Quirks 'The new kid on the block'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17188227

Wax was instrumental in launching Quirks in 2011 and 2012, we are proud to see our NPD launch feature on the BBC. 

This is an interesting take on ‘traditional biscuits going out of fashion’ they also mention how popular the HobNob still is since launching!

Laura

They had me at hello...and then stuffed it up

Having just been to the gym and feeling rather pleased with myself, I saw this unusual sign in a flower pot.

It caught my attention because of the novelty factor so I thought I’d have a go – after all, if I could win a bike, I could save money on my extortionate season ticket and get exercise every day (so less pressure to go to the gym).









Although the QR code was a bit inconvenient for a person of my stature, I reached up and hey presto it went through to the Camden website where it gave me more details of how to enter.  That’s where it fell apart, especially on a mobile...

It's easy to enter our competition (no, it’s not!)
Click on the 'enter online' link below, where you will be guided through the following:

1. provide your contact details.
2. you will then be directed to our Facebook page, in which you must do two things:
   

a. 'like' our Facebook page,
b. write on our wall, with a personal story about walking or cycling in Fitzrovia. This could be a trip, a unique experience, a great discovery or a funny story. You can enter text, photos or video.

Don't forget the more interesting the story, the more chance you have of winning.

Please note, only entries who have 'liked' our Facebook page and submitted a story will be entered into the competition.


Do you know what, I can’t be arsed. Taxi!

Buy our soup...and WIN! Or not as the case may be....

I’m sure everybody thought it was a good idea and I’m sure it’s legal and fair – but that doesn’t make it right and it doesn’t do the best job by the brand.

New Covent Garden have, innocently I suspect, dropped a bit of a consumer clanger with their recent ‘Win a farm’ promotion. The mechanic was a simple ‘enter your promotional code’ prize draw mechanic that people will be extremely familiar and comfortable with. Or so it seemed. But it wasn’t a simple prize draw – there was a specific winning code and that code didn’t get entered – hence no winner! Oops.

Consumers familiarity with the prize draw mechanic may actually have been the problem. They all assumed that’s how the promotion would work when in actual fact it was closer to a lottery.

Perhaps the brand/ agency team missed the deep scrutiny of an ‘all eventualities’ meeting that all promotional activity should be subject to before it goes live – someone would certainly have asked the question ‘what happens if nobody wins?’ The answer would have been very clear and the current PR backlash avoided.

Click below to see the sort of PR you don’t really want to be waking up to as a Brand Manager

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2104548/New-Covent-Garden-Soup-Company-Win-farm-Competition-No-gets-500k-prize.html

http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/fmcg/chilled-and-frozen/chilled-foods/new-covent-garden-in-hot-water-with-shoppers-over-elusive-farm-prize/226467.article?utm_source=groceronline%40wrbm.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1194291_Daily+22%2f2%2f12&dm_i=131K,PLIR,5DVQ1Y,22AGP,1

MOAM Megatown

Saw this advert on youtube and it looked quite interesting, putting experiential at the heart of the campaign and utilising UGC online

Sean

 




In celebration of Maoam reaching half a million likes on its Facebook page, the brand has launched its largest ever competition - Maoam Megatown.

Following its nationwide sampling campaigns in 2010 and 2011, Maoam was inundated with requests from its 500,000 Facebook fans requesting that the team visit their towns or cities.

Maoam Megatown's top prize is a visit from the team to the winner’s hometown, distributing thousands of chews throughout their locality, and offering the chance for the winner to be treated like a star for a day.

The competition, which launched this week runs exclusively on Facebook and during its first phase asks fans to explain why their town or city should become the Maoam Megatown for a day.

Phase two will launch on 9th March, with the four shortlisted candidates receiving an iPod Touch to encourage them to create a full promotional campaign for their town.  All 500,000 of Maoam’s Facebook fans will then be asked to vote for their favourite candidate's campaign.

Once the voting period has closed, the Maoam sampling team will then visit the winner’s town or city to distribute thousands of fruit flavour chews. The winner will also receive star treatment for a day, which will include a special tour of their area in one of the super-sized Maoam sampling vehicles.  

In addition the winner will receive an iPad 2, £500 spending money and will also get the chance to donate £1,000 to a local charity of their choice.

Maoam brand manager, Lindsey Bevan, says: “This is the first time that Maoam has ever launched a competition of this size. We know from our feedback that lots of Maoam fans would love to have the Maoam sampling team come to their own towns and spread some Maoam madness! We also know that our fans enjoy creating content on and offline and can’t wait to see the entries that we receive as a result.”

Rowntrees Redones

Knowing how much I hate sweets, this post may come as a surprise..but I was activated by Rowntrees Sour Pastilles today!

Quite simply, buy a pack, and if it’s full of red sweets (because the Rowntrees dinosaur made a mistake and put them all into the same pack….), then you win £10,000 instantly.  If not, go onto facebook and enter the promotional code online to see if you’ve won £1000 via a second chance to win. Sadly, I didn’t win the cash, but I did win more sweets….boooo!  Sad times for Marie.

Great enticement for driving ROS – the packs were 2 for 80p in Sainsburys, and once I’d won my sweets that will now be posted to my house, I saw the below message, encouraging me to enter the promotion 2 more times for the chance to be entered into yet another draw for cash or an exclusive prize!

Cute brand interaction videos too. 

Marie

Transform Your Patch

Lolling in front of the TV last night after a hard day spent sofa shopping with a 12 week old baby who take a dim view of such activities, I saw a TV ad that spiked my attention (quite something after a large portion of cottage pie). It featured a kindly old northern ‘Granny’ lamenting the waste grounds around her and how bored the kids are. And we know what bored kids can get up to, don’t we?

But then, she holds up a magic green picture frame which amazingly ‘transforms the patch’ behind her into a bright and fun playground/ skate park/ multi-sports zone full of happy and active ‘youngsters’.

Hang on, I feel a promotion coming on...

And lo, Granny rounds off the ad by saying “just buy any of these soft drinks (Robinsons, Pepsi Max J2O, Tango) and you could help fund re-generation projects in your region”. Now that’s a lot more interesting than Kids Go Free or Free Swimming Lessons (although these are clearly strong and attractive offers to families as there hasn’t bee a time for many years that some brand some where has not been running one of these promos). I think everyone looks at the huge number of waste areas that we find in our country and wonders what to be done. Well, soft drinks and promotional marketing to the rescue.

Job done, no?

Matt

http://www.transformyourpatch.com/

Curiosity has its rewards

With severe delays on the Victoria line this week, I had more time to kill than usual and read the Metro front to back, including the classifieds. Surrounded by ‘smokers wanted’ and ‘Adult film extras needed’ was a strange little ad, aimed at ladies to encourage them to propose to their men on Feb 29^th. It was surprisingly witty and even more surprisingly had a website for Hendrick’s Gin at the bottom

Visiting the website, I was lead to the Hendrick’s Curiousitorium with tips on reverse courtship. This month Hendrick’s will have a Preposterous Proposal Throne travelling around surprising venues, to help ladies orchestrate a proposal. Plus you can win a honeymoon in a luxury London hotel.
 

A really unusual idea and the website looked great. I’m not sure how many people would have noticed this, but a great way to (cheaply) promote their activity for all those who are curious.

Vicki

Loyalty in Telecoms - O2 and 6 Nations Rugby

 

 

Now, we all know that England are going to get a proper Welsh-style bumming (is that appropriate vocab for the blog???) when they meet in a week or so’s time but that hasn’t stopped proud England sponsors O2 from doing their best to leverage the occasion to drive awareness of their ‘Priority’ rewards scheme.

I got a text on my phone telling me about an offer and directing to the website. I liked the offer and went to the site – I was activated! So far so good telecom boys.

Now, having been to the site and knowing a thing or three about rewards schemes, I’m having a mixed reaction to this. I love the ‘get a free pint & pie’ idea so I can sit in front of the telly, getting fat and drunk on O2’s money. It’s the only time I’d drink Greene Kind so it works for them too. And the pie people I suppose. (‘Pie People’ makes them sound a bit like Morlocks – perhaps they are? That would be good).

I’m less of a fan of the scheme in general however – largely because the wesbite is so dull looking and I have to do all the hard yards looking round it to find out what the rewards are that are available to me as an O2 customer. With a very low boredom threshold, I very quickly get to ‘sod this, the rewards probably aren’t worth it anyway’ and click off the site and go back to work. And who knows? They might not be. But then again, O2 have lots of sponsorship properties that I am interested in – music and sport being just two.

But then I would never know as I have be so thoroughly de-activated by the website.

Oh well.

Matt

http://www.o2priority.co.uk/

Always on the Job!

So as if five days a week being 'creative' isn't enough unfortunately that leaves two potentially unfulfilled. Fear not, this week it's just the one. On Sunday Anna and I went to the 'Museum of Brands' just off Portobello road. A really impressive kaleidoscope of brands, packs, posters and adverts. Pretty inspiring, visually stunning and a lot of things that we produce here at Wax everyday... contributing to the history of our consumer culture in a good way. That's right high five!

Definitely worth a look and independent so would benefit from support.


http://www.museumofbrands.com

Highlights below include:
Great examples of brands evolving but retaining their identities from J&J, Robinsons and Oxo.
On-pack promotions for the moon rover (that really climbs?), Space Age Zoom Balloon and a tennis lesson from 'Dan Maskell'.
A rather questionable brand ambassador from Golden Shred and a real lesson in 'pop up' direct marketing from none other than the Victorians.
(at the bottom, intended to drive interest for events in Earls Court)
 No ideas a new idea right ;)

Chris & Anna


(click to zoom)

The future of "on-pack"?

Nice little augmented reality idea for Marmite.

The app has genuine purpose in that you can search through recipe ideas that use the brand, but it’s also fun and engaging.

Could this be a new meaning to “on-pack”?

Best NPL of all time

Chocolate AND cheese - it’s like they stole this from my dreams.







 















http://www.designweek.co.uk/news/holmes-and-marchant-unites-chocolate-and-cheese-in-new-philadelphia-offering/3033771.article

A ‘Choccy Philly? Don’t Be Silly’ campaign fronted by Jennifer Saunders will be kicking off in a few weeks.

The world is now at peace.

Live Cats + Facebook = Friskies

Play with Cats live (well live if you’re awake at 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. ESTime)



http://mashable.com/2012/02/07/live-cats-facebook-friskies/?utm_source=iphoneapp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq4XJlb1F0s&feature=autoplay&list=PL5D5A93E2DE09AF12&lf=plpp_video&playnext=2

Marc Jacobs Branded Tuk Tuks

Marc Jacobs Daisy perfume has a brand new bottle in the shape of..... you've guessed another giant 'Daisy'. Coty worked with Tukshop to bring the launch to life on the streets of London - the result was a fleet of Marc Jacobs Daisy branded tuk tuks. One of the vehicles towed a specially prepared trailer containing a garden of fresh daises and some of the soon to be launched fragrance.



On 25th January Tukshop operators took the road show all over London to meet with the magazine houses such as Hearst, Bauer, IPC, Conde Nast & Hello where staff were presented with gifts to cheer them up on a chilly January day! The fleet of three brightly wrapped tuk tuks attracted lots of attention and the unique experiential activity was a great success.

Such a cute little idea

Sophie

Activating You, Activating Me.

Following my article in Promotional Marketing a few weeks ago, I today received a package from Mosaic Marketing with a Mug, some coffee, a Kit Kat (I ate that) and a letter entitled - Loyalty in Sales Promotion - My Big Fat Arse! Paul Preece, their MD, explained that like my experience with coffee shops, he finds Promotional agencies need something new to keep them interested in their suppliers, and so he took the time to remind me about their services and asked me to pass my recommendation on to the wider agency. So here you go, I've been activated - give Paul a ring on 01895 877712, or email ppreece@mosaicmarketing.co.uk if you need something offer or partnership based!

Smashing.

Craig

Ok Go nailing another music video

Another awesome and popular (1,810,356 views in two days) OK Go video.
Interesting placement for Chevrolet. Check it out here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MejbOFk7H6c
The details...
Published on Feb 5, 2012 by OkGo
The new music video from OK Go, made in partnership with Chevrolet. OK Go
set up over 1000 instruments over two miles of desert outside Los Angeles. A
Chevy Sonic was outfitted with retractable pneumatic arms designed to play
the instruments, and the band recorded this version of Needing/Getting,
singing as they played the instrument array with the car. The video took 4
months of preparation and 4 days of shooting and recording. There are no
ringers or stand-ins; Damian took stunt driving lessons. Each piano had the
lowest octaves tuned to the same note so that they'd play the right note no
matter where they were struck. For more information and behind-the-scenes
footage, see http://www.LetsDoThis.com and http://www.okgo.net. Many thanks
to Chevy for believing in and supporting such an insane and ambitious
project, and to Gretsch for providing the guitars.
Director: Brian L. Perkins & Damian Kulash, Jr.
Director of Photography: Yon Thomas
Editor: Doug Walker
Producer: Luke Ricci
31,593 likes, 671 dislikes
And for a classic OK Go video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXsPtMvkwOk&feature=related

Suck UK

Some great ideas on this site www.suck.uk.com

Sean

Festival brolly for Southern Comfort?




A Sun Jar for Southern Comfort Lime?



Interactive Glow Graffiti for Southern Comfort late night bars/clubs?



My personal favourite, the cat scratch turntable for moggies who like to mix it up...

Lightspray Glow Graffiti

Paint With Light
It's the   dead of night ... everyone is tucked up in bed ... the owls are a-hooting.  Time to break out the Glow Graffiti!  Powered with LED light, you can write, stencil and draw pictures to create your very own glowing light show.  It's a little like vandalism, only much prettier.  (And the police won't nick you for doing it).  Perfect for parties - and if you're nocturnal - it will keep your friends intrigued for hours.

http://www.glow.co.uk/glow-graffiti.html

Could fit under the ‘unexpected banner’ for Southern Comfort

Sean

You smoothie

Innocent are inviting customers to personalise and print off their own labels of love for Valentine’s Day.




Cheapskates.

A Cathedral Made from 55,000 LED Lights

Saw this, loved it.

A few more pics here http://on.fb.me/xxCXH0

Sean

Contrex - French Water

This is brilliant – French water brand – how to activate women to drink more water and burn calories into the mix!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O5BJPG1YtM

Lucy