Meet Herman and Get a Seat at the 2012 PODi AppForum
By Larry Zusman, worldwide marketing manager, XMPie, A Xerox Company
What do a guy who acts like a future Jimmy Fallon, personalized videos, and XMPie cross-media all have in common? They are all being used to promote the 2012 PODi AppForum in Las Vegas this January.
PODi, together with DME Studios, a premier marketing agency specializing in innovative forms of communication, and one of XMPie’s first customers in North America, developed a fully integrated, attendee acquisition campaign that uses a personalized video at the forefront. It is a very clever, engaging campaign that I think everyone will get a kick out of. If you haven’t already been invited to experience this campaign, you need to go to www.sparknewideas.com, enter the information required to view the first episode, and you will later receive the subsequent ones.
This campaign is important for several reasons. First, it shows the ability to use very little personalization in a video campaign and be very effective. The key is not what is personalized, but rather how it fits into the story you are trying to tell. Herman’s story works perfectly.
Second, the campaign includes many components, such as email, personalized landing pages, refer-a-friend and data capture, to drive registrations, increase the value of each phase of the campaign, and improve the accuracy of the recipient database. All of this is being driven using an XMPie engine, which is generating all the e-media in the campaign and managing the database. The key point here is that it is fully integrated, with each component “feeding” and “being fed” by another.
Third, the campaign showcases the power of video personalization, and soon, with the introduction of the XMPie PersonalEffect® Video solution, MSPs will able to create these types of videos and a lot more, without custom tools and programming. XMPie PersonalEffect Video, which will be showcased at the AppForum, includes a plug-in for Adobe After Effects, the premier cinematic video and motion graphics software in the industry. Using the Adobe and XMPie software, you will be able to create personalized, cinematic movies with virtually no limitations on text, images and embedded footage. What if you could put personalized data on a rocket in HD video with Dolby sound? Think about how that idea would take off.
I would be remiss if I did not put a plug in for the 2012 PODi AppForum. I have attended many of these conferences, and for those starting to get involved in VDP and cross-media, or for those wanting to move to the next level, this is the place to be. There will be two audiences present: print and marketing service providers (MSPs) and enterprise marketers. Marketers talk about their one-to-one campaigns and share the results. MSPs discuss what campaigns they are doing for clients and how they created and implemented them.
In addition, I am sure most of you are familiar with the PODi Best Practice Awards. These are presented at the conference and the winning applications are showcased in special sessions with the marketer and provider behind the campaign. It is extremely rare to see both on one stage, discussing the campaign in-depth and being able to ask questions about it. You should not miss it.
Be sure to use the Herman campaign to register for the conference today if you have not done so. But first, leave a comment on this blog with your thoughts on the campaign, personalized video, or the PODi AppForum, and we’ll send you a promocode to save $100 on your registration!
Also, don’t forget to check out the special pre-conference intensive session, On the Cutting Edge of Cross Media. We’ll show how to use the new XMPie PersonalEffect Video to create amazing personalized videos from templates with just a few clicks of a mouse. And who knows, maybe Herman will show up after all.
See you there! Larry…out.
Another Look at QR Codes – XMPie/PODi Campaign for AppForum 2011
By Larry Zusman, worldwide marketing manager, XMPie, A Xerox Company
We’ve talked about QR codes a couple different times on this blog already, but I’m sure this is just the beginning. The fact is they are everywhere! At PODi AppForum 2011, they “popped up” all over the place – in the general session with Tissot watches, showcase applications, and many PODi Best Practice Case Studies. In almost all cases, the codes accessed mobile sites that not only provided personalized content, but also further identified customer interests through survey questions.
Scan to view video on QR codes and XMPie.
XMPie, together with PODi, used QR codes to implement an exciting QR Code Challenge Contest for an Apple iPad – a new way to engage and interact with attendees. Contestants used their smart phones to access websites with the answers to some difficult questions from the latest Caslon research studies on 1:1 cross-media marketing.
Most interesting was the metrics on participation – over 30% of eligible attendees (sponsors were not allowed to play) participated in the contest, and close to 74% completed all the questions. Plus, approximately 20% accessed the XMPie online video describing how XMPie offers the unique advantage of data consistency in QR code campaigns. How do we know? The XMPie system allowed us to track every event and action for each person that participated, since they were entered into a database upon registration.
What’s next? Surely we will see QR codes on a wide variety of media, including direct mail, magazines, newspapers and catalogs. For service providers that know how to create and use them for campaigns, they offer new sources of revenue and profit. And for advertisers who need to get their message out and learn more about the psychographics of their target audience, these codes can unlock the key to finding out what customers think, feel, and more important, want to buy. Soon, mobile phones will do more, and most likely so will these amazing 2D barcodes that contain secret links to content created just for you.
How are you using QR codes? Have they helped improve your campaign response rates? Did you participate in the QR Code Challenge Contest at PODi AppForum 2011? What did you think? We want to know!