Proximity BBDO

Wij sturen 20 studenten gratis naar Relationship Marketing!

20 studenten marketing, reclame of communicatie kunnen nu donderdag gratis naar Relationship Marketing, een congres van Stichting Marketing. Reden? Wij zijn ervan overtuigd dat we nog veel van het jonge volkje kunnen leren om de marketinguitdagingen van morgen aan te pakken. Reverse Apprenticeship heten we dat.

Wij zullen op verschillende manieren aanwezig zijn op het Relationship Marketing congres.

Als Keynote Speaker komt Kevin Allen van Proximity London over om te praten over Social Media Strategy. Daarnaast is het uitkijken naar de sessie van AdNerds, twee Proximity-freaks die het digitale landschap verkennen en hun avonturen met plezier met je delen.

Bovendien leggen wij als sponsor 20 toegangstickets opzij voor studenten. Deze Student Seats zijn nu al felgegeerd en worden willekeurig verdeeld onder 20 studenten reclame, communicatie of marketing. Kandidaten kunnen zich registreren op http://studentseats.proximity.bbdo.be

Win-win

Dankzij dit initiatief hoeven 20 studenten het inschrijvingsgeld niet op te hoesten. Een mooi cadeau in tijden van crisis. Maar de jongeren moeten wel er iets voor terugdoen. Ze nemen ’s middags deel aan een sessie waarin iedereen vragen over social media op hen mag afvuren. Zo leren niet alleen de studenten iets bij. Ook de oude garde zal ongetwijfeld veel kunnen opsteken van deze échte Digital Natives.

Studenten kunnen nog tot woensdagmiddag inschrijven op http://studentseats.proximity.bbdo.be

Voor de Cuckoo Awards, die naast creatie ook efficiëntie in direct marketing belonen, werd Proximity BBDO niet minder dan 10 keer genomineerd.

Daarmee schrijven zij met stip het grootste aantal nominaties op hun conto: 3 nominaties voor Makro-Free Petrol, 2 voor ING-Wijnkelder, 2 voor hun eigen nieuwjaarsevent Party for Food, 1 voor Belgacom-Internet is Mine, 1 voor SD Worx-Scoop en nog 1 voor Electrabel-Management Assistant.

“Onze primeur om met drieledige creatieve teams (art director, copywriter en online art director) te werken, werpt duidelijk zijn vruchten af. We denken op die manier medianeutrale concepten uit die we feilloos doorheen de verschillende touchpoints kunnen doorvoeren. Uit de nominaties blijkt bovendien dat we in alle mogelijke media, zoals de klassieke direct mail, digitale marketing én custom publishing goed scoren, en dat in een brede waaier van sectoren, zowel B2B als B2C. Zelfs voor de categorie “low budget” sleepten we een prijs in de wacht!”, aldus Gert Pauwels, Head of Management Team en partner van Proximity BBDO.

repost van Computerworld

Summary:

6 real claw machines can be controlled and played on from your browser. Pepsi Max combines bytes and atoms. If you’re passionate about something, max it. That is what Pepsi Max is all about. That and gaming of course. And how do you go about maxing a game that everyone is passionate about? You think bytes (as in ‘internet’). You think atoms (as in ‘real world’). You grab a soldering iron and connect both.

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Full post:

MAX YOUR THOUGHTS
Take 6 real claw machines, hook ‘m up to the internet and start playing. Unique codes can be stripped from the Pepsi Max bottles and used to add up for extra gaming credits. The lucky ones can win some cool prizes or grab a ticket for the final during which one plays with an 8 meter tall claw machine containing really huge prizes! Each finalist will be able to grab a huge bear and possibly win sunjets.be trips to Malta or Tenerife, or take home 50″ plasma’s and other cool Panasonic stuff.

OLDSKOOL CAMPAIGNING
The campaign is kick-starts with traditional online media. Bannering and an enticing e-mail to a database of Pepsi Max aficionados

SOCIAL MEDIA CUM
Today, more than 2.1 million belgian citizens are an active member of Facebook. So we integrated the power of Facebook Connect to make the game easily portable over the users contact network. Everyone registering with Facebook credentials, receives give-away codes for friends. Everytime anyone plays or wins it shows up in their friends newsfeed. How’s that for viral?

Frankly, a huge amount of users can freely access the website but only 6 can play simultaneously. Of course these users don’t want to be sitting ducks while waiting for a claw machines to become available. Statistics are put up to check when the site is very busy, a concept we introduced with, and was essential to, the Internet Is Mine case. Also, the claw machines Twitter when one of the slots is available.

KICK-ASS DESIGN
Phase 1: First wireframes were made in Powerpoint. They served as a basic feature-spec for the full website.

Phase 2: After being loosely briefed on the campaign’s concept and features, several paper sketches were made to serve as a rough guide. The concept at this stage was “a carnival or arcade, but maxed out!”.

Phase 3: Taking the best sketches into Photoshop, we created a digital painting that would serve as a moodboard and colour guide. This piece was also shown to the client in order to get the go-ahead for the look-and-feel for the rest of the website. You’ll also notice the (not-so) subtle use of Pepsi’s 3 main colours, creating a symbolic link between the logo and the site.

Phase 4: Using photos of the real grabber machines as reference, 3d models of the six cabinets, as well as a large “hero”-crane – a reference to the real-life final phase of the competition. The models were created and rendered in 3ds max 2008.

Phase 5: After all 3d models were animated and rendered, all assets were composited in Adobe After Effects and Photoshop. The mist was painted by hand.

Phase 6: After the final compositing of the scene, everything was then taken into Adobe Flash, where it was animated and integrated with the rest of the UI, which was also designed in Photoshop.

SOME HARDCORE GEEKNESS
Basically the client, your pc at home, simply browses to the webpage loading the Flash application. Through the Flash application the Socket Server receives the data of the logged in user and pushes that info to an Application Server on the same layer. The Application Server is there just to check the user data. N00bs would refer to this step as “checking with the database”. Furthermore the Socket Server just relays feedback between the claw machine and the UI. To put it straight, the Socket Server is the connection between the client and the claw machines at our offices. If a connection is established then that triggers the Socket Server and extracts one credit. Whenever a client is logged and ready to play, the Socket Server checks whether the user still has available credits to play the game. Credits can be added by entering game-codes found on Pepsi Max bottles and cans.

So, the Application Server feedbacks on the user-request and talks back to the Socket Server. Finishing this simple cycle the Socket Server pings to one of the 6 computers hooked to a claw machine. Each one of these computers is linked to a claw machine through 6, USB interface, micro-controllers talking to one of 6, physical, claw machines.

The micro-controllers allow users to address the physical controls of the claw machines. The connection between the two buttons to navigate and the coin collector are intercepted and thus hijacked by the USB interface of the micro-controllers. The micro-controllers send the claw machines the same electrical signals normally send by the original connections of the physical buttons.

The bears in the claw machines are stuffed with an RFID-tag. If a user manages to catch and lift a bear, the bear is dropped into a slide passing an RFID-chip reader. Once the reader is triggered a signal is passed on back to the Socket Server. The Socket Server then checks that tag with the linked prize in the DB inside the Application Server. When the match is made the UI displays to the user what prize he, or she, has won.

By the way, Proximity BBDO is looking for more ambitious developers willing to enforce our team and start create more of these wicked web-apps and games. Anyone with an interest can apply here.

Check out more of our geekness at Adnerds.be and check the conversation at #pepsimax, #twapero and #proximitybbdo

Janis Krums from Sarasota, Florida posts the first photo of U.S. Airways flight 1549 on Twitter from his iPhone. Thirty-four minutes after Janis posted his photo, MSNBC interviewed him live on TV as a witness (see video below). News coverage at Google. Live video at Fox News. TV reports suggest that everyone survived the crash.

via AlleyInsider

A Twitter search shows that Tweets and Retweets massively increased just minutes after the first Tweet was out… Like wildfire half of the western society Twitterusers were retweeting the event — imagin what a succesfull hoax it could have been ;)

Today it’s all about viral, to make things worse VIRAL has become a buzz word. The buzz amongst marketeers has gone viral, it spread from their words to their mouths. Those who do and don’t understand, even, what “the buzz” or “being viral” actually is, or rather how to be “viral“. So, up untill now there is no definition the echo keeps telling me, well ok and can maybe kinda try to agree BUT still…

Viral Valerie explains viral video for dummies and scrolling down will unravel to you a hyperlink that will show you some 50 or so viral images, and to hype it all a lil’ here’s a small excerpt of Adam Singers (Adam Singer is Director of Digital Strategy for Pierson Grant Public Relations in Fort Lauderdale, Florida) thought on virality.

Viral videos are ubiquitous – they have spread into both mainstream pop culture and corporate America. Everyone talks about developing viral videos, and there are plenty of techniques you can use to give your video the best chance of success.

But, something not talked about as frequently are viral images.

Viral images predate viral videos, and have been around since the AOL and Prodigy days when there wasn’t enough bandwidth available for the everyday user to access video. Images can be spread on the web through several means, and they criss-cross back and forth between:

* Message-boards and forums
* Blogs
* Emails (inter-office, personal and mass emails to all your friends)
* Social networks
* Basic HTML Web sites
* Company intranets

Viral images have held on tightly and are as much a part of “Web 2.0” as they were for Web 1.0. They are popular amongst all web users for good reasons. Strong images:

* Prove a point quickly
* Give people a story to spread
* Can create deep emotional connections
* Are easily consumable, perfect for a medium that moves fast
* Are entertaining, hilarious or compelling
* Are easy to share

Oh and guys,
a real (read: working/good/native) viral, don’t need no intensive “seeding”…

Off course you allready know all about: The Secrets of Marketing in a Web 2.0 World by attending the DigitalNatives sessions and reading our recommendated readings. Just in case you missed out on that I’d like to point out an outstanding article in the business section of The Wallstreet Journal. It talks about how Consumers are flocking to blogs, social-networking sites and virtual worlds. And how they’re leaving a lot of marketers behind.

When consumers are invited to participate in online communities, they expect marketers to listen and to consider their ideas. They don’t want to feel like they’re simply a captive audience for advertising, and if they do they’re likely to abandon the community.

Read more