Twix Has Axe Envy and Helps You Get the Girl

I imagine that most people enjoy a Twix now and then. And, judging by this elaborate online campaign from the aforementioned candy-hawker, most Twix customers enjoy getting the girl now and then. That is the premise of this site, which walks on ground already covered by several brands, most notably Axe.

 

The premise of the video-based experience is simple: you follow a guy as he attempts to entice a comely lass to accompany him to his apartment. Along the way, the video stops in a situation where you are asked to chose between two alternatives (all the while, our protagonist is chewing on a Twix).

 

Overall, it’s not poorly done—they certainly spent money on casting and shooting—but it does feel a bit done. Worst of all, I tired the thing three times and it locked up before I could see what happened when the dude got the girl to his apartment.

Ellen is the New (Surprise!) CoverGirl Model

You may have heard that CoverGirl has a new model: Ms. Ellen DeGeneres. This is significant for any number of reasons, and says as much about changing attitudes in our country as it does about Ellen’s incredible appeal to the audience of one of America’s most well-known CPG brands.

 

At this point, there is nothing on the CoverGirl site but an announcement. However, given Ellen’s talent,  I would expect to see something really interesting in the near future. My Digitas collegues in New York have worked with Ellen on American Express, and the results have been fantastic.

 

Here is an article about the announcement. And another. Rest assured that Attention Shoppers! will alert you to any big Ellen/CoverGirl news the minute (or at least the week) that it happens.

Brazilian Monsters Hawk Fruit Juice for Coke

As promised, here is another site recently featured on FWA (the Favorite Website Awards). At Attention Shoppers our Portuguese isn’t what it used to be, but we THINK the site is called Valley of the Monsters.

 

The purpose of this delightful valley filled with fun-loving monsters is to promote the juice brand, Sucos Del Valle, which is a division of the Coca-Cola Company. Clearly aimed at kids, there is certainly a lot to do in the valley/amusement park. While not “knock-your-socks-off” stunning, the animation is very good and the games and comic books are fun. The navigation is not always super clear however, but that may just be that the average Brazilian kid is smarter than your average Attention Shoppers! staff writer.

Another Dutch Treat: The Colorful Flexa Paint Site

Faithful readers of Attention Shoppers! will be familiar with the FWA website. FWA stands for Favorite Website Awards, and the site is a veritable treasure trove of interesting web executions from around the world. Our next couple of posts will feature sites recently given kudos by this influential site.

 

First up, the charming site for Flexa, a brand of house paint hailing from the Netherlands. Now, at Attention Shoppers! our Dutch is a little rusty, but you don’t need to speak the language to appreciate the beauty and simplicity of this enviable site. Combining beautiful photography with a clean, smooth layout and navigation, Flexa has created a site that is both useful and inspirational. It is the type of site more CPG companies should emulate.

Revels Asks Consumers to Evict a Flavor

UK sweet Revels is taking a page from the M&M’s playbook (not surprising since both are Mars companies) and inviting consumers to help determine the destiny of their favorite candy. In this case, however, Revels is asking people to pick which of the six flavors (there are only six Revels to a pack, all different flavors, including chocolate, raisin, orange, caramel, coffee and malted milk) should be evicted from the pack to make room for a new mystery flavor..

 

Called Revels Eviction, the site is a fun experience, with high production values, including a helicopter shot of breathtakingly beautiful, rugged cliffs. The idea is simple: you choose the manner in which your least favorite flavor should be evicted. I hate coffee (as do 41% of the other voters, making coffee the runaway winner, or loser as the case may be) so I chose to have it shot out of a cannon.

 

You can also join the Revels fan page on Facebook. One minor complaint: if they were going to go to all the trouble of a video shoot on location the least they could have done was shoot a number of different beginnings and endings.

 

Facebook’s New Ads and Betty Crocker

The kids are headed back to school and Attention Shoppers! is headed back to the blog. While the entire staff was busy sunning ourselves on the semi-clad French Riviera, the good folks at Facebook were hard at work trying to figure out how to monetize one of the most popular websites in the world.

 

Their latest big idea is a new format for advertising aimed at “engagement”. There are three beta testing advertisers, including CPG stalwart Betty Crocker. As I understand it (and you can read about it in AdAge and see if your understanding is any better) the ads are served up to a specific audience and you can interact with the rich-media executions without leaving the banner. One of the stated goals of the ads is to get  more people to join the fan pages which already exist on Facebook.

 

I could not find the ad, but I did check out the Betty Crocker fan page, and with less than 3,000 fans, it seems like there is work to do in any case.

 

All this Facebook activity made me want to check out which CPG companies were most popular from a fan perspective. For some reason, nearly all of them are food-based products, including Nutella (a favorite in the Attention Shoppers! household) which holds the number four position with around 380,000 fans. In fact, all of the most popular brand fan sites in the CPG world involve food (including Pringles, Hersey, Oreos, Red Bull and M&Ms). The first non-food CPG product on the list is MAC cosmetics, with a relatively anemic 61,00 fans.

 

This year, advertisers will continue to try to make sense (and dollars) out of social networking sites.