Tuesday, May 3, 2011 at 10:00AM 
I was meeting with a new client a few weeks back and we were talking about a new product launch. I asked them if a marketing strategy had been formulated yet.
Friday, April 1, 2011 at 10:49AM 
Over the course of my career in marketing and advertising, I have worked on both B2C brands and B2B brands. Yet, one thing that has always astonished me is how most agencies treat B2B marketing and advertising.
Friday, February 11, 2011 at 9:57AM ;)
You may have heard that Taco Bell has been under fire for advertising beef tacos that do not contain enough actual beef in its meat filling to justify calling it beef.
Monday, February 7, 2011 at 12:37PM ;)
Another year & another Super Bowl (XLV) with all the hype that surrounds it—and I'm just talking about the Super Bowl XLV TV ads, which, it could be argued, has almost eclipsed the game itself.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010 at 3:43PM 
For all the hype around the Internet and its ubiquitous nature, good old-fashioned TV always reigned supreme when it came to killing time. For years, the average American
Friday, December 10, 2010 at 3:00PM 
Comedy Central released their new logo yesterday. It’s a brave move away from their traditional logo.
Friday, November 19, 2010 at 3:00PM ;)
Links are what makes the Internet the Internet. It's a simple idea and one we all take for granted.
Friday, October 29, 2010 at 10:37AM 
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. The time when ghosts, ghouls and creepy things emerge from their hidden depths and burst through to the mainstream to run amok on your computer screen.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010 at 3:54PM 
There is a battle going on for your location-based, disposable-income dollars, and the latest salvo has been launched by Google with their Google Boost product.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010 at 4:00PM 
We blogged about Promoted Tweets back in April when the new advertising model was first announced, proclaiming Twitter to be on the right track in their quest to monetize the service.
Friday, September 17, 2010 at 4:00PM ;)
It’s difficult to justify a long term SEO strategy to someone when their boss is breathing down their neck, demanding to see improved traffic at next week’s meeting.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 4:36PM 
Twitter launched a microsite for New York Fashion Week (NYFW) last week sponsored by several Fashion Week players such as American Express, Bergdorfs and Modelinia
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 4:00PM 
Without the help of big marketing budgets, many small businesses have hit it big thanks to exposure through Twitter.
Friday, August 20, 2010 at 4:00PM ;)
Foursquare was doing very well for itself. It was marching along at the head of the location based services (LBS) trend with almost three million users having fun by “checking in” to restaurants
Friday, August 13, 2010 at 4:00PM Internet memes come and go so quickly that sometimes they’re old news just as you’re hearing about them (Sad Keanu Reeves I miss you). At any given moment there are several memes floating around. This summer has seen great blending of brands and quirky fads.
Friday, July 23, 2010 at 4:00PM 
Facebook is on the verge of finding the elusive answer of how to fully cash in on its 500 million users scattered across the globe. Banner advertising has made them a chunk of change, but hasn’t generated much relative to the size of its audience, especially outside the US.
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 4:00PM 
As reading this blog requires you to be on the internet, it’s a pretty safe bet you’re familiar with the Old Spice campaign that has the entire web talking. And, hard as it is to believe on our jaded internets, the talk is almost universally positive, even the YouTube comments.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010 at 4:00PM
Create an account – After all, you can’t create an effective Twitter campaign without a focal point. Create an account and customize it as much as possible. Refer to our SEO and Twitter post to understand how to maximize your Twitter profile.
Establish a hashtag – It’s important to establish a hashtag early. The sooner a hashtag is created, the easier it will be for people talking about the event to start associating themselves with it. We recommend a short four or five character hashtag. The world’s largest comic book convention, San Diego ComiCon, attracts around 400,000 people over a weekend. To keep everyone informed about events and unite the attendees, they use the hashtag #SDCC.
Tweet early and often – Nothing gets people more excited about an event then announcing activities, celebrities attending and special giveaways. It’s good to start tweeting at least 2-3 months before your event. This will allow you to build an audience, tweet teaser announcements and get the hashtag in circulation.
Offline matters – Odds are the first exposure a person will have to an event will be through a printed flyer or newspaper ad. Just like you would put your event’s URL in the advertisement, you should add your Twitter hashtag as well.
Add it to your website – This may seem obvious, but so often events forget to link their Twitter account from their website and even more often never mention the hashtag associated with the event. People are looking for this information, and it can be just as important as directions and ticket prices. After people get the directions and buy the tickets, they want to find out who else will be attending. Having the hashtag on the website will enable attendees to communicate more easily with each other and stay informed.
Live stream from event – Let people know what they missed and give them a reason to attend next year by giving up to the minute Tweets about what’s happening.
Post tweet – After the event is over, keep the good feelings alive by continuing to tweet. Keep your audience informed about changes, new guests and other news associated with your event throughout the year. The more active you are on your Twitter account, the easier it will be to activate people the next time your event rolls around.
Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 4:00PM
Location-based apps are the hottest thing going right now. Leading the pack is Foursquare. Foursquare isn’t the first location-based app on the market, nor is it the biggest, but what it does have going for it is that it’s the current media darling. The star of this year’s SXSW, this app is proving it’s not just for letting people know where you like to eat and shop.
The system is simple: you check-in to a location, earn badges for multiple check-ins and score points which, in some instances, can lead to real-world rewards from retailers. Local restaurants and bars have started offering free drinks, appetizers and discounts to the person that checked in the most to their establishment. Now you’re seeing the likes of Bravo, Virgin Airlines and Harvard University taking advantage of app to further reward customers. We searched the web to find examples of companies using this simple app in ingenious ways and found four great examples.
Harvard University has teamed up with Foursquare to create a campus-based game that rewards students who check in to locations with badges and helpful bits of information. The idea is to encourage students to connect with others and explore more of the campus. It’s a brilliant way for freshmen to learn about the university and connect with more people.
During New York Fashion Week, fashion designer Marc Jacobs created a “Fashion Victim” badge. It allowed customers during the week to check-in at any Marc Jacobs store to unlock the badge. Four people who unlocked the badge in New York received passes to attend the Marc Jacobs fashion show.
Shoe phenom Jimmy Choo has established a treasure hunt around London using Foursquare. A pair of Jimmy Choo trainers check-in at a location somewhere in the city and whomever checks-in and says, “I’ve been following you” to the pair of trainers before they leave the location will win a pair of Jimmy Choo training shoes. People can track the trainers through their Foursquare user page and their Twitter profile.
Desperate to stay relevant, The Wall Street Journal has created special badges that provide interesting facts about New York City and reviews of local business and movies. It’s always great when a print giant like the WSJ embraces new media instead of fighting it like so many other print outlets.
Hopefully you now feel inspired to craft a location-based campaign of your own. Feel free to share any bright ideas.
Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.
Friday, June 4, 2010 at 4:00PM Recent efforts show that marketing success with this new tech is well within reach
The challenge of using new technology in marketing is numbing yourself to the novelty of it and finding a genuinely good idea. And though most fail, a few succeed brilliantly. We’ve been looking to use augmented reality in an upcoming project and did some research to see what has already been done. What we found were some amazing applications that solve the target’s needs, while wowing them with shiny things at the same time.
Here are the best campaigns we’ve come across and why they were a success. Maybe they’ll inspire you to come up with some brilliant applications of your own that you didn’t even realize were possible.
Slap a virtual watch on your wrist
So you’re thinking of dropping a chunk of change on a new watch, but not quite convinced it will look as dashing on your wrist as you imagine. Why not try on a digital model first? Tissot is betting you’ll want to take their new range for a test drive. It starts with a paper watch you cut out from their magazine ads (you can also download it from the site). You put the paper watch around your wrist, go to the Tissot site to download the software and hold it up to your webcam. You then see a 3D model wrapped around your wrist. You can cycle through the new range and even test out some the watches’ features. It’s extremely cool, has drawn loads of media attention and fills the need of potential buyers to try out a watch before buying beautifully.
The dude is unsettlingly devoid of emotion, but the watch is nifty
Take a BMW for a spin on your desktop (the wooden one)
They could have just gone with creating a nifty 3D pop-up model (like Mini did), but for the Z4, BMW kicked it up a notch and created art. Or rather, they let you create art. Using a simple printout, a Z4 pops onto your desk and you can drive it around, leaving colorful tire tracks in your wake. When your street art is complete, you can save and share it via YouTube or Facebook with one click, thus expanding the campaign's footprint and making it spread organically simply by virtue of being fun and drawing fans more intimately into the BMW experience.
Such pretty donuts. Mmmmm....donuts.
Explore the 3D world on your tongue
Since augmented reality springs to life just by using a simple pattern, you can slip it into almost anything. Even the tongue of your shoe. Adidas has created a 3D city (complete with the Death Star) that springs to life when you go to their website and hold the shoe up to your webcam. You can then navigate the city and play games using the shoe as a controller. It’s pretty dang cool and adds a unique selling point for their sneakers in an overcrowded market. The brilliance of the idea is that it adds a whole new digital dimension into the product itself, instead of creating a one-off gimmick that’s glanced at and forgotten. This way, the 3D world is always on the tip of your tongue. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
3D city! Storm troopers! Lasers! Overstimulation!
Enroll in alien police academy
The film District 9 used a highly interactive augmented reality app to spread awareness and deepen fans’ experience of the sci-fi world. By visiting the website for Multi National United, the fictional government organization in charge of policing Earth’s alien inhabitants, you can go through an augmented reality training simulation on how to deal with day-to-day tasks, like non-human arrest and shooting at monsters. The campaign is a clever take on the film world and adds depth to the story, increasing viewers immersion and extending engagement beyond the cinema.
Working for the man is fun when they give you a machine gun.
Get your own mud soccer cheerleader
In the most ambitious campaign I came across, UK brand Dairy Crest have set up an elaborate mud soccer contest. In order to win a slot for you and 5 friends in the Frijj Swamp Soccer World Cup 2010, complete with your own Swamp Soccerettes cheering your team on, users hold up a Frijj bottle in front of their webcam to enter a real-time environment. Oh, and a swamp soccerette crawls out of the bottle and does a cheer for you. The campaign cleverly capitalizes on the World Cup fever among its target and encourages them to get involved in a footie tournament of their own while their blood is boiling for some action. Plus, it’s so quirky you can’t resist seeking out more info to see if it’s real.
The connection between mud and milk is left mysteriously unsaid
Inspired yet? If so, check out this article for some great practical tips on creating an augmented reality campaign before you get started. And if you’ve seen any other great augmented reality campaigns, share them in the comments section below.
Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.
