Yaffe Tidbits

Ad of the Week: Stella Artois Black Diamond Trailer

It's a film noir trailer. It's an ad for a special edition beer. It's an invitation to a special "in real life" event. And above all, it's our Ad of the Week. Today we look at a beautifully shot film noir trailer for Stella Artois limited edition Black.

It invites you to be a part of the film/theater experience. You are both spectator and actor if you get tickets to this London event. It involves two lovers, a thief, a traitor, a curse, a diamond and you - all set in a  film noir straight out of 1960's Paris. Talk about engaging your consumer. Apparently Stella Artois did this once before, last year, with great success. Last year's program was called The Night Chauffeur.

Now, they are drawing on the same team from accliamed immersive theater producers Punchdrunk to put together this year's interactive event that takes place both online and in various locations across Shoreditch. Only a few thousand will be able to take part of the experience live and in person. But the online portion allows many more to be a part of the experience.

  Stella Artrois - Black Diamond Trailer

I found today's ad of the week on Creativity magazine's website. If you have a suggestion for ad of the week, just leave it in the comments here, Or on twitter. Or Facebook. Or via email to info@yaffe.com. However you like.

Mike McClure, Wishing I Lived Closer to London

Web-Based Film Endorsements - Trend or Target Marketing?

Let me just start things off by saying I LOVE movie trailers and I always have! If done well, there¹s something so undeniably exciting and enticing about them. I¹ve been watching them closely my whole life. Some are creative teasers that spark your imagination and curiosity like wildfire. Some are basically the best parts of a movie with a popular song attached, tricking you into seeing a longer version of what you already saw in the trailer.

Other trailers are just a big name-dropping list of columnist endorsements praising the film. Even a few years back I noticed a new trend of trailers using the desperate hard-sell technique of imposing the movie title and release date throughout the entire trailer... WEAK SAUCE!

But, last week during game 4 of the NBA finals, I saw something entirely new on a movie trailer... A collective endorsement from a web site. The popular movie review site RottenTomatoes.com has developed a new "Certified Fresh" icon that is being used in the new film "X-men First Class." Stamped on at the end of their trailer, it serves as a seal of approval by meeting the "Rotten Tomatoes" criteria. If you are familiar with the web site, you know it¹s a reliable and accurate resource for reviews. "Rotten Tomatoes" offers reviews from both critics and audience, and they often vary. I found this interesting because the very same day I was talking with a few co-workers about movies and even looking over the "Tomatometer" with them to see results. I left work that day wondering if I had become too reliant on Rotten Tomato for movie reviews... then I saw the X-Men trailer that night with the seal and realized... it¹s not just me.

But the more I think of it, the more I wonder. Will this become a new standard in trailers? Will this approach be taken in other film genres? For example would "Funny or Die" start endorsing comedies of high ranking? Or is this just a one time thing? Maybe the marketing department that worked on the X-men trailer has a great understanding of their young tech savvy audience and realized that they would respect the RT-Certified Fresh Seal. Or maybe it¹s just because that younger, tech-savvy demo never reads the newspaper, so why reference newspaper film critics? Beats me? Should be interesting to see where the next web-based film endorsement comes from. If at all. What do you think? Do you use Rotten Tomato or other online sources for your film watching decisions?

Phil M. Buff - Yaffe Sr. Art Director

Storytelling Trumped Learning at 140 Conference Detroit

I had the pleasure of attending the first ever 140 Conference Detroit a few weeks back and I was blown away by the stories I heard there. Each story by itself was amazing, but the way the conference is set up, you are hit by wave after wave of them. It's a whole day of 10 and 5-minute presentations, with a number of panel discussions peppered in. And the other nice thing about this conference was the breadth of subject matters and experiences that hit you.

I learned a lot, but it was the storytelling that sticks with me weeks later. We had stories on how the real-time web affects life in rural America and in urban Detroit, on how it affects news gathering and selling flowers. We heard panels on how social media changes the music industry, real estate, medical care, education, the church and even a panel of local high schoolers who talked about a book "The Feed" that is a cautionary tale for our times. We heard inspiring stories about how an orphan from a war-torn country reunited with family members after he was grown, thanks to the web and how humor writer, Annissa Mayhew (who was both inspiring and hilarious), was able to move on after a near paralyzing stroke and how the real-time web is helping Haiti in this time of crisis.

These people really tell a story! Some of the best of the best storytellers included Stephen Clark, anchor on Detroit's WXYZ and founder of the "backchannel" on twitter, Beverly Cornell, Henry Balanon and Yisrael Pinson aka Recovery Rabbi. Let's start with Steven Clark, man that cat can weave a tale. It was almost the same talk on the formation of the twitter backchannel that he gave at TedX Detroit. Yet, I found it riveting. If you get a chance to talk to him about it, I highly recommend it. Beverly Cornell told the story of how twitter helped her get her stolen laptop back - it was very funny and compelling. Henry Balanon told the story of their Chevy SXSW roadtrip. I knew this story too, but Henry is always so casual and funny on stage. He's someone else I could listen to any time. Rabbi Pinson mixed just the right amount of humor and poignant story to really keep the audience in rapt attention. He said, social media and recovery are a match made in heaven. The best method for recovering from an addiction is to connect with peers who've been through it before. Social media is one of the best ways for them to make those connections. In a day of great storytellers, these folks stood out to me.

Chris Brogan is one funny dude. Part of Jeff Pulver's premise for the 140 Conference is to bring in enough superstars to pull in the people and get them to listen to the every day folk who make up the bulk of the day. They don't get much bigger in the social media world than Chris Brogan. His speaking style was rapid fire funny lines one after another. Jen Wright, who was sitting next to me, leaned over and said, "he speaks like he tweets." And it was true, with such tweetable quotes as, "I love God, I hate his fans" when talking about the religious right. Or when talking about how the Invisible People project is getting the homeless online, "I'm reading more homeless people's blogs than tech people's blogs these days." He talked about how we in Detroit have all the tools and the people here to do what needs to be done "you don't need us flying monkeys to come in and fix things."

I can be in the movies! In the presentation on the film Lemonade Detroit, we learned that you can help micro-finance the movie by buying one frame of film for a dollar. This purchase will get you a producer credit for the film. It's a cool idea for a worthwhile project. I later saw my own hairy mug up on the big screen when John Hammond premiered the trailer for "Blog `n the D" - a documentary on local bloggers, of which I'm one. It looked pretty good if I say so myself, even though I sounded like an angry dwarf.

 Blog `n the D trailer

People I knew on stage, people I didn't know in the audience. As one of the guys in the social media panel on churches said, it's not about the building (or conference, in this case), it's about the people. I have never been to a conference where I knew so many of the people speaking on stage personally. It was a really neat experience to see and hear what people I know have to say in a different context. And they all did Detroit proud. It was also fun to meet new people in the crowd. I met a number of people I'd only conversed with online and that's always fun. There was a contingent of people sitting near me who had come in from St. Louis, we struck up a conversation and have now all connected online. At one point the woman in front of me retweeted one of my tweets and I sent a message back of thanks and turn around I'm behind you. We had a laugh about that.

This all goes to say that conferences like this are great both for what you hear the people on stage say and for the new people you meet at the event who are just other fans like yourself. I find both to be very valuable. I have pages and pages of stuff I learned at this event, but as you can see from this post, it was the amazing stories that stuck with me. From both the people on stage and the people I met in the audience.

Jeff Pulver says he loved Detroit and plans to bring it back next year. Guess I better start working on my stories for next year. Maybe I can see a conference from a different perspective - on stage.

Mike McClure, Storytelling Fan & Avid Listener

Pandora Radio and The Long Tail

We are living in the age of recommendation. If you spend any time shopping or searching online (and if you're reading this, I assume you do) you have probably been influenced by the recommendations of friends and strangers alike. Two recommendations I followed recently have not only given me enjoyment, but have gotten me thinking.

The first recommendation was to check out Pandora radio. I got an email from a friend (sorry, I don't remember which one) suggesting I go to their website and check it out. I did. And I loved it. Now, I'm hooked on it, play it almost every day at work and have gotten a number of other people hooked on it. What it is, if you haven't checked it out is a site that allows you to create your own online radio stations based on a particular band or song you like. You create a station around My Chemical Romance and not only do you get all their songs, you get songs that are by artists that have similar qualities and that people who like that band tend to also like. And as you go along, you can customize it further by tagging which songs that it plays are your favorites and which ones you don't ever want to hear again on that station.

This is great! I have fairly eclectic tastes and some of the artists I like aren't incredibly popular. For instance, I love happy ska music. I can never find a place to listen to just ska. I have Sirius satellite radio, but with all the sub genres there, they still don't have a ska station. On Pandora, I created a Less Than Jake station and a Reel Big Fish station. Both stations play bands that, like the featured artist, play upbeat, happy ska. Plus, I built another station around the song "Anthem" by Zebrahead. So, now instead of no place to find a steady diet of ska, I have three different online radio stations devoted to ska. The selection goes very deep, they even have my daughter's favorite band, a metal rock band from Japan called Dir en grey.

So, what's my point, other than to tell you about a good way to find music you like and discover music you never heard of before that is like the music you like? Well, that has to do with my other recommendation I took. Our newest account service person, Joanie, who taught eCommerce at Parsons School of Design gave me a book to read called The Long Tail. Many of you may have heard about this book and/or theory before, but it was new to me. I've been reading it and I find it fascinating. It talks about how the new economics of plenty, brought on mostly by the Internet are changing the way we look at economics. I know, economics doesn't sound interesting. But, it's all about things you probably experience every week if not every day.

Our economy, especially in the areas of things like movies, music, books and such has always been about the few hit makers. The old 20/80 rule - where 20% of the products make up 80% of the sales/profits/whatever. Now, when you have the Netflixs, iTunes and Amazons of the world, you can bring a seemingly infinite choice to the shopper. So, instead of only being able to choose from the 8,000 CDs in your local record store, you can choose from millions of tracks. And through following search and recommendations and "people who bought this also bought this" type of cues, we are all able to break out of the pop hits culture and find stuff we like in niches that aren't as popular, such as ska music. Pandora radio is an example of the long tail of music. There's a lot more to it than that, but I'm not going to get it to it here. If this intrigues you, I suggest you check out the book or the online radio site or both.

Mike McClure, Livin' in the recommendation age and loving it

Match Game

Turner Entertainment (TBS and TNT on your cable TV dial) is trying something with their movies and TV shows called “contextual targeting”. What they’re doing is making commercials relevant to scenes viewers have just watched right before a break.  For example, after a scene in the movie “Anchorman” where the characters are talking about love, we would see a commercial for eHarmony.  I like this idea.  And I think it could be a lot of fun.  Just imagine.  During the movie “Cheaper by the Dozen” they could have commercials for Trojan condoms.  And if they tried this during a Detroit Lions game, they could do commercials for Glade air freshener.  After all, chances are the Lions are stinking up the place.  What would you pair up?

Ron Lee         

Brought to you by Preparation H

(I can be a pain in the butt)

What are you watching?

So, the rush is on to create video content for the web. You probably already knew that. But, apparently the big movie studios are just waking up to that fact. I read an article from the NY Times today (Warner Shifts Web Course, Shouldering Video Costs) that talks about how Time Warner is giving up on trying to get advertisers to pay the costs up front for web entertainment projects, because they, like many other Hollywood studios, are falling behind in the race to create content for the web. Edgier, scrappy newcomers are getting ahead in the race to provide content. So, like other studios who have been trying to play it safe, they're jumping in running. They announced a whole slate of minimovies, games and eposodic TV shows they're creating specifically for the web.

All this got me thinking about, what's out there and who's watching it. First off, you can catch up on all your favorite shows online these days with varing degrees of sucess. When I missed an episode of Fox's "On the Lot" I was very frustrated, not able to get their episodes to play on my home computer. When I wanted to catch up on missed Heroes episodes, I was amazed at how quick they loaded and how smoothly they ran on NBC's site. But, it's not just the big networks. My daughter got hooked on Sci Fi's "So you want to be a superhero" several episodes in and went back and got caught up with ease.

All that's great if you haven't joined the DVR set yet, as we haven't. But what about original content? I liked the webisodes of "In the Motherhood" which I talked about in a previous blog. One of my favorite places to go for original content is a site Will Farrell launched for short funny videos called Funny or Die.  It's where he first played his now famous Pearl the landlady videos.

What are you watching online? Why not share some of your favorites with the rest of us? I look forward to watching more good stuff (on my lunch break, of course!)

Mike McClure, ECD

D’Oh!

You’d have to be completely cut off from the world not to hear bout the upcoming release of the Simpson’s movie.  The buzz generated from the Simpsons/7 Eleven partnership has made headlines for multiple weeks.  What’s surprising is that 20^th Century Fox has lined up only four tie-in partners for what is considered to be one of the summer’s biggest films.  And only one partner—Burger King—will be buying television ads to support the film.  The other three partners—7-Eleven, JetBlue, and Vans shoes are running nontraditional promotional programs that, while they generate headlines, are not the multimillion-dollar media buys typical of much-hyped films.

Compare this with the other blockbuster films of the summer.  For instance, Sony Pictures lined up seven partners for “Spider-Man 3” that reportedly spent more than $100 million on co-branded media alone.  Disney teamed up with 13 partners for “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” the most partners for the studio to ever have for one film.  And DreamWorks/Paramount Pictures partnered with eight brands for “Transformers” that reportedly spent $100 million-plus in media and marketing support.

In a press release announcing 7-Eleven’s promotion of the movie, Lisa Licht, the studio’s executive vice president of global marketing partnerships, said the promotional strategy was to “partner with companies that would execute programs that have never been done before. This decision may reek of missed opportunities to some, but this decision keeps true with the spirit of the Simpsons.  The show, since it’s inception has frequently and consistently taken jabs at corporate America.  What credibility then, would the movie have, if Fox had taken twelve partnerships and bombarded consumers with Simpson’s-related media?

In a true example of life imitating art/pop culture, 7-Eleven made national headlines when it announced that it had transformed a dozen of its stores into Kwik-E-Marts, the convenience store frequented by the Simpsons in the show, and that it would be selling real-life versions of such fictional “Simpsons” product favorites as KrustyO’s cereal, Buzz Cola, Squishees (Slurpees), pink frosted Sprinklicious donuts and a special edition of the Radioactive Man comic book read by Bart.  7-Eleven believes that this promotion marks the first time a “major company has partnered with a fictional entity to bring it to life.”  So far, the 7-Eleven promotion has been a huge hit, with many Kwik-E-Mart/7-Eleven stores reporting a doubling of traffic and sales, according to a company spokeswoman. 

Whenever you watch The Simpsons, you see Bart Simpson skateboarding his way across Springfield in the opening scene. After watching this for so many years, it seems that skateboarding has become an integral part of The Simpsons. Vans shoes, the iconic shoes of skateboarding, has also partnered with the Simpsons Movie and hired 12 underground artists, including David Flores, Futura, Gary Panter, Geoff McFetridge, KAWS, Mr. Cartoon, Neckface, Sam Messer, Stash, Taka Hayashi, Todd James and Tony Munoz to design 14 styles of limited-edition “Simpsons”-inspired sneakers depicting their own interpretations of the animated characters.  In total, only 1,400 pairs of shoes will be created.  They will go on sale July 14 for $100 a pair at 10 boutiques in Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas, San Diego, Long Beach, Calif., Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Honolulu.  Vans expected to sell out of the shoes the weekend after the shoes are released.

Simpson’s Move partner JetBlue, labeling itself “the official airline of Springfield”, and also noting that the discount airliner “shares a sense of humor” with the Simpsons.  The JetBlue campaign is slightly more traditional, including an online sweepstakes and direct mailings, but will also be devoting an entire in-flight channel of their airline television to play only Simpsons for the month of July.  But don’t let their strategy fool you—the site http://www.jetblue.com/ has integrated the Simpson’s characters and motifs into their website, including character-recommended destinations and a Mr. Burn’s “flightlog.”

Liz Kerner (that's me as a Simpson Avatar, you can do the same at the movie's site)