In 2007, an ad for First For Women Car Insurance among the most forwarded – Twitter wasn’t around then, you see. It won the Young Director’s Award too – deservingly so. The ad literally took the piss out of men. This year, FFW has come up with a similar themed commercial. Agency: Black River FC, Johannesburg Enjoyable, would appeal to both men and women – men for the wrong reasons. But the first one was…
Another example of consumer engagement, consumer generated advertising – call it what you may. Cadbury’s Australia launched a campaign recently for it’s Picnic Bar. Picnic chocolate bar is made of nuts, wafer, chocolate, rice crisps and caramel – quite a mouthful. George Patterson Y&R, challenged its audience to eat a Picnic in the space of a :30 commercial break. People filmed themselves using mobile phones, webcams and handycams and then created their own TV ads using…
Adweek published an article recently, titled Traditional Shops’ Digital Skills Deemed Unimpressive. The bottom line: Asked to rate their traditional agency’s digital skills on a scale of 1 to 10 — with 1 equating to “poor” and 10 meaning “excellent” — only 3% of the 277 client executives polled chose excellent, and almost half – 47% –ranked their shops between 1 and 5. Not surprising, me thinks. Paradoxically, agencies have been investing in specialist Digital…
This is classic P&G marketing. As part of the 2010 Winter Olympics campaign, Procter & Gamble did not simply stop at sponsoring the US Olympic team. It has launched a Thank You, Mom programme, based on the insight that ‘celebrates that special person in the lives of Team USA athletes who supports their child selflessly to help them succeed’. Brilliant. It includes a TV commercial which sums up the ideas as ‘to their moms they…
India has never been an important market for Apple. During the early ’90s when I was fresh in the advertising business, Macs ruled the Creative & Studio Departments of advertising agencies. Even then, the onus of marketing and servicing Macs was on the local re-seller. There wasn’t much of a concerted effort from Apple. Later, PC’s became pretty much the norm for graphics, Office Suites and everything else. Today, it’s common to find seasoned Art…
The best known Super Bowl spot of all time is perhaps the Apple 1984 one. For that era, it was the equivalent of ‘shock and awe’, I guess. Over time, advertising during the event has been a subject of increasing public & media attention. The result: advertisers wanted to outdo each other in getting attention. For a while it was funny. The early spots for EDS, E*Trade, Budweiser (frog), Monster.com (‘When I grow up’), Tabasco…
Ad Age reports that ‘Omnicom Group’s TBWA/Chiat/Day has appointed Neal Grossman, a one-time certified public accountant who over 25 years at TBWA has served in various financial and strategy positions, as its first global chief compensation officer’. This new position is over and above the Chief Financial Officer is meant to lead contract renegotiations with clients and procurement officers, and overseeing fee discussions during new-business pitches. He will develop value-based compensation models that are mutually…
Saatchi & Saatchi, Australia has developed a new integrated campaign for Toohey’s NEW beer (yes, the brand name is NEW). I simply loved the central creative idea, the executions and the potential for creating integrated stuff. According to Campaign Brief, the fully integrated campaign explores the truth that in Australia, beer is constantly used as currency. Whether it’s helping a mate move house or installing a dishwasher, you can always get things done with a…
Over the years, ‘newspapers, periodicals and’ as a category has seen some memorable creative work – Veja (Dead vs Alive), The Economist, SKY television and several others come to mind. Among the common themes covered, ‘transporting you to the place of action’ and ‘presenting an in-depth coverage of world events feature right up there. In this context, came across an interesting execution for Cape Times, South Africa. Agency: Lowe Bull, Cape Town, South Africa. Via: Ads of…
The new TVC for Parle Agro’s baked munchies, Hippo, is creating some buzz. A majority of people have reacted with positive comments. In a highly competitive category, the ‘root cause of all evil is hunger – appease hunger with Hippo’ proposition is being seen as unique. Agency: Creativeland Asia The brand name Hippo, the packaging, communication and the planned surround ideas seem to follow a similar pattern seen in the earlier work from the Parle Agro-Creativeland…