M&M Goes to the Dark Side

Flipping through the pages of People this month, I came across a great branded entertainment intitiative by M&M for the latest installment of Star Wars. As brands struggle to figure out how to partner with movies and music, I think M&M showed a solid way to make it happen. First, they fully integrated the movie into their print ads. By integration, I don't mean they put the movie logo/1 sheet on the ad. Instead, the themed the entire ad Star Wars, even featuring Darth Vader in the ad itself. Second, they created a promotional product around the movie, creating a great opportunity for in and out events with stores (and getting Star Wars collectors to stock up as well). Finally, they gave the campaign PR legs, with an unveiling in Times Square of NY. Too often brands get involved with a property and just don't give the partnership all that they can. They think the movie logo alone will sell their product. M&M shows that a little extra effort can really make a difference...now the real test is to see if the product moves off the shelves.

Character Blogs

So it seems the discussion on character blogs/fake blogs is one that keeps on going and going. The lasted is thanks to a Moose over at Moosetopia. I already posted my thoughts a couple of weeks ago but thought it worthwhile to include the thoughts of some other sensible bloggers:

"If a character blog is funny and revealing about the company, great. If it sucks, then I'll stop reading it. If everybody stops reading and clicking, then the company will--hopefully--figure that out and either change things or stop. We're all still experimenting with blogs as tools for businesses and I reiterate that I don't think all blogs have to fit the mold of a person blogging as themselves. Alter-egos are fine." -Tris Hussey at View from the Isle

Now the reason I'm so hot on the subject is that we just launched a character blog here at P&G to support our new Secret Sparkle Body Sprays. The site is "Where the Sparkle Girls Get Real" and is meant to be just a fun little promotion where the characters on our bottles are played out. This isn't a blog that is meant to be a way for Secret to talk with our consumers about their likes/dislikes. Instead, it is meant to be a promotional tool where consumers (teens in particular) can learn about the Body Spray scents and interact with the characters. It's just meant to be fun. Why can't certain bloggers realize this?

Immersive Advertising

First off, apologies on the delay in any posting. Been out in Vegas for the past week at an interactive conference and then a bachelor party for a friend of mine. And let's face it, after a week in Vegas, you need a break :)

Anyways, we're in the midst of a campaign with Neopets right now. If you don't know what Neopets is, well they are one of the stickiest sites on the Internet with the average user spending over an hour on the site when they visit. For the marketer, they practice something called Immersive Advertising....think of it as a more natural product integration. For instance, on the site you can visit the Disney theatre and see movie trailers or go play a Secret Sparkle Body Spray themed game. Pretty cool stuff and it works too! Just in the first couple of days of us launching our game, we didn't just see thousands of game plays, but hundreds of thousands of plays. I'll take that type of brand immersion any day.