Archive for February, 2010

A company in Japan has developed headphones that sense eye movement. Look right to left to pause your music, roll them clockwise to increase the volume. NTT DoCoMo, the company who created the new technology, doesn’t have plans yet to market or sell them, but if this catches on we could soon see some pretty crazy eye moving in public.

They work by sensing tiny changes in electric charge; apparently the cornea in our eyes has a positive charge, and changes in charge can be detected as far away as your ears. Who knew? Let’s just hope no one misinterprets a turn-up-the-music eye roll with a you’re-being-ridiculous eye roll.

Launching in September 2009, Sara Lee’s “Mama Sagas” Videos located on their facebook page (and other social media channels such as YouTube) have already drawn 2.5 million views since their inception.  The satirical videos featuring three mom-actresses were designed to provide a moment of laughter and entertainment, while weaving in some educational content to help moms simplify and streamline their lives with Sara Lee.

Building upon the campaigns success, the company just launched the “Saga Solvers” videos, where the three celeb moms will offer tips and advice in three focus areas: food preparation, helping mom get her kitchen and family schedules organized, and family advice. The campaign is helping build Sara Lee’s relationship with moms and will continually update the content from February to June to keep consumers coming back for more videos, tips and recipes. The Saga Solvers campaign will also present facebook fans the opportunity to have individual live chat sessions with the three celebrity moms, where they will provide real time tips and advice.

To drive traffic to the original videos, Sara Lee Deli employed sponsored links on Facebook and tweeting to moms through the @SaraLeeDeli Twitter handle (with a coupon offer for tweeters who became fans on the brand’s Facebook page). The brand also reached out to individual mom bloggers and blogger networks, inviting them to post the videos for viewing and discussion.

Source: Media Post

Cardpool connects the millions of gift card holders around the world to create a marketplace where customers can buy, sell, or trade their gift cards safely and securely. By gathering all the buyers and sellers in one place, Cardpool helps everyone get exactly what they want, whether its a discounted gift card or simply cash.

You are always buying directly from Cardpool and selling directly to them. Because their customers may live many thousands of miles away from each other, Cardpool actually buys the gift cards directly from customers, verifies the authenticity and balance of each gift card, and holds on to them until a buyer is found. Even though they may never find a buyer for a given gift card, Cardpool pays sellers within 24 hours of receiving their gift card.

CodeOrgan.com is a great site for totally geeky musical entertainment. Type any URL into CodeOrgan, and the site will use an algorithm to compose music based on the website’s code. It first scans the text on the page and removes all of the letters that aren’t musical notes (so, letters that aren’t A-G). It then scans for the most popular “note,” turning the song into either major or minor key. Then, it uses the total number of letters on the page to determine which synthesizer tone to use, and finally creates a drum beat based on the ratio of “note” letters to non-note letters.

In other words, it’s a very complicated way of saying: CodeOrgan shows off an extremely geeky way to make music. Check it out at codeorgan.com

Source: GeekSugar

Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s are focusing on comfort food in a social media campaign aimed at keeping its customers, in particular young hungry guys, thinking about its new grilled cheese bacon burgers.

The campaign centers on the Carl’s Jr. andHardee’s Facebook pages where the “comfort place” has taken shape and opened yesterday for business. The combined sites have 116,800 fans. Visitors can try out an interactive application designed to remind people that cheeseburgers and comfort food go hand in hand. When the user activates the application, a 24-hour period begins with postings on their Facebook wall of cheesy songs like “Love Sandwich,” pep talks like “You smell incredible right now. Just incredible.” videos, pictures and words of wisdom.

Also on the pages, people can enter a sweepstakes for a chance to win weekly prizes that fit the comfort theme: slippers, a universal remote, a Carl’s Jr. or Hardee’s gift card and a shiatsu electronic massager. The sweeps ends March 26.

Kimberly-Clark is putting a new spin on “The Potty Dance” with new music, lyrics and a cross-country tour for its Pull-Ups training pants brand. The Neenah, Wis.-based company teamed with children’s musician Ralph Covert of Ralph’s World, to put some fun in the stress-inducing process of potty training.

Singing and dancing can be a huge motivator for kids and can help inspire little ones to learn, according to the Pull-Ups brand. Covert encourages kids to ditch their diapers and “do what big kids do.” He’ll be featured at Pull-Ups Potty Dance parties cross-country in Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle and Orlando.

Additionally, Pull-Ups brand is providing drop-off areas for party attendees to ditch their unused diapers and donate them to local women and children centers in the area.

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Check out this cool interactive website by Wrangler to help promote their new blue bell spring / summer collection. A screen grab won’t do it justice, so click and play.

http://eu.wrangler.com/bluebell/

Yup, you read that right. The atheletic appareal company is releasing a cell phone. The phone is slated to release in Europe first, and other markets shortly after. From the sounds of it… it could be pretty cool! Below is a quick rundown of the phone’s capabilities:

The PUMA PHONE can be charged via an outlet or by the sun with its built-in solar panel. Additionally, Puma has created its very own operating system — a carousel-based menu gives you easy access to messaging, music, videos, photos, radio, and GPS, plus you can buy Puma products and get access to Puma World right from your mobile while on the go.

The Puma phone sports a 2.8-inch touchscreen, and comes stocked with a 3.2MP camera with an LED flash. Some of the cooler features for you active and mobile geeks include video calling, an integrated pedometer and stopwatch, a run tracker, and geotagging, so if you’re out on a hike and find a hidden waterfall, you can snap a pic and know where to head next time you want to take a peek. The Puma Phone will hit Europe in April and will then roll out to international markets shortly thereafter.

Does being in a relationship (as defined by Facebook relationship status) really make individuals more happy?

Facebook already has a methodology for measuring the overall “happiness” of its users. It basically looks at how many positive words people use in their status updates (for English speaking users). For this particular study, Facebook looked at the use of positive and negative words in status messages over the course of one week in January. The data team was then able to filter the results based on sex and relationship status (as defined by Facebook).

The results aren’t entirely unsurprising: People who are in relationships do seem happier than those who are not in relationship.  The people that seem the most unhappy are those that either don’t disclose their relationship status or those that are in an open relationship. See more results here .

Source: Mashable

Spurred by research that consumers are more responsive to brands advertised in family-friendly programming, Procter & Gamble and Walmart say they are teaming up to produce “Secrets of The Mountain,” a movie set to debut on NBC in April.

Walmart cites research from the Association of National Advertisers’ Alliance for Family Entertainment, and found that only 23% of respondents say they are satisfied with the amount of family-oriented programming currently available. “We know that parents hate to have to run for the clicker when they’re watching TV with their kids,” an ANA spokesperson tells Marketing Daily. And research done jointly by Walmart and P&G finds that 85% of respondents said they would go out of their way to find such shows.

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