Revolutionary water purification bottle

Watch on TED video with Michael Prichard demonstrating a truly revolutionary water purification bottle called Lifesaver.  Click here to watch.

More on this innovation, click here.

The carelessness of digital photography

As much as I love my new digital Canon and my iPhoto albums, there's one thing I miss from the days of film photography.  When you put a Kodachrome film in your camera, you knew you were rather limited to 36 photos which made you value every single shot.  There were two costs elements associated to amateaur phtography:  the price of the film and the price of developing. That forced you to be more attentive, selecting the right angle, the right moment, the right aperture, the right shutter speed, right lighting.... before the click.

Today, the limitless notion of digital has created a generation of careless photographers who don't value the end result because they can take hundreds of shots and easily delete whatever they don't like.  You can see this at any school function.  Click... click... click... click. 

Yes, technology has brought us amazing rewards for those who love photography like me.   Immediately being able to share a special moment with a friend on another continent is priceless. What we shouldn't allow happen is become careless when it comes to photography just because we can shoot thousands of photos and not be worried about the cost at the local photo shop.

No more vanilla, strawberry or chocolate

What happens with those who market mass consumer products where it's more difficult to provide consumers with true customization?  It seems like expanding choice and inviting your die-hard fans to collaborate on what's next is picking up momentum. 

Two cool projects that I absolutely love...

Take a look at what Mountain Dew did last month....

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Walkers - UK's top-selling potato chips - also ran an amazing promotional campaign this year called "Do Us A Flavor" inviting British consumers to create a movement in favor of their favorite flavor.

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It seems like the days of "we only have vanilla, chocolate or strawberry" are over. It was about time.

Customizing my Mini

Just got back from the Mini Cooper dealership here in Sao Paulo.  The Mini Cooper S I ordered has finally arrived (after a dreadful wait).   My 7-year old daughter and I had loads of fun at the Mini Lounge selecting the accessories to make it my Mini.... bonnet stripes, checkered-flag mirror caps, 17" web spoke alloy tires.  

Customization is a beautiful and powerful marketing concept.  

As a consumer, the design-your-own movement is an empowering experience.  Consumers feel special, unique, differentiated, which ultimately builds a greater affinity for the brand.   

"No More Awkward Turns"... brilliant!

On my flight back from NY last night, I saw this wonderful print ad for the Dyson Ball vacuum cleaner.  When a new product has a truly revolutionary design, it makes the work of advertising so simple and powerful...

More augmented reality applications

After our Doritos augmented reality case in Brazil, I received e-mails from friends with other real cool applications using the same technology.

James Maul, from Joinville, sent me the story of this new iPhone application from Acrossair - a service that helps people locate subway lines in New York and San Francisco...

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My friend Stuart Meyler told me about a Japanese company called Tonchidot that developed an amazing social augmented reality mobile location-based service called Sekai Camera. The application merges the virtual and real world by using a digital device as a viewfinder. Take a look at a video presented at TechCrunch...

A Movement to save the neighborhood café

One of the best stories I heard last week was about how neighbors got together to save a Brooklyn café from bankruptcy.  The café, called Vox Pop, is not an ordinary coffee shop but a place where people are motivated to express their opinions, have a latte, read a community paper or listen to live music.

Click here to listen to the CNN story...

It's fascinating to see how tough times opens the doors to new ideas... including a bit of communal capitalism.

Appreciation for eating local

This week, my Family and I are spending vacation in Connecticut (which is why I have been less active with my blogging).  It's great to see how the community supportive agriculture and the local food movement is growing and becoming mainstream.  The other night we had dinner at The Dressing Room, an absolutely magnificent restaurant that they position as 'homegrown', located next to the Newport Playhouse.  All ingredients used are from local farms and producers.

 

The next day, we went to The Hickories Farm in Ridgefield for blueberry picking. For our daughters, it's wonderful that they can pick fruits, take them home and help mom bake a pie.  It helps them have a greater appreciation for how things go from farm to table.

At Whole Foods, there are banners throughout the store showcasing some of their local suppliers  signed "food from around here".

It's clear that there is a growing segment of the population who love the idea of eating local food. People who are interested in supporting their local farmers and communities.  People who are looking for the simple tastes and aromas of more natural and organic eating.... close to home. Wasn't this how our grandparents used to do?  

It will be interesting to see how food marketers will leverage this trend at a broader scale.

What's in the head of Brazilian Millenials? And how this inspired us to develop a new potato chip

We start the month of July airing our new Ruffles TV campaign to launch a limited edition called Ruffles Do Seu Jeito ('your way'). Two new flavors developed with the input from our online collaboration panel. There's a guy version: BBQ Ribs. And one for girls: cream cheese.

For those who don't know Portuguese, the first spot starts saying that we got into the head of girls to find out what they like in order to develop a new flavor for Ruffles. Well, they like guys, shoes, guys, shoes... and to kiss (which in Portuguese rimes with cheese). So, the joke is that that's what inspired us to launch a cream cheese-flavored potato chip for girls.

When it comes to the guys, it's pretty much single-minded: girls, girls, girls. In this case, the joke is that girls came from ribs, which inspired us to make a BBQ Rib-flavored potato chip.

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The campaign was created by AlmapBBDO.

Promoting Innovation Challenge Brasil 2009

Quick video to promote PepsiCo's sponsorship of the Innovation Challenge Brasil 2009 coordinated by Insper - one of Brazil's most prestigious business schools. We're excited to see creative ideas from students from around the country on how to grow the Brazilian salty snacks category. The competition starts in the following weeks.

Cool backpacks made of waste

For the past 6 months, I have been personally involved in a very cool sustainability project that was finally launched. Here at PepsiCo Brazil, we are converting waste from potato chip bags into backpacks and messenger bags.

In association with TerraCycle, we're replicating in Brazil the upcycling model that has been working in the U.S. market for a years. The project serves both an environmental purpose removing tons of packaging waste from landfills, as well as, a social cause since revenues support 250 families in low-income communities who produce the items.

This is how it works...

TerraCycle is partnering with waste management cooperatives to collect our snack bags. Bags are fused into fabric which is then sent to Solidarium...

Solidarium coordinates the production of the backpacks which is carried out in low-income communities of Curitiba...

The items are then shippped to our first customer: Wal*Mart Brazil...

... and merchandised in an exclusive display that combines chip bags with the upcycled items.

One of the things I love about this project is that it is the result of true collaboration. Tom Szaky and Richard Perl from TerraCycle in New Jersey providing us with their amazing experience from the North-American market, Tiago Dalvi from Solidarium who brings their experience with social work, Wal*Mart who supported us since the beginning of the project, the Future Group who developed the in-store presence, Claudia Pires - the marketing manager who is working with me on the project and shares the same passion I have for sustainability - and Sergio Julio and Camila Feola from the R&D Team who are the packaging experts.

Another example of the power of collaboration. All of us working together with a dream of building a sustainable upcycling model for snack bags in Brazil.... with a nice social story behind it. 

Fun project.

Innovation Challenge Brazil

As you probably know by now through this blog, I truly believe marketers can benefit from a more collaborative approach to innovation. So, when Insper - one of Brazil's leading business schools - told us that they were bringing the Innovation Challenge to Brazil, we immediately decided to become one of the corporate sponsors.

Innovation Challenge is the world's largest competition involving MBA students who compete to present innovation ideas to sponsoring companies. Each company posts a specific challenge and students from around the country team up to generate innovative solutions that meet the brief. This is a wonderful opportunity for students to work on real case studies and companies have the opportunity of interacting with the next generation of leaders who will certainly bring a fresh perspective to their business models.

For two weeks, teams from different parts of Brazil will research, discuss and prepare their business plans. Submissions will be evaluated by a specialist panel leading to a final presentation on the Isper campus.

This initiative reinforces our commitment here at PepsiCo Brazil to support a more inclusive collaborative innovation process that started over a year ago with an online panel we have with 40 college students helping us with our brands targeting millenials.

Can't wait to see the results.

Selling apartments through Twitter

This week Tecnisa - a local construction company - sold its first apartment through Twitter.  

This is not an ordinary construction company, Tecnisa has built an amazing reputation as a business that gets digital like no one else in the marketplace.  They were the first Brazilian company to launch a corporate blog, they send podcasts to buyers using engineers explaining each phase of the construction and they have a solid track record of online sales.  Many people who are in the market to buy condos have been following Tecnisa on Twitter.   The news this week is that a man took advantage of a promotion announced through Twitter and purchased a R$500,000 / US$250,000 apartment, the one you see below.

The mastermind behind Tecnisa's digital strategy is Romeo Bussarello, a charismatic high-intensity marketing talent I have known for years.  

He's always a step ahead of the competition and you never quite know what he's up to next.  While so many of us marketers are figuring out how to better connect through social networks, this guy is making it happen.  

Great story.

More on Doritos' augmented reality

Cool site Contagiousmagazine.com featured a story today on our Doritos® Sweet Chili 

augmented reality story...

Ruffles at the Jonas Brothers Concert

Two of our brands, Ruffles® and Toddy®, sponsored the Jonas Brothers Concert here in São Paulo this past Sunday.  

In a jam-packed stadium with 60,000 fans, it was an awesome opportunity for us to launch our new limited edition Ruffles Do Seu Jeito ('Ruffles Your Way') - which comes in a flavor for girls and one for guys.  The guy version is a big wave potato chip with a masculine BBQ Ribs flavor and the girl version is a thin-sliced potato chip with a soft cream cheese flavor.  

The in-stadium brand activation was carried out by the Future Group.  The promoters were instructed to hand out samples according to the positioning.  Next to me, there was a girl asking to sample the guy BBQ flavor.  The answer she got was:  "Bring a male friend and you'll get your sample" which was a great way to promote interaction among the crowd.

Here are two pictures I took of consumers sampling the product.  I had fun playing photographer...

From T-Shirts to Tombstones

University of Sāo Paulo Professor Americo Pellegrini Filho just published a book about popular culture expressed through communication found in signs and street art. The book, entitled Comunicação Popular Escrita ('Written Popular Communication'), is a result of 20 years of research after traveling to 107 countries with over 10,000 messages filed which include written communication found on t-shirts, bumper stickers, public restrooms, grafitti and even tombstones. The publication comes with a CD-rom with photos and explanations of the cultural similarities and differences the author found.

For those who work with communication, this seems like a must-have. 

Observing street vendors

Every Sunday coming home back from golf, I drive  through a busy intersection where a street vendor 'owns' that specific corner.  I've been observing how we works and it's amazing how much you can learn from the guy.  I noticed that he has a primary product he sells:  car chargers and mobile phone accessories in general.  Today, as he approached my car, he saw I had a BlackBerry on the passenger seat. He immediately pulled a car charger and said it was for my phone.  This all happens in a split second.  He has to work fast during the 3 minutes while the traffic light is red.  You can't get faster customer service than that.

It's interesting to see that he also operates with a helper who sells occasional products according to the calendar and season. A few weeks ago, during the Sao Paulo soccer finals between Corinthians and Santos, his helper was selling flags for fans on their way to the stadium (when I asked him how many flags he had sold by 12 noon, he said 30).  Today, it was Mother's Day here in Brazil, so sure enough, they were selling red rose bouquets.  Similar to what we do back at the office with limited-editions or with our promotional calendar.  However, street vendors change product inventory at incredible speed.

These street-smart salesmen are the very best in their craft.  Thousand of hours in the heat and rain, interacting with millions of drivers has made them hyper-sensitvie to what sells and what doesn't, flexible to adapt and change their product offerings according to what's happening in pop culture. Whether it's carnival season or there's a Madonna concert coming up or the Brazil National Team is playing on Sunday, these guys don't miss a beat.  They know that having something different to sell and being relevant to what is going on, means a better chance to increase their daily income.  

I'm sure there's a lot we can learn from street vendors.  I'll continue my observations next Sunday... 

A snapshot of consumers the moment they are interacting with the new Doritos flavor

A few weeks ago, I posted the story of our Doritos Sweet Chili launch and how we are using augmented reality on-pack. One of the very cool things about this technology is that, as a marketer, you can go online and see hundreds of photos of consumers the moment they released their Doritos Lovers. It's a glimpse of that very moment they were impacted by the technology. You see their expressions and how they interact with the virtual character.

How many marketing initiatives we end up deploying and never get to see the consumer the moment he is being impacted?

Looking at all the pictures on doritos.com.br is fascinating and it shows how technology can play an awesome role in terms of experiential marketing.... with the advantage that, in this case, we can actually see how our consumers are having fun with our product.

Pretty cool stuff.

New world-class Science Museum in São Paulo

Yesterday, I took my daughters to São Paulo's new science museum called Fundação Catavento - a fascinating world-class learning experience.  We only covered the first floor dedicated to space, Brazilian geography & wildlife, the human body, as well as, a hall with fun games teaching kids the principles of physics.  The space is very well designed, providing children with all sorts of fun interactive ways to learn.  We will explore the second floor next time we go.

The museum is located in the beautiful Palácio das Indústrias, which used to be the town hall, in a deteriorated section of São Paulo.  I hope this museum will help revitalize the city's downtown area, similar to what has happened in many other urban areas like in St.Paul with the Science Museum of Minnesota or Birmingham with the McWane Science Center.  

I was thrilled to read that the mastermind behind this museum is a man named Sérgio Freitas, an electric engineer who became a well-known bank executive.  His vast intellectual curiosity led him to travel the world visiting museums and selecting interactive displays and exhibits that became the basis for the Catavento project.  

São Paulo is fortunate to have a man like Sérgio Freitas who leaves a wonderful legacy to all of us.

Where's my Mini?

Last February, I heard that BMW had finally decided to officially open Mini Cooper dealerships in Brazil.  So even before the official launch, I made a down payment to secure my name on the waiting list and went to the online configurator to build my dream model.  A friend of mine and I shared a 48-hour test drive of a beautiful horizon blue Mini Cooper S which was a lot of fun.  I was told that my car would arrive in March.  A few weeks ago, I went to the opening of Sao Paulo's first show room but I'm still waiting for my very own Mini.  Last time I called, they told me it is scheduled to arrive late May.

The waiting has made me think that there's a huge opportunity for an import auto brand to provide an online personalized service where a buyer could visually see the different phases of the process.  The Mini brand is all about customization, from different choices of alloy tires to roof designs, mirror caps and bonnet stripes.  To reinforce this positioning, wouldn't it be cool to see images of your Mini being prepared for shipment, being loaded on the cargo ship, views of the journey, the unloading at the Port of Santos?   

It would certainly be a powerful marketing concept. 

World Digital Library

The Unesco has launched its World Digital Library that allows free access to amazing content from institutions like the Library of Congress, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Qatar Foundation and Yale University Library.

Go to www.wdl.org to check it out.

Spreading the Doritos Lovers story....

We can't get over the amazing buzz being generated by our new Doritos Sweet Chili launch and the use of augmented reality on pack (which we covered in a previous post). We're still filling the distribution pipeline and it has been great to see the amount of traffic to the website with people uploading pictures of them in a front of their webcams 'unleashing' the Doritos Lover.

To explain the concept and help spread the Doritos Lovers story, this film was produced....

Cebiche could just be the new sushi

In the gourmet world, Peru is a rising star.  From the Peruvian influence of NOBU to the amazing work of celebrity chef Gaston Acurio, this is a cuisine that is making headwaves all over the globe.  The good news for me, is that Sao Paulo now has a newcomer to its vibrant restaurant scene and it's called: La Mar Cebicheria Peruana.    

My wife and I were invited to its soft opening and wow....  the cebiche is insane!

For those who still have doubts that cebiche is the new sushi, this place is definetely worth a visit.

Two new spots for Doritos

Two new 30" spots in our Doritos campaign in Brazil.

The strategic objective is to reinforce Doritos as Brazil's favorite snack to share among friends. The cohort we're targeting our millennials. The campaign shows situations where someone 'shares' a rather embarrassing situation among friends. In one case, a girl recognizes who she thinks is a celebrity in a mall or a guy who shows off his tuned up car in the parking lot of a conveniene store. The campaign theme is "Wanna share something with firends, share a Doritos."

Spicing up Doritos in Brazil

This weekend a fantastic spicy new Doritos flavor will be hitting stores all over Brazil:

Sweet Chili.

We're super excited with this new flavor for a number of reasons. First, because for many years we have been only selling the classic nacho cheese - our fastest-growing snack - and we took extra care to develop a second flavor that would deliver an awesome product experience to Doritos fans. We tested and re-tested dozens of flavors and sweet chili was the clear winner, a perfect combination of hot chili pepper with a gentle sweet secondary note.

Another reason for our excitement has to do with Doritos Sweet Chili's packaging. For this project we're working with one of Brazil's coolest creative shops, Cubo CC. We immediately fell in love with their graphic work using characters from the world of toy art, which are being called 'Doritos Lovers', over a pure silver background that will certainly stand out at the point of sale.

The great story is that these 'Doritos Lovers' come alive once consumers place the packaging in front of a web cam. The technology used is augmented reality. On the back of each package, there's a symbol on the upper right-hand corner that needs to be placed in front a web cam to release the Doritos Lovers. This is the first-time ever in Brazil that this technology is used on a the package of a consumer product.

Take a look at the video tutorial that shows how the release-your-doritos-lovers works....

The new online experience for both Doritos and the new flavor launch was also developed by Cubo CC and is, by far, the best online work in our portfolio. Click here to take a look.

Another interesting aspect of this initiative is that the entire process was co-developed and each step validated by a Millennial Online Collaboration Panel we have with 40 university students located in four different regions of the country. Through a social-network style application, we maintain a weekly interaction with these collaborators checking everything from brand activation concept ideas, choice of flavors, language that resonates with the target, to what is hot in the world of graphics. The result is a higher probability to make a strong emotional connection with Brazilian millennials (certainly the most difficult demographic to be relevant to).

To make all this happen we have, what I call, our Doritos marketing dream team: Roberto Angelino, Carla Araujo (who will now lead the kids snacking team), Alexandre Chiavegati and Carol Gormezano (who love everything digital). To add more spice to the team, we're bringing in Marta Oliveira, who has done a fantastic job with our other millennial brand Toddy. In R&D, we have Sergio Julio, who brings the product concepts to life. A true dream team.

Here in Brazil.... we're in love with Doritos!

Two cases on Cross-Marketing

For those interested in cross-marketing, a TV program was aired this week on TV Ideal - a cable channel targeting the Brazilian marketing and advertising community.  Two cases were featured on the show, Toyota Hilux which teamed up with the National Geographic Channel to develop cool editorial content on an expedition across the Amazon and a recent experience we are having at PepsiCo with Sensacoes Ao Forno with a touch of Gallo Olive Oil.

Click here to watch the TV program (in Portuguese).