Would zombies use iPhones ?

When I took the train this morning I saw a print ad for the series "The Walking Dead" and I wondered: how do series sell themselves? Do and can series use new technologies?

For the record, zombies, as well as vampires or other gloomy/freaky creatures, benefit from a very large online and offline buzz. Partially propelled by the success of Twilight (not that I endorse that movie, but I have to face its large success and buzz)

As an introduction, let me present to you two print campaigns to promote the series "The Walking Dead":

- Norway 

The Norwegian campaign (December 2011)

The principle of that campaign.

See the first poster? You could actually strip off bits of the poster to get the adress of the website www.foxcrime.no. Just as a zombie would fall apart. 

- France 

Translation in English : "I see dead people, and then I kill them"

Translation in English: The only good dead people are dead dead.

This print campaign was made by the agency NoSite, to promote the first broadcast of The Walking Dead on Sundance Channel France, for the 12th January. The aim of the campaign was to show the human side of zombies, which enables an even more shocking contrast between the characters and the catch-phrases.

NoSite, of which this print campaign was the first campaign, also animates the twitter account of Sundance Channel France, the French antenna of the American Sundance Channel, that will broadcast the Walking Dead in France. The aim of the Channel: broadcast independent American and foreign movies.

Seeing the campaign, I wondered if NoSite used other communicational devices. 

And the answer was: not really. 

- Use of Twitter: no twitter account was created for this specific campaign. Likewise, the Twitter account of Sundance Channel only relayed the information, therefore undermining all the surprise effects created by the print campaign.

- Use of Facebook: Sundance Channel France has more than 13 000 Facebook fans, but the information about the imminent broadcast of The Walking Dead was, just like on Twitter, only relayed. Photos of the print campaign were posted, but without any inspiring quotes, without all the zombie effect which attracts so many people to view The Walking Dead. 

There is clearly a lack of use of the success of the zombie phenomena, new technologies speaking. 

For instance, the Walking Dead Facebook account gathers nearly 5 million fans, with a minimum of 3000 likes for each post from the owner(s) of the page (AMC, the US channel that created The Walking Dead, and Mad Men for instance) and hundred of comments for those posts. 

NoSite could have used this success to make a more interactive campaign to promote the broadcast of The Walking Dead in France. There is a huge online community of The Walking Dead fans: aside from the official facebook and twitter accounts, there are at least a dozen of non-official accounts that gather thousands of The Walking Dead fans. 

The official French Facebook page for The Walking Dead nearly gathers 5 000 fans, but there is no information as to the official character of the page: who created it, for which purpose. Moreover, the owners of the page do not seem to control 100% of the content published on their page. Commercial links are for example posted without being controlled. 

My advice: zombies are great (in communication). Why not take advantage of the existence of a gigantic fan community to use breaking-through communicational devices. For example, QR codes, or smartphones apps which could use all the fantastic imaginary behind the concept of zombies.

Zombies, get yourselves iPhones. 

Are you Cadbury or Milka ?

Since Cadbury was bought by Kraft Foods in 2010, both brands compete in the same group. Lots of similarities between Cadbury and Milka: the basic products (milk-chocolate based), the packaging (purple background, round font), and the love of consumers.

My question is : how do they make themselves different from each other? How can they co-exist without eating each other out? And, which has the best communication ?

First of all: their products are not that similar.

• These last years, Milka has developed its range of products towards more luxurious products. For example: chocolate mignonettes, and biscuit products. They have also developed more elaborated products, close in idea to Lindt's famous chocolate. For example, the tender moments, with chocolate mousse inside the chocolate squares.

• Cadbury, besides being the "only company in « sweets» to commercialize products from organic agriculture and fair trade" (according to their website) has a more festive range of products than Milka. But isn’t this also linked with the British sweets market, on which you can find lots of these types of products ? Cadbury is also present on the biscuit market, with yummy products such as Fingers or Cadbury luxury cookies.

A different positioning
• Milka: tenderness (their slogan is "dare tenderness") VS Cadbury's "pump it up" attitude. These two different attitudes are very well conveyed in their publicity.

Cadbury's eyebrows

Milka's marmot

Milka’s publicity is at the image of their positioning: tenderness, always and always. Even if they use humour, humour is not at all the central value of their ads.

Last year, they tried a new type of publicity by creating the “Milka dance”. I found that ad quite deceiving: lots of clichés, a bad music, and it’s not at all like Milka to do such an ad.

Maybe my opinion on the Milka dance is biased by my personal musical tastes, but I  think it could have been used differently (especially on the official clip of the milka dance, below)

Official clip of Milka Dance

Those dance steps were also relayed to Milka teams (specially ski animation teams) and they are quite an odd example of communication.

You can see on the following video some ski animators doing the milka dance, so I’ll let images speak for themselves. 

Milka dance - ski version

• A commun element: sports communication

Both brands promote sports but in different ways. Milka: the existence of an official milka ski team “milka ski stars”. A team which exists since and has had quite a lot of sportive achievements (11 Olympic medals for example). When you ski, depending on the resort you’re in, you can see milka cows, or even “milka slopes” (violet coloured slopes)

Cadbury is the official treat provider to the London 2012 Olympic Games and has launched a humongous campaign to support the British team for Olympics.

Keep GB team pumped up

In support for their campaign, they created a dedicated website : www.keepourteampumped.com where you can see the official videos sponsored by Cadbury. A very dynamic staging of interactive marketing: on the website you can “sing along” to the different songs (“Final countdown”, or ) and, as they say “add your voice to the next production or grab some friends and start a karaoke session”. This device is also subtle in encouraging consumption. And it does keep you (or get you) pumped up. In short : a great communication.

• Social media ?

Both brands are present on Facebook, but neither of them has a globally unified communication. In the case of Cadbury, fan pages are organized around either products (2 051 226 fans for Cadbury crème eggs) or countries (65 384 fans for Cadbury Malaysia). On the other side, Milka does have an official global page (944 032 fans). But there also exists other un-official pages, at least 10 of them, and all of them are named "Milka". Quite difficult then to find your way. 

Only Cadbury is present on Twitter, again by product/country division. I also noted the presence of a “Twitter Cadbury friends” which shows how much people love Cadbury chocolate.

• Applications and games ?

Milka's use of applications is approximate for the moment, I didn't find (yet) any really inventive applications.When searching for application, I first found a Spanish one (Milka oreo, which I understood as a promotion tool), then a Russian one (Milka game). And after the third trial a French application: Milka Snax buddy. The principle is the following: you turn on your computer camera, and start chewing. In the same time, the Milka cow will start chewing.     

On the other side you have:

 Cadbury' spots v stripes

What’s the principle ? I’ll let Cadbury talk : “So how do you take part? First, pick the side you want to play for - Spots or Stripes. Then whenever you play a game against someone from the opposing side, the winner scores a point for his/her side. All the points will be logged right here and updated live on our Score’o’tron. Score enough points and you could even become one of your side’s all-star heroes.”.

An internet website counts all the points you added up for your team during a real game, to which you can add points by playing games online.

The prizes you can win are of course tickets for London 2012

My conclusions ?

I both love Milka and Cadbury as products but I think that their communication is not equal. Cadbury's communication has clearly taken a turn with the 2012 London Olympics, which have dynamized their use of dedicated websites, applications and social media. 

Milka's communication around tenderness and a certain point of view on humour could be well transmitted through their communication. For now I have been quite critical of their current ads and tools but I think they have the potential of taking a step further into new technologies devices. The question is: will they do it?

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