"Stop pushing the thing around the Ouiji board!"

A Branded Entertainment deal that seems like a bit of a force fit:
Hasbro is embarking on a six-year, four-picture deal with Universal Pictures based on top-selling board game "Monopoly," as well as "Candy Land," "Clue," "Ouija," "Battleship" and "Stretch Armstrong." Universal will release one of these themed-films a year beginning in 2010.

After the success of toy-based Transformers, not to mention theme-park-ride based Pirates of the Carribean, I guess it's not too surprising that "Pass Go, Collect $200" might be a line uttered by a Hollywood starlet...However it's a little hard for me to imagine Stretch starring in a full-length feature.

Soon we'll be seeing the Next Gen:

Breaking-up is hard to do, especially if you're 29+

According to TrendCentral...
Japanese marketing company Hime & Company recently announced that staff members are allowed to take "heartache leave" when faced with a break-up. Employees ages 24 and under are given one such day off per year, 25- to 29-year-olds can take two, and those older can take three days recovery time.

Costco-Crafted Beer

There's something sacriledge about Costco releasing so-called "handcrafted beer" in their warehouse stores under the auspices of premium, selected brews...

Oddities

Our favorite "odd" gifts store Spencer's (perfect for when you need a Playboy bunny belly button ring or a talking Homer Simpson beer stein) is reinventing itself...Spencer's new look aims to attract Generation Y-ers with lifestyle accessories and an urban-looking (read: graffiti covered) facade. All 600 stores are scheduled to be remodeled by 2012. But (thank God!)they will still sell lava lamps. Just in case you were wondering where to get one of those...

This seems like kind of an odd fit to me, but kudos to Coke for trying to make good on health/wellness claims...According to Promo Magazine,
Coca-Cola is pushing a fitness agenda in a two-year deal with ExerciseTV. Coke and ExerciseTV are co-creating original programming with integrated beverage brand information. Just make sure you have your 150-calorie can of soda handy should you get dehydrated during your workout.

Another rather odd combination: Kool-Aid scented Reeboks. Thanks to scent-infused sock liners, the shoes will emit grape, cherry and strawberry scents. Both the Reebok and Kool-Aid logos will be featured on the kicks. Now (maybe) your gym bag will smell slightly more delicious.

Cold As Ice, America v. Luxembourg and Barbie Sexes It Up

Are Americans taking the idea of diet-friendly snacks too far? Chewing Ice is becoming a new snack trend among consumers, as evidenced by a 23% increase from 2003 to 2006 in sales of machines that produce easier-to-chew ice, with names such as Nugget Ice and Pearl Ice. Some quick-service restaurants are even selling ice-to-go by the cupful (going rate: $.25) or by the bag. I did always LOVE eating that Sonic ice. Might have been the best part of the drive-through experience. Who am I kidding...the Frito Pie still takes the cake on that one.



Who would win in a drink-off: the U.S. or Luxembourg? While the average American adult drinks the equivalent of 38 six-packs of beer, a dozen bottles of wine and two quarts of distilled spirits per year, 39 other nations outdrink us...the list is topped by Luxembourg, where residents manage to ingest roughly 284 bottles of beer and 88 bottles of wine annually.

On People Aren't Wiied Out Yet: Unable to keep up with consumer demand for the Wii this holiday season, Nintendo could be losing approximately $1 billion in potential sales, according to analysts.

Barbie's outfits has always seemed a little too racy for comfort but who would have thought that Mattel would propagate this stereotype through their Barbie Collector dolls - "designed to be appreciated by adults, not kids." The Lingerie Barbies, for example, wear items described as "heavenly bustier with pink peek-a-boo peignoir". And just so kids don't accidentally see the outfits while exploring the Barbie website, the doll's picture is confined to head and shoulders. Read more here.

2007 Brought Marketers to their Senses...

Scott Cook (founder of Intuit) recently said that "A brand is what a friend tells a friend it is. Not what the company tells them." Kind of a scary sentiment for marketers, but I think arming consumers with information, entertaining them somehow unexpected and letting them spread the word is definitely the way of the future. And one of the best ways of doing this is by reaching them in viral ways and speaking to them in their own terms, acknowledging their power.

Which brings me to another thing that became apparent to marketers this year. Your product better damn well be awesome and live up to what you say about it, otherwise everyone will know in a millisecond. It is imperative that the way you speak to your consumer is AUTHENTIC and TRANSPARENT. According to Ad Age, our Experience Economy (where people are choosing products because of the experiences they incite/help create) has necessitated this non-phoniness in a big way.

Appealing to the senses (physically and metaphorically) has occurred a lot in the past year in interesting iterations:
Smell: For the relaunch of Weeds, Showtime created magazine insert ads with a scent strip, smelling like...what else? No word as to how they concocted/scent tested the fragrance. Also Kraft put out a scratch and sniff DiGiorno garlic bread card in-store to entice consumers to buy.
Sound: As previously posted, A&E's Paranormal-going-to-make-you-think-you're-crazy out-of-home ads. Also, TVs at grocery checkouts have directed sound systems that can be heard only by the first person in line, shielding the ears of cashiers from repeated messaging. One more: stores using sound waves that can only be heard by young ears to keep teenagers from loitering at their doors...
Touch: My favorite ad of the year - one for Fage yogurt (also a personal obsession as I eat one daily...) clearly shows (not tells) of the brand's main equity - the thickness of the yogurt. Check it out here:



Random facts:

Kraft boasts at least one product in 199 of 200 homes in the United States.



Window shopping 2.0: Polo Ralph Lauren created 67-inch interactive window displays that consumers could touch, explore choices of gear and even make purchases!


Most popular ringtone of 2007: T-Pain’s “Buy U A Drink,” followed by Mims’ “This Is Why Im Hot.”

Not-so-fat, buying spam, and cartoon-loving

No need to go nuts at the gym trying to shed a few pounds after indulging this holiday season — just let HP's slim filter shed the weight for you. Available on a few different digital cameras, the slim filter promises to rid consumers of that extra 10 pounds brought on by the camera.
After taking the pic, consumers can compare and choose to keep the original or filtered photo. The subjects still look like themselves, there's just slightly less of them to see.
The slimness filter can be adjusted for slight or more dramatic effects. Looking at pictures from the beach will be so much more enjoyable now.

On maybe it's not so SPAMmy or these people are just buying a lot of Vi*AGRa or X@n@x: One in six people (16%) have made a purchase from an email they found in their spam folder, according to Endai Worldwide.

That's a lot of Spongebob: 57% of parents watch six or more hours of TV with their children each week, according to Harris Interactive for Panasonic.