Nice example of letting people create their own behavioural incentives

“Make a flexible personal commitment that will get you to the gym. Set the number of days per week you want to exercise, and the monetary stakes you’ll pay if you don’t.”

Intel’s ‘Museum of Me’ – More than 440,000 people created their own museums in the three days following launch. More than 150,000 users took advantage of the built-in one-click sharing mechanisms, by publishing their exhibition catalogues directly to Facebook. In total, more than 21 million impressions were recorded on the social network.

from….

You have to keep your mouse pressed down on the car for as long as possible (and occasionally perform random tasks like ‘press the T button now’ – to check you hadn’t taped your mouse button down and wandered off). 9000 words of heavy sales copy is thrown at the player while they sit there. The prize is getting to drive it for a week.

My gut reaction to this is that it represents what I really don’t like about participative marketing. Yes it’s an old-school salesman technique but, considering what a pointless thing it is to ask people to do (and with all the technological opportunities in the world) it seems pretty lazy to me to just replicate it online. What does that say about the type of brand you are? And these cars look like the more expensive in the range – is this game meant to reach and appeal to the potential buying audience?

…I would be interested to hear if anyone thinks i’m being overly critical and this is a good way to reach warm leads, delivering them with loads of reasons to buy.

But despite the iPad being around for almost a year, so far, i’m yet to see a truely brilliant use of advertising space on the platform.

I haven’t got an iPad myself, so i’m willing to be proved wrong, and yes, some brands have created great applications for the device. But from what i’ve read / experienced on others’ precious machines, the advertising within apps (such as the Telegraph) has been as static as the ad offline.

Most ad folk now flinch at the idea of ‘making the poster move’ online, so it surprises me that they don’t even bother doing this on tablet…

One example I have seen which shows a bit of creative thought is Ford’s ad for their Mondeo model…you can wipe the ad with your finger, in much the way you wipe steam from the shower glass, enabling you to see the inside of the car. It appreciates what’s native to the platform: touch, and helps bring the car to life.

I’ll be keeping my eye out for more examples because, in my mind, this platform holds great potential and adland’s only just getting started.

Consumer Trends and Insight agency, Trendwatching, has released their yearly ‘briefing’ – a list of 11 consumer trends which they believe will shape the year ahead.

This is one of the highest investment ‘participative’ campaigns I’ve seen to date. It attempts to ‘put the consumer at the heart of the communication’ by inviting people to visithttp://www.youarethebigpicture.com, or the Aviva Facebook page, and upload an image of themselves. In return, their photo may be plastered on a landmark building in one of the world’s six major cities and Aviva will donate £1 (per image) to Save the Children.

The campaign is a shining example of how to execute ‘an idea that can be advertised’ – it’s personal, social and emotional, there’s a through-the-line commitment to encouraging and showcasing participation, storytelling (behind the original images when you go online), and even a charitable twist thrown in for good measure. It has all the ingredients of a great campaign:

Our one (rather large) criticism of this campaign, however, is exactly what idea are they trying to advertise? And is this clear to all those getting involved or watching on? Do they really learn anything new about the brand or is this potentially more about a little indulgent ego boost (as evidence here)…Is this participation in pursuit of business value or participation for participation’s sake?

Given the cost to execute this campaign, I question what the long term ROI really is. Whilst it’s all very lovely, when all is said and done, Aviva’s existing customers may question why the millions were not spent on something more useful to them (say a better return on their investments), and their shareholders may ask exactly what has been achieved.