Corporate Eye

...compare, compete, excel

McDonald’s Hypes Free Coffee Refills with Creative Ambient Media

McDonald’s Hypes Free Coffee Refills with Creative Ambient Media

I love creative ambient media promotions, and Cosette West in Canada got very creative in their outdoor campaign for McDonald’s.

McDonald’s had a simple goal – to spread the word about its free coffee refills.  During a time when McDonald’s is trying to directly compete with established coffee brands such as Starbucks, the campaign needed to really make a splash.

First up … Cosette West went big by transforming a street light into a coffee cup and pot of coffee with a big “Free Refills” message that no one could miss.  Check it out below (click on the ad to see the full-size version on Ads of the World).


McDonalds ambient media street light


Second, Cosette West created an outdoor ad at a bus stop that didn’t remain static like most outdoor advertising does.  Instead, this ad changed everyday as the amount of coffee beans dwindled each day that the free refill promotion neared its end — check it out below (click on the ad to see the full-size version).   It’s easy for ads at locations like bus stops to become invisible to consumers who see them everyday.  By changing the McDonald’s ad a bit everyday, that audience is likely to notice the change and therefore, take notice of the ad again everyday.  It’s a very clever tactic.


mcdonalds ambient media bus stop


It’s this kind of creative thinking that makes consumers stop and take notice.  Does it convert and deliver ROI?  I don’t have an answer to that in the case of McDonald’s and the free coffee refills campaign, but if the primary goal was awareness, the company undoubtedly succeeded.  And isn’t that one of the first rules of advertising success — getting people to stop and notice your ad?  Without awareness, there can be no sales.

Brands Hope Virtual Gifts Can Drive Buzz

michael_mooreIf you could give someone a virtual Miller Genuine Draft via Twitter, would it make you want to buy one?  That’s what some brands are hoping for thanks to a tool from AdNectar that enables Twitter users to give virtual branded gifts to one another, similar to how Facebook users can send virtual gifts to each other.  The goal for companies is to create an online brand buzz that translates into more sales.  But will it work?

According to BrandWeek, a Twitter virtual gift campaign through AdNectar can cost anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 depending on the social media scope and duration of the campaign.  Malibu Rum, Nestle’s Toll House, Fisher-Price, Trident Gum, and Overture Films (for Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story) have already begun working on or launched campaigns.

There is no arguing that virtual gift giving on Facebook is popular.  Both branded and nonbranded virtual gifts can be shared on Facebook, but how will the tactic translate to Twitter?  We’ll have to wait and see.  The biggest problem is the potential to clutter users’ Twitter streams as Facebook walls have become.  We’ve almost gotten to a point in the evolution of Facebook where people need multiple accounts to keep the clutter separate from the real content.

Certainly, for people who use these social media tools strictly for personal reasons, the clutter might not be a nuisance, but the problem is looming in the not so distant future.  It’s a problem that many social media users are sure to face, particularly if they use their social media profiles for work-related purposes where sharing a Tickle-Me-Elmo Ticklegram or even seeing one on a business associate’s profile might not be appropriate.

For now, giving branded gifts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, etc. is still in its infancy, and the ROI is questionable.  It’s certainly a good brand awareness tactic, but it remains to be seen if the investment is worth it in the end.  Of course, by next week, there will be another hot social media marketing trend, but for now, head on over to your Twitter account and send a friend Michael Moore’s virtual hat.  Or maybe not.

Image: Flickr

Twitter Brand Mentions are More Informational than Critical

twitter_tshirtA new study by Pennsylvania State University reveals that more brand mentions on Twitter are made by people seeking information about those brands than to praise or criticize them (as reported by eMarketer).

By studying almost 150,000 tweets that included brand mentions, it was found that nearly 50% of them were “comments”, which the study defined as tweets that mentioned a brand but were not about that brand.  18.1% of tweets that mentioned brands were posted by people who were providing information to others and 11.1% were made by people who were looking for information about a specific brand.  Nearly one-quarter (22.3%) of tweets that mentioned brands included an opinion about that brand, and most of those were positive comments about the brand.

Here is the breakdown of tweets that included opinions about brands:

Money and Happiness: It’s Complicated…

Greener Pastures 3

According to this story from CIOZone, a recent study by staffing firm Robert Half asked 150 senior executives (from among the 1,000 largest U. S. companies) how they would be most likely to spend money on employee-related priorities.  New hiring was the top choice for 31%, followed by salary increases (21%), bonuses (15%), and training (9%).  Just 5% chose enhancing benefits.

But is it really all about money?  In a related blog post, commentator Ellen Pearlman says:

It’s time for managers and HR executives to identify the various needs their employees have and to craft reward systems that are more personal . . . One worker may need a flexible schedule to take care of an aging parent, another may need to leave early on Wednesdays to get to a class, and still another may want to work four days a week and have a day off to pursue other interests. Some may welcome a special assignment overseas or the opportunity to work with a skunkworks group researching a new product.

As Pearlman points out, this personal approach is much harder than just adding a little to everybody’s paycheck.  It may carry a lot of added value, though, especially among employees who have lost their passion for the company.  And that group is apparently growing.

CIOZone notes that the annual U.S. Strategic Rewards survey from consulting firm Watson Wyatt  and HR non-profit WorldatWork finds employee engagement levels falling 9% from last year’s survey—and “top performers” were even more likely to be disengaged (a 25% topple).   There was also a 14% increase in the number of employees who have already started a new job search.

With so many people unemployed . . . it seems like having a job is a reward in itself.  But in many cases, pay cuts or freezes, shrinking opportunities, and/or increasing workloads are sapping employee satisfaction.  When hiring picks up, these folks may bolt for greener pastures–so now may be the time to find ways of rewarding them without spending more money.

Relevance for the corporate Careers site?  Employees disengaged from their companies are perfect passive candidates.  If they aren’t actively looking, they may start any minute, and if they stumble across an interesting opportunity (or receive just the right email) they may be persuadable.  So it’s a good time for the Careers site to highlight content that promotes engagement—rewards, opportunities, culture, and support for the pursuit of happiness.  It’s also a good time to enhance communications and work on building connections.  When the hiring money flows again, having a good candidate pool will be a significant competitive advantage.


(Thanks to eye of Einstein for our greener pastures.)

Digital Advertising and Behavioral Targeting Get the Thumbs Down from Consumers

spywareTracking online activities isn’t new, but only in recent years has it become the “must-try” marketing strategy.  With Google leading the way, more and more consumers are catching onto exactly what behavioral tracking and ad targeting online means, and they don’t like it.

In a new study of 1,000 U.S. adult Web users conducted by the University of California and the University of Pennsylvania, 66% said they do not want to be shown ads based on their interests as determined by their online activities.  However, that was before they fully understood how advertisers collected the data used to deliver targeted ads.  Once the survey respondents understood how the process of tracking online behavior is conducted and then used to determine which ads to display, respondents felt a bit differently about the practice.  The number of people who said they do not want to be shown ads based on their interests jumped to between 73% and 80% once they understood the process used to deliver those ads.

Privacy groups in the U.S. are fighting for more stringent laws related to online behavioral tracking, but the Internet advertising industry is fighting just as hard from the other side of the debate trying to keep the doors open to online behavioral tracking and ad serving. [Read more…] about Digital Advertising and Behavioral Targeting Get the Thumbs Down from Consumers

How Not to Use Social Media to Market Your Brand or Anything Else – Ever

Microsoft brings us a great example of how NOT to use social media to market your business, your brand, your products, or anything else you might ever consider promoting online in any way shape or form with its Global Windows 7 Launch Party campaign.

I don’t think I could make this story much funnier than The Register did, so check out their take for a good laugh.  In the meantime, here’s my view on this marketing ‘miss’.

First, the Global Windows 7 Launch Party is a worldwide online event hosted on the HouseParty.com Web site, where anyone can sign up to host a party to celebrate the launch of Microsoft Vista 2 Windows 7 with their friends and loved ones.  So if you want to lose your friends and annoy your family members, go here and sign up to host your own Windows 7 launch party right now.

Why so negative, you ask?  It’s not so much the idea of the Global Windows 7 Launch Party, which seems lame enough in and of itself, as it is the promotional videos Microsoft has unleashed on the unsuspecting online world to teach people how to host a Global Windows 7 Launch Party.

I cannot do these videos justice in text summary.  You must either watch them or read the article on The Register for full humorous impact.  However, I will include them below for your analysis:

First, the “How to Host a Global Windows 7 Launch Party” video complete with preparation instructions, agenda suggestions, and more uncomfortable banter than an interview between Glen Beck and Richard Gere might be.

Next, the terrible party idea suggestion.  Copy music and send your friends home with it.  Notice the missing disclaimer that copying music you don’t own or have permission to copy is illegal.  Oops.

And now the final piece of torture.  Notice how at 30-seconds into the video, the over-zealous partier proclaims, “Cool!”  I believe the real-world exclamation at this point would be something more along the lines of, “Dude!  We can’t be friends anymore.”

So yes, this post was a bit more sarcastic than you might usually see here on Corporate Eye, but if you read any of my other blogs, then you know I’m very sarcastic in real life.  And I couldn’t resist this one.  This story was just too lame to ignore.  I’m waiting for the Windows 7 Launch Party skit on Saturday Night Live.  If only that show was as good as it used to be, but I digress.  What’s the SNL equivalent outside of the U.S.?  There’s parody gold here!