Aap! - Alternative Advertising Possibilities

Illegal and a first for Japanese Politics - upper house member Kan Suzuki has opened a virtual office in Second Life in hopes of winning a 2nd term. Suzuki is using Second Life to discuss policy, field questions and to propose new policies with net citizens, deliver lectures and also hold meetings.

But Mr Suzuki, who is seeking a re-election in the upper house in July, could be breaking the electoral law. Japan’s Public Office Election law, which was drawn up more than 50 years ago, limits the distribution of text and images for use in election campaigns to postcards and pamphlets. Sounds like a great idea - but Japan’s fifty year-old Public Office Election limits election campaigns to using only postcards and pamphlets.

Officials have recently ruled that web pages cannot be created or updated during the official period of campaigning for elections.

While probably a PR stunt - Suzuki’s act bring up some interesting questions and points:

- Is Suzuki breaking the law if he passes out “virtual” postcards & pamphlets while “chatting” with citizens in Second Life an act he is allowed in the “real” world?

- Is Suzuki - an active upper house member actually trying to engage younger people instead of the usual practice of targeting the old - the only who vote in large numbers in Japan?

-Isn’t it time the entire Japanese political campaign trail went viral and virtual - letting us sleep in morning without hearing the campaign blasts of their loudspeaker equipped vehicles?

Well at least according to research that appears in June’s Journal of Consumer Research. The research paper “An Examination of Different Explanations for the Mere Exposure Effect” concludes that repeated exposure to a product via banner ads generates a positive feeling towards that product.

The research is based on previous experiments that revealed the repeated exposure to a stimulus, even one that is barely perceptible will lead to the viewer developing positive feelings and thoughts to an otherwise neutral object. These feelings can include a liking or more subjective and complex associations such as “fame, truth, duration, loudness, stimulus brightness and darkness.”

The authors hypothesized that banner ads should work in a similar manner, given that “most viewers pay minimal attention to banner ads.”

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Hakuhodo DY Group i-Business Center and IT DeSign have developed the “movie QR code,� a new proto-type of the popular QR code that incorporates moving video into its design.

QR code is a type of two-dimensional barcode that has grown popular in Japan in recent years, because it provides a simple, automated way for users to enter data into their mobile phones. By using mobile phones to scan QR code that appears in an outdoor advertisement, for example, users may be directed to a website containing more detailed product information. [read about our work using QR Codes and other mobile technologies in out of home media]

The problem with printed QR Codes is their chaotic barcode like arrangement.  IT DeSign recently developed the “Design QR,� which incorporates static images of logos, characters or photos into the code. Movie QR takes pushes the idea forward with incorporation of moving images into the design.  Movie QR Codes are optimized for use on video screens and will allow potential scanners to interact more effeciently with the codes.

There is great potential for this type of technology for media clips. A Coke Commercial could end with a QR code snap inviting users to scan the code and be taken to special download coupon areas etc.

As the blog Pink Tentacle adds this type of thing is already happending > “A commercial video containing a mock QR movie code has been circulating the web for a while. The video, called “Kung Fu High School Girlsâ€? (Kanfuu Joshi-kousei), begins with two high school girls talking about Black Jack (the famous manga character). Things get nasty when the girls disagree about whether Black Jack is a foreigner or Japanese, and a full-on kung fu battle ensues. After a while, a boy wearing a giant QR code headpiece arrives on his bicycle and urges the girls to stop. By scanning his face, he explains, they can find the answer to their question and settle their dispute. (This is a cue for the viewer to scan the computer screen with a cellphone QR code reader.)”

For those with QR Code readers - try it out on the following clip.

Pepsi has started its largest ever Bluetooth based marketing campaign, allowing people to download video clips to their mobile phone from poster adverts, bus kiosks and other outdoor media locations.

The campaign to deliver viral video clips, which went live on April 2nd, runs for two months in outdoor advertising locations consisting of bus shelters in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Denver and Orange County, and pay phone kiosks in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Each of the media networks has integrated Qwikker’s Bluetooth content distribution technology into their street furniture. Any consumer with a Bluetooth enabled phone can download free video clips from a Pepsi Smash advertisement. The viral video clips being distributed are five “Pass The Mic” clips of freestyle hip hop, provided by Yahoo! Music.

In the first week of the Pepsi campaign, opt-in rates to download content were reported to be 27% across the network.

Impressive.

Other Examples of Bluetooth Marketing Done Right:

1.Casino Royale does mobile content via bluetooth

2. Landrover tires Bluetooth Marketing

Why We Think Bluetooth Marketing Works!

• There are potential great uses of this technology for free content downloads
• Targets early adopters and the tech-inclined.

Where we think there are problems and challenges!

• BlueTooth Assaults and Messages almost always feel like spam
• Bluetooth messaging platforms don’t have memory - example - They will blast you a message even if you have recieved it already. Annoying.
• Users Don’t always have their bluetooth messages turned on but this can be solved with visual cues to ask users to opt-in.
• Slow Data Transmission Rates and distance issues. Most proximity servers only work at short distance
• Eventually WiMax or Wifi will replace Bluetooth for proximity marketing
• Complicated and cumbersome demands on users:

Step 1. Turn on bluetooth or infra-red
Step 2. Change your phone’s name to XXX
Step 3. Point your phone at the box and wait for up to a minute to receive a message
Step 4. Get content.
Step 5. Repeat and start again

Where to go for the next step!

While there are a variety of full services solutions (Hypertag, Proxmity etc). We recommend going open source with

Consola - the Open Source BlueTooth Proximity Distribution Server

Very easy to use and free! > http://www.consola.org/consola.html

We’ve used Consola as base of our Aap!Mobile BlueTooth Marketing Platform with great results.

We used server our proximity server in conjunction with an Aap!Stripes Campaign. Aap!Mobile’s Bluetooth proximity server sent free 10% discount coupons to cell phone users with Bluetooth enabled cell phones at coffee locations.

Read more about our efforts combining mobile marketing with alternative out of home media.

Onitsuka Tiger of Japan has recently launched a promotional mini-sitelet displaying a mosaic shoe made of thumbnails and image links to Japanese sites.  Clicking on tiles takes teh visitor to one of hundreds of sites craweled by flash engine.  Images and links appear to refresh to reflect different models of brand.

Definitely fun and fresh - plus a unique way to explore the web.

While a bit nationalistic for our tastes with the “Made of Japan” slogan - we commend the agency for their creativity.

Visit the site - you’ll have fun

We just wanted to share a fun and fresh outdoor media campaign found.  Creatively executed - this campaign reminds individuals and corporations to spend on trainings or else staff will end up in the trash.
Enjoy.

More shots @ Flickr

While this has been a feature for several months in Japan, Google recently added AdWords ads to US mobile search service.

From an RCR News article on the topic we learn:

“AdWords customers can develop their own mobile advertisements and marketing campaigns, and can set daily budgets, establish scheduled marketing messages and pay only when consumers click the ad or call the business.”

Keep an eye on movement in this space.

Months ago when the Aedeas Group (The parent company to Aap!Global) was formed we read an article about the Million Dollar Homepage on the BBC News site.

The PR was effective, and within hours we decided to support young Alex Tew’s novel online advertising service to help him fund his college education.

We contributed with purchasing 200 dollars of purchasing space. You can see our mini advertisement above (see the three boxes of the Aedeas Group next to the Donut).

And while we thought it was a good idea, possibly a satire and even a scam, never did we expect that Tew would have sold out his platform and exit with a total of $1,037,100 in ad sales in less than a few months.

Buyer’s Remorse?

None at all – the gimmick has paid off greatly for most advertisers. The site still receives around 500,000 unique hits a day. How much traffic have we received? – Probably less than 200 clicks per month, but for advertisers world wide with cash to burn, buying 10,000 dollars worth of space on the board possibly could translate into some significant click through.

So Why Did We Support His Idea?

Yes, clearly the system is worse than any other media – it has zero targeting, a crowded framework, a lack of cohesive design and possibly discredits clients and more.
But because we thought it was a fun idea that challenged some of the foundations of online advertising and revealed some of the potential buy patterns of online advertisers we decided to support the project.

We weren’t alone - From a Wall Street Journal article on the site we find>

“While there’s also no way of knowing for sure whether Mr. Tew is the first entrepreneur to sell pixels, the idea was new enough that it felt that way to onlookers.

“I was like, ‘What’s this?’ ” says Daniel Khesin, vice president of marketing at DS Laboratories Inc., a skin-care company in Lake Success, N.Y. After examining Mr. Tew’s site, he says: “There was nothing inherently special about the page, but it was very obvious to us that at the very least, buying some pixels would be a good idea for the sheer number of visitors he was getting.”

DS Laboratories purchased 800 pixels. Almost overnight, he says, traffic surged at the company’s Web site by twentyfold, and all of the increase came from milliondollarhomepage.com. More impressive, he says, sales by Internet companies that DS Laboratories’ site links to jumped almost 50% within a week of the ad going up.

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