Tostitos Says No to Fun, Yes to Production Budget

Take a look at this latest effort from the junk food purveyors at Tostitos. Nolaf.org is the “official” site of an organization dedicated to stamping out fun in all its forms—with one of the main forms being the mirth that results from eating a handful of Tostitos.

 

The fake organization idea is not a new one. But give the people behind this work credit for doing it right. They created thirty different videos with high production values, all tied together in a smooth experience. The casting is good. There are even special effects. And a lot of the stuff is funny. I think the target, which I assume to be young males, will spend a lot of time with this. If you want more information on what went into the work, here is a press release from Mekanism, the San Fran-based digital production agency that helped created Nolaf.org.

 

What the clients at Tostitos clearly understand is that today, when it comes to creating sticky  experiences for the online space, you need to spend money. It seems simple, but many clients still believe that if the media is “free”, production should be no or low-cost as well. Or better yet, have consumers create your content. It simply can’t work that way on a consistent basis. Not if you want to use online space to really build your brand in a way $800,000 commercials never could.

The Beaver Would Be a Great Mascot for What Product Aimed at Women?

Feminine hygiene products can be tough to advertise. And I should know, since I work on brands in this category. It is no secret that most people—both men and women—don’t feel all that comfortable taking about pads, tampons and everything else associated with period products. Which is what makes this site for Kotex in Australia so interesting.

The site is just one part of a multi-media campaign that features a friendly beaver reminding girls and women that Kotex has great products that will help them “take care down there.”

 There have been calls to have the commercials banned from TV. Which, I think, is one of the points this campaign is trying to make.

Bad Breath Can Be Dangerous

Mouthwash is tricky. I don’t mean using it, although I have had my share of mishaps caused by gargling that turned into gurgling. No, I’m talking about marketing mouthwash. The product treats a serous problem that one just naturally wants to make fun of.   

Well, in this site for Scope mouthwash (created by the Canadian arm of huge Japanese agency Dentsu) the advertiser joins in the fun. The “Test Your Breath” experience asks you to breathe into your computer’s microphone (ummm…right) and then shows you the effects (and the special effects) your malodorous breathing might have on unsuspecting folks around you.  

While the site is amusing and a has good production values, I can’t help but think they missed something here from a marketing perspective. I mean, if someone is interested enough to go to a site selling a mouthwash, shouldn’t they have the opportunity to find out more about the product if they want? Here, once you see the joke, there is nothing else to do except play the “game” again. There is not even the possibility to link through to the Scope site. Engaging a consumer online is fine, but giving that consumer a way to continue the engagement is even better.

“Happiness” Comes to Those Who Wait….and Wait

 The team at Attention Shoppers! has finally visited the latest offering from the slap-happy inhabitants of Cokeland (we know we’re late to the happiness party, but we had laundry to sort).

Well, this version of “The Happiness Factory” is certainly a piece of work. You might even call it a piece of art work (commercial art, but art nonetheless). The animation is stunning. The story in the movie you’ll find on the site is charming. The games are first rate. But the site is really, r e a l l y , s   l  o   w.  

I know that we often have to make creative and technological choices when it comes to delivering consumers an awesome experience while watching those pesky load times. But this site took FOREVER to load. And the “movie” gave me one of those stop-and-start performances that drive one nuts (on subsequent visits the movie played smoothly, but there was still a rather long wait between sections of the site).  

Of course, it might just be that a bunch of folks were hitting the site, or my ISP, at the same time. But, given that it was 7:30 on a Saturday night, I kinda doubt there were that many other losers hanging out online or at the Coke site.   

So is there a lesson here? I know, based on my own experience/mistakes, that any time you make a user wait more than a few seconds for a marketing experience (no matter how awesome it may be) you will lose between 25 and 50% of your audience. They simply won’t wait around for you. You were probably interrupting them, pulling them away from something else they were planning to do, in the first place.   So, while the judges at Cannes may wait 10 seconds for a screen to load, the judges in Duluth, Minnesota will probably not.

Did You Elf Yourself?

 

If you work in marketing, you undoubtedly have heard about the amazing success of Office Max’s Elf Yourself online viral campaign. In fact, even if you DON’T work in marketing, there’s a very good chance you know about this effort, which ran over the holidays. That’s because an astounding 110 million people experienced the elf effect themselves during the campaign’s run (If by some strange circumstance you have no idea what Elf Yourself is—you just came out of a two-month coma, or you spent the last six weeks in a Tibetan monastery, for example—it consisted of a site that allowed people to upload photos of themselves and loved ones and place the pictures on the bodies of dancing elves, then send a link to anyone who would find this interesting. The best way to describe the result is that it was very cute).

  

Elfers even set up their own Flickr page to proudly display their photos, and dozens of them uploaded their handiwork to YouTube. Tons more blogged about it and put their Elf selves on their blogs. Good Morning America even ran a story on it. All that makes Elf Yourself the most successful viral campaign in the history of the internet, by a long shot. At least if you measure success by pure numbers. And we are talking huge numbers here, with an ROI that must certainly be off the charts. Whether it has had any real impact on Office Max’s business in an entirely different matter, which we will address in the next post.  

  On a side note, if you google Elf Yourself, the paid search ad that appears on the results page is for Toy, the agency that created the campaign. That’s smart.   

But exactly what made Elf Yourself so popular, and so wildly viral? Here is a good article from AdWeek that includes a decent analysis. At Attention Shoppers! we also have a pretty good idea why people had an irresistible urge to turn themselves, their family members and even their pets into dancing elves:

 

1. It was quick and easy—the interface and photo upload user experience was very well done
2. The end result, for many people, was something they had never experienced before, and technically and creatively it was excellent—it made people smile
3. It was a very singular campaign—the folks at Toy and Office Max who were in charge of the project didn’t overcomplicate the experience
4. It was all about personalization. As we are quickly learning, personalization is one of the keys to viral and WOM success. People love making themselves the center of attention, and the internet makes that easier than ever
5. And, very importantly, Elf Yourself launched during the time of the year when people most want to share greetings with others.

  So keep all this in mind when your clients demand the nearly impossible and ask you to create something like Elf Yourself for them. Because they will.

Bare Breasts for a Good Cause

What could possibly cause scores of women to take pictures of their bare breasts and upload them to a website for all the world to see? Well, any number of things, I suppose, but what we’re talking about today is a controversial new site launched by Schick, the manufacturer of women’s razors, in Canada.   

The site is called, quite simply, The Booby Wall—you’ll find it here. The effort is part of a larger campaign to raise awareness that breast cancer can be successfully treated if it is detected early enough. According to the folks at Schick and ReThink, the charity the Booby Wall supports, many women, particularly young ones, are intimidated and confused about how to do a breast self-examination.  The site gives them simple instructions on how to do so.  

Many of the uploaded pictures include dedications to women who died from breast cancer. Others are dedicated to loved ones who beat the disease. But the most powerful and poignant photos are of cancer survivors themselves.  

Of course, not everyone thinks that the Booby Wall is a good idea. Take a look at the comments on the bottom of this article. While I can understand the critics, for my money this is a bold, brave move for Schick. It has lots of people talking about breast cancer and self-exams, and that’s a good thing. I only wish that the connection to Schick could be just a little more evident. It seems like you could exchange the Schick logo with that of virtually any brand aimed at women.  As companies  move more money into cause marketing campaigns such as this, ROI will undoubtedly become increasingly important.  

Special thanks to MaryGrace Whalen of Digitas for sending this my way. 

Down With Campaign Sites, Up With Product Sites

In my last post, I discussed how short-term campaign microsites were rapidly falling out of favor with both CPG clients and agencies. And for good reason. Since most traffic to these sites is driven by online ad campaigns (with an average clickthrough rate hovering stunningly close to zero) it is simply too expensive to drive significant numbers of people to a site where, chances are, they will probably never return.  

However, I do not put product sites in this same category. Far from it. In fact, I believe that most CPG companies are not getting nearly enough benefit out of these sites. The reason? The sites don’t provide enough value to consumers. Simply putting information about your product on the site is not nearly good enough. You need to offer consumers something else. And what might that be? Preferably, something your brand/product can own.  

For example, one of the clients that I work with at Digitas is one of the world’s most popular laundry detergents. They attract hundreds of thousands of visitors to their site every month, by positioning themselves as an expert in stain removal. 

So what can your CPG client or product own? Figure that out, provide information and tools that give value to consumers, and you will have a product site that helps build your brand and increase customer loyalty.

Microsites are so, like, 2005

I read an article in Adweek a couple of weeks ago essentially questioning whether microsites were in the process of dying a quick death. Based on what I am seeing in the marketplace, I don’t think it’s happening yet. In fact, microsites make up a lot of the work that you see highlighted in this blog. Because so many clients and agencies are still creating fantastic—and fantastically expensive—microsites. But based on what my clients are telling me, and what the measurement and analytics folks at Digitas tell me, I believe we will be seeing fewer and fewer microsites. And I think this will happen sooner than later.  

As loyal readers of Attention Shoppers!  know, we have long been an advocate of placing your messages (or, better still, offering something of value for your customers) where consumers are already hanging out, as opposed to trying to come up with something that’s interesting enough to get them to leave what they are doing and go to your website—fabulous though it may be. 

So while there are still a ton of consumer packaged goods marketers trying to drive consumers to microsites through online campaigns (with a clickthrough rate of less than .05%), smart marketers and agencies are doing deals with Facebook, iVillage, Yahoo and AOL. Not to mention tons of other sites where hundreds of thousands, or millions for the big names, of consumers go every month. CPG marketers are either attracting consumers’ attention on these sites with clever banner ads (which do what TV and print ads do from an awareness perspective) or offer much deeper experiences with a content partnership deal with the site or rich media banner. 

Of course, that’s not to say that all websites for CPG companies are a bad idea. Product sites are a must. And some of them are working harder than ever to build brands. But that’s a subject for another night.