Doritos Invites You to Crash the Super Bowl Party and Leave with A Million Bucks.

 

Doritos has a long (in web years, anyway) history of using the online space to reach their target audience (teen junk food eaters) more efficiently. For the past two years they have been inviting consumers to create a Doritos ad to run the one night of the year that people actually watch commercials.

This year Frito-Lay is once again combining user generated content and the Super Bowl to strike fear in the hearts of TV-centric agencies everywhere. In fact, the intro to the site invites anyone with a video camera and a half-baked idea to “take down the Ad Pros”.  Ouch, as if things weren’t bad enough for the Ad Pros.

All interested Ad Pro wannbes need to do is upload their spot. Then other people vote on which commercial deserves to run on Super Bowl Sunday. The first year they ran this promotion, they offered the creator of the winning spot a paltry $15,000, which is what an ad agency generally spends on drinks at the wrap party for an “Ad Pro” commercial shoot. However, this year Doritos is upping the ante. You could win a cool million buckeroos if your spot is chosen and runs that night. Oh yeah, it also needs to finish first on the USA Today Ad Meter poll. Given the quality of the current spots folks have submitted, Doritos probably doesn’t need to worry much about handing out that cash. 

McDonald’s Makes Japanese Kids Happy—Happy Meals, That Is.

We are not sure if the cliché, “You are what you eat” translates easily into Japanese. However, we are sure that the saying cannot be brought to life with any more fun and whimsy than this online campaign for McDonald’s in Japan. Whether it would work in other countries is a whole ‘nother story.

Parents are invited to upload smiling photos of their offspring, which are then turned into walking animated avatars with Mickey D’s finest epicurean offerings as the tykes’ bodies. Your kid could be a walking, smiling cheeseburger, for example.  Or a creamy shake. Here’s some more info on the effort.

 

Of course, with the obesity issues we have in the US, McDonald’s will probably not recreate the campaign here any time soon. If they ever do, they should probably avoid the “Supersize My Kid” option.

Kodak Says It Can Make Me Super. Do You Give an Elf?

 

Poster of Attention Shoppers! staffer being Super

 

The fine folks at interactive shop EVB, famous for the Elf Yourself campaign, are trying to catch lightening in a bottle once more, this time for former film-giant, now digital camera and photo-sharing giant, Kodak.

 The premise of the Make Me Super site is simple and similar to Elf Yourself. You visit the site, upload a photo enter your name (if they have it) and then you can watch a video of you as a super hero doing mundane tasks as a soundtrack sings your praises.

 There is also the possibility of downloading a poster of yourself as a super hero (but not the video, which is too bad). You can also buy lots of nifty Kodak merchandise—a nice coffee mug of you as a super hero for the office, perhaps—and upload your video to the site, but only if you register with Kodak’s photo-sharing site.

 That is one reason why we feel this probably won’t be nearly as popular as Elf Yourself. It’s a bit more complicated—simple rules with viral—and, frankly, it feels a bit done.

The Economy Stinks, So Hannah Gets Drunk and Has a Blind Date

 

The crack research department at Attention Shoppers! has been spending the last two weeks analyzing what’s going on with the economy and how it might affect marketing spending in the online space.  The early returns are not encouraging.

 

First of all, one would think that these tough times would see a flight to the most efficient, most measurable marketing possible (and it is quite easy to make a very strong case for the online channel).  However, it is our feeling that in scary times, clients tend to scurry for the comfort of the familiar. And as we have noted many times in this blog, the online space is still way too UNFAMILIAR to many clients.

 

According to this article, online spending will be looking at lean times, at least in the short term.

 

It’s enough to drive an online marketer to drink. Which is precisely what Dove does in this new execution brought to you by Ogilvy Toronto and the Barbarian Group from Boston. Dove continues to push the envelope in the space, and this latest execution is no exception, with drunkenness and breast-feeding and blind dates and lots of video. All in all, it is very well-produced, as we have come to expect from Dove and Ogilvy. They spent big money on this. Don’t they know we’re in a recession?

General Mills Gets It Together Pink

Attention Shoppers! has discussed cause related marketing several times in the past. That’s because the increase in cause-related campaigns owes much to the internet. And CPG companies are among the most active in the area.

 

We recently came across another great example of how the internet multiplies the power of what brands can do to help a cause. Together Pink comes to us via a group of General Mills brands: Yoplait, Cheerios, Progresso Soups and Nature Valley. However, the branding is very subtle. In fact, if you’re not looking for it—and few consumers will be—you might miss it.

 

The individual brand sites, however, also have sections promoting the effort. The experience is hosted on My Space, and it is a celebration, of hope and of fighting and surviving. Women are invited to share their stories of struggle and triumph, and other women are encouraged to offer them flowers of support. There is a lot of content, including blogs and video, and General Mills is driving to the experience with online advertising and on-pack communication.

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.