Volkswagen Golf GTI 2010

When it comes to using the iPhone to promote a product or brand, there are now literally thousands of examples of how to do it, and how not to do it. Either way, most follow the exact same approach - create a free iPhone app, throw in a host of features and functionality, deliver at least one USP that will give you first mover advantage, and away you go. The kids will love it, you'll get hundreds of thousands of downloads and everything will be good in the world.

Boring!

What if you approached it from a whole new line of thinking. Consider that you're a car manufacturer in a marketplace of falling print readership, a marketplace where audiences are moving their TV viewing to the Web, and a marketplace that has been severely effected by the current economic climate. Volkswagen are such a car manufacturer but instead of going with the flow and doing what everyone else has tried doing, Volkswagen have decided to do things a little differently.

So in preperation of the launch of their 2010 GTI Golf, Volkswagen have done a bit of research. According to their findings there are 4 million 21-34 year old male iPhone gamers. This is the core GTI target market, and Volkswagen believe that while they may want this car, they simply don't know it yet. So they have decided to go after that audience in a very targeted, using the iPhone, but not as we know it.

Volkswagen have become the first car manufacturer to launch a car solely on the iPhone. Not as an app, but instead as an exclusive, playable element of the iPhone racing game Firemint Real Racing. This is a game that already has 70 million downloads since its launch in June. Available at the iTunes App Store for free, the 'Real Racing GTI' level lets you choose from six different 2010 GTIs and race them on a track laden with VW logos.


On top of being able to drive the car and experience its performance through the game, Volkswagen are also offering an added bonus. Players can compete to win one of six limited-edition black GTI Mach 6 Golfs; featuring special edition stitching on the floor mats and head rests, carbon-fiber finishes on the doors and mirrors, red calipers on the wheels, and special logos on the front and on the steering wheel. In addition, the 2010 GTI's sound system has been upgraded to include full iPod integration. Over six weeks (from last Thursday), players can race as often as they want and scores are automatically uploaded to an online leaderboard. The best score for each week wins the car for that week.

The game also lets you send Twitter messages straight from the game and upload videos of your best races to YouTube so you’ll be able to show everyone the race that got you a brand new 2010 VW GTI.

In itself this would be a fundamentally revolutionary way to drive awareness of a new car, but this is the only marketing and advertising that Volkswagen is doing for the car. By concentrating on a young and tech savvy, car loving audience, Volkswagen estimate that they will only have to spend a quarter of a typical print and television campaign budget.

This is the Volkswagen promo video for the campaign:


This is a video uploaded to YouTube by a gamer his actual Volkswagen GTI race:

V Australia - One Way Ticket

Back in July and August, V Australia and Virgin Atlantic ran two really innovative and immersive competitions. 4320:SYD and 4320:LA were Twitter driven campaigns that offered participants a once in a life time experience, through a first of its kind mechanic. Following their Twitter based activity, V Australia have launched their latest online marketing campaign, this time through Facebook.

The latest campaign is based on the concept of Frienemies.

Frienemy [Frie•ne•my]
- noun
1. A combination of 'friend' and 'enemy'.
2. A ‘friend’ who has become an ‘enemy’ by doing something that’s got on your nerves. So why not get rid of them?


The campaign calls on users to nominate a ‘frienemy’ using the V Australia Facebook app. By nominating a ‘Frienemy’ with the app you can win the chance to send them on a one-way trip to Johannesburg, Phuket or LA. The app features a public leaderboard of the campaign's top Frienemies, and will run until November 24.

The campaign has been developed by V Australia by Native.

Malibu: Drink Mixer

Slight bit of déjà vu today with updates on two campaigns that I previous blogged about. Following this morning's Budweiser Lyrics update of sorts I got an email from Francois in Great Works to let me know that Malibu's Radio Maliboom Boom has just launched the latest digital instalment of their campaign: the Malibu Drink Mixer.

The Malibu Drink Mixer is a digital tool that offers the perfect drink recipe by playing around with sonic variables that correspond to a range of different taste preferences. And if that doesn't sound like some serious high tech wizardry then I don't know what does!

The whole thing has been designed by a team of renowned DJs, and is said to provide "a deep sensory experience by allowing fans to experiment with mixing sound and taste together". All in all the Malibu Drink Mixer offers 625 beat variations and 81 different drink recipes, with the drink outcome offered to the user along with a corresponding recipe and downloadable MP3 that can be used as a ringtone, shared with friends or posted to their blog.

For me that's probably the two best parts, not only providing you with something to take away in the form of the recipe and MP3, but allowing you to easily push the content out into your network to share with friends. I definitely recommend giving it a go - good fun to get you into the weekend mood, or at least the tropical island mood, which going by the weather from the last couple of days is probably a great thought for all of us ;)

Check out the latest Maliboom Boom Radio ad - DJ Bernhard helps get the grove flowing

Budweiser Lyrics... Sorta

Back in August I wrote about the new Budweiser Lyrics TV ad and the competition running with it. I'm a Beatles fan and I loved the use of an otherwise somewhat unknown Beatles track in an extremely fun and memorable way. In short I really liked the campaign execution and thought that the creative perfectly matched the intended reaction.

When it comes down to it though, for any brand that produces a new ad or runs a new campaign, the real sign of success comes from the engagement that it generates. All in all this campaign was a huge success and I have seen the ad referenced in numerous places, by many people. Then you stumble upon something that really highlights the engagement that the ad has generated. This is a video created by ijbellehy1981 as a spoof / tribute to the original ad:



And for those that may have missed it, this is the original ad:


Many thanks to Darragh for the heads up on this :)

Pay Per Click YouTube

Massive news this week with the announcement on the Google Blog that YouTube will be linking up with Google's AdSense to allow 'Promoted Video' ads. Previously, all YouTube Promoted Video ads were managed on YouTube at ads.youtube.com. Essentially YouTube’s Promoted Videos, which had previously only shown next to site search results and in the right column next to currently playing videos, will now be available through a huge number of AdSense using publishers.

The move may seem like a no-brainer considering that YouTube's parent company is Google, but it's a move that I'm sure has taken a serious amount of planning. The new Promoted Video ads will only be available to publishers in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, in English but Google has stated that additional languages and regions will be coming online very soon. From a Publisher's point of view, the Promoted Video ads will work exactly the same as the standard AdSense units. They will be contextually related to each page and will function on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis. Obviously the standard ad auction system will still be in place, so no-doubt premium sites look set to start making serious extra cash.

Considering that over 20 hours of footage are uploaded to YouTube every minute, it's almost odd to think that this is a move that hadn't already happened. Having said that, the real job now is to try and attract premium content curators and producers into using the service and effectively pushing that content out into the web. Not one to miss a trick, YouTube are all over this with a premium ‘Promoted Videos’ feature that lets you pay to expose your video to other users. In essence, you can now just buy network video advertising space through an automated manual service - genius!