Interactive Marketing Campaigns

One of the most successful interactive marketing campaigns in recent years is the 'Hunter Shoots a Bear' campaign for Tipp-Ex, the correction fluid. You may well ask what connection does a video of a hunter shooting a bear have to do with correction fluid. We wondered the same thing. The makers of Tipp-Ex uploaded a video to YouTube of a hunter supposedly about to shoot a bear. The video gets interesting, however, when the hunter refuses to do this. He instead reaches out of the video on the page, grabs a bottle of Tipp-Ex and covers over the word 'shoots' in the title. The user can then replace the word with one of their own and check out the hunter and bear carrying out whatever action they have chosen. The fun is also in seeing whether or not the suggestion works. At the time of writing this the video has had nearly seventeen and a half millions views on YouTube, making it the most successful viral marketing campaign. Check out the video at http://bit.ly/a9CqLH

Another recent successful interactive marketing campaign in the Irish market is the 'Bud ice cold index'. Participants downloaded an app to their smartphone. Then, if the temperature is between 16 and 19 degrees they could avail of a discounted pint of Budweiser. If the temperature is above 20 degrees they could receive a free pint. The success of this campaign won DDB UK a Lion in the Promo & Activation category at this year's Cannes Festival of Creativity. Publicans were also pleased with the campaign because it increased footfall into their premises without it costing them.

Considering the success of both of these campaigns, we believe that interactive marketing campaigns will become more and more popular from here on. We wonder what brands will be next to use such campaigns and what they will entail.