by Jonathan Marshall

As we are sitting here creating a full page ad for Vitamin Water for the next issue of College Magazine, we figured it would be a good time for a blog about what they are up to. VitaminWater Revive has paired with Nick Swardson to offer mad tips to survive the NCAA tournament – “Watch as many tournament games as possible in person!” While the team at JTCG are all Nick Swardson fans from movies like “Blades of Glory,” we feel the creative agency really didn’t nail it with this ad.

Big names like VitaminWater have a lot of brand recognition, and when a company has a lot of brand recognition, they like to team up with other big brands or popular events and take advantage of some good ol’ cross-promotional advertising. So its not uncommon for many Creative Agencies to create timelines for their advertising campaigns around nationally-recognized events.

When major brands join forces like this, they can take advantage of one another’s popularity, even if the two don’t necessarily relate to each others product or service- like March Madness for example. Granted- March Madness is for college basketball fanatics (both fans and players), and basketball players are athletes, and athletes drink a lot of VitaminWater, yada yada ya… and the toe bone’s connected to the foot bone, and the foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone, and the ankle bone and so on and so forth… – I get it. But neither March Madness nor the NCAA Tournament is a main focus for VitaminWater during any other month of the year. For big brands, this is time-sensitive creative advertising and yet another effective way to stay in the minds of the consumer by using something that is currently relevant. March Madness is reoccuring yet rare, lasts for an entire month but only that month, and is an overall great opportunity for VitaminWater to latch-on to the coattails of the event and reap the attention it is already receiving.

I was reading an article in Fast Company last week by David and Chip Heath about warning signs for potential problems in your business. I must say it was a fascinating article and most specifically, what they wrote about David Lee Roth of Van Halen.

Often I speak with employees and even clients about the importance of attention to detail. When the details are missed, sales are on the line. After all, nothing is worse than NOT delivering on a minor portion of a project just because you weren’t paying attention to detail. Look…we all do it. It takes time and experience to know what to look for and MAKE SURE you are paying attention. Anyway, I thought David Lee Roth’s story was worth sharing. See what Chip and David wrote below:

Consider Van Halen. (We have been waiting years for a chance to write that sentence.) In its heyday, the band became notorious for a clause in its touring contract that demanded a bowl of M&Ms backstage, but with all the brown ones removed. The story is true—confirmed by former lead singer David Lee Roth himself—and it became the perfect, appalling symbol of rock-star-diva behavior.

Get ready to reverse your perception. Van Halen did dozens of shows every year, and at each venue, the band would show up with nine 18-wheelers full of gear. Because of the technical complexity, the band’s standard contract with venues was thick and convoluted—Roth, in his inimitable way, said in his autobiography that it read “like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages.” A typical “article” in the contract might say, “There will be 15 amperage voltage sockets at 20-foot spaces, evenly, providing 19 amperes.”

Van Halen buried a special clause in the middle of the contract. It was called Article 126. It read, “There will be no brown M&Ms in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation.” So when Roth would arrive at a new venue, he’d walk backstage and glance at the M&M bowl. If he saw a brown M&M, he’d demand a line check of the entire production. “Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error,” he wrote. “They didn’t read the contract…. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show.”

In other words, Roth was no diva. He was an operations expert. He couldn’t spend hours every night checking the amperage of each socket. He needed a way to assess quickly whether the stagehands at each venue were paying attention—whether they had read every word of the contract and taken it seriously. In Roth’s world, a brown M&M was the canary in the coal mine.

Like Roth, none of us has the time and energy to dig into every aspect of our businesses. But, if we’re smart, we won’t need to. What if we could rig up a system where problems would announce themselves before they arrived? That may sound like wishful thinking, but notice that it’s exactly what Roth achieved. Surely, you won’t be outwitted by the guy who sang “Hot for Teacher.”

Where’s the brown M&M in your business?

Augmented Reality (AR) tools are changing the way consumers visually interact with both the real and virtual world. Today, users can place 3D animations directly into live video streams, integrate images from the external user environment, and essentially connect the digital to the physical experience. AR is being used in everything from video games and Iphone apps, to military training programs and mechanical maintenance.

Lego has been experimenting with this technology for the last year or so as it has rapidly become a popular interactive marketing tool. The mega toy company has been using “Digital Boxes” that superimpose a rendering of the fully-assembled and functioning Lego model sitting on the product’s box when it is held up to the screen. The Digital Box was designed by Metaio for Lego, and is currently in select toy stores and Lego shops all over the world.

Lego has been pushing Augmented Reality in their packaging as well as at point-of-purchase displays and stands with the ultimate goal of increasing in-store sales. The ability for consumers to see what the fully-assembled toy will look like as well as how it can be used creates an entirely new and unique mental and emotional purchase process. Consider the kid that did not intend on buying one of these toys that is featured on a digital box: If he can actually see himself playing with it, maybe he can see himself playing with it… even though he might not have considered it beforehand… if that makes sense.

The already-limited attention span of today’s youth has been cut down even further by new and competitive technologies like this. Simply holding the toy box, looking at the pictures and imagining yourself playing with it hours later after you get home doesn’t cut it anymore. The new challenge to toy companies, their creative agencies and marketing professionals, is to create an individualized and increasingly-interactive user experience from the first moment the consumer comes in contact with the product.

by Jonathan Marshall

When people think about navigation, they don’t think about Nokia. So Nokia called for an idea that would not only drive interest into their navigation products, but more importantly, inspire people to start using their services – both on their phones and on the web. But most people see mobile navigation as something that gets you from A to B, and it’s not very fun or engaging.

So how does a company turn those opinions around and make navigation into something social – a channel where you could share your favorite places. Your Good things. Farfar, a Swedish advertising agency, found a solution based on the simplest thing around…

IDEA: The World’s Biggest Signpost

The interactive structure weighed over 60-tons, stood over 50 meters tall with an arrow the size of two double-deckers. During the two weeks when the sign-post was live, 1000s of locations were displayed and added by the public – either through the web or text messages. Through four webcams placed around the site, the information was streamed live to Nokia.com. And on the internet, the installation was shared through countless social media communities, blogs and news feeds.

Interactive campaigns like this are redefining brands. As well, this is the direction of new media and mobile marketing. The ability to micro target a single user and market directly to each individual based on their needs is in it’s infancy and will only get better and more widely used by major brands. Our creative agency looks forward to being a big part of this revolutionary new marketing medium.