DAunion

DSGi

diana — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 18:18:36 +0000

Agency: EMC

Media: till-less payment systems, barcode scanning GPS apps, product dispensers, in-store tablets… read on for more.

The project

The DSGi Group (Curry’s, Dixons, PC World) is the UK’s biggest electronics retailer. Yet the future looks tough. American competitors are circling, ready to tear off their declining market share. We were tasked with helping future-proof their business over the next three years. We had to inject digital right into the heart of everything they do.

The idea

We cherry-picked seven strong trends in digital for consumers and brands. And then we asked: how would these change DSGi? And transform customers’ experiences? To make these trends tangible, we created customer journeys, identifying key digital touch-points. Ideas included GPS-located bar code scanning apps, in-store tablets, loyalty swipe cards, till-less payment systems, interactive surfaces, social media retail, pop-up shops, co-created merchanising and even 24/7 dispensers for small ticket items. So the work translated into real financial returns, we worked closely with business analysts to create a ‘value map’ for all our digital innovations. For we know great digital drives revenue.

The result

At the end of the presentation, the client gave the team a standing ovation. We like that kind of reaction. Many of the proposals are now going forward and coming to a PC World, Curry’s or Dixons near you…

The future of retail is digital

diana — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:38:24 +0000

Things are changing on the high street. Oh yes. And it’s happening now. Having just worked on a three-year strategy for the DSGi Group, here are some exciting ways your corner shop is going to transform with digital.

1. See it, like it, buy it, by text

You’re strolling down the street. You see a beige trench coat on a passerby and you like. So you snap it, your mobile app identifies the wearers outfit, sources it and you buy it, then and there, right from your mobile, or you get directions to the nearest store with it in stock. Fashionistas rejoice!

Who’s doing it? Check out frogdesign.com (the above is in concept design) or layar.com (an augmented reality app where users can point their phone towards sponsored products and view).

2. You’ll be able to haggle the price

Recently, I went to Selfridges to get inspiration for a new black leather laptop bag. I found a Jost bag at £309, but with ‘Code reader’ app on my i-phone, I discovered the same bag on Amazon for £145. In the future, the floor staff will be empowered to haggle or price match. My Selfridges assistant just gave me a withering look, saying ‘But Madam, you are in SELFRIDGES.’

Who’s doing it? Check out apps: Shop Savvy, Code Reader, StripeyLines.

3. You won’t have to queue to pay

Bliss is never to queuing to pay, right? Fed by real-time data, apps will soon let you check in-store queues as well as tell you which aisle you’ll find your product for a extra speedy visit. Or, better still, you can just pay in the store from your mobile device…

Who’s doing it? Take a look at Square, a new mobile payment system for the i-phone and i-pad, where you can check out from anywhere simply by fitting a small plastic card reader into your device. (Go to squareup.com)

4. With tablets, staff can be oh-so helpful

Imagine if… all staff at a store could access everything you wanted to know right at their fingertips, including reviews, related products (upsell! cross-sell!), stock availability, product tutorials or features, and more…

Who’s doing it? Apple (of course). Or the Intercontinental Hotel, Concierge staff now have tablest to show guests local information and book tickets and tables on the spot.

5. Share the shopping love with friends

We love to share or have our purchases given the thumbs up by friends. And nothing beats real-time feedback, which is why sites like gotryiton.com has rocketed up the internet charts. Users can post up pictures of outfits and others can tell them to ‘wear it’ or ‘change it’.

Who’s doing it? Diesel has installed cameras in their change rooms, where fashionistas can publish their new rags to facebook. Friends can ‘Like’. Or not.

6. A store will come to you…

‘Pop up’ shops and flash sales, where products are available for a limited time at a limited location are coming your neighbourhood. Or maybe even your home. It’s going to be over to you.

Who’s doing it? Adidas has a hip, street-art bus selling limited edition trainers; FrostFrench has ‘popped up’ in London’s Whiteley’s shopping mall; hairroomservice.com comes to your home, office or wherever you are…

I heart IT Barbie

diana — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:30:25 +0000

Every year, poor old Barbie gets laid off from work (she’s been made redundant 125 times in her career). Luckily, fans from all over the world can vote for her new path in life. So, she just bounces right back! For 2010, the career choices on offer included an environmentalist (what?! She’s sooo plastic), a news anchor, an architect, a surgeon or computer engineer.

The overwhelming choice among the girls was news anchor. But never underestimate the power of the geek. Techies in the deepest, darkest depths of the blogosphere, on Twitter and Facebook launched their own campaign for computer engineer Barbie. Mattel’s answer? Go with both. After all, the computing industry needs more girls. And what better way to persuade them than Barbie?!

So meet Barbie, computer engineer, out winter 2010. I like the geek chic binary code patterned tee (I’d almost wear that), spangled black leggings and I’d love that smartphone, Bluetooth headset, laptop travel bag, and last but not least – a pink laptop (gah! So three seasons ago, Barbie. It’s all safari this year).

Though being a little geeky myself, I did notice that the binary on the laptop reads “barbiebarbiebarbie” in ASCII. You go, geek girl.

Lastminute.com social media 2010

diana — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:46:08 +0000

Sample: lastminute.com

Media: facebook engagement polls, facebook landing page, interactive video, MPU

Launch: March 2010

Agency: Karmarama

See it in action

The project

Finally, after a long winter, people are coming out of their slumber. The buds are out and spring is just around the corner. We’re all thinking about going out again. And that’s why lastminute.com wanted to be there, inspiring consumers with unbeatable deals to do fresh, exciting new things. With a TV campaign, cinema, pre-rolls, display and press, we were tasked with bringing this to life through social media on a tight budget.

The idea

To fulfill the campaign objective (namely of collecting email addresses for eCRM, increasing fan numbers on Facebook and driving sales), we created several components on the Facebook ‘Good stuff’ fan page. To maximise the TV ad, we featured a bespoke interactive video player that links to product, putting transaction at the heart of the video. To generate debate and conversation, we created a series of interactive polls. These lived on Facebook’s home page and Twitter. People voted for their ‘good stuff’; if their good stuff won, they got extra special offers on a particular day. Lastly, a competition to win a trip for four to New Zealand required users to become fans to enter, dramatically increasing our fan base by 30,000 (we got 2,000 fans in 1 hour!).

The results

Within one day, we had over 8,000 extra fans on facebook.com and thousands more competition entries. While the TV campaign created a momentary spike in site traffic, the facebook channel is now their main sales driver, with 6% of click-throughs translating to sales. Never underestimate the power of social media.

Whopper ‘Face’ Burgers

diana — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:27:29 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsISPvjg2iM

Ah, the solution is so simple. You take one cashier, one hidden camera and one printer, and low and behold, every customised burger at Burger King in Brazil is made just for you.This is a very cool way of utilising a little bit of digital magic in-store to solve a pretty big business challenge. Made To Order; it’s what McDonald’s have spent tens of millions on trying to tell you over the past year or so, and Burger King are now trying to remind you that’s how they do it too, and that every burger is made just for you! The surpirse on customers faces is priceless, their comments are even better. Nothing like real positive customer feedback. Watch the video to see it in action.

Facebook, oh Facebook…

diana — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:10:39 +0000

Oh yes, every brand and his dog are on Facebook. In fact, an astonishing 500 million people (though Facebook itself has yet to turn a profit) are there. And just recently, Facebook has become the most visited site in the USA, surpassing even the mighty Google. So it’s become a huge, monster of a platform. And, surprise, surprise… The death knell is tolling for traditional campaign sites, while brands seek to harness the mass power of social networking sites.

That includes us.

But here’s the thing. Facebook is still very restrictive, plus it’s notoriously hard to extract any support or information from their team.

OK, so there has been a few improvements, such as the possibility to capture personal email addresses (yay for eCRM), increased share (FB users already share a whopping 2 billion pieces of content each week) and the use of video in ads (er, but not interactive ads – as it just took us two weeks to discover).

One slightly more WOW improvement, as the recent VW ‘PunchDub’ campaign showed, is the ‘Open Graph’ platform. In case you didn’t know, users will be able to fan not only your brand but a specific page, product, celebrity, movie, or SKU. That means pages will also show up in users’ profiles and in search results and publish stories to the stream of its fans. Woohoo. Sort of.

As a creative team, we’ve been riding this shift to social network sites, with one of Karmarama’s key clients asking for low-low budget, but influential social media campaigns. As the IKEA facebook campaign showed (http://www.fb.se/#/en/Work/448/627/), this can be done using Facebook’s existing functionality, cheaply and easily. However, it’s the unbranded things that really virally catch the zeitgeist, like the ‘Can this egg get more fans than Katie Price?’ http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=kate+price+egg&init=quick#!/pages/Can-this-egg-get-more-fans-than-Katie-Price/316764126342?ref=ts (now with 500,000 fans).

So therefore it’s a simple, crackingly good campaign idea that works right now. But imagine a Facebook with a more flexible, richer platform… Bring it on, Facebook. Just. Do. It.

(Oh – and you might even start making a profit too).

We won flash talking’s campaign of the month!

diana — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:04:33 +0000

Hurrah! We love awards in the shape of a cake.

Brand: Nintendo DSi XL

Media: site takeover

Launch: February 2010

Agency: Karmarama

Award: Flash talking Campaign of the Month February 2010

The issue:

Nintendo launched the new DSi XL, an extra large DSi with larger screens, a super-sized stylus and bolder graphics, which together mean an all-round better gaming experience. Gamers, however, are yet to be convinced this console is for them and not an older audience. We needed give gamers a chance to compare the new XL with the ordinary DSi and see why gaming in XL is better, brighter and bigger.

The project:

To announce the launch, we created a site takeover with a ‘curtain’ that would unveil the new product on key gamer sites. Once revealed, the user can interact with the DSi XL and watch a demo, see their favourite games on the XL screen or compare the DSi with the DSi XL.

The results:

Our site takeover won ‘Campaign of the month’ from Flashtalking (and a hand-delivered Konditori and Cook cake!). Here’s what they said: ‘This campaign is a great example of a takeover. Rather than competing with page content it makes clever use of the Flashtalking live screengrab component to pull the page aside, revealing an interactive showcase for the new DSi XL.’ We like awards we can eat.

Involvement:

Concept

Creative development

Art direction and copy

See project demo

lastminute.com

diana — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:33:11 +0000

the project
In January, after all our partying, we’re sick. After all that Christmas spending, we’re broke. Our brief was to look at ways to motivate customers to buy lastminute.com’s ‘good stuff’ when they don’t feel like going out or spending money.

the idea
We came up ‘Cheer up, Britain!’, where we brighten up the nation with all the ‘good stuff’ we’ve got for you. To serve up relevant offers, we monitor the mood of the nation via a giant thumbo-meter. The thumb is informed by scaping status updates on facebook, banner ads and text messages. If the thumb is down, we cheer people up with deals like comfort food, spa deals or comedy acts.

experiential
To cheer everyone up, we also give out hot chocolates with hot pink tops and pink marshmallows. We wrap the Metro with ‘good stuff to cheer you up’ including spotify playlists, vouchers and feel-good stories. We would also cover the seats of bus shelters with woolly pink covers and pipe in music or comedy skits of up-coming acts.

British Airways, Club world London City campaign

diana — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:32:20 +0000

Sample: Club World London City
Brand: British Airways
Media: Microsite, Online advertising
Agency: Agency.com
Launch: August 2009

the project
In October 2008, British Airways decided to launch an exclusive 32-seat service from the heart of London City to JFK, New York. The first transatlantic flight of its kind, the client wanted a site with an equally premium look and feel to appeal to its business class audience.

the idea
Using a trajectory of light with 3D animation to connect London City and New York, we created a fresh look and feel with easy-to-use functionality detailing the benefits of this service. When our client saw it, he commented: ‘I don’t’ just like it. I love it.’ Our creative was used on giant digital display boards in New York.

See the project live

Dollond and Aitchison digital campaign

diana — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:31:59 +0000

Sample: Dollond & Aitchison

Media: rich media online ads and microsite (part of a 360 campaign)
Agency: DLKW
Launch: June 2007

the project
No young 16-24-year old woman wants to be labelled ‘the one with the glasses’. So D&A saw an opportunity to target this audience, opening up a huge potential market for contact lenses. Together with Johnson & Johnson, D&A partnered up to offer a free eye test and sample contact lens trial so women could be free from face furniture and express their own style.

the idea

To inspire this audience, we designed a ground-breaking ‘Look Reinventor’. With hundreds of lip, hair and eye expressions on a model, users scroll from everyday to outrageous looks, learn tips from a make-up artist and send their new looks friends. Yay!

involvement

Initial ideation
User experience input
Creative direction of the DM and digital teams
Copy tone of voice development
Content creation