For the last week, there’s been a thing in a parking lot near our office that resembles a large black pylon. It’s about 8 feet tall. Has an inscription on it. The other morning it was billowing smoke. I have no idea what it means, but I do know that it’s part of the campaign for Halo: Reach, the latest instalment in the super popular game series.

As someone in advertising, I question whether it’s self indulgent. Whether I’m just not getting it. Whether I ask myself too many questions.

But as an occasional gamer, I have to admit that it’s not doing its job. Large black smoking pylons don’t get me excited to play the game.

Halo: Reach hits stores in a couple of weeks and, per the Halo standard, there is an absolutely gargantuan advertising budget for it. The campaign—helmed by AKQA and AgencyTwoFifteen—is sprawling, immersive and detailed.

They have TV spots, outdoor installations (hey, a smoking black pylon!), online videos, and a tie-in with Doritos and Pepsi. But the big kahuna of the campaign is the robotic arm on RememberReach.com.

The robotic arm adds a point of light to a light sculpture. Not just any light sculpture, mind you, but a light sculpture that serves as a monument to the Spartan warriors.

Not being a Halo player, I don’t know whether light sculptures are a regular thing in that world. But in this world, they seem a bit ridiculous. Unless you’re into Lite-Brite.

The head-scratching doesn’t end there. RememberReach.com also features a bunch of live-action videos – soap opera-ish vignettes of everyday life before the alien craziness goes down. A husband and wife arguing, a mom going on a business trip, a girl letting go of her red balloon. (Damn, sounds like my weekend.)

I could forgive the melodrama if this were Alien 5: That’s Gotta Hurt! or something from the Gene Roddenberry franchise. But, Jiminy Cricket guys! This is a video game launch! Get me pumped to shoot stuff.

By reveling in the minutiae of the Halo world, they seem to be speaking only to those already immersed in it. Of course you want to speak to your core audience—preach to your own choir—but is there not a greater opportunity in reaching out to those who aren’t converted? When we work on a beer campaign, we’re not advertising to the guy who drinks it, we’re advertising to the guy who doesn’t.

I put it to you, advertisers or gamers, or none of the above: when does it make strategic sense to market almost exclusively to your existing fan base?

iPhone apps created for brands: What’s out there? What’s working? What’s not? And who’s thinking differently? Just some of the questions I’ll be asking, and hopefully answering, in an ongoing series for this here blog.

$1.99 is a rip-off!

I was initially going to be reviewing the CTV Olympic app, but as I started reading its reviews, I became intrigued by something else: the incredible animosity towards it.

The CTV Olympic app promises to be “everything you will need on the Games from Canada’s official broadcaster”, and when you first open it, that seems an accurate description. The extensive navigation menu has News, Live Blog, Photos, Medal Count, among other things.

But as soon as you start going through the app—looking for who won the China vs. Denmark women’s curling match, let’s say—you come up against a screen telling you to upgrade to the premium service for $1.99. And this upgrade notification comes up repeatedly. Want to check out one of their blogs or get real time results? Sorry Bub, gotta upgrade.

The upgrade is making a lot of people angry. Of the app’s 1,170 ratings, a resounding 692 are the lowly one star.

Based on the comments, most of the animosity is the result of what some describe as the bait-and-switch tactic of listing the app as free but then tacking on a two buck upgrade when people want to access any content of substance.

I do think it’s ridiculous for CTV to charge $1.99 for content that’s also available for free on their own website (among hundreds of other sites covering the games), but what I find more fascinating is the larger issue of the value of things in the app economy.

$1.99. Not a lot of money, really. It’s a coffee, a couple of songs, an hour of parking. How many times a day do you drop two dollars? But within the world of branded apps, $1.99 better buy you a kidney—or else. The culture of free has become so entrenched in the App Store that you become painfully reluctant to cough up a lousy two bucks for anything.

Certainly, people are paying for some apps, but of all the top paid apps on iTunes, most are games and the only branded app on the list is for Martha Stewart recipes. (It’s $0.99.)

The belief that branded apps should be free seems to follow this logic: Branded apps are created by big rich corporations, so why nickel-and-dime me on price. And even if a branded app is helpful or entertaining, it’s still a form of marketing. You should be paying me, dood!

It’s hard to argue with that logic. Yes, Charmin’s Sit or Squat gives you the incredible utility of consumer reviews of public toilets, but it’s still just an excuse to hock toilet paper.

For CTV, the promotion of their status as official broadcaster and providing thousands of people with a handy little Olympic app wasn’t enough. And the public have responded. Not surprisingly, the Vancouver 2010 Guide—run by Bell—has much better reviews. But it may just be because of its price…free.

Esquire Magazine’s December issue is the latest to jump on the augmented reality (AR) bandwagon. But what distinguishes it from most other brands using AR is that there’s actually some interesting content to check out.

Most of the time, it seems, AR is treated like a novelty, and rarely give users anything of real value. Strategy Magazine, for example, used AR on the cover of its November issue to reveal who they picked for Agency of the Year, despite the fact that if you just flipped to page 16 you could see that it wasn’t Grip Limited. (Sour grapes? Editor.)

Now that the novelty of AR has worn off, I find it pretty silly to be awkwardly tilting a sheet of paper in front of my webcam just to see a spaceship or bigfoot. The barrier to participation is high (go to the site, print out the image, turn on your webcam, hold the paper up to your computer), so the content better be worthwhile.

Back to Esquire. If you buy the issue (and then go to their site and download some software), you get a bunch of exclusive content. You get some Robert Downey Jr., you get a fashion spread and you get their “Funny Jokes From A Beautiful Woman” feature.

Now, this is hardly a horn o’ plenty of awesome content (and it all could’ve been easily dumped onto their site), but it signifies a notable, mainstream progression in using AR to deliver something of value to people. And Esquire is not alone.

Burger King recently promoted their Value menu with an in-banner AR feature. You hold up a dollar bill, and all the items on the BK menu that are a buck appear. Using AR in an online ad is pretty darn clever, I have to say.

The Unites States Postal Service have a virtual box simulator that uses AR to show you which size box you’ll need for your shipment. Handy.

But one of the most clever uses of AR I’ve seen from a brand comes from online clothing retailer Tobi.com. I’m not much of a women’s clothing shopper but even I found this interesting. It’s called Fashionista and it acts like a virtual fitting room.

How it works: You go to their site, you pick some clothes, you virtually try ‘em on. A slinky black number, let’s say, is superimposed on screen. You stand in front of it and can see what you look like in it. Don’t like it, pick another. Love it? Snap a pic of yourself “in it” and post it on Facebook to get your friends’ opinions (and to show them how nerdy you are).

Genuine benefit. Clever social media extension. No cheesy novelty. It’s AR done right.

iPhone apps created for brands: What’s out there? What’s working? What’s not? And who’s thinking differently? Just some of the questions I’ll be asking, and hopefully answering, in an ongoing series for this here blog.

Sleazy does it.

My previous post mentioned the Puma Index. It’s an app that involves models getting down to their undies when the stock markets sink. It’s cheeky and fun, and one of the more provocative branded apps out there. Or so I thought…

App 1.
Amp Up Before You Score
Amp Energy drink wants to help dudes hook up. How? This app gives you 24 female stereotypes with a cheat-sheet for each one. Whether you’re chatting up a “Rebound Girl”, “Cougar” or “Women’s Studies Major”, Amp has you covered with pick-up lines, points of conversation, character traits, etc. And when the night is done, you can add your success (failure?) to a scorecard, and use the Brag feature to let your buddies know all the details via email, Twitter or Facebook.

Sound sleazy? It is. Especially for a brand.

This app has caused a huge uproar. Pepsi – the parent company – has had theirs handed to them.

I’m all for puerile, infantile and immature, but I’m amazed that a brand could be so clueless to not see how bad things could go with this app. I imagine they got caught up in the same “insight” that every guy cosmetics brand seems to be mining: Being a dude means being obsessed with getting down with the ladies. Sexism, be damned.

All apps – including branded ones – face the same challenge: how to get people’s attention. Being provocative is one potential way of getting your app known (see the Puma Index), but what are the limits? I think it’s up for the brand to know, and if they don’t, people will tell you. Ain’t that right, Pepsi?

That said, as often happens, one app begets another app.

App 2
Date Check
Ladies, think the dude who’s chatting you up might be kinda stalker-ish? Well, do a little detective work when you nip into the girls’ room. Among other things, the Date Check app – created by background check company Intelius – features a Sleaze Detector so you can run a search of criminal records to see if Mr. Chatty has ever spent time in the Crowbar Motel.

I have to say, it’s a pretty impressive feat for a company that specializes in the dryer-than-dry industry of “information commerce” to frame up their services in a pretty entertaining – and handy – app. Take note.

iPhone apps created for brands: What’s out there? What’s working? What’s not? And who’s thinking differently? Just some of the questions I’ll be asking, and hopefully answering, in an ongoing series for this here blog.

Burritos, undies and more.

Generally speaking, it seems that most branded apps provide a straightforward utility and are an obvious extension of what the brand offers offline.

Such as . . .

App 1.
Chipotle Mexican Grill
Order your mucho grande, extra-guac carnitas burrito for pick up. Peruse the menu, place your order, get directions to nearest location. Simple, practical and perfect for meetings just before lunch.

App 2.
Virtual Zippo Lighter
Create a customized Zippo, flick your wrist to light it, hold it up at concerts (especially if you’re the dude who always yells “Freebird!”).

App 3.
Nike Women Training Club
Create a custom workout based on an collection of training videos. Challenge your friends to do your workout. Follow you and your friends’ progress with a scoreboard showing who’s been kicking butt and who’s been rocking the couch.

These are pretty straightforward apps. And as much as I appreciate their utility, they’re still missing something: People undressing.

App 4.
The PUMA Index
Touted as a global stock ticker with a twist, Puma apparel has created an app that brings you real time stock market info and models disrobing. If the markets go down, off come the clothes. If they go up, put another sweater on, Sally. Oh, and all the clothes are Puma Bodywear.

What does sports apparel have to do with the stock market? Beats me. The entire concept seems to be a joke on the phrase “losing your shirt”. Still, I think it brings up a larger question: how out-of-left-field can a branded app be? Can an app be appropriate for a brand even if its function is totally unrelated to it?

Puma has chosen to lure people into its brand by focusing on the absurd, ridiculous and mildly titillating. (Three words that probably aren’t in the Puma brand guidelines.) But even though there doesn’t seem to be a direct connection between what the app does and Puma, they’ve captured something of the youthful, fun spirit of the brand, along with a whole lot of attention too. And what brand wouldn’t want that?

Through WearYellow.com, text messaging, Twitter and online ads, people submitted messages to be printed on the roads during the race. In the spirit of Live Strong, the messages were to inspire racers, as well as acknowledge people’s friends and loved ones who’ve battled cancer.

The Chalkbot was pulled behind a truck and used a bio-degradable chalk toner. Over the course of the three week race, thousands of messages were chalked.

There’s a lot to love in this campaign. It’s frickin’ cool. It encourages participation with the brand. It’s a perfect addition to the Live Strong campaign. And from a digital perspective, it seamlessly joined the online with the offline – a constant challenge in the desire for true integration between mediums.

Over the last few months, there seems to have been more talk about Twitter than actual talking on Twitter. And a lot of that talk is about what brands can actually do with it. In our corner of the agency, we’ve spent a fair bit of time discussing both the usefulness and uselessness of Twitter. (The two seem evenly balanced.)

For brands, it’s especially challenging. It’s one thing if your friends follow your tweets because they think you’re hilarious and care about what you had for lunch. But a brand has to offer something of genuine value on a regular basis in order for people to follow it. No small task.

My favourite example of Twitter being used effectively for commercial purposes is the Albion Café out of London. This small bakery tweets every three hours or so to tell people what baked goods have just come out of their oven.

Some examples of their tweets:

“Apple and cinnamon cake with new season apples has just been made and topped with butter icing.”

“Freshly baked crumbly Chocolate Chip Cookies stuffed with oozy chocolate chips.”

“Contrary to popular belief, our golden gallic Croissants are perfect anytime, not just breakfast. http://bakertweet.com/m/323” (Note the link to an incredible pic of said croissants.)

I don’t know about you but I’d be drooling in my shoes at every tweet. And I’d be making a quick trip to the Albion Café.

What the Albion Café is doing is very simple but it totally maximizes what Twitter has to offer. It’s providing meaningful content on a regular basis that takes full advantage of the real time nature of tweets (with an inherent call to action to boot). All brands should take note.