Interactive touchscreen billboard !

Waiting, waiting and more waiting. This is a reality for many people in the Netherlands who travel by public transportation. They arrive either too early or their transportation arrives too late. These few minutes are often experienced as boring. A second (general) problem that occurs is that it is getting more difficult for companies to attract consumers’ attention to advertisements and the products or services they are selling.

Therefore we, me and the other groupmembers for the course User Interface Design, designed an interactive touchscreen billboard that will be placed at train stations to improve the fun level of waiting. In addition, it will increase the attractiveness of advertisements for both business people and students. Advertisements can be personalized and users are able to connect with the advertisements by using their mobile phone.

Below you can find a short introduction of the interactive touchscreen billboard, named BeTouchi !

Pink elephants, green dragons & deceptive children

About pink elephants and green dragons: Children's awareness of being deceptive

This is an interview with prof. dr. Marc Swerts, a researcher and academic teacher at the University of Tilburg.

The interview includes his research to children's awareness of being deceptive, based on a digital puppet-show where children have to communicate with a prince and a (green) dragon.

Furthermore, dr. Swerts discusses the pink elephant phenomenon, theory of mind, detecting lies as a parent, differences in lying adults and children, non-verbal communication, Paul Ekman and the truth behind the tv-show 'Lie To Me'.

The interview is recorded and edited by group 24 of the course Business Information Technology.

KLM Tile Yourself; an interactive approach in brand positioning

In order to adapt to the new manners of communication and promotion KLM started using social networks in November of 2010. Once again, the company now reaches for this approach which is being implemented by many other companies at the moment. Research has shown the enormous reach of this approach, but more important are the relationships within Social Network Sites. This makes Social Network campaign a success. A campaign that has been send by a (good) friend is not likely been seen as advertisement. Positive effects on knowledge, attitude en behavior are results of this. Compared to Viral marketing it seems more effective to stimulate redirect-behavior within in a small, but strong qualitative group. In order to let non-Facebook/Hyves users also to participate a general website has been develop. Here the possibility is been provided to make your tile on Facebook or Hyves (for users) or on the website itself. 

The campaign is called "Tile & Inspire” and suits perfectly to brand positioning of KLM; which is trustful, inspiring, Dutch and open.  As Frank Houben formulates, director Communications & Corporate Identity, 'We connect people all over the world with each other – just like social network sites (Facebook, Hyves etc.). This is an unique opportunity for people to get their photo on an airplane'.  Eventually 4000 tiles will be selected and placed on a Boeing 777-200.

The key of the campaign is the active role of the customer within it. Although, it is possible that your tile will not be selected, it still can be shared with the whole world by e-mail, Facebook, Hyves, Twitter. Below you can find a short movie about the campaign.

I really like such approaches, where people are triggered to participate in a fun way and where they can share their creations with their friends and family. People will not recognize that this is a form of advertisement and therefore have a more positive attitude to the message. I think that this is the approach of the future!

Below my own tile !

Humor is the keyword !

Watching commercials is not that terrible .. That is IF there is HUMOR involved !  Below you can find some examples of humoristic commercials, which makes it fun to watch all the stuff companies want to sell us.

It almost makes you think.. Where do I have to sign?

I'm curious to find out, what your favorite humoristic commercials are ?! SHARE (^_^)

Telfort (telecommunication) - Hans "the former millionaire"

Centraal Beheer (insurance company) - Steering column lock

Volkswagen (car manufacturer) - Granny's car

3D Augmented Reality Experience of Nestlé

Nowadays, it is a waste to spend the whole marketing budget on traditional media. Several media should be combined in order to attract the attention of consumers. The 3D Augmented Reality Experience of Nestlé is an example of such approach. I thought it was really innovative and it differs from other initiatives I have ever seen.

So, what did Nestlé exactly do?
They have added a 3D augmented reality video game to 26 million packaging of different brands of Nestlé, such as Honey Stars, Koko, Nesquick, and Trix etc..  So, they combined packaging and the internet. This game has been realized by collaboration between Nestlé and Twentieth Century Fox in order to promote the new animation movie "RIO".
By cutting off a particular part of the packaging and showing it in front of the webcam (internet connection is a necessity) consumers, mainly children, can play a game with the main characters Blu or Jewel of the movie. The players of the game can make the characters come alive in a personal environment with 3-D backgrounds.

Below, you can seen the functioning of the game.

What is behavioral targeting?!

Movie 1 -What is Bahavioral Targeting?

Movie 2 -2020 The Future of Behavioural Targeting




To be continued..

The Dutch Phone book and Yellow Pages .. No future left?!

IMAGINE.. You are looking for a telephone number of an acquaintance or the contact information of a company. Where are you going to search? In your personal address book, on the internet or in the well-know phonebook/Yellow Pages?


Figure 1 - The printed Yellow Pages of the Netherlands.

Research has shown, that 40-45% of all phone calls and clicks is generated by the information found in the old fashion manner.. the printed variant as displayed in figure 1. The amount of active users of these printed media has decreased dramatically from 7/8 million users to 5 million users in a couple of years.

Ben Legg, COO of European Directories Benelux, explains his choice of not immediately stop the production of phone books and Yellow pages. He states that immediate discontinuation have negative effects on smaller companies for whom many calls are being generated by the printed variants. However, the fact of decreasing usage is not being disregarded and therefore the production will be phased out in the coming three to five years and also a total disappearance is imaginable. Another option is changing the format in order to generate more turnover. Examples of adapted Yellow Pages, include topics, such as city guides and more specific topic related areas like beauty and health.

What do you think? Should the printed variants be banned? Do you use them yourself regularly? Let me know :)