Adobe #CreativeDay – Adobe Photoshop Prank in a Bus Stop

Adobe to promote its Adobe creative days created a series of events in EMEA. This has been created by the agency Abby norm. Think bus stop advertisements are dead.? Not any more, with this creative Adobe advt at the bus stops.

This involved photoshopping the person in the bus stop & then displaying it in the Digital Adshell in the bus stop with various art works. The person could see the artwork with his photoshopped image in real time. The hashtag #CreativeDay was displayed as part of the campaign so that people can follow the conversation.

#OccupyGezi – Turkish Protesters use Indiegogo.com to Crowdfund full-page ad in NYT

Turkish govt plans to redevelop a park into a Shopping mall & military barracks, among other things, has turned into a big protest against the govt. The park in question is Gezi park in Istanbul’s main Taksim Square. This has led to widespread protests. Activists Oltac Unsal, Murat Aktihanoglu & Dugyu Atacan took to Indiegogo.com to raise funds for placing a full-page ad in NYT. Their goal was to collect $53,800.

This has led to one of the quickest fund collections on Indiegogo.com & with still many days to go, they collected the required amount & exceeded it as well. They had also requested for the ad creatives to be voted for which would go in the NYT ad.

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described social media as “the worst menace to society”. Social networks Twitter and Facebook are filled with videos and photos of clashes .Twitter has become the main source of information for demonstrators.

Cinthol Alive is awesome – #ChallengeVirat Campaign

Cinthol, which embarked on a brand revamp last year, with Alive is awesome campaign, is out with a Virat Kohli based Alive is awesome campaign. He is the brand ambassador for Cinthol & this has been created by Creativeland Asia. The official website of the Alive is awesome Virat Kohli campaign. You can throw a challenge at Virat & it will be settled face to face. #challengevirat is the official hashtag of the challenge. You can login with your Facebook or twitter account. Many challenges can be seen in the microsite & some of which have been replied by Virat Kohli.

This is a clever use of social networking medium to engage with the fans. This also helps bring the brand ambassador & the fans face to face & builds rapport with the brand. This campaign has created a great volume of conversations about the brand. This is evident from the search keywords in Google with people searching for various terms like Cinthol alive is awesome lyrics, Cinthol alive is awesome mp3, Cinthol alive is awesome download, Cinthol alive is awesome ringtone, Cinthol alive is awesome hindi, Cinthol alive is awesome English song download, Cinthol alive is awesome virat kohli, cinthol alive is awesome virat kohli ringtone & others. This shows that campaigns help build brand visibility. This helped them increase their Twiiter Cinthol, Facebook Cinthol & Youtube Cinthol profile membership resulting in more engagement & amplification.

 

 

Yahoo Acquires Tumblr

Yahoo! has announced that it has decided to acquire Tumblr. The official press release about the acquisition has been released by Yahoo. Approximately for $1.1 billion, substantially all of which will be paid in cash. In the release, Yahoo promises not to screw up & will be operated independently as a separate business. David Karp will remain as the CEO of Tumblr.

Yahoo’s corporate blog has been moved to Tumblr & this is a great sign of Yahoo showing its trust in tumblr. Marissa Mayer has also announced the same on her Tumblr blog. Facebook last year purchased Instagram & now Yahoo going ahead with Tumblr. There are more than 100 million blogs on the site & more than 100 million users across the world. There are many challenges for yahoo as well like monetizing revenues from Tumblr, making the mobile tumblr more popular & others.

Related articles

• Yahoo acquires Tumblr in $1.1 billion cash deal, ‘promises not to screw it up’ (theverge.com)
• Yahoo Buys Tumblr and Promises “Not to Screw it Up” (allthingsd.com)

Facebook’s growth & amazing new Stats on Facebook

Facebook, the numero uno social networking site in the world, has recorded tremendous growth in the past year. Facebook has released some impressive stats about the site. Facebook is making rapid moves into the mobile space. It recently launched Facebook home as well. It has been listed on the stock exchange & at present has no competitors nearing it in numbers. Google launched Google+ which is still lagging in members count compared to Facebook. & Some of the stats include

* 4.5 billion likes generated daily as of May 2013. This is up by 67% compared to likes in Aug 2012.
* 4.75 Billion content items shared daily in May’13 up by 94% in Aug’12
* 1.11 billion active users as of march’13
* 665 Million daily active users up by 26% from Mar’12
* 751 Million monthly mobile active users
* Facebook made a bold move of acquiring Instagram. It has got 100 million active users
* $1.46 billion revenue in Q1 of 2013 up by 38% YTY
* 4900 employees at Facebook

Amy’s Baking Company – Facebook Meltdown & Handling Social Media

Arizona bakery Amy’s Baking Company(owners Samy and Amy Bouzagl), made an appearance on Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares,” The Chef walked out of the program claiming it is difficult to work with them. The restaurant is in Scottsdale, Arizona. The owners finally revealed that they were reselling cakes made by other bakeries & also were criticized for the way they handled customers. Finally , they took to brand’s Facebook page to defended themselves about their actions.

This later on snowballed into a major Facebook meltdown with nasty comments. Also a social media shaming campaign began on Reddit & yelp resulting in one star reviews for the company. Here is the Reddit link to epic meltdown. This clearly shows how social media is shaping the real-time conversation about brands. Also companies should have strategies in place to deal with the negative publicity. They finally declared that their fb, twitter & website accounts have been hacked.

Intel and Its Social Media Strategy

Intel well known for its processors is also known for its social media presence. They use the social media to engage, inform & build the brand. They have set up a Intel Social Media guidelines which helps the employees on how to engage with the social media. Disclose, protect & use common sense are the 3 rules of engagement. They have blogs which is updated regularly, Facebook with millions of likes, Youtube Channel & twitter with millions of followers. At Intel Free Press, one can follow all the tech news related to Intel and also download a mobile app.

A digital magazine, iQ by Intel, where one can vote on items and also share on social media platforms. Ekaterina Walter is a social media innovator at Intel. Under her leadership, Intel’s Social Media platforms have been growing rapidly & has helped the brand build visibility. Intel’s social media strategies include posting the original content on Facebook, interactive videos on YouTube & engaging with the community.

Many global companies are also using Visual based marketing strategies using Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest & flickr to engage with the audience. Here one can like the pics & also repost or pin it to their boards.

Coca-Cola’s “The AHH Effect” – A New Digital Campaign

Coca-Cola’s new digital campaign called “the ahh effect” is targeting teens with 61 different URL’s. The 61 different URL’s with different ahhh’s includes games, gif’s & films. The home page of the campaign is www.ahh.com & each different URL contains one more “h” reaching the maximum of 61 URL’s. Each URL corresponds to different experiences of having coke. This is a unique type of campaign with Coke launching so many URL’s. Teens looking for creativity & delight. The game I played was the Bubble game, where users have to navigate a bubble away from falling ice cubes and straws in a glass filled with Coke. One can also submit what ahh means to them & will be utilized in the website.

Coca-Cola has worked with Wieden+Kennedy in Portland, Ore., to create the campaign. With the rapid growth of social media & smartphones, these campaigns provide a perfect opportunity for the teens to engage with the games & films. For the brand, this would help optimize which different experiences are performing well & eliminate the non performing experiences. Facebook app is also available for the campaign. Coke which is at the forefront of launching unique campaigns, had earlier launched open happiness campaign.

Dell India #ICanDoKuchBhi Twitter Contest

Dell India has launched a new campaign for the Inspiron series of notebooks. With the growing influence of digital marketing & social media, the campaign includes a twitter based promo called I Can Do Kuch Bhi. In this contest, one has to tweet about their passion with the use of technology including #icandokuchbhi. With the youths being the major users of social networks, this promo helps them create a great visibility for the brands.There is no limit to the number of tweets that one submits. Ten people with the most interesting tweets will be getting a Dell branded t-shirt along with their tweets printed on it. The contest was between Apr 27th to Apr 29th.

Related articles

• 18 Of The Coolest Indian Social Media Campaigns Of Quarter 1 2013 (lighthouseinsights.in)
• The Best Digital Marketing Tips For Video Games Ever (supercoolcreative.com)

 

Role of Digital Marketing in Medical Tourism in India

Digital marketing plays an important role in the medical tourism. Affordable healthcare in India has attracted many foreign nationals to seek for operation & treatment in India. Those desirous of getting treatment in India can have information on the available treatment through the internet. On the net, information is available through reviews, hospital websites & social networking profiles.

Hospitals should have a proper strategy in place to check & check the info on review websites. Any negative reviews would discourage those planning to seek treatment. The testimonials on the website offer crucial links & help develop a positive perception about the hospital. They should have a presence on all the major social networking sites like Facebook, twitter, google+, instagram & others. There should be regular blogging by leading consultants which would help drive away any fear related to getting treated in a foreign country. SEO on the websites can be done to optimize for top keywords which drives traffic. With mobile & tablet browsing on the rise, the sites should be optimized for them as well. Instagram, Pinterest & other visual based marketing sites provide a great platform by posting pics of the facilities & equipment available. Users can be involved by asking questions, reviewing the feedback given by them & others. Apps can also be developed for Android, iphone & other platforms. Cutting edge medical care helps in increasing the life span.

Top hospitals in India like Apollo, Manipal Hospitals, Fortis Hospitals, Narayana hrudayala  & others have a presence on Facebook & other social media sites. This would help them establish visibility, drive traffic to their sites & also help in medical tourism.

Related articles

• Medical tourism: A global stampede for affordable care (madrastourist.wordpress.com)
• Medical Tourism Now Includes Things Like ‘Dialysis Cruises’ (jaunted.com)
• Cohen on Medical Tourism (lsolum.typepad.com)