momentumaustralia’s posterous

A bit of our own "PR" today as we are thrilled to announce the arrival of Marilynn Olson to our Australian team.  Marilynn will be focusing on helping our team continue to bring-to-life brand campaigns that entertain and engage consumers in new and magical ways, along with new processes to effectively measure experiential ROI.  Marilynn previously was the General Manager of Grow Marketing’s New York City office where she was responsible for opening the company’s East Coast headquarters and within the first year hiring more than 50 experiential, production and creative team members.  While at Grow Marilynn headed up the company’s largest account – PepsiCo – and developed the award-winning grassroots introductory program for Tava, a no-calorie, vitamin-enhance sparkling beverage.  The launch included more than 600 influencer and mass sampling events, generating nearly 10 million peer-to-peer recommendations and 20% brand awareness.

Prior to working at Grow Marketing Marilynn held a variety of senior level positions at a number of creative marketing agencies across the U.S., including Mirrorball and Ammo Marketing.  Throughout her 12 years of working in the experiential industry Marilynn has worked with some of the world’s biggest brands, creating emotional connections with consumers that leverage innate human needs to tell others about their experiences.  Marilynn’s portfolio of experience includes working with Mars, Miller Brewing Company, Volvo, Dos Equis, Kellogg, Visa, Amstel Light, Glenfiddich, Wonderbra, Jamba Juice, Stolichnaya Vodka and Frito Lay.

Welcome Marilynn to the team!  (Yes, she's embarrassed by all the fuss, but we are just so excited she's here, and we love poking fun at Americans for at least their first few months down under!)  

This week the Momentum Promotions team launched a Coke Zero promotion of epic proportions in association with the biggest movie ever made, AVATAR. AVATAR has come to us courtesy of James Cameron who is noted for Aliens, Terminator and Titanic. Conceived 14 years ago and over 4 years in the making, AVATAR breaks new ground and delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind.

Coke Zero partnered up with James Cameron which enabled the brand to have the exclusive rights to the back story of the film and take advantage of a number of exclusive assets which could be offered to the public. To ensure that the promotion operated in the right outlets, Coke Zero also teemed up with Event, Greater Union, Birch Carroll & Coyle and Village cinemas and Rydges Hotels, bringing the promotion right into the hands of eager cinema goers.

Momentum and Coke Zero wanted to ensure the promotion was simple to enter via handing over a scratch card every time someone purchases a Coke Zero product within a participating cinema. The card contains a unique code which is entered online at www.cokezero.com.au with other registration details. This instantly unlocks the world of AVATAR, giving entrants access to exclusive downloadable content and instant entry into a weekly prize draw.

Up for grabs each week are $50 Movie Gift Cards and James Cameron’s AVATAR Games, available in different console formats. At the end of the promotion all the people that enter each week will be in with the chance to win an epic world trip - 2 around the world airfares to Queenstown, Los Angeles and London with accommodation and $4K spending money!

The promotion’s open until 16th December so check it out at www.cokezero.com.au and go see AVATAR at cinemas when it launches on 18th December. Of course the Momentum team will be there!

The Pop Up marketing concept is not a new idea in the world of experiential activations.  However, the 2009 holiday season is seeing an onslaught of Pop Up activations like never before.  Due to difficult financial times, vacancies in regional malls have reached an all time high in the US.  This has forced property management companies to rethink their long-term lease strategies and has resulted in opportunities for retailers and brands to introduce new products and seasonal concepts in creative ways with short-term investment.

Using a pop up strategy, retailers such as Toys R Us and Gap have gained entry into trendy neighbourhoods and shopping centres usually reserved for high-end retailers.  Toys R Us is setting up about 80 temporary toy shops across the US, including several at upscale malls previously unavailable to the chain.  Gap recently opened a Pop Up shop on trendy Robertson Boulevard in Los Angeles to promote its new premium denim line; celebrities including Halle Berry and Ashlee Simpson-Wentz turned up to the launch party.

Several online retailers are using the Pop Up concept to connect with their target in real world spaces. Online auctioneer eBay will open its first holiday store in New York on November 20. It will sell designer fashions, accessories and cosmetics, with proceeds going to charity.  Word on the street is that Amazon is also considering implementing Pop Up experiences as part of its marketing mix.

Pop Ups are no stranger to the southern hemisphere this holiday season either.  Check out the MLC Centre’s “The Grand Social”.  It’s making quite a splash hosting a variety of activities all through summer with shopping offers, designer appearances and style sessions.

So be on the lookout this holiday season for new experiences to check out, they may only be around for a short time.

The Momentum Experiential team headed to Bathurst last weekend to be a part of the thousands of motorheads getting their fill of the craziness of V8 racing at the Bathurst 1000.  At the event the eagerly-awaited Telstra BigPond “Bluey” (a B-Double truck conversion) made it’s debut appearance, and didn’t disappoint – creating mayhem and mischeif as it towered over the other trucks and became a solid Telstra experience for all.  And, huge bonus points for the second-storey VIP viewing platform which offered a sensational view of the track.

The Telstra Street Team had a lot of fun activating the “Roar like a Supercar’ competition – allowing V8 fans to don a custom-made racing helmet and show their passion for their team by roaring into the nose cone in the hope of clocking up the highest decibel reading. Individual daily winners scored themselves a helicopter ride and allocated their score to the Holden or Ford fan cumulative tally in cumulative (Holden won out).  This was by far the best (and of course the loudest) bit of fun happening from brands at Bathurst this year (we may be a bit bias).  

Of course the Momentum Experiential team had a stroll through the precinct to check out some of the money-can’t-buy experiences (eg, pit tours, meet the drivers, etc) -- all were very incentivising for this dedicated tribe.  And of course the legendary XXXX Angels were a star attraction – pulling almost as many viewers as the Big Race itself.  And their “camp like a V8 superstar” competition was a huge hit too.  

You can pretend like you were there by checking out the short video below of some footage from the event including what Xbox gaming was up to, how Bundaberg entertained crowds, get up close and personal with the XXXX Angeles and of course, watch the “Roar like a supercar” excitement too. Enjoy!

Back to Little Debbie.  The company just announced a huge effort - giving away 1,000,000 free cupcakes, visiting 21 US cities over an 8 week period, creating Little Debbie-themed SMART cars and more, all connected with the expected social media channels (i.e., Twitter and YouTube).  It's a great example of what at first glance looks like a big sampling effort (get some free stuff here) and fortunately adds in some more twists and turns to make it a very solid campaign.  Lets break it down a bit:

• Little Debbie's Facebook page.  The brand does an amazing job of providing a combination of fun, entertaining content (like sharing old Little Debbie commercials, showing some celebs/sponsored people doing some fun things) along with some useful content (like coupons for Little Debbie cupcakes).  And they recently added a way people can enter the overarching competition directly from the page - versus directing them back to the website.
• @LittleDebbie.  We're always a bit leery of some brands on Twitter, but Little Debbie is simply having fun with fans via Twitter, adding some updates on the tour, along with just a good overall effort of increasing the positive personality of the brand via this channel.  The brand thanks some mom bloggers (who we are guessing have received some samples) and simply uses the channel for good - no sales or buy our stuff messaging here. 
• Timing.  Not sure when it was created, or if it is its first year, but we don't celebrate and haven't heard of National Cupcake Day (18 October in the US), but we'd obviously love to participate.  This provides a bit of a "why now" to the campaign, even if it is a little bit gimmicky (do we really need one day to celebrate cupcakes!).  We're not really sure how people win cupcakes on the 18th of October (not really clear from the website), but again, happy to win down under if you want to send any our way.
  
• Value vs Time.  We're big believers in ensuring that whatever we are offering people to win should easily outweigh the amount of time they need to put in.  So, the fact that we could win a Little Debbie-themed Smart Car (valued at $17,000) to just enter in some contact details seems good to us.  We probably would have uploaded a photo eating a Little Debbie to enter as well as the reward is a good one.  So we're guessing Little Debbie is hoping the car incentive drives up the brands Facebook fans and overall database to directly reach consumers in the future - so a good investment.  And the fact that we can win MP3 players, and GPS devices, and of course cupcakes, are solid secondary prizes too.
  

A big thanks to Little Debbie for a solid case study on how to truly bring a sampling campaign to the next level.