TotalBeauty.com is one of the top-three beauty sites with 12 million unique visitors monthly.  Total Beauty Deals, launched yesterday and is great for the top 100 brands in the category, but is more beneficial for the 1,300 brands that are less known.  These lesser known brands now have the opportunity to get their products in front of a large audience who are interested specifically in the beauty business, without the lack of large ad spends keeping them out of the spotlight.  Most of the initial deals on Total Beauty will focus on driving consumers to e-commerce sites as a way to drive the beauty products online business, but will eventually offer in-store redemptions.

Total Beauty Deals launched yesterday, less than a week after giant General Mills tested out a Groupon deal.  The General Mills-Groupon deal was a huge deal in the CPG world.  Now that General Mills, an influencer in the industry, tested out this deal medium, we can bet that the company’s competitors will be launching their own deals in the very near future.

It doesn’t look like this deep-discounting Groupon trend is going anywhere and advertisers have to be aware of its impact, both positive and negative.  To read more about Total Beauty Deals, go to: http://adage.com/article/news/groupon-effect-spreads-totalbeauty-launches-deep-deals/227228/

Meijer, a midwest retailer, has launched an app that will assist them in analyzing consumer behavior.  The app helps consumers pinpoint the location of more than 300,000 items in the Meijer stores, while also providing information that will then be used by the company to provide more personalized service and consumer loyalty.

The app provides consumers with a great option should they not be able to find a team member to assist them at the time they need it.  It also assists shoppers with managing shopping lists, provides them with information on the weekly specials and syncs with Meijer’s customer loyalty program.  The app is available for Android and iPhone users and will be rolling out to more than 200 stores really soon.

If you are one of our midwest readers that use Find-It in one of the five test stores, we would love to hear your experiences with the app.  For more information, go to: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/database-crm/9790.html

What’s one way to make sure that people are actually watching your ads? Make the consumer interact with them.  In a new partnership between Pepsi and iPhone application, IntoNow, consumers will get rewarded to “tag” the new Pepsi Max spot when they see it on TV. 

The iPhone application listens to and identifies television shows, similarly to music applications that help identify the name and artist of a song that’s playing.  The ability to commercial tag is definitely a new and up-and-coming technology, and while Pepsi is the first to have a branded app initiative, the app is already in talks with movie studios, automotive brands and other packaged goods companies.

IntoNow’s Pepsi campaign has the app creating a unique digital coupon for the first 50,000 app users who tag the spot.  Those coupons are then sent to the phones and are able to be redeemed for a free soda at Target or CVS.

For more information on this innovative campaign and the technology behind it, go to: http://mashable.com/2011/04/20/intonow-pepsi-partnership/

How many home owners can actually name their cabinet manufacturer? Not many.  KraftMaid, a high-end semi-custom cabinet maker, is launching a campaign hoping to be “the brand” people go to when they are considering renovation.  According to a recent Ad Age Insights white paper on baby boomers, 13% of boomers responded likely or very likely that they would remodel their kitchens in the next 12 months, while an NPD Group study “said boomers in 2010 accounted for 44.6% of unit sales in major kitchen appliances, up from 42% in 2009.”  With remodeling accounting for 80% of the cabinet business, and The National Association of Home Builders predicting  “decent growth” for the renovation industry in 2011, it seems like a great time for KraftMaid to launch this campaign.

The campaign includes TV, mobile and web initiatives, as well as a significant amount of in-store p-o-p in retailers like Home Depot and Lowe’s, and print ads running in Elle Decor, Traditional Home, and House Beautiful.  Finally, KraftMaid is also including sponsorships with House Beautiful, HGTV, Luxe magazine and Elle Decor to bring their brand to the top of consumers minds.

Read more about the campaign at: http://adage.com/article/news/kraftmaid-launches-campaign-renovation-message/226985/

Walmart’s movie streaming service Vudu is now available for users from their web browsers, which is great for those who don’t have a Vudu-compatible TV or Blue-ray player.  There are more than 17,000 movies and television shows available via Vudu.com that can be rented for 24 hours for $3.99, $4.99 or $5.99.

Vudu began as a set-top box, but has since shifted and has started licensing its service to consumer electronics makers, including Sony, LG, Samsung and Panasonic. For those that have a Boxee Box or the older Vudu set-top box, they will experience unmatched HDX rentals, which you you won’t get from the streaming service.  The great thing about this service though, whether its the box top or the streaming service, you can start the rented video or movie on one device and resume playbox on another.

For more information about this service, go to: http://mashable.com/2011/04/12/vudu-browser-rentals/

Kiip, a mobile ads start up company, has revealed their ingenious model for in-game advertising.  Instead of fighting for the user’s attention with banner and text ads, Kiip’s advertisers offer real life rewards.  Although the company is only seven months old, they have already landed partnerships with Sephora, popchips, Homerun.com, Sony Dash, Vitamin Water, 1-800-Flowers, Dr. Pepper, GNC, Carl’s Jr and Hardee’s.  These companies have committed to offer actual in-game rewards, i.e. a free bag of popchips, or a free mascara sample, when gamers complete levels or reach certain point amounts.

Kiip (pronounced Keep) has recognized that it’s the moment of achievement that is important to the gamer, not necessarily the achievement itself.  By providing an actual reward for that moment, users can relish the achievement for a bit longer and will actually interact with the brand and prize rather than immediately moving forward to search out the next level. 

Kiip is not a conventional ad network, they would like to be seen as a “Reward Network.”  The way the reward system is built not only exposes the gamer to your brand and/or product, but it also captures their email, resulting in lead generation.

For more information on this innovative new system, go to: http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/10/kiip-is-an-entirely-new-mobile-ad-model-real-life-rewards-for-in-game-achievements/

Sampling is not a new concept for companies, but Kleenex added a social twist and it really paid off for them.  Instead of signing yourself up for a sample, or receiving one in the mail without your expressed interest, Kleenex decided to social sample this cold-and-flu season by letting people send their family and friends free packs of tissues.

Kleenex’s social sharing campaign is titled “Softness Worth Sharing,” and share people did, as the company shipped their millionth requested mini-box of tissue last week.  What’s even more impressive than getting their new, softer tissue in the hands of a million people, is the fact that this campaign actually increased their market share (per Nielsen).

The program was executed at more than 900 retailers in the US and Canada, as well as at Kleenex.com.   Facebook also allowed friends to gift virtual tissues, but these did not count in the actual sampling numbers.  Kleenex supported the social sampling campaign with TV, print, digital and social media advertising.

For more information about this campaign, go to: http://adage.com/article/news/social-sampling-scores-big-kleenex/149272/

The mobile video advertising market is booming and the growth is not lost on Fortune 500 companies.  Research shows that the number of Americans that watch videos on their mobile devices is at about 25 million people, an increase of more than 40% year-over-year in the third and fourth quarters of 2010.  An even more staggering figure, these people are watching an average of four hours and 20 minutes of mobile video per month!

Nielsen is attributing this growth to the increased numbers of smartphones users (especially now that AT&T is selling their iPhones fro $39) and the growth of the tablet market with the option of Wi-Fi.  The availability and ease of watching full episodes online is also a contributing factor.  Rhythm NewMedia’s research claims that on it’s mobile advertising network, 26.5% of people who start viewing an entire 45-minute episode, will watch it in its entirety, while 41% will watch at least half.

Advertising has always been about getting your brand or product in front of your target consumers.  Mobile video advertising is the perfect complement to those companies that can afford TV advertising, but can also be an opportunity for those companies with a slightly smaller budget.  With statistics like: 88% of people complete watching a video advertisement that is directly infront of video content, it’s easy to understand why more than 200 Fortune 500 companies were already advertising on Rhythm’s ad network in 2010.

For more information and statistics, go to: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/video/9602.html