Pushing Peeps. A New Peeps Store, Easter Peeps Contests, & New Peeps Products.

More Peepular than ever.
Those colorful sugar-coated marshmallow Easter treats shaped like bunnies and chicks continue to expand their cult-like popularity. More colors, chocolate dipped, bite-sized and sugar-free versions are now available. In response to the public Peep demand, Just Born has opened their first Peeps & Company store and have launched a new dedicated e-commerce Peeps site.



About the store
PEEPS & COMPANY® is located at the very center of National Harbor's dynamic main plaza. Directly in front of the PEEPS & COMPANY® store is Seward Johnson's famous statue, The Awakening, along with sweeping views of the beautiful Potomac River. The store's location is at a converging point for residents and thousands of visitors arriving by metro bus, car, and ferries, which dock at the piers in front of the store.





In a joint statement, David Shaffer and Ross Born, Co-CEOs of Just Born, commented, "This is a momentous occasion for Just Born, our family of associates, and fans of our candy. For years, we have seen tremendous growth and excitement for our brands, and received many requests for a store in just the right location. PEEPS & COMPANY® is proud to join the community near our nation's capital."

Inside the store:

above: The Corcoran Ceramics faculty was picked by Chicago’s RTKL to create the signature tile wall for the Peeps® Company flagship retail store at the National Harbor

The stores and site are being promoted with a Peepmobile (actually called the Peepster Car for some odd reason).


Here's a little news story on the new store:


Annual Peeps contests in which people create scenes and dioramas using the Easter favorites keep on growing. Several major newspapers now sponsor Peeps contests. Instead of showing you images of multiple entries like I have in the past, there are just too many, so instead I will show you the winning entry from the Washington Posts's contest along with links to the other contests so you can view the entries and winners on your own.

The Washington Post's 2011 Peeps Contest Winner: ‘Chilean CoPeepapo mine rescue’

above: This year’s winning diorama is called "Chilean CoPeepapo Mine Rescue." It was created by Mary Jo Ondrejka, Margaret Hartka, and Bryn Metzdorf. (Narration by Holly E. Thomas) (/Video by Evelio Contreras and Akira Hakuta)

•The Washington Post's 2011 Peeps contest
•Denver Post's 2011 Peeps Contest
•Chicago Tribune 2011 Peeps Contest
•The Seattle Times' 2011 Peeps Contest
• Pioneer Press' Peeps Diorama Contest submissions
•"Valley of The Peeps" contest, Allentown, PA.

Not only are the contests gaining more popularity but more and more non-edible Peeps products are being marketed. More peeps stickers, mugs, mouse pads, plushies, apparel and even golf accessories join brands like Lenox to create more branded items available from the Peeps online store.

Peeps golf balls, head covers and golf towel:

Lenox Peep tea light holders:

Peeps Silly Bands!

Mousepads:

Peeps Stainless Steel water bottles:

Peeps Jewelry:


Peeps apparel:






Visit Peeps and Company's new dedicated website which offers the above items and many more.

The Gooey origins of Peeps (courtesy of CNN):


Don't forget to see my many past Peeps Posts:

• Peeps As Pop Culture: The Peep Show II Winners & More

• PEEPS Peer Pressure! You Want Peeps Art? Here's Some Of The Best

• Washington Posts' Annual 2010 Peeps Show IV Winner, Finalists & Semifinalists

• Non Perishable Peeps Products. Everything Peeps But The Edible Ones.

Drill Inc. Creates Xylophone, A Commercial For The Touch Wood Mobile Phone

A lovely and inventive three minute commercial, Xylophone, for a new wooden encased phone, the Touch Wood SH 08C from Docomo of Japan.




Japanese agency Drill Inc. (the same agency responsible for the website design of the Epos 100 artist Visa credit cards) and creative director Morihiro Harano hand crafted a giant wooden xylophone in the woods of Kyushu, Japan. As one little wooden ball rolls down the giant microphone, it plays Bach’s Cantata 147. The agency claims that no artificial music was used.



A joint project with Sharp, Olympus and Docomo, the phone is beautifully designed, as is the packaging

as well as the wooden charging unit by More Trees:


Be sure to see "the making of' the commercial here.

Here's a dedicated microsite for owners, the phone and accessories.

You can shop for the Touch wood Phone and the More trees charger here

DDB Auckland Makes An Impression Selling Shorts For Superette

To promote the shorts sale at fashion retail store Superette, the New Zealand ad agency, DDB Auckland, turned unwitting thighs into billboards by creating benches with reverse embossed lettering that when sat upon created an impression reading "Short shorts on sale Superette"



The plates were placed upon inner city and fashion district bus stop benches, mall seats and park benches. The branded seats were an ingenious way to take advantage of free media space with the impressions lasting about an hour.




Credits:
Ad agency: DDB Auckland
Executive Creative Director: Toby Talbot
Creative Director: Regan Grafton
Creative: Damian Galvin and Rory Mckechnie
Account Director: Jenny Travers
Project Manager: Andy Robilliard
Models: Jen and Jen

Send E-mails In Your Own Handwriting With Pilot's Online Personal Fontmaker.

Pilot pens has brought the personal touch to impersonal e-mail communication by creating an online site that allows you to personalize a font based on your own handwriting and then use that font to compose and send an e-mail.



You simply go to their website where you register and then print out a blank template. Write your own letters in the spaces in the template and upload it to the site via a scanner, digital camera or webcam. Once the site processes your individual letters of the alphabet, you can finesse each letter by either erasing parts of it or adding to the letter.

Print out the template:

Use a pen [preferably a Pilot pen. After all, this is the way they are marketing their product] to write the characters in your own hand:

Complete the template:


Capture the template by using a web scanner, a digital camera or a webcam and upload it to their site where they will process it. The computer then digitizes your font:

And you can finesse each character if you wish:


Save and then name the font, and voila! You're now ready to send an e-mail [from their site, of course] to anyone with an e-mail address in your own personalized handwritten font.



A video of the process:


Do it here.

Looking for your own font from your handwriting for more than e-mails? Check out fontifier.com, where for $10 you can create your own and download it immediately.

A Look At, And Analysis Of, Some Serious Social Media Screw-ups.

Social media most undoubtedly has its benefits and its drawbacks. Especially since brands and marketers are still experimenting with the concept.

I've reprinted an article and analysis from Bernhard Warner with a slide share presentation from Social Media Influence's editorial and social media training partner, Custom Communication, who has gone back through six years of social media and compiled a visual narrative of company misadventures with bloggers, tweeters and other social media voices. [Still images added by me].

Since 2004 they’ve identified 37 notable instances where companies have been caught short by social media protests and complaints or where they’ve shot themselves in the foot with dumb marketing.

A snapshot of the history:
Given the explosion in social media participation it’s not surprising to see a steady year-on-year increase in social media screw ups but while 2006 saw 7 major incidents the 10 recorded so far this year suggests that corporate communicators and marketers are becoming more savvy in how they engage and look after their online reputation.

The numbers are trending nicely for social media. As the IAB UK points out this week, the surprising surge in online advertising through the first half of 2010 can be attributed in part to more money pouring into social media marketing. There’s another social media figure on the rise, and it’s not quite so inspiring.

According to the new piece of research by Custom Communication, “Social Media Screw Ups – A Short History,” along with the surge in social media investment comes a surge in social media screw-ups by major corporations using these channels to reach the public. 2010 is on pace to see more reputation-bruising social media gaffes than in any previous year. Haven’t they learned anything from the Kryptonite lock fiasco of 2004? Apparently not.

Social media Screw Ups - A History

In reviewing the findings, it’s become clear: many of the mistakes are being repeated time and again. We list here the most oft-repeated missteps and misconceptions that lead to trouble.


above: kryptonite lock could be broken with a pen, image courtesy of wired.com

* Underestimating influence/impact of your social media critics. Kryptonite is the business school case study here, but loads of brands since – from Target telling the blogosphere they don’t rate to Nestle telling off eco Facebook protesters – have failed to understand that bloggers/Tweeters and Facebook protesters may not be The Guardian or New York Times, but they do hold plenty of weight.


above: bloggers bitch-slapped L'oreal for using false eyelashes on Penelope Cruz to sell mascara, image from L'oreal

* Giving the online community flashy marketing message when they just want simple, straightforward detail. These days, companies can get into big trouble for issuing fictitious glowing reviews or trotting out seemingly genuine testimonials by paid actors. Even before these consumer protections were put into place, L’Oreal paid a higher price – it got burned by vigilant bloggers.


above: Dell Hell, courtesy of blaugh.com

* Culture of unresponsive/uncaring customer service fuels recurring gripes, becomes PR headache. Dell learned the hard way that Jeff Jarvis’ customer service gripes were not an isolated issue; a massive backlash was brewing. It just took one well-connected critic to put his finger on it and the avalanche ensued.


above: the Diet Coke and Mentos experiments could not be hushed, image from reputation online

* Failing to understand the Coke credo: “our consumers control our brand.” Coca-Cola tried to stifle conversation around the combustible combo of Diet Coke + Mentos. Later, it would acknowledge, you cannot hope to muzzle what everyone is talking about.


above: the Chevy Tahoe commercial competition, image from Chevy.com

* Petition the public for crowdsourced ideas, only to be caught out when they have something nasty to say. Crowdsourcing is in vogue these days, giving loyal fans a chance to name a new product or devise a new softdrink formula. But as Chevrolet learned with its Tahoe SUV, be prepared to get from the public more than a clever new slogan.



above: the controversial Vodaphone tweet and reaction from Vodaphone

* Asleep at the wheel: giving junior employees full reign of the channels and providing them with little direction. What could go wrong? Where to start here? Last year, the epic #fail was engineered by Habitat which gave an “overenthusiastic intern” the keys to the Twitter feed. The result? Famously tweeting sale promotions by piggy-backing on the trending Iran election hashtags. More recently, the Vodafone UK Twitter feed was hijacked by a rogue employee who let fly with the odd homophobic Tweet.


above: Wal-Marting Across America, image from walmart.com

* Attempts at feel-good social media washing won’t come back to bite. Wal-Mart took the most heat here when a folksy, it-will-be-blogged “Wal-Marting Across America” journey emerged just as it was getting pressured elsewhere for its checkered labor practices. All goodwill was lost when it was revealed Wal-Mart was funding the feel-good road trip.


above: negative comments on Nestle's Facebook Fan Page

* Facebook is a forum for fans and “Likes.” Burger King, Nestle, and BP, to name just a few have seen their Facebook pages overwhelmed by critics who want to expose dodgy company practice. Greenpeace has had great success mobilising its followers in a series of corporate Facebook pressure campaigns. BK quickly caved to the demands to cheers. Nestle, on the other hand, shouted back, inviting more opposition.

The biggest culprits – plain dumb marketing, officious customer service and asleep-at-the-wheel moments in monitoring online reputation – are alive and well and triggering protests from the general public. For all the fresh money pouring into social media, we would expect the number of screw-ups to rise before companies really get the message that social media investment means more than crafting a slick campaign. It means two-way dialogue, transparency and, yes, learning from your mistakes.

sources: SMI, Reputation Online, Custom Communication