Accidental Genius

I've seen two great uses of word of mouth and new media by EA recently, but I can't figure out if they were on purpose or not. I guess that's the future of internet promotions really - if they're done well people are sucked in without knowing about it.

Become the enemy of your friends enemy

The first thing they did was attack the dodgy developer Tim Langdell, who was famous only for having copyrighted the word Edge and using it to get money off of loads of real developers. He had recently got a game called Edge taken off the App store and this had lead to the gaming community uncovering his various unpleasant methods of creating court cases, such as pretending he had a game called 'MIRRORS a game by EDGE' in production.

And so this is where EA came in and decided to take Tim to court over the fact that he was forcing real developers to pay him money for no legitimate reason. Thus somehow the lawyers of a big corporation were being hailed as heroes by fans of small indie studios. Just a few short years ago EA's lawyers were a symbol of everything wrong with the games industry to many hardcore gamers, so whether it was on purpose or not, the lawsuit made a real positive impact on the company's image.

A bug in the system

This one I'm fairly certain wasn't on purpose, but it would have been so clever I really hope it was the work of a marketing man.

Last Saturday there was a bug on the EA store which meant putting three specific games in your basket got you them for free. Seems like a terrible thing for a business, but as soon as one customer got the games for free the internet was flooded with people talking about the EA store and stepping over their own mother to sign up and get the games before the bug was fixed.

At a time when EA are desperately trying to create an online digital distribution service which can compete with the likes of Steam, this 'bug' created word of mouth the size and speed of which no ordinary promotion could have managed.

The Pringle Jingle Pickle

I was disappointed to see the new Pringles advert contained a song about wanting fun - and it wasn't this poetic assault on the senses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eKu2eDgiac

If anyone working for Pringles is currently searching for a song about partying for their next ad, I may have a suggestion for you...

Adverts are like Primark t-shirts

Two TV adverts seem to be on at every break recently. The googly eyed drug driving campaign and the Derren Brown lottery shenanigans.

The thing is, only one of those ads seems to realise it's being shown all the time. So, while the big eyes are appropriately eye catching the first time you see them, you soon get bored by the traditional naughty-driving storyline.

However, even after Derren's been burnt like a witch for guessing those numbers, I still pay close attention to his ads for all the little messages and tricks in the background.



Now obviously not everyone is trying to sell magic paraphernalia, or Paul Daniels would still be on TV, but it seems like there must be enough material in a good product or idea to keep an advert interesting through the second and third viewing.

It strikes me as strange that we all aim to get the right consumers to see our ad multiple times, and yet very rarely are they ever given anything to make them want to pay attention more than once.

Whether putting hidden detail in an ad, mixing up the same story to give it a new lease of life (see previous Barclays post) or just having an idea so good it's worth seeing twice, there's no doubt that with a bit of skill and talent, consumers can be made to want to see your communication again.

In the land of Sky+, if the big campaigns want to live the dream of being as good as the content it interrupts, then there needs to be acceptance that a design/story/reveal that only engages once, is only worth showing once.

A brief chat with Duffy

I love Spotify, but I can't stand the adverts. Not the frequency of the adverts, just the adverts themselves.

Sometimes it feels like the people producing the ads have never discovered audio in an advert before. I can't think of any other reason for them to think it was a good idea to get this weeks most popular artists and get them to talk to me about their records with all the excitement of someone selling me a new mobile phone plan.



Of course, maybe it's just them thinking this Spotify is a bit like one of them social networks, so let's pretend we're all friends. Well it doesn't work. There's a reason why TV ads for albums show the songs and the videos, rather than 30 seconds of Bono sitting by a fireplace saying "Oh, hello there! I'd like to take a few minutes to talk to you about our lovely new album".

Even that sounds a bit too natural compared to some of the scripted stuff being read out by artists who clearly aren't selected to talk to me based on the music I listen to. For example: "The guys at Spotify think that everyone loves music, and I think you will too".

Now, unless upon me downloading this woman's song I step outside and the world is holding hands and singing together in peace, I find it hard to see any sense in that line what so ever. It would feel stupidly corporate in a hard sell TV ad, let alone this friendly online chat between musical pals.

So please Spotify, I honestly don't mind how many adverts for albums you put in there, just make sure I can hear the music and not some marketing guys 'friendly' chatter.

Loser Generated

Part 2 of my things vaguely related to both computer games and advertising.

Ever since John Internet invented Web 2.0, there have been competitions based around Youtube videos. They're all good fun and there's usually entertainment in watching the winners, but its not really that inclusive.

The trouble with user generated content as competitions is that there's a lot of people using the internet, and only one of those I would like to win. If people had to create a film each week just to enter the lottery then no-one would do it and this is sometimes how these competitions can feel for me. A lot of effort, for no reward.

So, the question is, how do you get people to take part in a challenge which for most people is far too tough for them to win? Who knows... but there are a few interesting examples of ways computer games have tackled this issue.

The first example is quite simply just breaking the challenge down into chunks. The Xbox does this using achievements - little celebrations that appear periodically to reward you for each major step you make in the game. So if someone never makes it to the big boss on level 10, they still have little medals saying they've conquered the game right up to level 9.

Now achievements are a big success story in gaming, but there's not much point having a level 9 badge if there's no-one to compare it to. This is where rivals come in.

In the old days a rival was probably a friend playing at your side, but with the internet there can be millions of people you've never met, doing better than you at a game. This is where a music game called Audiosurf has done some great work. First of all it splits scoreboards by songs, so there'll always be one track in your iTunes list that's obscure enough for you to top the leaderboard with.

Secondly, it sends you an email when someone beats your score and knocks off your crown. I recently received one saying someone had beaten my score at 'The Groove' by Muse, and despite having not played the game for several months, I am now wholly focused on crushing my nemesis. A rival, out of nowhere! It's genius and has exactly the same effect it does in sports - it makes you try harder and play more.

Finally, there's Spore, perhaps the most closely related to my Youtube ramble at the start, as it too is essentially a tool for user generated content. For those who don't know, you essentially use the game to build all manner of creatures and then construct your own designs for their houses etc.

This could have quite easily ended in the usual problem of a few superhumans creating work better than everyone one else, so the average Joe's work is forgotten. However, the twist is that it places other people's work into your game at all times, so you will always see new creatures and buildings created by someone, somewhere in the world.

There are still options to pick from the best of the bunch, but by default, the work of anyone in the world can be used to populate your planet. This leads to not only enjoyment at other peoples creations, but also extra work on your own, because you know that far far away someone has just been clawed to death by your incredible Dr Zoidberg look-a-like.

Now for me those first two examples can be put into practice straight away, but I think the final idea opens up an interesting area about how promotions based around user generated content can have people's work integrated right through the experience, and become part of the interaction, not just as something you passively view at the end.

Congratulations, the audience recalled none of the information!

The Quick Quid TV advert is surely a work of cunning genius.

It gets the perfect balance of boredom and repetition, so that after viewing it around four times I know the name and a general idea of what the business is.

Now perhaps this isn't the best a company could hope for after four viewings, but I think it's very successful for the fact that at no point after seeing the ad did I scream "Typical 2356% APR".

Typical 2356% APR

Now in fairness, this is a short term loan over perhaps a week or two, but that's one hell of a bombshell to sweep under the carpet.

Like I said, I only found this info on their website so I can't say for certain whether it's hidden in small writing somewhere at the bottom of the ad, or has just been kept away from TV at all costs like an ugly presenter.

Either way, I can't imagine it's a terribly good method of helping people in desperate need of money to make a sensible choice.

Still, I feel it does give us a good way of judging political campaigns. It's not the number of votes the BNP get, it's the number of adverts people can watch before thinking the word 'racist'.

If Charlie and The Chocolate Factory happened today...

I honestly can't remember the last on-pack competition I've paid any attention to. And this is from someone who has no brand loyalty when it comes to having slim chances of winning stuff.

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For a long time now the joy of opening a wrapper to see 'Bad luck, try again next time' has been completely replaced by unique codes you text or type online and ever since then the sparkly gold competition wrappers have had absolutely no impact on me.

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I understand this method gives marketers lots of lovely data on consumers, but it just seems like they've made it harder and less enjoyable for consumers without giving anything back to them in return.

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I'd love to see a return to good old fashioned competitions, but sadly I think if it did happened, I'd be too used to ignoring them to notice.