In this interview, Duncan Wardle, Vice President at Creative Inc. – Disney Destinations LLC, spoke to Thierry Daher, CEO of Vanksen USA, about Disney Park’s brand new campaign “Give-A-Day, Get-A-Day” (see picture below). He explains why the entertainment brand opted for a viral mechanism to spread the word and how the campaign works. Enjoy the read!

1. What are your position/your responsibilities at Disney Parks?

Vice President, Creative Inc, an internal marketing agency of idea champions & innovation catalysts.

2. Do you think viral and buzz marketing is important now, compared to traditional advertising?
Brands now need to think of themselves as both content providers but also content curators. I believe successful brands will evolve very quickly from Marketing to Engagement and Co-collaboration.

3. How did you associate the Disney Brand with the message in the video? Why choosing the Muppets?

The viral video encourages consumers to actively get involved in their local community, by helping a charitable organization for a day. In return, the first million people to participate get to celebrate by getting a free ticket to one of our theme parks at the Disneyland Resort or Walt Disney World Resort for use in 2010. We chose the Muppets to help with our Give-A-Day, Get-A-Day campaign across the board because of the sense of irreverent humor and chaos that only they could bring to the campaign. My personal favorite is when Gonzo crashes headfirst into your computer screen. Read on

Please introduce yourself:

Susan Sachatello, Senior Vice President, Marketing for Lands’ End

What is Lands’ End’s mission statement in the US today? What is the promise the brand brings to its clients?

Lands’ End promises to give our customers a great shopping experience where they will find stylish, high-quality products at an amazing value. We strive to be the beacon for what’s real… real value, real people, real difference.

Can you please describe the campaign and how it came to life?

The Big Warm-up was inspired by a similar endeavor in Boston known as the Big Boston Warm-up. In addition to collecting warm coats during November, a public art installation to elevate the issue of homelessness and engage the community opened on November 2nd in Boylston Plaza at Prudential Center in downtown Boston. The installation features 768 life-sized figures, each representing ten of the 7,681 homeless women, men and children in Boston. As coats are collected, the installation will be used to count down the number of coats collected and hearts warmed.

After positive response and strong support in Boston, Lands’ End extended the Big Warm-up effort to communities nationwide. Donation sites are located at more than 252 Lands’ End Shops at Sears and 13 Inlets® across the country and coats will be collected until November 30th.

How involved is Lands’ End with the Web and specifically Web 2.0 and social media efforts?

From Landsend.com and Facebook to viral videos and microsites, Lands’ End is always looking for ways to connect with customers through technology. Read on

… this fall at BuzzParadise! It’s hard to say that the summer was restful, as there were numerous international campaigns to lead across the globe.
Particularly with the advent of the “Media Campaigns” - allowing a great number of you to take part in sponsored posts campaigns or video diffusion. While we still are tuning the model to make it better, here’s more information on a subject that I’m sure will interest you: payment and billing.

Several things have evolved regarding the subject, so here is an update on the situation:
As you probably noticed, you have to confirm your billing information and status for each campaign to make sure it is up to date for legal, fiscal and accounting purposes. We do need to make sure that your personal information (or professional for those concerned) is valid for the establishment of a “bill/certificate of payment” that you will find in the “My earnings” section.

From now on, in a process simplification for everyone,  a period of 7 days preceding the payments will be reserved every 2 months for the validation of your information.
Just to remind you, payments from BuzzParadise are done via Paypal exclusively, during the first week of each odd month: 7/8th of January 7/8th of March 7/8th of May etc…
Every 23rd of the month preceding a wave of payments you will receive an email inviting you to validate your information regarding the campaigns available in the “My earnings” section. You will have until the end of the month, so 7 days to validate the campaigns that you wish to be paid for. Starting on the night of the 31st, the validation period will stop so that we can check everything is ok on our side and send out the PayPal payments in the next following days.

Earnings

To give a concrete example: The next validation period will take place between the 23rd and 31st of October 2009 at midnight. All the profits validated during this period will be transferred to your PayPal account on the 7th or 8th of November. Not so difficult in the end, right?

Just pay attention to fill in your profile with your PayPal information!
One important detail: a minimum of 10 €/$ is necessary to validate your profits and be paid. If you haven’t reached this amount, your profits will be transferred to the next payment period. If you still haven’t reached the limit after two payment periods, you will exceptionally be allowed to validate your profits and be paid.
All your profits will appear as usual in the “My earnings” section, the only difference being that you can’t validate them outside of validation periods. One of the interests of this method are to make you validate all your campaigns in one go, as well as to reduce the steps necessary to lower the number of bills/certificates to edit. Yes, at BuzzParadise we’re also trying to help preserve the planet!

In case you missed the latest Obama buzz, here it is:

Everyone knows that Evian loves babies. The brand, which belongs to Danone group and which describes itself as “a source of youthfulness for your body” continues to surprise us with original, entertaining campaigns. Remember the advert that parodied the movie “Bathing Beauty”, starring about 70 babies performing synchronized swimming to the song “Bye Bye Baby”? Ten years later, the brand is again ready to hit home with a moonwalking and a breakdancing baby.

The two videos are already creating buzz in the blogosphere. Belgian, Swiss, British, German and US bloggers are invited to spread the buzz in the framework of one of our new media campaigns. French blogs have also started talking about it.

If you enjoy moonwalk and breakdance, you’ll certainly love these Evian babies who are amazingly fit for their age… Read on