Archive for January, 2008

Scrabble vs Scrabulous

31
Jan
08

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Mattel has teamed up with Hasbro to sue the creators of Scrabulous, one of Facebook’s most popular applications.

The two companies, which between them own the rights to the board game, claim that the online version developed by brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla infringes their copyright. Hasbro asked Facebook to take down Scrabulous – which attracts over 600,000 daily users and gives the brothers $25,000 of advertising a month.

Why would you want to turn your fans into enemies? Why not just buy the company? Why not advertise the Scrabble board game on the Scrabulous pages?

The rush from the toy makers has definitely not helped, they’ve seemed to have forgotten a number of things:

1. There is such a thing as bad publicity.
2. Facebook Scrabulous users love the game, and they are angry for losing it. It is not likely that these people will buy Mattel/Habro toys for friends and relatives.
3. There already are more than 55,000 members in a Save Scrabulous Facebook Group and talk of boycott of Mattel and Hasbro
4. Realize that Scrabulous turns people on to Scrabble and other word games and creates opportunity for Mattel/Hasbro.

Data is our favorite lunchbox

30
Jan
08

lunchbox
When it comes to decide the strategy of a creative campaign, target research and data are juicy starting points to give creativity the right boost.
Consumer data are especially relevant, after the not so recent alarms on information and advertising overload. In the US, for example, there are about 630,000 TV screens placed in retail stores and their number is poised to grow. The question is: are they really useful?

What’s happening is that given the impossibility to assimilate an excessive array of media options, people tend to go multitasking and this affects how they use traditional media and discriminate among different types of content.
According to the latest report by BIGresearch which conducted a survey on 15,727 American people, the top 3 promotions influencing the purchase of a product are in-store product, samples, shelf coupons and special displays.

New media options tend to increase people’s engagement with other activities, such as reading newspapers, listening to the radio or watching TV. In this respect, key interesting findings are:

  • 70% of the people eat while engaging with media, followed by doing housework and laundry, cooking and talking on the phone.
  • When reading a newspaper, 30% also watch TV, 17% listen to the radio or go online.
  • During a TV commercial, 41.2% of the people surf on other TV channels, 33% talk over the phone or contact people online, 30% think about their own business.

It’s not about being hostile to product information or being overwhelmed by it, though. More likely, it’s about learning to discriminate useful from redundant information. Experienced consumers tend to stick to relevant facts, especially now that budgets are stretched in a slowing economy.

Photo courtesy of jsc*

Hit Targets like William Tell

29
Jan
08

Target doggy
As new ideas and technologies increasingly emerge from start-ups or restless minds everywhere, Marketing initiatives are now hitting the bullseye more accurately than ever. The old, 20th Century social and demographic targeting may soon be replaced by more scientific approaches, that truly reduce advertising budget’s waste.

Take “Target“, for instance. This is a website where you can keep lists of stuff you like, reminders for birthday presents, suggestions for gifts to family and friends, lists for vacations and many more. You can share your lists with whoever you like, and also consult other people’s lists. Well, this opens up a whole new form of ad targeting: shooting your message to targets who are already self-prospects and who need your final push to make that purchase or take a shift from a competitor’s product to your own. Besides, imagine being able to access and analyze the data gathered in those servers… sneaking into consumer’s expectations and aspirations.

An even more scientific approach may soon be possible through sites like ScientificMatch.com. This could be just your regular match-making platform, but instead it is The “love lab”. By registering, users provide genetic info for full genetic compatibility tests between them and their possible matches.

As they put it:

We’re the only introduction service that creates matches with actual physical chemistry. Our patent-pending technology uses your DNA to find others with a natural body fragrance you’ll love, with whom you’d have healthier children, a more satisfying sex life, and more. Our personal-values-analysis provides a deep spiritual bond, to complete your path to truly amazing relationships.

So this is good news for everyone. Now we can’t go wrong! And once brands start to explore these new ways of precision targeting, neither will them. Brands just have to figure out a compatibility pattern between their products and certain genetic groups (through geneticaly clustered trials). After that, they’ll be able to identify, aim at their targets with surgical precision, and fire away.

I Wish I Had Designed It: Arcade Fire, The Band Who Gets It Again

28
Jan
08

arcade.jpg

After controlling the singer’s hands in the Neon Bible video that we covered last October, the band shows again that they’re here to entertain you, not to help MTV sell advertising space. In the interactive movie for their single Black Mirror, you’re the sound engineer, toggling on and off the different tracks on the song, from the lyrics on #1 to the spookiest sounds on #5 and #6. Awesome work, I dare you to spend less than 4 minutes on it!

A project by AATOAA, directed by Olivier Groulx and Tracy Maurice (who’s been working on Arcade Fire’s Art Direction for a while now and that I had the pleasure to meet in NY through Paul).

Via Adeline Marchal.

(To be fair, I remember that Madonna had done something similar for the release of Music in 2000 but can’t find any trace of it on the web)

lego.jpg

To celebrate Lego’s 50th anniversary, Google wrote its name on the homepage with the famous multi-colored bricks. I wonder if they will ever sell some ad space on their main page. Imagine the exposure for a brand…

By olivier PEYRE, Comments

Say It With Links: Facebook Goes South, YouTube Goes Mobile, and Your Screen Goes Clean

25
Jan
08

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  • The first screenshot of Facebook in Spanish surfaced. The team did a pretty awesome job at crowd-sourcing the translations, using a Facebook App and a voting system among translators. Get ready to be spammed by your foreign friends soon.
  • They’ve been talking about it forever, and they’ve finally made it. Non-iPhone owners, you can finally access YouTube videos on your cellphone, and most of the site’s functionalities, including upload. And they’re nice enough to warn you that you should upgrade to an unlimited data plan!
  • You need some love for the weekend but don’t feel like going to a bar and walk the walk of shame in your neighborhood the morning after? Or you just love dogs but your lease specifies that you can’t have pets? The Trendwatch team found the perfect solution: a screen-licking dog!
  • I Wish I Had Designed It: Uniclock + Anything Uniqlo

    24
    Jan
    08

    uniclock.jpg

    To support its repositioning as a more upmarket brand, Uniqlo’, Japan’s leading clothing retail chain, has been working on its image, with the help of one of Japan’s top creative director talents, Kashiwa Sato. New logo, new flagship store in the US, new ads, new ad campaign, new e-commerce sites, and acclaimed micro-sites that I are everything but micro.

    Check out The Uniqlo Explorer, if you haven’t already, it’s for me one of the best websites I’ve ever seen. An endless formation of images composed by a mosaic of smaller images. Hard to explain, you definitively have to try it.

    Another great experience: The Uniclock. A “downloadable blog-part” that you’re supposed to add to your blog, which then is listed in the Uniqlo directory. The clock gives the time and location of the blog’s writer, and each hour is marked by a short dance piece performed by dance group

    Matt Mullenweg buys ma.tt and I’m left with a lame old .com

    23
    Jan
    08

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    Valleywag wrote a post speculating what could be Mullenweg’s “life change” mentioned in a recent twitter. This comes in the wake of a recent $29.5 million round of funding. Matt Mullenweg is the founder and creator of Automattic, the maker of wordpress, the blogging platform of which this and many blogs run.

    So what was the entrepreneur twittering about? The purchase of ma.tt, his new blog domain. .tt is the namespace for Trinadad and Tobago, and while it costs a hefty $500 a year to register, I can definitely say I’m jealous.

    WWF Luxury

    23
    Jan
    08

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    If you work in or around the luxury industry, this WWF-UK report released at the end of 2007 is a must-read. The Fund rated the world’s main luxury groups (L’Oréal, LVMH, Hermès…) on their environmental and social performances. In the trend of what Greenpeace already does with electronics, the document strongly recommends luxury firms to integrate sustainability issues into their business strategy. Quoting Pierre Simoncelli, Managing Director of Sustainable Development at L’Oréal:

    WWF’s report, Deeper Luxury, demonstrates that a quality product must involve a quality value chain, where everyone in that chain benefits and their environment is sustained. Bendell and Kleanthous’s analysis should be welcomed as an important contribution to the strategic planning of all high-end brands and their suppliers.

    So, go ahead, download (and read) the report here!

    via Core77

    We Wish You a Very Contagious Year

    22
    Jan
    08

    Contagious 2007

    Early in 2007 was when I first got contaminated with “Contagious“. It was their annual report “Most Contagious 2006’s” fault, as I was very well impressed by its content. “Contagious” is a mixed media (web + paper + DVD) publication that (like ourselves at The Trendwatch) is keeping a eye out for what shakes the web, what stands out and sets the trends.

    As John Harlow / Naked Communications puts it,

    “Contagious is a magazine which embodies its subject in the same way that Vogue does the fashion world; agenda-setting, aspirational and accessible. It, like its readers, is full of ideas.”

    You won’t miss out on anything that stood out from the crowd in 2007. You can download the fresh “Most Contagious 2007” 33 page PDF report right here.
    Since we’re talking about outstanding online publishing, here’s something for our readers who are more into unleashed creativity and graphic design. Another PDF format magazine that I enjoy a lot… and I hope you will too. It’s called “Truth” and you can download the 108 page PDF #4 edition for free right here. Check out the early issues too, they’re available for download!

    I wish you many good readings.




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