Their new concept includes a tiered pricing system, a store in store system focusing on their partnerships with Cindy Crawford, Sephora, the Olsen Twins, Bisou Bisou & more.

However, what really caught my attention is the way JCPenney’s is integrating mobile marketing with their direct mail.

In their February Catalog, they included Text shopping options in addition to specific product information. Doing this allows the reader to quickly order the product without having to search for item numbers via the eCommerce site.

However, what really excites me is what JCPenney might do with this new mobile strategy.

JCPenney can set up partnerships with stylists, create layouts in their catalogs and make it so consumers can order full outfits in seconds. They can have the code on the bottom of print ad’s, outdoor advertising, on commercials, and partner with movie studios. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a movie and didn’t say, WOW- Great dress. Imagine if you could pull out your phone text the number & have the outfit ordered before the character has even changed clothes.

If they are willing to continue to create monthly catalogs- They could tap into the power of Social Media sites like Polyvore, Instagram, & Pinterest and have consumers enter to win a chance at creating an outfit to feature in the catalog & so much more. Think of the possibilities.

I’m beyond excited that the 110 year old company is learning some new tricks & they have definitely won my attention. I’m envious of their digital team & hope they embrace digital marketing and continue to innovate.

Eristoff Vodka developed a fantastic guerrilla marketing campaign that utilized a number of fake online videos that tried to convince London that one of the acts had escaped & that wolves were roaming the streets. Wolf in London!!

In November, they launched a fictional website called Dakov Circus and promoted a “Circus Freak Out” event. They also ran advertisements in Time Out and London blogs. After the launch, Eristoff made an announcement that the “Wolves of Vale” act had been suspended until further notice.  Then they uploaded fake videos, similar to the one below, to YouTube & Social Networks. They supported the campaign with Twitter postings to drive people’s interest & excitement.

Check out their videos below:
Escaped Wolves in London

I was obsessed with Christmas growing up and I believed in Santa. My parents made a consistent effort in making the holiday “magical” by surprising us with the Christmas gifts we really wanted even if they didn’t make it on our Christmas list.

As I got older the magic became tarnished by my 2 older sisters and their goal of tormenting their little sister. However, my mom was sure to explain to me that everyone has a little “Santa” inside them and that all we have to do is look around for someone who could use a little “Christmas magic”. So, I spent my pre-teen and teenage years leaving “surprise” Christmas gifts for random acquaintances that I knew needed a little magic in their life.

Fast Forward to 2010, My mom’s tradition had fallen by the wayside and I was having a bit of a blue time. I wasn’t really in the mood for Christmas celebrations but being a fan of Reddit, I signed up to participate in a Redditgifts exchange. I did my part and sent my gift and didn’t think much about it until one day I got home and found a package. When I opened it, I was overwhelmed by the generosity of my secret Santa Claus and the effort that went into it. They single handily made my blue mood turn cheery and bright. It was exactly what I needed to remind me how magical Christmas could be.

So, Thank you RedditGifts for bringing Santa back to life and reminding me that each of us has a little bit of Santa inside.

And Thank you Redditgifts for inspiring me to walk in my mom’s footsteps by looking for people in or around my life that seem to need a little magic and trying to delight them with an anonymous Christmas Gift.

It’s such a popular thing to do that Domino’s built an entire Marketing campaign around their Mea Culpa. It started with saying they had “cardboard pizza” and now it’s on to attacking the cheesy goodness of their breadsticks. I’m hoping they stop attacking their products before they reach the cinnamon sticks. You see- I LOVE Domino’s cinnamon sticks and will be terribly offended if they say it’s awful- I mean what does that say about my taste buds? I’m warning you, Dominos. Don’t touch the cinnamon sticks.

Now that I’ve warned Dominos, I must say that as a marketer, I believe that the Mea Culpa is not the best marketing plan. In fact it’s a risky short term plan and does damage to your brand equity. It’s like the Boy who cried wolf- It only counts the first time and then people quit believing you. Remember that GroupOn- the superbowl isn’t that far away.

However, This Thanksgiving I came across the very first “I’m sorry” that I believed and at the same time endeared the brand to me and inspired this post.

This is their apology:

This is their product:

Genius. It cracked me up and spoke to every single beer lover at our table. We passed the box around so everyone could read it and then talked about how awesome it was that they took their operations gaffe to heart and then could have some fun with it. Multiple people at dinner posted the box on their Facebook accounts, and some even tweeted about how it sucked that it happened but at least they made a good beer. It also made us really want to try the feared BrownShugga Ale, so I put a reminder in my ICal to look for it next Thanksgiving. Don’t mess up again, Lagunitas.

Seriously though, Great job Lagunitas Brewing Company.  You have a fan now and I hope that BrownShugga is as good as Holiday Ale.

Above: Artwork from the #OWS movement’s Day of Action.
Below: Occupy Wall Street poster available for free to any protester from an online supporter

Below: Artwork from the Nineteen Hundred and Eleven Party who’s goal is to create interactive artwork that celebrates our enduring desire for social justice and change.

Below: Artwork from the Occupy London movement in support of #OWS

Who doesn’t remember the 80′s hit, “Video killed the radio star”? Now, it looks like Video is no longer in the killing mood and instead is assisting in bringing brands of all levels to life.

The opportunity in online video for brands is a HUGE one. More than 3 billion videos are viewed per day on the web’s largest video-sharing platform, YouTube. Their monthly traffic hovers around 800 million unique visitors. Nearly 75% of U.S. citizens have visited a video-sharing site in their lifetimes, and more than a 25% visit video-sharing sites on a daily basis, according to a July survey published by Pew Research Center.

However with video there is a high risk with high reward. Videos rarely became viral by themselves
In fact, more often then not, videos flop. However by reaching out to online media, including bloggers, a brand’s video can quickly reach a large online audience of product enthusiasts. Brands should also embed and share their videos across other social channels.

SEO is another major benefit of online video. The more content a brand puts out on high-ranking websites — YouTube included — the more relevant that brand and its properties become to Google. And the more relevant the brand, the cheaper its cost-per-click rate becomes in paid search.

Online video can also be used to drive sales on-site. Ralph Lauren created a storybook and a catalog with their RL Gang books. Each book tells a fun story with characters clad in RL children’s clothing. If mom happens to like little Hudson’s oxford, she can click on it and find it immediately. I think it is a great example of online video that helps with point of purchase.

The best part of video is that it can show your brand’s personality. Some of my favorite brand channels are below:

-       Roxy: The fantastic aesthetic of wicked waves and big beautiful swells help make Roxy’s content captivating. Roxy’s webisodes and mini-documentaries go beyond amazing surf footage and give consumers inside access to what goes on behind the scenes on the professional surfing, skating and snowboarding tour circuits. The video selection also features vlogs by the pros, lifestyle profiles of up and coming musicians and a potpourri of other content.

-       Tara Stiles Yoga: While Tara hasn’t quite turned into a fashion mogul yet.  I don’t think it will be long before she has her “Rebel Yoga” line. She has a growing brand and each week she creates new content that is riveting, educational and helpful to the expanding on the “Yoga” lifestyle.

-       H&M: H&M’s brand is all about affordable fashion and their videos support that notion. Each video is about collaboration, their seasonal fashion lines and how to get the most from your shopping spree. Their videos speak to their core base and is interesting enough to woo new fashion addicts.

-       Freaker USA: I first must state that I just LOVE these guys. I donated money via kickstarter to help them launch and I just find their quirky style and positive energy to be endearing. Their YouTube Channel helps support their “Freaky” qualities and really promotes their universally sized product. If you haven’t checked them out, please be sure to check them out.

Video still is considered the step-child of digital marketing but I hope that more brands embrace it and realize the power of video.

I’m a little late to the game but I had to make a little comment about a great digital campaign that is currently going on from the wonderful people at the Audubon Society. I stumbled across it this morning, as I was visiting one of my favorite sites- Inhabitat and I was greeted by the prettiest little bird. So, of course I clicked on the dancing darling and it led me to the Audubon’s Facebook page.

With the goal of teaching a younger generation about the pleasures of spotting and naming all kinds of feathered friends, Audubon set loose digital birds across the internet. That’s right, 100′s of birds finding homes across the world wide web. The birds behave just like they would in real world with perching, flying, hiding, and shying away from those that move to fast. Much like birding in real life, you have to search all around the Web World to encounter these birds. There are over 200 web sites participating from the Discovery Channel to Inhabitat to Slate.

As I experienced with my stumble, clicking on the animated birds takes players to an Audubon Facebook page where they can sign up to collect and trade “bird cards” that feature recordings of birdsong, bird facts and video. The first players to collect all species of birds will win a trip to the Galapagos Islands.

Unfortunately,I’m late to the game and there is only a day left to participate in their online game. However, I’m beyond impressed by Audubon’s digital campaign. They tied in social channels with Facebook, and Twitter (that’s where you got tips on birding on the net), they have great educational content- videos, audio, images and facts about the birds, and lastly they made education fun by making it a game that required participants to stay involved. Truly a great campaign. Audubon stated that they have had 10,000 players sign up, and 37,000 people have “liked” its Facebook page.

I can’t wait to see how they continue to use the web to share information about our feathered friends and what they do in the future to involve their new digital followers .

Marketers often view channels as silos with their own unique agendas and media formats. However, with the rise of digital integration, those channels are now evolving and blending together, with end users increasingly making less distinction between the media types.

For brand marketers, that means letting go of consistent messaging across every touchpoint in favor of a new, more nuanced goal, one that considers the communication canvas in full, conveying different parts of the story to different channels. By taking advantage of each channel’s strengths and creating unique extensions of a story based on those elements, the possibility for a deeper and more engaged experience emerges.

Outdoor Media is often looked over but the following outdoor media pieces both engaged and intrigued consumers. Some were part of a true Transmedia campaign, while others were merely hints of what could have been if all the channel pieces would have been tied together.

True Blood

The marketers at HBO get it. They understand the importance of Transmedia Storytelling and most of all they understand the importance of entertainment. Their Outdoor Media campaigns help highlight the season’s storyline while creating advertising that is compelling and engaging. Season 2 True Blood DVD Campaign.

For the movie “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”, an outdoor media street art campaign was launched. Utilizing the slogan ” Evolution becomes Revolution” the campaign threw down the gauntlet to British Street Artists and took inspiration from anti-establishment sloganeering and street graffiti. Thru art and outdoor media, the agency was able to instill the perception of an imminent ape uprising in an unexpected way and created an audience emotional reaction before anyone stepped foot into a movie theater.

For the movie “Contagion”, an outdoor media campaign was created using the star of the movie, Bacteria. Lowe Roche , a Toronto-based agency, worked with CURB media company and microbiologists and immunologists to create the one-of-a-kind signs, which were essentially gigantic petri dishes onto which different bacterial and fungal solutions had been carefully painted to spell the name of the movie. It’s terribly gross but for the people who walked by it and watched it grow before their eyes, it became very compelling and once again the consumer was emotionally engaged prior to ever setting foot into the movie. Here is a great video showing the small sign growth: Contagion Bacteria Billboard.

So, next time you are working on a campaign- remember that if done correctly, outdoor advertising is a great channel to utilize.

As a student, I was often the Brand Rep or Advocate on the ground. As an early graduate, I spent my time managing multiple experiential campaigns and working with PR and Sales teams on logistics. As a Brand Manager, I have spent quite a bit of time crunching numbers and looking at attendees to find the best tours or events that would entice my “core demographic”. As such, I am always very aware of the brands that show up at events I attend.

This week was a great week for me to check out some brand work first hand. I got to see three brands interacting with customers or future customers at events that I was very excited to attend. One brand did a great job, One brand did an ok job and one struck out harder than a Yankee at Fenway park.

This weekend, Boston hosted an Extreme Sailing event on the harbor front. There I ran across Mrs. Myers Clean Day. Let me preface this by saying: I already use and LOVE Mrs. Myers products and I was beyond excited to see them and receive some coupons for their products. However, what they did really well was hire friendly people that were educated on the products, knew about new products and cared about the environment and when I told them I was already a fan, they handed me more samples, additional coupons, and gave me a sincere “Thank you for choosing us”. Score for me & for them- I will continue to use their products and I’m sure they persuaded some of the attendees to give them a try.

The second brand I ran across was Red Bull. It made sense that they had a boat in the extreme Sailing event. Everything they do is a bit extreme. Their boat was amazing and their team exceptionally skilled. However, I was disappointed by the lack of outer presence at the events. There were banners, tents, etc but I didn’t come across one person who was a brand rep and couldn’t find a Red Bull to drink anywhere on site. #Fail.

The third brand did so many things poorly that I actually wanted to sit down with their reps and ask them, What were you thinking?

It all began Wednesday morning, when I received an awesome email from one of my favorite Boston sites- Mysecretboston.com. They advised me that I won VIP tickets from Lands End to the Matt & Kim contest at the House of Blues. Whoo Hoo! I received an email that was branded Lands End Canvas and gave me all the details on the event, Awesome. But wait, why didn’t it mention my favorite Boston site. They don’t get any credit or love? Hmmm, Fail #1.

We arrive at the event and are beyond excited. We walk in and are given our very special VIP passes and then told we could go get our picture taken at the Step & Repeat. Yes, please. Why wouldn’t we want to capture this VIP moment at the Matt & Kim show? But wait, the Step & Repeat only mentions Lands End. Um, where is House of Blues mentioned? Where is Matt & Kim mentioned? Why do I care about a pic of me & my betrothed in front of just a Lands End step & repeat? Won’t my friends just think I took this picture at Sears? Fail #2.

We then were led in to a Sound Check session with Matt & Kim. They did a fun sound check, talked with the 15 people watching and then came down for some Q & A’s, signatures, and photo ops. Sweet! I’m a big fan of Matt & Kim but after meeting them and experiencing their brand of quirky but charming charisma. I am officially obsessed and have a bit of a girl crush on Kim. Win #1 for experience. Fail #3 for the brand- No one mentioned Lands End & the photo op was just in front of the stage.

After the sound check, we were led upstairs to the Foundation Room in the House of Blues. Amazing décor and ambiance! We were then treated to some hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and a Canvas goodie bag. The food & drink were delicious and the canvas goodie bag started out great. It was a quality canvas bag- what you would expect from a Lands End Canvas event. However, that’s about where the quality stopped. Inside the bag was a poster for Lands End Canvas- um, ok what am I supposed to do with this? It also included 2 catalogs- Awesome! Something I can look at while I munch on my food and sip my drink, but wait it’s the same catalog. Nothing for me to keep to remember that this was for a Matt & Kim show or held at the house of blues or really anything I couldn’t pick up online or at Sears. Fail #4.

Finally, the show starts and we are beyond excited to see Matt & Kim live. If you haven’t had a chance, you should see them. They put on an amazing show. So, we go down to figure out where the Lands End area is and wait…there is no Lands End area. WHAT? What is my VIP if I don’t get to hang out with the other 13 people attending the show from Lands End? How do I bond and create an amazing memory and owe it all to Lands End? So, instead we stand at the back of the club, near the bar, watching the show. Fail #5.

Lastly, as I watch the show and do some people watching I noticed something very important. The people attending the Matt & Kim show were mostly college students in hipster wear. Yep, they were your typical skinny jean, mustache hat, scuffed up Chuck wearing hipsters. If they weren’t hipsters, they were indie types. Not one person at the show- outside of myself & my betrothed- would be caught dead wearing Lands End. In addition, Lands End had a banner near the bar and as people walked by; most made fun of the attractive couple on the banner or talked about the female model’s sunglasses. This wasn’t a great way to woo people to your brand but wait it gets worse…there wasn’t a URL, Not a QR code, Not a Facebook link, nothing. No single action. If they did dig the sunglasses, how do they know where to go? Fail # 6 & #7.

As we left the show, we were very pleased with the performance of Matt & Kim and really were thankful for the awesome tickets from Lands End & My Secret Boston but were definitely disappointed by the so called VIP treatment. It may be because I’ve done at least 50 of these events for brands that I’ve worked with or managed but Lands End didn’t impress me and definitely didn’t convert me to a buyer.

So, here are my tips to make an experiential event brand relevant & memorable.

Tip 1: If you utilize Step & Repeat for a photo op- Be sure to show what the event is and not just your brand. If people are going to share it with their friends, they want it to be cool or seem exclusive- not something that could happen at the mall.

Tip 2: If you are doing a show with an “Artist” or “Band” be sure to try and incorporate their content with your event. If you can’t incorporate their content- At least make sure the photo Op is in front of something about your brand.

Tip 3: Touch Points: Give your attendees something to touch, and to engage with. Think about texture. Holding something in their hand has been proven to drive value perception and ownership. Lands End did a good job with the Canvas bag but provide more engagement. If you can’t provide engagement, find a way to get a consumer to take action. Really, no URL, no QR, no coupon?

Tip 4: Know your audience. It’s terribly important to have a message and find a way to convey it to your audience. Also, make sure that the audience is right for your brand. Is it a logical fit? If not, should you be there? If you want to expand your audience, ask yourself how can I engage the audience?

Lastly, remember that people build perceptions through five lenses: emotion, reason, knowledge, personality and experience. It is exceedingly difficult to effectively address these through logos, signage and the like. To truly build a positive brand impression, you must build trust and develop a relationship. It ,also, requires some forethought into your partners and how you want to interact with your customers.

There is a difference between an event and an experiential event…the only one that will grow your brand is creating an experience