metapeople Hong Kong

World Cup has always been tempting to soccer lovers as well as - advertisers. Inspired by the Argentina’s coach Diego Maradona, who says he’ll celebrate by running around naked in Buenos Aires, Pepsi announced that the company’s soft drink bottles will be sold for a week in Argentina with no label if that country wins the soccer tournament.

The idea is illustrated in a campaign with a series of print ads this week, remarking humorously on a Pepsi-shaped plastic bottle that says “If the coach goes naked, we will, too. Pepsi promises.”

Companies have been finding ways to define success in online video campaigns. One of the ways is to track user engagement with the content they are viewing. Campaigns are given benchmarks on how sectors that range across multiple areas normally perform. A Viral Action Rate (VAR) - the number of online social actions carried out per 1,000 videos, to also attributed to each campaigns. The social actions include embedding an online video in your own site, downloading the content, emailing it to others, and sharing videos on a social media platform.

Based on analysis of 250 UK campaigns that generated 51 million views since July 2009, the entertainment sector is proved to be the most viral, with 2.27 of every 1,000 views resulting in the content being taken and embedded into a personal site. In B2B, it was only 0.27 per 1000 views.

VP of global sales of Facebook Mike Murphy said in a Bloomberg interview that the number of its advertiser clients -though without divulging actual figure - quadrupled since the start of 2009.

Its share of the US display ad market also grew from 11% in the fourth quarter of 2009, to 16% in the first quarter of this year, putting it ahead of rival Yahoo!, whose share fell from 13% to 12% in the same period.

YouTube videos got short lifespan and they seem to be getting shorter. According the data from analytics firm TubeMogul, 50% of views of a YouTube video are generated in the first 6 days it is on the site, compared to 14 days in 2008. After 20 days, it captures probably 75% of its total views, which is around 24 days shorter compared to 2008.

Indonesia marks a 48 per cent growth in online usage which tops the list in Southeast Asia according to the second annual Net Index Study 2010 by Yahoo. Indonesia’s tariffs and 3G expansion has certainly play a key role in the growth.The big leap is due to an increase in internet usage in different parts of Indonesia (inlcuding Tier 2 cities) through mobile access and the increased poplularity in online reading. Social networking usage has also reached 77 per cent, growing 19 per cent from last year.

Sony Computer Science Laboratories (CSL) Inc has developed a liveblogging device for Cats. The device fits well onto cats’ collar, and with a camera, an acceleration sensor plus a GPS, it can detect your cat’s movement and translate it into actions. Currently there are 11 default phrases available in it but Sony CSL is hoping to increase the cats’ vocabularies.

The Australian iClothing team has created a complete line of iPad-compatible clothing includes an i-Dress and a unisex i-Tee.
Wonder if this is all inspired by the kangaroos in Australia?

Google announced that click to call advertising to be extended to mobile content and apps on the Google Content Network in coming weeks. Now you can reach your potential clients and let them connect with your business by only one click on their mobile phones.

Alex Brownstein, a copywriter who wanted to get a job in advertising, created an online ad campaign for only $6 that targeted a selection of New York creative directors. Whenever these creative heads searched for their own name on Google - the secret egotistical moment - their name would appear as a headline on an ad which said: “Googling yourself is a lot of fun. Hiring me is fun too.” Brownstein was eventually landed the role as a senior copywriter at Y&R New York.