Who Moved my Hovercheese?

Life passes at megabit speed. We have organized, streamlined and prioritized our days to maximize our time effectively balancing work, school, raising families, exercising, and, hopefully, playtime.  Time-efficiency increases by avoiding commercials watching TV on demand, skipping ads to immediately play your online video, or paying for the “No Ads” version of an app on my phone.  Companies, sensing a slipping advertising foothold thanks to our desire to escape when gifted with a break, are forced to step outside of the box to find creative new ways to buy time in our broadband stream of consciousness. Don’t they have an app for that? Funny you should ask…

“We’re on the driver’s side”
(C) 76

These days, companies have found innovative ways to mesh their products, their company vision statements with your ultimate escape and speak directly to their customer by creating image ads masked as phone apps.  The 76 gasoline company did a great campaign that immediately spoke to customers telling drivers that 76 hears them and understands what they deal with daily while in their car fighting traffic. There are enough worries but where to buy gas shouldn’t be one of them – “We’re on the drivers side!”  Now I didn’t do a formal scientific study, but I could swear that on a gameshow the other night, Survey said that “bickering kids” in the backseat comes 2^nd only to people with road rage.  76 answered this call creating the Quiet Game to help drivers find peace of mind without having to turn this car around.  Ironically, 76 also created a road rage-relieving app – check it out: http://www.76.com/RoadTools.aspx

Mobile Apps of Mass Destruction
(C) Cheetos (R) Brand

Sometimes adults simply want a reprieve from the threat of their own crazy lives.  Cheetos recently faced down this challenge with their “Mobile Apps of Mass Distraction.”  They brilliantly blend their lighter than air cheese product with the technology of the iProducts to create a hovercheese that one moves around obstacles by blowing on your microphone and tilting your iProduct to direct it and avoid being crunched.  In a second app, the personality of their Chester Cheetah’s roars as he declares a thumb war!  To reward loyal customers and players, the opportunity to scan codes off of purchased products will reveal extra game challenges and characters.   To learn more, of course, “Like”  their page: https://www.facebook.com/Cheetos.

Again, the goal here isn’t to corner people at the water cooler to push products on consumers, but to keep the conversations going on a more intimate, friendlier level and remind them that the companies look out for their customers – traits one often wants to share with their friends.  So, friends, have any friendly fun (or distraction from studying) to share with me?

by Sarah Harris

SOURCES:

Anonymous. (2013, February 5). Re: Cheetos brand extends social presence with new
‘Cheetos Mobile App of Massive Distraction’ games [PepsiCo global employee
newsletter]. Retrieved from http://goo.gl/ODIi1 

Anonymous. (2011, December). Re: Quiet Game App [Venables Bell & Partners website].
Retrieved from http://www.venablesbell.com/work/quiet-game-app