A new campaign from Coca-Cola’s energy brand Vitaminwater is crowdsourcing its next flavor rollout and offering a $5,000 prize.

Facebook members can download a shareable application that lets them vote for their choice among a handful of flavor proposals, specify the nutrient requirements they’d like in the new product, and give the new item its name, label and ad copy.

The development process begins with consumers downloading the applicationand voting for their favorites among a group of flavor proposals. The list of those proposals will be devised by the Vitaminwater folks after listening in to online conversations in places such as Google News, Twitter, Flickr and the foodie blog. The more a flavor is discussed in those communities, the more likely it is to make the list of the top 10 contenders that Web users will get to vote on. The list is scheduled to be thrown open for voting in the next two weeks.

Besides choosing the winning flavor, FlavorCreator app users will also be able to take a quiz that assesses their fitness levels. Those results will be used to help determine what vitamins and minerals the new drink should deliver and what health benefits it can convey.

Finally, a design contest launching from the Facebook app in October will ask app users to come up with a name, label design and package copy for the new flavor. The winning label will be selected in December by Vitaminwater celebrity spokespeople Carrie Underwood and rapper 50 Cent, and the entrant who supplied them will win $5,000.

The new Vitaminwater product is expected to be on store shelves by March 2010.

Vitaminwater, acquired when Coca-cola bought parent Glaceau in 2007, ran an extensive TV campaign during the March madness basketball finals to promote its Facebook page. Launched in February of this year, the page now has more than 400,000 fans.

Coca-cola is currently the subject of a class-action lawsuit by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which alleges that Vitaminwater’s product health claims are unsubstantiated.

Source: Promo Mag

Monster? Red Bull? Pfft. Duracell has been powering the world before you were but a gleam in Xtreme sports’ eye.

Yes, Duracell has an energy drink—with a masterful coppertop can design—that’s actually been out in the Czech market since 2008. Sadly, the drink doesn’t zap its consumers with a jolt of electricity after plugging into some sort of oversized backpack, instead defaulting to energy drink mainstays like caffeine, taurine, B vitamins and good old sugar to get the job done. Then again, something tells me that NiCd doesn’t taste so great anyway.

Source: Gizmodo

Monster? Red Bull? Pfft. Duracell has been powering the world before you were but a gleam in Xtreme sports’ eye.

Yes, Duracell has an energy drink—with a masterful coppertop can design—that’s actually been out in the Czech market since 2008. Sadly, the drink doesn’t zap its consumers with a jolt of electricity after plugging into some sort of oversized backpack, instead defaulting to energy drink mainstays like caffeine, taurine, B vitamins and good old sugar to get the job done. Then again, something tells me that NiCd doesn’t taste so great anyway.

Source: Gizmodo

Subway in partnership with Live Nation is offering discounted concert tickets for shows with Creed, Nickelback, Stained, Def Leopard and more in various cities across the U.S.

Here’s a way to get the cheap ticket without having to buy a $5 foot long:

Simply choose your location and venue from the list and click “find tickets” You will then be prompted to enter your promo code. Select “Subway $5 tickets” and use: subway$5tix You will see your cheap $5 ticket added to the shopping cart.

Looks like $5 tickets are still available for the Pretenders show on 8/14 in Washington, DC

Apple is working with the four largest record labels to stimulate digital sales of albums by bundling a new interactive booklet, sleeve notes and other interactive features with music downloads, in a move it hopes will change buying trends on its online iTunes store.

The talks come as Apple is separately racing to offer a portable, full-featured, tablet-sized computer in time for the Christmas shopping season, in what the entertainment industry hopes will be a new revolution. The device could be launched alongside the new content deals, including those aimed at stimulating sales of CD-length music, according to people briefed on the project.

Physical album sales have fallen sharply as music retailing has evolved from CD album purchases in retail outlets to digital downloads of songs from online stores.

Although consumers continue to purchase large amounts of digital music, they are buying individual tracks rather than higher-margin albums.

Apple is working with EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music Group, on a project the company has codenamed “Cocktail”, according to four people familiar with the situation.

The labels and Apple are working towards a September launch date for the project, which aims to boost interest in albums by bundling liner notes and video clips with the music.

“It’s all about re-creating the heyday of the album when you would sit around with your friends looking at the artwork, while you listened to the music,” said one executive familiar with the plans.

Apple wants to make bigger purchases more compelling by creating a new type of interactive album material, including photos, lyric sheets and liner notes that allow users to click through to items that they find most interesting. Consumers would be able to play songs directly from the interactive book without clicking back into Apple’s iTunes software, executives said.

“It’s not just a bunch of PDFs,” said one executive. “There’s real engagement with the ancillary stuff.”

The music companies declined to comment.

Album sales in the US fell 14 per cent in 2008 to 428.4m units, according to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks retail sales data.The new touch-sensitive device Apple is working on will have a screen that may be up to 10 inches diagonally.

It will connect to the internet like the iPod Touch – probably without phone capability but with access to Apple’s online stores .

Apple is gambling that it can succeed where everyone else has flopped, including Microsoft, which tirelessly pushed a tablet-ready version of its Windows operating system as a personal favourite of founder Bill Gates.

The entertainment industry is hoping that Apple, which revolutionised the markets for music players and phones, can do it again with the new device.

“It’s going to be fabulous for watching movies,” said one entertainment executive.

Book publishers have been in talks with Apple and are optimistic about their services being offered with the new computer, which could provide an alternative to Amazon’s Kindle.

Source: FT.com

UX designer Dustin Curtis sends American Airlines comp front page redesign, after horrible experience trying to book a flight @ aa.com.  Check out the initial email here and response from AA here 

UX designer Dustin Curtis sends American Airlines comp front page redesign, after horrible experience trying to book a flight @ aa.com.  Check out the initial email here and response from AA here 

Owen Voorhees may seem like an unlikely tech entrepreneur because he’s just 11-years old. But for the last nine months he climbed a mountain of doubt, overcame unfamiliar programming languages and poured over college level computer science textbooks–all to develop his very own iPhone application. Last month, his app, MathTime, debuted in the App Store and quickly rose to No. 13 in the paid, educational apps section.

See full post here

Is the bizarro King overdue for a dethroning? That’s the contention of The Atlantic’s business blogger, Derek Thompson. Citing the fact that Burger King has increasingly lost ground to McDonald’s and Wendy’s since the advent of Crispin’s surreal “King” marketing campaign, Thompson concludes that ad push isn’t working:  

“To the surprise of nobody, Burger King’s horrible, creepy advertisement campaign is not working, and the company finds itself falling further behind McDonald’s according to just-released figures. This strikes a huge blow to the idea that what Americans want from their fast food joint is a Bobblehead King doll who sneaks into your bed, raps about square butts, and terrorizes you from outside your bedroom window. Yes, those were advertisements for hamburgers.”

“In other words, thank you America, for compelling our elites to put the strategicback into strategic advertising.”

Gawker is also piling on. But not so fast. The Ad Age article that’s got them both shouting “A-ha!” actually paints a more subtle picture (despite its attention grabbing headline):

“The argument can be made, moreover, that BK was at the right place at the wrong time. Eyeing higher profit margins, BK focused its marketing guns on more expensive items targeted to so-called super fans, young men who theoretically care more about how “Meat’Normous” a burger is than how much it costs and who tend to be the most vociferous fast-food consumers. A smart strategy — until BK got caught flat-footed by a recession that played to McDonald’s sweet spot: the value proposition it clearly owned and had honed over decades.”

“And so the creative approach that put BK on the advertising map for the first time in years seems to have been reconsidered of late as the chain runs spots promoting its $1 Whopper Jr. in heavy rotation. “The mistake BK would readily admit now is that they didn’t promote [value],” said Morgan Stanley analyst John Glass. “That’s why they’re playing catch-up now.”

Before continuing, I should say a couple things in the interest of full disclosure: In 2003, before I began working in journalism, I was an analyst on the leveraged buyout deal for Burger King. Crispin was hired after I finished my work there, but I did work on the team that was turning around Burger King’s marketing–specifically, on its product innovation, not its advertising. I have had no contact with Burger King or my former buyout-industry employers in over five years.  

With that out of the way, I want to point to the most salient fact about the fast food industry that Ad Age, Gawker, and The Atlantic missed: Advertising is a weak lever to effect change in a sprawling, franchised operation like Burger King. Why? First off, one of McDonald’s historically brilliant moves was to own the land that its franchises sit upon–and to lease that land back to the franchise operator. Burger King–and most of its other competitors–don’t have that arrangement. And that matters because as the land owner, McDonald’s has leverage in redesigning its stores that its competitors sorely lack. Witness how well McDonald’s is overhauling the design of its stores, and how lackluster those efforts have been at Burger King and Wendy’s. Granted, part of that problem is that Burger King needs to hire better designers–as these hideous designs prove–but the fact remains that they can only do so much. Moreover, restaurant placement is also vitally important, and McDonald’s has the best land in the business. 

Source: FastCompany