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Well, actually, I’ve moved.

Check out http://mattwoestehoff.com for my latest posts!

Lego my Legos

Whoah.

Augmented reality with a true purpose. What’s next? Fitting rooms without the effort?

Check out this crazy Lego kiosk that looks at the package you’re holding and shows you the completed project. Really nice work.

Lego Augmented Reality brought to you by VideoBash.com

Dove on Mad Men, Part II

So, I want to know.

I’ve had a ton of traffic to my blog based on my last post. Based on keywords, I can see that most people care about the Dove ad and its association with the show. So, what do you think?

Also, I know I’ve briefly tried to find it, but does anyone know who Dove’s ad agency of record is? If so, please leave a comment!

///UPDATE!  So the NYT is on the same page with me. Check out their article here: More Fake ‘Mad Men’; More Real Ads

Mad Men Advertainment

Tonight continued the Mad Men saga on AMC. My wife and I dutifully have watched each episode, and rightfully despise Pete Campbell.

At the first commercial break, I thought “oh neat, they’re also putting up unbranded trivia answers intermixed with the commercials.”

Then I realized, each time they did that, the following commercial was also the answer. One example was the branded “bumper” that showed us how many credit card transactions take place annually. Immediately followed a Chase Sapphire commercial.

It was a subtle nod at how Mad Men (the show, not the plot) continue to mix up the ad world, and I like it. What I don’t like is when the advertisers try to be too cool. Like Dove. Right after their little nod from Mad Men, they go straight into a commercial about how to advertise Dove. But it is an ad. And not a very good one in my opinion. It seemed cheap. I would’ve loved to see Dove continue their “Real Beauty” campaign instead. Bring it back to the brand message, not some one-off idea.

I also remember when I picked up Season One on DVD. Inside, there was an insert ad from Clorox. Simply with a white dress shirt with a red lipstick stain and copy reading “Getting guys in the ad world out of hot water for years” (or something similar). I thought it was clever, it made me smirk, and I remember it about two years later. The downside, the campaign is fully integrated (which obviously isn’t necessarily bad) and the same style Clorox ad appears as banners and interstitials on AMCtv.com – plus they had it as a commercial during the show today.

My points are these. I appreciate the fact that Mad Men “gave a nod” to their advertisers with the trivia prior to the ads – it was smart, subtle and inoffensive on all accounts. I didn’t like when the ad tried to fake being Mad Men, or continue to run the same campaign two years later by transplanting it in a new medium.

That being said, we’ll still tune in next week.

The Next Coupon

There’s something to be said for reading the paper. I don’t necessarily mean reading the news, but having the experience of holding the broadsheet and smelling the ink on the pages. The texture and the timbre of the crinkle are unique, and offer such a different experience than any other medium.

The problem is, it isn’t fast enough.

I consider myself an over-consumer of news and information. Reading a newspaper isn’t about the news for me anymore. It’s about the idea of sitting with a paper, drinking coffee,  and getting a leisurely start to the day.

It’s also about the ads. Sunday is by far my favorite paper day, and it’s because of all the “extras” inside.

Being married, having an infant girl, and in a new house, we find ourselves clipping coupons and shopping sales more than ever before. That whole “economy” thing doesn’t help either.

For us, spending $1.25 on a paper that on average saves us about $5, makes sense. Or at least that’s what my wife says. I just like it to have that experience.

Enter the internets.

Now a days, my wife (unprovoked by me) is an avid follower of Groupons, and several other deal-oriented Twitter feeds and Facebook pages. I wrote about Punch Pizza the other day, and that’s a good example of our household’s alternative coupon hunting methodology. In fact, I shouldn’t even call it hunting. Really, it’s just a matter of paying attention - which my wife is admittedly better at than I (her words, not mine).

It’s great. It saves us money. But it’s just not the same as a newspaper.

But what’s next? How can we keep it about the experience, and not about the deal?

My wife and I both have iPhones. We’ve had 6 of them actually. We have loved having them too. They are our gateways to information, and we use them for such. We have way too many Apps for too many things that we just don’t ever use – but why not? “I might need this someday” syndrome in the App Store has resulted in a few misguided dollars spent. On the flip side, we’re both fairly entrenched in certain applications. One set of which are location-based apps.

Gowalla was essentially built for my wife. She’s a collector personality, and loves to explore. I’ve followed suit more to participate than anything else. Usually, I participate for the same reasons. It’s not really about letting my friends know where I am – for that, I use Foursquare.

Why the switch? Gowalla is about collecting and self-driven motivation to me. Foursquare is about meeting, beating and engaging with others. One of the big differences in the past, has been the end benefit. Foursquare Mayors usually have deals or offers. Lately, it’s been even broader. In Topeka, Kansas, if you check in on Foursquare at a Subway Restaurant, you’ll see an offer:

Buy A Regular 12″ Sub and get a Regular 6″ Sub for .99 WHEN you CHECK IN (Extra meat / cheese = extra $) (Not valid w/ other offers. Only at participating stores) Get 3 Free Cookies on 1st check in!

When you check in. That’s much better than Mayor. Mayorships are hard-earned, and hard held in most situations. Mayorships rewards are meant to give those regulars extra incentive to keep coming back – but for those of us who can’t go to a bar every night, the value is quickly diminished.

Gowalla is starting to do some of this too – but the rewards aren’t necessarily in the real world. Their business model is rapidly evolving, but it’s becoming more of a venue for brand participation, rather than rewards through coupons or discounts. They do have some coupon combos, with Paul Frank and others, but the emotional connections are where they win out.

Chalkbot is an excellent example. They give users a pin for when they check in using Gowalla at a Nike Store. Sure, it isn’t that tangible, but understanding the story behind the Chalkbot idea and it’s implications are pretty rewarding emotionally.

What I find interesting, is that Nike and Chalkbot went through Gowalla, and not Foursquare. The tennants of the tools are different, and by properly positioning themselves with the collector persona rather than the rulers of Foursquare, their message became more valuable.

So what’s my point? Coupons, discounts, and sales are more commonly used than in previous years. Companies and brands are trying to find new ways to reach new and old customers through new media tools. But, providing an experience while engaging that customer is still paramount to success – whether it be in the Sunday paper, or through an iPhone.

The Power of Free Beer

My wife and I took a night off tonight. Grandma came over and babysat while we ventured outward to have dinner off in the real world again. For those of you without kids, you might not know what this is like exactly.

We decided to visit one of my wife’s favorite spots, and one I’ve come to admire. Punch Pizza. She loves the food, and I think it’s ok. What I really like (and so does she) are the deals via Twitter, announcements, Facebook posts, and Flickr coupons.

Todays prize? Free beer with pizza purchase. Not just any beer, but Summit’s new member of the Unchained series – the Belgian Style Golden Ale. Pretty good beer by the way, and not just because it was free.

What really amazed me was the fact that about 90% of the people there had a page from Flickr printed out with the $1 coupon for the new beer, or the coupon here for free beer with pizza purchase.

Pretty sweet deal, and pretty amazing results on the first day, but that’s just the casual observer. They are big proponents of social media, and I’d love to someday see the rewards of their efforts in a fancy bar graph or something. All I know is that it worked on us, and plenty of others while we were there.

For now, hit up Punch and have a beer.

Enjoy!

Old Spice Aftermath (with analytics)

Ok, before it gets over analyzed, I wanted to quick share some stats I was able to get about the Old Spice campaign.

Thankfully, I have Squawq to help me through the Twitter waters of the past week. As soon as I saw that Old Spice was trying something different, I put in a query and awaited my results. Now, the campaign really started on Tuesday, and peaked on Wednesday for certain. But I wanted to know just how big of a peak that was.

The results? Pretty amazing. 91,328 mentions in five days, and a Wednesday high of over 50,000 and 33,532 unique authors.

Quick math – average Twitter user has 126 followers. 126 x 33,532 gives us a potential audience of about 4,225,032 users. But those are the average Twitter users. Old Spice selectively interacted with the average, and the not-so-average. That 4 million number was reached by four of the people Old Spice was directly talking with. I’d put the real audience somewhere far higher than the 4.2 million – probably around 7-9 million. And that’s just Twitter. Don’t forget about all those Facebook folks, and YouTubers too.

Now that’s some good reach.

I’m not complaining, either. Since my first post, I’ve gained a handful of Twitter followers, and blog watchers. Thanks, in no small part, to my friends over at @Periscope_ for their mention. You made me feel special.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to run to the store and pick up some body wash.

Smelling Out Social, Man.

Hello Ladies.

And gentleman, too. Welcome to what may become a new era of interaction. Before today, Old Spice has gotten a tremendous following, and plenty of chatter about their latest television commercials, and branded content on YouTube. After today, they could be known for being a catalyst of change in advertising. Not bad for a company trying to sell body wash to men.

For those who haven’t seen it yet, Old Spice has merged Twitter, Facebook and YouTube users and has their spokes-MAN Isaiah Mustafa answer follower questions in 10-30 second mini videos. Pretty cool idea. From a creative perspective, it’s a gold mine for copywriters. They don’t disappoint – lots of gems.

I pulled up my Squawq Analytics account and put in a tracking term of oldspice or “old spice”. First came up the graph of the last 500 related mentions of those terms. I was mildly impressed. Then I realized that it only took from 8:00pm (CST) to 8:07pm. In seven minutes, they have more Twitter mentions than I’ve received in all of my time using Twitter (which is a long time).

Not only is the content incredibly funny, but the interactions, followers, “likes” and chatter that it is already getting is pretty amazing. The folks at Wieden + Kennedy have really done it again.

It’s also very important to point out how big a risk Old Spice has taken. Some brands would laugh at the thought and the investment in an unproven idea. Well, they just proved it. Pity is that so many will try to copy, and so many will fail. They succeed because the creative is consistent, the message is consistent, the voice is right on, and people actually WANT to participate.

And yes, they’ll get more followers, and fans. But the impact is far-reaching. They’ve answered questions from people like Alyssa Milano, Kevin Rose, and even brands like Starbucks (who I give kudos to for attempting and succeeding to interact). Those three alone account for about 3 million followers (929,022 followers, 1,168,897 followers and 953,656 followers respectively at the time I’m writing). That’s just Twitter. Yes, some of those folks overlap, I’m sure, but lest we forget the Facebook effect, and even those who just are YouTubers. That is a lot of reach.

To view the “campaign”, go to http://www.youtube.com/oldspice or follow them @OldSpice

Thanks to W+K for creating great work, and thanks Old Spice for being willing to take chances.

EarlyBird, where is my worm?

Well, it has been out for  less than 28 hours, but Twitter’s new plan seems to be working.

Even with just one little tweet, @earlybird has garnered over 17,750 followers.

But how and why? It seems the Twitter has realized that we’ve evolved into a more bargain-focused consumer.

Twitter @earlybird Exclusive Offers are special time-bound deals, sneak-peeks, and events that are promoted by the official Twitter @earlybird account. We partner with select advertisers and retweet offers that they have crafted only for the Twitter community. Our advertising partners determine the terms of the offer, including availability, amount, and price. As with other forms of advertising from Twitter, we are focused on bringing value to our users and will keep your interests in mind as we develop this program.

That’s the official word, and you can learn more at http://bit.ly/b1szLL

Pretty cool idea. Now if I could just get that worm.

The Evil Dead Remake Fake Campaign

So this project was developed for our New Media class. Myself, Matt Connell (copywriter) and Kenneth Geiger (art director) worked on this last trimester at Brainco.

Slideshare and I don’t always agree, so there are some blank slides, and for that I do apologize.