A DIFFERENT TYPE OF AGENCY

As a collective, The Factory Interactive is fueled by a passion for developing enduring messages conceived through a marriage of design and technology. At the core, we are explorers of possibility and architects of memory. We create rich immersive experiences that increase message retention and reward the audience. Our mission: give personality to products, resulting in a stronger, more effective brand.

_{September 17, 2009}
Anheuser-Busch- Getting it in the Can _{By jason}

It looks like more traditional shops are getting into the viral video game. I came across this online online ad from DDB this morning. The spot with it’s thinly veiled innuendo of anal sex will surely be a hit with the YouTube, college crowd and make it’s way into your inbox soon (sorry..that pun was just way to easy).

However with 80% of the US beer drinking population dominated by males…is this really the best association for the beer? Shouting out “Hey bud, give me one in the can” is sure to turn more than a few heads in a crowded bar.

Filed under: Agency News,Marketing,Media News — Tags: advertising, agency, Anheuser-Busch, social media, viral campaign — @ 11:08 am

_{February 12, 2009}
Fictional Ad Personality wins Twitter’s First Annual Shorty Awards: _{By jason}

The Advertising world was all a twitter (sorry couldn’t resist) over the fictional Ad personality Peggy Olson’s win at the Shorty Awards. This 1st annual award honor users of the microbloging site, Twitter‘s 140-character messages art form, known as Tweets.

The winner in the advertising category caused some controversy as it was won by a user impersonating the fictional character Peggy Olson from the TV series Mad Men.  The Twitter user @PeggyOlson appears to be unconnected with the show but tweets in character, corresponding with a full counterpart cast.

Peggy Olson

“The Shorty Awards was conceived by the techies, Greg Galant, Adam Varga and Lee Semel, last fall and the format has been met with mixed reviews.  The main reason for the discontent is the two stage voting and selcetion process. The first round to determines the finalists and the second crowns the victors. The contest does not involve judging by any sort of objective Twitter expert. Nor did it include a comprehensive review of tweets to determine who used the format most effectively.

The larger concern by many is exactly who is behind @PeggyOlson.  Is it (as many suspect) the ad agency behind Mad Men, a rogue writer or just a very dedicated & creative fan ?

An even more pressing question is “who is guarding your virtual life”.  Twitter’s explosive growth of 752%, for a total of 4.43 million unique in December of 2008 begs the question “who is tweeting about you ?”

Twitter's Explosive Growth

Are you monitoring your social media buzz ? How are you measuring your client’s virtual street cred ? Are you being defamed on Twitter, or are you missing out on massive opportunities ? How can you keep up with this crazy wired world ?

Here at The Factory we utilize a wealth of tools on a daily basis to monitor, track and stay up-to-date with social trending on twitter. Here are a few that may you may want to incorporate into your daily life.

First off we follow each other on twitter – You can follow me here.

Gogole trends- shows how often a particular search term is entered relative the total search volume across various regions of the world, and in various

Twilert -  Twilert is a Twitter application that lets you receive regular email updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service, well any keyword you like really.

Twitterholic -  these twittastic robots scan the Twitter public timeline for new twits to tweet. A few times a day,they calculate individual statistics for each twittering twit & spit it out to a database.

Twitter Search -  See what’s happening — right now on Twitter.

Twitter Influence Cloud – Enter any Twitter username to see their influence in Twitter or have a look at the Twitter Influence cloud or the Twitter Influential 100

MIBAZAAR- This Google trends & Twitter search mashup is an attempt at looking into why certain keywords on Google Search is trending up by looking into who is twittering that keyword

Tweepler -  Tweepler Is an easy, more enjoyable way of processing your New Twitter Followers. View a list of New Followers and classify them in one of two “Buckets” Follow (meaning you wish to follow them back) and Ignore (meaning you don’t wish to follow them and want to archive them out of the way, reducing clutter).

Hope this helps you get up to speed with the Twitterati, my next blog post will be on Why Twitter may be Google’s only real competition.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: advertising, culture, google resources, social capital, social media, social networks, twitter — @ 12:01 pm

_{February 4, 2009}
Crowdsourced Doritos spot dethrones Anheuser-Busch’s #1 Ad Meter dynasty. _{By jason}

According to AdAge after 10 years the king of beers, Anheuser-Busch, has been dethroned as king of the Super Bowl Commercials by a $2000 user generated spot.

AB has long dominated the ad world with massive advertising budgets  ($237.9 million according to Competitive Media Reporting) and this in part has lead to a 10 year dominance of USA Today’s Ad Meter rankings.  That was until Frito-Lay and the arrival of the Herbert brothers.

Super Bowl XLIII was Frito-Lay’s third Super Bowl contest with Doritos. Theses consumer-generated spots have scored fourth on the ad meter for the past two years.  According to Frito-Lay’s VP of marketing, they “decided to see what would happen if they made a concerted attempt to win, tossing in a $1 million bonus to participants.” Well the results speak for themselves.

Joe and Dave Herbert, two brothers from Indiana scored the Super Bowl spot by winning the contest.  The spot “Free Doritos” features a guy who shatters a vending machine with his crystal ball (actually a snow globe) after predicting free Doritos for everyone in the office.  The real punch line however is when a fellow co-worker nails his boss in the groin with said crystal ball, after asking about a promotion in his future.  Sophomoric, maybe…..funny, definitely !

Here is the winning Doritos spot.

According to published reports The Herbert brothers plan to use their $1 million bonus to get started in feature film making. The two brothers quit their day jobs in 2007 after being finalists in Doritos’ first “Crash the Super Bowl” contest.  The strength of the spot and the negligible $2000 cost has the Ad world on it’s rear.

This will no doubt have many at the big Agencies scratching their heads ? Maybe (as stated in my previous  posts) it may even re-kindle a small thing called creativity. A component noticeably absent form many of the 33 spots sown at this years Super Bowl.  The real winner here however is Frito-Lay for embracing Crowdsourcing and growing their brand on the principles participatory design.  It may be high time that every creative director and brand manager read up on the works of Susumu Ogawa and Frank Piller.  Check out their 2005 paper over at MIT’s Sloan Management Review. (Collective Customer Commitment: Turning market research expenditures into sales). This paper explains the principles of Crowdsourcing using two case studies, Chicago-based T-shirt maker, Threadless and Japanese specialty furniture retailer Muji. This is a must read for anyone seruiusly interested in learning more about user-centered innovation.

So congratulations to Joe and Dave Herbert, for proving that the idea is still king and to Frito Lay for democratizing Innovation. Now where did I put that damn snow globe ?

Filed under: Agency News,Media News — Tags: Ad Meter, ads, advertising, Anheuser-Busch, Crowdsourcing, Doritos, innovation, super bowl — @ 12:23 pm

_{February 3, 2009}
Peta Super Bowl Ad banned from TV – again ! _{By jason}

Let me start by saying that I’m not for or against PETA nor am I condemning NBC for pulling this spot. However if NBC had a problem with the veggie love commercial, wait till they see what else PETA has been cooking steaming up.

According to the PETA website NBC nixed the ad, saying it “depicts a level of sexuality exceeding our standards.” The following is the list of shots NBC requested before they’d reconsider placing the ad:

• licking pumpkin

• touching her breast with her hand while eating broccoli

• pumpkin from behind between legs
• rubbing pelvic region with pumpkin
• screwing herself with broccoli (fuzzy)
• asparagus on her lap appearing as if it is ready to be inserted into vagina
• licking eggplant
• rubbing asparagus on breast

Here is the PETA spot for your viewing pleasure.

Veggie Love:

‘Veggie Love’: PETA’s Banned Super Bowl Ad

I for one don’t see it any more provocative than a Victoria’s Secret ad or the Carl’s Jr. commercial in which a woman rides a mechanical bull while chowing down on a greasy beef burger. This spot is laughably tame  compared to PETA’s other recently banned commercials. Most of these I am sure never made it over to NBC, or any other media network for consideration.

WARNING – these get very hardcore both the milk gone wild commercial & chew on this are graphic and hard to watch.

Sexy Sausage: Director’s Cut

Too Hot for TV: PETA’s Banned Ads

Milk Gone Wild

WARNING – graphic and hard to watch.

Too Hot for TV: PETA’s Banned Ads

Chew on This

WARNING – graphic and hard to watch.

‘Veggie Love’: PETA’s Banned Super Bowl Ad

I wonder what the censor’s list would look like after they viewed that little selection. So what do you think ? Has PETA gone too far or is NBC justified in calling for the commercials to be edited ?

Filed under: Media News — Tags: advertising, banned, commcerdcials, NBC, PETA, super bowl — @ 12:15 pm

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