ZenithOptimedia

Barclays bank in the UK launched a viral online money management game a few days ago, called 56 Sage Street.

Aimed at a younger audience, the game focuses on challenging the player by offering various in game jobs. Players then progress through their 'career', improve their reputation and appearance, and eventually get the better paid jobs. However, players need to make careful decisions, as there is an opportunity cost when declining one job in lieu of another. Thieves and loan sharks will also attempt to trick the player into giving away their hard earned money. The world in 56 Sage Street is complex for what it is, offering over 100 interactive hot spots for the player to explore.

56 Sage Street draws on proven formulas for gameplay, siphoning features from these successful games

• The Sims User interface is very similar to actual gameplay in The Sims.
• Foursquare Unlocking certain achievements, and being able to share it with friends via social media.
• Guitar Hero Keyboard is used to play a guitar hero style mini game in certain levels.

Users don't have to create a new username and password in order to play the game. The whole signing up process is streamlined by using one's Facebook login details.

Game milestones can then also be shared via Facebook, and also Twitter.

So, how much would this game have cost to develop? An estimated £200,000.

(download)

Click here to download:

barclays-launches-a-free-money-management-game-aimed-at-teens-HgmcDwqGslyDtetDbrtv.zip (68 KB)

Certainly one of the lauded territories for the future of mobile technology and devices is the ability to make payments and micro-payments using swipe technology.

This recent Age article http://www.theage.com.au/money/saving/abcs-of-banking-by-smartphone-20100727-10tuu.htmltalks to this technology and more importantly the views of consumers about this technology and how they perceive it.

The key points taken from the article are these;

• Mobile phones are becoming payment devices.
• Take-up in Australia could be limited by distrust of telcos.
• People are worried phones will become de facto credit cards.
• There's also concern about children accessing such services.
• Already, people need to consider the financial security of their smartphones.

Perhaps then more secure systems like vouchering and alike now have a real chance to prosper as an interim step in this change.

At ZO digital, we have a little institution called "Chart of the Week", or rather COTW (Yes, we love our acronyms), where we share interesting graphs, infographics and the like.

So, here's my COTW contribution I thought I'll share on the blog.

Tom Tom and Garmin shares have pretty much been on the decline since the following:

• advent of free navigation software like Google Maps, 
• more and more people starting to realise that they don't need to spend the equivalent of a smartphone on a specialist device just for maps
• costly annual subscription fees

The chart below shows Tom Tom and Garmin shares having a dip with the announcement of Google Maps software for smartphones, circa Q4 2009.

Darth and Yoda are sold separately of course. Put the dark side next to the light you can't.

 Recent numbers being bandied around penetration of these devices in the AU market are a little bit of guess work, but we've recently been told a few numbers that appear pretty close - so we're going to put them down here:

iPhone - predictions are 2.4m - that's just over 10% of all mobiles in AU
iPad - the numbers are a bit harder but is suggested to be in the region of 350-400K devices

The other little nugget we got thanks to AdMob was the stat that the majority of iPhone and iPad impressions are actually originating from Wi-Fi. Incidentally AdMob claim to be ale to reach about 50% or 1.3m of the iPhones in this market.  

The troubled iPhone 4 launches in Australia this Friday, so expect numbers to swell further.

This is a truly wonderful and interactive digital outdoor execution - using cameras, interactive characters and of course a real life setting to literally draw the crowd into interaction with the billboard.

Watch how excited people get.

I picked this lovely little execution up via QBN.com You can read more about this over here

Click here to download:

Old Spice Real Time Case Study (1).pdf (5.41 MB)

(download)

Click here to download:

Old Spice Real Time Case Study (1).pdf (5.41 MB)

Here is a nice little case study from YouTube on the Old Spice campaign that recently rocked the online marketing community, and evidently a few of the target market too.

The BIG numbers to note are:
- 180+ video responses
- 8.8M YT channel views
- 134K YT channel subscribers
- 655K facebook friends
- 86K twitter followers

Not bad for a brand that you would have thought might have given up decades ago

ZenithOptimedia and Publicis were thrilled last night taking home with 5 of the 11 IAB awards, including best in show for Lion Nathan's 6 Beers of Separation.

All in all it was a great night, and thanks to the IAB for such a great party.

The awards we were successful in achieving are listed below.

Category: Branded Content

Agency: ZenithOptimedia
Campaign: Tooheys Extra Dry - Six Beers of Separation
Client: Lion Nathan 
http://www.6beersofseparation.com.au/

ZenithOptimedia challenged its target audience of 18-24 year old males to prove the theory of ‘6 Beers of Separation’. Born from the notion that everyone in the world is connected by six degrees, could you meet the person on the planet who inspires you the most, in six steps or less, simply by meeting different people over a beer? Four people were given the opportunity to go on this journey, armed with a six pack, travel money, a camera crew, and 18 days to prove it. The campaign ran for nine months with 20 per cent of overall media budget allocated to digital. ZenithOptimedia created a mobile site and episode content was featured across iTunes, social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube as well as Foxtel television. Traversing 150,000km over three Continents, the campaign proved a huge success. Video content has been viewed 700,000 times and there have been 630,000 unique visits to all digital destinations, 21,398 downloads from iTunes and yes, four people did get to meet their idol.

Credit also goes to the great folk at BMF, Myne, @ Radical and Holler Sydney for all their excellent ideation and creative execution.
 
Brand Loyalty and Retention

Agency: Publicis Mojo and Virgin Mobile
Campaign: Member’s Lounge
Client: Virgin Mobile
http://memberslounge.com.au%7chttp//facebook.com/memberslounge%7Chttp://twitter.com/memberslounge

Bringing to life the “Retention is the new Acquisition” motto, Publicis Mojo and Virgin Mobile created a destination mobile site to engage and reward existing customers. The Member’s Lounge site captured the vitality of the Virgin brand, loading it with inspirational lifestyle cues for an experience-seeking urban audience. With initiatives such as Free Beer Fridays - giving customer free beer just for being a member - the site proved extremely popular. Well over a quarter of the entire Virgin Mobile customer base has visited the site since its launch in September 2009 and monthly visits has been well above target, averaging 85,000 unique visits, while repeat visits sits at 25 per cent per month.

Brand Destination Site

Agency: Publicis Mojo Melbourne
Campaign: The Adventures of Freddo
Client: Cadbury
http://www.freddo.com.au/

With an 80 year history of branding in Australia, Cadbury and Freddo needed to connect with the younger generation. Publicis Mojo Melbourne created an interactive narrative adventure with activities and games where families could explore and engage with the brand. Daily three minute episodes were uploaded, triggering content-related games, puzzles and activities. At the end of each episode, children were encouraged to switch off and go outside, with printable activities to keep them thinking, creating and staying active. The site successfully targeted children and parents with 60,000 Australian families registering to be part of the adventure. Over the course of the campaign, 500,000 episodes were viewed and 15 million minutes were spent in Freddo’s online world - that’s an astounding average of 20 minutes spent per visit to the site.

Cross-Platform Integration

Agency: Publicis Mojo Melbourne
Campaign: The Art of Walking
Client: Tourism Victoria
http://www.theartofwalking.com.au/

Publicis Mojo Melbourne’s campaign for Tourism Victoria not only succeeded in the judges eyes, it has been dubbed the most successful Tourism Victoria competition ever. The centerpiece of the campaign was a 48-minute feature-length documentary. Users were given the chance to watch The Art of Walking in bite-size pieces, as well as discovering exclusive web videos, photos and diary entries, all mapped using Google. An online content aggregation plan added exponential visibility and distribution, with over 220 pieces of content uploaded to YouTube, Flickr, and GoogleMaps. Results include the competition element of the campaign generating over 15,500 unique entries, the Art of Walking documentary being distributed to 400,000 readers by Fairfax, and the National Geographic Channel is broadcasting the film in 16 countries in 2010.

The campaign has the dual objectives of creating awareness for the BOLT collection as well as increasing foot traffic to Foot Locker retail locations.  As such a unique mechanic was conceived to get our core targeting of athletic 18-35 year old's out of their seats and into the streets.

The PUMA City BOLT is designed to be exhilarating but simple: promoted online via search engines, Facebook and YouTube, and leveraging the contagious attitude and fervour that is Usain Bolt, aims to lure our audience into two Foot Locker store locations on the SAME DAY (the catch), the participant will then have their picture taken with a Foot Locker Staff member in each of these locations to be later uploaded online. A mini-site has been created here www.CityBolt.com.au and user can also find the promotion via a tab on the PUMA Running Facebook Page.

The competition will be exciting and fast paced – daily winners have a chance at winning 14 daily prize packs consisting of: 6 x Bolt Collection Packs, 1 x Pair Yugoron Footwear, 1 x Bolt Collection Tee, 8 x Xbox 360 Arcade Console Packs. A grand prize of $2,000 CASH will also be drawn at the conclusion of the competition period.

Usain Bolt, the fastest man alive, has been instrumental in the design and attitude of this PUMABOLT collection; a lifestyle product at sporting elite level which features his signature pose –the Bolt arms.    

What is trademark monitoring?
Trademark monitoring is the ability to pro-actively guard against unauthorized use of a brand’s registered trademarks.

Why is Trademark Monitoring important?
In search, brands can fall victim to trademark or copyright violations when a brand’s competitors or affiliates bid on the brand’s trademarked terms or use those terms in their ad copy. This can allow the brand’s competitors to steal traffic from the brand. In terms of affiliates, it could be a violation of the terms and conditions agreement with the brand.

How does Benchtools support trademark monitoring?
This month, Benchtools is releasing a new feature called the Trademark Monitor Report, which will help VivaKi agency search teams protect their clients from copyright and trademark violations. After uploading trademarked terms into Benchtools, a user can view all competitors’ ads, the first and last time they were seen, and all redirection URL’s associated with an ad.

What is Benchtools?
Benchtools, is the ZenithOptimedia (Vivaki) proprietary source of competitive intelligence for search marketing campaigns.  For any client, Benchtools can identify the main competitors, including: keywords they are buying, ad copy they are running, strategies and investments they are making in SEM and SEO, overall coverage and position across months, and more. Benchtools pulls ads every three hours. Users can also view and download a copy of the HTML page as proof of the potential trademark infringement and associate programs fraud.

Trademarking is an important consideration, and ZO are geared up to help our clients identify any such threats from their competitors.  

Looking for an alternative to "words with friends" (the latest iPhone obsession) then try Penguins literary challenge. Penguin Books have launched a socially enabled online game to promote their 75th Anniversary series.

Participants have to match book titles with 75 clues - all taken from an animated party setting. Users can share and ask for help via facebook connect which also updates friends and of course collects a nice fan base for Penguin.

Those who do well can win a stocked bookshelf.

Great execution - and lots of memories here.