Filed under: Advertising
This ran in the papers on Sunday after our valiant loss at the Rugby World Cup. This of course is not quite as satisfying to see as the Wilkinson ad last week.
Filed under: Advertising
England 14 – France 9.
Always good to have a topical ad on standby as this ad proves when it ran in The Observer yesterday. Heh heh.
Filed under: Advertising
I remember seeing the Kia-Ora Orange cordial ad, must have been way back in the mid 80’s. I thought it was so great that I recorded it on Mum and Dad’s VHS video recording system. I sat there flicking through the channels, actually, there was only one channel at the time with adverts on, ITV. So I was sat there waiting for the adverts on ITV, with my fingers hovering over the record and play button on the VHS remote control (that was attached to the video by a long wire , how cool?) Eventually I got it.
Well, now there is a SKY ad on telly, and I am sure the writers were thinking of the Kia Ora ad when they came up with this. This ad made me smile, probably only because I was thinking of the crows. I am always wary of corporates advertising about how green they are, it’s usually a load of bollocks.
The original, however, is still the best ad ever in the history of telly.
I saw this ad at lunchtime yesterday on a phone box from the Home Office, to try and curb mobile phone crime. The image is made from a text message, I think it is mint.
Nice touch too, on the unfinished line ‘You never know when a stolen mobile will stop worki’. I don’t know who did it, but well done anyway.
Filed under: Advertising
Ok, the delivery is really poor, but the method has legs, ‘Crowd Gaming’ is a a collaboration among SS&K, Brand Experience Lab and MSNBC.com, and has been used for the first time in a cinema in Los Angeles instead of the boring trivia, that is before the adverts, that are before the trailers, that are before the film. It is technology that utilises cameras around the cinema that tracks audience movement and converts that to motion on the screen in front of them.
Here it has been used to control a game of ‘Breakout’
I guess it doesn’t have to be limited to a cinema though, maybe it could be used at a football ground before the game and at half time, and the home fans could play against the away fans. Or maybe cross track advertising on the Tube?! That wouldn’t work, people are too moody, somewhere less repressed…primary schools, it could be used to get kids to interact with other kids in other countries on big screens in the gym and across the internet.
Ideas on a postcard please……
My CD at my agency blurted out in a meeting with all his senior creative staff “Trident Gum website, discuss.” It had a mixed response, but for my part I disliked it and gave up on the site after a few minutes. Why? Because it was a 10minute advert, and I didn’t want to watch a 10 minute advert, there are better things to do on the internet as far as I am concerned.
However, this Axe site is also a 10 minute advert, but I liked this, so what is the difference? Well Axe gives the control over to the user, online marketing succeeds when it is interactive, and those little touch points where it asks ‘Don’t continue’ and ‘Let the game continue’ letting the user control the destination of the movie makes the difference, and it is a huge difference. So that is in my opinion, why it works, well that and chicks in light bulb bikini tops anyway.
I studied design and advertising at university, and we were taught to never to use a pun in an ad, it was considered a form of weak writing and served only to self congratulate the writer on how clever he/she is for thinking of it. So why did I like this line so much?
A well-crafted headline, like a well-titled book, catches the eye and draws you into a story. A pun can, too, but it’s more likely to mischaracterize a story’s seriousness. Of course there is a time and a place for a pun, such as on the back pages of the daily toilet papers, I particular like one’s like ‘Blue it!’ when Chelsea couldn’t close the gap on the Man Utd last weekend, and then this weekend, although I didn’t get the Sunday red tops, I am sure ‘Where Eagles Dare’ would have appeared somewhere. (as a young Utd’s Chris Eagles put pay to any chance of the current champions ever winning 3 in a row.)
So I must like this pun because ‘Tourqe of the Devil’ on this ad is the right time and the right place. The art direction works well with the line, the line doesn’t do all the work as the car sure looks like a devilish automobile. And then the line has a message, it screams out to young petrol heads about power. As the ad isn’t of a serious ilk, and the pun is such a blinder, then maybe my old uni tutors would even agree it ticks all the boxes to allow this sort of ‘route one’ wordsmith.
This pun is an even better one though ‘A dyslexic man walks into a bra….’
