Pepsi plans to hijack the 2010 FIFA World Cup, sponsored by rival Coca-Cola, with a global marketing campaign created partly by consumers. 

The soft-drinks brand is to launch a football- and Africa-themed campaign that will follow the release of a charity song, Oh Africa, in January. A global TV campaign featuring the song will launch in March, building up to the World Cup kick-off in June. Pepsi is running a competition online, planned by MindShare, to offer members of the public the chance to sing on the recording of its song, performed by Akon, Keri Hilson and the Soweto Gospel Choir. Winners will be invited to visit the recording studios in Los Angeles.

 Coca-Cola’s global campaign will also feature a specially commissioned song, entitled Wave & Flag. Its activity will be based on the theme of fans’ and players’ celebrations through an interactive campaign called the Celebration Award. Each time a player celebrates a goal with a dance, footage of it will be uploaded to a website, where fans can vote for their favourite. For each vote cast, the company will make a donation to its Water for Schools programme. Pepsi undermined Coca-Cola’s presence at the 2006 World Cup in Germany with its ‘Pepsi Max World Challenge’ campaign.

 http://www.brandrepublic.com/BrandRepublicNews/News/967506/Pepsi-plots-spoil-Cokes-World-Cup-tie/?DCMP=EMC-DailyNewsBulletin

I just read in Network World about a law suit by ZL Technologies against Gartner, concerning ZL’s placement by Gartner as niche player in an MQ report. The law suit was dismissed by the judge on all accounts, but he gave ZL 30 days to come up with more arguments – an opportunity which, they announced, they were going to take advantage of.

I asked myself what might be the motivation for a company, of which I have so far never heard of, to engage in a legal battle that it has very probably no chance of winning? And on the ground that they objectively rate a better positioning in the report? Why go through the cost and hassle? Unless, the exposure obtained via this method of communication is much more cost effective than other exposure alternatives…

Indeed, I doubt that they would have gotten this kind of exposure in NetworkWorld and Google as a result of their mere Gartner MQ presence. And what if they would invest in sponsoring one of Gartner’s relevant events? I did that a few times at great expense, but did not rate a Google alert and NetworkWorld coverage. What if  this law suit costs significantly less than alternative ways of achieving Gartner related visibility? In such a case it would pay further dividends to go for another round in the court and get another round of media attention.

Even though the business climate remains challenging, I sincerely hope that this phenomenon remains an exception and that companies focus on bringing more added value with their offerings rather than try to gain advantage by picking upon distortions and weak spots in our system.

[Cross-posted on my Gamasutra blog]

Recently I was attempting to write a review for CellFactor: Psychokinetic Wars — it’s a quality arena shooter with some new ideas that work well, and was released for XBLA on June 1st.  When I got to the point where I felt I had to stop and wrap things up with the conclusion, I froze.  Why should anyone buy it?  It’s a fun game, but nobody plays it online.  Of course they don’t — what sort of caveman would be so bereft of online shooters to invest time in a downloadable console arena shooter?

So why was it made?  I have no idea.  Surely it could have been foreseen that the players would not be there waiting for it.  Right?

It’s long been touted as a fact that demographics exist; these fuzzy statistical groups who help determine who a game is marketed to, and to some extent made for.  I don’t know much about that, and my stance is skeptical, but common sense alone at least dictates that fans of something will respond to fan service.  The Dawn of War franchise serves several different groups of fans that coagulate — Warhammer 40k fans, Real-Time Strategy fans, and Relic fans.  I like to think that, mixed in there somewhere, are “fans of awesome shit and big guns”, people who aren’t 40k fans but have been attracted to the IP through Dawn of War’s presentation.

To conceptualize that, I’d like to use the idea of a large single-celled organism — multiplayer gamers.  The organism is made up of many different elements; different sorts of fan groups with their own tastes.  Every so often when a new game is released some piece of the organism breaks off and becomes its own thing — its own community.  It will probably bring lots of different types of fans with it, but they’re all multiplayer gamers.

Thing is, this organism doesn’t just split down the middle for anyone.  If a game has enough gravitas it will cause a split — Dawn of War has grabbed a small chunk of the organism, while Call of Duty 4 has requisitioned for itself a very large part of it, which still cowers before the super-organism that WoW has since developed.

Yet games are made that have little influence over this organism of multiplayer gamers.  Section 8 sought to steal Tribes fans, but the servers are dead.  CellFactor was released into a void rather than into the writhing hands of fans.

You don’t have to be an established franchise to serve fans, by the way — fans existed before games did.  I’m not sure anyone is a fan of generic, middling science fiction and nameless gunmetal machineguns, but make a game about zombies and you’ve got a starting point.

What I’m trying to say is, it’s a shame that some creators seem to be unaware of this multiplayer organism, because most of these games are good if not great.  I believe even a small community can foster a game and its developer.

As a kid I spent hours playing Raven’s Soldier of Fortune II, playing in clan ladder matches and playing as a regular on several clan servers.  It was at a time when, to my peer group, the choice was simply Counter-Strike.  I chose to devote more time to SoF II, along with thousands of others to Counter-Strike’s hundreds of thousands.  The community persisted for some time and I believe that sort of following helped solidify Raven as a quality developer in the eyes of fans and other developers.  Even if it turns out they didn’t make a fortune, they survived and with good marks.

Soldier of Fortune II served a niche, that’s for sure.  That niche was probably filled with different fans; maybe it was as generic as “online shooter fans”, but these certain people were attracted.  Me and my clanmates shared a definite love of the game’s level of violence, dismemberment, randomly generated maps, weapons with kick, and cutthroat arena-shooter speed.  We all gushed over it — it was made just for us.

Now, Section 8 was made for Tribes fans — maybe Battlefield fans in actuality.  But it failed to be a better version of those games; the quality here still matters, and so does market saturation.  Battlefield fans have a Battlefield game to play right now — your game will not get those players.  As for Tribes fans, you will not get those players if you don’t live up to their high expectations, if you don’t really aim to be a Tribes-like game.  Section 8 served fans a lukewarm meal while someone else had already prepared a hot meal for them.

Fans are out there, and I want to believe they’re eager to split off and find new games, to join new communities and learn new rules; get better at new games.  I believe all gamers want this.  Don’t give them something fake, find a real niche/demographic/group of fans and attack it — more importantly the developers should be part of that niche, working to fill it.  That’s when the best games are made, you can tell.  Multiplayer games require more time and investment than a single player experience, so it has to be something especially special and it has to last.

Developers should not be wasting themselves on games that people, honestly, are never going to play in the current or predicted multiplayer environment.  Woe is the multiplayer arena shooter who competes with Call of Duty for multiplayer mindshare.  But Left 4 Dead will survive, and so will Red Orchestra, Counter-Strike and I’d like to think Dawn of War.  Because those are fans that wanted something and got it, and they don’t feel like leaving yet.

Very late in coming but here is some research we have conducted at Mindshare on Twitter. Using both qual focus groups and quant network analysis we’ve looked at the various ways people are using the network, how brands are engaging them and the spread of branded messages. From this we have drawn some rules of engagement for how brands should approach Twitter as part of their broader social media strategies.

I recently became acquainted with a new technology that is truely amazing – producing water from the air. I’d like to share more about that.

The extraction of air humidity as alternative water source is a solution that was primitively used since biblical times . In the last 15 years several attempts were invested using modern technologies for this process, but none was able to operate reliably over an extended period of time at acceptable costs.

The ideal solution is to affordably produce plenty of H2O (pure water). And voila – it is now possible to get large amounts of drinking-grade water in places where water is limited or unavailable with minimal environmental impacts and at a reasonable price!  This goal is achieved using an innovative patented technology from the Israeli company EWA Technologies Ltd., to obtain atmospheric water in most climatic conditions, air quality, time and place.

The EWA technology provides humanity with a new water source, which could easily answer necessities almost everywhere on the globe. The EWA technology can be considered as a rain substitute – without its erratic unavailability.

Some facts about water in the air
There is more than enough water in the air. The air volume of a big room (75-100 cubic meters) contains almost two liters of water. In atmospheric terms, a volume of 1 cubic km contains 10,000 to 40,000 cubic meter of water – enough to supply water for thousands of families.

The EWA 3rd generation technology
EWA-III is a reliable product for water supply, incorporating a novel breakthrough and cost effective processes to supply remarkable quantities of water from the atmosphere. Leaving behind the traditional condensation concepts that were used so far to extract water from air, EWA-III utilizes a multi-stage, dry, chemically based concept that is unaffected by air pollution and suits most climatic conditions. EWA-III also breaks the cost barriers of equivalent technologies thanks to sophisticated heat exchange and energy management, to the point of generating carbon credits.
Practically, only the power consumed by the blowers and some incremental heat is needed, since EWA-III reuses 90% of the energy through heat transfers and innovative optimization. In biomass terms, the basic EWA-III/10 model consumes 5kg of biomass (or 5 litres of diesel fuel) to produce 1,000 litres of fresh water. The energetic efficiency increases upon scaling up to higher capacity models, reducing the cost to $0.50 per 1,000 litres of water at the efficient end.

The environmental impact
Water desalination technologies produce waste that negatively impact the environment, and generate carbon emission debits. The new technology requires moderate heat energy, can use natural and/or residual heat sources, and a little electricity. It does not use chemicals and does not produce any wastes or residues. Moreover, upon consuming heat energy from renewable energy sources, it actually produces carbon credits. Furthermore, this creates new fresh liquid water (transformation process) that is added to the water cycle.

In his paper about the combat against desertification , Professor Marc Bied-Charreton describes the causes and effects of desertification, and highlights the point that modifications of vegetation and land conditions have an impact on the climate; that soil denudation increases evaporation and reduces water storage; and that the increase of barren land areas has also an impact on the production/suspension of aerosols, contributing to climate mechanisms alterations. With enough water to develop vegetation in desert areas, desertification could be reversed and the effects of climate change mitigated.

The Rural Concept developed by EWA addresses the water – vegetation – waste – energy cycle, and makes use of agricultural wastes as an energy source for EWA’s water apparatus. EWA’s water apparatuses are able to utilize all types of energy, but mainly use moderate heat (a small amount of electricity is required to blow the air through the absorption chamber). Agricultural wastes are composed of organic matter that enables to produce heat without causing air pollution.

By using agriculture/municipal organic wastes to produce energy, it is possible to supply water for both domestic and agricultural purposes at a significantly lower cost than alternative water sources.

Mindshare Los Angeles: Enlightened Debauchery

Volunteering opportunities in Los Angeles

From A. Solo (unknown author)

1) Say thank you as often as you can and let those around you
know that you value them.  Anyone that tries to make your life a little
easier deserves a nod and a wink, from friends and family right down to the
waitress that brings you your coffee.

2) Some things are just more important than others.  Without your health and
a secure home to work from or come back to you don’t have the foundations
you need to succeed, take time to make sure they are..

3)We are more than our emotions.  Our feelings are a wonderful and powerful
thing, but don’t let them rule your whole life.  Feel them fully but try not
to dwell on negative or unproductive emotional states – life is just too
short for that.
jul
4) Negative images in your mind give you negative experiences.  If the
thoughts you have in your head are positive you reflect the same back in
your life.  but if we think gloomy pictures then..

5)  Love is always the answer, no matter what the question is.  Its really
as simple as that, if you are stuck for an answer reply with love (at
least try ).

6) Aim for balance in everything you do.  Real balance and harmony comes
from give and take.  Give and give until its your turn to take but remember
that its all about the flow.  Without giving and receiving we block the
universe’s flow.

7)  Sometimes you have to dissapoint some people.  Doing the right thing
takes integrity and you have to stick to your ideas of what is right or
wrong.  Trust your own judgement and believe in it.  The people you
disappoint will forgive you eventually and most will end up agreeing with
you.

trust in a higher power or spiritual presence.  Once you give into the
flow of the universe you will realise that life can be easy.  Peace comes
from knowing you are supported, and we all are.

9) Silence answers more questions than ranting and raving.  Regular
meditation, even if it means getting some time on your own can answer many
of your questions.  Sometimes thinking can be hard so you really need time
away from the stresses and strains of every day life to allow the solution
to come.

10) Human beings are designed to be creative, but we often get stuck in a
rut and forget what it is that sets our souls on fire.  Without creating new
ideas, projects and meanings in your life your cycles will lose their
lustre.  We need to reconnect with what excites us

*ENRICHING THOUGHTS*

*The most destructive habit ………………. Worry*
*The greatest joy ………………………..         Giving*
*The greatest loss ……………………            Loss of self-respect*
*The most satisfying work ……………….   Helping others*
*The ugliest personality trait……………..  Selfishness*
*The most endangered species ………..  Dedicated leaders*
*Our greatest natural resource………….   Our youth*
*The greatest “shot in the arm”…………  Encouragement*
*The greatest problem to overcome…….Fear*
*The most effective sleeping pill…………. Peace of mind*
*The most crippling failure disease……….Excuses*
*The most powerful force in life………….. Love*
*The most dangerous pariah ……………… A gossiper*
*The world’s most incredible computer ……..The brain*
*The worst thing to be without …………. Hope*
*The deadliest weapon …………………..     The tongue*
*The two most power-filled words ……..”I Can”*
*The greatest asset………………………        Faith*
*The most worthless emotion……………..Self-pity*
*The most beautiful attire………………..    SMILE!*
*The most prized possession…………….. Self esteem*
*The most powerful channel of communication. Prayer*
*The most contagious spirit………………. Enthusiasm*
*The greatest fortune………………………. Contentment*
*The greatest asset…………………………. Health*
*The meanest action…………………………… Revenge*
*The cheapest trait……………………………..Miserliness*
*The most powerful action…………………. Charity*
*The most abnoxious disease…………….. Arrogance*
*The lowest of the low……………………….. Pride*
*The deepest intoxicator ……………………….Power*
*The highest coverer of defects……………..Wealth*
*The most unpredictable………………………Customer*
*The crown of greatness………………………Forgiveness*
*The greatest sin………………………………Not believing in God.*
*The most uncertain……………………………..DEATH.*

More and more this earth is consumed with lapdogs. San Francisco is swarming with the infinitely cuddly mixed bread minipets that have hit every demographic by storm. Old people, young people, hipsters, ripsters, all of the above can’t get enough… And neither can I. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, always fucking cute.

{a}ndie

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In a previous life I was an artist, and from this background I have a deep affection for beautiful imagery. I also love creative work that is intricate, inspiring, and thought provoking.  For now I wanted to introduce some PopArt that was custom made by one of SLC’s finest – Joshua Taeoalii. Him and his wife have been busting out creative work for several years and below are some examples of their talented genius.  You can also view his entire portfolio here; and purchase the items here.

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The Rhino - He’s Horny

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Moonwalkitout

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Murder was the case that they gave her

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The last people to ever doubt WeirdChief’s Styly

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If you don’t love art, you don’t love yourself.

{m}

Lo que se ve en el video que encabeza este post, es lo que apareció en el primer corte del capítulo inicial de la sexta temporada de “Desperate Housewives” lanzado el 27 de septiembre. Hace pocos días. Es un aviso anunciando un segmento titulado “Another Desperate Housewife”, ambientado tan “Wisteria Lane”, la calle en el que viven las “Mujeres Desesperadas”,  con un contenido tan parecido y con personajes tan dentro de la edad y el nivel social, que debe haber sorprendido a buena parte de la audiencia. Muchos se deben haber preguntado ¿es una nueva pareja que va a reemplazar a Edie Britt (Nicollette Sheridan) fallecida en un accidente de auto y a su esposo Dave (Neal McDonough) internado en un hospital siquiátrico? Además, el celular Sprint Palm Pre que ha traído un mensaje que sugiere la infidelidad de la esposa, bien puede apuntar que se trata de una pareja con complicaciones como las otras de la serie. Y no es raro. El comercial —porque evidentemente es un comercial— y los que seguirán en los siete próximos episodios, ha sido cuidadosamente urdido y producido por la misma gente que escribe y dirige la serie. Es más, dentro de algunos capítulos la pareja del comercial, hará una aparición mas o menos sutil dentro de la propia serie. A mi, eso, me parece un “tour de force” que redondea el logro de los objetivos de mantener la audiencia sobre los comerciales ¿los que yo ya creía que solo estaban en comerciales  del Sprint Palm Pre son realmente los nuevos personales de la serie? se preguntarán algunos. El Palm Pre, por cierto, traerá, en las próximas semanas,  noticias de infidelidad, traición y justicia, a la pareja.

No es de sorprender la maestría con la que se está manejando ya esta especie de moderno trampantojo. Los lectores asiduos de este blog (y a los no asiduos los invitamos a usar los enlaces para tener el detalle) han visto, en El futuro de la Agencia de Publicidad (IV). El caso Mindshare, los cambios operados en una agencia de medios que se reestructuró para tener mejores posibilidades de emprender nuevas tareas. Y en “Betty, la Fea” en versión China: “Chou Nu Wu Di”. La obra de Mindshare, los resultados en la forma de resolver la presencia y el uso de ciertas marcas de Unilever de maneras novedosas y de excelentes resultados de audiencia y de ventas, en series de TV en cuya producción estuvieron involucrados desde su concepción. No es de sorprender la maestría, porque se trata de la misma gente: la de Mindshare, que, esta vez, según declara su directora gerente, Denise Ocasio en Ad Age, ha logrado convencer a los directivos de ABC —nuevos en el tema— de que se involucren, totalmente en la manufactura de los comerciales, uno de los guionistas y creador de la serie.

Desperate Housewives – Temporada 6 – Promo con Shakira “She Wolf” El trenzado de los comerciales dentro de una serie, o bien la aparición de personajes “como en la serie” pero en los comerciales de los cortes, es cosa nueva pero es una tendencia creciente en esta nueva temporada de series. En Japón, dice Ad Age los personajes de las principales series llevan ya bastante tiempo apareciendo en los cortes comerciales. Y ahora, en los EE UU, las cadenas de TV están colaborando con los encargados de marketing para cocinar comerciales que incorporan elementos de los programas de manera que el público no sienta que se detiene el entretenimiento y que empieza la venta y la promoción exagerada.

Declara Alison Tarrant, Vicepresidente senior de la cadena CW (el joint venture de CBS y Warner) a cargo de ventas integradas y marketing: “Estamos tratando de hacerlo tan entretenido como sea posible de manera que no abandonen el programa en los bloques comerciales”. Y Stephanie Kelly, Gerente de Medios de Entretenimiento (Entertainment Media Manager) que está embarcada en una aventura similar en NBC dice:” Queremos relacionarnos con los televidentes con las mismas características y  formas con las que se relacionan con su serie favorita”.

Lo que evidentemente se busca con esta técnica es evitar el zapping y pasar las restricciones del TIVO y con ello aumentar el rating de los comerciales pero requiere de mucha coordinación entre el cliente y el medio para que el resultado final sea satisfactorio desde el punto de vista publicitario tanto como desde la estructura misma de la  serie.

Pero es tan evidente que la tendencia está bien plantada que aun que para ABC el caso “Desperate Housewives” es  el primero, en NBC ya se practica de una u otra forma en “Last Comic Standing”, “30 Rock” (con Honda Fit)  y “Heroes” donde en el primer episodio de la temporada actual, había lo que se ha dado en llamar para distinguirlo del usual corte comercial “commercial-brake vignette” (vignette es además de viñeta, la breve y elegante caracterización de una persona en una escena en forma escrita, musical o dramática). En ella aparecía un nuevo personaje de la serie. Algo parecido decía hace poco el NYT en un artículo titulado Hit TV Shows Have Most-Skipped Ads: “la inusual estrategia de publicidad que mezcla el programa y los comerciales, puede explicar la anomalía de “30 Rock” en el rating”. Se refiere a que frente a un promedio de 73% de la audiencia que pasa en fastforward los comerciales, según TIVO (información bastante superior a la que se registra Nielsen) mientras que “30 Rock”, no pasa de 64%, mientras que Mad Men llega al 83%.

Esa misma coordinación de la que hablábamos mas arriba y el hecho de que los comerciales insertados en la trama no pueden sacarse de ahí, implica que exista mayor compromiso entre las partes. Porque el capítulo quedará con el comercial  —¿lo llamamos de una vez “comercial-viñeta”?— para siempre. Una nueva opción que además de mejorar el rating de los comerciales, renueve la manera de acercarse al televidente para dejarle el mensaje de la marca.

Mujeres Desesperadas - 6ª Temporada

Yes--what is your question?

A question changes everything. A question mark sets a thought on a pedestal in the street and invites comment. It says, “I don’t know the answer—do you?” When I teach, a question is one of my most powerful tools. With a question I ask for input while simultaneously implying “You’ve got something valuable to say and I want to hear it.” The best, most fruitful discussions happen when I present what I know and then invite students to contribute from their experience and thinking. Something alive often happens, something I could not plan for or even predict. Something that moves us all forward.

For marketers, the question is equally powerful. If we’re lucky, we’re in a team where we can ask questions openly rather than pretending to own all the answers. Our usual path to outward communication is to ask our questions in the (relatively) protected environs of conference rooms and among colleagues. Then we polish and hone the messages into one-way barbs to shoot out through our media channels. But what if the questions themselves were our communication points? What if we started with questions to our growing community of similarly-interested people, long before we ever started polishing messages for public consumption?

Once upon a time my team worked on promoting a new heart failure device. We identified a single main message that incorporated three strong benefits (based on market research) which became the core of our campaign. We tested our messages informally, received anecdotal feedback and pushed forward. Today, with the help of social media, that scenario might look like this: take the received market research, our questions and immediately begin dialogue. Proceed with message polishing and honing  even as the community dialogue continues. At some point the internal and external dialogues blend and the end result is something beyond what we could conceive on our own. Best of all, this new something already his mind-share in a community of interested people. And if you have a sales force, you know that mindshare is a key gear for turning sales.

Next Up: What would dialogue success look like?

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Photo credit: Colt Elementary PTO & JustHost.com

Nick Waters, chief executive, Mindshare EMEA, is to leave the WPP agency network he helped create in 1998 to become chief executive of Aegis Media Asia-Pacific. 

Waters is to take over from Patrick Ståhle, currently chief executive of Aegis Media Asia-Pacific, who is to retire from the industry to pursue a non-executive career. Aegis said that both Ståhle’s departure and Waters’ arrival “will take effect at the same time in the second quarter in 2010″.

Waters’ departure comes amid an estimated $1bn global media review being held by Unilever for which Mindshare is one of the major incumbent media agencies.

As reported in the current print edition of Campaign, Mindshare is also subject to a review of its regional business with Coca-Cola, an account it has held for six years.

Commenting on the decision to review, Antoine Tayyar, Coca-Cola Middle East’s public affairs and communications manager, said: “Our business is continually evolving and as a matter of routine, we are assessing the fit between our business and what our partners can provide to the company. This supports our belief to continually look at more effective and efficient ways to manage our business. We also want to ensure that we are working with the best media agency resource in the market.”

Help Ed, by Prudential, is an example of a decent campaign idea derailed by abject execution. The lines between media, creative, digital and so forth are rapidly being fudged, but if ever there was a case for why they should stay, this would be it.

More on that later.

Theory has made a bet that PNP in many ways.