J I B B E R - J A B B E R

I've always wanted something that was personalised. But darn my crazy parents for attempting to "Australianise" of my Vietnamese name and not going far enough meant that NO ONE will ever have Lynh inscribed on any key chain or water bottle.

But not anymore.

That's right, I can get my name on a virtual Coke can. Or a real one if I'm willing to travel out to one of the Westfield locations that personalise them.

In Coca-Cola's recent integrated marketing campaign they ask their consumers to 'Share a Coke'. On cans instore, they have 150 common names replacing the Coca-Cola logo and also on their famous billboards much like the one at Kings Cross in Sydney.

Smart? Maybe. But what I don't get is the point of the virtual Coke.

But who would want to do it? I mean I do. Purely because the chances of my name occurring on an actual can is 0, like fo sho. But I am not allowed to send one to myself.

Therefore hacking onto boyfriend's account gave me this.

And I am satisfied!

But really, who would want to send a virtual Coke. To be quite honest, I am not too sure I understand the concept in the real world. Who would want to buy a Coke can with someone else's name on it? I would think that Coke's are bought for the individual and only in rare cases are the Cokes bought for another. And then again, one would be biased towards the names that are on the cans. I know people say that they won't care and will just grab a Coke, but seriously, if I saw a name of someone I disliked on my can, I would not have positive feelings associated with the brand.

So yeah, I like how there are different mediums being integrated into this campaign, but I question the virtual one. Other than for the novelty of it, and I guess it would spread the brand name.

So here's my question. Would you send someone a virtual Coke can? And who to and why?




So this is my last blog post for the semester.

Special thanks to Wags - best lecturer ever! For making me want to come to these 9AM lectures and even if they were to be at 8AM, I'm sure I would've still rocked up!

And as for this blog...I might continue it in the future, if something comes up. I think I will actually, so stay tuned.



But for now, leave a comment answering the questions above. Or just writing random stuff. This is the last blog post, so help me get a HD!!!!

I love the Amazing Race! And one day I hope to be one of those teams dashing across the world in the quest to win $1 million.

Maybe.

One day.

But how is this related to e-marketing?

The CBS has just created a FourSquare page for the show where followers can be updated when teams arrive at different destinations!

Click on this link to view the FourSquare page: Amazing Race Foursquare page

Ingenious! It's like the two were made for eachother! But I'm not too sure whether its the teams checking in while they are actually travelling in real time, or whether they are checking in with the show while its being shown on television.

I think the first option would be better as this would generate interest leading up to the actual television show. It will keep loyal viewers interested throughout the week, instead of the two hours once a week.

Also, whilst watching the show last night, I saw use of social media actually in the show.

So what happened was one of the contestants dropped their passport at a servo and was frantically running around trying to find it.

An earlier team had driven passed the servo and asked some randoms for directions to the airport. In what was a possible total coincidence, the randoms picked up the passport and Tweeted:

"So #TheLife gets crazier so after being randomly filmed for the amazing race I see that one of them dropped there passport!!"

Obviously someone from the social media team picked up on this Tweet and asked the kind gentleman to bring the passport to the airport if he could.

Which he did. What luck!

Amazing what one Tweet can do!

So here's my question for you this week.
Are there any other shows or anything of the sort that, like the Amazing Race, has a social media forum that was meant to be with one another?
And do you think that the Amazing Race has enhanced their brand by adding this function?