YOUTUBE TO OFFER FILM RENTALS IN THE UK

After the US and Canada, YouTube’s film rental service is now available in the UK. With partners like Universal, Lionsgate and independent film makers like Metrodome, YouTube will offer new releases for £3.49 and include movie extras such as behind-the-scenes or interviews with the cast, a very similar offering to LoveFilm. Rented films will not only be available on the website, but also through Google TV, Honeycomb Android tablets and most Android handsets via an app – competing directly with services available through the PlayStation and Xbox networks, and the likes of iTunes. It’ll be interesting to see if YouTube is planning to make the movie-viewing experience from home a little bit more social...

UNIQLO T-SHIRT GRAND PRIX 

Uniqlo are looking to create their next T-shirt collection through a head to toe crowd sourcing project. Applicants all over the world have already submitted their designs for this year’s theme, Coca Cola, so now it’s time for all of us to vote on our favourite. By now, we’re pretty much used to the beautiful online experiences provided by UNIQLO and this one doesn’t disappoint either as their quirky mechanism makes it very easy for people to choose their favourite designs through a striking user journey. Once the voting is over, the chosen ten finalists will get their T-shirt designs made and sold across Uniqlo’s worldwide store network, as well as receiving a one-off set of custom Coca-Cola bottles with their artwork. You can vote more than once and it’s actually quite entertaining! Give it a go here: http://bit.ly/rg6I0T

BMIBABY AND INSTAGRAM REWARD USERS WITH A FREE FLIGHT 

Low cost airline Bmibaby teamed up with photography app Instagram in July this year and encouraged its customers to share photos of their trips through the hashtag #bmibabygram, without actually revealing their plans. The project has finally been announced and this Saturday the airline will host the world’s first Instameet Exchange in London with some of the Instagram users who took part in the initial phase of the project. The Italian Instagram community will be the first one to fly to London and hang out with the UK’s Instagramers community, where they will walk around the city to collect pictures and experiences that will hopefully become inspiring content to fuel the community. The following month, the London Instagramers will then be flown to Venice to complete the exchange. Germany and the Netherlands are the next two countries to complete an Instameet exchange. Take a look at the bmibaby’s Instagram collection:  http://bit.ly/pCiwZP

BECK’S SOBRIETY TEST APP

AS SEEN ON THE CARAT UK BLOG AND WRITTEN BY GEORGINA 

 FACEBOOK LAUNCHES NEW PAGE METRICS AND AD UNIT

Facebook have revamped the Page Insights analytics tool and added new metrics, the first one being ‘People Talking About’ which will rate Page content based on users’ activity so anyone can see how compelling it actually is. The other metrics designed for Page administrators include ‘Likes’, ‘Friends of Fans’ and ‘Weekly Total Reach’. 

Facebook is also introducing a new type of ad unit that will expand when a friend likes the advertised page. The new unit won’t appear in the home page (unlike Sponsored Stories) and will contain a branded message, expanding to allow comments and see what others have said related to the ad. Page owners will be able to use page posts as ads in order to reach fans and non fans with the new expanded format and have the option to integrate video. The idea behind the new product is that ads with friend recommendations are likely to  be more effective and amplify the reach compared to standard Facebook ads. 

OWN A COLOUR TO HELP SAVE A LIFE: DULUX AND UNICEF 

Dulux have partnered with UNICEF to name each one of the 16.7 million colours found on a regular digital display and raise funds for the children’s charity.  You can pick a colour on the site’s home page then name it and say why you picked it (then make a donation of £1 or above). A handy guide tells you which are the trending colours and what different palettes and shades can represent. We like the creativity and how it involves users beyond the monetary donation. Have you found your colour?

DISNEY'S INTERACTIVE PLAYMAT

Disney introduced their AppMATes Mobile Application Toys, a new toy line that comes to life digitally when used with an Apple iPad as a virtual play mat. The toy line features miniature ‘Cars 2’ vehicles with sensors on the base of each toy that are recognised by the app - no cable or Bluetooth connection required. Simply download the free Cars 2 Appmates app, place the toy characters on the screen and play. This industry first is tapping into a growing trend among families where tablets have become the device of choice to play with younger children - according to the latest IAB research, playing games on tablets is seen as spending time with the family and tend to be played 3 times a week or more.

TIME KILLER APP BY SAS

 SAS, the Scandinavian airline, has put a spin on branded apps with the release of their Time Killer App. The application is actually aimed at competitor airline customers since SAS is famed for being one of the most punctual airlines, so if you’re stranded at a random airport waiting for a delayed flight you can kill time by playing games like Spin the Hamster, Follow the Footsteps, Hold that Thought and Blow the Propeller – or book a flight with SAS and be on time in future. See what they’ve done here? Clever.  

As featured on the carat blog thanks to georgina

Twitter launches advertising in the UK with Glee on Sky

After announcing their UK expansion, Twitter have finally launched their geo-targeted advertising solutions.The Promoted Products include Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends and Promoted Accounts now available for the UK market. The SKY campaign was the first of its kind in the UK and featured as a Promoted Trend through the hashtag #gleeonsky to promote the programme's premiere on the channel. Promoted Trends appear at the top of the Trending Topics' list on Twitter as a one day takeover and are already popular subjects on the microblogging site. The advertising solution leverages the popularity of a topic to reach an already engaged audience. Twitter have also partnered with BT, EA, Eurostar and Paramount Pictures UK to work on the new geo-targeted Promoted Products. We're looking forward to seeing some case studies in the next few months.

Hertz and Google street view come together

Harnessing Hertz's core business to power Google Streetview could be one of the most efficient social ideas yet. The concept involves two major businesses like Google and Hertz working together in crowd sourcing some of the images needed to create street view maps by tapping into the car rental customers and rewarding those who are selected by Google to be part of the service. What could be a great cost cutting exercise and a boost to Hertz's position in the market is however just a concept from two ad students at the ever creative Miami Ad School. Could this be a game changing business partnership?

KLM and the human tweet replies

We've already seen the Dutch airline embrace customer service to the extreme via social media when they hosted an in-flight party that started from a customer's tweet. Their latest campaign to support the ongoing commitment to customers via social channels definitely proves that the business is investing a lot in the channel. Throughout an entire day last week, KLM replied to their customers who got in touch via Facebook and Twitter with something rather unique - a tweet made of 140 employees holding letters in the air to create the actual response live on camera.

Certainly an eccentric idea but we can't blame them for being too committed to a personalised social experience! Watch the video above to understand how it worked.

Innocent Drinks - Tweet And Eat

We love it when commercial brands tap into 'the power of the crowd'. This crowd saving promotion from Innocent encourages Facebook and Twitter fans to tweet and spread the word about their 'Tweet to Eat' promotion in order to lower the price of their Veggie Pots product. The more user tweet using the hashtag #tweeandeat, the bigger the discount. The promotion will run for a limited time to ensure consumers engage with it in the short term and for the brand to understand the real benefits of running such promotion. As an alternative, Innocent is also offering a discount voucher to download and redeem in store; a quick win to incentivise consumers to visit the supermarket right away. Who said promotions are boring?

Beauty brand Clarins steps into social gaming

After running a farm and building a city, we're not surprised you can now run your own spa on Facebook. Clarins, the high-end French beauty brand, has launched a Facebook game in an attempt to align themselves with their core target audience. With the average social gamer in the US being a 43 year old woman, we're not surprised Clarins has stepped into this channel. Spa Life has a similar feel to Second Life and FarmVille; users are asked to create their own avatars in a virtual world and are faced with the challenge of running a spa. Although they are considering attaching game points to Clarins products to encourage sales among those who become truly hooked to the game, with a very small level of branded content, Clarins CEO says that the main objective for the activity is to increase engagement rates between the brand and their core demographic who are already on Facebook. The game was released less than 5 days ago and more than 100,000 people have already installed the app on Facebook. Next time, don't be surprised if you see more brands with a traditionally older demographic entering new spaces like social gaming.

SMILE STATIONS



PAYPAL AND THE FUTURE OF SHOPPING

PayPal unveiled their plans for the next generation of payment technologies on their blog a few days ago, focussed around flexible and user-centric payment methods.The key, and what we see as their strength, is that it goes beyond NFC and caters both for stores and customer choices through location-based offers, vouchers and buy-now-pay-later services. Some of the new payment options mentioned by PayPal include card-less payment via mobile number and PIN, scanning a barcode with a mobile phone in order to pay through an app or ordering the product on the phone for delivery to your house. The app will also allow users to manage how they wish to pay once they’ve checked out atany store. Take a look at this video illustrating PayPal’s future shopping experience, which could potentially happen very soon: 



FACEBOOK INTRODUCES PROFILE SUBSCRIPTIONS

Facebook has announced the launch of a new feature, the subscription button, which allows users to subscribe to profile updates without becoming a ‘friend’ – a Twitter-style relationship. According to Facebook, the new feature is aimed at helping users simplify their news feed and filter which updates they want to see, for instance you could choose not to the receive updates about a certain animal-related game one of your friends is addicted to...or just see picture updates from another friend. The new changes also offer a new way to interact between fans and public figures like celebrities or journalists removing the need to become an official fan or friends to follow what they’re up to. For now we’ve only seen it in action on Mark Zukerberg’s profile, where apparently most of his old Facebook Page fans were converted into subscribers, so it’s still unclear how this will affect public Pages like Facebook queen Gaga with her 43 million fans.It is a very interesting move for Facebook, some might say getting dangerously close to Twitter, but with the subscribe button we’re keen to see the next move for Pages. Stay tuned.

THE 140 CHARACTER BRIEF

THEY, a creative agency based in Amsterdam, have come up with the ultimate recruitment challenge: a 140 characters response to a 140 characters brief. As marketing text books say, a brief should be brief so THEY will reward those who understand the true nature of creative thinking with a 6 month paid internship at the agency. So far, applicants have 3 briefs to demonstrate their skills; have a look here: twitter.com/TweetaBrief.  It’s always nice to see refreshing ideas to find new talent.

RACE WITH YOUR FACE

Red Bull have taken online gaming to the next level with the new Formula Face game – yes, the clue is in the name. Using face-tracking technology, the game recognises users’ facial expressions as the game controls to trigger different actions, so you can turbo boost by blinking and steel by tilting your head. All you need is a webcam and some coordination.The game allows users to get friends onboard via Facebook and even get a customised car with a downloadable PDF. Give it a go here:http://www.redbullformulaface.com/

As featured on the Carat Blog

Heinz introducing a clever advocacy program on Facebook

Heinz were the first FMCG brand to sell products on Facebook to support their balsamic vinegarvariety, and once again they have tapped into social media for a product launch. The new chilli flavoured ketchup campaign uses a loyalty scheme whereby Facebook fans get a discount coupon only available on the brand page. What’s really clever is that the discount doubles when users share it with their friends. Interestingly, the coupons can only be found on their Facebook page and not via email newsletters or other media. Successful Facebook initiatives are often about rewarding existing fans and providing exclusive and valuable content - with this activity Heinz does both. 

 

Oscar De La Renta and the NYFW Tumblr project

For the fashion hungry audience around the globe, September is definitely the month they’ve all been waiting for as Mercedes Benz Fashion Week kicked off in New York on Thursday last week. For the past few years we’ve seen an incredible amount of innovative projects rocking the runway, from YouTube streams to 3D shows. This year, American fashion designer Oscar De La Renta has decided to go for a much simpler project by leveraging the ongoing trend of live photography during the event and tapping into Tumblr as a platform to showcase his new collection. Tomorrow, Tuesday 13th September, online users will not only be able to watch the show live from the Tumblr page but they’ll receive an exclusive look into the runway from the people at the event as the fashion house is asking guests, during and after the show, to tag their LIVE photos with the hashtag #ODLRlive. The photos will automatically populate the backdrop of the Tumblr page as the live stream happens, giving users the chance to create a really unique record of the event like no brand has ever done before at Fashion Week. Hats off to the fashion house for giving live streaming a new  twist. 

The four tiers of Twitter users 

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo finally released last week some substantial numbers on the usage of the social networking site. They’ve hit 100 million active users per month globally with more than 400 million visits on a monthly basis. With 60% of these registered users actively tweeting at least once a month and generating 230 million tweets a day (up 110% from the beginning of the year), the remaining 40% log in and browse the platform to gain real-time and more personal views on sports, celebrities, and news in general. Stats say 55% are browsing or tweeting via their smartphones. Liz Gannes from All Things Digital has tried, within this article, to group Twitter users into four tiers. She’s tagging the 60 million active users THE TWITTERERS and the 40 million registered readers THE VOYEURS. There’ About 300 million users who are visiting Twitter every month who read tweets but aren't registered are categorised by Liz as THE READERS. The last tier is THE UNCOUNTED MASSES which includes people using and accessing tweets via third party applications. In comparison to the very weak numbers we’ve seen from Twitter before (registered users) we’d say that this is definitely an improvement and we’re now looking forward to seeing more detailed breakdown by market soon (hint, hint new UK team!)

Forget about Farmville – it’s all about the Sims now

Just when our tomatoes and chickens were growing nicely, the Sims arrived on Facebook and ousted Farmville within a month of its launch. The life-simulation game which has sold over 140 million copies in 10 years has been the fastest growing application on Facebook for more than a week, according to Venture Beat, and rose up to 36 million monthly active users in its first month. But it’s not only about messing about with your Facebook friends in a virtual world. Brands are tapping into the human side of the game too. Dunkin’ Donuts will be featured in the game so players will be able tooffer coffee and food to their Sim friends as well as collect Facebook gifts. They won’t be the only brands as the Sims Social will be the first game to feature multiple brands. With such potential to integrate everyday brands into the almost real-life game (anyone remember Second Life?) it’ll be interesting to see who really innovates in this space instead of just replicating offline ideas.

Lego rewards creativity via a crowdsourcing platform in Japan

LEGO’s launched an exciting new website in Japan where users are rewarded for their creativity when coming up with brilliant new product ideas. If you have an idea that you want to put forward to LEGO you can upload it to the website by submitting an actual model. Once the idea is live on the site, you need to receive the support of 10,000 people for the proposal to be reviewed by the LEGO product marketing team. If the product is reviewed successfully, LEGO will produce a limited edition set with 1% of each sale going back to the user who came up with the idea. The SHINKAI 6500 in the image above is the first ever LEGO product being released in Japan on the back of this brilliant initiative, with only 5,000 sets available to be purchased. 

I bet you can quit

This is probably one of the most insightful social projects we’ve seen so far. When it comes to smoking, peer pressure plays a major role among young smokers but it’s also a key driver for quitting too. Based on this insight a group of students from the Miami Ad School created a concept campaign aimed at youngsters to help them quit smoking with the ‘help’ of their friends – positive peer pressure. The app experience starts when the group of friends place their bets on how well they think their pal will do. If they manage to quit they’ll get their money back and if they don't, the money will be donated to the American Cancer Society. The app is connected to Facebook and posts status updates so everyone can track the smoker’s success and even receive notifications when they're in tempting situations, allowing them to offer support. This is a great campaign, not only because it’s based on a real insight but also because it integrates mobile and social effortlessly.

Smirnoff signs Madonna for the NEP

This time last year we were planning one of the most successful Smirnoff campaigns of all time where the vodka brand encouraged 14 countires to swap their nightlife experiences at the same time around the world. This year, the campaign has been extended to 50 countries and Smirnoff have signed Madonna to fron the search for a great dancer to join her global tour. Tapping into the growing Smirnoff Facebook community, the initiative encourages dancers to submit their videos for a chance to perform in a dance-off in front of Madonna at one of the 50 simultaneous parties happening on November 12th.

Real flowers from Facebook

With 1800-Flowers being the first ever brand to launch an e-commerce store on Facebook, tapping into group buying mechanics seems a logical step. These days, wishing happy birthday to a friend has turned pretty much into a digital habit and two Miami Ad School students are taking advantage of this trend by proposing an app that allows a group of friends to chip in towards a bunch of flowers. And this isn't a virtual gift - the mechanic has actually been developed to promote the same day delivery service offered by the company so your friend will receive a bouquet on the very same day. The way it works is pretty simple and we encourage you to take a look at the video to understand more. We’re loving how digital and the offline world are increasingly coming together...

Why agencies don't make more cool stuff?

Eric's Edinburgh speech

If you haven’t seen Eric Schmidt’s speech at the once entirely luvvie dominated Edinburgh TV festival, then we strongly urge you to do so. It’s surprising that it’s taken until 2011 to get an internet big wig on the podium so his presence is a significant shift (and a coup for Google). People are finally catching on to the idea that social behaviour could well define the shape of TV in the next ten years – from discovery to how content spreads. Schmidt’s speech is also a hint that the balance of power could well shift in favour of internet upstarts that enable this social behaviour most effectively – and with incredible scale. The question is, where will that leave  traditional broadcasters  when the likes of YouTube make a play for more and more big events for which social technology is the perfect accompaniment?

The most 'liked' showroom

This is not an actual campaign but a student project from Jeena Van Der and John Vonk, a creative duo from Amsterdam who are quickly making their way on up in the creative industry. These guys have come up with a great concept to showcase the IKEA portfolio in a very different way through the power of Facebook. By simply adding the Like button on the IKEA e-commerce platform, the website will showcase different rooms within a house and dynamically change furniture and accessories in each room based on the likes received on the site. What’s clever about the concept is the crowd-saving element added to the experience where the more products are liked the cheaper they get. Imagine a similar concept being applied to any of our automotive clients within a showroom or any of our fashion clients on a live runway...

IKEA "The world's most liked showroom" from Jeena van der Heul on Vimeo.

Find your originals with Orangina

To celebrate Orangina's 75th birthday, the brand has created a Facebook application that can show you who your first "original" friends were. The idea is to align the theme of originals with Orangina, which has the tag line "Original by Nature". Recently, Facebook has been focusing on the theme of nostalgia quite a lot - showing you status updates from years past, old comments from friends and events you once attended. To carry on the theme, Orangina's app will show you a list of 10 friends who you connected with the most during your first months. It’s a very simple and tactical idea but something that we’re sure people will pick up, engage with and share, driving millions of conversations.

Samsung taps into YouTube talent

If you’ve never heard of Beener Kee Kee, you definitely should (http://bit.ly/nXHqka)! He’s an average guy who started recording videos of himself lip-syncing in his room to famous hits on YouTube and became a true online celebrity overnight. Since launching his first video, Beener has received millions of views to his channel and more and more celebrities – from Katy Perry to 50Cent and Guetta - are partnering with the little guy to create bespoke content and promote their tracks. As a consequence, it’s not surprising to see brands like Samsung starting to tap into YouTube personalities like Beener to front face an entire digital campaign. With the SmartTV aimed at an early adopter audiencewith a pretty high penetration in social channels, we believe Beener was definitely the right choice for Samsung and we really hope to see many brands doing similar things in the long run.

You can now watch YouTube with friends

Possibly the most interesting recent Google+ feature is a new button on YouTube that lets you start a hang out with friends around a video you’re watching. There’s a wee icon in the ‘share’ panel that suggests watching the video with friends in a Google+ hangout. It’s a nice touch and is laying the foundations for some serious social viewing behaviour, especially for when LIVE streams are happening within YouTube (think Royal Wedding). We reckon this will really explode when all your friends watch YouTube on their telly – and comment with a device in their hands/on their laps. Obviously this kind of thing will be most exciting with live TV but it’s one to watch (literally). And imagine the potential of this when YouTube snatches some of the big sporting rights!

Budweiser makes history on Facebook

The beer brand celebrates their sponsorship of the FA Cup this week by screening the first ever live football match on Facebook. It’s not exactly high profile - a qualifying clash between minnows Ascot United (their first time in the tournament) and Wembley FC – but it’s fun and good exposure for the clubs. The initiative will vastly increase viewers for the game (Budweiser are expecting about 100,000 viewers for a match at a stadium whose capacity is a mere 1,150) and if the broadcasting of small games is to catch on, it probably has a better chance on Facebook than local news sites or indeed local TV (if it ever arrives!) Budweiser have been able to exploit this opportunity because the existing broadcast deal in the UK with ITV does not come into effect until the first proper round of the competition in October. The screening will work via an application which will presumably feature Facebook’s live comment stream widget which was used so effectively for events like the Obama inauguration. Expect to see more and more live streaming of exclusive events on Facebook - it’s a great way for brands to get in on the action as well as more traditional content shops.