Archive for the ‘Brand building’ Category
All Made Outa TickyTacky
Best “Dirigible-Based Love Story” You’ll See Today
This spot is fun to watch but I have my doubts about whether it builds the Pelephone brand. Then again, I’ve never heard of the communications company Pelephone from Israel, so there is little to build on in this brain.
I started watching the Israeli version on Vimeo, which has a different soundtrack. The two ads have a slightly different effect, though I’ll admit to a very limited grasp of Hebrew (as in, nothing). One lesson I’m learning—which I am demonstrating right here—is that visual interest is sometimes enough to make a person stop and take notice.
Kudos to David Griner of Adfreak for discovering the category of “dirigible-based love stories.”
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Via Adfreak
Do You Miss Old Ads?
Me Neither
Once upon a time just showing smiling people next to a bunch of stuff was enough. I don’t miss this advertising technique. We’re still attracted to great piles of stuff, of course. It’s just that now we demand to be romanced. We want the stuff we buy to move us up to the next hipper rung on the status ladder. Or we want a word from a Steve Jobs-like character to tell us what the cool people care about.
Still, we’re in the season where just showing a pile of stuff is probably strategy enough to get us to open our wallets.
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Corporate Voice Meet Shiny Plastic Food Tray
“No, you know what, screw it, we love it man.”
Recent conversations set me to thinking about corporate voice. Clients uniformly want to be heard with bold authority but then the lawyers and regulators find the [fresh/spicy/freaky] copy and emasculate it with sharp strokes.
But let’s not just point at lawyers and regulators, let’s admit that bold is a dangerous position. Bold words might fail. Or be seen as stupid. Bold words may pin me to a promise: uncomfortable!
Voice has always taken courage. Being heard has always been a risky endeavor. Especially when what you have to say goes against the grain. Think Elijah calling fire from the heavens. Think John the Baptist nailing the authorities as vipers. Think Richard Branson. That’s right: He of the airlines and music and phones and whatever else his Virgin Group encompasses. He of the bold statements. Maybe Sir Richard Branson is no Elijah or John the Baptist, but his company did produce this airline tray mat, which is at least a tiny voice crying in the wilderness of corporate voice.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
3 Moments of Unexpected Joy in this VW Spot
“Was that me? Was I singing?”
Building in order of sheer happiness:
- Joyful Moment #1: The soundtrack. I’m not sure who this is but it reminds me of the Moody Blues and so the late 70s/early 80’s come rushing back in all their triangular, puffy-shouldered wonder.
- Joyful Moment #2: When our man mouths the lyrics and they dance. Love it!
- Joyful Moment #3: “Was that me? Was I singing?” That guy nailed it. Let’s have more corporate meetings with that guy.
GC/BC says the idea has been done before. I’m sure it has. But I can’t stop watching it. And I feel more favorable toward the power of German engineering.
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Via GC/BC
PostScript:
Well—I’ve been schooled. This entire concept is lifted from the 80’s band a-ha. Here’s their official Take On Me video. I vaguely remember the mid-80s. One thing I was not doing was watching MTV. So I missed it. Whatever: now I’m all caught up.
Oy! Getting a history lesson from advertising.
What next?
Copywriting Tips for English Majors #8: Work Past Your First Thought
Instant believability is a must + clowns are not a message
This ad is like a DVD scratch that hits at the climax of Inception: all plot and story get stuck and there is no movement forward.
Copyranter offers a mini-lesson in copywriting from this ad from Kazakhstan. Too many times we go with our first gut idea without knowing how the pieces fit. When the pieces do not precisely fit the message is lost.
Check out Copyranter’s list of questions/thoughts about the ad.
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Via copyranter
Mini: One Brand’s View of Heaven
I’ll have the feather treatment, please.
Naturally you see the product this way, too. Don’t you?
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The Genius of Aldi OUS
“I don’t like tea.”
I’ve been on a jag of watching Aldi commercials lately. A couple days ago I posted this. And then there’s this odd man with his peculiar fondness. But this is one of my favorites:
Does Aldi in the US make commercials?
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How To Soil Yourself: American Travel Check Voucher
Budgeting for the Aggressively-Uninformed-and-Desperate Niche
I’ve had this direct-mail sitting on my desk for a number of days. It is so brazenly bad I cannot bring myself to throw it away. It looks like a check. It is not a check: it’s an invitation to (probably) a 90 minute high-pressure sales meeting followed by (likely) more invitations to waste hundreds if not thousands of dollars in fees for the free tickets—at least according to Erica Duecy and Rachel Klein at Fodors.com. American Airlines and the Better Business Bureau have disowned and warned against the scam. Various news teams and scores of writers have been noting this bit of ugliness out of Scottsdale, Arizona for years.
To me this represents the worst of all possible communication events. It plays on one’s innate thrill of getting something for nothing, takes unfair advantage of anyone in desperate financial straits and provides an open door into a cesspool of bad money decisions. It’s probably not illegal, just really, really stupid.
And not just stupid for anyone who tries to cash it.
Stupid for the company paying for the promotion: by this point most of us are trained to Google anything that looks too good to be true. When you Google it, “scam” pops up right away and appears in nearly every entry. One would need to actively disregard obvious warning signs to take advantage of this. And yet, there must be enough aggressively uninformed people who are just desperate enough to fall into the deception. In other words, the few desperate people buying-in keep the swindle going. So—smart for the company to prey on desperate people—and entirely void of care for humans.
The sadness in this direct-mail is how it poisons the water for honest communication. It’s just another example of hucksterism showing up in my mailbox.
Ugly. I’d hate to have this in my portfolio.
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Image credit: News 8
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