F**king brilliant commercial

Yeah, well, I'm sorry for swearing, but this is the best commercial I've seen in a loooong time! A friend of mine shared it on FB today, but the video has been uploaded on YouTube since the end of August. My only regret is that I haven't seen it until now.

I'm not going to spoil it for you, so just enjoy! :)

Ice cream wedding

I've been meaning to write a blog post about ice cream. Not only because I simply LOVE ice cream, but also due to the fact that the whole of Sweden wants to ride the wedding wave created by the royal wedding to come. GB Glace, Sweden's largest ice cream manufacturer, have a clown, Clovve, as their mascot. Clovve will get married to Clovina, at Sweden's largest amusement park, Liseberg, on the 16th of May. Cute idea, and to honor their marriage (or possibly to sell more ice cream ;) GB Glace have come up with a special wedding ice cream cone; "Bröllopsstruten". And kanal 5 (a TV station) has created a whole campaign site, and will live stream the wedding on their site on the 16th.

Picture from GB Glace.

So, why I decided to write the ice cream post just today was that I saw (on Facebook, thanks to Anders Sporring) that 7Eleven/GB Glace give out one free ice cream cone per person (they have 5000 to give out) if you log on to their site using your Facebook account. Then you enter your phone number and get an SMS coupon that can be used in 7Elevens all over the country. (On the site they also have a counter, that counts down so you can see how many of the 5000 free ice creams are left.)

So, first they have a campaign to draw more attention to GB Glace (Clovve getting married). Then they give out free samples to even more strengthen the brand and make people love it. Clever. They even get your email address and phone number; you give them up voluntarily, because you know you'll be getting one of their delicious ice creams, for FREE! Even more clever.

Picture from GB Glace.

But what happened next is a short tale on how marketing campaigns make people (me) buy something they maybe didn't need.

I'm on a no sugar/no carb diet. I do it for multiple reasons, but I try, as best as I can, to keep sugar/carb intake as low as possible. So I don't buy ice cream. But then I saw the offer on Facebook, and thought: "Wow, a free ice cream. I can't pass on that, diet or no diet." I went to the site, entered my information while my mouth was watering form the thought of the ice cream. I got the SMS coupon sent to my phone, and went off to the nearest 7Eleven. Since I am in Stockholm right now, you're never far from one. On the way there, I call my husband, to tell him about this great offer. He had (of course) already seen it on Facebook and said; "but here in the north, were we live, we don't have any 7Elevens, so I won't bother." We had a short argument about whether he was right or not (and I must admit that I think he was), but this also made my craving for ice cream even bigger. I arrive at my 7Eleven, happy, thinking about the smooth ice cream running down my throat, only to find that they were all out of the wedding cone, Bröllopsstruten. Total disappointment. So, I take the next best route; I buy another ice cream. Of course I am disappointed, but I still have my coupon, I'll get my free ice cream another day, and I also have another delicious ice cream to munch away at right now, in the sun.

Picture from 7Eleven.

So GB Glace and 7Eleven "win". I fell for a cheap PR trick, went into the store, and came out with something I really didn't need or was planning on buying. Good job! ;)

Now, enjoy your ice creams out there, and I'll try to be present at Clovve and Clovinas wedding to give you a report.

(And yes, Liseberg wins too, since I'm actually considering paying the entrance fee just to go watch a fictional wedding... ;)

(And of course you can "like" Clovve on Facebook...)

Picture from Clovve's page on Facebook.

And again....

I just have to blog about this ICA commercial. In my opinion, ICA keep making hit after hit after hit. This time they "copy" the commercial for Gina Tricot, a clothes retailer. The TV commercial was released in the same day as the news that Gina Tricot's model for the last 7 years, Pernielle Holmboe, is being replaced with Brasilian model Emanuela de Paula.

There are different voices to be heard about the commercial. Many think that the agency behind ICA's commercials, King, is making it easy for themselves, parodising everything. I on the other hand, find the commercials funny. So what if they are "just" parodies? They get attention and people adore the ICA "family". Why not credit the agency for that?

ComHem <3 YouTube

ComHem, a Swedish internet and TV supplier, have made the coolest commercial viral video ever! ComHem's spokes persons are Judit & Judit, two middle aged women (twins?). Anyway, the latest commercial features popular YouTube clips, but with Judit & Judit acting out in the clips instead. The commercial is hilarious if you are interested in viral videos and their spread, and if you have spent some time on YouTube, you have probably already seen most of the original clips...

The video is, according to ComHem, a tribute to everyone contributing to the internet, making it what it is. Check out ComHem's campaign site (in Swedish). Here is a link to the English version of the commercial, and if you want to compare Judit & Judit's clips with the original clips, I suggest you try this YouTube link.

And I'm guessing this will become a bit of a viral video itself, since it has been played over 240 000 times since it was uploaded on the 28th of October. ;)

From True Love to True Blood...

I just got hooked on this really nice TV series called True Blood. The show is about vampires being part of the normal society (yeah, I've always had this thing for vampires ;), due to a newly invented "fake blood" drink, called Tru:Blood, substituting real blood, allowing the vampires to live amongst "normal" people and feed without having to kill their neighbours. When I did some research, it seems that they did a quite massive marketing campaign for the series before it aired.

Picture from hbo.com.

According to Wikipedia, the marketing company created an "viral marketing/alternate reality game" campaign, and they sent out encoded letters to bloggers. They placed "Sorry, we're all out of Tru:Blood"-cards in some beverage vending machine spaces. They also started selling blood orange drinks called Tru:Blood (like in the series) at HBO.com (truebeverage.com), and, not to mention, Vampire jewelry. More about the jewelry at Brandfreak, and more about the campaign at Marketingshift blog, (Marketingshift blog post is from last year, but the series just started airing in Sweden...)

True Blood is starting to be a hype here in Sweden, the series becoming a buzz (since only the 4 first episodes from season 1 have aired) and I really recommend you to watch it. (Check out SVT Play for some of the alreday aired episodes.)

Commercials

The blog has had lot's of posts about weddings lately, and not so much about advertising and viral videos, so I thought I'd share one of my favorite commercials/viral videos. This commercial for Volkswagen was never aired in Sweden, but it is hilarious! Enjoy!

Swedish Guerrilla Marketing blog (My Quest)

Yay! I found this blog: Icke-traditionella medier (translates: non-traditional media) that has posts about, yes, you guessed; non-traditional media, such as guerrilla marketing and ambient media. The blog is in Swedish, but contains lot's of pictures and film clips. It's hosted by a communication agency in Malmö; Crowd, and from what I can read on their webpage, they do quite a lot of guerrilla marketing campaigns. Me like!

Well, Crowd did a mini campaign together with one of my favourite agencies; Miami. It was during Eventdagarna, a Swedish fair for, amongst others, event agencies. The fair had the subject of "Event Marketing", and neither Crowd nor Miami attended. They sprayed water logos on and around the fair area, stating "Guerrilla and ambient are not events", in order to make a statement that they would have liked to have representatives from guerrilla agencies there, and that maybe the fair should not have been called Eventdagarna (The Event Days). Read an article about the campaign, from Dagens Media here.

I do agree that guerrilla and ambient are not events, BUT I do firmly believe that you might need to incorporate many different parts of different media in order to get a campaign that reaches your target group to a full extent. It is normally not enought to just buy an ad in a magazine or newspaper, you need to follow up with TV, maybe radio, a few events and maybe som attention-creating guerrilla actions.

Virality Communication

Virality Communication is a Swedish communication agency. Their blog shows different viral phenomena all over the world (and of course also some of the stuff the agency did for clients...)

A nice "viral" inspiration!

Speaking of viral marketing...

YouTube can lead to many hours of fun, and if you, like I, enjoy Starwars, this YouTube-clip is quite hilarious!

Oh, and today LoveEvent blog is featured at Mastercom blog, check out this post!

Sheep

My life seems to be revolving around sheep.

-A few weeks ago I posted a link to one of my favourite Youtube viral videos: LED Sheep.

-Everywhere around me is a commercial from Tele2, a mobile company who use sheep to tell how cheap they are (a stupid Swedish word-joke).

-And today I stumbled over a very interesting online marketing blog by Tara Hunt: ::HorsePigCow::. She has two very interesting blog posts (here and here) that discuss what makes someone want to interact and work with someone else ("going from transaction to interaction"), all illustrated by "throwing a sheep". I like the comparison, and I am also a bit amazed about what influence Facebook has on marketing terms, because I'm guessing this will catch on...

Me, a few years ago, with the sweetest lamb.

And just for the sake of it: sheep at Wiki ;)

Swedish Communication Agency

Stumbled over a Swedish Communication Agency: Hallvarsson & Halvarsson. Their Online Media department runs this blog, blogging about online media, PR, and how companies can take up more space online, and how they should use social media. Also about viral videos, Twitter, Facebook, marketing campaigns and more. Interesting, but only in Swedish.

Viral video, LED Sheep

Uploaded on YouTube on the 16th of March (about a week ago) and already viewed more than 2 million times, this amusing video (which seems to be a commercial for Samsung LED TVs) has had a huge impact. It would be really interesting to see how much the traffic has increased on Samsungs website during the last week...

coolbrands

coolbrands is a cool marketing agency working with story telling for brands. A description of what they do can be found on their website here. They use viral branding and other methods that I have discussed earlier...

Really interesting!

Guerrilla marketing = ambient marketing?

I came across a new term today, that I haven't heard before: ambient marketing.

Just for me not to forget: amibent media @ Wiki, and a very interesting definition from Google answers. It touches ambient marketing, viral marketing and roach bait (which I hadn't heard of before either).

To be investigated further within the near future...

Guerrilla or viral?

Hmm, I just realised that one of my previous posts (found here), about Seth Godin going Guerrilla, should probably really have been called "Seth Godin goes Guerrilla AND Viral". He is not only promoting his book with very little (and maybe somewhat unconventional) means, he is also asking you to spread his message (the book) by viral marketing. You, reading the book, telling your friend, who tells his sister and his colleague, who tells their families, and so on... Smart.

Well, I just keep learning more and more stuff, every day. I love it! :)

Viral marketing (again)

For more reading about Viral Marketing:

At Wiki: viral marketing.

At Web Marketing Today: The Six Simple Principles of Viral marketing.

Viral Video Marketing

Check out this blog post, about Viral Marketing. Mike Laurie (who is a digital planner at JPMH Integrated Marketing Communications) has, on JPMH's blog Ship's Biscuit, tried to identify different patterns within viral video marketing, videos mostly posted on YouTube or forwarded by email, by someone who might do it for fun, or maybe even by a company wanting to market themselves. If you are "smart" enough to get your brand name into one of these viral videos, you have got yourself some "free" marketing. I discover new and interesting stuff on the internet all the time, and I intend to write more about this phenomena.
I haven't checked out the full article/post yet but I will sure do!

BTW; I got the tip from Seth Godin's blog, of course ;)