Sometimes marketing over promises and under delivers. Microsoft recently launched this video for their soon to be released evolution of the Xbox 360 platform that gives us a glimpse into the future of gaming. Microsoft is not known for over delivering on its products, so let’s hope it’s not all hype.

Rock Band is my sons favorite video games. I recently had the pleasure of playing the Beatles Rock Band game and was blown away by the graphics. Check out this opening sequence for the game that has been traveling around the web as a viral video.

Monopoly City Streets is  an online multiplayer version of the game Monopoly on an unimaginable scale. Now is your chance to be the greatest property magnate the world has ever known.

Goal of the game is to involve people from all over the world; they will be challenged against one another in an online game of Monopoly turning the globe into one giant game board, using Google maps to enable it. The game is similar to the board game, but lets you play on any street in the world – literally. Built on Google Maps the site gives the player $3 million in virtual cash to buy pretty much any street in the world and then build 3D buildings on their purchases.

The ultimate goal for players is to reach the billionaire level and qualify for the Monopoly World Championships. The official launch will be in October and it will run for four months.

Sharpie is connecting consumers online by letting them explore ways to be creative with the brand and sharing it with others online.

The campaign uses Facebook and YouTube to give advocates a place to demonstrate the ways they’ve Sharpie’d their lives. You can check out the gallery at Sharpie Uncapped. YouTube also sports how-tos for decorating shirts and other “useful information,”

The effort is also buttressed by the Sharpie Squad, a broad mix of creative but wholesome folk, like mommy bloggers.

http://www.sharpieuncapped.com/

Nice presentation on the power of Social Media.

The “Calling All Families” promotion is asking entrants to submit a photo of their families and/or friends in full-on football mode—decked out in NFL gear, or demonstrating their best game faces, or just in position around the tube with snack supplies at the ready.

Entrants can upload their original, unretouched photo to a microsite after registering with their e-mail address, their NFL team of choice and their favorite Frito-Lay snack.

At the same time, entrants must submit a written essay of 100 words or less describing exactly what specific behavior or traditions make their group the NFL’s “most fanatical family.” Submissions will be accepted until midnight Oct. 5, 2009. A judging panel from administrator Project Support Team will then select up to 50 photo-essay entries for advancement to the next round. Finally a separate panel of judges chosen by Frito-Lay and the NFL will choose up to 8 entries for the semi-finalist stage some time after Oct.19.

Those semi-finalist families will get to have their fanaticism recorded by NFL Films and posted to the CallingAllFamilies.com microsite. The films will be divided into two groups of four, and beginning Dec. 1, 2009, site visitors will have the chance to view them all, then vote for one favorite among each of the two groups per visit. Popular vote during this “conference round” ending Dec. 15 will determine the two finalist videos.

The “Super Bowl” voting round will commence on Dec. 16 and continue to midnight on Jan. 3, 2010. Whichever of the two finalist videos gets more online votes during that period will be named the grand prize winner. Only the entrant who submitted content to the game will win a prize.

Frito-Lay and the NFL will support the “Calling All Families” contest with radio and print ads and point-of-sale displays in more than 20,000 grocery, mass-merchandise and dollar stores, featur8ing the Tostitos, Doritos and lay’s brands in the promotion.

Frito-Lay North America is the snack-food division of PepsiCo. For the past several years, the business unit has run user-generated Super Bowl ad contests that have garnered widespread attention on Game Day.

Source: Promo Magazine

The emergence of digital media has created some very fundamental and important changes in the world of advertising. New digital technologies are creating a wide range of new possibilities for two-way communication and measurement. The power of promotions to cut through clutter and capture consumer interest and attention is also beginning to blur the line between advertising and promotional marketing strategies. These changes are  redefining the rules for advertising in the digital age.

Disruption is Dead
We live in an increasingly crowded media environment. The average consumer is disrupted by thousands of unwanted advertising messages every day. Many of those messages are repeated with a frequency that just creates clutter and forces consumers to ignore the message. Even finding the right customer and placing an advertising message in front of him or her does not guarantee interest.

Reaching consumers where they are, where they spend their time, and where their attention is already focused requires advertising to consider many more simultaneous channel and platform executions than ever before. In the 1970s, an advertiser could reach 80% of U.S. women with a 
spot aired simultaneously on CBS, NBC, and ABC. Today, an ad would have to run on 100 TV channels to come close to reaching that same audience.

As the world becomes increasingly digital, Mobile, advergaming, social networks, and interactive sweepstakes have become more important as ad channels. These channels have increased appeal in the digital world because they go beyond awareness to create an experience. Advertising can’t convey an experience which make them infinitely more effective than traditional advertising.

Integrated advertising strategies driven by a promotional idea that creates consumer engagement are increasingly being recognized as essential for success. The power of promotions to cut through clutter and capture interest and attention is also beginning to blur the line between advertising and promotional marketing strategies. Increasingly, these two separate budgets are being considered as part of one single integrated strategy, with digital technologies and media being used together with traditional media channels.

This trend will  become even more dominant as digital consumers — brought up in the online world — do not  consider advertisements a mandatory part of their media experience.

Move beyond Awareness
In the battle for the attention of the consumer, “time spent” is a valuable indication of whether the advertising communication has been successful. Delivering an ad impression does not necessarily equal attention or consideration. There are multiple levels of consumer awareness, but are they still relevant in a world where consumers have the ability to scan, fast forward, jump, or ignore messages with the touch of a button.

Therefore, moving beyond awareness & engaging a consumer is increasingly valuable and effective. Engagement for a significant period of time, especially if that engagement is interactive, clearly indicates that the message has been delivered to a consumer who has demonstrated an interest.

For a significant portion of the online audience, interactive promotions have proven to be extremely effective. Consumers pay attention to interactive promotions, and they remember them.

Focus on Results
Every marketer has real-world results they would like to achieve from their advertising. This goes beyond metrics and measurement to actual conversion in the form of an action including, sales increase, product sampling, or a consumer database developed they can use for ongoing marketing.

Digital media and promotions are increasingly being bundled into an integrated marketing, advertising, and promotional strategy that activates a consumer across the engagement cycle moving them from awareness towards a specific measurable action.

Brand not Bland Promotions
In the digital age, well designed websites, advergames, and online promotions create engagement but can also be used to create connections between consumers and with a companies brand message & values. This in the future of interactive marketing and the core of what we call promotions 2.0.

Brand promotions can create a unique connection between brands and consumers. Cookie cutter spin & win programs are easily forgotten, but promotional ideas that create an experience can actively engage consumers while reinforcing a brand message.

The integration of social network components into a promotion can also increase brand preference & consideration due to the value that comes from a trusted recommendation.

Reinforce Connection
Multiple channels and messages can make it harder to make advertising messages stand out enough to be remembered in addition a recent Nielson study show that 78% in internet users trust consumer recommendations over advertising messages.

Today’s consumer wants validation from other consumers, and the opinions and testimonials of their peers are more important and impactful than the same words from a company spokesperson or message. Digital media and mobile technologies provide new and powerful ways to accomplish this goal through their ability to reach & connect consumers across a variety of platforms.

Sweepstakes and other promotions can also reach consumers in a differentiated way, and if awareness of the promotion is driven by a consumer recommendation it can become a very powerful and memorable advertisement.

Build an opt-in database
One key difference between traditional media and digital media is the ability of digital media to easily identify its audience members and establish a two-way communication. Building a customer database creates a valuable resource that can be used to inform, reward, thank, re-sell, cross-sell, & up-sell customers, increasing the value of that customer.

Advertising can be used to drive potential customers to sweepstakes or contest entries where data can be collected about an individual. In fact, according to Jupiter research 82% of consumers are willing to provide personal information in exchange for a chance to win a prize or receive something of value.

The ease of communication today based on Social Networks, email, and text messaging provides the ability to deliver effective advertising messages, which can include anything from rich media components to a referral with the added benefit that it comes with a built-in testimonial from a peer.

Do Something Different
Ultimately, the last goal of digital advertising is to create differentiation in the marketplace. The more cluttered the marketplace the more important it is too stand out and create purple cows as Seth Godin would say.

The importance of sound creative ideas that engage consumers across different media channels, capture interest and drive towards an action cannot be overemphasized.Whatever makes the product or service unique or stand out from competitive products deserves special emphasis.

In a world where the consumer is in control, promotions, incentives, and rewards have become increasingly important. The power of promotions to elevate the impact of an interactive advertising message and engage consumers can be a powerful way to accomplish differentiation in the digital age.

Marketers are now shifting their focus from a one dimensional awareness approach to  integrated marketing strategies that leverage the engagement cycle to move consumers from awareness to conversion.

Unlike the sales funnel. Engagement is better thought of as a cycle, a series of touchpoints designed to create engagement with a brand in order to drive a purchase, each time in a meaningful and valuable way to both brand and consumer.

In the world of interactive promotions the engagement cycle is driven by three primary stages: awareness, activation, and conversion (or purchase). Throughout the cycle, marketers must measure in order to add value throughout the cycle.

Promotions play a prominent role in the engagement cycle and in integrated marketing campaigns because they excel at moving consumers from one touchpoint to the next, and they offer ample opportunity for direct measurement and learning. Promotions are also powerful tools for furthering key brand marketing goals: identify customers, segment customers, learn about the segments, and target relevant offers.

What’s new about an online engagement cycle? What distinguishes it from traditional advertising or promotion? Two key elements: it can create true two-way conversations on a mass scale and it can provide real value to both parties.

The Internet makes real one-to-one engagement possible, and while the focal point of integrated marketing is often an offline purchase, an online extension moves the conversation beyond the retail experience.

AWARENESS

The first task of any marketing program is to make the consumer aware of its existence. Promotions are designed to grab attention. One of the recurring themes in marketing today is breaking through the clutter. Where advertising drives brand awareness and emotions, promotions are more action driven, and therefore better at driving engagement & response.

Increasingly, we use the metrics of promotions to measure their effectiveness. In a recent survey 73% of online consumers said they were more likely to open an email if they knew a promotion or discount was being offered. In order to drive the engagement cycle, consumers must choose to participate—soft “impressions” don’t count— therefore promotions that target significant actions are important.

ACTIVATION

The fundamental element of activating consumers is a demonstration of the value in the proposed interaction. A value exchange. Do this, get that.

Money is easy, straightforward, and effective – especially in a down economy – but there are other valuable currencies that can work equally well when used correctly. Rewards points, sweepstakes and contests, can all go a long way. Today we’re seeing the creation of entirely virtual forms of value; in social networks like Facebook, virtual objects represent value to many participants.

The ability to increase the relevancy of an offer to an individual consumer, thus increasing its perceived value to that individual, is also getting a lot of attention. It becomes particularly critical for promotions because relevancy is directly connected to perceived value. Also, the sooner value is demonstrated after creating awareness, the more efficient the tactic, and so everything about how you present a promotion to the consumer is important; how it looks, the words you use—the entire user experience counts. Even more important in the Web 2.0 world is creating promotion ideas that give consumers a reason to share the promotion with others.

ENGAGEMENT

Online engagement is an area where promotions really excel. A promotion may touch 100,000 consumers, helping to start all those little conversations, but it is also just the beginning of the conversation. When you run the right promotion to engage consumers you can begin to understand your audience. Target offers that they will respond too. And move them from consumers to customers.

By shifting your interactive marketing focus from clicks to conversions you can begin to provide context and learning around each engagement, and in doing so, get better results from your marketing.

In the past several months, companies such as Burger King Holdings Inc., Zippo Manufacturing Co. and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. have experimented with promotional software applications that can be downloaded onto the iPhone, or they have created ads that are placed within other popular applications for the device.

At the most basic, marketers are taking advantage of the iPhone’s advanced video and screen capabilities by creating streaming video ads. But some are taking things further by offering ads disguised as apps. The latter allow users to do such things as play games or manipulate images by touching the phone’s screen.

Many marketers find “app-vertising” attractive because the iPhone’s audience has grown so quickly. The iPhone now has more than 20 million users, and more are likely to buy in because Apple is widely expected to unveil a new model in coming months. Analysts estimate that Apple’s iPod touch, which can also run downloaded apps, adds at least 15 million more users to the market.

In addition, many iPhone users are young, have high incomes and spend more time with their device than users of other types of smartphones. Consumers, once wary of using their phones for anything more than talking or texting, now seem to have an almost insatiable appetite for mobile applications. IPhone owners on average download more than 20 applications to their devices (upward of 40, according to some reports) and Google Android users are even more ravenous.

The market is sure to grow even larger as more companies leap in. Nokia, which has nearly 40% of the global smartphone market, announced that it would be entering the mobile-application fray with its Ovi Store (featuring 20,000 applications available for download) this week, joining competing offerings from BlackBerry, Google’s Android Market, Microsoft and Palm.

All of this is igniting the imaginations of brand marketers and ushering in a land grab for an increasingly valuable piece of real estate: the always-on device in our pockets.

Enter “app-vertising,” a new name for an emerging mix of branded mobile applications and in-application advertising that is finally poised to deliver on the promise of mobile marketing.

Around Valentine’s Day, Burger King launched a full-screen iPhone ad that included a minigame in which viewers could tap the screen to burst heart-shaped bubbles. The ad appeared in iPhone game applications.

Greystripe, a mobile-advertising network, says users interacted with the ad nearly 14% of the time that it was shown. Online banner ads, by contrast, generate an interaction rate of less than 1%.

Other companies are creating ads that exploit the iPhone’s accelerometer, which detects movement of the device. In September, Zippo launched a virtual lighter application that users can open by flicking their wrist. The flame sways on the touchscreen as the phone is tilted, and the app sends warning vibrations if the device is held upside down.

The free application got more than three million downloads, says Zippo marketing manager Brent Tyler.

More than half of the top mobile applications are games — and engagement for apps averages nine-plus minutes per session — so it makes perfect sense that the Audi created the A4 Driving Challenge game app. Taking advantage of the iPhone’s accelerometer (which allows the device to detect movement), the A4 game allows users to select courses, choose car specifications and more.

The next wave of mobile advertising will certainly be in-application advertising, and the creative possibilities there are limitless as well. Levi’s Dockers’ “shakeable” ad, built on the Medialets platform, is a great example of how savvy creatives can take advantage of the iPhone’s accelerometer to add motion to advertising — in this case, making a khaki-clad model break dance — when the user shakes the device.

So will “app-vertising” finally take off? Analysts certainly think so. Sanford Bernstein’s Jeff Lindsay predicts that the worldwide mobile-advertising market will explode, mushrooming from $700 million in 2008 to $7.2 billion by 2012. And with Silicon Alley Insider estimating that in-app advertising fetches a hefty $20 to $30 CPM, there’s no turning back now.

Sources: Wall Street Journal and Adage