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Public awareness ads are damn hard to make. This one is very good
As I started to mentally prepare for another round of nesting, I realised (surprise, surprise) that my home, that is my drawers, cupboards and the storage up the loft is full of good unused stuff. Now Sheira and I have been giving away clothes and books to local charity on a regular basis but some things, especially gadgets and other stuff are always left in the drawer…
So I decided to do something more useful and interesting with these unused stuff. Every month in 2010 I will dig something of value out of my drawer/storage, put it on ebay and 100% of the money from the sale goes to charity of choice - the winner will inform me where do they want their money to go to.
I’m starting with my old classic iPod mini that served me well and is still in perfect condition, packed with good music - all proceeds from this sale go to the Haiti Earthquake Appeal unless the buyer will insist otherwise.
Few days ago I talked a lil bit about my reaction to the Coke happiness machine and the effect of obviousness. Here is a lovely little local marketing example for something of the good obvious side of things.
Simple and nicely done (although the ‘results’ of the experiment could have been even more interesting)
In case you missed it take a quick look so you can get what I’m talking about
This piece that got all marketing twitteratis drooling left me with half a smile half a ‘meh’. It’s an idea I bet has been on the minds of half the creative dudes in the world. It definitely was on mine. That’s not to say I’m hot because I don’t think this idea is hot.
It reminded me of an interesting blogversation with Andy on his old blog where he claimed that: “Very clever things on the other hand have become the new obvious”.
Recently I wrote that I fear that in 2010 we’ll see loads of obvious stuff that might work but isn’t really exciting and i think that this is the perfect example.
While I strongly believe in the idea that brands should be generous etc., when I see (or do something like that with my clients) I can’t avoid the feeling that, how shall I put it, this is the kind of stuff you do when you don’t have a better idea to earn people’s attention - you give away free stuff in a slightly cheeky way.
Now compare it to this one that also gives free stuff and as I write this post I think I understand why I liked it so much better than the Coke thing. The obviousness in the Ikea promotion comes as a surprise. It’s a sweet-bitter kind of obviousness you see in a simple original idea.
With the Coke thing there was no surprise, just obviousness.
What say you?
This _____________ (couldn’t find the right adjective) video is a fine visual representation to my love and hate relations with Animal Collective. I always found their music brilliant but just… too much. Too many layers of sound that end up feeling too schizophrenic and/or pretentious to the average non-hipster ears. That tilt from good to bad trip and back is too much of an assault on my senses unless I’m in a very unique mood.
Enjoy
It’s stories like this one that rather depressingly remind me how freaking comfortable and mundane my own life is:
Well, to be honest it also reminds me the Seinfeld episode (The Pilot #1 and #2) where NBC executive Russell Dalrymple’s obsession with Elaine begins to affect his work; she tries to let him down easy by saying she can’t be in a relationship with a high-powered man and would prefer to be with someone selfless, such as a member of Greenpeace. In order to prove himself worthy of Elaine, Russell joins Greenpeace and is lost at sea during a botched assault on a whaling ship… (apologies but couldn’t find the scene on youtube)
The following is a guest blog post from the one and only Andy Whitlock. Thanks mate!
I recently came across a lovely term coined by writer Henry James ; a principle he called the ‘balloon of experience’. The thought, summed up by author John Guare is that “an audience will go anywhere with you, as long as you, the writer, keep your hand on the string.” It seems a shame though, to not include the more colourful description from James himself (in full here):
“The balloon of experience is in fact of course tied to the earth, and under that necessity we swing, thanks to a rope of remarkable length, in the more or less commodious car of the imagination; but it is by the rope we know where we are.”
I love this idea. There are immediately dozens of areas I’d love to explore in terms of how it applies to – and evolves for – modern storytelling. Although this exploration will be light, I can at least kick it off with a ‘pop’:
So Long Boys from Andy Whitlock on Vimeo.
In Pixar’s Up, Carl perhaps represents a new kind of adventurer, more attuned to the digital present. Rather than simply floating safely above – and away from – his familiar world, he is taking his world with him.
[Perhaps it’s a stretch to expand on such a simple, pleasant metaphor, but it’s fun trying]
Many of us spend our time devising experiences that ask people to behave in a new way. But more and more often, rather than coaxing them to temporarily float away from their daily comforts, that furniture can now be integrated into the experience. Facebook Connect, anyone?
In favour of drowning in my semi-baked metaphor, I’ll just say that one of the most important things in getting people to come on a new adventure is to softening the blow with some familiarity. It’s why we made the People Projects app in a Facebook environment (using their standard buttons/forms) and why – as a designer of theirs once told me –Motorola’s goal with the RAZR was to make something that looked new but familiar at the same time.
Lack of time means I need to abandon that thought there for now. But feel free to leap aboard and steer it in a new direction.
Thanks to Asi for inviting me to guest-blog here. *Squirrel!*
Recently I found myself thinking about the noisy minority of early adopters and their (not always) latent snobbery and cult or new news. What really makes me tick these days are big brands that get it. It so easy to ‘get it’ when you’re small, young business/brand but somehow the bigger you are the harder it takes you to adopt to change - with exceptions of course.
‘Crossing the chasm’ - a borrowed term that usually used in the context of technology adoption is being used here to describe brands that manage to take the ‘cool’ ideas that comes mostly from web culture and make use of them in a way that not only doesn’t make you want to poke someone eyes out but it actually makes a successful and effective campaign - even if we like to snub it.
Few examples:
Walkers do us a flavour (2008) - yet another crowdsourcing campaign that could have gone un-noticed (or badly wrong) as most big FMCG brands go. But Walkers were very serious about it, treated the campaign as a fully integrated activity- not just as ‘digital’, put the money where the mouth is (pun intended) and created one of the most talked about marketing campaigns of that year.
Dell - one of my favourite brands last year. I was absolutely fascinated by the way they managed to turn from one of the most hated and trashed brands to one of the most respected. Dell put ‘listening’ and real-time customer service at the heart of their business, shifting proper resources to become thought (but more importantly action)-leading, brand on the interweb. Perhaps you need to badly fall on your ass in order to transform your business the way they did.
Starbucks - I don’t ‘like’ Starbucks for the same reasons I don’t like Dell (characterless mass product, if you insist) but with Starbucks Ideas, their story is very similar to Dell. A much loved brand that was going down hill with expansion that rightly threatened both their fans and haterz. Here again is a story of a brand that understood that the web can help you to redefine the relationships between you and the people who care about you. They utilised web culture to get closer to people, to strengthen existing and build new connections with people on and offline.
Burger King - I admire BK for creating a culture of anticipation (what is the next cool shit that they will pull out?) with the drip feeding of small interactive surprises - Xbox Games, Chicken Fight, Posh Converter, Dr Angus, Whopper Sacrifice, The Wopperettes etc. They seem to have develop a desire to experiment and a culture of doing - the culture/process/strategy that more brands should adopt. However, and perhaps this is just an industry insider bias, sometimes it feels like CP+B overshadows BK, if you see what I mean.
Finally the brand that actually ignited this post, T-Mobile. Like all digeratis, when I first saw ‘Dance’ I couldn’t resist snubbing it. I still don’t like it and think it’s the least good of the three. But you can’t argue with 16 million views on youtube. When I curbed my reflex, I couldn’t avoid admiring what they did with singalong -the scale, the surprise and the way they created a story that became advertising assets across all channels. 10,000 people had fuck load of fun and that’s what matters.
And now comes Josh’s Band. Not wholly original, a bit contrived, yes, but I personally think the song is wonderfully catchy (for what it supposed to be, it’s not that i’m gonna have it on repeat on my iPod) and like the 2 prequels, overall T-mobile got truly committed to the idea that marketing should be about doing something with people not just saying something to them. Kudos where deserved etc
c’mon give me more examples…
