Introduction

Welcome to the second edition of the Vizeum digital newsletter.

This month a focus on online video and engaging users through ‘create your own’ campaigns.

Inspiration #1:

Second Life release census data
With a virtual land mass of 361 square kilometres, housing 3million registered residents globally, second life seems like quite a small world. However it registered 6.1 billion transactions between it’s residents in January, up 37% on December and reflecting a 47% increase in user hours (10% of residents spent 40+ hours living in the virtual world in January)

These transactions in the local currency, Linden dollars, equated to $5 million, an average daily volume of $158,000. Small in terms of the GDP of countries and cities on Terra Firma, but no small number considering the population size and the fact it’s a virtual world! It’s said, probably not unjustly, to be the fastest growing economy in the world.

The top five countries are the US, France, Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands.
Electric Sheep, employs 30 people to build products and brands within virtual communities such as second life and has just secured $7m in funding from CBS corporate.

As audiences are increasingly being invited to participate in brand development, second life represents a relatively low risk testing bed for new products, taking learnings from the virtual world into the real world. Whilst the physical restrictions & requirements are removed, understanding how a product is received by the virtual community could shape how the brand is communicated in the real world.

Inspiration #2:

Video Online
A busy month in the world of online video. Dynamic Logic build upon their November released online video advertising norms, and drill down further into how using video in online advertising can increase brand metrics. Analysing the impact of the most memorable and the least memorable video ads, a good video can increase purchase intent by 6.9% versus a reduction of 1.5% for a bad video.

Regular youtubers in the US switch off the old tube. 42% of online US adults say they have watched a video at YouTube and 66% of regular visitors to YouTube claimed their YouTube activity is eating into the time normally spent doing other activities, with a claiming they are watching less TV.

As gangs in Mexico take self-expression to an extreme level, Chelsea football club sign a deal with YouTube to deliver the video snacking audience premium content. Premier League restrictions prevent Chelsea from using the service to show actual live footage but do allow for daily update videos and archived footage.

16-34’s are changing their consumption habits at an alarming rate as media companies in this arena are struggling to deliver advertising solutions fast enough for brands to talk to their audiences.

The drive for video is raising the bar for online creativity with high quality video creative delivering high cut through and increases against brand metrics.

Innovation #1:

Personalised Comms from Mini

Mini’s crusade for personalised message evolves from Glue’s ‘ave a word’ viral to a much bigger screen. In the back end of 2006, mini customer in the US were emailed and asked to join a pilot program called Motorby.

After sign-up customers were sent a special keyfob which identified them to the mini motorboard sites located around Chicago, New York, Miami and San Francisco. As the customer drove past they were delivered a personal message from mini like ‘MOTOR ON JIM’

Imagine, delivering a personalised message to your brand advocates, or reducing wastage through delivering a product message about a preferred portfolio brand every time a customer walked past one of your outdoor sites.

Innovation #2:

Web 2.0 turns to the business world
Applications enabling social participation have been changing the way people interact with each other via the web over the past 12 months. Now platforms are springing up to enable business communities to facilitate networking and interaction beyond simply contact management.

In a wired world where geography represents only a small barrier, huddle provides an environment where colleagues and customers and even customers can come together securely to work in real time virtually, but visibly.

Their system can be used as an intra or extranet to store and share documents or as a virtual meeting room where users can collaborate on documents, brainstorms or agree action points.
Mindmeister offers a similar centralised ‘whiteboard’ system to facilitate collaborative working remotely.

With consumers increasingly expecting to be involved in shaping product development and brand communications, could secure environments be set up to invite brand advocates to share their opinions and feedback without the risk of it being seen by one and all?

Creativity #2:

Nike’s Video Mash-up
Nike promote their Nike AF25 basketball trainer through the second coming campaign, enabling customers and fans to create their own mash up of the Wieden & Kennedy commercial, featuring 10 Nike-sponsored basketball players playing in an abandoned airbase hangar. Fans are invited to cut up and splice the commercial, chosing their own soundtrack tell their own story.

The end results can be saved as a video file and uploaded to YouTube or blogs or downloaded to mobile.

The power of online video to increase brand metrics is undisputed, using video to deliver a deeper involvement with the consumer can only increase these metrics further.

Could iconic ads be opened up to the audience to enable them to create their own ad or even their own Green Light District and pass your message on through their social networks?

Creativity #2:

Audi’s Music Mash-up
Audi’s ‘TT Remastered’ campaign launches, featuring a host of interactive functionality to promote the new TT Coupe.

The project, produced by BBH, takes Audi back to it’s roots, “ever since the original was designed under the influence of Jimi Hendrix, music has been at the heart of the Audi TT”

The site features 14 tracks (released over 10 weeks) by emerging artists, covering a track from their favourite idol, the opportunity to sign up for an exclusive remastered music event, an application to remix the tracks yourself and a downloadable game ‘Journeys Through the Sound’ where users can cruise around in the car and build the landscape to the rhythm of the music.

The game is the only opportunity for visitors to explore the car within this framework, they are pushed out to the standard Audi site to explore the car further, which seems like a lost opportunity to me and a waste of a considerable investment into producing a campaign platform.

Just For Fun

Urban Graffiti
With the aid of a laser and a very tall prominent building people in Holland were able to Graffiti, the etch & sketch way.