A breath of Fresh air

The Tic Tac brand has embraced the digital environment to engage with consumers while introducing two new products to the family.

The bigger 24g Tic Tac pack replaces its 18g counterpart in all the traditional flavours offering consumers 33% more mints, but maintaining the same pocket-ability as the 18g original.
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New kid on the online polling block

The Global Poll, a new online polling service, has been established to help generate conversations about ‘anything and everything’ and serve as a market research tool.
The polling site allows users to undertake a poll or vote at no cost, then captures results and voter demographics and presents them live.
It will also offer an onsite text polling service that allows event coordinators, marketers and venues to organise an instant opinion poll or competition by asking attendees to send their answer using their mobile phone.

To celebrate its launch The Global Poll will be running a competition for voters and pollsters, inviting people and organisations to submit poll questions they would like to see live on launch day.
The three prize packages, valued at $2,173 each, will be awarded pollsters submitting the most popular poll question prior to launch, for pre-registering their details prior to launch and for voting on polls.
“[It] is based on user-generated content – pollsters and voters will lead where the website is going through their questions and answers and will have the opportunity to comment on poll results through our blog,” says The Global Poll brainchild, Bruce Mott.

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Social Email Campaigns to Increase Nearly 400% in 2009

A record number of email marketers plan to bridge the gap between online social networks and their email marketing campaigns.As a result, the number of social email initiatives is expected to grow 367% this year, according to research from Ball State University, the Email Marketer’s Club and ExactTarget (via MarketingCharts).

The collaborative study, designed to gauge marketers’ opinions and plans for integrating email marketing with social networks, surveyed 351 email marketers in March and found that while only 13% leveraged the power of online networks last year to grow their email subscriber list, more than 46% plan to use social media and email together in 2009.

Moreover, 88% of those who said they used social media and email together in 2008 plan to continue using it this year.

Despite surging demand for and interest in the integration between social sites and email among marketers, the study found that success with such integration remains largely uncharted. Consumers remain reluctant to invite marketers into social environments because they don’t want to see the channel overrun with irrelevant commercial messages, ExactTarget surmised.Staying relevant and understanding the target audience will be increasingly key to overcoming these challenges. "While the global reach, rapid adoption and high engagement found in social media have email marketers salivating at the potential these environments offer to engage with customers and prospects, the real challenge is how best to facilitate meaningful interactions," said Morgan Stewart, director of research and strategy.

Stewart suggests marketers able to align their messaging and build a quality following within social networks will potentially see positive results.

More information about the study is available in a whitepaper, "Expanding the Reach of Email Through Social Networks," available from ExactTarget.

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Charity Uses Non-Plated Food from Events to Fight Hunger
By Gwen O’Toole

A not-for-profit organisation which collects left over food from restaurants, venues, caterers and corporate kitchens in Sydney, Wollongong and Canberra has asked the industry to come together to fight hunger for one day. OzHarvest has delivered more than 3.3 million meals to help the disadvantaged since 2004 and prevents good food going to waste in a landfill.

The organisation is asking all Sydneysiders to donate what they would normally spend on lunch to Share Lunch Fight Hunger, a one-day initiative aimed at helping the hungry, homeless and need, to be held on May 20.

They are asking Sydneysiders to donate $10 — the price of a sandwich and coffee. All money raised will go to OzHarvest, allowing them to continue rescuing unwanted and excess food. Founded by an Ronni Kahn, an event organiser who was shocked to see how much un-plated food stuff goes to waste, OzHarvest uses six vans to collect and delivers 105,000 meals a month to 153 charities. “For over two years, OzHarvest has provided invaluable support to our residential programs in Sydney by delivering meals for the resident young people in our crisis refuge and semi-independent living program,” said Youth Off the Streets founder, Father Chris Riley, whose organisation is just one of those assisted.

“OzHarvest provides Youth Off The Streets with more than 1000 meals a year, meaning we are able to direct our resources helping youth in need towards direct care and opportunity provision,” he said.

To enquire about having OzHarvest collect excess food from your venue or event, or to register a company or individual to participate in the Share Lunch Fight Hunger event, click here.

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Melburnians fall victim to comedy show hoax

LAW-abiding citizens handing in fake police evidence bags to police stations have become the victims of a comedy show prank.
A NSW marketing company has planted 300 evidence bags containing white powder and a plastic spoon around the Melbourne CBD and inner-city suburbs to promote the Melbourne International Comedy Festival show, Comicide.

The marketing company expected unsuspecting participants to follow the instructions on the label and go to a website where they would discover they had won tickets to a comedy gig.
But instead members of the public handed the authentic-looking evidence bags into police stations.

City worker Michelle Sheehan said she was “very confused” after finding a plastic evidence bag containing a plastic spoon taped to the door of her office building at Southgate.
“It looked like a genuine police evidence bag,” she said. “I thought it must have been left behind by police investigating a crime, and someone had posted it on the building to alert security to it.”

Ms Sheehan became concerned and referred the matter to the building’s security guard.
“I let the building’s security guard know and I think she may have alerted police,” Ms Sheehan said.
“I didn’t see anything on the bag relating to a comedy show. It may be a clever promotional idea, but probably would have been more helpful if it had actually advertised the show.”

Police could not confirm how many of the bags had been found but said at least two had been handed into Richmond Police Station.
Yarra Acting Insp David Watt said the prank was a “waste of time” for those who had handed in the bags and police officers who investigated them.

“If it takes a watchhouse keeper half an hour or an hour that is other stuff they are not doing for people with legitimate problems,” Acting Insp Watt told the Melbourne Leader.
“We like a joke as much as the next person … but we are not suffering, the time we apply to this is time away from the public.
“They are better off just finding other ways to advertise that doesn’t take police resources.”

TalentCake.com marketing manager Renee-Lea Thackham said she tried to make the bags look authentic by ordering evidence bags from the US, handwriting cast members’ names as suspects and creating fake police divisions.

There was no mention of the comedy festival on the bags except for the name of the show which was listed as the type of offence.
“I thought a prank would be the best way to launch the campaign at the comedy festival,” Ms Thackham said.
“The show does push things to the limit and I thought this would be a way to represent that.”

Ms Thackham said she was contacted by police after they had received four bags and wanted to know what it was about.
“Obviously we don’t want to take away police time, we put a big sticker with instructions to go to the website,” she said. “We assumed nine out of 10 people would do that.”
She said the marketing team had received more than 60 calls from people who had gone to the website and wanted to claim their tickets.

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Preparing for natural events – the French way

A giant pink mouse, an armchair and an inflatable handbag floating on the river Rhône, right in the centre of the french city of Lyon. A random event perhaps? in this case designed to educate people on the flood risks inherent to France’s most powerful river.

This "happening" art designed by architect Jacques Rival at the request of local authorities, is intended to attract the attention of passersby, inviting them to learn about the risks of flooding of the Rhône. Further to the river installation a more conventional and informative exhibition located is also in a nearby barge.

Large floating objet d’art can not fail to provoke reactions. "It makes me think of a giant that would have left his seat, smiles Alexandre, 22. We should have called the police but the police didn’t know what it was". The pink mouse, lying on its back, lit at night, is over 10 meters long and five meters wide and should float until November. Called " Quietude" (Harmony) the installation represents everyday life, through objects such as the mouse and the chair to evoke comfort at home as if they were familiar household items lost on a river that can take everything in its path.

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Advertainment, or how to make ads entertaining

By Audrey Stuart

CANNES, France

Forget the irritating 30-second ad slots that break up TV shows – a new generation of interactive advertisements is on the way.
As the television industry feels the pinch of falling advertising revenues and increased audience fragmentation onto a multitude of screens – online, mobile phones, video games – broadcasters and advertisers are seeking alternatives to the old interruptive TV ads.

"The crisis has exacerbated the effects of the multiplication of screens," advertising guru Sir Martin Sorrell told the recent MIPTV entertainment trade show here.
"Free-to-air traditional television will not die. It will still be the most effective way of reaching the largest number of people in the shortest possible time," he said. But, like print, TV will never be the same again, added one of the most influential men in advertising and the CEO of the giant WPP group.
This provided a chance, he said, "to develop content attractive for the new platforms." [...]
Advertisers "must stop interrupting what people enjoy and start becoming what they enjoy," said Christophe Lambert, co-founder with well-known film director Luc Besson of France’s first so-called "advertainment" production company, Blue Advertainment.

[...] Ad-funding is already key on hugely popular social networks such as Bebo and a number of Web TV services including Hulu, Joost, and latest newcomer, Zillion TV.
But with innovative advertising ideas just beginning to come on stream, it looks as if the main alternative to the 30-second ad will remain "branded entertainment" – creating ideas that bring entertainment value to brands via sponsoring events, and using product placement, where well known brands are prominently placed in a film or TV show.
The Gap Year challenge, for instance, that premieres worldwide in May this year involves 13 advertisers including Cadbury/Schweppes, Sony (PSP) and even the Royal Air Force.
In the show, six participants selected through an interactive auditioning process, embark on a six-month trip around the world during which each keeps a daily blog.
Brands are part of the video content and tasks and challenges the contestants face along their journey, with users on the popular Bebo website following the trip and also setting challenges for the contestants.

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Volvo Brings Twitter Feed to YouTube Display Ad

Volvo on Wednesday became the first advertiser to host a live Twitter feed inside a display ad on YouTube, making novel use of a tool that’s been available to the site’s advertisers since 2006.

The ad, part of the campaign to introduce the Volvo XC60, carried the tweets of EuroRSCG executives attending a demonstration of the car’s safety features outside the New York International Auto Show at Manhattan’s Javits Center. The feed was brought to the ad unit via DoubleClick’s rich media dynamic data feed capability, which is most often used to stream product or weather news within display ads.

"It’s never been used for a Twitter feed before," said Rachel Nearnberg, a Google spokeswoman. "That was the agency’s creative innovation."

The ad was also the largest expandable unit ever placed on YouTube’s home page. Initially a 960×250 masthead unit, it expanded to more than twice that size, filling about half the page when rolled over by a user. It included video, photos, a 360 degree view of the car and a video game that highlighted the XC60’s "City Safety" feature, which prevents collisions at speeds under 10 miles per hour.

Alyson Yaffe, Volvo account director at Havas Digital, said Volvo wanted to do something special with its first YouTube front-page ad, as Google had not been offering them for long — only since late last year — and users weren’t yet inured to them.

"They don’t have one every day, so the cool thing about it from the media perspective is that users aren’t accustomed to seeing an ad there, so it stands out more than it would on a Yahoo home page or MSN’s home page," she said.

Sites like YouTube have been increasing the functionality and size of their display ads in recent months as online ad spending has slowed. Nearnberg stressed that while YouTube could offer the tools, it depended on the agencies "to bring their vision to the technology."

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how much? oh, $50,000 should cover it!

Despite a rising unemployment rate and a nation worried of it’s future economic status, the average cost of weddings in Australia has risen 25% in the past two years to be $49,202 according to news.com.au

This brings music to the ears of wedding professionals who have also been hit by our economic downturn. It seems brides haven’t forgotten how important your wedding day really is. Wedding professionals are starting to offer services such as payment plans, extended payment terms and even lay-by, ensuring the industry continued growth through these difficult financial times.

Recently married and featured in The Discerning Bride, Amanda, remembers her planning and budget for her wedding. “At first we weren’t really sure how much to budget for our wedding, however after doing some research we thought that $40,000 would be a reasonable budget. By the time we were back from our honeymoon the total cost of the wedding had totalled at over $100,000. When we started planning our wedding we had no idea how many great wedding suppliers there are out there and the new and innovative additions that could be made to our big day. We realised that we could have opted to go with less expensive suppliers however we realised that we only get one chance at this day and we could easily see the vast difference in quality when we thought of cost cutting. If I had the chance to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing!”

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Hearst, Coupons.com Soup Delish.com Up with Gallery

Today Hearst Magazines Digital Media (HMDM) will announce a liaison with Coupons.com. The pair plans to launch a gallery within the Coupons & Deals section of Delish.com, a food site.

Featured online recipes will be powered by Concordance, which weds words mentioned in recipes to relevant coupons. The coupon gallery will also plug an opt-in "Super Saver" email program, slated to go out once weekly. It will be managed by Coupons.com and co-branded by Hearst, reports Folio. A link to the gallery will also appear on the main nav of each site.

Hearst ran a similar, month-long program for its site QuickandSimple.com. According to SVP/GM Chuck Cordray of HMDM, users downloaded $100,000 worth of coupons (approximately 55,600 coupons total) from that effort.

"With more than 5.5 million unique visitors logging on to Delish.com each month and an increased number of promotions on the site, we expect coupon printing volume to be at an all-time high," Cordray stated.

December stats from comScore found online searches that included words like "coupons" rose 161% to 19.9 million. Meanwhile, searches with the word "discount" rose 26% to 7.9 million year-over-year.

A more recent research collabo between Platform-A and Information Resources reported 40% of shoppers are likely to use coupons accessed online — data supported by Inmar, which found that coupon redemption in Q4 of 2008 grew 10% compared with the same period the year previous.

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Northcote artist wins delicious competition

For the second consecutive year, Northcote women have taken out the popular Koko Black Creative Drawing Prize.

This year, Antonia Glavic’s illustration Koko Rising, of a little girl with bunny ears floating up on a cocoa pod, beat 250 other entries to win the Judges’ Prize.
The deciding panel included National Gallery of Victoria assistant curator of modern art Emma Mayall and renowned children’s author and illustrator Alison Lester.
“It’s the first time I’ve entered so it’s exciting to be recognised,” Ms Glavic, 24, told the Leader.

Her prize includes a $3000 art fund, a 12-month NGV membership and a year’s supply of Koko Black chocolate. Last year’s winner, Northcote’s Nadia Turner, went on to have a book published of her original illustrations.

Ms Glavic said she hoped she could do the same.
“Ideally, I’d like to do book illustrations, children’s books, as well as for publications such as magazines,” she said.
Ms Glavic is in her second year studying for a diploma of illustration at NMIT Preston.

Koko Black founder Shane Hills said in that this year’s challenge, artists had to reveal what or who was emerging from a magical egg.
“As a panel we were impressed by her artistry, originality and distinct interpretation of the brief,” Mr Hills said of Ms Glavic’s piece.

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Cadbury® Family Picnic & Easter Egg Hunt

Families can enjoy a magical day so be sure to pack a picnic and come along to join in the Easter fun. Tickets sell out fast so be sure to get in early!

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