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?

We love cheat sheets at Upshot, and make a point of creating them whenever possible. At my recent “Content Marketing Lunch-n-Learn” I closed with the following best practices. Planning a campaign, promotion, or marketing vehicle where content plays a role? The following will help keep you on course and hopefully provide some food for thought:

1. Think Long Term. How can we use this opportunity to create a marketing platform we can leverage ongoing?
2. Be Resourceful. What assets do we already own that can be repurposed, revamped or redone? Is there public data or an API (social networks, etc.) we can use? What media partnerships could be forged with brands that already have content our consumers want?
3. Stay Relevant. What can we create that consumers will find of value? What will put a smile on their face or change their lives for the better?
4. Treat it like an Investment. Marketing-related content we create or generate via our users is an investment in assets we can reuse and repurpose as our marketing efforts evolve.
5. Be Patient! Payoffs are not always immediate.
6. Fill Gaps in the Niche. What’s missing and what are people demanding?
7. Be Clever and get More Play. Appear non-competitive and offer something the big guys don’t have—done right, the competitors will link to your content!
8. Don’t half-ass it. Content marketing works—that’s why 6 out of 10 marketers increased their content marketing budgets last year. It’s only going to get more crowded and cream rises to the top.
9. Understand Your Targets. If you’re creating content for specific types of consumers, then you better understand their lifestyles. If not, hire someone who does to create the strategy.
10. Have Fun, be Creative! Content marketing is fun and an opportunity to be creative in countless ways. Embrace it!

Want this list in portable format? Download it here.

Earned media often comes in the form of content being created by consumers about a brand, frequently through platforms the brand creates or maintains. Likely sources include social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, but often can be in the form or promotions where a brand has asked for an opinion, expression or point-of-view (like voting in a poll for example).

Once a promotion has ended, such promotional content is often left by the wayside, occasionally only being leveraged if the promotion gets repeated. This is unfortunate as often such assets could be culled and repurposed for ongoing content marketing efforts.

Recently we helped execute a promotion here at Upshot where we asked consumers for tips & tricks related to the use of the brand’s products. We had tens of thousands of entries and of course not all the tips we received were gems. However, there were scores of interesting and noteworthy entries.

As we’re now planning a website relaunch for this same brand, we’re considering that content a valued asset. Through a promotion where the tips served a specific purpose, we now have the secondary benefit of assets we can reuse in our relaunch, this time positioned as expert tips from peers. This will help bolster the brand’s credibility and perfectly complements the product data we intend to publish on the site. Not to mention the added content will undoubtedly help our SEO efforts.

Have you executed recent promotions where you collected user-generated content? Ask yourself: how can we repurpose? Can we distill it down into interesting trends we can share with our consumers? Can we pair it with our product data on our website?

If you’re gearing up for future promotions, think past the promotion and what types of content your most valued consumers can contribute. With the holidays drawing near (gulp), now is a great time to think about how year end marketing efforts can create valuable marketing content you can reap the benefits from in 2012.

But while Ariel was busy cleaning up a mess, Mr. Beam was dumping all sorts of colors into a plain white room. The clip below shows how their blank canvas was anything but limiting, even going so far as to seemingly manipulate the textures of the items in the room (perhaps most impressively when the couch “becomes” leather at the 0:34 mark). While this example is certainly visually appealing, it also speaks to projection mapping’s ability to overcome special limitations in finite environments. After all, this clip runs through as many rooms as you’d find displayed in some department stores, all within the confines of a modest space. Does this mean that future IKEAs could fit into a crammed storefront on Milwaukee Avenue? It’s possible.

Speaking of working within limitations, it’s no secret that projection mapping requires some incredibly precise alignment between the projected elements and the surfaces on which they interact. That explains why many of the more elaborate shows are stationary displays in a single location, never to hit the road. Well, apparently that era’s over. DJ Amon Tobin recently embarked on a tour in which he’s embedded in a gigantic wall of cubes, onto which an accompanying array of intricate projections swirl, explode, grind, and shatter in rhythm with the music. (See the behind the scenes clip below.) Holy crap, it’s definitely the future.

Recently Mountain Dew’s Green Label Sound elevated brand/band pairing with the release of “When Fish Ride Bicycles,” a new full-length from Chicago hip-hop group the Cool Kids. What’s different than other brands playing in this space? Unlike Starbucks Hear Music—which is essentially a music publishing house and not necessarily a full-blown label—Green Label Sound is behaving like the real-deal: signing artists, handling distribution, PR, partnerships (read: iTunes) paid media, etc.

What can Green Label offer that traditional labels can’t? The better way to ask that question is to put it in reverse. With the state of the music industry going through its biggest shift in well, ever, record labels have become less effective at helping artists distribute their work, build fan followings, and evolve. Marketing is a major component of artist success, and Green Label relies on Cornerstone, a NY/LA based promotions agency to help run the label. By tapping into this agency resource, and genuinely committing to the artists they bring on board (imagine the bad PR if a brand-backed label treated artists poorly) Green Label Sound gives other labels a run for their money—especially considering their primary focus likely isn’t money—by promoting artists who in turn elevate the brand’s street cred.

In other words, it’s a perfect manifestation of our Brand Patronage trend for 2011. While consumer brands have played in nearly every area of media for nearly a century, I suspect we’re at the dawn of many deciding to go beyond sponsorships and carve out dedicated business units to support the creation, distribution and marketing of entertainment: whether that’s music, games, movies, apps, or books. Undoubtedly they’ll be no shortage of artists and agencies waiting to sign-up to help.

But the four-wheeled madness doesn’t stop there. Check out the above race from Hot Wheels, featuring a three-dimensional obstacle course projection-mapped on a building in Sydney. (Thanks to Karlin from MUSE for the tip.)

Speaking of races, check out the above clip from a Cornetto projection in Istanbul. In the midst of a big ol’ street party, the brand projected an interactive casual game where onlookers could compete against each other using their phones. As if an interactive projection didn’t have enough stopping power! It’s great to see that, no matter how many projection examples we share, someone always seems to be raising the bar on what’s possible with this medium.

By far, the number one activity on smartphones is mobile gaming. Games are the most downloaded apps in both free and paid categories in Apple’s App Store. Recently, adMob (a leading mobile ad network owned by Google) released the results of a survey that revealed games are also the most popular activity on tablet devices (think iPad), beating out email, search, social and shopping.

With games being all the rage, why aren’t more brands taking advantage?

One could argue, “sure, there’s a market for games, but what can a game really do for our brand? It isn’t selling products. Also, aren’t the app stores flooded with games?”

Consider:

1. The Audi Driving Challenge, a game developed for the iPhone and later for the iPad, has driven more traffic to the Audi website and more real-world test drives than any other digital marketing tactic*.
2. Barclaycard’s Waterslide Game was downloaded 2 million times in its first week of release, and has since been downloaded 17 million times. Version 2 has been downloaded nearly 10 million times. This is from a financial services provider.
3. Cirque du Soleil’s official iPhone app (developed by Upshot) includes a game with an active leader board of tens of thousands of players. (By virtue of being on a leader board suggests players are playing the game more than once in an effort to beat their score and others.) Because the game is only part of the experience, each time it’s played, users are (potentially) exposed to Cirque content.

While a game may only passively be driving brand or product awareness, players have the potential to be exposed to a brand anywhere from a few minutes to hours depending on how much they enjoy the game. If the game is designed to be social (I.E. inviting friends to play) it can go viral.

Also consider that on average, only 25% of a mobile user’s apps are paid for (vs. free downloads). If a brand offers a free game, most consumers aren’t going to make their decision to download based on whether or not it’s branded. The choice becomes simple: it’s free, and it’s fun to play.

Branded games also enjoy the long-tail effect. After a 30-second spot has long faded into the ether, a game can live on for months or even years. Sure, it might not enjoy the popularity of its initial release, but will continue to be downloaded indefinitely, costing the brand nothing to keep it alive in the app store.

Lastly, there’s a reason developers keep cranking out new games: gamers are always on the lookout for the next challenge. Sure, one might get stuck on Angry Birds or Plants vs. Zombies for longer than they care to admit, but eventually they look for other stuff.

What’s the rule for creating a great branded game? Simple: make it awesome. It’s no secret brands are taking advantage of gaming mechanisms in numerous forms of marketing (highlighted in our 2011 Game On! trend), but I suspect lots of brands tried online games before mobile games rose in popularity, only to conclude, “we tried games, but they didn’t go so well.” Sure, but were they fun? You don’t have push the envelope of 3D graphics for mobile or use cutting edge augmented reality. It simply has to be fun (nice graphics help, but are secondary to game play). Give players that little rush we all get when we get lost in a game—even if that rush only lasts for a minute, and they’ll play it again and again, and tell their friends too. Once your game is awesome, then consider clever ways to push your brand message—unlock product discounts when players reach certain levels, give away virtual representations of your products as achievement badges, or use brand elements as part of the game itself such as locations, characters, products or settings.

Has your brand had success with branded games, mobile or otherwise? Please share your comments.

*Taken from the session, “Behind the Curtain: Secrets of Mobile Application Wizardry” at SXSWi 2011.

You can’t go wrong with helping people get around at these events, and we spotted complimentary private limos (from a social network called Tagged) grabbing people at the airport and getting them downtown. But, this was a tech fest after all, so the most appropriate mode of transportation were the pedicabs from Uber (pictured above). The clever Uber system cut out the dispatcher, and let attendees hail a cab by simply sharing their current location via the Uber smartphone app. That sure comes in handy after those free parties with the free beer, don’t they?

You also can’t go wrong by feeding these poor, starving conference attendees (who coughed up hundreds of dollars to attend). Many, many companies were offering much-appreciated free food throughout the event, ranging from street teams with breakfast tacos to food trucks with more breakfast tacos. (People like their breakfast tacos in Austin, alright?) But the brand that had attendees lined up around the block for the entire conference (literally – see the image at right) was a stationary food truck from the publishing platform Squarespace, who smartly submitted to the experts when it came to cooking. Each day, Squarespace brought in a new local food vendor to take over their site, delivering unexpected and unbelievably tasty treats each day (see the menu here). By offering both a rotating menu and tapping favorites from the local community, Squarespace managed to generate tons of word-of-mouth recommendation and capture the conference’s attention among countless of other free food offerings.

Considering that conferences are inherently temporary, it wasn’t surprising to see brands investing in pop-up retail experiences at SXSWi. While the most buzzed-about store was definitely Apple’s pop-up dedicated to selling the iPad 2 (it sure helps to be selling the most desired device at a conference full of tech geeks), the most unexpected pop-up came from CNN, as they completely took over an existing bar (even installing their own sign, as seen in the image to the right) where they held events and parties all week. Again, the ever-changing content, as well as the all-out commitment to the takeover of the building, got a lot of heads turning and stimulated a lot of conversations on behalf of CNN.

It also helps to think about the most pressing needs of conference attendees. At a place like SXSWi, everyone is essentially attached to a cyborg’s-worth of devices that each have a limited battery life. Fortunately, the automakers in attendance thought this through, with Chevy offering branded power strips at almost every outlet around the conference center, and Lincoln offering free access to every imaginable phone charger at a nearby restaurant . Sure, a nerdfest like SXSWi is the ideal place for these solutions, but as smartphones, tablets, and other devices become increasingly ubiquitous, offering (branded) power options at any conference will always be a much appreciated gesture.

But, of all the things brands can give away at these conferences, perhaps the most valuable takeaways aren’t schwag or tacos or even beer. They might just be your smarts. To steal a point from this great article by Scott Belsky, some of the brands that made the biggest impacts at SXSWi did so by simply getting themselves involved in a number of innovative panels and presentations. To paraphrase Belsky, brands have to work very hard (and spend a lot of money) to get people’s attention through traditional advertising, but attendees will gladly come running to them when they share their peek-behind-the-curtain insights and unique experiences. In particular, PepsiCo did an excellent job of contributing to a number of panels we’ve referenced in our earlier SXSWrapups, which did as much to activate their sponsorship of the festival as some of their other initiatives, such as their live stream of keynotes and panels at pepsico.com/sxsw.

This might seem like a lot to take in. Well, it is, especially when you’re there amidst the chaos. But if there’s one thing we’ve harped on since introducing our Driven by Data trend, it’s the benefit of being a good curator. And curation becomes especially useful at a place like SXSW, where data overload is a given. The Appstores site delivered a brilliantly simple service before anyone even arrived, offering attendees a series of recommended smartphone apps that would enhance and improve their experience. (Low hanging fruit alert! Brands should definitely offer a similar suite of recommended apps for attendees at other giant conferences or tradeshows.) During the conference itself, AOL offered a booth with a streaming screen of the top news from the conference, sortable by viewers interests. Interestingly, at a conference where every attendee had their own way of monitoring tweet streams and foursquare check-ins and the like, AOL still drew a crowd simply because they did an effective job of paring down the clutter to the real meat of the conference. And, of course, we did a pretty good job of that ourselves.

Speaking of getting to the meat of things, we’ll finally be wrapping up our SXSWrapup with our next post. Be sure to check back to see how the story ends!

Now there’s a headline that’ll get your attention! But, take it easy – the only naughtiness happening here is allowing so much time to elapse since our last augmented reality roundup! In the meantime, we’ve seen a ton of fantastic marketing examples worth passing along.

As we’ve long asserted, if augmented reality applications are really going to take off for marketers, AR producers will need to increasingly steer clear of the gimmicks and focus on more practical applications. (We’ll make an exception for apps like this Star Wars Falcon Gunner game, since it looks especially fun and it’s such a fantastic example of Life in the OOC.) And when it comes to practicality, we think we’ve found the most useful execution yet in the Word Lens iPhone app. As demonstrated in the video above, the app is remarkably simple to use: point your phone at a sentence and the app will instantly overlay the translated text. Must we point out how useful this app is for our clients in the international travel category? Yo no lo creo. (The fact that it’s currently limited to Spanish-English translation takes nothing away from the fact that this. Is. Friggin’. Amazing.)

Since we’re not going to find a better example of the practical side of AR, let’s at least consider how the more entertaining implementations can be used in clever ways; for instance, shocking people into paying attention to a social cause. The Russian wing of WWF (the one that saves animals, not the one that features grappling beasts in speedos) wanted to raise awareness about the poaching of Siberian Tigers, and felt the most effective approach was to get everyday Russians to experience the sensation of being hunted. Thankfully, no one took this creative brief literally, and instead settled on a widely dispersed tiger t-shirt that featured an augmented reality marker. When unsuspecting shoppers tried on the t-shirts in front of AR-equipped dressing room mirrors, the tag would trigger the sound of gunshots and the appearance of bloody bullet holes on the victim. See the video above for how it – hey, wait a minute… did I catch the Bulls’ starting lineup music in that campaign video??? Unfortunately, I didn’t see any Derrick Rose cameos in there.

Now, we’re not trying to be cranks who decree that all AR efforts have to be hugely helpful or socially responsible. We’re saying that if you do go down the purely-entertaining AR route, just be cognizant about the high level of clutter in this space. You’re going to need a pretty compelling campaign in order to stick out… and being hilarious is one way to do it. Cue the “In Bed” Tagger from Sealy Mattresses, shown in the video above. The app takes the old fortune cookie joke and lets you append the phrase “in bed” to any phrase you can capture in your viewfinder (ok, how did no other mattress maker jump on that joke before?). Of course, users can instantly upload their clever compositions to Facebook, where their friends can marvel at their brilliant achievements… in bed.

Thanks to Celeste Payne for tips on the WWF and Sealy campaigns!

Ever since Sao Paulo decided to ban billboards, ad folks in the US (and around the world) have nervously wondered, “Could it happen here?” While it’s hard to say, we’ll soon know what that scenario would look like, thanks to the latest project from Morgan Spurlock (of Super Size Me fame). He’s developed a platform called No Ad that taps the power of crowdsourcing to virtually erase billboards and outdoor ads in US cities. (Thanks to Jaclyn Gordyan for the tip!) He starts by filming a panoramic view of the area in question, and then asks fans to use the site (essentially an online, stripped-down version of Photoshop) to replace the ads in each frame of the clip. And Spurlock’s aiming high to kick things off: he’s taking on Times Square. While it’s unclear whether this campaign is reflective of a larger sentiment among Americans (one could certainly make the argument that the advertising clutter in Times Square is precisely the draw of the place), it’s certainly a reasonable discussion to have about the future of advertising. After all, knowing that consumers are seeking Primitive Simplicity in their personal lives, is it just a matter of time before this preference gets applied to experiences outside of their homes? It’s certainly a possibility.

But, as we’ve regularly restated, don’t mistake this desire for simplicity as an anti-technology stance. In fact, certain technological advancements are considered to be the solutions to these dilemmas, rather than the problems. For instance, let’s consider one of our favorite things in the world: interactive projections! (We’ll take any excuse to mention them, won’t we?) In this case, it’s MINI Cooper projecting virtual vending machines in a handful of Canadian cities, as seen in the video above. Passersby choose from nine different MINI paint jobs and text their selection to the projection, at which point the selected car is discharged in a very MINI-esque manner. But, in the context of our discussion above, does this kind of OOH experience qualify as clutter or enhancement? One could argue that it’s a shiny, distracting intrusion each city’s nightlife, while others could make the case that turning a boring ol’ building side into an interactive, engaging source of entertainment that enriches the participants’ evenings. Moreover, projection as a medium is inherently temporary, requires relatively little power, and leaves no lingering impact on the environment. If we can check those boxes off, does Spurlock’s complaint become spurious?

(Aside from the clutter discussion, we do want to note one other spot where the campaign falls short. After choosing their car, the recipient receives a text message inviting them to Like MINI on Facebook. Certainly, some follow-up is better than none, but considering the projection’s level of engagement, shouldn’t the SMS deliverable be equally engaging? Why not ask the participant for their zip code and provide them with the nearest dealer, or offer them a chance to schedule for a test-drive, or offer some promotional incentive to walk into the dealership? Seems like a missed opportunity.)

These kind of projections are only the beginning, especially considering what hack-happy designers are doing with the Microsoft Kinect system. The gesture-based interface is proving to be enormously versatile, delivering jaw-dropping interactive experiences without the need for wires, controllers, or other electronic clutter. One example that we especially enjoyed is the music video below, in which the German group Moullinex uses 3D motion-capture to show renderings of the musicians in action. Better yet, the group was kind enough to share the secrets behind their process, just in case anyone else has a hankerin’ to be Driven by Data. Knowing that these low-impact, high-engagement options are becoming more readily available, are critics of consumerist clutter going to view these solutions as resolving the problem or making it worse? If you’ve got an opinion on the matter, let us know in the comments below.