Many hotels are already offering experience-based rewards in their loyalty programs and enhanced concierge services to assist guests with discovering the world outside of the hotel. Instead of stockpiling points for a free night’s stay, members of these programs can earn cultural activities, like going backstage before a performance at the Peking Opera or spending the day with a professional bullfighter. Some loyalty programs even offer express experiences specifically designed for business travelers who may only have an hour or two to spare but who still want to go home with at least one memorable insight into the destination they visited.

Additionally, several startups have recently emerged to meet the wanderlusty needs of travelers by offering trip curation tools, local knowledge and a much-needed dose of personalization to the online trip planning process.

Launched in April, Vayable connects travelers with tour guides offering unique and intimate local experiences, like scouting Montmartre street art in Paris or visiting sample sales in NYC with a fashion insider. By allowing these independent guides to sell their local knowledge, Vayable is redefining the tour and activity segment of the travel market.

And then there’s Fortnighter, also launched this year, which provides (for a fee) made-to-order itineraries from professional travel writers based on the user’s dates of travel, interests and budget. Fortnighter brings currency, personalization and expert knowledge to the travel planning table and allows users to steer clear of the unreliability of algorithms and user reviews.

A slew of other services have also cropped up recently. All of this suggests that the travel experience marketplace is heating up, and there appears to be room for more. When looking across the dreaming, researching, booking, experiencing and sharing travel cycle, what kind of product or service can you offer that will assist travelers with collecting those sought-after experiences? How do you evoke the moments that inspire us when we travel? How do you help deliver more authentic travel experiences?

1. Temporary urbanism. It’s the new term for pop-up retail. We love pop-up retail. And we love its new moniker as well.

2. The new Crate & Barrel catalog. Just hit mailboxes this week, complete with a redesign. It’s visually and graphically appealing and has loads of editorial content.

3. 3D. I’ve avoided the reincarnation of 3D for awhile, thinking it would be seizure-inducing. But I have to admit, on games and movies it’s made for (versus added in post-effects), it’s pretty awesome.

4. Print’s finest hour. Brands are showcasing their finest print in all the huge fall magazine issues on stands now.

5. Jay-Z and Kayne West’s much anticipated collaboration album “Watch the Throne” was released on Monday. It launched on iTunes first (at-retail follows next week), a great example of how musicians are leading with embracing digital first and thinking brick-and-mortar second.

6. Target’s back-to-school ads. In a sea of back-to-school promotions, Target is running one of the few (if not the only) television spots that is not price-driven. Has a great emotional hook about school and teachers.

7. Craftsman Public Parks Rehab Project. It’s exciting to see one of our programs do so well and to see consumers truly engage with it. Self-servingly, it’s also nice to see someone else give it a shout-out, JeffBullas.com.

8. Paging System. Why is it making us happy? Because that’s how marketing runs at Upshot.

What’s making you happy this week?

How about laughing at the absurdity of it all?

We can all probably laugh along with the above spot that introduces Best Buy’s Buy Back program. The insight behind the campaign is crystal clear: many consumers hesitate to invest in new technology because they’ve experienced the near-instant obsolescence of their past purchases (sound familiar, Apple users?). The spots have the luxury of generating a few laughts because the Buy Back program does the heavy lifting, addressing the core frustrations behind Future Fear; namely, the fact that hidden costs of never-ending upgrades and replacements, combined with the realities of the current financial climate, have forced consumers to think defensively. In a shopping environment that’s lost a lot of its joy and gratification, it’s wise for Best Buy to inject a bit of levity. Surely, their consumers are ready for a laugh.

Another campaign that shares the lighter side of long-term apprehension is Volkswagen’s new interactive site, True Life Costs. The landscape pictured to the right, encourages (UK) users to classify their various expenditures on leisure activities, food, family, and more. After you’ve done the work, the site tallies up your lifelong costs and creates a personalized chart that can be compared to the average consumer, or shared on Facebook for comparisons with your presumably un-average friends (tapping Driven by Data, of course). There’s plenty to rave about on the site: the 3-D navigation, the cutesy little community, and the way that Volkswagen turns one of the most boring topics imaginable (long-term household spending) into something fun and a bit whimsical. 

And, like the Best Buy effort, there’s a pretty blunt insight emanating from the campaign: when car shoppers are thinking about value, they should be considering long-term costs beyond the initial investment. In fact, the campaign probably hangs a bit too literally on this insight, as the message is driven home repeatedly in the voiceover. Perhaps they felt that the cuteness of the environment had done enough to establish the lighthearted tone, but it seems like including a bit of Best Buy’s winking subtlety would’ve been the final piece to complete this puzzle. (Well, that and using the UK equivalent of Mint to automatically import user’s spending habits in one step, but now we’re getting really picky.)

The point, once again, is that marketers need not fear these troubled times. Rather, there are a slew of opportunities for marketers to acknowledge their consumers’ concerns, work to relieve them, and then share a good laugh about the whole thing.

All of our conversations about Primitive Simplicity essentially come back to a single sentiment: the growing suspicion that our fancy-pants societal progress generates its fair share of unintended, negative consequences. As such, more consumers are starting to believe that the answers to our most pervasive problems aren’t right in front of us – in fact, they’re behind us, chronologically speaking. While there are certainly environmental and social drivers behind this trend, at it’s core, Primitive Simplicity is really a byproduct of concerns about personal health. As consumers continue to draw connections between simplicity and health, we’re expecting to see a boatload of brands following this prescription and discovering that there’s money to be made from investing in the simple life. A new study from Siegel + Gale claims that U.S. consumers are willing to pay a 4-6% premium for brands that deliver on various forms of simplicity , ranging from increased convenience and greater transparency to enabling easier lifestyles.

Some of these messages will come from unexpected places, such as the “Vacation Daze” campaign from Royal Caribbean (shown in the clip above). In the spot, there’s not a ship to be seen, or a smiling family cavorting on a beach, or even an attractive couple lounging poolside sipping cocktails. Instead, the campaign focuses squarely on Americans’ squandered vacation days, and harps on the fact that relaxation is a crucial element to vitality and longevity. In an industry almost cartoonishly obsessed with the idea that bigger is better, it’s pretty remarkable to see a travel brand positioning themselves as part of a healthy work-life balance, rather than an enabler of luxurious indulgence.

That’s not to say that luxurious indulgence and healthy simplicity can’t coexist, as evidenced by the buzz around products like the Sunlighten “smart sauna.” You’d expect a brand like this to highlight features like adjustable lighting and Blaupunkt sound systems, in order to help you feel superior to your neighbors and more effectively brag at your next high school reunion. But you might not even find those elements on their website, since the brand’s busy focusing on how these saunas help lower your blood pressure and improve your cell health. Pshaw, doesn’t this brand know that wasteful excess is way sexier than living longer, healthier lives? I mean, it’s as if Sunlighten doesn’t know that their promotional partners should be high-roller, high-status, luxury brands. As far as I know, the American Heart Association isn’t known for selling Swarovski toilets or gold-plated staples, but they’re on board as a promotional partner for Sunlighten’s “Healthy Hearts Sale.” These potentially strange bedfellows seem less bizarre when you recall the counter-intuitive idea buried within our Primitive Simplicity trend: sometimes, new technologies and devices are the simple solution, not the problem. As consumers continue to question the impacts of society’s sophisticated advancements, expect these unexpected answers to become more common.

Over the past half-year, you’ve probably seen the buzzed-about “Crunch Is Calling” campaign from Wheat Thins, in which they pounce upon unsuspecting Twitter users who’ve shared their love of the brand. The best-known spot is presumably the one where a girl tweeted that her life was over because she ran out of Wheat Thins (she ended up with a literal truckload of Wheat Thins on her doorstep). From what we can tell, the feedback about the campaign has been predominantly positive (perhaps because other fans are hoping for surprise visits of their own?), and judging by the Youtube views alone, the message is getting out there.

Perhaps the only pushback to this campaign came from a small group of viewers who questioned the authenticity of the people involved. We all know this type of critic – the whiners who seem to complain that everything on the web is faked. Well, what did we say about these squeaky wheels in our trends report? In 2011, we’re going to see brands declaring War on Whiners.

The first shot’s been fired by Wheat Thins, and the first victim was a guy named Derek Tzeo, who mocked the Wheat Thins spots as “uber-fake.” So, the van and the campaign came after him – for real – in their next ad, as seen above. Of course, this response set off its own round of skeptics doubting whether Tzeo was real, even though he’s been commenting on the video (and his Twitter profile) asserting his existence. But what if those responses are fake? What if everything we know is a lie??? Ow, my head hurts.

Actually, it really doesn’t matter who’s real and who’s not in this case. In fact, the whole real-or-fake angle actually generates its own meta-conversation, and that debate ends up sustaining the viral power of the campaign (as we called out in our Marketing to Dudes Potty Posting from way back when). So, Wheat Thins wins either way. But, we especially like the tone that the brand adopted. They managed to be confrontational without being mean, and defended themselves with a chuckle rather than an angry outburst. Even their “victim” can’t help but laugh at the whole thing. A dose of lighthearted humor really changes the battlefield in this war.

Speaking of “Is it fake?” debates, how about that Taco Bell dustup? Surely, you’ve heard about the class-action lawsuit claiming Taco Bell’s ground beef was more ground beef-ish than you’ve been led to believe. As you could imagine, Taco Bell had a bit of a beef with the suit, and fought back on a variety of fronts. For starters, they took out a full-page “Thank You For Suing Us” ad in major newspapers, stating that the lawsuit gave them a chance to talk about what really goes into their beef. The company president also headed to Youtube to, among other things, reveal what goes into their “secret recipe” – see the clip below. It’s an interesting gamble on Taco Bell’s part. The brand could’ve ignored the rumor and hoped that it would have died out, but it was clearly gaining steam (partially because it makes for such an easy punchline for late-night talk shows).

Even though this is a vastly different situation that the Wheat Thins campaign, Taco Bell also manages to strike just the right tone in their responses. Both are confidently defiant and refuse to accommodate the lawsuit’s criticism, while neither overreaches or gets nasty. Better yet, the attention-grabbing headline in the print ad, as well as the reveal of their “secret recipe” in the video, both provide compelling reasons for consumers to actually pay attention to these responses. After all, Taco Bell was up against a pretty tough-to-ignore headline, and had to really grab the attention of their consumers. From the looks of it, they’ve succeeded.

Well, this kind of blows my old Super Nintendo soccer game out of the water.

Check out the trailer above for I AM PLAYR, a game that’s currently in development, but slated for a beta release this year.

There’s a lot happening here, but we’ll try to give you the gist. The game is a first person narrative of a football player (the soccer kind) who’s just getting started, and has to face numerous challenges on and off the field. While you develop your skill set and compete in matches, you’re also tasked with managing your teammates, your social life, and… well… your more “intimate” fans.

While that’s certainly an interesting storyline, it’s also only the first chapter. As players navigate their character through the game, they compete against a global audience of other players to see who can develop the top-ranked star. Moreover, the game takes a page from alternate-reality gaming (you remember our coverage of ARGs, right?) and lets the elements of the game seep into the player’s everyday lives. Characters from the game communicate with the player by text and video, radio broadcasts cover the happenings from around the league, and even the tabloids are (reportedly) willing to dedicate headlines to the events that transpire within the game.

Admit it. You’re impressed.

While we could keep raving about how cool this will be, we do need to bring this back to marketing, right? Easy enough. It’s not especially surprising to see Nike jump all over this opportunity, snagging a principal sponsorship that will see them integrated into the storyline and game experience. And, while the game itself is free to play, players will have numerous opportunities to purchase (branded) virtual products that will improve their performance. (Considering the nightlife angle, it will be interesting to see just how risque those partnerships get.)

But, even if this particular game isn’t an appropriate fit for your brand, there are many lessons to be learned from this ambitious project. While there’s a literal connection to our Game On! trend, the more compelling angle is seeing how the creators have brought Life in the OOC to life. Thanks to the game’s multi-platform media integration, and the fact that competitions on the virtual field feed into the leaderboard against other human competitors, there is no clear line where the game ends and the player’s “real life” begins. Even though your average marketing campaign isn’t quite this fun (okay, it’s a LOT less fun), it should still be this seamlessly integrated across a variety of touchpoints. Notice that the creators aren’t hand-wringing over whether they need a mobile strategy or an above-the-line component or an online element. Instead, they’re pulling together an arsenal (yeah, pun intended) of high-tech and low-tech touchpoints to communicate a common story, and letting the players (i.e. the consumers) decide which formats work best for themselves.

I AM PLAYR, I am impressed. (For anyone who wants to read more, head this way.)

We’ve blown through a slew of Sized Right examples in our trends report and Smartshot webinar, covering an admittedly wide range of applications. After all, Sized Right is our most versatile trend for 2011, with implications in-store, at home, in consumers’ daily lives, and even in their heads. With that in mind, it might help to step back and set the mood for the trend, pointing out a couple of examples that, while fringe in their specifics, powerfully illustrate the driving factors behind these sentiments.

The rise of Sized Right starts right at home, where Americans are retreating from the past few decades’ trend towards McMansions. Tired of maintaining homes that are too big – and increasingly wary of the massive mortgages they require – consumers are now opting for more appropriately-sized homes. But, don’t mistake this for self-denial. There’s a certain comfort in finding a home that fits your needs, especially with smarter solutions that allow you to get more out of smaller spaces.

What’s that look like in practice? How about fitting 24 rooms into a 330 square foot apartment? That’s what Hong Kong architect Gary Chang miraculously pulled off, as seen in the video above. Now, we’re not saying this is going to be the norm for home life, but we are saying there are valuable lessons to be learned here. While Chang literally packs multiple layers into a single space, this is indicative of a general trend (both at home and in-store) toward more flexible configurations that allow the same space to serve multiple functions. This can happen physically, as in Chang’s case, but as we’ve seen in our Life in the OOC trend, it’s also possible thanks to digital technologies that overlay virtual functions on real-world spaces.

It’s also noteworthy that Chang doesn’t see the small size of his abode as a constraint; rather, it’s an opportunity for efficiency. He uses plenty of practical tricks, ranging from mirrors that amplify the space to shades that bring in golden light, which all combine to give the impression of space without the burdens that would accompany that physical footprint. This is a sentiment that runs through everything we’ve seen with consumers seeking smaller (but not 330-foot) homes. Consumers are reassessing their priorities, and realizing the benefits of having less stuff to fret about. We tend to fill bigger houses with crap we don’t need, so small houses force the residents to be more proactive in their filtering. This ends up being a relief for consumers who otherwise feel the pull toward hoarderism, as well as (often younger, Millennial) homeowners who happily sacrifice square footage for the experiences offered by their ideal locations.

Clearly, Chang’s layout is very, very smart. So, the opposite would be… dumb? That’s the opinion of Smart Car USA, who recently kicked off a campaign “Against Dumb” that mocks everything supersized, as shown in the video below. On the one hand, this campaign bluntly speaks to the beliefs behind Sized Right, and manages to communicate the philosophy in a quick, visually appealing manner. Still, we have to take issue with the tone. It’s a little too condescending, a little too holier-than-thou, and even a bit obnoxious. The transition toward Sized Right is a huge undertaking for the Amercian consumer after half a century of moving in the other direction. You’re much better off offering helpful reassurance for consumers looking to make the switch, rather than ridiculing them for the mistakes of their past.

In fact, these consumers are probably willing to do most of the mocking themselves. And that’s the part of the Smart campaign that we really like. On the brand’s Facebook page, Smart encouraged fans to submit their dumbest purchases to be voted on by the community, with the winner getting a Smart car. It’s a much more playful tone than their ads, and does a better job of getting participants to think long and hard about their personal consumption histories. And there’s nothing dumb about that.

• Our #1 hit of 2010 was our celebration of the innovative marketing efforts of… a car company? An American car company?? Yep, Ford has Facebook all figured out, especially with their live launch of their 2011 Explorer. No other marketer demonstrated such a nuanced approach to engaging with consumers via Facebook. It’s the perfect case study for seamlessly applying all the features that Facebook has to offer, and giving consumers what they actually want from a brand on social media. (It’s also one of the reasons we wholeheartedly agree with Ad Age naming Ford marketer of the year for 2010.)
• Part of the impetus for naming Cause with Effect as a 2011 trend came from watching the shifts in cause marketing over the course of 2010. Pepsi Refresh was clearly the game changer in this category, but we put Levi’s “Ready to Work” campaign under the microscope because it really drove home the depth-over-breadth approach that we expect to become a bigger focus in 2011. Likewise, one of the few bright spots that came out of the Haitian disaster was discovering that enormous sums of charitable money could be generated by aggregating millions of small (mobile) donations. If only this breast cancer awareness gag could have tapped that tactic!
• Anyone could’ve told you that food trucks are poised to upend the restaurant world in 2011, but readers were enthusiastic about our coverage of non-food applications for the food truck fad.
• It’s not everyday that our readers get jazzed about billboards, but these outdoor spectacles changed that perception pretty quickly. Likewise, we think this might be the only time a conversation about sustainable packaging has ever been so damn sexy.

Head this way for Part 2!

We’re a bit under-the-gun today (as always, that means we’ve got some good stuff comin’), so we’ll keep today’s post short and sweet.

Actually, there’s nothing sweet about the video above – in fact, it’s clearly the product of a particularly bitter summer. For those who aren’t aware, it’s been a slightly tumultuous summer for LeBron James. Nike – never one to shy away from controversy – acknowledges as much in this new ad, debuting the night before the NBA season kicks off. While it demonstrates a number of things quite well, we’ll focus on its role in the Reputation Economy. After all, James’ reputation took an extraordinary hit over the past few months, unraveling seven years’ worth of coordinated branding on his part. This bold video questions both James’ actions and the public’s response, and defiantly asserts James’ independence as the season begins. When every other brand out there is backpedaling at the first signs of controversy (ahem), it’s interesting to see the polar opposite approach. Think it’ll work?

Better yet, Nike’s just one of a number of brands that are getting a handle on barcode marketing executions. A series of bus shelter ads for HBO’s new Boardwalk Empire show included QR codes that provided directions and the password to a secret speakeasy (plus a free drink at the event). That’s a straight-up way to build a fanbase for the show, as well as a fantastic job of delivering entertainment and exclusivity via the code.

Ford, who was just dubbed Ad Age‘s marketer of the year, started using 2D codes to enhance their print ads for the Edge crossover. The codes linked to a variety of New York Times articles that covered technology and style, which position the Edge to appeal to a savvy, forward-thinking audience. (By the way, if you missed Ford’s excellent Facebook campaign for the 2011 Explorer, we suggest you get caught up.)

BravoTV has been as adventurous as Ford when it comes to social media (remember?), so we’re not especially surprised to see them augmenting their commercials with special features accessible via QR codes. If you simply must know what’s in the closet of your favorite “Bravolebrity,” the codes will link viewers to a series of “Closet Confession” clips. If that’s not enough of an incentive for some viewers, the accompanying $30 discount on Bluefly purchases should make it worth the scan.

The Bravo code was provided by ScanLife, one of the pioneering companies behind QR codes (and an Inform session alumnus). The company has recently started offering state-of-the-industry reports for barcode scanning, and the news is good: scans on the Scanbuy platform are up 700% over the past year, and over 20% of those scans came from products in the health and beauty category. (If you’d like more information, feel free to contact us for a copy of the study.) With consumers becoming more comfortable with the scanning process, and big brands effectively integrating the codes into their ads, the future of barcode marketing sure looks good to us.