Beyond Thinking : Bord Gais

Bord Gais (An Irish Gas & Electricity provider) are no strangers when it comes to trying out new ideas in their marketing communications. To announce their foray into the electricity market in 2009 they spoke to bloggers ahead of the mainstream media to get their take on it all. That was incredibly well received. Earlier today they announced the launch of their new iPhone App, Think Beyond. The free app, available from today, allows consumers to check account balances, billing dates and transaction history for their electricity and gas. A future version will allow customers to monitor usage of power in the home.

So how do you go about launching an app like this? Think of your target audience – people with smartphones. They don’t necessarily have to be Bord Gais customers, but providing such a useful app may make non customers consider becoming customers. This is combination of early adopters, office/desk/pc bound who will gladly give up some time for a reward. So how can these people be reached in a way that generates buzz, ‘beyond’ what would be achievable in traditional media? Design a bunch of activities for them to take part in, offer some really cool prizes, use Twitter for its real time updates, it’s ability to post photo’s, and use those taking part to help spread word of the app and competition virally amongst a much wider audience.

7 Of The Best Youtube Marketing Examples

The Expendables Youtube Takeover and the Old Spice marketing of recent weeks gives me the perfect opportunity to finish a post I had started ages ago – about Youtube marketing. I was going to make it just about Youtube Takeovers, but thats a bit too limiting. In no particular order, and I might as well get The Expendables out of the way now….

VT: Samsung, BMW, Nokia & Lego

VT: June 15th 2010. A round up of some of my own fave virals doing teh round at the moment. This time about its the return of Samsungs outdoor 3D projection this time as an interactive Youtube Takeover, BMW go all outdoor 3D projection in Asia, while Nokia keep it simple but inventive & relive the USA versus England highlights in Lego.

VT: Star Wars IPad, Samsung 3D, MTV, Tesco, Nike, Fiat

Viral Tuesday: June 1st, 2010 – My roundup of the best virals of the last few weeks. This batch of good and bad feature Star Wars I-Pad briefing, Samsungs outdoor 3D projection from Amsterdam, Les Grossman and Robert Pattinson’s MTV Movie awards viral, plus Nike, Tesco and Fiat.

McMarketing: The Strange Marketing of the Big Mac

One company that keeps on cropping up when I’m looking up examples of guerrilla and ambient marketing is McDonalds. The fast food giant knows a thing or two about how to break through the advertising clutter out there to connect with their target audience in new and interesting ways. Whatever your own personal view of the chain is, it’s hard to knock some of these examples of clearly clever marketing. These examples, from around the world, really puts my local McDonald’s to shame, with their discount coupon on the front of the local paper. Or was that Burger King? Hard to differentiate when both of them use the same tactics. For a chain that thrives on having a menu that is almost identical the world over, they do like to mix things up in their marketing. Here’s 15 examples of cool McDonalds Marketing.

VT: Youtube Changing Lives, Toyota Swagger Wagon & Liquid Mountaineering

Viral Tuesday: May 18, 2010 – It’s been two months since I looked at virals in any sort of depth. This has mainly been down to time constraints but it’s a miserable Tuesday afternoon here in Waterford, hopefully its much nicer where you are. So here’s something to take my mind off this horrible Tuesday afternoon. First up is how Youtube has been changing lives for 5 years. Way back in December I featured a short film called Panic Attack from an unknown South American director. It was a sci fci short made for $300 and put onto Youtube. It might of cost little to make but it looked anything but cheap, check it out below…

4 Examples of When Not to be on Facebook

There’s an argument for and against any business being on Facebook, many firms just jump in without giving a reasonable amount of thought or consideration as to why they are doing it. But not every business should be on facebook. However here’s four instances when companies should definitely not be on a social network, including when viral marketing works against the product, shoddy products, problems that can not be solved and when firms have poor customer service.

1969: The Web in 1999 [video]

I found this, from 1969, on my daily trawl through the net. How people imagined the internet would be in 1999. A full 30 years after the video was made. Whats really interesting is just how much they got right at the time, e-mail, ecommerce, shopping, even flat screens.

Digital Music Event Marketing (3)

My final post in the music marketing ideas series. These ideas were cooked up working on a project with Betapond here in Waterford at the end of last year. The brief was simple – come up with a bunch of marketing ideas for a music event that include some online element. The last two posts featured 7 ideas that were aimed at increasing online buzz prior to the event, this last post will look at 4 ideas to make the customers experience better during the event, and generating marketing content from the event that could be used at a later stage to position the event as unforgettable, and hopefully whet appetites for the next one.

The Marketing of Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad is a TV show about a high school teacher who turns to a life of drug manufacturing and dealing to supplement his income after hearing he has terminal cancer. It stars Bryan Cranston as the teacher in question, who will be familiar to most as the father in Malcom in The Middle. To turn the screw on Cranston’s character, Walter White, his brother in law is a DEA agent. It also stars the excellent Bob Odenkirk, who just doesn’t make enough TV shows, as their slimeball lawyer Saul. Cranston’s role has won him the 2008 & 2009 Emmy’s for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama for a performance that is simply superb. This post looks at the marketing of this highly unconventional TV show