An example of marketing through a Facebook app. A recent example of Vitamin Water.

Usually, when marketers are trying to figure out protocols and wall posting type campaigns- this comes across as a very cutting edge approach- at, well, consumer insights using social applications.

Reported by insideFacebook, the app is not yet fully functional, and might be in ‘soft’ launch. Any which ways- that’s besides the point.The post is about what the app does.

So Vitamin water, a coke product, launched their own app on Facebook recently.

Called the Flavorcreator , it attempts to engage the audience by enabling them to participate in product development process.

Yes- the audience could select and vote for the flavors they want.

The entire process is across 3 stages- and the company would launch the crowdsourced flavor in December. So the engagement goes for about 3 months or so- with the marketing campaign. even after that, obviously there will be ample opportunities for engagement.

In the first stage, you could vote for your favorite flavor from a swirling tag cloud and that’s not all. You could see all the buzz around that flavor across various platfoems like Flickr (!), Twitter, Google search and a foody site foodgawker.

Not only that, you could ‘like’ a particular flavor from the result. That keeps the flavor in the database and will be used in the final flavor shortlisting.

The second stage attempts to keep users involved till the next stage when the product is shortlisted. You could play games on the app itself. There are three amusing games around the concept of ‘healthy is good’ that the audience could keep themselves amused with.

Of course, here they take advantage of the viral component of the Wall and your results could be posted on your wall where others could get intrigued and come to play the game.

The third step goes live in October where you design a graphic, a name and a blurb for your drink. They also use some celebrity power here and use 50 cents and Carrie Underwood to finalize the results. Quite cross media potential, in my opinion.

That’s it- a quick Saturday post on the latest campaign in the field of Social Media Marketing

Think about it.
Shalabh
(twitter @shalabhpandey)..oh Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/shalabhpandey

Take a look at this cool new technology, demonstrated by MIT grad student David Merrill. They call it Siftables. The demo is quite something. Although limited in its present shape and form- could be the future of interactive learning.

Wild imagination could point to a little similarity with Yahoo Pipes structure in the way you could create different units interact with each other (some people could kill me for this- but the hardcore pipes users can identify)- though obviously a very different app and use (and even scale).

Enjoy!

Hat tip: @JayOatway

What do you do when you are out of job in an economy that is going nowhere? Stay at home. And play games.

Sounds unreal? Well in times that are unreal, people do need some unreal vents it seems. And where better to vent of yur frustration in the escapism of blasting the head off an opponent in World of Warcraft?

Asian gaming love is legendry by now. Korea, Japan, China and even Singapore has some fanatic gaming lovers. There are others that have a sizeable base- India and Philippines to name some.

And now comes news from Taiwan. In Taiwan, Game manufacturers are having a blast- so much so that they might be worried about the economic meltdown coming to end. Demand for gaming increased so much that individual companies are  making like $20 million plus in  a month.

And what has gaming got to do with economy? The growth of the industry is being driven by the development of a so-called “stay-at-home economy” in which home recreation is becoming more popular. This stay at home economy comprises of a growing number of “new players” — the unemployed and people on unpaid leave.

Me thinks there are some things that don’t get effected too much with recession- entertainment and vices being two. And many times they are linked.

Great stuff. And comes at a time of bad news almost every damn day. Need to listen to more of this stuff.