Showing posts with label Games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Games. Show all posts

Oct 13, 2009

Got Any Virtual Chocolate Lately?


AdNectar, for whom this isn’t the first time, and Fun140, publisher of quizzes on Twitter, just launched branded virtual goods, such as Godiva virtual chocolates or Malibu virtual rum, on Twitter or LiveJournal.



 (A previous virtual campaign of Godiva on Facebook)


Thus, if a person sends some virtual chocolates to a friend using Twitter, the friend is notified via a direct message, Twitter’s private messaging service.

By clicking on the URL in the message, a link will then direct it to the virtual chocolates and a tweet will alert the sending party when the gift is received.


“People use virtual goods to personalize how they communicate with their friends.  Branded items will make this social experience on Twitter more engaging and entertaining” explains Ashvin Kumar, co-founder of Fun140.


By allowing the offering of branded virtual goods, AdNectar diffuses the brands directly into the network of friends.  Thus, socially accepted, these goods benefit from a viral dissemination that is much more effective than displaying advertising banners.


AdNectar's clients 

3 years ago the brand fan pages, now common, might have seem to be a marginal and exotic media.


Today, given the continual increasing widespread use of virtual goods, it is more than likely that branded virtual goods are going to become one of the strongest social marketing tools, because it subscribes to the new implicating, engaging, and recreational marketing logic.

A previous campaign for Godiva chocolates in virtual form, conducted by AdNectar on Facebook before Valentine’s Day showed impressionable propagation results. 


Oct 10, 2009

RackUp, the shopping game where you are sure to win!





Social Commerce permanently increases new forms of e-commerce and business models.  There will be winners and losers!



It is difficult to say whether RackUp, a new start-up model presented at the TechCrunch conference will succeed in asserting itself.  It does present more than one advantage:


RackUp renews auction items.  RackUp makes shopping fun, and RackUp assures you of winning!
How does RackUp work?  It is hard to explain without having used it before and I recommend the video demo, but here are the main aspects:


  1. RackUp is an on-line auction system of gift cards and gift certificates, with all kinds of attractive packages with companies like American Airlines and Travelocity Hotel, including Legal Sea Food restaurants, or brands like Calloway Golf or MocaShop jewelers.
  1. RackUp has auction rooms for gathering bidders who want to purchase gift certificates for a particular brand.
  1. Each bid is very quick, lasting only 60 seconds.  An auction is held every two minutes.  Therefore there is no long waiting period.
  1. At the very beginning of the auction, each bidder can purchase a gift certificate, but only the first will buy it at the purchase price, each of the following bidders will increase the bidding price by 10cents so that the 10th bidder will pay $51 for a gift  certificate of $50.
  1. However, as items are purchased, each bidder progresses to a level which gives complimentary value (from 3 to 100%) to his/her certificate.
  1. This progression continues for 60 seconds.  If you reach 100% after 60 seconds and the bid is marginal, it will be cancelled.  However, nothing is lost, you can start over, paying a little bit more for your certificate, for which you are assured a 3% reduction.


In the example given by RackUp, the purchase of a gift certificate for American Airlines at $50 for a price of $51.20 will in turn become a certificate of $76.80.  Well done!





RackUp is part of the array of on-line auction sites that Ebay made popular world wide, casual bidding that has become an incredible success with women and the gift card phenomenon.


RackUp is pretty clever in emphasizing the social aspect of bidding.  The competition sets people up to bid against each other but also increases the stakes by increasing the bonuses.


The bonus system, which is linked to group or personal purchases, is starting to appear more and more often in the new economic models of on-line auction sites.


In these tough economic times, the bonuses given by RackUp are a type of discount and will become more popular.

While you wait, is there anyone that has to take an American Airlines flight?