Archive for the ‘Online Marketing’ Category
Gingerbread Ed Viral - New Zealand Bakery of the Year
The New Zealand Bakery of the Year challenge is one bit of online marketing that I look forward to each year now. The reason why I like it is simple - whats not to like about those cute little animated gingerbread men. Each years viral video is as entertaining as the last and this years Gingerbread Ed video is (as they put it on the Bakery of the Year site) an edible homage to one of New Zealand’s greatest, Sir Edmund Hilary.
As per usual each bakery is assigned a unique number to identify them for judging and voting purposes. Then people can vote for their favourite bakeries by texting. This public text voting and expert bakery judges determine the winners. A special People’s Choice Award is determined through online voting.
Gingerbread Ed is right up there with their previous years campaigns of the Gingerbread Gangsters and the Gingerbread Haka.
Girls Toys Blog - Twitter Competition Offer
I came across the Girls Toys site by following a Retweet on Twitter. Just to set you straight (incase your mind has wandered over the name) the Girls Toys site is a lifestyle Blog where they review products, services and web sites for modern mothers including eco-living, health, fashion and gadgets.
The Retweet was pointing people to the Girls Toys Blog to win an Ecostore pack of goodies. I was very interested because I use the Ecostore products myself. And besides freebies are exactly what a mother needs and every little bit helps!
Ecostore Prizepack
There were three ways of entering to win the Ecostore product giveaways. As a minimum requirement all you had to do was the 1st step, and then you could receive a second and third entry by following steps 2 and 3 below:
(1) Signup to their newsletter
(2) Follow them on Twitter and tweet about the contest.
(3) Join the Girlstoys Blog Network on Facebook and leave a comment there to let them know that you’ve joined.
I liked the way they make you step through a few painless social networking signups in order to get entries into the competition. Yes, the newsletter signup was simple, as is joining the Facebook group and it only takes a few seconds to send a Retweet on Twitter. I honestly cannot remember the last time when entering a competition was so easy.
Twitter Buzz
The benefits of them posting the competition link on Twitter sends people to their Blog and getting people to Retweet the giveaway gets their Twitter username more exposure as more people enter. To top it off they also get more followers on Twitter.
Tourism New Zealand - Have Your Say
Tourism New Zealand have recently launched a second phase of an online marketing iniative here in New Zealand. The Pure New Zealand ‘Have your Say’ studio is the second phase of the ‘What Do You Say UK?’ campaign that was launched in London. They want people to use social networking sites like YouTube and Facebook to spread the word about New Zealand as a holiday destination.
How this will work is a mobile recording studio will be touring around the country collecting tourist stories of their time in New Zealand, in the form of a video diary. They will be able to edit it with their own photos and video footage, then post it on to social networking sites.
YouTube Channel - PureNZ ‘Have Your Say’
The videos are being published into unpaid media channels, including a YouTube PureNZ ‘Have Your Say’ channel which will be fed on to Tourism New Zealand’s consumer web site. Their goal is to record about 3,500 video diary clips during the tour around New Zealand.
In their press release they say “If every clip is viewed by 10 friends and family back home, and if 3000 clips are filmed that’s thirty thousand messages about New Zealand sent to our key markets – a very cost-effective form of marketing.”
John Key’s video message removed?
To help promote this New Zealand’s Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism, John Key recorded his own video message. Unfortunately John Key’s video (which had over 3000 views when I last saw it) came across as kinda cheesy and the 20 text comments in response to his message hadn’t exactly been very nice either.
And low and behold, I was just about to embed John Key’s video into this blog post, when suddenly the video isn’t available anymore. The video has been removed? My guess is that they may have removed it due to the unflattering text comments people have left. If you want an example of the type of comments people have been posting in response to John Key’s message, then check out the responses at the Spare Room. You’ll be able to relate to it more if you actually saw the video, but the comments are spot on, wet your pants funny, with people taking the piss out of John Key.
Is it a case of ‘Have Your Say’, but no actually you can’t have your say if you ain’t got anything nice to say about John Key or New Zealand for that matter? I’m sure everyone would love to hear from Tourism New Zealand as to why they decided to take down John Key’s message!
Tourism New Zealand have also launched a 100% Pure New Zealand Facebook page and a 100% Pure New Zealand group on Flickr around the same time as this campaign. But after corresponding with Tourism New Zealand, they confirmed that actually neither of these were part of the ‘Have Your Say’ Campaign.
Hell Pizza’s Controversial Halloween Advert
Hell Pizza in New Zealand have hit the headlines again with more controversial advertising. The latest is a Halloween pizza promotion that was on the microsite www.backfromthedead.co.nz. The animation depicts Sir Edmund Hillary, Heath Ledger and the Queen Mother emerging from graves and dancing to Michael Jackson’s song Thriller. People have found it offensive and in bad taste. The site has been taken down.
According to the BBC News, they say the firm’s marketing director Rachael Allison told New Zealand media that the latest animation was part of an e-mail campaign targeting existing customers and that around 5,000 people saw the advert before it fell into the hands of the media.
Mash-up on YouTube
A search for the animation on YouTube comes up with only one video posted. I’m not even going to bother to insert a link to view this video because the video clip doesn’t actually show anything of the animation and it doesn’t deserve anymore views.
When I begun my research on this latest Hell Pizza controversy, this YouTube video had been viewed 15,371 times. Looking at it the following day it had received 17,177 views. So, around 1800 views in one day. For a crappy, dud mashup that doesn’t show the animation, thats not bad in terms of views for that amount of time. And of course the only reason why it has had so many views is because it is the only thing you can find relating to the advert.
I am amazed that no-one managed to get the actual animation onto YouTube, as this is where a lot of banned advertisements end up. Okay, so now you’re curious and probably want to go and check out the mashup video anyway. Honestly, I wouldn’t bother.