New Zappos TV ad, highlighting their unparalleled customer service

This is the first TV spot in a new campaign for Zappos, the online footwear and apparel retailer. This spot was created by Mullen in Boston, MA.

Here it is:

Breaking: Publicis buys Razorfish

Paris-based advertising group Publicis has confirmed 1 hour ago that it has purchased Razorfish, the digital agencies network, from Microsoft for 530 million dollars, in cash and shares (this makes Microsoft the owner of about 3% of the Groupe by the way...), with an agreement to purchase ad inventory from Microsoft online properties in the years to come.

Publicis Groupe now owns the #1 (Digitas) et #2 (Razorfish) digital agency networks in the world. It is in line to generate 25% of this year's revenue from digital communications.

Razorfish will be included in the VivaKi agency line-up.

Official press release here.

Augmented Reality hits mass-market with Wal-Mart and Best Buy

Augmented Reality is now a mass-market marketing technique... and is getting closer and closer to e-commerce.

Walmart was the first multichannel to launch an AR initiative, finally finding a way to add true value to their weekly ads and engage consumers with print advertising (you can print out this AR marker to try it for yourself).















And now Best Buy launches "Best Buy in 3D" with the same model in mind: showing the paper weekly ad to your webcam launches the AR engine, displaying a 3D rendering of the highlighted products within the webcam video on your computer screen, complete with info, specs etc etc.

Seeing is believing!

1-800-Flowers Claims First Retail Transaction Inside Facebook - via GetElastic

1-800-Flowers has embedded its e-commerce widget into its Facebook Fan Page, and goes down in history by claiming the first retail transaction within Facebook.

At 11:50 am EST on July 8, 2009, it sold a “Slice of Life” for $34.99.

The whole story from the GetElastic blog here.

Amazon will return to TV advertising... with User Generated creative!

User Generated TV advertising, round 2: After Doritos with its Superbowl ad, Amazon has just launched an ad contest, calling on its customers to produce the creative.

The brief is wide open, go nuts!

Social Advertising Best Practices

IAB has just released its Social Media advertising best practices.

"These Best Practices are intended to help
protect consumer privacy, ensure transparency for what and how data is being used, and to define consumer permissions. The purpose of this
document is to provide best practices that illustrate, inform, and
facilitate greater adoption of the medium by defining creative components, data usage, consumer control, and privacy guidelines and by providing social advertising examples."

Click here to download the "Social Advertising Best Practices" PDF.

Banners as standalone shopping widgets: really shop in display ads!

Here's a link to cool demo of a campaign launched in the US by 1800flowers, of a rich display ad embedding a fully functional e-commerce storefront.

You can browse bouquets, search, view product details, add your selection to the basket, checkout and pay without leaving the website you are on, all within a Flash expand layer.

How's that for interactive direct advertising?

An alvenda production.

How to use a billboard in a tourist spot to get instant massive social media coverage of your brand

The McDonald's Picadilly interactive billboard.
See end of video to see what I mean...
Brilliant!
A Leo Burnett production.

Google Checkout Icon Increases Ad Click-Through by 10% - via MarketingVOX

On its Google Checkout page, Google claims a "Checkout" icon can increase ad click-through by 10%. (At least one client, Fred Lerner of e-commerce network Ritz Interactive, claims the Checkout icon increased clickthroughs by 23%.)



Google: Checkout Icon Increases Ad Click-Thru 10% - MarketingVOX

Digitas France 2008 Showreel

Digitas France 2008 Showreel from Michael S. Levy on Vimeo.

New Brand Jordan Commercial.

Google Will Not Kill the Agency Star, Says Publicis CEO [SearchEngineWatch]

While the business model for advertising agencies needs change, Publicis CEO Maurice Levy says that agencies will adapt and not become obsolete.

Levy says that agencies are the ones who develop the creative, something that companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo do not provide.

"Agencies do need to gain a better understanding of new media in order to develop better creatives for channels such as video games and cell phones", according to Levy.

Publicis may be well on its way to doing just that, having acquired digital agency Digitas for $1.3 billion last year.

Google Will Not Kill the Agency Star, Says Publicis CEO [SearchEngineWatch]