No discussion about the ‘new advertising’ is complete without someone uttering the word ‘conversations’ in the context of brands and social media. Frankly, no consumer in his right mind would want to have a meaningful conversation with a hotel, airline, ISP, telecom provider or a college brand. But there is a mad rush from brands to be part of this conversation – Facebook page and Twitter feed (the former being most preferred) being the conduit.…
It is quite uncommon to see well-written, long copy print ads in today’s advertising. There are several reasons contributing to this situation. Visual driven communication dominates static advertising. We are all time poor nowadays thanks to the increase in media clutter. There are far too many things vying for our attention and we can only consume so much. So, telegraphic messages which drive home a point in quick time are the order of the day.
In the UK, winter is usually spent indoors, ‘to hibernate’ as it were. LandRover got the Roebucks family to ‘trade their sofa’ for a week’s adventure in Discovery Sport. Their journey through UK is captured in a series of films and shared across digital media.
Fastrack has been doing some great work over the years across media (kudos to Lowe Lintas). A lot of the work felt right in terms of the insight, while some of the creative executions (e.g. ‘Move On’) may have riled many. I was surprised to see that the account has moved to L&K Saatchi, who have created a new outdoor campaign. The ads are edgy like before and sure enough, was debated on (where else?), Twitter. Here’s why I like the work.
Axe dramatised the ‘chick magnet’ proposition for years. They have a new positioning in ‘How you feel says it all’ for Axe White Label.
Over two decades ago, sending out the New Year greeting card was a big event in ad agencies. At Trikaya, where I worked then, it was a painstakingly created product – a lot of effort used to go behind its creation. I was proud of that attitude because the agency put in a similar effort across all its creative output – even if it was for ‘just a New Year card’. The cards had a new theme every year (reflecting the business trend of the day) and was crafted beautifully – the copy writing and art direction was top notch. Most of the card were laugh out loud stuff in terms of theme and copywriting – I recollect one where global-Indian brand names were spoofed (remember, those were the days of Lehar Pepsi). The effort behind the cards had a flip side too – they were invariably delayed. Some of the work went on to win awards at the Ad Club under ‘Direct Mail. I wish such creative work was preserved – it would be great source of inspiration for all.
Of late there’s been some debate about long format ad films made primarily for digital media. It’s not a new phenomenon – while ad films meant for TV are routinely :30 or :45, it’s common to see 3-4 minute ads on YouTube. Some brands have taken to long format ads on traditional media too.
A recent advert for Honda, ‘The other side’ caught the creative industry’s fancy for its clever use of technology in telling a brand story. The effort was commendable primarily because the ’tech’ was central to the strategy and creative. The strategy was to showcase Civic Type R, the ‘wild child alter-ego of the Civic hatchback’ (a decidedly staid car in comparison). There have been many brand campaigns using some sort of tech inputs or gadgets…
Many luxury brands – be it in jewellery or fashion & fashion accessories segments follow a template in static advertising – they all have models posing and staring into the camera. What sets apart such campaigns is the styling and execution. The props, celebrity models, quality of photography and even a quirky, memorable element helps in breaking clutter. In audio-visual advertising, luxury brands may not have a template but have a signature style – superb…
How does adam&eveDDB do it? They seem to churn out absolutely wonderful ads for both John Lewis and Harvey Nichols every year for Christmas. With Harvey Nichols it is more than just a wonderful piece of creative – it is great out of the box thinking from a business perspective too. Last year they had the path breaking ‘Spent it on myself‘ ads which were based on real human behaviour. And they did not limit the idea into only an ad but had actual products created to complete the loop, as it were.