Mobile Gaming, Image Recognition, Computer Vision, Mobile Content Generation, User Content Platform, Picture Games, Picture Recognition, Computer Vision Applications

Fast Company explores the power of Pongr

Bursting Out: CEO Jamie Thompson recently bantered with Fast Company magazine why he believes Pongr technology tears QR codes to shreds. (Photo credit: Jordan Hollender for Fast Company)

Q: Who has the World’s Largest Collection of User-Generated Mountain Dew Photos?

A: Is that a rhetorical question?

I like Pongr CEO Jamie Thompson’s humble boast in the February issue of Fast Company magazine about being the curator of more than 16,000 Dew pics (it’s now over 18,000 by the way). But more importantly, I love how he handled journalist Jason Feiffer’s candid question about what the big deal is — that is, what’s the difference between the way Pongr generates and processes fan photos and a brand just collecting pics on Facebook.

“First of all, with image recognition, you can vary the (direct) response depending on what’s sent in,” responds Jamie. “It gives the brand a level of intelligence that they otherwise wouldn’t get. There’s also a huge data motivation here. We’re entering this wave of so much user-generated content out there, yet so little is actually known about who the customers are. We do all kinds of computer-related intelligence, both on photos coming into Pongr and across the web.”

“There is a huge data motivation for brands — pockets of data coming in by region. They can ask, ‘How is our product actually doing in the store? How is our product doing in people’s homes? What are people taking photos of, and is it good stuff or bad stuff? Do we need to adjust our message in real time, our calls to action in real time? It’s much more than that direct response into a website,” he adds.

Fast Company’s Feiffer has a clever metaphor about the overused catch phrase of “brand engagement.”

“In some ways, I feel like brands today are like 11-year-old boys,” he says, bringing me back to my 6th Grade dance. “A girl will come up and talk to them, but they don’t really know what to say back.”

Find out what Jamie has to say about talking to girls, image recognition, the flaws of QR codes and the future of social and mobile gaming by checking out February’s Fast Company, which is now on the newsstands if you want to get an autographed souvenir copy.

(Stay tuned to this space for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Pongr’s Fast Company photo shoot!)

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Collegiate #ABC Fashion Challenge!

Posted in Brand Enthusiasts, Brand Loyalty, Brands, Fashion, Shopper Technology, Social Media

Calling All Fashionistas!

Fun way to earn some great prizes while promoting your favorite fashion brands!

PRIZES INCLUDE:

$350 American Express gift card for the 1^st place winner
$250 American Express gift cards to the 2 top participating college organizations (sororities, fraternities, sports teams, student government, or any club!)
$50 American Express gift cards will be awarded randomly to 3 contest participants

HOW TO PLAY:

1.) Snap pics of your favorite fashion items including clothing, shoes, accessories, perfume, jewelry, etc. Photos can be from anywhere! Stores, print ads, celebrities, billboards, online pics, and of course, of you or your friends wearing the brand.

2.) A fashion brand starting with each letter of the alphabet must be represented by a photo. For example, Adidas, Burberry, Chanel, Dkny, etc. When sending pictures, in the subject line you must include #ABC (Name of College Organization) at (College Name).

3.) Email or picture-text the photos to the Pongr site. For example, a picture of UGG boots would be sent to ugg@pongr.com and a photo of a Tory Burch bag would go to toryburch@pongr.com. Once you send the pictures you must follow a link to sign in with Facebook or Twitter.

4.) After you have uploaded all 26 photos, the person with the highest number of total Pongr Bucks wins! You can earn Pongr Bucks by getting “likes” on your pics, and/or sharing the pics on Twitter and Facebook. Remember, if you get creative with your pics, you will probably get more “likes.”

5.) A $350 American Express gift card will be awarded to the individual participant who earns the most cumulative Pongr Bucks on all 26 photos. Keep in mind that you do not need to be in a college organization to participate since there is still an individual 1^st place prize offered.

Have fun and good luck!

Contest will run January 20 – February 11, 2012.

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Congrats to Priya P. on winning the iPhone 4S from Pongr!

Posted in Brand Enthusiasts, Brand Loyalty, Shopper Technology, Social Media

The Pongr Shampoo Photo Challenge is over and it’s time to announce the grand prize iPhone 4S winner!

In case the headline didn’t give it away, Priya P. from New Delhi, India takes the gold.

We thought this was one of Priya's best Pongr photos!

Here's the Pongr e-gift for Priya's iPhone 4S.

Eligible participants were those that completed the Shampoo Challenge and their Pongr profiles.

In addition to the iPhone 4S, Pongr awarded 5 extraordinary participants with Rs. 2,000 for sending photos and obtaining daily challenge awards. The cash prize winners are:

Shashank A. earned Rs. 2,000
Ankit K. earned Rs. 2,000
Jateel T. earned Rs. 2,000
Trisha P. earned Rs. 2,000
Prateek S. earned Rs. 2,000

We’re still awaiting the e-codes for the BookMyShow movie vouchers. As soon as we receive them, we’ll do an automated message to the hundreds of participants that qualified. Stay tuned… we expect to push them out the week of 1/9/12.

Thank you to everyone that participated! Keep pongr’ing your photos and racking up points for future challenges.

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India Shoppers: Win FREE Movie Tickets & iPhone 4S playing Pongr Shampoo Challenge across India

Posted in Brand Enthusiasts, Brand Loyalty, Social Media

Here is how you get an assured FREE movie ticket:

SNAP A PICTURE OF YOUR SHAMPOO BOTTLE at home and SEND it via email or picture-text to (TheBrandNameGoesHere)@pongr.com. For example, if you have Pantene shampoo at home, you send the photo to pantene@pongr.com. If you have Sunsilk Shampoo, send your photo to sunsilk@pongr.com. If you have Johnson’s you send it to johnsons@pongr.com. Get it? You should send your shampoo pic to whatever the brand name is. If you need more help, visit our “How it works” page.
CLICK THE LINK that is sent back to your mobile phone by the Pongr game system. Or you can type the unique link into your web browser. Then, LOGIN with FACEBOOK BUTTON. You have to connect your Pongr account to Facebook and to be eligible for your assured movie tickets and iPhone 4S entry.
Go into your nearest shopping store or market that sells shampoo and SNAP a picture of the shampoo bottles ON THE SHELF IN THE STORE. SEND the photo into Pongr and PUT the STORENAME in the subject of the email/picture-text with a # tag. Do it like people put #hashtags in Twitter. But put the STORENAME as the hash tag. This is important to help us know what stores sell which types of shampoo. Examples include: #BigBazaar or #RelianceFresh or #ManishMarket.

Here is how you get entries into the iPhone 4S sweeps:

After you have completed at least one complete cycle of the above core Shampoo Game on Pongr, you will get an entry for the grand prize iPhone 4S if you SUBMIT ADDITIONAL IN-STORE or MARKET PICTURES of SHAMPOO. We want to see many brands and many pictures of WHERE YOU CAN BUY YOUR SHAMPOO and WHAT YOUR OPTIONS ARE. Each picture that is good, clear and helps us “see” the store shelf as you see it, earns you an EXTRA ENTRY.
Each time you “SHARE” your Pongr’d photo into your Facebook (using the Pongr Share button), we will give you an EXTRA ENTRY.
Each time you invite-a-friend to a specific brand of shampoo through the Pongr invite feature, you earn an EXTRA ENTRY when your friend Pongr’s a shampoo pic. Note: Your friend must actually participate in a complete cycle in order for it to count. Pongr is able to automatically track when your friends COMPLETE a cycle in the basic shampoo game.

Get Pongr’ing soon! The 500 ASSURED tickets to movies will be sent electronically via BookMyShow India and are only guaranteed to the first 500 participants to complete the shampoo challenges. The winners will receive a notification from Pongr on how to get their free tickets. The iPhone 4S winner will be selected at the conclusion of the Shampoo Challenge. This challenge runs through December 31st, 2011. The assured rewards for this challenge are only available to Pongr players in India.

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#PongrBlackFriday Contest!

Posted in Brand Enthusiasts, Brands, News, Social Media

With Thanksgiving fast-approaching you know we had to do something fun for the holiday. On Black Friday (Nov. 25th), we will be giving away prizes to those who bring Pongr along for their shopping spree.

To enter simply send in your Pongr pictures as usual, and then share the photo on Twitter with the hashtag #PongrBlackFriday in the tweet. Our Pongr elves will be scouring Twitter and automatically entering those that qualify into the drawing. We have multiple prizes, Starbucks gift cards, iTunes gift cards, Xbox Live points and more! We will notify you on Twitter if you are a winner!

The way we see it, you are already shopping, why not get rewarded for it?

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