The announcement that many have been waiting for (including myself) is set to happen this week.  Apple has called a press conference and the blogs are going wild, as the belief is the company is finally announcing the iPad2.  With the promise of a dual-facing camera, Apple’s rumored next-generation A5 processor and a 12-hour battery life per charge, there are a lot of new details for consumers to get excited about.

The debut of the original iPad last year, sent competing companies into a tailspin.  There have been dozens of tablets discussed (Dell, Research in Motion, Hewlett-Packard), but Apple’s biggest assumed competitor, the Motorola Xoom actually launched  in early January 2011.  The Xoom is a great tablet, but it retails for $600 and doesn’t have the stats to be the “iPad Killer,” as many of these tablets are aiming to do.

The great thing about all of these tablets coming into the market though, are the opportunities they are providing to retailers and advertisers.  They are changing the face of mobile, because companies are now able to interact with their consumers with rich-media advertising campaigns instead of simple text and one-dimensional messaging.  For example, News Corp.’s iPad app for The Daily launched with campaigns from brands such as HBO, Land Rover, Macy’s, Paramount and Pepsi.  Land Rover is claiming an unprecedented 50% engagement rate.  The ability to create a unique shopping experience because of the advancements in technology is going to be what differentiates the app winners from the losers.

For more information about the Motorola Xoom and the launch of the iPad2, go to: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/manufacturers/9199.html

In a time when customization is key, Kraft has developed a new Liquid Water Enhancer, called MiO (“mine” in Italian).  This zero-calorie, concentrated line of liquid flavorings is aiming to shake up the $1 billion water flavoring category.

Kraft believes that as a society we are in an era of personalization.  This product will allow consumers to drip as much or as little of the flavoring into their water.  MiO, which hits stores next week, will be priced at $3.99 and will make approximately 24 servings.  MiO is specifically targeting men and women, 18 to 39 who like to customize their products.

This is Kraft’s first new product roll out in more than 15 years and the launch will be huge.   Although not available in stores just yet, MiO has a Facebook page where it is offering its first 100,000 fans samples of the product.   As of this morning, 34,000 people have already “liked” the brand and are awaiting their samples.

For more information about the product, go to: http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2011/02/22/Kraft-MiO-Launch.aspx

Check out a quick product video as well:

Make It MiO

Packaging can make or break a brand.  After the Tropicana package redesign fiasco, companies learned that you cannot make drastic changes to your packaging without a lot of background researching on the current and targeted consumer, so let’s hope that Diet Pepsi has done it’s due diligence.

Diet Pepsi has unfortunately taken a backseat to the Pepsi Co’s other brands and programs.  The Refresh Project and Pepsi Max have been a main focus of time and advertising dollars for the company.  So, it is a bit surprising that a brand like Diet Pepsi, who has only received a combined $300,000 on measured media in the past 3 years combined, would be so bold and launch a complete redesign in 2011.

The new Skinny Can packaging will become part of Diet Pepsi’s permanent lineup and will have a major marketing campaign (print, O-O-H, TV, digital retail partnerships and promotions) surrounding it throughout 2011.  The ad campaign will focus on the new can but will also “convey the idea of “getting the skinny” or the inside scoop on the latest in culture, fashion, style and design,”  which also explains why it was an Official Sponsor of New York Fashion Week.

The redesign isn’t without it’s problems though.  The National Eating Disorders Association has officially taken a stance against the new can and believes that Pepsi should be ashamed for portraying that “skinny is to be celebrated.”

Since the can is going to market in March, it will be short waiting game to see if people get on board with the skinny can and what Pepsi is trying to convey with it, or if the critics will win and instead of finding the can sleek, sexy and pop-culture-esque, people find it offensive and rude.

What do you think of the new can?

For more about the redesign, go to: http://adage.com/article?article_id=148982

There’s a new social network hitting the Web.  Everloop is very similar to Facebook, but is for tweens 8 to 13 years old and requires verified parental permission to join.  Parents are also able to restrict features like IM and friend suggestions and are allowed to set permissions giving them notifications about their children’s actions on the site.   These parental features make Everloop compatible with The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and since Everloop is COPPA compliant, it can be used in schools.

Everloop is also different though because it is not restricting itself to schools like Edmodo, another child safe site has.  The site is also aware that brands want to reach the tween demographic and are partnering with those brands who want to share their content.  Branded goods are also already in the works.

The biggest hurdle for Everloop will be convincing tweens that the website is cool and that content will be appealing to them.  Would you let your tweens sign up for Everloop? Have any of our Rox readers heard of this website and are your kids signed up and using it? 

For more information, go to: http://mashable.com/2011/02/15/everloop/

Groupon has received a lot of backlash for their ads that aired during the Super Bowl.  The ads, which ” used celebrities to juxtapose injustice in Tibet to a deal on fish curry, deforestation to a bargain bikini wax, and endangered whales to a cheap tourist jaunt,” did not translate well with viewers.  Unfortunately the 100+ million Super Bowl watchers did not get the jokes and Groupon decided to pull the ads.

The irony is, that even though people were upset with the ads, Groupon has actually gained subscribers, not lost them.  So while consumers may have thought the commercials were done in bad taste, they still are interested in saving money. 

The ad gaffe may have been avoided if Groupon had actually included their SaveTheMoney.org URL in their ads.  This URL allows people to donate to the nonprofits that are featured in the commercials.  The nonprofits involved, especially The Tibet Fund, loved the ads because even if the public didn’t “get” them, they still brought the social and environmental issues into millions of homes.  In fact, the nonprofits have really benefitted, as Greenpeace received over $100,000 in donations (in less than 48 hours).

Do any of our Rox readers have an opinion about these commercials? Were you offended by these ads, or do you think they succeeded in bringing attention to Groupon and the nonprofits?

For more information, check out: http://adage.com/article?article_id=148860

You can see the series of ads at Groupon’s “Save the Money” microsite. 

Print media has been on the demise for quite some time now.  The ease and availability of free information has made it hard for newspapers and magazines to provide their readers with unique information, that would warrant them turning to the hard copy.  There are though, a few ways that magazines utilizing social media, which is creating a unique experience or journey for the reader.

Curating Content – Editors are realizing that sometimes social media is not the enemy and can in fact help them in terms of collaborating and providing readers with articles that are important to them.  By allowing readers to share, tweet (and retweet) information, readers are able to get an all-around experience without having to jump to several different information sources. 

Expanding Editorial Content – Savvy publications are using their social media networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to find out what is really important to their readers and creating future issues around those topics.

Offering Expertise in Real Time – When a magazine is connecting into the social media world they are allowing themselves to be available to their readers all day, every day.  Magazines have the opportunity to host Twitter & Facebook chats that allow the fans to interact with the publication or it’s featured author, providing them with a real-time and unique experience.  This positioning allows the magazine to be an information destination, therefore transforming themselves into part of a readers’ daily routine.

Catalyzing Connections – Friendships are most of the time based on similar interests.  Some magazines, like Philosophy Now, promote Meetups so that readers can get together and discuss their favorite magazine topics.  Other magazines like, Cosmo,  promote a sense of their community digitally, through question and answer sessions and advice columns via their Facebook page.

Leveraging Influence - Magazines are some of the most “liked” or “followed” entities on social networks.  Knowing how far their reach is (compared to the average Twitters 350 followers), allows the magazine to send out one tweet that will undoubtedly get retweeted and retweeted to people they may not yet be followers.  Not only is the magazine adding value to their followers, with information via their social network, but they allow themselves to grow virally and position themselves as a great source of daily or weekly information.

Extending the Editorial Experience – Social media allows for magazines to get away from the 2-D world and interact with their fans with photos, entertainment pieces, polls, games, real-time chats, and peeks behind the scene, just to name a few. 

Monetizing Social Media  - Banner ads are still the most common way of monetizing your brand online.  But with the addition of Sponsored Twitter backgrounds and tweets, as well as sponsored Facebook messaging and ads on the side of your page, more opportunities are becoming available to make some money off your social media presence.

For more information, go to: http://mashable.com/2011/02/09/social-media-magazines/

Hot on the tails of public interest groups and the FTC, privacy rules for interactive advertising are seriously changing.  While social networks, like Facebook, were once allowed to get away with third-party widgets (that captured and sold user data without expressed permission), sites are now going out of their way to crack down on unauthorized data scraping.

The lack of transparency with interactive advertising has been a big problem.  New social tools will allow marketers to not scrap data sharing completely, but find an acceptable compromise where they can benefit from better quality data, advertising and content.

Permission Marketing is going to play a big part in this transition.  Facebook Connect and OAuth are redefining the concept of permission marketing, which will hopefully guarantee that the consumer pays more attention to the marketing message.  By actively establishing a permission-based relationship, websites are embracing transparency which will in turn create more trust with their user.

A great example of how permission-based marketing will look moving forward is The Huffington Post. Readers can register for the site using their Facebook, Twitter or other social network identity, which then gives the website access to the data so it can personalize each users experience.  Users can see what their friends are reading and are interested in, which provides the HuffPo with a social gauge on what’s important to people at that time.  It also allows the HuffPo to sell advertising based on their reader’s interest and demographic, thereby benefiting those advertisers.

For more information about how permission marketing works, check out: http://mashable.com/2011/02/03/permission-marketing-social-data/

Do you ever feel like you are in one of those Bing commercials? Your brain starts thinking about one thing, which then springboards onto another topic, and then another and so on.  Well, research is starting to show that as consumers we are hitting our digital wall.  There are so many ways to keep connected (social media, chats, messages, texts, IM, etc) and they are all so convenient that most of us involve ourselves with a few different methods.  Be it Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Google, there are so many online communities around that consumers are overwhelmed.

Companies are starting to realize consumers are at their limit.  While some companies are taking themselves off the social map, as a way to show consumers they care, others are finding ways to co-exist with users so that communication is streamlined.  Here are the solutions that a few companies have come up with as a way to help consumers avoid the digital wall:

• Facebook:  The company’s new focus, now that it has grown the site to over 500 million users, is “social design.”  A simple site is a successful site, which is why so much time and energy has been spent designing Facebook Messages and Facebook Groups.  These functions allow people with similar interests to communicate directly with each other, without having to go to an outside email or web source.
• Google – Gchat, Priority Inbox, Google Voice and Google Buzz are Google’s solutions for avoiding oversaturation.  Google also lets their users directly connect to Flickr and YouTube making it easier for the consumer to access more data from one “home” site.
• Yahoo – Yahoo has started to make strategic deals, specifically with Facebook, Twitter and Zynga in order to allow users to view and use those websites directly from them.  Another new feature for the company is the ability for users to view video directly from their inbox.
• AOL – “Project Phoenix,” AOL’s code-named new mail system, which launches in March, allows users to exchange messages with Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail from their AOL inbox.  It will also add a Twitter and LinkedIn feature once the full launch has happened.

As research is starting to show us, it’s a fine line between communicating with your consumer and bombarding them with information.  In this digital age, companies want to tap into the enormous pool of people searching for information and guidance via the internet.  This USAToday article hopes to inspire those who are coming out with new products to assist consumers with streamlined design and functionality, instead of making them even more overwhelmed.  For more information, go to: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-02-01-tech-overload_N.htm