have their ‘formula in a bottle’ to compare brand power but I believe the only place this list belongs is in a Sunday-Financial-Pullout-Section and that it is not indicative of a modern day ‘powerful consumer brand’ particularly in today’s digital world.

As a footnote I should say that my core interest lies in understanding the ever-evolving ‘digital’ consumer, (which of course is now an every day consumer too). I spend most of my day listening, observing (some might say spying), engaging in real conversations as well as looking at a lot of quant data and an array of third party research. I’m of the school of thought that you can define a brand by what consumers actually think and feel about a brand – I do not believe a brand is always what the CMO says the brand is so when I see a list like the one above it makes me squirm slightly. I’ll tell you why in a second.

Firstly I do recommend reading the full PDF of Millward Brown’s Top 100 Brands (here) and come to your own conclusion – hey… you may just love it and agree with their definition of ‘brand power’ 100%. That’s ok by me – I’m just offering another way of looking at things.

The first problem for me is right here below an excerpt from their report:

“Customer Opinion
The secret ingredient is WPP’s BrandZ
database, based on an annual quantitative
brand equity study in which consumers and
business customers familiar with a category
evaluate brands.
Since BrandZ’s inception over 10 years
ago, more than one million consumers and
business-to-business customers across
31 countries have shared their opinions
about thousands of brands. It is the most
comprehensive, global, and consistent study
of brand equity.”

As you can see the above plays a critical part within the formula below used to calculate the list.

So why do I have an issue with this? For a start I’m not a big fan of anything that tells me they have “secret ingredients”… especially when I believe the raw data is available elsewhere in digital channels already and in much larger quantities. Secondly I do not believe the final list reflects the actual brand sentiment or evidence that can be seen daily by the interactions consumers have in the digital landscape, which as a source of information offers a lot more qual and quant data than any one study a single company can undertake to produce in a ‘comprehensive study’.

Search Trends – An alternative way to measure Brand Power
When you have enough data, the signal usually rises above the noise. Search trend data (which Google makes available here) gives us some critical insight into ‘real’ Brand Power pull and arguably the biggest source of data available on a brand. In this instance if a brand is unable to PULL its consumers into active search through it’s spend on marketing, comms, PR, CRM, new product innovation etc then there is probably an issue in here that needs to be addressed. I know some will question if search is relevant to all brands, but I would argue that even with ‘low interest categories’ the global data is there. Example: Here’s Wrigley’s in amongst the category mix for Chewing Gum and Bubble Gum over the last 4.5 yrs.

 

The argument against the top 100 brand power list:
Let’s take some of these brands in the top 100 and look at search trend data from the last 5+ years in Google as well as the last 12 months. (Note: I’ve chosen unique brand keywords to look to keep the data more ‘pure/clean’ for my examples). Given that the growth of the Internet during this period you would expect to see a brand in good health showing positive results in search and an upwards curve. This is NOT the case with many of the brands listed in Milward Brown’s top 100. In fact IBM (#4 on the list) has seen a steady decline in search traffic, yet it is listed as being 20% more valuable than the previous year. Sure – they are not focussing efforts on the consumer these days, but that to me means they are not as powerful as a global brand as I see it. IBM belongs in a list which talks to corporate, finance, and niche brand power and does not belong at #4 on a list which defines Global Brand Value/Power. To the image below – in general when it comes to consumer facing brands my own opinion is that when search data trends down it usually represents negative brand health.

  

In fact many other brands in the list (and yes, I include Porsche in here) are flat-lining which in real terms represents a relative decline given the growing internet usage and penetration occurring. (Please note I’m keeping data simple here and concentrating on Search  – I have actually taken time to look at plenty of Buzz/Social media trends and available traffic data as well and most trending data is in line with search data).

Going Up or Down?
Millward Brown states that Vodafone’s brand value is up 45%, IKEA is DOWN 21% (at #95 in the table) and Tesco is down 1%. (Strange?! IKEA attracts double the search volume of Tesco but is ranked 74 places behind on the list which begs the question: Does Tesco’s financial performance really make it that much more powerful as a brand?). In fact all of these three brands are seeing marginally positive search growth when adjusting for seasonal trends and economic factors so I would suggest a positive brand increase overall for all three.

I’m the Chairman of IBM what do I do?
Now, I’m sure Millward Brown’s report probably makes a few CEO’s feel a little better about their business (and no doubt helps WPP’s advertising empire too), but personally I cannot agree with these results as a definitive list of modern day brand power. The reality is that the consumer of 10 years ago does not exist anymore. Today’s consumer connects, shares, evaluates in entirely different ways which of course is another blog post for another day. If you are the Chairman of IBM and you’re reading this, then my advice, “It’s time for you to rethink your brand strategy – your consumer has shifted and you as a brand haven’t moved and are certainly not moving with them at the moment” and if you think that the only people you need to impress with your brand is the CTO, CMO, CEO and CFO then I would beg to differ.

So… what are the most powerful brands?
As a start point I believe the most powerful brands are the ones which consumers trust the most, identify with and feel comfortable enough to share with others. Yes of course financial stability is important and plays a big part when it comes to “Trust” which is possibly the single most important word when it comes to Brand Power.

I find it amazing that there was no section in this report on ‘digital brands’ especially when you look at the search data below… now  you start to get an idea of how BIG these new digital brands are in peoples lives. Facebook has actually outpaced Google in search trends by almost 3:1. YouTube is the worlds second biggest search engine, and ranks higher than Google itself in trends.

On the chart above none of the top 100 brands make a dent on Google, and even Microsoft looks small next to that. I could go on and on… but I’ve probably made my point and this is supposed to be a blog post not a thesis.

My Conclusions:
– The top 100 brands in Millward Brown’s list do not match available trend data on brands from independent sources such as Google, Blogpulse, Alexa etc.
– Digital Brands like Facebook clearly belong in any Power Brand list if sheer volume of interaction plays a part in establishing the power of a modern brand.
– IBM and many other brands on this list that were given positive brand health in 2009 by MB are in fact declining (from a consumer perspective).
– Big brands are still not investing enough in digital as a channel as a proportion of overall marketing spend.
– Traditional agencies still selling too many brands ‘the old way’ – not investing in digital relationships with their customers.
– Reports of this kind should include public sources of data. Why not include search data, twitter mentions, blog posts and semantic data in forming these kind of studies?
– Brand Power should not be based so heavily on financial data. Some of the biggest brands are also the most complained about brands.
– Lack of competition in a category yielding financial success should not be mistaken for positive brand sentiment.

Article by Iain McDonald – Founder / Exec Creative Director at Amnesia Razorfish. (@eunmac) – feel free to drop me a comment!

Mars, Agency.com shut down Snckrz!; Internets get pissy

Last week, the troublemakers (and I use that as a term of endearment) at POKE started up a little site called Snckrz!, which allowed users to create images featuring words and phrases of their choosing, inside a Snickers logo. The fun little site was spurred by the launch of the official Snickers site, which has been touted as “pretty but obtuse“, and urges its users to “learn to speak snacklish,” and misses the social engagement boat by about three weeks.

Yesterday, Mars sent the NYC-based agency a cease and desist, and the site was shut down at 6pm EST.

A bit of background: Tom Ajello was ECD at Agency.com, and worked on the Mars account during his tenure. According to a spokesperson, the idea the logo generation was originated while he was working on the award-winning Snickers.com, but was never developed. Ajello left Agency.com in 2007 to co-found POKE with Aaron Rutledge and Michael Kantrow.

The site, in its short existence, attracted an average visit time of 5-8 minutes and 80,000 users and, in stark contrast to the much-talked about Skittles debacle, created mostly positive interaction with the Snickers brand, even if it was an unofficial/unauthorized experience. The brandjack was explained by POKE as being created in “good faith to add a bit of utility to Snickers’ offering”.

This could have, theoretically, been integrated quite easily into the brand site (if inter-agency politics and egos didn’t play a factor the decision.*) Instead, in their short-sightedness, Mars decided to shut down the site — something that was generating no revenue except for shits and giggles.

As far as I know (and correct me if I’m wrong) but there was no offer to make use of a concept that was generating really positive conversation; conversation that Mars didn’t pay for, that wasn’t being exploited for profit, that could fall under the category of say, fan fiction. AMC got that very wrong when they first dealt with the Mad Men accounts, and then realized the error of their ways and corrected it, seeing the value of fans running the conversation (and the possible detriment of their brand if they continued to act like corporate overloads.)

There’s nothing wrong with mistakes — we’re all making them — as long as there’s a lesson learned. Mars had a perfect opportunity to turn this into something positive and instead, they’ve alienated a community who had nothing but love for their brand. The fact that the same agency/brand collaboration that bought the internet Skittles.com not two weeks ago, makes this whole situation even more headscratch-worthy. Maybe a little bit of new-fashioned engagement envy? Who knows.

*this is pure speculation on my part. I have no idea about the internal workings or sentiment around this subject.

—-

Heather Ann Snodgrass is Amnesia Razorfish’s Social Media Adviser. You can find her on Twitter here.

Your brand should be on Twitter too…

Thanks to Mashable.com for this really in-depth article on: 40 brands on Twitter and the People Behind Them.
A follow up to their article last year on Why Brands ABSOLUTELY do belong on Twitter, Mashable gives us insight into exactly why Twitter is so super useful and effective for getting in touch with customers and being a part of the Groundswell, not just a spectator.

Shepard Fairey On The Colbert Report

Shepard Fairey, from Obey to Obama. Some may say that because he’s been working for coin the label of street artist is false. Well surely it is all forgiven if his work helped Obama across the line right? That IS public service.

Such A Thing As Too Viral?

It appears there is indeed such a thing as too viral…especially when it concerns free food.

It seems as though a Carl’s Jr. online promotion for a free $2.75 “Famous Star” hamburger coupon went a little too viral.

The Carpenteria-based chain promptly stopped honoring the coupons
for their franchise burger after what seemed like a harmless online
promotion was supersized by the net.

During a promotion at a recent Los Angeles Lakers-New Orleans
Hornets game at the Staples Center in L.A., the 276 winning contestants
were texted a passcode and a 48-hour-only URL on the Lakers’ website,
showing where they could download their free red meat.

A day later, the URL and passcode spread faster than a Paris Hilton homemade porno. Hundreds
of bargain-hunting websites posted the URL and passcode — prompting
the hamburger outlet to discontinue honoring them amid fears of a run
on their burgers.

“We’re wanting things to go viral, just not free offers,” said Beth
Mansfield, a Carl’s Jr. spokeswoman. She said that was the first, and
likely the last, time the chain would give out free burgers that way.

From: Wired News

Classic Levi’s TV Ads Collection. 1985-1997

Remember these classic Levi’s Ads? Oh yes, you will! This is the collection of the most memorable ones, many of which are imprinted on the brains of a generation, running between the mid 80’s to late 90’s. Brilliant choice of music that inspired countless imitations over the years. Here they are… the originals 🙂

Note: Clip ‘Prison’ has a very famous main character…

Above: The Launderette (Nick Kaman) 1985
Music – Heard it through the Grapevine – Marvin Gaye

Above: The Bathtub. 1986
Music : Wonderful World – Sam Cooke

Above: The Refrigerator 1988
Music: Mannish Boy – Waters, Muddy

The Pickup. 1989
Music : Be My Baby-The Ronettes

The Bike (1990) –
Music – The Joker/Steve Miller Band

Pool (1991)
Music The Clash – Should I stay or should I go.

Prison (feat a very famous movies star) 1991
Music: Twentieth Century Boy – T-Rex

The Swimmer (1992)
Music: Mad About The Boy – Washington, Dinah

The Fall / Oilrig (1994)
Music: Music by Peter Lawler – Fictional Self

The Procession (1993)
Music: Scream Jay Hawkins – Heart Attack and Vine

The Creek 1994
Music: Peter Lawler | Stiltskin – Inside

Spaceman 1995
Music: Babylon Zoo

The Mermaids (1997)
Music: Smoke City- Underwater Love

Is it just me or was Mermaids the last of the great Levi’s ads???

Note/Help!:
There are several notable missing ads from this collection/era which can be identified by the soundtracks:
Erma Franklin – Piece of my heart
Ben E King – Stand by Me

(If you find the above please post in comments thx!)

Edit: Thanks to @oonai5000 for posting some of these Levis commercials.

New Pepsi Can and logo

Pepsi have launched themselves into the social media arena in the US, choosing to announce and show the new can/brand ID online. “You heard it here first” on http://friendfeed.com/rooms/pepsicooler being the quote from Peter Shankman (here) in the feed.

Steve Rubel who had helped Pepsi launch this outlines (http://www.micropersuasion.com/2008/10/join-us-in-the.html) the effort was done to promote ‘two-way dialogue and collaboration’ and was timed to coincide with the launch of the new Pepsi brand identity (http://adage.com/article?article_id=132016).

 
image: Peter Shankman’s assistant holds the new can aloft…

This is pretty big news as far as we’re concerned as the marketing beast Pepsi show their faith in digital as the medium of choice for the launch of their new brand, and social media as the channel. This is the first change to their identity since 1987.

Do you like the new logo?