Digital Media News

When it comes to guerrilla marketing and experiential marketing strategies, there’s nothing quite like tapping into the human psyche and creating a bit of suspense. We love it. Marketing has to be engaging otherwise it’s failed, so creating something that’s very tempting (something you surreptitiously want your audience to do) might be the way to go.

Think back to Rowntree’s adverts in the 80s. They proudly claimed that it’s impossible to suck their sweets – you just have to chew them. And in more recent times, Derren Brown has made a career out of manipulating the (seemingly free) choices that we all have at our disposal. So when TV channel TNT placed a red button in a quiet square in Flanders, Belgium, they knew exactly what would happen. They could pretty much bank on someone pushing it,so they could do whatever they wanted - as it adhered to their tagline:

Ever heard of Cause Related Marketing (CRM)? It’s a is bit of a trendy name, but how much do you know about it? The short and sweet version is that CRM refers to the formation of a commercial partnership between a company and a charity in order to market an image, product or service, for mutual benefit.

Background

The term was first used by American Express in 1983, as they launched a $6 million advertising campaign to raise funds for a Statue of Liberty restoration project.

The company contributed a penny from each charge on American Express cards, a penny from each purchase of traveler's checks, $1 from each new card issued and $1 from every holiday sold at an American Express store, (worth $500 or more).

Comic books are cool. Everyone remembers reading them as a kid. Many of us still read them. Almost of all of us still love them. When it comes to storytelling, it’s hard to beat the success of the comic book. The history of the comic goes way back - scholars can trace its origins to as far back as the Lascaux cave paintings (over 1700 years ago).

And it’s fair to say that the comic book scene is extremely vibrant today. Despite technology and our ability to read content on smartphones, laptops and tablets, comic books are a visual medium that expresses ideas in a popular way. And it’s this storytelling prowess that marketers today can learn from when they plan their campaigns).

Who would have thought retargeting is working too well? Was your significant other less than surprised when they unwrapped their present? Several friends have complained about retargeting ads showing up displaying potential gifts in banner ads to their significant other, the sassy kids are even less impressed, yawning while opening the bat mobile Lego they knew was already under the wrapper.  "Thanks Mom", they drone, so much for the surprise. I recently read the popular blog post, "How Ad Retargeting Ruined Christmas" by Danny Sullivan complaining about a similar scenario.