What were some of the top stories from the world of marketing and video? Each week with Render Perfect Productions, your video marketing experts in Baltimore and beyond, we’ll take a look at marketing news this week. In this edition, we are covering some of the top stories from the week of May 16th to May 20th 2022.
Domino’s Partners with Stranger Things
- Domino’s developed a “mind-ordering” app as part of a promotion for season four of Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” the first part of which hits the streaming service May 27, per a news release.
- Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play, the app puts users in the shoes of a test subject at the Hawkins National Laboratory from the science-fiction series set in the 1980s. There, they can explore a virtual version of the secretive government facility, uncover Easter eggs and use their “powers” with the brand’s Easy Order function.
- Billed as the first mobile ordering app of its kind, the platform applies facial recognition and eye-tracking features to let consumers complete their orders by making certain expressions and head movements. The concept lets Domino’s experiment with nascent technology that could be more meaningful to its business as mobile and digital ordering continue to gain popularity, while providing “Stranger Things” fans with a fun distraction related to the show’s supernatural mythos.
Domino’s is letting “Stranger Things” viewers role play as super-powered test subjects from the streaming series through its new app. Users are also potentially serving as real-world guinea pigs for the pizza chain as it tests out applications of facial recognition and eye-tracking.
While these pieces of technology are controversial most times, Domino’s insists that the tools it’s using do not store any facial data that could be used to personally identify individuals. The mind-ordering app instead helps Domino’s calculate movements like face tilt, closing of the eyes or furrowing of the eyebrows, a spokesperson said. Consumers are also free to explore the app even if they don’t want to place an order, Domino’s said.
To promote the mind-ordering capability, Domino’s released a video where “Stranger Things” mainstays Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) bike to a Hawkins, Indiana, store location while trading friendly potshots. At the era-appropriate Domino’s, a power outage is followed by an order being mysteriously placed, tipping Dustin and Lucas off to supernatural goings-on. Eleven, a member of their friend group, was a product of the Hawkins National Lab and wields similar psychic and telekinetic abilities.
Additional marketing materials for the campaign include a limited run of ’80s-themed pizza boxes for medium and large pizzas, excluding handmade pan pizza orders. Domino’s has also sprinkled the mind-ordering app experience regarding both “Stranger Things,” with nods to the show’s Demogorgon monster, and its own history. A website requests users report any spottings of the Noid to the Hawkins Police Department. The Noid was first introduced as an antagonistic brand mascot in the ’80s and was brought back into Domino’s marketing rotation last year.
Brand ties-in with “Stranger Things,” a crown jewel of Netflix’s original content slate, are kicking into high gear as the series returns from a three-year hiatus. While Netflix doesn’t run ads — a policy that’s expected to change soon — companies have still latched onto the program for product integration opportunities that tap into the show’s rosy depiction of ’80s culture in small-town America.
Doritos last week revealed it would host a virtual music festival with several acts that hit it big in the decade, such as The Go-Go’s, Soft Cell and Corey Hart. The event on June 23 takes place in the Upside Down — a nefarious alternate reality where the monstrous Demogorgons linger — and tickets can be accessed through specially marked packages of the Frito-Lay chips.
For Domino’s, the mind-ordering concept arrives as the company comes down from earlier highs in the pandemic, when people ordered in more frequently. Same-store sales, a key measure of restaurant health, dropped 3.6% year on year in the first quarter. Domino’s is currently contending with sharp inflationary pressures and labor shortages, which have pushed it to rely more on carry-out promotions.
Recurring Notifications for Business Messaging in Meta
This is an unusual switch up in Meta’s business messaging rules.
This week, at its first-ever ‘Conversations’ messaging conference, Meta announced ‘Recurring Notifications’ on its Messenger Platform, which will enable businesses to send ‘proactive, automated messages to people who have opted in to receiving them’.
Businesses will send sales notifications, updates, newsletters – pretty much whatever they like, with the frequency options ranging from daily to monthly, ‘so businesses can reach customers at any moment in their journey’.
Which is the exact opposite of how Meta has run its messaging platform this far, with strict limits on how many times a business can message users, even if they’ve opted in.
As explained by Hootsuite:
“Businesses can only contact someone after receiving a message from them first. Once you’ve received a message, you have 24 hours to reply. After that, Facebook used to let businesses send one message. But as of March 4th, 2020, that option will be gone. Beyond that, the only remaining option is to send a Sponsored Message. These ads can only be sent to existing conversations.”
Indeed, in Meta’s Messenger Platform and IG Messaging API Policy Overview, it explains that:
“Businesses will have up to 24 hours to respond to a user. Messages sent within the 24 hour window may contain promotional content.”
Brands can then use its ‘Onetime Notification’, which enables businesses to send one follow-up message after the 24-hour messaging window has ended. But Meta has been very careful about allowing businesses to potentially overuse its messaging API, for fear of them spamming their device to notifications hell, through random promotions and alerts that could quickly become very annoying.
It seems that Meta is no longer as concerned about this, and with users having to opt in, with a clear overview of how many messages they can expect if they do, that looks like it’s now enough for Meta to be fine with letting brands unleash in your DMs, if you allow them.
And there’s good reason for this – money.
Snapchat Integrating with eBay
Snapchat has announced a new integration with eBay, which will enable users to share eBay listings within Snaps.
The latter could be more valuable, with eBay sellers able to effectively promote their latest listings to their connections on Snap. Which is kind of like free advertising, though restricted to your connections only.
It’s another step towards expanded eCommerce for Snap, which is also integrating an expanding range of AR shopping tools, shoppable Bitmoji digital items, enhanced product listings and more.
Snapchat also displays Amazon products listings via the Snap Camera, which could also be integrated with its eBay listing at a later stage, providing more ways for users to discover unique items in-app.
Each small step helps to build more habitual shopping behaviors in the app, and with most Snapchatters often seeking their friends’ opinions before they buy things, it could be a valuable, logical expansion of its shopping push.
In order to add an eBay listing to your Snap:
- Open the eBay app and select any listing
- Tap the ‘Share’ icon and then tap the ‘Snapchat’ option to automatically jump to the Snapchat Camera with the automated eBay sticker
- From there, create an original Snap with the eBay sticker and layer on using any of our creative tools
- When a Snapchatter sends a Snap that includes an eBay sticker to their story or directly to their friends, the recipient or viewer will tap the eBay sticker to jump back to the listing in the eBay app
TikTok Tests Mini-Games in Vietnam
Gaming is arguably the most influential element of online culture, and it makes sense for TikTok to lean into gaming where it can, as it looks to maximize its appeal among younger audiences.
Already offering game streaming options, TikTok is now looking to take this to the next level, with the launch of its own, in-app mini-games to boost user engagement.
The games would be simple, HTML5-based apps, which would be developed via third-party game developers and studios like Zynga Inc. – the kinds of games that were big on Facebook several years back, and have now been built into Messenger, Snapchat and various other apps.
Which TikTok, via parent company ByteDance, already has some experience in.
If you want to know the future of TikTok, look no further than Douyin, the Chinese version of the app, which has been in operation for longer than TikTok, and is used by 670 million Chinese.
Given this, most of the features that eventually merge across to TikTok have already been in operation for some time – which is also true of gaming, with games being available in Douyin since 2019.
ByteDance has been making a bigger push into gaming of late, as it works to expand its use case, and diversify its revenue streams. And with vast reach, it makes sense for ByteDance to try out games as another means to expand the revenue potential of TikTok, via in-game ads, sponsored games, and more.
There’s no word on a global rollout plan for TikTok games, but it seems likely that the option will come sooner rather than later. At a guess, I would expect seeing games make it across to TikTok ahead of this year’s holiday season, enabling it to maximize engagement throughout the period.
That could open up a range of opportunities, both for brands and users, while also potentially boosting TikTok usage, and fueling its ongoing growth in western markets.
It’ll be interesting to see exactly how TikTok plans out the integration, and whether social sharing elements will be built into its games to enhance interaction.
Again, it’s a logical and potentially lucrative avenue for the app, and with games already available in Douyin, merging them into TikTok seems like an inevitable expansion, which could become a new trend of note.
About Render Perfect Productions:
Render Perfect has been built from the ground up to service growing businesses and help them realize their full visual storytelling and digital marketing potential. We’ve created a service offering and skill-set that spans video production, post-production, motion graphic design, 3D animation, web development, and video marketing strategy. Our insight and experience allow us to help clients make better planning decisions and get more out of their video production effort.
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