Agoo Activewear hires Canucks green men as models

Does this guy look familiar? It’s Sully! – one of the green men seen at the Vancouver Canucks games. And he’s modeling kids’ clothes. Strange, but caught your attention, didn’t it?

Agoo Apparel hired the green men Sully and Force as models for their new line of kids’ activewear. Based in the Lower Mainland, but available worldwide, Agoo saw an opportunity to harness the viral capabilities of the green men from Vancouver.

The original appearance of the green men in December 2009 attracted 412,209 views on YouTube. The fashion shoot video posted by Agoo already has 1,000 views since it’s post 2 weeks ago. And Agoo is not just focusing on YouTube for social media. In addition to their own blog, their website connects to a Facebook page, Twitter account, and Flickr channel. They engage 15,569 followers on Twitter and 662 fans on Facebook with photos, news, and promotions. The free press doesn’t hurt either.

Agoo may have been the first to take advantage of the green men, but don’t expect them to be the last. Maybe Gatorade will notice that Force and Sully not only wear a Gatorade-like green colour, but sit right beside the Gatorade containers in the penalty box at the Canucks games.

Red Bull crashes ice offline & online

There are few non-sport brands that leverage sporting events better than Red Bull. In fact, Red Bull even creates their own! The Red Bull Crashed Ice World Championship is the result of “the best and toughest ice-hockey players in the world, a sizzling atmosphere, stunning surroundings, tonnes of steel, a huge cooling system and thousands of square metres of frozen water”. The sport is called ice cross downhill.

120,000 fans were in attendance at the event held in Montreal. The Red Bull Crashed Ice website was designed to energize these fans as well as many more that could not be in offline attendance. Available in 3 different languages, the site provides real-time results, photos, videos, news, and more. There is even an interactive online game (picture above) where users can challenge friends and compete for the top 20 spots on the leaderboard. Featured directly on the homepage is a link to the Facebook page, which hosts 6,431 fans. And Red Bull is not afraid to communicate with these fans by inspiring comments and replying to them.

Let’s see how they manage their next event: Red Bull Cold Rush.

Pfizer struggles to win paralympic hearts

“To be truly healthy, it takes more than medication” – Pfizer Canada

Thanks, Pfizer, we didn’t know that already. The above video is featured on their MoreThanMedication.ca website, which is labeled by the Vancouver Sun as astroturfing. But that’s not even the biggest problem for Pfizer; its’ capturing positive media attention.

The viral video seemed to be on a bit of a roll as of Monday, with a total of 5,000 pass-ons (most likely by philanthropists as opposed to brand evangelists). And then the Vancouver Sun posts another article. Twitter posts transformed from “Watch and share this inspiring short film and Pfizer Canada will donate $5 to the Canadian Paralympic Team” to “three B.C. women file class action lawsuit over Pfizer quit-smoking drug” in less than 24 hours.

The MoreThanMedication website also features a free e-book titled “Kids of Courage”. It’s 31 pages long! Dedicated to Canada’s paralympic athletes, it features a writer with cerebral palsy and an artist born without arms and legs. Touching story, but not suitable for an e-book. And should you really be marketing to children while selling drugs like Viagra?

Good try, Pfizer, but I just don’t trust you.

CBS’ free throw for March Madness

With free live streaming, CBS has managed to collect $37 million in ad revenue with 2010 NCAA March Madness on Demand (MMOD). It’s the “only major sports event that is broadcast live and in its entirety for free on the Internet“. With 7.52 million unique visitors in 2009, no wonder advertisers like Warner Bros. are willing to spend the big bucks. But how does MMOD attract so many users?

First of all, there is a share tab that connects to all major social media including Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo! Buzz, StumbleUpon, Digg, and an RSS feed. It’s about giving consumers what they want, and for free. A high quality video option with picture-in-picture capabilities is available in addition to the standard player. And the Developer Platform allows any publisher to link directly to the MMOD video player. CNN, ESPN, and Facebook are ready to take advantage of this, as well as many smaller publishers.

And then there’s the Boss Button. If you click on it now, the above image will appear on your screen informing you that it has not been unveiled yet. However, it promises to provide a “business-like” image to instantly hide the video player from your boss if you are watching at work.

If this isn’t good enough, you can download the Premium NCAA MMOD iPhone app for $9.99.

Coca-Cola opens happiness at the Olympics

Yes, those are glowing Coca-Cola bottles – not lighters, not cellphones, but the new Coca-Cola PlantBottles. You can hardly see Marianas Trench, the band playing at LiveCity Yaletown to celebrate the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

This is just one of the many Coca-Cola branded images that appeared in the groundswell. I posted this picture, and 5 of my friends on Facebook alone have profile pictures from the Coca-Cola Pavilion. Some with the Coca-Cola polar bear mascot who helped spread the happiness, and others holding the Olympic torch.

I think it’s safe to say that Coca-Cola has become an expert in viral marketing. Their tv commercials, including the popular “He Shoots, He Scores” Olympic hockey commercial have energized consumers on YouTube. And their Olympic efforts have been complemented by everything that Coca-Cola has set up since the “Open Happiness” campaign launch on January 21, 2009. This includes the “Open Happiness” music video that features artists from Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, and Gym Class Heroes that is also available for download on iTunes.

Watch out for these PlantBottles at the next NASCAR event after the recently announced partnership extension!

Dove has men singing in the shower

It may be Dove for Men, but the campaign is not ignoring women. Drew Brees happens to be great eye candy, appearing on both Ellen and Oprah this week. In addition, the campaign targets women with the Celebrate Your Man’s Unsung Moments contest on Brickfish. The contest invites women to share a moment when their man was comfortable in his own skin for a chance to win a backyard or living room makeover.

Unilever now has Axe for single men, and Dove for men in relationships. The Super Bowl commercial, The Journey to Comfort, and the ad above may have created awareness among men, but Dove is energizing women. And although there are negative responses from men, such as the tweet: “Dove For Men seriously what the fuck is that??that is most grossed thing i have ever heard..so antithesis of a man..fuck u unilever fuck you”, I have not seen any negative responses from women. Dove has 120,213 fans on Facebook, 23,388 visits to the Brickfish website, and 102 contest entries so far.

Why not capitalize on the women recruited by the Real Beauty campaign? And the $1 coupons don’t hurt either – makes it that much easier to go out and buy your man Dove Men+Care!

Doritos scores a touchdown

“Keep your hands off my mama; keep your hands off my Doritos”

Doritos’ Snack Attack Samurai commercial was the most watched ad of all time with 116,231,920 viewers during Super Bowl XLIV according to Nielsen. But that’s not all. All 4 of the Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl winners gained huge yards for Doritos in the groundswell. The brand registered 35,000 tweets during the game alone, and achieved a 96% positive tone according to Brandweek. As referenced by the NY Times, Nielsen BuzzMetrics reported Doritos as the “most buzzed-about” brand during and after the game.

My personal fave (image above), House Rules, is #3 on AOL’s FanHouse and has 5 stars on YouTube’s AdBlitz.

The CTA at the end of each commercial drives viewers to the interactive Snack Strong Productions website that links to other Doritos sub-sites including the new Change the Game website where users can choose the next Madden NFL Cover by voting for their favourite player.

Who needs ad agencies when you have stellar user-generated content? Way cheaper than Betty White, who is pretty useless to Snickers as a celebrity advocate if she doesn’t live to see the next Super Bowl.

Kraft serves up Williams sisters

Serena and Venus Williams didn’t show much love on the court in the Australian Open women’s doubles final, but off court they “love” Nabisco 100 Calorie Packs. Online love that they’re paid for, anyways. Both Serena and Venus are sponsored by Kraft’s Nabisco brand. The Nabisco 100 Calorie Packs Facebook fan page has 183 fans since its launch on January 7th. Not exactly a forehand winner… Lucky for Kraft, the Williams sisters have a combined total of 632,414 fans on Facebook and over 2 million followers on Twitter.

Serena and Venus could not sound more fake in their photo shoot videos featured on the Diet Like a Diva website if they tried. “We snack like divas”; “we have fun and add some flair to snacking”; “we really enjoy it”; “I love the 100 Calorie Packs!” And the sample entry video for the Diet Like a Diva contest? An overweight woman with four boys and a career had the time and motivation to film a video of herself snacking like a diva? If this is your target demographic, Kraft, then good luck with purple snacking!

Puma’s on the prowl

Just when Puma’s grassroots foosball tournament comes back through the groundswell, the African Unity Kit campaign is launched. Good timing, or part of Puma’s multimedia campaign leading up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa? The life-size foosball tournament that took place in Toronto in October was just published on January 19th in Creativity Online, and took the #1 spot in the AdCritic rankings the next day. The event was designed to promote Italy’s World Cup Qualifier, and was covered by minimal press due to Puma’s intentional secrecy. 3 months later, conversationalists are updating their Twitter and Facebook statuses to re-spread the word.

At the same time, Puma announces its Play for Life partnership with UNEP to celebrate the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity. No secret to this press release. It was featured by The Score and is all over YouTube. In addition, Puma has launched a website for Africa to further promote the uniforms as the 3rd official kit that will be worn by the 12 African teams that Puma sponsors in the World Cup.

Nice 2010 official World Cup ball, Adidas, but what are you doing to save the animals of Africa?

Scotiabank skating on thin ice

 “The photo must not contain brand names, logos or trademarks.” 
Oh really, Scotiabank? Then why did the photo to the right win the daily prize on January 7th?

No wonder VANOC is concerned about Scotiabank’s Show Your Colours campaign. The online photo contest conveniently runs from January 4th to March 21st. Yes, Scotiabank has a history of promoting Canadian hockey with the Scotiabank Hockey Club and Jarome Iginla from the Calgary Flames featured in their tv spots. But they are not a 2010 Olympic sponsor.

Today’s news focused on the Olympian hockey gold medalist Cassie Campbell, the spokesperson for the campaign. When asked about the VANOC issue, she didn’t have much of a comment. Who has the rights to Cassie Campbell? Perhaps no one should, but that won’t stop Scotiabank and VANOC from fighting over her.

And Campbell is not the only concern. Scotiabank’s campaign is designed to capitalize on the 2010 Olympics (no matter how much they deny it), to the point where they are breaking their own contest rules and regulations. And what about Iginla? Will he be a tug-of-war now that he has been named to Team Canada? Looks like Scotiabank is heading to the penalty box…