Euro RSCG 4D Digital

My dear faithful readers,

After 2 and a half years we’ve decided it’s about time to give the blog a fantastic new lick of paint. Head on over to http://blog.eurorscg4d.com to see what all the fuss is about.

Much discussion flew around the office at the tail end of last week as Campaign magazine announced their ‘Advertising in the noughties’ feature that highlighted the greatest advertising across all media over the past decade. There’s clearly been some kind of clerical error though because none of this agency’s work appears in the lists but that aside, it makes for an interesting read. Our favourite of the lot? We’re going to go a bit crazy and choose a *gasp* TV ad: the honours go to Honda’s Cog, embedded for your viewing pleasure below.

You see that genius headline in the screengrab up there? It’s not sheer fluke or your depravity that caused it to catch your eye, oh no. In fact, the Huffington post cleverly runs A/B split tests on all their headlines. It works like this: whenever a new story is published it’s given two headlines (A & B). Half the audience will be served headline A on the site and half headline B. Whichever one performs best in the first five minutes (easily enough time for such a high profile site) is the winner and is used from that point forwards. There’s no reason that this sort of testing couldn’t work on other sites too (so long as both options stay live long enough to garner a sufficient number of views). Let’s get optimising!

Read more here.

We live in a time when it’s becoming increasingly important to be adept at the art of multitasking. A fact supported by a recent Nielsen study in the US which reported that 57% of internet users reported browsing the internet and watching the TV simultaneously.

With that in mind, check out our new microsite for Peugeot, full of brilliantly shot video, personalisation and innovative use of mobile. If we do say so ourselves. We even hired the world’s first multitasking therapist, Dr M.R. Cross to guide users through a rigorous set of challenges.

And if you manage to pass the test, you should seriously consider yourself a multitasking genius (not that this blogger’s poor performance has made him bitter of course).

Check it out here.

Avid readers of this blog (come on we know you're out there) will no doubt be aware of the fantastically marvellous campaign Peugeot has been running since September. Well, the time has come to reveal the final top 10! We received thousands of nominations and votes so a big thank you to all who took part. We won't spoil the surprise so check it out here.

Not strictly a digital mess-up but we feel this is worth sharing. A document leaked to Marketing Magazine this week has revealed that Red Bull had planned to carry out some decidedly dodgy field marketing techniques in Wetherspoons pubs this month, following the loss of their contract to supply the chain to US rival Monster Energy.

The idea was as follows:

“Action. To go into JDW sites that are now stocking Monster and 'smuggle' some cans of Red Bull into consume on site.”

If these top secret Red Bull consumers are caught in the act they are instructed that it is “vital that they DO NOT say they work for Red Bull and simply say they don't like the taste of Monster so brought in their own supply of Red Bull”.

And the reason for doing all this? “for staff and managers to see and feedback that their customers are not happy about Monster being stocked and are even bringing in their own supply [of Red Bull] to consume”.

Needless to say, JD Wetherspoon and Monster Energy are less than impressed. As for us, we didn’t even realise this type of skullduggery went on in this day and age. Whether or not the activity was actually carried out is unclear. Has anybody noticed suspicious-looking yet highly energetic Red Bull drinkers in their local Wetherspoons of late?

Read the full article here.

Honestly, we’re not obsessed with writing about Burger King ads. They’re not a client. We’re not pitching for them (saying that, BK – if you’re reading this, do get in touch). They just seem to do some very interesting marketing. Take their latest stunt for example – the Windows 7 burger featuring, yes you guessed it, 7 patties and available for 7 days. Surely this is marketing genius?

Now watch this young fellow attempt to eat the darned thing:

Via engadget.

For all the hype around brands’ use of social media we’re yet to see many examples that seem to truly understand and reflect the space in which they operate. While perusing Digg today though we’ve come across just such a thing. Director Spike Jonze’s latest film, Where The Wild Things Are, has been advertised via video banners for the past month or so on Digg. Now though, they’ve taken advantage of one of the site’s latest ad offerings and collated stories related to the film in a sponsored area complete with banner ad.

Although it would appear that the stories were submitted by normal Digg users and simply gathered by Warner Bros into this space, we have a sneaking suspicion that the studio themselves is in fact behind them. And if this is the case, they’ve certainly worked out what makes a successful Digg story (hint: lists and pictures).

Clicking though to each story reveals even more relevant branding with large video and interactive banners and skyscrapers surrounding the page. And of course Warner Bros can then monitor the feedback on the stories and film in general by reading the user comments. All very clever stuff indeed.

See that hideous thing up there? Well that’s the world’s first banner ad , created by AT&T and served in 1994. Let me tell you my reader friends, things have come a long way indeed. A recent report from the IAB has suggested that online ad spend rose 4.6% in the first half of the year, giving it a 23.5% market share and edging it ahead of TV spend. What makes it even more impressive is the context within which that 4.6% growth occurred: the overall advertising sector declined by 16.6% in the same period. Now remember that it’s not all down to lovely banners such as the one above. In fact, much of the growth came from search and online classifieds. We think you’ll agree that this is all very excellent news.

Time to give ourselves a little pat on the back – our brand spanking new Peugeot Drivesexy campaign has launched!

The idea is simple: find the UK’s favourite Drivesexy song. Visitors to the site are asked to cast their vote by rating submissions or suggesting their own tracks. But here’s where the clever bit comes in – we’ve integrated the site directly with Spotify using their API (which hasn’t even been officially released yet). What this means is that clicking on any song link will open that track directly into the Spotify app. And users can submit their own choice of track by copying and pasting in a Spotify URI. Notice how the Artist and Track name appears as soon as you paste in the URI? That’s the magic of their API at work and it’s never been done before.

Check out the site, cast your votes and enter our competition to win a shiny new 32Gb iPod touch.

Anyone else surprised that by 2013 only just over half of the UK population will be online shoppers? And that figure only represents 75% of the online population at that point in time. What could be holding all those people back we wonder? Fear of phishing? FEAR OF INTERNETS?

Original story on NMA.

Cheese websites. Probably not the most interesting things you might think. We’ve probably all come across a similar situation: how to give a low-interest product a captivating online presence. Wisconsin Cheese have gone down a pretty intelligent route: don’t focus on the product, focus on the delicious things you can do with it. Because everyone likes a juicy burger right? Have a flick through the exquisite looking burgers, learn how to make them yourself and share them on facebook. Our favourite? Number 18: The Pioneer.

Top tip: Don’t view the site unless you have a lunch break in the very near future.

Ok ok it’s not technically a fail. At least not the kind defined by the New York Times in their recent and very insightful article ‘How Fail Went From Verb to Interjection’. But it is really really rubbish. Top tip for QuickCreditScore.co.uk: don’t create banner ads using Powerpoint and recycled smilies. That is all.

Dutch agency Boondoggle won five gold Lions at Cannes this year but seems to have hit hard times*. Unfortunately, their cunning idea of pawning their trophies for some extra cash seems to have backfired upon the discovery that the trophies are in fact just worthless yellow copper. Who needs gold Lions anyway right?

Via Brand Republic

*Disclaimer: Ok, we realise they’re just trying to make a funny viral vid and to some extent have succeeded. We’re not so sure about the tags on their YouTube video though. Very odd.

Microsoft’s on a bit of an advertising role recently it would seem. Check out their latest campaign for Internet Explorer 8 at YouTube. We’ve embedded our favourite above. One of the ads has actually already been banned for being overly offensive. Judge for yourself here.

Oh and one more thing, use Firefox.