CIROC and Uber, today turbo charge their new year campaign with the launch an OOH Social campaign using Monster Social (the platform formally known as LocaModa), Twitter and the huge Times Square digital billboard at 1568 Broadway at 47th Street.

Sean Diddy Combs’ Ciroc vodka has teamed up with on-demand transportation app Uber, who will provide discounts for safe rides home on New Year’s Day 2014. Throughout the remainder of 2013, consumers are urged to pledge to #CIROCthenewyear on Facebook and Twitter and make their commitment to never drink and drive.

Tweets with the hashtag #CirocTheNewYear are filtered and age-gated before being displayed in Times Square. For every message CIROC receives with #CirocTheNewYear, Uber will provide new Uber users with a $25 coupon code, up to a maximum total of $1,000,000.

At 12:00pm EST on January 1, 2014 Combs will personally tweet and post a special code for new Uber users to redeem their discount. The rides will then be made available on a first come, first-served basis beginning at 12:00pm on January 1, 2014. Consumers will be able to sign up with their code at Uber.com.

Celebrities have been joining the cause at pledge parties including Sarah Michelle Gellar, Zoe Saldana, Michael Yo, Kevin Frazier, and Thea Andrews and CIROC will also host additional pledge parties throughout December in key markets including New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, Washington DC and Chicago.

The campaign runs 24/7 until Jan 1st 2014.

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According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a selfie is “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.”

Now the very nature of the “look at me” selfie is being leveraged as a strategic tool that OOH networks are using to help drive awareness for their screens. This is an engagement STRATEGY not a campaign. Designed to be attention grabbing and improve engagement for Cemusa, #TSQselfie enables advertisers to skin the application and be part of the consumer dialog in New York City’s busiest intersection.

As our very own Mr Beauchamp said in today’s press release “#TSQSelfie application enables Cemusa screens to be even more engaging for pedestrians, and therefore more valuable to brands and agencies. It has the perfect balance of fun and fame to get pedestrians noticing and participating.”

Expect to see more OOH networks working on similar strategic initiatives to drive engagement and therefore value.

The application runs for 30 seconds every 5 minutes, 24/7 across 20 screens on 10 Cemusa newsstands in Times Square.

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Superlatives are in superdrive as the largest boy band in the world, One Direction (or 1D as their fans call them) arrive in New York today.

Sharpie, one of the brand sponsors supporting this latest British invasion, are asking One Direction fans to draw, sketch, or scribble anything to do with One Direction and hey presto, they can share the screen with them, and receive a souvenir photo like this one of their moment of fame.

This is yet another great example of a 360 degree Social Out of Home strategy to amplify audience awareness and engagement. Sharpie, by offering fans the chance of being on New York’s largest screen in Times Sq with their heroes are doing everything right. They are offering a fun engagement with a great reward, and a (captured) moment of fame. This is the previously described “3 Fs” strategy (The 3fs = Fame, Fun and Fortune).

If anyone doubts that fans would go to the trouble of drawing pictures (rather than just taking a photo from a smart phone) they’d be wrong - we were deluged by tennie drawings as soon as the campaign went live. We’ve probably got enough pictures to paper all the screens in Times Sq!

Oh, and anyone starving for attention in Times Sq today could of course also submit a photo to the Gap campaign running a few feet away on the Viacom screen.

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In the right hands, connecting an otherwise ordinary network of screens to an extraordinary screen or two, amplifies the engagement and value of the ordinary network. And I’m being polite - that ordinary network might actually be extraordinarily boring. But it can still be saved by connecting it to unique screens and places…

Take a retail experience where a mall shopper is rewarded by having their photo sent to the mall screens. The shopper gets a shot of fame, they tell their friends, and in the right hands that can enhance customer experience, foster loyalty and increase sales.

Times Sq can be used as an extreme version of this strategy. (NOTE: This should be a strategy, not a stunt. Too many times, brands and agencies get caught up in doing stunts that feature a big screen(s), but don’t connect them in any meaningful way, so they fall flat.)

Warning - shameless plug: LocaModa has done more Times Sq connected campaigns (e.g. connecting other DOOH networks, TV, Facebook, Twitter, websites etc) than any other company in the world.

We’ve worked with AT&T, Vans, South Park, Gap, Nickelodeon, Samsonite, Stride, Mexico Taxi project, Obama, Kayak, Loez Tonight/TBS, VH1, AdWeek, Ciroc and others

Of course those brands were interested in the hundreds of thousands of people seeing their campaigns in Times Sq every day, but they were also interested in the millions of people able to see AND engage via mobile, facebook, twitter and other websites - i.e. people who are not in Times Sq but pay attention because they could be promised a moment of fame in Times Sq.

In an age when we can all broadcast ourselves on YouTube, handing over the keys to public screens is actually a more unique and therefore more valuable experience for consumers and it can be leveraged to make otherwise boring screens suddenly much more engaging and relevant.

So don’t think Times Sq is for stunts - use it to amplify your campaign.

Here’s a link to our very own Mr Greg Stellato and his bride on their recent wedding day - now made famous by Gap in Times Sq, Twitter and Facebook.

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