Archive for October, 2007
On the Edge of Your (er…toilet) Seat
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007Some wacky work coming out of Belgium. It took me a while to get it. Luckily the journey was pretty interesting. Heck, I even tried out the men’s room just for the experience.
When the “aha!” came, I felt so relieved.
Pretty gutsy for a bank, don’t ya think? And smart. Makes the point in a very unique and fun way (potty humor and all). Think about it. A free online account. Big hairy deal as far as value propositions go. Every company offers one. But this one stands out in the crowd. Obviously catering to the net savvy (and probably younger) prospect. With a good (or warped) sense of humor.
Nice job ING.
But please people, wash your hands!
Hulu Hoopla
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007Sunday marked the first day of a private beta for the much anticipated Hulu video service, the first major initiative by content owners rather than technology companies, thereby making the whole licensing issue with television, film and music providers for their content much simpler. Hulu is the new-media creation of two old-media rivals, NBC, which is owned by General Electric, and Fox, owned by the News Corporation.
It will pick up shows from Sony Pictures Television and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. Videos will be available via the Hulu site as well as its partner network, which includes Yahoo, Microsoft, MySpace, AOL, and others.
Hulu will offer video content on an advertising-driven basis free to users. The videos on Hulu are full of promotional opportunities, including overlays, promotional graphics that roam over the bottom of the screen during a show. For each show streamed online, Hulu splits the revenue with the content creator and the distribution site, like MySpaceTV or MSN. The revenue splits vary by the type of program, but the content owner takes a majority.
Hulu was first announced in March and was originally seen as a rival to Google’s YouTube, which had come under scrutiny for copyright infringement. But Hulu is all about current TV shows, movies and professionally produced content. There’s no upload function. It’s much more like Joost than YouTube, except that you don’t have to download special software like you do with Joost. However, NBC Universal has stopped offering its shows for sales on iTunes and pulled its channel off of YouTube.
Lighten Up…It’s Just a Commercial
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007Few commercials stop me in my tracks and strike me as great. A few I absolutely detest. But for most, I pay little or no attention. Personally, this one fell in the later for me.
I certainly had neither a strong positive nor negative reaction. Mainly, I found myself singing with the music (because I like the song). But I paid little attention to any message in the spot. In fact, until I read Garfield’s review on AdAge, I didn’t even know it was for CVS. I just saw avatars and the animation and assumed it was for some pharma company.
When reading Garfield’s review, I found myself laughing and audibly suggesting some Xanax for both Garfield (who said: You see a lot of bad ads if you watch long enough, but, really, how often it is that you see a TV commercial that makes you want to puke? ) as well as those of the polar opposite opinion who are pissed that he presumed to speak on women’s behalf.
CVS rolled out the spot in early October as part of a $25-million, national campaign to rebrand itself by celebrating and honoring women’s roles as nurturers and caregivers.
According to this story, “CVS conducted research with women — both online and in friendship groups in women’s homes — to better understand their roles. The research found that women make the health-care decisions in their families and are the main caregivers. One in four is a caregiver for people they live with or for a family member of friends. But while women embrace that role, 93 percent felt that no company was helping them in the tasks.”
The “For All Ways You Care” spots will air during programming that targets women ages 35 and up, and the push also includes social networking elements, with a new Web site (ForAllTheWaysYouCare.com) that features the ad and stories submitted by consumers who care for themselves or others.
All I can say is with a $25 million spend…I think SnowPocaAriel is going to be pretty visible out there, so for everyone that seems to hate this spot, get your remotes ready.
Sox May Have Won the Series, but Taco Bell, Chevy and Jordan’s Furniture Score Big
Monday, October 29th, 2007Could very well be that Red Sox rookie Jacoby Ellsbury will be best remembered as the player responsible for giving Americans a free taco in the
2007 World Series as a result of stealing second base in the bottom of the fourth inning in the series’ second game.
Taco Bell’s “Steal a Base, Steal a Taco.” promotion was obviously successful. Unless you were under a rock or completely avoided watching the games, you couldn’t have missed the chatter about the promotion. It got plugs from TV anchors and sports figures; a live interview with Rob Savage, chief operating officer of Taco Bell and a promo from a player in a “candid” conversation between Sox shortstop Clayton and Ellsbury the evening before the big steal. If you think about it…all this hype over a stolen base and free taco? Pretty much a sure bet (the stolen base) given that there has been at least one stolen base in every World Series matchup since 1990. And I guess from Taco Bell’s perspective it was a pretty good financial bet as well. Ad Age quoted this: “Advertising buy: $5.6 million. Potential giveaway cost: under $1 million. Publicity value: priceless.”
Remember…you can get your free taco at any of the 5,800 Taco Bell locations on Tuesday between 2pm and 5pm.
I thought the Chevy twist was interesting. Instead of the typical “brought to you by” announcements, it appeared as if they placed a logo for the Malibu sedan on a sign held up by a fan in the stands. From what I read, it sounds like they gathered a group of 50 fans in Fenway a few days before and simulated a game-like situation and then replaced the shot when the camera then appears to zero in live on the excited fan as the announcer reads the standard sponsor message.
But the fans that made out like bandits were those who took Elliot Tatelman of Boston based Jordan’s Furniture (who is a BIG Red Sox fan) up on his special “Monster Deal” promotion where specific furniture purchased in March and April would be free IF the Sox won. And win they did. So now some 30,000 Jordan customers not only get to celebrate the Sox win, but get to reap the benefits…big time. Tatelman is obviously a big Sox fan, but luckily he had insurance in place to cover the $20+ million in rebate checks that will start going out soon.
Agency Remake of Consumer Generated Spot
Friday, October 26th, 2007Companies adopting and/or advocating consumer generated content has become a fairly common approach for advertising messaging. As a way to engage the customer in a relationship with a brand, this approach is one of dialog, not monolog.
While some of the work that comes from this approach contains very genuine ideas, inventive stories and can be a great expression of the brand soul, it’s often a bit rough around the edges from a quality standpoint.
So I wasn’t real surprised to read a story today in the NYTimes.com about Apple and TBWA/Chiat/Day’s remake of a student’s ad for the iPod Touch. 18-year-old English student and Apple devotee named Nick Haley created a spot set to “Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex” by a Brazilian band CSS and uploaded it to YouTube, where it caught the attention of Apple who in turn asked the agency to contact Mr. Haley and create a remake. Below is his original on YouTube.
So here’s this 18 year-old kid, who has never been to the States, who gets to work on a broadcast-ready version of his spot with creative executives at TBWA/Chiat/Day. Pretty cool. And according to the NYTimes story, the agency stayed true to Haley’s concept — just adding the polish.
For a college freshman studying politics, this had to be a pretty awesome experience.
The new spot starts airing this weekend on football games Sunday afternoon, on “Desperate Housewives” and Game 4 of the World Series.
UPDATE 10/29/2007: Here’s the actual professional remake.
Google to Partner with Nielsen to Track TV Ad Audiences
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007From today’s NYTimes:
Google announced a partnership with Nielsen, the “voice of authority in measuring television audiences, that will give advertisers a more vivid and accurate snapshot than ever before of how many people are viewing commercials on a second-by-second basis, and who those people are.”
A small start, with a portion of the ad sales on the EchoStar DISH network (Google’s been selling these since May), Google can analyze the second by second results of who watched, skipped or changed the channel. And they can provide that data the next day…not days or weeks later. And now, by adding the demographic layer from Nielsen to the raw numbers, Google will have some powerful data that is immensely valuable to the advertiser.
Once advertisers have that kind of measurability from a single cable operator’s network, other cable providers will jump on quickly because advertisers will simply demand it.
Seems to be part of the strategy on the part of Google, and a good one. Google’s leaders are fearless and they are shaking up Madison Avenue. As Dave Morgan, founder and chairman of Tacoda characterized the Google approach in the NYTimes story: “Don’t shake up the market first on addressability, shake it up on measurability.”
Mindset 2011
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007Someone sent me this today…and wow…do I feel old.
Most of the students entering College this fall, members of the Class of 2011, were born in 1989. For them, Alvin Ailey, Andrei Sakharov, Huey Newton, Emperor Hirohito, Ted Bundy, Abbie Hoffman, and Don the Beachcomber have always been dead.
- Humvees, minus the artillery, have always been available to the public.
- They never “rolled down” a car window.
- Religious leaders have always been telling politicians what to do, or else!
- Music has always been “unplugged.”
- Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre.
- MTV has never featured music videos.
- Fox has always been a major network.
- What Berlin wall?
Read the entire list.
Diesel’s Latest Online Campaign
Monday, October 22nd, 2007
Diesel’s latest online campaign for the Freezy Sneaker shoes takes a 1970’s video of a Finnish Disco Celebrity, mashed up to promote a new very 80’s looking shoe design. Actually, the original video is pretty funny (learn the disco is 6 easy steps), but I really like the music in the Diesel mashup.
Warm Up with InstaCritique
Saturday, October 20th, 2007Every year only a select few agencies win the coveted ANDY award. It’s entry time again, and this year they’ve included a fun little warm up on the site so you can get your mind around it (basically rejection for most)– InstaCritique.
Just upload some of your work, select a motivation and your work will be judged by the likes of Alex Bogusky, TBWA’s Gerry Graf, la comunidad’s Jose Molla, DDB’s Bob Scarpelli, Mother London’s Mark Waites–not to mention Pete The Landlord of The Owl & The Pussycat.
The judges will trash you, tell you your work is crap or guide you with some advice about how the size of the wheels is related to the quality of the big idea. Probably as good advice as any.