Promo Interactive

If you’ve seen it in a theater,you may know by now that James Cameron’s “Avatar” is the most innovative product to hit American movie screens since D. W. Griffith said, “Hey, maybe some close-ups would make the Civil War more interesting.” Whatever you may think of the story, if you’re like most audience members, you’re going to be blown away by computer-generated animation that’s at once totally lifelike and completely unlike life as we’ve ever seen it in the movies.

That’s why I was so anxious to get to my local McDonald’s and order up a Big Mac: because the quick-service chain went to great lengths to ballyhoo an elaborate tie-in with the movie’s Dec. 18 launch, promising everything from online game experiences (including some unlocked by access codes from Avatar packaging) to my particular interest: a set of augmented-reality “Avatar Thrill Cards” available on Big Mac packages that, held up to a computer camera, offered interactive visits to the movie’s planet Pandora.

The Internet reality may be augmented, but the commercial reality is that among the several McD stores near my office and home, I couldn’t find one that offered the Thrill Cards in the first five days after the movie opened. more

Can social media save the American auto industry?

No, probably not. But a well-mounted social campaign may be able to establish a U.S. brand identity—among a targeted youth audience– for a European-designed and -made car that’s already a hit overseas. And for auto maker Ford, that will be good enough. more

Editor’s Note: I like this YouTube Symphony Orchestra project. It seems like one of the things Web video was built for, helping creative people collaborate and share content with flexibility and customization. I like it so much that, now that the 90 orchestra members have been chosen and are headed for New York to rehearse and then play their concert on April 15, I’m rerunning the original post on the assumption that many people had better things to read on Dec. 23, when it first appeared. more

The contest isn’t over till you’ve watched the game films. When it comes to evaluating the marketing done around the Super Bowl, those replays can yield a wide variety of results.

That’s especially true this year, with buzz marketing becoming an ever-more-accepted tactic for creating brand awareness and association on the Web. That gives analysts more tools with which to judge the hits and misses in a big broadcast event like Super Bowl XLIII—even if those tools sometimes produce results that contradict other measures, such as search impact, or even themselves.

And yet, everyone seems to like the MC Hammer/ emcee McMahon parley by direct response marketer Cash4Gold.com. more

YouTube, the video-sharing Web destination that has become a hit with viewers but has yet to find its business model with advertisers, staged its first live event over the weekend with a real-world gathering of its viral video stars.

The two-hour event, held at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, was streamed live over a branded channel at www.youtube.com/live. Billed on the YouTube blog as “a celebration of the vibrant communities that exist on the site”, the event included a slew of performers who have become well-known on the video aggregator site for their garage-made clips, along with other established figures from the movie and music industries whose careers and sales have reached new heights thanks to YouTube. more

In Mexico, “naco” is a slang term that translates loosely as “tacky” or “ghetto”—the Mexican equivalent of “redneck.” It was originally a term used by the Spanish colonists to insult the indigenous people of Mexico. These days, it’s more often applied to a lifestyle lived without style—low class, in fact.

But just as comedian Jeff Foxworthy has rehabbed red necks, a new young generation in Mexico is co-opting the “naco” name and using it to celebrate their personal uniqueness. more