Nokia E72 Launched via Blog Challenge

The geniuses behind Nokia's world brand marketing, 1000 Heads, has outdone themselves with the recent release of the Nokia E72 around the world during the Christmas period, giving every blogger the extra holidays to spend more time writing up their reviews and exploring the E72 to its fullest extent. Locked perspex boxes, guarded by a magnetic lock, were sent to bloggers such as the MyE63 blog with the slick, new Nokia E72 and a poster with a clue that each blogger had to solve to solve the combination lock. 


The anticipation of playing with the Nokia E72 would have been overwhelming. Usually bloggers receive the cardboard box that you get your mobile phone in it but this time, with a little more (well spent) dollars, 1000heads made bloggers excited and with such a launch, it is hard to imagine 1000heads doing anything much different from this product launch. How much difference a big perspex box and a little extra effort can make has us awarding Nokia with the marketing strategy of the month.

Some bloggers just couldn't wait..

Droids in Times Square and Live-in shopfronts at 5th avenue

As businesses look towards the holiday season, we've had some interesting promotions in the US following Black Friday, the first Friday after Thanksgiving which marks the beginning of the retail silly season.

Google Android started off with a Times Square display of their new Droid's ability to do voice searches over Google. In the campaign droiddoes.com, Google showcases the features that iPhones don't have. People in Times Square were able to speak to the display and have Google search their query on a big screen, powered by Droid.

Also another Great Strategy can be found at XOXO clothing store on 5th Avenue, New York has taken shopfront displays to another (lower?) level. Not only does their shopfront feature real women, they spend much of their time trying on different outfits available in XOXO and another proportion of their time just sitting around in.. not much. It sure draws a crowd but I wonder how many women then decide to buy something from XOXO after they see the clothes modelled in the shopfront. Go to www.whatwillshedonext.com to read or view more on this ad campaign.

iSnack 2.0 - it had to be said

Ok we have not blogged for a while but everyone in the blogosphere must mention something about iSnack 2.0 and so here we are, doing the inevitable and ready to lambast the collective wisdom of the competition panel (whoever they were) selecting such a moronic name as iSnack 2.0.

Many bloggers and marketing commentators floated the idea that it may have been great strategy to pick a crap name and create a talking point for everyone gathered together to watch the AFL finals. Think about it, this point has merits. Apart from the mental reluctance to conclude that someone consciously thought that iSnack was a real good name, we have to consider that the launch of this name happened during the AFL finals. A major fail would be to pick a neutral name that washes off the brain before the next ad break so picking a contraversial name could have been a master stroke to ensure that the 2.95 million people watching the game would start talking about Vegemite than the Cats. Think about how many people you know who DOESN'T know that:

• There is a new vegemite
• It has a crap name 
• There's cheese mixed in with vegemite

And how many people wondered aloud to you what it would taste like?

Considering they did an online vote for the new name to replace iSnack 2.0 also may be a hint that they knew what they were doing. After all, it was the Web 2.0 interactivity that decided the final name. How many people voted in the online poll? 30,000 in 3 days. 751 mentions of Vegemite in Google News just in the last 24 hours. Not bad. And the new name - Vegemite Cheesybite. Didn't we see this coming before the competition?

440ml Coke Cans and Bottles

As a means of upgrading the spend per person, Coca-Cola has decided to move drinkers of the 375ml cans and 390ml bottles to 440ml. The cans have already started to appear in IGA as "AFL cans" and the bottles should be appearing in distribution chains soon.

If you are the first to notice one of these drinks, leave a comment with a link to your picture.