By Cream Editorial

February 14 isn’t just a day for couples to express their love for each other – the festival day for love is also a day when brands vie for consumer love and attention! On the occasion of Valentine’s Day, we pick out Cream Global’s hot five case studies where love is the X-factor that helps a brand find the sweet spot with its consumers. Here they are:

By Martin Harrison, Huge (part of SoDA)

One thing I have yet to hear a consumer say about advertising is, “Over time, it steadily positively reinforced a deeply held idea about how I’d like to be.” But then, I’ve yet to hear someone say, “I actively seek out facts that chime with my pre-defined point of view and ignore those that don’t”. That said, I haven’t really looked, I suppose.

Anyway, let me tell you a story about habit. Some years ago, I worked on the direct mail account for a large circulation weekly UK magazine. Our strategy was to drive sales through coupons; send out four/eight/twelve coupons and customers would duly redeem them, boosting circulation by 5-10%, depending on mailing volume. We had one mailing file that would redeem at 85%. 85%!

By Andrew Murchie, Multiply

Are we getting closer to a 3D revolution in the advertising industry? You might think we’re a way off, but actually it may not be that long before 3D brand advertising goes mainstream.

We’re in an era now where the creative and technical skills sets required to make captivating and compelling 3D content are becoming more accessible, and therefore more viable for brands. Certainly at Multiply we’re seeing an increase in the number of clients interested in learning more about delivering 3D content.

Acer's Olympic pavillion

Challenge

The London Olympic Games was the second Olympic event at which Acer held the title of ‘Official Hardware Partner’ – having previously sponsored the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

In order to create an on-site brand experience like no other, Acer appointed total brand activation agency, Pico, to build a Showcase Pavilion within the Olympic Park. Pico in return appointed specialist experiential staffing agency Blackjack to select and train the Showcase Team to engage and host the site.

Situated close to the Athletes Village, Acer were able to exhibit and demonstrate their new products, latest technologies and innovations to the public inside the Showcase Pavilion, whilst simultaneously providing a corporate hospitality suite for VIP guests to soak up the incredible atmosphere of London 2012.

The Showcase consisted of three levels where guests would be immersed in an interactive experience combining projection, lights and imagery to create an unforgettable journey; the top floor included an exclusive VIP area for IOC members and athletes to use with spectacular views of the Olympic Park which included an unparalleled view of the Olympic Stadium.

Insight

There were two key objectives attached to Acer’s on-site Olympic activity.  First and foremost it wanted to attract visitors to the Olympic Park into the Pavilion to experience the Acer Journey through customer facing interaction. Once inside, the aim was to educate visitors on Acer products, new technologies and innovations to enhance brand knowledge and awareness.

Solution

An entirely unique experiential concept was created, to immerse the visitor in an unrivalled and entirely personalised brand experience. Blackjack provided event managers and brand ambassadors, all of whom had been approved by LOCOG (London 2012 Governing Body) and accredited for the Olympic Park beforehand.

Blackjack staff then guided visitors through an interactive journey that began outside the showcase in the Olympics Park. Visitors were issued with an interactive journey smartcard. Each card had a QR driver that, when swiped onto a QR reader positioned next to the various features on various levels, would allow each visitor a personal and individual interaction complete with info/avatar capture of themselves. The smartcard allowed QR activation at each feature display within the pavilion via a unique visitor QR code which isolated each individual visitor’s interaction through the various feature displays within the showcase, via a microsite: acerjourney.com

Once inside the Pavilion, visitors had 8 stations to experience:

• Journey Sphere - Visitors could browse and explore through a variety of games and videos

• “Fast Faster Fastest” Arena – An interactive challenge navigating a route through a computer circuit board in the fastest time

• Infinity Gateway – A room which projected multiple images of the visitor on 3 different graphic backgrounds

• Predator Gaming Area – Visitors could play the official London 2012 video game

• Devices on Level 2 – A platform showcasing the very best of the Acer product portfolio

• Devices on Level 1 – A platform showcasing the very best professional market devices
from Acer
• Theatre – A unique mixed reality theatre show featuring AR and interactive images

• Avatar – The chance for visitors to create a personalised avatar in the Pavilion and share it on acer.com

VIP guests also had use of the third level hospitality and viewing platform.

Results

In terms of meeting the first two objectives, the Acer Pavilion had 63,846 visitors during the Olympic and Paralympic periods, in which 40,222 registered to become a part of the Acer Journey, this can be measured as 63% of all people who visited the Pavilion registering.

This was an average of 2,500 visitors every day to the Pavilion during the course of the Olympics and Paralympics.

Due to a high number of visitors being children, some parents did not feel it appropriate for their children to fill out their personal details, therefore decreasing the percentage of visitors registering to become a part of the Acer Journey.

By Chris Minas, Nimbletank

Many have hailed augmented reality (AR) as a passing fad with no real beneficial use bar novelty value. This however comes as a surprise to marketers who see AR as a vital tool to generate brand excitement and believe it will become a mainstream technology in the near distance future.

To financially ailing industries such as music and publishing, this couldn’t come at a better time. By incorporating AR technology they will once again be able to provide the customer with desirable extras they’d struggle to find elsewhere. Already, AR technology can allow readers to hold their phone in front of a printed page and see extra content on their handset. The opportunities are endless and we just need to look to huge brands such as Nokia and Google to understand the full potential the medium offers.

By Matthew Gidley, Momentum UK

Historians have long recorded shifts in social behaviour resulting from political or economical change.  The turbulence of the past four years has provoked one of the most prolific social reactions known in recent history: the return of the community. 

This time, things have changed: people are uniting not just in families or neighbourhoods, but also by geography, interest, profession and principles.   The structure of brands’ audiences is changing and marketers must reassess their strategy to fulfil an increasing need among consumers to feel part of something as the things they value continue to erode.

By Lucy Cleary, IgnitionOne

There’s an amazing Greek restaurant near where I live, it’s on a bustling street that is also lined with other restaurants and cafes offering food from every country imaginable. These restaurants and cafes have windows covered with their latest specials and tantalising images of their meals. Waiters often stand on the street competing to get punters and always seem to be feeding someone.

Then there’s the Greek restaurant.

It’s always empty; it is rare to see even one occupied table when I walk by on my way home from work.

There are no sandwich boards outside or even a menu on the window, it simply has a sign bearing the name of the restaurant.         

Driven by curiosity and admittedly a little bit of pity, I went there with some friends a few weeks ago for dinner. I can honestly say it was one of the tastiest and best value for money three-course meals I have ever had. I spoke with our elderly waiter who told me it was a family business and pointed to his wife out the back who was the head chef.

Immediately, my marketing mind went into overdrive, this place was really good, really cheap, but clearly lacking in any kind of communications to get punters off the street and sitting at tables. Pinning the menu to the outside window, having a stash of menu pamphlets and doing a mass leaflet drop, getting a sandwich board with their dishes of the day and registering with online restaurant review websites were just some of the very basic ideas I had.

The Greek Restaurant was not flailing because it was a bad place; it had most of the important ingredients, but one thing was missing and leaving it with a distinct disadvantage to its competitors -- no marketing.

"Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising."- Mark Twain.

 Too often marketing is overlooked as a core function of a business. It gets a bit of flack in the corporate world, particularly in B2B where the efforts of branding are not always immediately measurable and the impact of marketing is not always as easily pinpointed as it is for sales where a transaction is solid evidence of success.

But the Greek restaurant is a grassroots example of why marketing is so important to the success of a business.

In its simplest form, marketing is telling the world what goods you have on offer. Without any external communication, no one knows about you and you may as well shut up shop now. 

By Paul Saville, Ignite

The way brands market themselves has changed. Gone are the days of relying on traditional advertising, where a brand would attempt to influence an individual to buy a certain product or service solely using the creativity of a catchy slogan and beautiful images delivered by TV, print and OOH.