Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

If a 150-million-year-old Brachiosaurus could talk, what would it say?You can find out at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, where many of the exhibits will soon tell their own stories using local voices, thanks to an initiative from local museum advertising specialist Leo Burnett.

The agency wrote more than 100 short scripts, each a paragraph or two long, designed to capture the “voice” of various plants, animals and minerals in the museum’s permanent collection. The write-ups combine history and humor. For example, the Brachiosaurus bemoans its girth while also discussing the contributions of paleontologist Elmer Riggs.

Everyday Chicagoans are invited to record the first-person monologues in a special pop-up audio booth that is traveling around the city this summer. (It visited Chinatown this weekend.) Ultimately, the best voiceovers will be accessible via smartphone for Field visitors to enjoy on audio tours....

Do you want to pay for a fresh box of golf balls or to get your nails done simply by doing what you are already doing all time time? Well, Pay Your Selfie has just what you need—an app that doles out cash for your moments of mobile narcissism. 

The Chicago-based company has attracted 100,000 users since launching in September, accruing 500,000 photos from consumers, many of whom pose with brands. Here's why they selfie up with marketers: They get paid up to $1 when they upload a picture with a brand in it after Pay Your Selfie posts a request for such photos.

Unsponsored selfies—photos in which users do not snap pics with a specific product—pay just a few coins. At any rate, once their digital piggy bank (see below) gets to $20, the company will mail them a check for the amount or donate it, upon request, to their chosen charitable organization.  

What's more, brands are forking over cash to Pay Your Selfie on a per-engagement basis, taking the data and utilizing the insights to inform future marketing efforts like creative for ads and packaging for products. The lion's share of the app's users are millennials, the all-important demographic marketers are trying to target....