The Alexa-enabled Amazon Echo can answer questions, play music, control smart devices and fulfill numerous other suburban needs, according to two new ads for Amazon’s command device.
My heartstrings are getting awfully sore, Amazon U.K.!
Last month, it was the “Nursery” ad with that bespectacled, mop-topped kid struggling to fit in on his first day of school. I wept for a week. Who wouldn’t?
I’d just gotten back on solid foods and … bam! … your new Amazon Prime spot, “Best Friends,” sends us all into spasms of blubbering, branded histrionics—by featuring a puppy with a bum leg!
It can’t romp and play in the park like the other mutts, chasing balls and chomping squirrels, or whatever. So, its owner (who wouldn’t look out of place in One Direction) whips out his phone, taps the Amazon app, and orders the perfect product to help Fido carry on stronger than ever before.
My keyboard is slick with tears.
Please, Amazon Prime, no more. I mean, what’s next? Babies? Cats? Baby cats? Baby cats in tiny Superman capes, hobbling around on crutches? I couldn’t take it. I’d need a box of Kleenex and the rest of the afternoon clear to Skype with my shrink.
CREDITS
Client: Amazon
Agency: Joint London
Creative director: Damon Collins
Creatives: Algy Sharman, Al Brown
Director: Kevin Thomas
Wongdoody announced the addition of creative director Adam Nowak to its Seattle office, where he will be responsible for driving creative on the agency’s Amazon account.
Nowak arrives from FCB West, where he served as senior vice president and group creative director, working on accounts such as Taco Bell, Levi’s, Dockers, Air New Zealand, KMart and PetCo. Before joining FCB West nearly six years ago, Nowak spent a year as a senior copywriter with TBWAChiatDay, working on accounts including Gatorade, Visa and Nissan. Prior to that, he spent around two and a half years in the same position with FCB, where he worked with clients such as Taco Bell, KFC, Coors and Qwest. That followed a stint as a copywriter for roughly the same duration with DDB, working with clients like McDonald’s, Dell and Captial One.
“Adam’s body of work and resume speak for themselves,” said Wongdoody chairman and co-founder Tracy Wong. “He has wielded a mighty creative hammer and with it changed the shape of iconic brands. He will have a huge impact on the agency and our creative output.”
Reggie Watts yodels, raps, hangs with woodland fauna, floats on a giant leaf and generally goofs around in a quartet of new videos from Greenpeace.
The environmental group is sending a message to certain tech giants about using sustainable energy sources. “Some of the Internet’s biggest and most innovative companies, such as Apple, Facebook and Google, are powering with modern, renewable energy,” Greenpeace rep Dave Pomerantz told BusinessGreen. “The #ClickClean movement expects the rest of the companies behind our online world, like Amazon and Twitter, to join them.”
No firms are named in the ads, which were created by The VIA Agency.
“We set out to develop a campaign that had humor at its core and that people would rally behind and share,” said Via executive producer Mary Hanifin. “Reggie’s unique brand of comedy, devoted following and ability to convey complex themes through humor made him a perfect fit.”
The comedian and musician has some experience with the clean-power issue, having contributed to a Climate Reality Project spot last year. For Greenpeace—fresh off its gorgeous ad attacking Lego for partnering with Shell—Watts sustains a tone that gives the material an offbeat, non-judgmental spark. He uses improvisation to amp up the scripts, and his silly, slightly subversive comic energy feels just right.
Via Fast Company.
Sharing a name with a celebrity has got to be a blessing and a curse. But it can also make you mildy famous.
Lynda Pearson and Millie Olson co-founded Amazon Advertising, an agency based in San Francisco. In the video below, they explain that while they and the e-retail juggernaut have filed seperate trademarks that keep each from encroaching on one another’s business, it’s gotten harder to maintain an identity as the Amazon that’s not THE Amazon.
“We just didn’t know they were gonna take over the entire world,” Pearson says.
Taking a page from Jack in the Box and Taco Bell’s “Real Ronald” and Seattle’s Best’s “Real Duncan” campaigns, the folks at Amazon Advertising have started the Mistaken Identity Project, recruiting real people with famous names to help explain their dilemma.
The results are pretty amusing too. “The real” Justin Bieber explains how he’s been kicked off Facebook (for not being the douchier but more famous Bieber), and Jon Stewart talks about how he dated a girl named Hillary Clinton (who incidentally wasn’t so proud to share her name when the Lewinsky scandal broke).
As for Amazon Advertising, you’d think they’re quite lucky to share a name with America’s most popular brand.
Take a look below as Bieber, Stewart, Zellweger, Letterman, Alice Cooper and the Amazon Advertising team give us a taste of what it might be like to be famous…ish.
Justin Bieber:
David Letterman:
Jon Stewart:
Renee Zellweger:
Alice Cooper:
Millie Olson and Lynda Pearson of Amazon Advertising:
O consumismo acaba de ficar ainda mais fácil. Como se a loja virtual já não fosse uma tentação, a Amazon traz uma nova facilidade para as suas compras: uma hashtag para juntar itens no seu carrinho virtual, a #AmazonCart.
Os usuários interessados precisarão associar o seu perfil do Twitter com a conta da Amazon, e depois disso bastará responder a um tuíte que tenha um link da Amazon incluindo a hashtag #AmazonCart para coloca-lo no seu carrinho e encerrar a compra mais tarde.
O único detalhe é que os itens da sua compra começam a se tornar públicos, em especial se você estiver dando um reply para uma marca, ou se o seu perfil do Twitter não for privado – cada coisa que você quiser deixar para comprar mais tarde acaba identificado pela hashtag. Mas se a facilidade for maior que a possível vergonha de deixar público o seu interesse de compra, pode valer a pena.
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“Paper and Pen” é o nome da campanha criada pela Tribal Worldwide de Beijing para a Amazon com o objetivo de apresentar o Kindle Paperwhite ao mercado chinês. A ideia era ilustrar de uma maneira divertida e envolvente a simplicidade e os benefícios do e-reader, como a navegação intuitiva e a praticidade.
Misturando cenas em live action e ilustrações e dobraduras feitas à mão, vemos o Kindle ganhar vida de uma maneira simpática, e que ao mesmo tempo desperta a curiosidade do público para saber o que mais o e-reader é capaz. O alvo está não somente nos heavy readers, mas também nos estudantes.
A produção é dos franceses da Troublemakers.
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Sair de casa pra comprar algo já é algo antiquado faz tempo. Agora, porém, esqueça também esse negócio de entrar em um site e ficar pesquisando coisas.
A Amazon criou o Dash, um acessório que permite adicionar itens ao seu carrinho virtual de qualquer parte da casa. Você pode usá-lo para ler código de barras ou simplesmente falar o que deseja.
Dessa forma, Sua lista de compras fica pronta no site, e basta fechar o pedido online. A próxima vez que eu for ao supermercado, certamente vai ser ainda mais frustrante sabendo que isso existe.
O vídeo de apresentação, narrado por uma garotinha, também ganha pontos.
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A concorrência pela conexão da sua TV à web está cada vez mais acirrada. A Amazon apresentou nesta quarta-feira o Fire TV, seu aparelhinho de media center que chega ao mercado por meros 99 dólares.
Com um processador quad-core, sistema operacional próprio e 2GB de RAM, o Fire TV promete acabar com as travadinhas do streaming de conteúdo para a sua televisão, e não se acanha perto dos concorrentes – além do acesso a conteúdos multimídia adquiridos da própria Amazon, o Fire TV vai servir de interface para serviços como a Netflix, HBO Go, Hulu e Pandora.
O controle remoto tem uma rodinha clicável e vem com um microfone, que promete agilizar a busca ao oferecer a possibilidade de reconhecimento de voz. Pode ser melhor do que ficar selecionando letra por letra pelo controle, mas toda vez que se fala em comandos de voz, há a possibilidade de falhas que vão deixar você ~discutindo~ com o aparelho na sua sala.
O Fire TV também terá suporte a jogos, permitindo a conexão de um controle remoto especial para games, que será vendido como um acessório à parte ao custo de 40 dólares.
Com Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku e agora a chegada do Fire TV, acho que podemos dar como aberta a temporada de caça aos ‘webspectadores’.
Atualizado em 04/04 às 17:08: O Fire TV não tem acesso ao HBO Go, como apontou um leitor.
Gary Busey's at his manic, unhinged best in WongDoody's spot introducing the $99 Amazon Fire TV set-top box.
Everyone's favorite gnarled, Oscar-nominated lunatic begins, "If you're like me, you like talkin' to things." The actor says hello to his pants and a lamp before thanking the fish for living in the sea. He rings a bell, and as the tone resonates, he vibrates his head and mugs for the camera. Classic Busey!
Bedeviled by a Roku streaming player that won't obey his verbal commands, he snarls, "It's frustrating when things don't listen. Especially high-tech things." Mr. B. then demonstrates a key Fire TV attribute. He voice-queries the device—searching for himself, naturally—and spits out a hammy, celebratory "Yes!" when a menu of his movies appears on the screen.
Actually, it's one of his saner, more restrained performances. Dude's usually way more bizarre than this.
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A proposta já era conhecida desde setembro, quando a Nissan revelou que venderia três modelos Versa Note através da Amazon. Toda a ação seria transformada em um vídeo, mostrando a entrega dos veículos dentro das tradicionais caixas da varejista online.
Um usuário do Reddit, porém, flagrou o caminhão com a entrega nas ruas de Madison, no estado de Wisconsin, EUA, meio que estragando a brincadeira. Se bem que não era difícil a TBWA\Chiat\Day imaginar que uma caixa dessas não passaria despercebida por aí.
O vídeo ainda será lançado nas próximas semanas, mostrando o comprador do Nissan Versa em Madison recebendo o “pacote”.
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When Nissan offered to sell its Versa Note on Amazon last fall, it promised to ship the cars to three lucky buyers in actual Amazon boxes. Well, this weekend it was delivery day!
A Reddit user on Monday posted this photo from Madison, Wis., noting: "What's the largest item you can have shipped from Amazon? Because I think my neighbor just got it." A commenter soon pointed out the Nissan partnership, which seemed to be the most obvious explanation of such an epic delivery. AdFreak then reached out to Nissan, and Erich Marx, the automaker's director of interactive and social-media marketing, confirmed that the Redditor had captured the delivery—which was meant to be kept under wraps until a video could be released next week.
The original idea, he said, came from Nissan agency TBWA\Chiat\Day. "They mentioned it, and we all kind of laughed and thought, 'Wouldn't that be funny?' " said Marx. "But over the course of a few days, we kept coming back to it and said, 'Why not deliver a car in an Amazon box?' … It's never really been done. I think the visual is pretty hilarious. Everybody knows the Amazon box. We thought it would capture people's imagination. It certainly captured ours." In the end, Marx added, Nissan decided to deliver just one Versa Note, not three as originally planned.
The Redditor's photo, which hit the site's front page on Monday, came as a surprise to Nissan. "We were filming the video this weekend and a neighbor noticed what we were doing and posted what amounts to a spy photo," said Marx. "The best laid marketing plans, right? We were going to do a press release and a video and this whole thing next week. But the photo got out there, and people started buzzing about it. So we had to scramble."
The first 100 people to order the Versa Note on Amazon got $1,000 gift cards. Nissan contacted many of them, and then chose the Madison customer as the winner. "Quite frankly it was the enthusiasm of this winner—they were so thrilled and thought it was hilarious," said Marx. "We were all voting for someone in Hawaii. We were like, 'Madison, Wisconsin, in January? That's going to be cold.' But this winner was so into it, we knew it was going to be great."
Nissan is keeping the winner's name private for now. He or she will be revealed in the video, which is still set to be released next week. "We wanted to keep some of our original plan intact," said Marx.
Does Marx envision a day when a Nissan could be delivered by a fleet of Amazon drones? Laughing, he replied, "No, I think this a really fun onetime execution. We have a great dealer network, and we want our dealers to be involved in the marketing and delivery of our cars. We certainly don't want to step on their toes."
More photos below.
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Behold the C21 Delivery Landing Pad, designed to accommodate package deliveries by airborne drones. According to the product's maker, real-estate giant Century 21, "no home of the 21st century will be complete without one." Even so, don't expect the pad to be included with your next split-level colonial.
Roughly the size of a welcome mat and equipped with tiny landing lights, the C21 is, in fact, a fictitious item, promoted in yet another quick-turnaround, tongue-in-cheek video from Boston ad agency Mullen. These promos riff on buzzy current events, in this case Jeff Bezos's claim that Amazon will offer deliveries via flying bots sometime in the future. (Such a system at Walter White's Albuquerque home—listed "for sale" by Century 21 in a Craigslist ad timed to the Breaking Bad finale—would've been invaluable for receiving drone-dispatched beakers, Bunsen burners, Badfinger CDs, etc.)
Alas, since Bezos made his announcement on 60 Minutes last Sunday, it's become increasingly clear that in light of regulatory hurdles and safety concerns, it may well be Century 22 before drone deliveries become commonplace.
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Você faz um pedido pela Amazon, e sua encomenda chega em menos de uma hora. Impressionante, não é? Isso será possível em breve, com a ajuda de um robô. E mais: um robô que voa.
Jeff Bezos, CEO da companhia, demonstrou ontem no programa “60 Minutes” os primeiros testes com drones. Chamado de “Amazon Prime Air”, o projeto futurista inclui octacópteros aguardando no final de uma esteira e pegando os produtos de forma automatizada.
Por enquanto, os drones são indicados apenas para pacotes com até 2.5 kg, mas Bezos revela que 86% das entregas da Amazon estão dentro desse limite. Atualmente, a empresa trabalha com a regulamentação necessária e segurança para colocar os serviço em prática.
A Amazon deseja oferecer a entrega robótica nos períodos de promoções e final de ano, onde chegam a receber mais de 300 pedidos por segundo.
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It sounds like an April Fools' joke, but this is totally real. Amazon just revealed a shock-inducing plan to get delivery times down to a mere 30 minutes by using an army of aerial drones. The service is still in R&D, but was teased Sunday night on 60 Minutes by CEO Jeff Bezos in what amounted to a lengthy Amazon infomercial. You can view the entire episode online; he starts talking about it at 11:30. Or just check out the amazing little video below about the service, which they're calling Amazon Prime Air.
The unmanned drones are equipped with GPS and can carry objects weighing up to five pounds, which is 86 percent of the objects Amazon delivers. Their range is up to 10 miles from any fulfillment center, but as Amazon keeps building more and more of those, I imagine that will incorporate most metro areas by 2015. Why 2015? Bezos says that's the soonest Amazon Prime Air will be airborne because of shifting FAA regulations.
Domino's has tested its own delivery drone, but Amazon is getting all the press (along with more than 2 million YouTube views in 12 hours) thanks to Sunday's high-profile announcement. Given that Amazon also apparently provides the private cloud for the CIA, I somehow doubt they'll have much trouble swaying the FAA. Which means that in just a few short years, a massive swarming army of Amazon bots will be descending over your neighborhood bringing holiday cheer.
Let's hope they dress them in tiny appropriate holiday hats.
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Amazon's three-ad series for the Kindle Fire HDX's Mayday button, which allows a one-way video chat between users and Amazon experts who can troubleshoot problems, feels like the start of a romantic comedy. Not because it's funny or cute, but more because it's absurdly unrealistic. Anyone half as photogenic as Amy would quit that job before lunch, and the average customer is even more creepy and/or unpleasant than this guy. And where is she calling in from, anyway? Her office looks like the cityscape from the Bourne Identity movies.
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Já imaginou onde a Amazon guarda todo o seu estoque? O fotógrafo Ben Roberts e a jornalista Sarah O’Connor lançaram o projeto jornalístico Amazon Unpacked, com o apoio do Financial Times.
O trabalho documenta a história por trás da ocupação de um dos armazéns que a empresa detém, em uma pequena cidade da Inglaterra.
Foi em 2011 que o estoque da Amazon encontrou abrigo em Rugeley, uma antiga cidade de mineração de carvão que havia sido devastada em 1990 pelo fechamento das minas. A chegada da gigante na cidade representou esperança aos habitantes, que a viam como uma oportunidade de revitalizar a economia local.
Amazon Unpacked questiona como se deu a entrada da empresa na cidade, uma vez que esta lutava contra a recessão da época e tinha o desemprego como um dos maiores problemas.
As mudanças na comunidade são retratadas na série de fotos de Roberts, que acompanha o artigo provocador de O’Connor publicado no Financial Times.
Roberts e O’Connor fizeram várias visitas para captar a atmosfera bucólica e, ao mesmo tempo, industrial do local. Além disso, foi conversando com os habitantes que eles tiveram conhecimento das histórias por trás de cada caixa empacotada.
Levantando questões sobre criação de novos empregos, demanda de trabalhos, educação da população e crescimento sustentável da economia, o projeto enquadra lado a lado tanto imagens que captam descontentamento com as condições de trabalho, quanto outras de funcionários satisfeitos por terem uma oportunidade de trabalhar.
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Le photographe londonien Ben Roberts a imaginé avec la journaliste Sarah O’Connor la série Amazon Unpacked, dans laquelle il a immortalisé en clichés un entrepôt de cette entreprise d’une taille de 9 terrains de football, situé dans la ville de Rugeley à Staffordshire. A découvrir en images dans la suite.
Google lançou um serviço de entrega express (realizada no mesmo dia do pedido) para competir com a Amazon Prime e o eBay Now, chamado Google Shopping Express.
Ainda funcionando como piloto apenas em São Francisco, qualquer pessoal local pode registrar seu interesse em usar o serviço, preenchendo este formulário.
Os usuários-testes terão 6 meses de filiação gratuita, para entregas ilimitadas feitas no mesmo dia, de algumas marcas e lojas locais como Target, Walgreens e Toys “R” Us.
Quando o serviço for oficial, matérias sugerem que será em torno de $10 a $15 mais barato do que o serviço similar da Amazon, que está em $69 por 12 meses de uso.
De acordo com o Google, os usuários poderão encontrar todas as lojas locais em um lugar só online. Além disso, será possível escolher uma hora específica para a entrega chegar.
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