uAmplify Sponors and Hosts Las Vegas Interactive Marketing Association's Creative Media Awards
Sun Dec 20, 2009 at 07:47 AM by Aimen 
We were very excited to be able to sponsor and host Las Vegas Interactive Marketing Association’s fourth annual creative media awards. The competition featured eight award categories and participation from many of the top entertainment venues in Las Vegas including MGM Grand and Cirque du Soleil.
The awards competition was run using uAmplify’s contest platform where participants were able to register, enter and vote on entries from a single sign on micro site. uAmplify's "web shot" technology was used to manage the creative media contest categories by enabling each entry to capture a web shot of the creative piece along with a creative brief and objective statement in a single view for voters to be able to then see and rate. Entries were voted on by a peer group of LVIMA’s members where each entry was rated on originality, relevance and WOW factor. 2009’s LVIMA Interactive Marketing Awards went to:
Congratulations to all winners !
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Brands Who Are Running Blogs
Tue Aug 18, 2009 at 07:42 AM by Ethan uAmplify has completed an observational research study centered around 153 recognizeable brands. In doing so, it has found that 69 of these companies (45%) are running blogs on their websites, many of which are updated and maintained on a regular basis. Blogs have proven to be an effective way to communicate with clients and potential clients who want to find out the latest undertakings of the company. People are looking for any exciting news to help draw their attention and even get the attention of their friends and others in their social and business networks. That is why blogs are a powerful tool that many popular brands in entertainment, fashion, technology, sports and others use to not only draw appeal to the site but get through to people with the latest goings on. uAmplify has a multi platform system that can help a business, whether it’s a well publicized company or not, to come up with ideas for effective blog formatting techniques and layout designs and ways to generate leads and further interest.
In the beauty industry Beau-coup has been posting blog entries at least 3-4 times a week focusing on tips centered around wedding and party planning. A potential customer can view their blog and see their archived blog posts to see what the company has been involved with in the past. A visitor would find browsing through the blog easy because one can see the breakdown of the posts into categories like: bridal showers, engagements, planning tips, etc. Kenneth Cole shoes posts at least 3 blog entries a day and uses the catchy name ‘a-wear-ness blog’. Kenneth Cole not only posts about the latest shoe designs, but is also able to generate a broader audience with posts on social rights, well being and the political landscape. Their blog includes a Question and Answer portion so that users can submit questions on these topics, and many entries contain videos so the user doesn’t have to read all the content. These are just some of the ways that blogs can effectively engage the user. | Tags: uamplify, observational study, beaucoup, kenneth cole, blog entries, entertainment brands, fashion, technology, sports, blog roll, customer feedback | | | |
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Brands Who Engage in Forums
Thu Aug 13, 2009 at 08:01 AM by Ethan Forums, message boards, discussion boards and community chat rooms are all great ways for people with a common interest to express ideas and share opinions online. Out of 153 brand websites observed, 37% of them are running a forum of some kind. This means there is a lot of room for growth in this area, whether it’s because companies aren’t aware of how to run a forum, or aren’t prepared to set up a forum or they aren’t aware of the power and customer engagement that a forum can command. Especially with brands that have a variety of items to offer, forums are very useful to see what people are discussing from one product to the next.
On Netflix’s discussion forum, one can see what users are saying on a variety of topics like: about movies, TV shows old and new, instant watching, etc. Users can create their own discussion topic like ‘what do you think is the most overrated movie?’ and there’s no telling how many responses there will be and how long the discussion can carry on. Pacific Sunwear is able to generate a lot of user interaction with categories like: sports, style, social and music. One can view the most recent comments and posted videos, which shows another example of a brand that is not limiting the discussion just to their own offered products or latest offers or any other selling points. There is a lot of freedom in forums in terms of allowing meaningful discussions that people can easily relate too with as few limitations as possible. |
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Popular Brands Running Contests & Sweepstakes
Tue Aug 04, 2009 at 09:15 AM by Ethan Contests and sweepstakes have long been popular tools used by businesses of all sizes to promote customer engagement and promote new products and services. Out of 153 brands studied, 86% of them are currently running a contest of some kind, and many of them have had a number of successful contests in the past. Consumers in just about any market are always looking for ways to win prizes or enter sweepstakes, and even for consumers who won’t win prizes this is still a way for them to become aware of a company’s latest offerings and may ever stir up more interest than if there were no contest running. Whether a company does only 1 sweepstakes giveaway every year, or it’s a company that has daily giveaways, there’s many ways to stir up consumer interest with well run contests.
Many better known brands have offered and continue to offer contests dealing with prize packages, new product giveaways, shopping sprees and vacation giveaways. Frederick’s of Hollywood for example has given away $1000 shopping sprees through sweepstakes that have reached a lot of people and gotten a lot of participants from a variety of demographics. MTV Networks has run many contests where new programs can be promoted through program giveaways, and has also ran a number of vacation sweepstakes. Through e-mail distribution and word of mouth and other methods, contests can reach many demographics, and may even see people with no interest in the company enter a contest because of it being hard to turn down a chance for a free vacation. |
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Landscape of Social Networking Sites
Mon Jul 20, 2009 at 07:49 AM by Ethan uAmplify has been collecting data and has grasped the social networking landscape in a greater sense through it’s observational study on some of the latest social networking sites across the web. In total 41 networking sites were observed, some of which are more widespread than others, the most popular sites being: myspace, facebook, Friendster, livejournal, orkut and bebo. The most well known of these are coming out with the latest ideas for making their individual site look hip and chic and as up to date as possible, so naturally some of the less known sites are catching up and are coming up with new ideas of their own. While just about all of the sites observed have the basic features, like friend lists, photo and video, internal email systems and content sharing, there are a good number that don’t have all the features found on myspace and other top tier sites.
Some of the newest features that many social networking sites are in the process of adopting are applications, surveys, contests, forums, chatting and mobile capability. Myspace and Facebook have been able to reach just about everybody in all markets on an international level and they can only grow more and more, which is saying something about how far they’ve come. Myspace was primarily used at the start for music groups to promote themselves, while facebook was a site for college students to connect; at this point both can be used by anyone with internet use. Some networking sites are designed only for certain people and these sites don’t expect to widen their audience, like eons, faceparty, livedoor, opendiary, zorpia and others. Being open to limited users who fit a certain description is what makes these sites unique and allows them to set themselves apart from their competitors. If people with certain interests prefer smaller networking sites to share content and enjoy their exclusivity, then smaller networking sites are here to stay. | Tags: uamplify, social networking, facebook, myspace, friendster, bebo, orkut, livejournal, niche social networking, eons, faceparty, livedoor, opendiary, zorpia | | | |
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Brands Running E-cards
Wed Jul 08, 2009 at 12:07 PM by Ethan E-card campaigns continue to get popular and more widespread and more and more people see the many great uses that a card sent online can have. Out of 153 companies observed, just 16% of them have e-card campaigns on their sites. There are just a handful of major brands out there that have incorporated e-cards into their sites, and the chances of more catching on all depends on who is interested in e-cards and which brands find e-card campaigns to be worthwhile to begin with. Some consumers may go through with sending an e-card through a site that is strictly card oriented, as opposed to going to a corporate business site where a consumer might be more concerned with new products rather than an e-card. The most popular use for an e-card has appeared to be with holiday greetings, and for companies that like to connect with their customers and send out greetings, e-cards can be a useful tool.
Build-a-bear workshop allows users to send a holiday e-card with a variety of layout possibilities with their company theme. Discovery Channel Networks allows users to send an e-card with program themes and animal themes. For someone who is an avid animal lover but who is not so interested in Discovery, perhaps receiving an e-card from a friend will get them interested. This can be just as effective as word of mouth distribution or friend referral or any viral method that can help attract more prospective fans to a website.
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