inferno won a place on the Keep Britain Tidy advertising roster as their lead creative agency in October last year and we were immediately energised by the great creative opportunity, fantastic clients and important cause! KBT briefed us in February on their main campaign for 2010: fighting the war on litter nationally.

The tongue in cheek ‘Bend over and think of England’ campaign – was intended for a larger, more holistic activation platform utilising PR, WOM, Ambient, Merchandising and a variety of ATL, however as the government changed over earlier on this year, so too did the rules and regulations (and budgets!) regarding government-funded communications.

To this particular campaign’s credit, it had already caught the interest of enough Local Authorities that they stood firm with their support of the campaign and generously allocated what they could of their own council budgets to fund the distribution of the creative throughout a range of local media including Bus Backs, 48-sheet sites, 6 sheet sites, postcards, T-shirts, bags, badges and A3 Posters, with a number of them also opting to have their own bespoke titles created including ‘Get Behind Essex’ and ‘Get Behind Northumberland’.

But in this case Jim is you; the consumer, the user, the ideas person. Brands want our help to do better things, as evidenced by a number of high profile campaigns around the world. The list is extensive, with big-players like Nokia and their annual “Calling All Innovators”, Pepsi “Refresh Everything”, Aviva’s “Community Fund”, Starbucks and Cadbury, participating in the “Fair Trade Swap”, Timberland “Earthkeepers” and Marks & Spencer’s “Your Green Idea”…phew!

Is this type of ‘causal’ movement here to stay? Could it be just another notch in marketing’s constant state of reinvention? Or could it instead mean a longer-term change in behaviour due to social and macroeconomic drivers? To begin to answer these questions we need to think a bit about where the essential idea might have come from…

The big things first. The global economy is trying to extricate itself from the worst recession in living memory. During the downturn, global warming and sustainability might have taken a backseat, but remain omnipresent concerns. Customers are more demanding and more likely to take action about matters that are important to them.

With social media, customers have found their voice; the growing power of that voice means increasingly pervasive interaction with brands. Initially, marketing co-creation, popularised by campaigns including Dorito’s “You Make It, We Play It”, meant a winning idea got its 15 minutes of fame. Tapping into ‘Potentialism’, meaning certain people’s desire to step off the mass-market gravy-train and do more wholesome stuff, saw campaigns like “Rockcorps” from Orange, where people doing the most good got to see famous bands. As the recession bit deeper, ‘altruistic marketing’ saw brands reaching out to cash-strapped customers by offering free services and guarantees to foster loyalty.

Finally we have a chaotic proliferation of consumer technologies, platforms and apps so that it’s much harder for brands to hook into genuine customer needs and develop products or propositions that answer them in the long-term.

Taking all of these perspectives into account it’s easier to see why there has been such a flurry of activity – brands acting as ‘venture capitalists’ for new ideas that will help communities, the environment or drive new innovation. Only time will tell whether this manifests into stronger brand equity or genuine competitive advantage, but it doesn’t seem like a flash in the pan…

We went to a talk the other week  on how the concept of ‘Play’ is integral to moving away from a persuasive form of marketing to a rewarding inclusive and interactive approach. Some key thoughts we took away were to look for ways to help people to ‘let go’ and get them to participate in something enjoyable (be it online or in the real world) with a relevant tie back to what your brand stands for.

The Fun Theory initiative from VW does exactly this, by inviting people to adopt a healthier and greener life by changing behaviour through ‘fun’.  With over 3.5m views in a week, the piano staircase video is doing a hell of a job to seed the idea and elevate the VW brand. Quite nice.

There are lots of spontaneous experiences popping up at the moment, ‘flash mob’ seems to be an overused word in many a brainstorm.

That being said you still can’t deny that random, fun experiences have the ability to take you by suprise and brighten up your day. Take for example the ‘Play me I’m yours’ pianos, which after a world-wide tour now find themselves outside our offices on Carnaby Street. It’s brought a real buzz to the corner (with hundreds of renditions of Hey Jude), and will be missed when it moves on.

Pop along for a song - why not play ‘disco inferno’ and give us a wave?

An amazing data visualisation of London real estate. The site isn’t live to the public yet but the video of the process is fantastic. Check out Mapumental.

We’ve picked up on a few brands taking an interesting approach to leveraging activity on social networks and using brand advocacy to their benefit of late.  

One which stands out is Skittles, who have launched the online application ‘Transplant the Rainbow’ which takes a user around the various sites where people are talking about the brand, including YouTube, Flickr and Twitter. Pretty interesting and new idea, considering people will be going to these sites to find information on products pre-purchase. So why not facilitate them on their journey?

There is real potential in this approach. Word of mouth a pretty powerful tool, just be confident your customers will have good things to say about you. We would like to see how this approach would do for a higher consideration purchase like a car, where people will be doing extensive online research. 

I saw James Jarvis present this piece at the 2009 Pictoplasma conference in Berlin earlier this year. It is a fantastic example of how to combine traditional illustration with 3d animation and motion capture. James Jarvis is a keen jogger and it was his movements that Richard Kenworthy from Shynola captured to create the movement of the character.

An iPhone application developed for 7-Eleven Sweden combines a store locator with coupons for a free coffee and biscotti. After downloading the app, users plug in their phone number and receive a unique coupon code on their iPhone. To claim their coffee, they just show the code to a 7-Eleven clerk; no purchase necessary. The coupon is only valid once, and free coffee in April will be followed by free ice cream in May.

The application, developed by Stockholm-based digital agency Lonely Duck, was downloaded 2,500 times in the week it launched—a considerable number given the size of the Swedish iPhone community, and enough to place it in the top 10 of free app downloads.

7-Eleven hasn’t launched the app in other markets yet, but it’s a smart example for other iPhone-loving retailers to follow: don’t just help (a relatively affluent group of) consumers find your store, but give them a good reason to visit and spend money while they take you up on your generous offer.

Website: www.7-eleven.se
Contact: www.7-eleven.se/kontakt.html

from :http://springwise.com/weekly/2009-04-29.htm#iphone7eleven