Nov 21st, 2009 by Simon
I’ve posted this before, so apologies for the repetition. But, a world record for views (at 45 million and counting) has put this in the Guinness Book of Records… So, how many more views will that prompt?
Anyway, just in case you haven’t watched it recently, enjoy…
Nov 19th, 2009 by Simon
Funny, surprising new spot for Methodfrom Droga5… Simple, effective, dirty little idea.
But then it opens into a way bigger thing online. Asking you to sign up to know what goes into cleaning products. Makes you question it quickly. Impactful, great stuff.
Nov 18th, 2009 by Simon
New and interesting. It grabbed my attention whilst watching TV tonight, at least.
Not the first spot for the campaign idea of “Let it out” but it’s more poignant and bigger than the street sofa at the same time. The celebrity factor is crucial – you couldn’t make it work without them, but that’s no bad thing. The music carries a lot of the mood, but it’s well done. Although I’ll question Bob’s acting as pictured above – the freeze frame does him no favours – somehow, he’s turned into Paul Whitehouse!
Nov 6th, 2009 by Simon
Oct 28th, 2009 by Simon
I was perusing the web and reading the Hall and Partners site when their “Fresh Meet” blog link caught my eye. And I’m glad it did. Not simply because they’ve used the same design template for their blog – although it’s a sign of great taste, for sure! No – they had a pecha kucha night, used the term “how meta” and plenty more – just in one of their posts! And there’s plenty more to read on there.
Go here to see the full line up of speakers from that pecha kucha night, but just in case you’re too lazy for a full helping, absolutely watch this talk from Paul Barton (of Brooklyn Brothers). In this, he talks about the need to really define the business task before getting all twisted up in looking at your proposition. And that’s simple, smart thinking we should all listen to. Far too often, we all leap into the task of solving the brief, rather than worrying about what the problem was in the first place and finding a truly disruptive way of tackling it, reframing it or simply interrogating it properly before we begin.
I’ll boldly assert this now: You cannot lose by spending time really understanding what it is you’re trying to achieve. At the very least, whatever comes next will have genuine purpose. More likely than not, though, you’ll actually give yourself the thrust to find something far better in your strategy.
Oct 26th, 2009 by Simon
Nice piece of outdoor from Sky Arts for Pink Floyd – wish I’d seen it live!
In their words…
Sky Arts pays tribute to Pink Floyds iconic Dark Side of the Moon album cover, recreating the acclaimed artwork over Primrose Hill, London, yesterday to celebrate the screening of Pulse: Dark Side Of The Moon Live, the bands 1994 live performance of the album at Earls Court, which will be screened on Sky Arts 1 HD this Friday 23rd October and again on Monday 16th November.
Created using a pyramid structure, LED lighting and four powerful 10W white light lasers, the iconic spectrum was beamed across the London skyline.
Oct 14th, 2009 by Simon
Writing my last post drew me to visit the “Never Hide” youtube page again, which I haven’t done in a few months (or more).
I’ve posted about this campaign a number of times, but then it’s good, so why not?! And they’ve added more to it. From the beginning, they’ve taken a ‘be prepared for some to be niche and some to go mass’ approach to adding content to YouTube, and it’s really worked. What now exists is a channel worthy of spending some serious time on – with everything from the light-hearted fun of “guy catches glasses with face” catch, through the product demo that is the “super chameleon” (albeit damn watchable still), the darkness that is “cow gives birth to a dude“, or the sheer arty joy of “color goes pop“… see here for all those films.
They haven’t stopped there, though – there’s a FaceBook page which gives fans all the latest news. There’s a Flickr site with all the movie posters on it. I didn’t find a Twitter user, but that might be bad searching!
Love it. Truly love it.
Oct 13th, 2009 by Simon
Visible Measures publish this chart weekly – tracking the most watched videos online – which is effectively a measure of viral videos, although some of the very best weren’t written to be ‘viral’.
What piqued my interest was the presence of some advertising spots that aren’t at all new, as commented on by Abbey Klaassen in this article on Ad Age. In particular, T-Mobile ‘Dance‘, Cadbury ‘Eyebrows‘ and Evian ‘Babies‘… embedded below, in case you haven’t already added to the stats! Not one of these was written as a “viral film” in the old sense of the word. But they’re good enough that people are interested in watching them even after they’ve finished on air. And with over 200 thousand people watching weekly (since that’s what it takes to make it in to the top ten), they’re adding good reach and/or frequency to the campaigns.
The reason I ask whether this could become an effectiveness measure is slightly different, though. I’m sure people have used the ‘online viewers’ measure to prove the added reach/frequency or ‘eyeballs’ gained, but have they used it as a more qualitative measure of being genuinely great? Because lots of ads go into this top ten (Nike’s ‘today was a good day’ and Microsoft’s ‘Laptop hunters’ for instance), however few stay in the ranks for 20+ weeks – and that kind of lasting impact seems a lot more effective than any “500 thousand people watched it online” quote.
In a totally separate league, there is the work for Ray Ban “Never Hide” campaign – since it set out to be a viral piece – with all of the low budget limitations and the need to capture pass-on viewings; after all, this film didn’t have the advantage of being able to gain momentum on TV first. And it’s been repeatable, with the catching taking on new forms over time… so it’s a campaign of viral value, not just a one-off. I mention this as well, since it held in the charts for ages, and even re-appears again this year.
Whether written for TV, or written for online viewing, they all have one thing in common… The message (or explicit advertising part of the ad) is subtle – allowing people to enjoy something that is content, with entertainment value and a degree of “how the hell did they do that?”. Not a bad thing for us all to aim for in our quest for effectiveness…
Oct 11th, 2009 by Simon
Clearly I’m biased, since this is TBWA work, but I love the power of the “We’re For Dogs” campaign for Pedigree and this is a great little addition…
They’ve created a “Dogs Rule Day” (yesterday, so the timing of this post is a bit late!) and formed a Facebook link for people to show their support. There’s also a website that you can’t see if your IP is UK-based, annoyingly. But will work elsewhere.
Oct 6th, 2009 by Simon
I was asked by Carlos (the Brazilian blogger) to name my favourite campaign. And asked for the opportunity to name 5 – which is a total cop-out, but I wanted to do an “over the ages, by decade” pick. And, as you go back through older ads, it’s relatively easy to pick a corker for each decade.
My four from the past were:
60’s: Union Carbide “Chick”
70’s: Fiat Strada “Handbuilt by robots”
80’s: Apple “1984”
90’s: Blackcurrant Tango “Ray Gardner”
Four decades where TV/Cinema ruled supreme – there were remarkable print/outdoor ads and some great radio, but nothing compared to TV… Then, this decade, it all changes and you’re caught debating the best “campaign” – because it has to be something that is driven across so many more points of communication. There’s epic examples of TV still (Comcast Rabbit, Cadbury Gorilla, Sony Balls to name just 3), but that isn’t enough – they’re ‘just ads’ (not that we should forget the potency that ads have still)… But for “best campaign of this age” it needs to be something that lives beyond that – something that truly exemplifies a campaign with a belief, an organising principle, a thought, whatever you want to call it. But something that goes beyond a message and becomes a point of involvement.
I ended up going back to my first thought – the example I use so often when talking about what we mean by “more than just an ad”…
Haagen-Dazs “Honey Bees“
