Experience Manifesto

Volvo Wins Bronze Media Lion

We were pretty busy last week and I should've posted this then, but hey, better late then never! We're very excited that our work for Volvo won a bronze Lion at Cannes and continues to show the power of creating a cool, compelling experience. And given the competition for cool things at Cannes this year, we're very honored that the first project we had at Cannes actually won a medal! Congrats to the team at Nitro, Mindshare, Carlton Screenvision and, of course, Volvo for all of their work to make this program happen.

Innovative Media Strategy:
As well as experiential and social networking, cinema provides a live and exciting media creation of Volvo's Global strategy of togetherness. This first ever in-cinema game provides a fun and unique way to bring this to life and help consumers share a happy, positive experience together.

Creative Execution:
Using motion sensors cinema audiences became willing human joysticks where their movements controlled the action in a game on the screen. The more they worked together, the better they handled the Volvo in the Cinema Driving Game. Living proof of Volvo's Global positioning: Life is better lived together. 12 cinemas across the UK we're given the chance compete against each other. This live event made history being the first time cinemas had ever competed together anywhere in the world. The enjoyable event generated incredible PR, prompting Brand Week magazine to name it one of the top creative ideas of 2007.

Target Audience:
Please watch the case study to see how the media idea was received by the audiences taking part.

Effectiveness:
The event generated massive press interest. The event was featured in over 40 separate articles in press and online commending the world's first live interactive cinema gaming experience. This idea was showcased in the UK and is now being considered by Volvo's Global Markets.

Link: Cannes Lions 2008.

MyDigitalCinema: Future of cinema advertising in Cannes

Barry & Clilly went to Cannes this year (while I was in Denver, not sure I got the better end of that deal!) and presented AudienceGames during the Sawa - Screen Advertising World Association session on Monday afternoon in Cannes. As usual, it was a big hit and I understand that almost everyone in the audience played. This session generated a lot of discussion with cinema companies around the world and I hope that you'll see a global AudienceGames network in the future!

For the fourth year in a row I had the fun and pleasure of moderating the SAWA (Screen Advertising World Association) seminar at the Cannel Lions Festival on advertising, this year called 'Cinema - the Medium where all ideal look big.'

This year we looked at interactive advertising, courtesy of the interactive 'human joystick' game created by Brand Experience Lab. We also looked at 3D advertising in cinemas, including Red Bull from UK and Superbock and Vodafone from Portugal.

All-in-all 470 people attended the session and we had to turn away some 150 unhappy late comers. Once again it was the single most well attended event of the Cannes Lions.

Link: MyDigitalCinema: Future of cinema advertising in Cannes.

Super Happy Fun Big City Bingo

My buddy Limor Schafman, Sydney & I played Super Happy Fun Big City Bingo at Thompkins Square Park yesterday with two other folks we met there. Designed by the folks at Disney Imagineering, it was a very fun game where you filled your bingo card by taking pictures of the items described on the card. So we needed pictures of a shopping bag or someone walking an invisible dog or our favorite, our team acting out Romeo & Juliet. Our team, 3 NY'ers and a Texan won the 2nd round, with 16 pictures. We almost had one of our pictures disqualified since we asked someone in the park to pretend they were walking an invisible dog and we didn't know they actually had someone with a pretend invisible dog leash.

It was another fun example of something brands could do to engage audiences in a fun and yes, interactive way. And it was a great way to explore Thompkins Square Park.

I think we may try to do a session on group games at the Lab if there's enough interest. If you'd like to learn more, just drop an e-mail and let us know.

Sent wirelessly from Nokia 9500 & T-Mobile

Come Out & Play Festival, Panel Discussion

At the first (actually I think, only) panel at the Come Out & Play festival today, looking at the future of urban, interactive street games. I'll get links up later, so some of these notes will make more sense once those links are up.

I think that Rob Jenner (sorry, I didn't write down his name!) from Raven Chase (Treasure Hunts, Corporate Teambuilding — More Fun Than Amazing Race! – Ravenchase Adventures), combination of DaVinci Code, National Treasure and the Great Race. Life event that takes place across a specific city.

Annette Mace (Ahh... Art Igniting Minds | The Team), Performance Lab, looking at blurring the lines between theater & audience, as well as looking at new places to do theater.

Jane McGonigal (Jane McGonigal Biography) talked about her work on The Lost Ring, which built a mythology around a lost Olympic sport involving blindfolds & mazes. I wasn't able to get up to Central Park to play it yesterday and I'm sorry that I missed it.

Kevin Slavin (area/code) from AreaCode is the 4th panelists and I always love the work that they're doing.

A big shift in driving the adoption of urban games is the willingness of the audience to be engaged in play.

Big challenge is that too many of the games are designed as "one off's" and there's no real, long time game play.

Jane talked about the addition of sports equipment to aid in physical fitness (like Nike+), which means that maybe games played during your everyday life may aid in getting people more active.

Kevin just showed a great article about the "Sheffield map," showing the reduction of roaming space for children over generations. Grandfather could travel over 6 miles on his own as a kid; his grandson can travel to the end of his block, about 300 yards. (How children lost the right to roam in four generations | Mail Online) The point was made that while people are more & more willing to engage in urban games while our roaming space is being reduced.

Kevin has three technologies that he's most interested in:

Human/Robotic developments (this is far off, but he's really excited about what this will mean in the future.)

Transformable, interactive architecture

Uses of mobile phones that we don't have here, ways for the phone to be used as tool to interact with other people.

Jane -- What I do in my real life counts toward my gaming adventure. This is a really interesting idea and really plays into the idea of brand utility, but in a seriously damn, cool way! This is why brands need to really be paying attention to what's happening in this space in order to learn how they can bring it to their audiences.

Games can also be a great social activation tool and help people to change their behavior.

There's more activities today and we may head over there this afternoon for more fun & games!

Link: :: Come Out & Play 2008 ::.

Sent wirelessly from Nokia 9500 & T-Mobile

DVR Usage to Blame for Idiotic, Invasive Intrusions -- Adrants

I wrote about this last July (see Experience Manifesto: Note To FX Network) and it's getting worse & worse. It's particularly bad on the cable nets, but I'm sure it'll eventually move over to major networks as well. As I said in my comment at Adrants, we like to talk about the consumer being in control, but the reality is we can't wait to take that control away. Going to fast forward through our commercials? Well, we'll just put the commercial over your show. That way you can't miss it at all! Yea, that's consumer in control thinking. Remember this folks, a people in captivity will always revolt. That revolution is coming folks. It's coming.

We did it to ourselves. Yes we did. With help from our much-loved DVRs. We started a war. A war between those who want to skip commercial and those who want people to see them no matter what technology exists to skip them. The latest in an increasing list of tactics comes from TBS which is running promotions during programming which involves pausing the show while an ad runs on the lower third of the screen. Right now, it's just station promos but, seriously, how long before we see paid advertising in this space? We did it to ourselves.

Some have pointed out the intrusive promotions are simply mirroring what's being promoted; the Bill Engvall show in a TV remote is a prominent plot element. Still. There's no doubt, after seeing this, every marketer will scream, "I want one!"

Link: DVR Usage to Blame for Idiotic, Invasive Intrusions -- Adrants.

Land Of Make Believe, Hope NJ

Spending Memorial Day at the Land of Make Believe in Hope, NJ. It's one of those rare, non-corporate theme parks that existed everywhere when I was a kid. Today, these kind of parks are much harder to find, but they can still deliver a days worth of fun for a 7 year old.

One of the problems we have when going to most non-attraction (Disney, Universal, etc.) is finding something suitable for Sydney to spend the day. The Six Flags park here isn't really bad, but sometimes Sydney gets frustrated when there's so much she can't do. Here there are things she won't do, but it's her choice.

Interestingly, it's also one of the few places that I know of where adults pay less then the children. It makes sense when you think about jt it, since kids really use the park much more then adults. Usually we're standing on the sideline just watching, except for the water park where we all have a fun time.

They also have a picnic area where you can bring in your own food. It's not a prime location, but I really do appreciate that they let you have that option. In addition to how expensive park food can be (although LOMB isn't really that bad), they don't always have the best selections available and Sydney can be an awfully picky eater sometimes. So having the option of bringing in our own food really helps make it a better experience for us all.

They actually have a Santa's workshop there too (I forgot to take a picture) and it was kinda' hot the day we were there, but there was Santa ready to say hello. Oddly, Sydney's still a little afraid of Santa, so she didn't want to go to close. I don't know if LOMB is open at all in the winter, so I don't know if you can visit Santa there during the actual Christmas holiday.

Sydney loved the little tube ride around the water park and shooting the water cannons at Kristen and me. She's done some of the water flume rides before, but wasn't into to them on this visit. I honestly used to stress when we paid for something like this and then all Sydney wanted to do was the same one or two things over & over, but now I just let her have her fun how she wants it. Maybe if she had a friend with her, she would've done more rides.

But, we had a fun day and at the end, Sydney even won that game where you have to throw the little plastic golf ball into the right bucket. I didn't think to take a picture of that either, since I've never been able to win at that game. But she won on her first throw! She took home a big dragon and was very pleased with her accomplishment!

If you've got kids (toddler to may 10'ish), Land of Make Believe is a good way to spend the day!

Link: Welcome to the Land of Make Believe!

Sent wirelessly from Nokia 9500 & T-Mobile

American Takes Flak Over Bag Fee, Despite PR Strategy - Advertising Age - News

American Airlines has taken a pretty big hit lately because of their $15 fee for your first suitcase. Of course, flying today is a general nightmare for the most part. In general, the airline industry is showing some of the worst customer satisfaction numbers in history. Here's a great quote from the Ad Age article:

Mr. Fornell said consumers' hopes for a positive airline experience have become so diminished that the business plan for any airline wanting to distinguish itself from the competition needs to follow is a simple one. "Bring your passengers to their destinations on time with their luggage," he said. "Nobody has higher expectations than that now." (Emphasis mine)

But here's as so frustrating about things like this. When things are going well, most brands aren't out there trying to do things for the customer either. There's no real relationship being developed. I happened to be in London during last year's crisis at Northern Rock bank and he's what I observed then:

It does beg the question as to how much loyalty Northern Rock created with it's customers before this all began. Too many brands use a crisis as the first real time they reach out to say "Hey, we're here for you. Help us get though this and we'll be there for you when it's all over." But when the crisis is over, they go back to business as usual. Do you think they'll offer to drop the interest rates on their mortgages for people who leave their money where it is? Or will they send your nasty notes when you're a day late with your mortgage payment?

So to American Airlines I would say this. The reason you're not getting any sympathy for all of your troubles, even legitimate ones like much higher gas prices, is because we don't have any reason to give you that sympathy. You've never really been there for us. You ask us to make sacrifices for you all the time. But every time we've ever asked you for help, you almost always say no. Show up late for a flight and you almost never say "Hey, no problem, we're just put you on the next flight." No, usually you say too bad, you'll need to pay the change fee, blah, blah, blah. I can't tell you how many times I've had a chance on other airlines to change to an earlier flight flying into a different airport in NYC and been told that I'll have to buy a new ticket. All convenience for them, none for me.

So, now you need our help and you just don't understand why we're not supporting you in this time of need. Well, after years of a one-way friendship, we're just not that into you!

Link: American Takes Flak Over Bag Fee, Despite PR Strategy - Advertising Age - News.

Link: Experience Manifesto: The Power of the Crowd.