Call an Uber...with your bag of chips?

Without a doubt, Super Bowl Sunday is one of America's drunkest days. According to the National Highway Safety Association, 45 drunk-driving related deaths occurred on game day, 2015. This year, Frito-Lay wants to help party-goers get home safely by turning a common party snack into a beneficial (and hopefully life-saving) experience.

In partnership with Uber and Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Frito-Lay created a limited edition Tostitos "Party Safe" bag, equipped with sensors that are able to detect small amounts of alcohol on a person's breath. If any alcohol is detected, the bag will display a red steering wheel with a "Don't Drink and Drive" message and a $10 Uber code. To take it even further, Frito-Lay equipped the bag with near-field communication (NFC) technology, which allows consumers to simply tap their phone to the bag to request a ride, AdWeek reports.

So chip back, relax, and enjoy that Super Bowl party -- and your free Uber ride home!

Terrifying 'Ring' prank scares the living daylights out of TV shoppers

WARNING: The experiential campaign you are about to see is not for the faint of heart.
Viewer discretion is advised.



It's been about 15 years, and I'm still afraid of seeing a creepy, long-haired girl crawl out of my television. Thanks to Paramount Pictures' latest stunt, I won't be overcoming that fear anytime soon.

To promote upcoming sequel, Rings, Paramount Pictures, the company behind 2002 horror movie The Ring, brought to life one of the most disturbing moments in the film.

Unsuspecting TV shoppers go the surprise of a lifetime when an otherwise normal shopping experience turned into one of my worst nightmares. And as expected, most were spooked by the prank. Some even ran away, screaming.

What could possibly have a bigger impact in getting people excited for an upcoming movie than having them experience it first hand . . . even if they did almost pee their pants?

Tech on the Seven Seas

Drink of the day or lunch delivered to you poolside - don’t mind if I do! Carnival unveiled their first “smart ship” at CES this year. When cruising the high seas, guests are eager to plan their next meal, excursion, spa appointment or shopping spree. With the new Ocean Medallion, your personalized vacation just got easier.

With the new Ocean Medallion, Carnival is able to personalize your experience by anticipating what you’ll want and when you want it by learning your likes and dislikes. If that’s the case, I’m sure there will be a desert buffet around every corner of the lido deck on my next cruise!

One of the Chefs

Have you ever wondered how certain restaurant favorites came to be? Wonder no longer - La Sirena in NYC allows you to see what’s behind the curtain through annotating their menu and bringing you into the kitchen. 

There is no shortage of great restaurants, so connecting with your customer when they're just browsing your menu online, separates you from the competition. Even if you’ve never been to the restaurant, you already feel like regular who's “in the know”.

One in a Billion

We are all unique, and one size certainly does not fit all. In a market as large as China, it’s even more important to stand out. Adidas showcases the desire in expressing our own personality, and connects the dots to their brand.

By focusing on the expression of one’s individual style, Adidas places the lens on you - the consumer. This digs into the overall experiences you can relate to as an athlete - being your best, giving your all and most of all, standing out from the rest.

All this, and they also get to poke at one of their biggest rivals…Under Armour.

You Can Be Anything

Really….you can!! As a father of a 9 year old daughter, I’ve spent quite a bit of time echoing this message, and acting it out just as these dads are. Mattel’s “Dads Who Play Barbie” campaign not only reinforces this, but it effectively ties the emotional aspect of the moments we’ve shared with Barbie.

Our experiences with brands can be shaped in many ways. Being able to tap into an emotional chord, only sinks the marketing hooks in deeper. Heck, I might even ask my daughter to dig out her Barbie’s to see if she still wants to be a veterinarian - or better yet, a marketer!! 

Will chatbots take over?

Customer service can make or break an experience. Chatbots are bridging the gap from those dated “virtual assistants” and the un-replaceable human interaction (you remember those, right?). AMEX took a proactive customer service approach by integrating their chatbot technology with Facebook Messenger to show real-time purchase alerts, coupled with recommendations and loyalty based content in a conversational way. Other chatbots, like 1800flowers.com facilitate customer service assistance, e-commerce functionality and can “hand-off” to a human customer service rep as needed.

The days of standard canned responses are in our rearview mirror. With advancements in AI, NLU, and the addition to massive amounts of data, these chatbots can not only reply with specificity, but they are continuously learning. In a world where experiences drive our actions (and wallets), it will be interesting to see how these chatbots evolve. I know, I know - this is a little Skynet-esque but fear not, we have a way to go before we need to worry about AI world domination.

Image Credit: Shutterstock.com/saia

Run for your Bun!

David Lloyd Clubs, in collaboration with the British Heart Foundation, has set up a café that only allows its customers to pay with exercise. Place your order at the "Run for Your Bun" counter and you will receive a receipt with the exercises you will be doing. Finish the workout and you will get you lunch.

The idea is to encourage sedentary city workers to get some exercise into their day. The average office worker spends 90% of their working day sitting down and almost a third of those with desk jobs (28%) will eat lunch at their desks every working day.

The six-minute workout consists of one minute of various exercises with a 30 second rest in-between. Sure, this is a brand experience that might have you cursing under your breath at the time, but you'll thank them later . . . truly from the heart. 

Have a beer, save the ocean

With a category as busy as craft beer it can be hard to stand out. Typically when a craft beer brand thinks about the experience they want their brand to deliver their customers, they focus on creativity (in taste, names, and artwork) or creating scarcity for bragging rights. But what if drinking a beer became about so much more than beer? What if it could help the environment in addition to being all the things you love about craft beer? That's exactly what Saltwater Brewery did.

See, Americans drank 6.3 Billion gallons of beer last year - 50% from cans, of which most of the plastic those 6-packs come in end up in the ocean. Even if you cut the plastic rings, the sea animals will still eat the plastic and kill them. In fact, over one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die every year because of this. And, at the rate we’re going, there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050.

To help halt this devastation, Saltwater Brewery developed edible 6-pack rings that actually feed the sea animals. If other breweries and large beer companies catch on, they could be savings hundreds of thousands of marine lives.

Have a beer and save the ocean!!! I'll do my part.

The Sausage Dome

With only 3 weeks away from the Super Bowl, Johnsonville has launched “The Sausage Dome”. A Sausage-themed reality TV show, where contestants create their own recipes and compete against each other for a year’s supply of sausages and a place in Johnsonville's "Big Game Binder" recipe book. They'll be judged by the "The Sausage Six," a group of Johnsonville employees with hearty appetites and no judging experience.

It’s a great, efficient lead up to the Super Bowl, without actually forking over the dollars to be an official Super Bowl sponsor, and a great way to give customers a first hand experience with your brand without a huge investment. So grab your sausage and start cooking!

Are You Ready For Some KFC Football?

Weeks before the Super Bowl, KFC is getting fans ready for the big game — the one where a bucket of KFC is practically required — with a game of its own. The “KFC Fried Football Frenzy Challenge” combines America’s love of football, KFC, and social media by using Instagram in a unique way that creates an immersive brand experience rather than just as a platform to disperse content. In "choose your own adventure" style, users start with the first image on their Instagram account and try to coach their team to greatness by choosing their next move using several other branded Instagram accounts. You can choose between different plays like “@KFC_crispyrun,” and @KFC_potatopass to ultimately (hopefully) score a touchdown.  Now grab the pigskin (extra-cripsy of course) and score one for the Gipper!