Starbucks: Share on Facebook, Receive a Via Coupon

A few days ago, I highlighted the latest Carl's Jr. Facebook campaign and noted the impressive mix of product, virality, advertising and consumer benefit (aka coupons and rewards).

Below is a similar effort from Starbucks - who, at 7.5m fans, is one of the most prominent and innovative brands on Facebook. Users create custom mugs of coffee using Starbucks new Via product. Once the mug is created and customized, users are asked to share on Facebook - and are rewarded with Via coupons (which can also be shared). Also like Carl's Jr. - the coupon is only available for users who share their creation. In effect, it becomes an incentivized referral program.

The difference between the two campaigns is that Carl's Jr. occurs entirely on Facebook and Starbucks lives on their own website. My guess is that virality is greater for Carl's Jr. - who can advertise more effectively on Facebook and not suffer drop off between domains.

Once you have create your custom Starbucks Via mug, you can share your creation on Facebook.

The mug can include photos from your Facebook feed or your friends' feeds.

Your reward for creating and sharing is a coupon for Starbucks Via.

Carl's Jr Launches Viral Ad Campaign on Facebook. It's Great.

Remember Burger King's 2005 Subservient Chicken ad campaign? It is listed on Wikipedia as a notable example of "viral marketing campaigns" and was cited by Wired Magazine as one of the most successful viral ads to date. But while those campaigns can be very successful, they are tremendously difficult to emulate / predict / promote. Today - thanks to platforms like Facebook - viral means something different... and it is easier to create and foster. Here is Carl's Jr current viral ad campaign running on Facebook. Alongside screenshots, I will walk through the campaigns various components... which together are:

- a very compelling mix of advertising, product development and viral mechanics (feels as much 'Zynga' as it does advertisement)

- an effective mix of advertising and viral growth. Carl's Jr. is kickstarting the campaign with premium Facebook Ads and then relying on user-generated growth

- rewarding. We know from Facebook and their sampling platform that users love free stuff. Carl's Jr. provides that and rewards users for sharing.

Here is the Carl's Jr. premium ad running on Facebook. Any advertiser knows that creative is critical - particularly on Facebook. This combines a great call to action: "Fan Up for Free Food" and a racy photo.

Click and arrive at the Carl's Jr. Facebook Fan Page. It has a large Facebook Login button - as this is essentially an application within their fan page. Also notice the focus on creative again: "Click for Awesome" and the big "Spin Credits" which stand at "0".

Proof again that this is basically an application within their fan page: once you click the Facebook icon, you have to give the app permissions for profile access and graph data.

Once you allow permissions, you are granted a free spin from the Carl's Jr. wheel of free stuff. Everyone wins something - some prizes are big and others are not (like my free coffee and hash rounds with a breakfast burger purchase).

People love rewards and free stuff - and because everyone is a winner, everyone is incented to share with their friends. Here is your opportunity. Carl's Jr. does a good job with the creative here - which is a critical component for feed promotion - for instance, the image is unique to the prize.

Want more spins on the wheel of free stuff? Invite Facebook friends and, when they take a spin, you earn more credits: "every friend you get to spin the wheel of awesome wins you an extra spin!"

These invites are another opportunity for Carl's Jr. to drive awareness. So the flow and touch points are: - advertisement (where you can see which friends 'like' it) - fan page (becoming a fan appears in news feed) - promotion of your prize (via your news feed / wall post) - viral invites

Kindle: More 5-Star Reviews than any Amazon Product!

In my ongoing fascination / following of Amazon's marketing for the popular Kindle device (see February, March and April campaigns) - I have another to add: Amazon's most recent Kindle advertising includes Amazon product reviews and notes that the Kindle has "more 5 star reviews than any other product on Amazon."

Impressive. And compelling. And a nice inclusion of Amazon's reviews platform (which, in my opinion, is the web's best) and a promotion of their active community (particularly Gloria from Oklahoma!):

Also interesting: how much promotion Amazon has given to Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8: "Your Amazon Browser." I am not entirely sure what that means and I am not inclined find out as I am a happy Chrome user:

Facebook's New "Promote Your Post" Ads

Facebook has become very good at integrating revenue streams into key user flows.... effectively creating powerful upsell opportunities. For example, when you create a Facebook Page, you are promptly greeted with dynamically generated ads to drive fans.

Below is the newest upsell / integration: when page owners post to their feeds, a prompt is given to "create an ad to reach potential fans with your post. You only pay when people Like or click to your Page from the ad." The ad is customizable but is a combination of your post's content and your page's formatting. Also compelling: Facebook presents estimated reach of those ads based on the proposed basic targeting - namely users who are not already fans AND are friends of fans.

I have been preparing a blog post on what I call placing products "in the river"... more to come on this, but this is a great example of delivering simple product to the right audience / user at the right time:

HP's Sarah Jessica Parker Commercial

HP's newest commercial features Sarah Jessica Parker (which is very good)... but if you weren't familiar with the campaign, you could easily mistake it for an Apple advertisement (with its tablet references, swiping and floating applications):

Levis Promotes Social Shopping with Social Ads

Small update from this weekend's post on Levis great Facebook / Open Graph integration: they are now actively promoting the site with Facebook premium ads. In addition to promoting the Facebook integration, they are providing free shipping for all of today's purchases. "Levi.com is new! Share your favorite jeans with the new Facebook "like" button. Free shipping any order today only."

This is the only ad creative I have seen - but I imagine something that is more colorful and more social is more likely to be clicked. It is tough to convey social AND product within the limited space, but Levi.com has captured it very well... the ads are not there yet. Nevertheless, interesting to see that the Facebook integration comes with an integrated ad campaign!

Sprout Enables HTML5 & Flash Ads - Simultaneously

After last week's Apple announcement, I declared HTML5 as one of the winners. Generally, I believe that mobile represents a significant change in our web usage / consumption... and HTML5 plays an increasingly important role in that experience. This certainly is true for publishers...

... and increasingly true for advertisers - who have to create units that intelligently work in different formats, locations, etc. Sprout's now allows simple creation of rich-ad units that work in both HTML5 and Flash.

The motto: 'Build once. Publish anywhere.'

Below is a demo of Sprout's 'Engage Ads' platform - showcasing the units in both HTML5 and Flash.

View more on TechCrunch: "Sprout Now Lets You Simultaneously Build Rich Ads In Both HTML5 And Flash"

Vitaminwater Connect: 100,000 Free Bottles Via Facebook

Vitaminwater has introduced its newest flavor: Vitaminwater Connect (named after Facebook Connect)... and they are giving away 100,000 free bottles of Connect to their 1.2 million Facebook fans. If you remember, over the last few months, Vitaminwater ran a major Facebook campaign that allowed fans to create their own flavors and vote on the best concoctions: "made by fans, for fans on Facebook": The announced flavor is Vitaminwater Connect... which will arrive in stores shortly and carry the Facebook logo on it:

As it prepares to hit shelves, Vitaminwater is giving away free bottles to the first 100,000 Facebook fans who request one. Users request their free bottle via their fan page and the coupon "tab":

Once you request the bottle, two interesting things happen:

1. you are encouraged to share your discovery to your Facebook friends... which is how I found this offer

2. you receive a confirmation page that also changes the fan page's logo to denote that you have accepted the offer (notice the "request accepted" portion of the graphic)

As we have seen time and time again, people love offers, samples and customized 'stuff' (product, content, etc). With the Connect flavor campaign, Vitaminwater has effectively crowdsourced the flavor, marketing and launch.

Hurry and get your free bottle by becoming a fan at http://www.facebook.com/vitaminwater