Innovations in multi-channel communications: 12 brilliant examples

Tesco Korea’s virtual store

Probably the world’s best implementation of QR codes so far. Tesco Homeplus figured out a way of gaining market share without the need for expensive new stores, while at the same time helping time-poor commuters to do their shopping more efficiently. Brilliant.

IBM’s ‘Smarter Planet’

This is something much bigger than a multichannel campaign. “Smarter Planet” is really IBM’s business strategy communicated as their long-term purpose to all stakeholders, both internal and external, through very many channels and over many years. This is truly integrated communications. In a lot of ways IBM have employed a “movement marketing” strategy where they create deep and long-lasting associations between the brand and a bigger cultural movement or purpose, which is to build a smarter planet (which IBM does through better information systems).

Bing & Jay-Z’s ‘Decoded’ campaign

An epic location-based marketing campaign / game, with suitable amounts of bling thrown in. Jay-Z added 1m Facebook fans and Microsoft reported that the average player engagement was 11 minutes per visit.

Nike’s ‘Write The Future’

Nike more than upheld its reputation for strong viral films. In May 2010 came Write the Future, a blistering three minutes of the on-pitch stunts of the worlds most famous football starts. Their play was interspersed with footage of the three players’ imagined destinies, as we can see in the video below. Unveiled on Facebook to underpin Nike’s ‘Write the Future’ World Cup 2010 strategy, the ad clocked up 6.3 million views in just six days, smashing Nike’s previous records.

Nike’s Write The Future activity around the 2010 World Cup was more than just that epic ad. Aiming to connect fans to players, Write The Future, via Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, encouraged users to posting footage of their football skills on Facebook to compete for a place at a Nike Football Academy.

The focus then switched to Johannesburg, where the brand wrapped a landmark skyscraper in 90 metre-tall digital LED screens. Using social networks Facebook, Twitter, MXit and QQ fans all over the world could pick a Nike-sponsored star for the LEDs to display and send a short message of encouragement to be broadcast across the South African capital’s skyline.

Nike’s deft post-digital touch also travelled to Japan where the brand asked fans to tweet messages of support to the national team. The best messages were selected to carve into a statue of Japan and a Japanese football star. The life-sized piece was constructed by a robotic sculpting arm and housed at a Nike store in Tokyo where cameras provided a live video feed of the robotic inscription process. A microsite hosted the full message archive and also featured a ‘Twitter face-off’ between huge football stars.

NET-A-PORTER’s Window Shop

The fashion etailer created a pop-up store window that allowed shoppers to use iPads and smartphones to bring the products to life. (The video is sort of long so when you get the idea you can just skim through.)

Dailyburn on Web and App

This health and fitness community of over 1m people excel at building a coherent and rich customer experience across channels.

MINI’s ‘Get Away’ Campaign

To drive word-of-mouth around the MINI Countryman launch in Sweden, Jung von Matt set out to engage consumers in a game that took place on smartphones and Stockholm’s streets. An iPhone app challenged players to find a virtual MINI  in Stockholm via GPS/Google Maps; GPS pinpointed both the player’s location and that of the virtual MINI. Once they had made their way to within 50 meters of it, the app invited them to ‘TAKE THE MINI NOW’. The next challenge was to avoid other players aiming to snatch the car. The player with the virtual MINI at the end of the week-long game won a real one. Some 11,413 people downloaded the app and took part.

Heineken’s ‘StarPlayer’ football app

Beverage brands continue to impress, as is Heineken, which has released a number of multichannel campaigns over the past year. One of the standouts is its StarPlayer app, which allowed football fans to play
a real-time game alongside a Champions League match, via mobile or desktop.

Marks & Spencer’s multichannel strategy

Few major retailers are as committed to multichannel as M&S, which has a three-year plan to develop its multichannel operations. In that time it will develop a new website and open a new distribution centre. It is already doing very well. It’s m-commerce website has generated more than 59,000 orders. Its ‘M&S TV’ strategy has resulted in the creation of 900+ videos (7m views and 900,000 clicks on the ‘buy’ button). It has touch screen ordering in some of its stores. It uses social media channels to provide service to customers. I’m watching M&S closely..

Westfield’s ‘tweet mirror’

Produced by Nedap Retail, the tweet mirror allows shoppers to try on clothes, take a picture, and then tweet it to their network for feedback. The offline retail experience of the future is going to be interactive, feel-good, and joined-up.

Debenhams’ iPhone & Android apps

The first high street retailer in the UK to launch a barcode scanner as part of its app, which generated £1m in sales within five months of being launched on the iPhone platform. Last month it announced that it was now “fully mobile” with new app launches on the Android and Nokia platforms, in addition to a mobile website.

Bacardi & Live Nation’s ‘Best Shared Live’