What would the Superbowl be without a serious amount of partying, some promotions and a little Janes Addiction?! Probably just the Superbowl..... Rolling Stone has the Rock Stars and Volkswagen has the Fahrvegnugen (which is probably spelled wrong) but together they throw a heck of a party. I was tasked with giving them something to play with that would require some brain space, be fun and challenging at the same time. So the memory game that was used for The Coors Cold Hard Fan Awards came into play.

Working together with Deutsch Advertising, helmed by the well know Donnie Deutsch, I helped design the Interface and added some additional programming to enhance the User Experience while Branding both Rolling Stone and Volkswagen along the way. Three games were devised, one with Rock andnRolling Stone history and trivia, a second focused solely on Volkswagen history and automobile knowledge and recognition and a third which was a mixture of the first two games.

A score capture and reporting interface was developed to report high scores each hour to a central database and then fed back to the primary score board resulting in back stage passes and other venue related gifts awarded to game contestants with these high scores throughout the day prior to the game starting. In the images here you can see the game interface, the design elements, some screen shots of game interactive and party goers interacting with the 60 inch touchscreens the games were played on. Rock on!

Funny how the shape of things change over time....or does it? Do things really change or is it just Human Perception that gets changed by the ever exploitative machine we call life (or what I like to call 'Living in 3D'). I could address many things in life that change or don't change, but perceptively take on new life and focus by the perceptions thrown at us by media and society. In this post I will focus on the wonderful phrase known as INTERACTIVE, it's definition and how I feel it should apply in its basic existence to your Marketing campaigns, follow me....

A few case points or actually, questions to keep in mind. 1. Everything you interact with can be considered Interactive, can't it? 2. Does interaction start with functionality or by just simply turning your attention to something new? and 3. What determines the interactive nature of anything? What is Interaction?

Dictionary.com states the primary definition of Interactive to be: 1. acting one upon or with the other, or in other words, one entity acting upon another. Acting.......well isn't everything pretty much acting, a turn of the head, awareness, touching, pressing or simply noticing what is right in front of you. Interestingly enough Dictionary.com states the next definition as 2. of or pertaining to a two-way system of electronic communications, as by means of television or computer. Now this is interesting as this definition specifically mentions devices, TV or Computer specifically. And the last definition as 3. (of a computer program or system) interacting with a human user, often in a conversational way, to obtain data or commands and to give immediate results or updated information. Now this last definition really creeeps me out! The specific nature of how it focuses the interaction on Human to Computer, in a conversational way....Huh?, to obtain data or commands, and let us not forget, "To give immediate results or updated information". Wow!

Let me get quickly to my point of this post as I could sit and philosphize about Interaction all day long and bore you to tears.

Everything you do in your Marketing should have some level of Interaction with your potential or existing clients. Not just electronic media.

This is essential to Marketing and where the Branding word comes in, yes...... Branding. If all of your Marketing is Branded effectively, causing awareness, noticeability, emotion and action, you have successfully Interacted with your audience. This my friends is the difference between conversion OR being filed under 'G' for garbage.

The image above depicts several Branding campaigns, designed to bring Brand Awareness and get the audience attention. Notice the cohesion amongst the elements, consistency combined with creative approach rules the day.

Compelling Branding creates Interaction.

NOTE: 21C DIGITAL has an Interactive portfolio within its website, so please don't be confused by this. This portfolio is focused on electronic media and the Interactive nature of those examples.

I will be adding posts soon about Interaction and to cover the 21C DIGITAL approach to Branding and how it couples with Identity. This is good for those of you who like the term "Brand Identity" or consider Branding to be just a logo.