AN EXPERIENTIAL WAY TO WATCH THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

I’ve suffered this season. I’m an Arsenal fan. So the Champions League (and the Premier League, for that matter) has been an unhappy place for me.

But it doesn’t have to be, now thanks to Heineken and AKQA. Check out this live game they developed, so that fans can play along while watching the game in real time. Pretty nifty. But you have to be a sucky fan to actually consider taking your attention off of your team to play it.

This idea is a direct response to the emerging viewing trends like these:

In the US alone, to understand how web, mobile and social channels are changing the TV viewer experience : 74% of consumers say they multitask while watching TV; among them, 42% browse online, 29% talk on cellphones or mobile devices, and 26% send instant messages or text messages, according to a Deloitte survey.

SAMPLING FROM TV…FINALLY

Leave it to Pepsi to finally make TV marketing somewhat useful. According to Ad Age, here’s how it works:

Consumers download the iPhone check-in app IntoNow and hit it while the commercial plays on TV. Audio-fingerprinting technology then recognizes the ad and a coupon gets downloaded to your phone for a free 20-ounce bottle of Pepsi Max.

Hopefully, for PepsiCo, that transaction then gets shared out to the user’s connections on the social TV app, as well as to Facebook and Twitter. Pepsi has agreed to honor as many as 50,000 such coupons as an experiment in both driving trial of Pepsi Max, as well as the potential for interactive TV ads.

You’ve heard me before how television advertising is increasingly becoming an experiential vehicle. And in this case, it’s a sampling experience that starts with people watching ads rather than ends with it.

Full disclosure: My agency CP+B did something very similar with our Old Navy client:

IntoNow is not the first to give consumers a reason to check in to TV commercials. Shazam, the original audio-tagging service for the iPhone, powered a giveaway where the first 1,000 users that tagged an original song during an Old Navy TV ad got a free pair of jeans. The music video spent several weeks on Ad Age’s Viral Video Chart due to its popularity on the web.

But that wasn’t sampling. It was more of a promotion.

That’s why if this thing works with Pepsi, get ready for an entirely new way of watching commercials. And an entirely new reason to make ads.

GIANT MATTEL TRACK IS FREAKIN’ COOL

Enlargement is a really easy but truly effective way for brands and products to create experiences. In other words, make shit big and people will be memorably impressed. But a good experiential campaign gives a reason for the largesse, and contextually connects it to an event or physical location. For instance, this campaign for Mattel:

Mattel is joining forces with an IndyCar sponsor, the Izod apparel brand owned by the Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation, for a promotion to be centered on a life-size version of the V-Drop track set, sold as part of the Mattel Hot Wheel line of die-cast toys. A member of Team Hot Wheels — a crew of stunt drivers — will try on May 29 to break the current world record for a distance jump in a four-wheeled vehicle (302 feet) by speeding in a life-sized yellow race car down a ramp that resembles the track included with the set. And just as the V-Drop track set is meant to be hung from a child’s bedroom door, a door 10 stories high, or 100 feet tall, will be built in the infield of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Just take a look at that track! It’s exactly like the toy one…except so much freakin’ cooler!

And if the experience is unique enough, it is definitely worth some traditional media to support it. (Imagine that! TV supporting experiential and not the other way around.) According to the article:

There are also plans for a 30-minute Hot Wheels television show, to appear after the ABC coverage of the Indianapolis 500, that would offer viewers a chance to watch the stunt along with other experiential versions of Hot Wheels.

SCREEN-BASED MEDIA IS GAME-FOCUSED

In support of the (obvious) contention that the only experiential screen-based media is game-centric, here’s a quick reminder:

John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts took the stage at the Ad Age Digital conference to make a pitch to advertisers: in terms of reach, games are bigger than all forms of entertainment, even and especially TV. “People spend a lot more time with video games than anything else,” Riccitiello said.

No duh.

YOU KNOW THE AD BIZ IS SCREWED WHEN…

…this happens. Oh my. Are brands really that desperate for eyeballs? Still, after all these years of realizing that impression-based marketing is dead?

I just don’t get it. Can anyone explain to me why this exists?