The opposite of positive is what sells newspapers, online gossip, or soaps!

I read a great piece in this week’s The Week yesterday about the Vancouver Olympics, talking about how the British press have been identified as scapegoats by the Canadians for knocking their running of the games. One Vancouver journalist wrote this, which made me laugh: “Just because you long ago abandoned any ambitions and became a lethargic nation of elitist whiners whom no one really likes, don’t fault those younger nations who enjoy and embrace life.” (Which is a posting topic in itself.)

Marina Hyde reposted in The Guardian with a commentary on how we will receive the same treatment in 2012, which entitles us to laugh a bit now. Finishing with this rather brilliant insight: “And make no mistake: no one will be cheerily undermining London 2012 more than the British themselves. It’s what we do. Were it an Olympic sport, we would win gold every time.”

So true. We joke with colleagues and we tease good friends. “Banter” is an art form and an accepted signal of friendship. Although we support success, we still love to see a calamitous fall. The American papers love a ‘rags to riches’ story, whereas we love a good dose of ‘riches to rags.’ We rally around a common hatred in TV soaps. And we consider ourselves the world leaders in sarcasm and cynicism. So why all the positivity for brands?

There’s some obvious stuff that is simply illegal according to our own codes of advertising and marketing… as detailed here from the ASA site:

Although comparative claims are permitted, marketing communications that include comparisons with identifiable competitors and/or their products should not discredit, or denigrate the products, trade marks, trade names, other distinguishing marks, activities or circumstances of competitors. Other marketing communications should not unfairly attack or discredit businesses or their products.

Now, I’m not suggesting that we start breaking these rules. Nor that all ads should become negative. But I do think we could be less absolute in our belief that brands have to inhabit a world of positivity.

There was a great paper on “Sadvertising” written some time ago by David Bonney of DDB Needham, which is one way to beat the absolute. The ‘polarising’ nature of something like Marmite is another good example of being less bound by the positive. Numerous charity ads play on heart-rending imagery or outright shock. Virgin Atlantic painted “No way BA/AA” on their planes. But these are exceptions to the rule. And maybe there’s more to it… the US is more lax on this sort of behaviour (although they’d spell that behavior anyway), and that gives rise to a couple of corking examples”

The first is “Got Milk?” Not the stupid ads with celebrities sporting milk moustaches, but the ‘what happens when you haven’t got milk?’ work from Goodby Silverstein & Partners. The classic launch ad – Aaron Burr (search YouTube for “Got Milk Ad” and you’ll find it first in the listings) – epitomises this campaign and the blindingly good insight that not having milk is a bad thing; which is far more impactful than talking about how great it is.

The second great US example is the Truth campaign produced jointly by Crispin Porter + Bogusky and Arnold Boston. It is a rallying cry, inciting teenagers to stand up against smoking. Rather than highlight the negatives in a typical ‘smoke and you die’ story, they told the tale of corporate greed and shock ingredients. Again, you’ll find them on YouTube or on the cp+b site (for a couple of good ones, search for “truth body bags” and “truth rat man” but there’s a league of them and they’re all brilliant).

The ‘truth’ campaign feels all the more potent because you can see how it would play to social media as well as broadcast. And that, to me, is a vital reason to rethink some of this in our new world. Social media campaigns tend to do really well when there’s a cause to rally people. They need some bite, otherwise they get ignored! Dan Zarrella wrote a nice little blog piece on this just recently (See it here).

Anyway, it’s a simple thought – we don’t need to flaunt the rules of the ASA, but we could be more liberal in how we judge ideas. And we may need to open our minds to being more ‘negative’ in our approach. Negative can be very dramatic, it can be involving, and it can drive sales… even if it is un-British!

Repost: First posted at WARC Blogs

Philip Lloyd was kind enough to send these over – and they’re fantastic – copy worth reading… they are the Doritos print ads I was referring to in the previous post.

Saw this new spot on Creativity – which is a beautiful, balletic, majestic, dog-loving extravaganza.

This is the write up on creativity:

Playing catch the Phantom Camera way.

Director Bob Purman used a Phantom camera at 1,000 fps to capture these expressive canines in action.

The director was initially charged with shooting two spots, a “Catch” and a “Jump” execution. The director says: “The ‘Catch’ spot was to be a series of shots of dogs looking with anticipation as a piece of dog food is flying through the air towards them. We shot close-ups of the dogs at 1000 fps. The result was really wonderfully anthropomorphic. The super slow motion really captured this intense sense of desire in the dogs’ eyes. To me it was equal parts awe inspiring and hilarious to see so rich a palate of personality in a dog’s facial expressions. A few days after the shoot I started to get emails from Mark, Steph and the editor Chris Parkins with the different iterations of the spots cut to different music selections, all of them interesting for different reasons. But then they put footage from the two spots together to form this new greater whole that really exploits the dynamics of the dogs’ athleticism and their emotive personality in slowed time.”

So I searched YouTube to see if I could find it there – and found the two “Catch” and “Jump” executions, which come with very different music and a voiceover to boot… Have a watch and decide for yourself what you think might be more effective, but I’m touched by the long format piece without the VO and I’m left feeling like I’m watching something far less memorable, far less extraordinary, far less motivating when I watch the two shorter, VO’d ones.

It’s rare that we see that sort of comparison outside of a personal project, so it’s rare to be able to view them without having an innate bias. But, for me, this is a lovely craft skills comparison – we often kid ourselves that the “message won’t get in the way” and that creatives are being “arty rather than commercial” but all these little differences in music, in timing, in purity all add up.

Meanwhile, in a different country (since the above’s all going on in Canada), Pedigree are doing more great work to help Shelter dogs… If you’re not in the US, you can see it by going to the cached page on Google…

Check this out immediately. The Wrangler site.

This is simply the best fashion site I’ve ever seen. Shows off the clothes in a way I couldn’t conceive before seeing it. The use of movement/video, without losing the focus is smart as almighty hell! Go in, choose a chapter, click on a character and start wanting Wrangler jeans like never before…

W+K London have produced a TV ad for a relaunched Observer… I’ve read that it features “The Thick of It actor Justin Edwards, sending up the shallowness of 24-hour news culture” but I’d be interested to see how many people bother to get that far with the ‘message’ behind it. It’s eminently watchable, it’s just not in the realms of some of their other work…

It was quickly parodied, so it’s at least provocative enough to get some reaction!

You’ve got to wonder if Victors & Spoils aren’t right – as we see more and more of this type of creativity being sourced from the wider world. And why not?

Doritos also ran a double-page spread ad in Campaign this week, with a lovely piece of creative that extols you to win this prize before it’s won by some marketing hack (I’m paraphrasing here and I’m NOT suggesting all marketeers are hacks – just the one lovingly brought to life in their ad!). Couldn’t find it to post – apologies!

Anyway, if you fancy your chances, here’s where to go… or read about it on FaceBook, on Twitter, on YouTube or Vimeo

Ben & Jerry’s are going fair trade – and, to celebrate/advertise that fact, they’re committing to 100 fair trades… a nice little idea… follow it on Twitter and FaceBook or go direct to the site here…

From the marketing info, the thought is this:

“Every day from now until Fair Cone Day on April 27th, fans will be invited to bid for the daily prize by submitting what they would do as a fair trade in return for the item on offer. Trades can take the form of a favour, a stunt, a funny video, a good deed or an achievement – whatever they think is a fair trade! Bidders need to be prepared to complete their trade by uploading a picture or video of themselves doing their trade to the 100 Fair Trades online gallery. There are lots more brilliant prizes up for grabs including a Journey Latin America holiday for two people to the Fairtrade producer country, Ecuador and a Trek America Tour to the East Coast of America, including a visit to the Ben & Jerry’s Vermont Factory!”

There’s also a great quote from Jerry Greenfield:

“Fairtrade is about making sure people get their fair share of the pie. The whole concept of Fairtrade goes to the heart of our values and sense of right and wrong. Nobody wants to buy something that was made by exploiting somebody else.”

I’m here – a love story in an Absolut world…

This is fascinating – a movie supported by Absolut, shot by Spike Jonze.

With a campaign around it that does lots of interesting stuff…

Starting everywhere, but including…

1. A trailer:

2. A book:

3. A window display:

4. A web site:

5. A blog:

And that’s just what I’ve seen so far…

It’s content – it’s interesting – it’s got a star director to pique your interest – but I really love that they’re surrounding it with communications that get you involved and intrigued.

Got a bit delayed posting this, but saw two new ads from BBH and Saatchi & Saatchi in the Brits awards show… Couple of nice bits of work, both in the same sector…

Firstly, this one for Visa:

Secondly, this one for Barclaycard:

Which comes with a nice YouTube channel… pictured above.

While you’re thinking about it, also look at what Umbro have done, because it’s superb and we all like a good case study for reference.

Just in case you’re expecting something else, I was working on defining what a brand should do in the world of social networks, including the likes of Twitter, FaceBook, Flickr, Bebo, MySpace, YouTube, Blogging, etc…

My six main learnings were this:

Be consistently present – don’t ‘dip in’ and then forget to update

If you don’t continue to build your presence, you quickly find that you’ve got a lot of online properties that look untended – it’s the social media equivalent of a derelict shop with some old products in the window. Or a silent guest at a dinner party.

Have personality – probably through a person

One of the major failings of brands who go onto social networks is that they do so on ‘transmit.’ They send out missives like PR releases and expect people to lap them up. In reality, if you talk like a stiff, formal brand and don’t listen in return, you’ll be treated like a bore at a party.

A tip I got was to focus on who does the socialising more than what they’re going to say (although that does come later!).

Be generous – but only on occasion

About a third of people claim to follow brands because of the free stuff they get, which is pretty fair really. Who doesn’t like free stuff? But, if all you do is hand out vouchers and competition prizes, you’ll end up stale still. Make sure that you give away things that are uniquely available through this channel and do it with spontaneity. Make it a treat. Don’t let your social networking sites become your discount outlets.

Fit in, rather than trying to force-fit

Seems obvious really, but there are two huge traps here.

The first is to try desperately to get people to come to your newly created social networking site, rather than building yours on Bebo, MySpace, Facebook, etc… Why? Facebook has 350 million people. You have none. Build it where people are, not where you are.

The second mistake is to go into an environment and treat it by your rules rather than the rules of your host. Don’t. Just because you put your feet on the seats at home, doesn’t make it OK in a cab. So I’m told, anyway

Offer different stuff for different people

Not everyone wants to take part in a competition, write a poem, create music, design a new football boot, spot differences; or vote on other people, and other peoples’ creations. But lots of people do like all of these things.

So, find lots of different levels of involvement and lots of different things for people to get involved with. And don’t put everything in one place. Spread the joy.

Start something, but let other people build on it

The best brands and people are opening up and letting others build on what they started. It doesn’t have to be ‘user-generated’, but let people add to what you’ve got and make it better or change it a tad. It’s part of this ‘letting go of control’ thing that’s going on.

You could start by adding to this…

Repost: First posted at WARC Blogs