Words from our Mouths

It was not too long ago that Unilever launched a quirky, engaging vending machine which encourage lolly fans to smile at it. If you grinned big enough, you earned a free lolly. And that makes me smile.

Looks like drink brand Drench has added a nice twist to this, throwing down the gauntlet to consumers to complete brain-testing games to earn a free bottle from its pop up machine. The whole idea underpins its strapline ‘brains perform best when they’re hydrated’ which is a great fit. And who doesn’t love a freebie – they always taste even better when you’ve earned it too.

The vending machine is going on tour around the country, check the schedule here, you can also play the games on this site too if you want to get in some practise.

Will be interesting to see how else they leverage this; perhaps through a social media plug in to share your score with friends. Anyway, I’m off to corner shop, I’m shit at computer games.

When we first started hearing about the new trend of so called ‘pay what you think’ restaurants and bars, most people seemed to think it was a recipe for ruin. Brits are renowned for being tight so will always pay the bare minimum right?

Turns out this is not the case. In fact, the pay what you like business model has been rolled out successfully in a variety of industries. Look at Radiohead for example. The band decided to hand fans the power to pay whatever they wanted for their album, In Rainbows, and they ended up making a pretty penny.

Last week, award winning salon Cutting Room Creative in Leeds city centre launched its ‘Pay What You Think It’s Worth’ promotion. They are so confident in their service and the talents of their stylists that they have decided to put this to the ultimate test and let customers decide how much their CRC experience is worth.

Whilst this is a rather bold move for the local business, in an industry that thrives on people skills and great customer relations the ‘Pay What You Think It’s Worth’ promotion will hopefully see people digging deep for their CRC service.

Half way into the promotion and the campaign is exceeding expectations; with the majority of clients, old and new, paying on the nose and many generous souls paying even more. Is this the reaction you would have predicted?

Fancy paying what you think it’s worth at Cutting Room Creative on Albion Street? Call 0113 269 7070 to book.

Generating donations for a charity is a tricky job; how do you keep your pleas fresh and engaging?

A homeless charity in France has done just this by giving a new lease of life to old parking meters and turning them into quirky donation points.

A nice idea in itself, but the true, great twist which makes this a fantastic idea – and PR’able, is that before being positioned in the city, celebs were invited to personalise each one with pots of paint.

The measure of success is of course, donations, and this has been a great start, with $23,000 CDN (£14,500) donated through loose change.

Ever stand at the airport luggage whirly-gig trying to spot your suitcase amongst every other identically looking bag? Fancy giving the baggage handlers a wry smile? Or seeing how far you can push a customs officer? Then these are for you.

These stickers can be affixed to your holiday kit making sure your bag stands out amongst the rest.

Perfect for a rebellious generation.

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EasyJet has become the first brand to make commercial sales through Facebook followed closely by P&G who announced on Thursday that they were now selling Max Factor products through the social networking site.

It’s been a busy month for the world’s largest social networking site as July heralded the announcement that Facebook now has over 500 million users. It has a bigger population than every country in the world…apart from China and India.

So, does the introduction of selling through Facebook mark the demise of the good old brand website? If consumers have access to all they need through Facebook, so they can book a holiday and buy the latest long-lash mascara whilst updating everyone on what they’ve had for breakfast and how hungover they are feeling, why would they expend any further energy opening a separate search window to visit a brand’s website directly?

It’s an extremely interesting one to keep an eye on. I don’t know enough about it yet to blabber on for too long today  but as soon as I find out more, I’ll be back…

A sneaky and quite brilliant campaign from Action Aid has crossed into mainstream media today.

To campaign against Asda’s alleged poor pay for workers in Asia who make its garments, activists from the charity left secret notes in 1000s of clothes sold in store. The messages, which looked like clothes labels, drew shoppers’ attention to how much Asda was paying Bangladeshi workers – below the country’s minimum wage expected.

As an added extra, finders of the note could claim a free fair trade t shirt and be entered into a free prize draw for more fair trade prizes.

Its subversive nature and act of discovery is really compelling. Does the average Asda shopper really care about the ethics behind the clothes they buy? I’m not sure.

However, because the idea is clever enough and sticky enough, it has tipped into the mainstream media and done its job of raising awareness of the charity’s plight.

Yesterday, my varied role took me to bonny Scotland in search of a special 91-year-old lady. For the third year running Finn’s Christmas is beginning in the summer, working with the world’s oldest Christmas pudding manufacturer, Matthew Walker, something which our Scottish friend knows all about. Believed to be the oldest living relative of actual Matthew Walker, our visit was not to hear her baking tips, but her memories about the man himself and stories from yesteryear. I hope to be telling her story in full later on this year.

Of course, we’re not the only business gearing up for the festive period whilst the flip-flops and sunglasses are still out, Selfridges achieved some great coverage this week for the launch of its Christmas Shop. They say that Christmas starts earlier every year and no matter your thoughts on this fact, a quirky Christmas story in July certainly goes down a treat with the media.

Paddy Power, the online betting site, has been the latest brand to feel the wrath of the Great British public – well, 1,000 of them anyway – and the ASA in response to their latest ad campaign. But, despite being the fifth most complained about ad in the ASA’s history, the Guardian has today reported that they’ve been let off  http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jul/21/paddy-power-blind-footballers-asa.

Whilst on paper the creative reads relatively offensively, the ad itself is pretty harmless and, perhaps of more of a concern, unmemorable.

The question is, does it really only take 1,000 people, from a population of 61.5m, to pull a tv ad? If so, the world has gone mad and some people simply have far too much time on their hands.