The MSN Direct Smart Watch provides up-to-the-minute information, news and content which can be personalised to your specific interests. Our advertising goal: introduce this watch to 'mobile achievers' by highlighting the unprecedented power of immediate information available on the watch.

The high cost of newspaper advertising makes extended campaigns cost-prohibitive. By using ‘real-size watch’ (small size) creatives, we extended the campaign to five weeks (versus a projected one week launch), generating over 144 appearances. During the newspaper campaign, sales were 23% higher than in subsequent weeks.

Near-impossible late deadline negotiation allowed us to insert the most current news, stocks, sports and weather on the watch face at press time. And although US newspapers don’t usually guarantee placement on specific pages, we negotiated specific positions on news, stocks, sports and weather pages to create message/medium synergy. As a result, information displayed on the watch often exactly matched the editorial on the surrounding page.

This idea can also be executed in other flexible, immediate media arenas, including radio and online. In radio, DJs and radio personalities can be given MSN Direct Smart Watches to promote the service. During live broadcasts, they can provide instant news, entertainment, weather and traffic updates to listeners directly from their watches. Online, multiple copy changes are possible in a single day, which enables us to provide even more current content than in a newspaper.

For the tech-savvy, mobile achiever, instant information plays a vital role in both his personal and professional life. Proprietary research revealed how disconnected this target feels when he doesn’t have access to his primary information sources (to the point of true anxiety). Our strategy: find places to highlight the instant gratification capability of the watch: he can have access to current information now, not later. We were determined (to the point of true anxiety) to showcase this. We elected to show how our product was even more immediate than the 'immediate' environment we were in.