Social commercials were always inevitable — their real coming out party may have been this year’s Super Bowl — but Old Navy and Shazam have teamed up to make a series of commercials that are almost tangible.
I first noticed this ad last week during 30 Rock:
When you tag the song using Shazam, your phone shoots you off to this page:
(I have to confess: I’m still a little unclear on whether this band is real, or some kind of 21st Century Meaty Cheesy Boys, but I digress.)
Media Decoder has some background:
The idea behind the campaign is to connect more effectively with the target customer for Old Navy, women ages 25 to 35 who are typically also moms.
The ad-within-the-app is pretty interactive. It features the usual sharing options (Twitter and Facebook), as well as links to iTunes for full audio and music video versions of the commercial jingle/song.
It’s all, of course, built around Old Navy’s clothing. You can flip through look-books of what the band wears and each ad shows off a different “styling tip” (spoiler alert: if I “rock bold colors” with my dark jeans, it’ll give me an “edgier look”).
It seems like a win-win: Shazam gets some (more?) mainstream exposure by piggybacking on Old Navy’s brand name, and Old Navy positions itself for a really decent viral campaign. I, and I’d imagine many other people, checked out the Shazam portion of the commercial just out of curiosity.
Is it too early to start guessing that other brands will try this? Maybe. But something tells me that being able to offer a one-click connection to a brand has marketers salivating.