Topshop to Debut Customizable, Shoppable Livestream During London Fashion Week. Imagine watching a fashion show live online, thousands of miles away from the actual event.
SCVNGR finds $12 million more to support LevelUp mobile payment product - Innovation Economy. By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist SCVNGR, the Boston company that originally set out to develop mobile games that could be played in the real world, has raised another $12 million from investors.
But the money will go to support a newer SCVNGR product that seems to be building more momentum: the company's LevelUp mobile payment offering. It lets you pay for retail transactions simply by showing the screen of your mobile phone, and it allows merchants to offer a discount — like $2 off your first purchase — to lure you in, as well as continuing rewards for long-term loyalty. AmEx Adds Personalized Offers to iPhone App. Last year Facebook shuttered its deals business in an apparent forfeit of the market to Groupon among others.
But since closing its first day of trading at $26.11 per share, Groupon’s stock has plummeted to $9.90 as of Friday’s close. And the rest of daily deal industry hasn’t fared any better; 798 deal sites didn’t survive the second half of 2011, according to Fast Company. Can This Startup Revolutionize Content Creation? Volkswagen: Voice Activated Interactive Banner IKEA: The 2013 Interactive Catalogue App Here’s a nice move from IKEA to add some interactivity to their catalogues. This video shows a preview of their new app that will bring the IKEA catalogue to life with a collection of additional content for viewers. Users can download the IKEA app and use it to unlock videos, interactive experiences, photo galleries and explore products further.
Audi Opens Car-Free Digital Showroom. Housing actual cars in a showroom eats up valuable space and overhead, so why not digitize the whole process? That's the thinking behind Audi City, a new showroom the carmaker opened this week in London's Picadilly Circus. As the video above shows, shoppers can visit an Audi City and use a touchscreen to choose from among thousands of options to customize their car.
In addition to seeing what their car will look like on a big screen, customers are also given samples to feel the texture of the interiors they've chosen. Working with digital marketing firm Razorfish, Audi plans to open 20 such stores by 2015. Foursquare Rolls Out Local Updates for Merchants. Just last month, Foursquare users were blessed with a redesign. On Wednesday, Foursquare announced a new feature for merchants as well: Foursquare Local Updates. The feature — which rolls out to businesses over the next week — lets participating business owners send updates about their business to their "best customers" when they’re nearby.
Updates can be any combination of text, up to three photos and a special, and will be seen in version 5.2 of the app, which is available now. Although Groupon and LivingSocial both offer ways to blast deals to mobile users nearby, Foursquare's latest update lets merchants add non-deal updates, like "Warm cookies fresh out of the oven available now! " How to Find Out When Your Facebook 'Likes' Go on Sale. Vending Machine Lowers Drink Price on Hot Days. Spanish marketing agency Momentum has installed 18 vending machines for Coca-Cola’s lemonade drink Limon&Nada that offer discounts when the temperature rises.
This creative method of pricing a product is lasting throughout the summer months and the machines have been placed mostly in water parks and other attractions in Spain. MarketingNews.es reports that the temperature and product price is shown on an information screen and there are three different prices depending on how hot it is. At temperatures of up to 25°, the cans of lemonade cost 2 euros. At 26-29°, they are around 30% cheaper at 1.40 euros, and when the temperature reaches 30° they are half price at just 1 euro. Coke Enlists Foursquare After Successful Paul McCartney Live-Stream. Intel Set-Top Box Uses Face Recognition to Target Ads to You. Intel has developed a new set-top box that will monitor who is watching TV at that moment, enabling advertisers to target the most appropriate ads to them.
The box does this by using facial recognition technology. The box won't identify the specific person watching TV, but will be able to tell if that person is male or female, adult or child. So, why would the average consumer want this? Well, Reuters reports Intel imagines it could lower costs for particular networks and shows, and lower the overall cost of advertising, making it more efficient. Coca Cola Launches Ambitious Social Media Campaign in Thailand. Coca Cola recently launched a campaign to collect one million reasons why Thai people believe in a brighter future of their own country.
These reasons will be compiled in a book called One Million Reasons, Believe in Thailand and distributed to public libraries in all 77 provinces of Thailand. The campaign allows social media users to send their message through different social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. You can give your reasons in text format through their website or send a YouTube video. You can even tweet or send a photo on Instagrm using hashtag #COKE1m.
The campaign ends June 30, 2012.