Hide and Seek at IKEA goes viral... was it generated by IKEA? No, it was an initiative of every-day people using facebook, one person on facebook started an event and invited a number of people and it simply snowballed into a viral thing.

The most interesting aspect of this viral initiative is that IKEA didn’t take this opportunity to promote themselves directly nor affiliate themselves with the event created, rather, they have quietly allowed for the event to take place in their store around the world and responded to the event, and stated that they would be not happy to condone anything that might put their customers at risk or detract from a positive in-store experience.

Same thing has happened with Diet Coke and Mentos, two brands have aligned through the viral presence of what happens when you drop a Mentos into diet coke bottle. Another one is with McDonald’s quarter pounder where people tries to eat a Pounder (which is simply four quarter pounder piled up together).

To ensure their brand maintains the same public image, they are acutely aware of how they have to carefully harness themselves around the viral campaigns created by their consumers and they would have to be very careful of how they connect their brand to such thing... what if it goes haywire?

Now, I wish I could to head off to IKEA and play some hide and seek, not to advertise nor endorse IKEA but just to have fun! But in that process, I am inadvertently advertising/endorsing IKEA. That’s how amazing virals are.

¹ What businesses can learn from IKEA's viral hide-and-seek Facebook game
² Photo by GSM Antennes

I own a smart phone. And I’d love to use it for every purpose including checking in at airports for flights, I have experienced my first use with Singapore Air where they sent me a SMS after checking in through their web check-in system, giving my the option of printing out the boarding pass, check in details to be messaged to my mobile or have the boarding pass emailed to me.

This excites me because I detest printing boarding passes when it’s easily avoidable. QANTAS have recently adopted this integration, and is introducing it to the public at the moment. They are going to send a bar code (which is usually printed with the boarding pass, at the edge or so) to your mobile and you would only have to bring it up on the screen and have it scanned by staff at the boarding gate. That eliminates a lot of run-around at the airport, dramatically reducing the amount of time taken to get a boarding pass printed, sorted out and scanned.

I’ve always appreciated when a business takes the time to enhance the experience of their customers, especially in a place like an airport where it is always chaotic.

¹ Smartphone Mobile Check-In With Qantas
² Photo by Repman

Following on my last post, future of TV and Advertising. Coles and Woolworths is in middle of a huge advertising battle due to Coles presence on Masterchef which has led Woolworths to spike their spending in advertising to gain footing after stumbling for a while.

Woolworths have strategically cut prices on over four thousand items and released a marketing campaign in February whereas Coles held on until early June to roll out their response to that strategy. Coles were largely focused on celebrity endorsement whereas Woolworths are touching on community spirit and the freshness of the produces they sell.

On television, Woolworths and Coles have been in war to sponsor My Kitchen Rules, a SEVEN network show running into their second season. Coles lucked out and got to sponsor the show, which have led Woolworths to strategically level up again.

I find all this competition very interesting especially because both are on top of the supermarket pyramid and they are constantly vying to attract more customers and to win over customers who are loyal to other supermarkets. The nature of this competition is quite refreshing, they are trying to match up in every aspect; spend, thoughtfulness, strategy, innovation and store fit-outs.

¹ Coles, Woolworths in advertising war
² Photograph from ABC Website

This kicks back to my post about 3D TV, people are buzzing that 3D TV would be the future of TV and Advertising as it may skew the content exhibited through TV to be more focused. I disagree because of it’s inconsistent nature and I am not sure if it’ll even catch on with people beyond the gullible and overly eager people.

Whilst digging around for an article to support my perception, I found an interesting article indicating that Masterchef (yes, the cooking program that millions of Australians tuned in for) is a great indicator of future in TV and Advertising because of it’s complex programming and presence.

It’s hard to not notice that there were a lot of brand endorsements done through the show, especially how they have paraded Coles as their sole supplier for produces that they use the show and Coles have cleverly carried that into their stores Australiawide with branding that tells people if they want to cook like the contestants on the show, they should shop like they do... at Coles!

The ad-breaks during the show were boldly focused on the people who would be watching it because the network were able to guarantee that there will be millions of people who enjoys cooking, food and beverages so brands would flood in to advertise their products.

TEN and Fremantle Media and respective team have created the most desirable TV program, we will be seeing a lot more of this kind of show in future. With heavy brand endorsements and encouraging audience participation even though they are sitting on a couch in their cosy lounge or whatnot.

¹ 7 reasons why Masterchef is the future of TV & advertising
² Image is a screenshot of Masterchef introductory title

Crowdsourcing is a term that describes the act of outsourcing tasks out to a large group of people or community which were traditionally performed by employees or contractors. In constant use by internet users seeking for response or opinions towards a specific topic, and lately there has been an incredible increase in crowdsourcing amongst big brand names.

Most notably, Sony have jumped on board with World Wildlife Fund recently to crowdsource green technology. Rather than using their in-house research and development teams, they have went outwards to find new technology which are considered green for its sustainability.

There are numerous of pros and cons associated with crowdsourcing, following are of my own opinion. With crowdsourcing you are able to find radically new ideas, something out from the left field quickly enough whereas with in-house research and development team’s ideas would originate from preceding development, slowly building it on top of already formed ideas.

here’s a downfall to crowdsourcing for ideas because it means they would have a lot of information to filter through, most would be rendered inviable due to their unrealistic nature such as impossible parameters for funding or includes elements of unreasonable danger, or it runs against the brand’s ethos and identity.

I have crowdsourced in past with varied result, most of them were product-related reviews or recommendations of services. It’s difficult to filter through information coming through from various sources, you would have to dig further to see if one’s information is viable and honest, or could it be skewered due to their affinity (or hate?) towards the brand they recommended.

¹ Photograph by Thomas Broadahl
² Crowdsourcing on Wikipedia
³ The Pros and Cons of Crowdsourcing