Coca-Cola has launched Dilli Dil Se marketing campaign with the help of interactive touch screen kiosks.

Developed and conceived by digital agency C3CUBE Multimedia for Coca-Cola India, the kiosk network is part of an integrated marketing programme to leverage sponsorship of the Delhi Daredevils during the DLF IPL 2009.

Touch screen kiosks are generally seen at airports, stations, banks and museums primarily aimed at facilitating customer transactions, information or ticketing.

However, this is the first time a kiosk network has been created solely for the purpose of promoting a sporting event and providing entertainment in a safe, fun-filled environment.

The self service kiosks turned out to be a major success as over 20,000 users between the ages of 13-30 logged onto the Dilli Dil Se kiosks network to cheer and celebrate the Delhi Daredevils steady climb to the top of the league tables and into the semi-finals at the DLF IPL 2009.

 The modern kiosk network integrated a large 19 inch letterbox touchscreen interface and a 32 inch LCD TV and provided dynamic content such as a promotion, a private social network, video mail, games, a juke box, Bluetooth downloads, SMS tweets, ads, 3d virtual tours, videos, team player game cards and much much more.

“This is a first-of-its-kind entertainment kiosk network” says Raja Choudhury, who has been building award-winning kiosks, websites, videos and TV programs in the US, UK and Indian markets since 1993.

“We believe such a network that integrates Web 2.0, flash games, a social network, Bluetooth, video mail, SMS and music over a 2 Mbps broadband connection, has not been deployed so far. Coca-Cola India believed in our vision and we were able to make this possible during the IPL.”

The new marketing strategy attracted key partners to the experiment by Coca-Cola India and C3CUBE during the DFL IPL event.

Company giants such as McDonald’s, Nirulas, DFL DT Malls, Kwality Group, Zenga Moblile Apps, Pind Baluchis, INOX cinemas, Vikings Game Zone, Airtel Broadband and Waves were just some of the key partners involved.

Mansoor Siddiqi, Director – Integrated Marketing Communications at Coca-Cola India said that “The Dilli Dil Se kiosk network was a fresh initiative in the marketing of a brand asset. It enabled local Delhi Daredevils fans to cheer their team on, in an involving and fun manner, and achieved engagement metrics beyond our expectations.”

Air New Zealand

The edgy marketing campaign due to depart on 13th October 2009 will see the flight depart from Los Angeles and arrive in Auckland, New Zealand attempting to attract American singles to visit New Zealand. However, it is open to other travellers as well. Round Trip ticket prices start at $780 (USD).

“New Zealand is often positioned as a thrill seeker, adventure destination, but it’s also very romantic too,” said Sarah Miller-Reeves, PR and sponsorship executive for the Americas at Air New Zealand. “This allows us to present the romantic nature of New Zealand… really engaging a wider cross section of American consumers.”

To engage the attention of potential single travellers to the flight, Air New Zealand created an online community using Ning, www.thematchmakingflight.com The online community has been designed for people to sign up, create profiles, interact with one another and pose flight-related questions to a moderator.

Once the consumer has booked their flight, additional features on the network are unlocked, such as the ability to become acquainted with the flight crew and send Facebook gifts to fellow passengers.

Once on-board, the flight will feature romantic movies, speed dating, and other matchmaking games to encourage interaction between those on-board.

There will also be a pre and post flight parties in Los Angeles and Auckland.

“Air New Zealand is always looking for fun ways to improve our customers’ experience, and we love the thought of playing matchmaker to help them find a mate in New Zealand or in the air,” said Roger Poulton, Air New Zealand’s vice president – the Americas. “If your dating profile says you enjoy fine wine and long walks on the beach, then New Zealand is your perfect place for romance. And let’s not forget our charming Kiwi accents—what more could an American want?”

Through its marketing campaign, Air New Zealand are playing with the idea that the cities are on opposite sides of the world and have different climates by incorporating the idea of ‘opposites attract’ into its messaging.

The airline company are also taking full advantage of social networking sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Flickr, and video site 12 seconds to boost the advertisement of the campaign.

Miller-Reeves said the airline, which is working on this campaign with its AOR, CRT/tanaka, will likely work with its usual partner organizations like Tourism New Zealand and the New Zealand Wine Growers to further promote the flight.

The matchmaking flight is one of many edgy marketing campaigns by Air New Zealand. Previous campaigns have included, the ‘Pink Flight’ for LGBT travellers and the ‘Cranial Billboard’ campaign in October.

“We definitely try to be more edgy and kind of push a little bit and really think outside the box,” Miller-Reeves said.

The British Red Cross has pulled in the support of actor Dougray Scott to launch a new campaign for Refugee Week.

As well as using the Brit actor, the charity is harnessing the power of social networking sites by calling out to for people to pledge their support to help refugees by collectively ‘changing their online status’ across their social networks, instant messenger and email accounts during Refugee Week, which is from 15^th-21^st June.



The charity said that refugees arriving in the UK are commonly labelled as a group, and not regarded as individuals.

In attempt to stress this issue, and get others to empathise with the feeling of loss of identity, the British Red Cross are asking citizens to sacrifice their online identities and change their status to ‘label’.

 The campaign idea was formulated by LBi and opens with a teaser film presented by Desperate Housewives star Dougray Scott.  

The viral film, which will be released on 26^th May, depicts the stories of refugees who have been helped by the British Red Cross.

 The viral will be available for viewing at www.lookbeyondthelabel.org and will run in conjunction with an email marketing campaign calling for everyone to alter their online status. 



The campaign can be located on Facebook, Twitter, MSN, Yahoo and Bebo, enabling users of these sites to get involved.

The British Red Cross will also be making history as the first charity to create an online movement to accrue support and fight prejudice via online profiles.  

 The campaign will be supported with a survey of public attitudes towards refugees, seeking to diminish negative beliefs around those who seek sanctuary in the UK. This will be targeted at newspapers, and Refugee Week events at Red Cross centres across the country.  

The Social Media and Marketing survey conducted by McCann Erickson found that 86 per cent of marketing experts thought that social media is more than just a one hit wonder.

Despite this postive feedback, 65.6 per cent of marketers say they don’t know how to use social marketing sites to advertise and promote their business.

At present, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are the most popular social networking sitesfor marketers, with 72.8 per cent, 42.4 per cent and 40.2 per cent having a presence on them respectively.

Many offices have revealed that IT departments have blocked access to sites like Twitter or Facebook-effectively stopping marketers monitoring how to fit their brand in with the ever expanding social trend.

Currently over half of UK businessess using social media sites use them to raise their profile or PR, followed by 48 per cent for networking and 30 per cent for advertising.

Joanna Randall, Head of PR at McCann Erickson, Bristol, said, “This study highlights that some of the UK’s major businesses are ignoring social media channels — but they do so at their peril.

“Word of mouth is now more powerful than ever — opinions can be shared with a global audience at the click of a button.

“We all have the ability to influence, both positively and negatively, and therefore as marketing professionals we should be considering how best to harness the power of social media.”

The Food Standards Agency has announced revised salt reduction targets for food brands to meet by 2012, but the British Retail Consortium warns the changes could put off consumers.

The voluntary targets have been set for 80 categories of food, with a crackdown on bread, meat products, cereals, ready-made meals and savory snacks to be the most effected.

Under the old target, for a loaf of bread, brands were asked to aim to reduce the amount of salt to 1.1 grams per 100 grams by 2010. This has now been changed to 1 gram per 100 grams by 2012.

For a can of baked beans the FSA initially recommended salt to be reduced to 0.8 grams per 100 grams by 2010, this has been amended to 0.63 grams per 100 grams to be met by 2012.

The new 2012 goals are part of the FSA’s ongoing pledge to have the daily average population intake of salt reduced to six grams a day.

FSA head of nutrition, Rosemary Hignett, says: “We welcome the reductions in salt levels that have already been achieved by industry, and its continued co-operation is vital if we are to continue to improve public health. The 2012 targets are challenging, but we also believe them to be achievable, though we will continue to monitor this.”

Later this year the FSA will launch further campaigns to increase the awareness around salt content in our food.

However, the British Retail Consortium expects the new targets to be a challenge to fulfill due to changes in consumer tastes.

Stephen Robertson, BRC director general, says: “Our members are Europe’s leaders in salt reduction and have made fantastic progress in the last decade. The FSA has rightly recognised these exceptional achievements.”

Robertson also said he was very dubious about the new targets, believing them to be harder to meet, as some customers will not accept the change in taste.

He added that it would be “perverse” to reduce the amount of salt in products to the point of lowering a product’s shelf life and perpetuating food waste.

The ‘Goo on the Loose’ campaign, developed by agency, CMW, has seen direct mailing ’security strongboxes’ sent to hardcore Goo fans who talk about the chocolaty brand on social networking sites.

The box contains Twisted bars, with an empty Twisted wrapper and a hole at the bottom of the box, were one of the chocolate bars has escaped.

The recipient of the box is then challenged to become an agent for Cadbury’s Intelligence Agency and track down the missing chocolate bar.

Online ads have been designed to direct potential agents to the site.

Visitors to the dedicated website www.cremeeggtwisted.com are able to sign up as agents and are tasked to track down the missing chocolate bars.

To aid agents in their search, CMW have mashed together Google Maps and Twitter to provide clues and targets which have been ear-marked for a ‘gooing’.

Visitors also have the chance to win a  £20,000 luxury trip to Morocco and for the top ten agents, a cash prize of up to £20,000.

Agents must sign up on the Creme Egg Twisted website before the 7th June.

BT is axing 15,000 jobs, which is around 10% of its workforce, over the coming year as it attempts to save money after reporting a huge drop into the red and warning that revenues will fall this year.

Over the last three months the company have suffered a £1.28bn loss, which has moved its annual loss to £134m.  BT, which has already implemented a pay freeze this year, affecting all staff, has also cut its dividend to shareholders. They said that the global CREDIT CRUNCH has created a huge hole in its £29bn pension fund, the largest private sector pension scheme in the UK.

The expected dividend is 1.1p, making the full-year payout to shareholders 6.5p for the year, a large decrease from last years 15.8p. It is hoped that this will save the company over £700m.

To repair the damage to the scheme, which has 360,000 members, British Telecom will up its annual payments to £525m over the next three years, from the current amount of £280m.

The increased pension contributions accompanied by the dismal performance of the company’s IT business, have forced BT into a cash squeeze.

The company said it plans to cut operating costs and capital expenditure by more than £1bn this year, it has already axed 15,000 jobs over the past year – a third more than had initially been anticipated – and the company admitted today that it expects to lose a similar amount this year.

Deputy general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), Andy Kerr said: “15,000 is a very challenging level of job losses especially on the back of last year’s reductions.

“We expect the majority of job losses to be third party – contractors and agency staff – as they were last year with many jobs being lost outside of the UK. However, this is a serious day for staff at BT.”

Kerr added that they were working closely with the company to ensure that losses made are voluntary, as ideally, they would like to keep permanent employees. 

Supermarket chain J Sainsbury fought back against the recession, unveiling full-year profits, up more than 11% at £543m.

The UK’s third biggest supermarket chain attributed the improvement to its efforts to help cash-strapped shoppers cope with the economic downturn.

It has been running a high profile “Switch and Save” campaign to push consumers to switch to lower-priced own-label alternatives. They also moved advertising focus away from indulgent food images to emphasis on price, with campaigns showing how to feed a family for £5 and make meals from leftovers.

Sales of the “Basics” range of foods are up 60%, while chief executive Justin King said its premium-priced Taste the Difference range is “flat to down a little.”

The chain reported that like-for-like sales, which exclude gains from new shop floor space, were ahead 4.5% in the year and total sales were up 5.7% to £20.4bn.

The supermarket said it has seen shopper numbers rise to 18m a week and has been welcoming customers from rivals including Tesco  and Marks & Spencer. 

Market leader Tesco has lost thousands of shoppers to hard discounters like Aldi and Lidl and is now relaunching its Clubcard to remind shoppers to stay loyal to the Tesco brand.

Prior to the good news for Sainsbury’s, market research group TNS showed that the store has a market share at 16.3% – its highest for several years – while Tesco has fallen from 31.8% to just over 30%.

The full-year profits growth is better than the increase posted by Tesco and Morrisons. King said his method, which has now delivered four successive years of like-for-like sales growth, had put the supermarket in “a strong position”: “Although consumer confidence in the UK has declined during the year, our performance improved as a result of the strength of the Sainsbury’s brand and actions we have taken to adjust our offer to changing customer trends.”

Enterprise Inns’ eradication of struggling landlords has cost the company £5m over the last six months as it fights against the downturn.

Britain’s second largest pub company announced that the recession had forced it to take action against more than 100 “poor quality and underperforming licensees” since last autumn.

This has caused a loss in sales, non-payment of rent, reopening costs and legal fees at a time whenthe pub industry has already been seriously afflicted by a lack of consumer spending.

Ted Tuppen, chief executive said Enterprise had been forced to take “robust action” as, the current financial climate has meant many underperforming landlords are unable to offload their pubs.

“In more normal times, an underperforming landlord could move on by selling the license to someone else, and we could get someone else good into the pub to repair the damage. But clearly there are many fewer buyers today,” Tuppen explained.

Across 7,616 pubs, Enterprise is spending £1.4m a month on financial assistance to help those in distress, on top of the £700,000 a month cost of freezing the price of five lager and ale brands.

“If people are genuinely struggling and will work with us, we are providing an awful lot of help,” said Tuppen.

Tuppen confirmed that Enterprise had profited from the good weather over Easter, but was very dubious about whether the worst of the financial crisis was over.

“Our economy is in such appalling shape that caution is the only sensible approach to take,” he said.

Like fellow pub boss Tim Martin of JD Wetherspoon, Tuppen is also appalled by the government’s approach to the industry.

“We have seen a 20% hike in duty in the last 12 months, which is pretty aggressive. The pub industry employs tens of thousands of people and generates billions in taxes, so you’d think the government would want to support it.”

The re design, under newspaper editor Geordie Greig, who joined from Tatler in March 2009, is planned to attract new advertisers, by offering more partnership opportunities and greater flexibility.

The re-designed newspaper hit the shops today with a new masthead, new writers and a change in content after its ‘Sorry’ campaign aimed to give the publication a fresh start last week.

Greig hopes that the re-vamp will re connect with the capital and that readers will relate better to the content.

“London is the best city and we intend to celebrate it,” he said. “We want to reconnect with the greatest city in the world and we are prepared to fight for what is best for London and Londoners.”

Greig added, “We are going to be more upbeat, more representative and more positive. We firmly acknowledge that we could have served London better in the past and we aim to set this right as from today.”

The paper now features new sections such as trends, fashion and style, health, property, London life and film and arts.

New column writers, writer Sam Leith and stand-up comic Chris Addison have also been brought on board.

Friday’s edition will still include the free new-look ES Magazine.

The Evening Standard’s website has also been changed to improve usability, provide clear navigation and new content. The homepage showcases content from the newspaper and features a new masthead and colour palette. Blogs and Twitter feeds will post up-to-the-minute news and opinion.

The newspaper was recently criticised over its latest ad campaign, which saw ‘Sorry’ posters spread across the capital and newspaper in a bid to start afresh with the new look.

The three-week campaign saw the newspaper attempt to bury forever the critical and negative approach it became known for under former editor Veronica Wadley.

The paper was recently sold to Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev for £1 in January by the Daily Mail and General Trust Publishing Group.